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- Review: Benarus Megalodon Diving Watch
- OpenLabel Exits Stealth, Raises $80K To Turn Barcodes Into Public Labels
- Y Combinator-Backed Crowdtilt Launches To Become The “Kickstarter For Any Group”
- A Whole Lot Of Reading: Social Publisher Wattpad Hits 1B User Minutes Per Month
- Social Shopping Site Sneakpeeq Raises $2.7M From Bain Capital Ventures, Keith Rabois And Others
- Android Hack Exposes Google Wallet PIN On Demand
- Proxama, ARM Partner For Joint NFC Venture
- Verizon’s Latest LTE Smartphone Leaked: Is This The HTC Incredible 3?
- Foursquare Adds NFC Support To Its Android App
- Tesla Unveils The Model X, An Electric CUV With Futuristic Gullwing-like Doors
- Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 Leaks With Upgraded Display, Processor
- QWERTY FTW! The Droid 4 Is Now Available, $199 From Verizon or $99 At Amazon
- Murtazin: The Samsung Galaxy S II Will See Ice Cream Sandwich On March 1
- Daily Crunch: Circuit
- Take A Photo And Stop Your Junk Mail With PaperKarma
- Is Amazon Web Services’ ‘SWF’ A New Workflow Manager?
- Facebook Starts Turning Listen, Read, and Watch Stories Into Ads
- Columbia’s DevFest 2012 Showcases Student Hacks, New York Talent
- Conduit Joins Billion-Dollar Club As Yozma Sells Stake To Silver Lake
- Keen On… Samir Arora: Glam Does Food With Foodie.com (TCTV)
| Review: Benarus Megalodon Diving Watch Posted: 10 Feb 2012 09:23 AM PST  I rarely like to put my own little fetishistic watch reviews up here unless the watch is something amazingly unique or unless I think you, dear reader, will get a kick out of the quality or styling of a particular piece. That’s why I chose to write up this Benarus Megalodon Diving Watch, a huge monster of a timepiece that is water resistant to 2,500 meters or about 8,000 feet. Considering the deepest SCUBA dive was 330 meters while the deepest ADS dive was 610 meters, I doubt you’ll make it down to 2.5 kilometers in one piece. Barring improbable diving capabilities, why is the Megalodon so cool? Well first it has a self-winding automatic ETA 2824-2 movement with date window and sweep seconds hand as well as a case the size of a small apple. The case and band are made entirely of titanium and so are surprisingly light and wearable although there were some fit and finish issues with the clasp and bezel. The Megalodon comes in multiple styles and has a screwdown crown at four o’clock and a recessed automatic helium escape valve at 9 o’clock. The hands and pips – as well as the bezel pip at 12 o’clock, are slathered in bright Superluminova and light up blue in the dark. The clasp has a locking mechanism and the caseback and crown are signed. Because this is essentially a big hunk of metal, I had a bit of a time unlocking the band clasp and turning the bezel. However, once you open and close the watch band a few times and give the bezel a few turns, the issues slowly begin to recede. I was, however, afraid that I’d break the clasp if I wasn’t careful. For a watch this size – 49mm including the bezel – it’s surprisingly wearable. The lugs are turned down so even though the case looks like a praire hen egg you don’t notice much overhang. The band is quite comfortable and the titanium ensures you’re not wearing a pound of metal on your wrist. I also like Benarus because it’s a small company based in Germany and the lead designer lives in Kansas City. Not unlike another favorite, Xetum, Benarus has always existed on the periphery of the high-end watch world, producing inexpensive pieces for forum fans and maintaining a presence in the enthusiast community. They are a “start-up” in the world of watches, which is something I love. For a long time Benarus has been making less expensive watches for watch nerds on the boards and forums, allowing them to maintain a successful indie brand. I would wager that the Megalodon’s $1,100 price tag would turn off quite a few people and, as a rule, I rarely recommend non-complicated watches out of small houses at above $500 or so simply because often the value and craftsmanship aren’t there. At the low end (and $1,100 is at the low end, believe it or not) too many manufacturers resort to styling and snake oil to make the sale, tactics similar, in fact, to the tricks used by high end audiophile gear salesmen who promise the world and deliver little. However, I’m glad to report that the Megalodon passes the sniff test and is very well made. If you like a bold watch, this Benarus creation is, while polarizing, quite handsome and very wearable. Product Page
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| OpenLabel Exits Stealth, Raises $80K To Turn Barcodes Into Public Labels Posted: 10 Feb 2012 08:36 AM PST  OpenLabel, a startup that wants to augment everyday products’ barcodes with crowd-sourced information that helps you decide whether to buy, has raised $80,000 in seed funding in a round led by Peter Kirwan, also an investor in IFTTT. Also participating in the round were Tim Drees and Doug Taylor. According to OpenLabel co-founder Scott Kennedy, this $80K is just the first part of a larger $300,000 seed round, which the company expects to close prior to the April launch of the mobile application. The app, previously in stealth mode, can best be thought of as a Twitter-like platform for sharing information around products. Unlike other barcode scanning applications like RedLaser or ShopSavvy, OpenLabel isn’t about delivering pricing information or product reviews, it’s about giving consumers the ability to share other information. “We’re about everything but price,” says Kennedy, “we’re about actual information.” For example, users could add notes about the manufacturer’s use of child labor, sweat shops, animal testing, toxic chemicals, and more, and then give the product a thumbs-down. While those types of things sound like they may give OpenLabel somewhat of an activist slant, there are other types of things that could be shared, too, like the company’s political leaning and donations, its support for or stance against particular political or rights issues, like SOPA or employees benefits for same-sex couples. OpenLabel could also be used to share information about whether the product was recalled or had child safety issues, contained allergens like gluten, or whether it was derived from GMOs. However, the process of accessing this information wouldn’t be different than when you use a barcode scanning application. You would launch the app, scan the product’s barcode and then read the resulting comments or leave one of your own. All comments have to be accompanied by a buy/avoid selection, as well. The Twitter model comes into play because users can choose to follow others also on the platform. So, for example, if animal rights was your hot button issue, you could follow PETA’s account or that of another animal rights supporter. (This is just an example – PETA has not stated it’s involved here). OpenLabel doesn’t police the crowdsourced commentary beyond controlling for spam and profanity, but instead uses Reddit-like up and down vote buttons to help surface the best reasons to either buy or avoid the product in question. The idea for a crowdsourced “Internet of Things” type product has been tried before, perhaps most notably with Stickybits, before its creator Billy Chasen pivoted to build Turntable.fm. Says Kennedy, things like Stickybits (“they abandoned it too early”) and similar efforts failed due to timing, passion or both. However with his non-profit background and interest in transparency, OpenLabel is a project that’s right in Kennedy’s wheelhouse. That said, the focus here is on building a for-profit platform that attracts the interest of brands, something that Kennedy says will come naturally. “Once we get everyone out there scanning items and exchanging data about those items, the brands are going to want to be there. Mostly for damage control, at first, but also because you’re putting a sponsored message into someone’s hand at this really critical point.” Besides Kennedy, who was the founder of Axcelis and BitStar, OpenLabel’s other co-founder is David Ng, the lead mobile developer from TomTom. In addition, the startup has lined up an advisory board that includes a wide range of folks from NASA Ph.D.’s to retail CEO’s, plus Tapulous co-founder Mike Lee, MacBrain creator Matt Jensen, Green Drinks NYC founder Margaret Lydecker, and others. The application will launch first on the iPhone, but will also be available on Android. In its ramp up to public launch, OpenLabel is staying in a private beta, where only those interested in contributing to building the crowdsourced database are participating. TechCrunch readers who want to join in, however, can get access by signing up here and entering “TC” in front of your email address.
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| Y Combinator-Backed Crowdtilt Launches To Become The “Kickstarter For Any Group” Posted: 10 Feb 2012 08:31 AM PST  Inherently, we like doing things in groups, as it makes our experiences more social. It’s not about what we’re doing so much as who we’re doing it with that makes our experiences enjoyable. Group messaging took off two years ago, overrunning SXSW, as a better way to keep groups of people engaged; Kickstarter has grown like a week thanks to the power of the crowd lending legs to fledgling projects that need quick capital to get off the ground. A new startup launching today called Crowdtilt is taking a page out of Kickstarter’s book, riffing on “crowdfunding,” but instead choosing to call itself “groupfunding” or a “Kickstarter for groups of friends.” What does that mean? Well, we all love Kickstarter, but if you’re looking to pool money to throw your friend a birthday party, for example, that ain’t going to happen on Kickstarter. For a good reason, but that doesn’t mean the crowdfunding model can’t work. Thus, Crowdtilt has built a site that makes it simple for groups of friends to organize things to do together, with the specific focus on making it easy for the organizer to collect money from anyone. How does that work? The site allows you to easily create a campaign, like “Help Hagan get to San Francisco” or “Phish Party Bus in DC,” while specifying how much money is needed for the campaign to actually happen — or in the startup’s lingo — “tilt.” You can then send this campaign out to your friends, who can authorize their credit cards for a certain amount with Crowdtilt. Like groupbuying, friends’ credit cards won’t be charged until the campaign has tilted, or in other words, the specified amount has been reached. Not dissimilar from Kickstarter in this way, especially as projects have a certain amount of time before they become defunct. Crowdtilt gives the organizer and friends 7 days to raise their total, and then shuts it down. And the startup, at least initially, isn’t taking a cut of credit card transactions. Although the need for a clear business model remains, Crowdtilt is trying to keep their platform as frictionless as possible in the early going to try to reach critical mass. Testing it out within the confines of Y Combinator, Crowdtilt Co-founder James Beshara says that the current YC batch used Crowdtilt to organize buying a communal pickup truck that current founders can use to move their stuff in and out of offices, etc., as well as using it to organize social events like BBQ’s. I mean, it’s deceptively simple: One person creates a campaign, anyone else can contribute, paying when it meets the benchmark. Bashara told us that the platform started under the auspices of a way for charities to efficiently collect donations, but he decided to pivot once he saw the idea taking off among groups of friends. Other unexpected use cases have emerged in early testing, like a couple in Denver creating a campaign for friends and family to contribute towards the cost of their wedding, rather than putting it all on the groom’s father. Crowdtilt currently has 3,000 users, and the number of campaigns has been doubling every seven weeks, with campaigns succeeding in raising 188 percent of the proposed total. And all this has come entirely through word of mouth. The team soon plans to add social features to their model, allowing people to follow their friends so that you can be quickly notified when they create campaigns. Unlike Kickstarter, there’s no requirement for users (or organizers) to specify multiple levels of rewards, apply, and wait for approval from management. Simply create a campaign and share it with the people who you want to share it with, pay when you get there. And it doesn’t just have to be your friends. I almost feel like I’m repeating myself, because the idea is so simple, but in that way it’s intuitive, and potentially savvy. The longterm goal for Crowdtilt is to become the default way to manage all group-based transactions online. Right now activity happens on the Crowdtilt portal, but the team wants to take the experience to other websites, where the UX of sites that rent hotel rooms, for example, could integrate the Crowdtilt model as another way to serve their customer. And that’s where revenue models would enter the picture. I don’t know, maybe it’s because it’s Friday, maybe because I’ve wanted to build something similar myself, I think Crowdtilt is really onto something here. Come on, trolls, you hate group email and “reply alls,” so when APIs spread this around the web, you can use it to buy a new couch for your mom’s basement. Check out Crowdtilt at home here, and let us know what you think.
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| A Whole Lot Of Reading: Social Publisher Wattpad Hits 1B User Minutes Per Month Posted: 10 Feb 2012 08:02 AM PST  Wattpad, a Union Square Ventures-backed platform for sharing stories and interacting with writers, has been growing steadily, and it hit a nice milestone in January — during that month, users spent more than 1 billion minutes on the service. Co-founder and CEO Allen Lau tells me via email that the growth comes from a combination of attracting new users and convincing each of those users to spend more time on the site. The average session for Web users was 30 minutes, while visitors on Android devices spent an average of 28 minutes. “We are relying more and more on new users now,” Lau says. Given the Android stats, in particular, “There is simply not much room to grow further (we only have 24 hours per day).” And not surprisingly, the majority of that activity is happening on mobile devices. Of those 1 billion minutes, Lau says that about one-third came from the Web, while another third came from Android, 20 percent came from iOS devices, and the rest comes from other mobile platforms like BlackBerry and Windows Phone. In announcing the numbers, Wattpad also emphasizes the sheer quantity of content being shared. There were 300,000 stories uploaded in January (the site has 3.2 million total), and given the average word count per story, that adds up to more than 4 billion words — the equivalent of 8,856 Lord of the Rings trilogies.
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| Social Shopping Site Sneakpeeq Raises $2.7M From Bain Capital Ventures, Keith Rabois And Others Posted: 10 Feb 2012 08:00 AM PST  SneakPeeq, a social shopping startup that debuted at TechCrunch Disrupt last year, has raised a new round totaling $2.67 million from Bain Capital Ventures; Metamorphic Ventures; Keith Rabois, Tim Kendall, Mike Murphy, and Vikas Gupta. As we wrote in our initial review of Sneakpeeq, aims to replicate the experience of shopping for items in a retail store. So similar to the way you flip over a price tag to look at the cost of at item at a store, SneakPeeq doesn’t tell you the price instantly when you visit a product’s landing page. You click a “Peeq” button to find the price. The site features daily boutiques that offer discounts on clothes, shoes, home accessories and more from a variety of brands from well-known names like Kate Spade and Puma to smaller designers and purveyors. At launch in May, Sneakpeeq would actually drop the price everytime you took a “Peeq” at the price of an item, with the discount available only until someone else bought the item. The company has pivoted slightly into more of an action-based shopping network. So basically, by Peeqingm buying, sharing items on Facebook, and more, you earn badges on Sneakpeeq, which can then be applied for discounts on an items. All items are generally around 10 to 15 percent off, but in order for the price to drop even more, you need to perform some of the actions mentioned above. Founder Henry Kim explains to be that brands and merchants like this action-based system because pricing isn’t dropping for everyone, and is lowered for the people who are actually interacting with and sharing the product. Each boutique has a leaderboard where fans can compete by peeqing, sharing, and buying at products. Additionally, every member on Sneakpeeq builds a discovery profile through peeqing, sharing and buying things. Users can also see who shares common interests in various product categories including Taste (gourmet foods), Living (home), and Style (fashion and accessories). Another key differentiator for Sneakpeeq is a new Facebook Open Graph integration with the customized ‘peeq’ button. Basically, as you opt-in to the integration and ‘peeq’ items, this will be show on your Timeline. The integration will also show when a few of your friends are peeqing at a common boutique/product. Kim says that the startup’s key engagement metric is defined as the sum total of peeqs, loves and shares in a month. When Sneakpeeq launched last year, the startup was at 78,745 engagements per month and in January 2012, saw 600,641 engagements. In the future, Kim is working to expand gifting options so members will be able to gift products to and share badges with their friends. Video, and mobile technologies will also be introduced in the next few months. Sneakpeeq is doing something in the social shopping space that could be very important for the next wave e-commerce. The startup is trying to incentivize users to actually engage with products in a social manners, and along the way, express this via Facebook actions.
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| Android Hack Exposes Google Wallet PIN On Demand Posted: 10 Feb 2012 07:18 AM PST Like most hacks, this discovery of a way to find an Android phone’s Google Wallet PIN requires a lot of initial access but is disturbing nonetheless. Google knows about the hack and is repairing it. Discovered by Joshua Rubin of Zvelo, the hack is one of the most interesting attacks on Google Wallet so far. In short, this hack allows access to credit card data and purchase history and could, in theory, allow a hacker to use a Google Wallet freely in the wild. However, it does require the hacker to have unfettered root access to the phone. Using a small program, the exploit simply brute-forces a file found in the phone, thereby revealing the PIN and unlocking the wallet. Again, the hack requires a rooted Android phone – a state that is trivial to achieve if your phone is stolen – and a bit of know how. Rubin recommends: Do Not "Root" the Cell Phone – Doing so will be one less step for a thief. Enable Lock Screens – "Face Unlock," "Pattern," "PIN" and "Password" all increase physical security to the device. "Slide," however, does not. Disable USB Debugging – When enabled, the data on mobile devices can be accessed without first passing a lock screen challenge unless Full Disk Encryption is also enabled. Enable Full Disk Encryption – This will prevent even USB Debugging from bypassing the lock screen. Maintain Device Up-To-Date – Ensure the device is current with the latest official software. Unfortunately, users are largely at the behest of their carrier and cell phone manufacturer for this. Using only official software and keeping devices up-to-date is the best way to minimize vulnerabilities and increase security overall. Google recommends that anyone with Google Wallet call their toll-free support line at 855-492-5538 to ask that their prepaid card be disabled. They also recommend setting a lock screen. UPDATE – Google responded, reminding folks that they don’t support Google Wallet on rooted phones and that: “The zvelo study was conducted on their own phone on which they disabled the security mechanisms that protect Google Wallet by rooting the device. To date, there is no known vulnerability that enables someone to take a consumer phone and gain root access while preserving any Wallet information such as the PIN. We strongly encourage people to not install Google Wallet on rooted devices and to always set up a screen lock as an additional layer of security for their phone.”
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| Proxama, ARM Partner For Joint NFC Venture Posted: 10 Feb 2012 07:17 AM PST  NFC is picking up traction everywhere you look, and the latest news comes out of the UK’s Proxama. According to a release sent out this morning, the company is planning a partnership with ARM to create an NFC system. Employing ARM TrustZone technology in conjunction with the Proxama Mobile Wallet, the venture aims to provide secure NFC contactless payments and mobile internet payments to more mobile devices. “2012 will see an explosive growth in smartphones and tablets that have enhanced security based on TrustZone technology and Trusted Execution Environments,” said Ben Cade, general manager of the secure services division at ARM. “These devices will create a new market for trusted services and applications that will drive innovation and enhance user experiences.” Considering the fact that this years Olympics are putting a large focus on NFC, the timing couldn’t be better.
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| Verizon’s Latest LTE Smartphone Leaked: Is This The HTC Incredible 3? Posted: 10 Feb 2012 07:17 AM PST  With MWC drawing ever closer, new handset leaks are hitting the wires hard and fast. Today alone we’ve seen the Galaxy Mini 2 break cover and new images of the LG Miracle Windows Phone emerge, and now HTC’s latest LTE-friendly Android phone has been caught on film. As PhoneArena notes, this mysterious handset sports the same sort of curvaceous back that gave devices like Verizon’s HTC Incredible and Rezound a bit of extra visual flair. That, coupled with the appearance of Verizon’s own 4G LTE logo and what looks like the Verizon Wave wallpaper means that we could be looking at an early version of a Big Red-bound Incredible 3. With the announcement of their renewed focus on “hero” devices still fresh in my mind, I can’t help but think that this handset doesn’t seem like much of a standout. Ice Cream Sandwich and the Sense 4.0 UI notwithstanding, the device’s 1.2 GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, and 8-megapixel camera aren’t much of a bump over previous Incredible models. Audiophiles — or at least, audiophiles who don’t mind listening to compressed mp3s on their smartphone — may also be tickled by the inclusion of Beats Audio support, and it’s a safe bet that the Beats headphones should ship with it. Strangely,HTC opted to go for four hardware buttons rather than the three on-screen keys that are baked into Ice Cream Sandwich. A leaked demo video of the forthcoming HTC Ville clearly shows that the Taiwanese company has adopted the three key layout, though The Verge points out the possibility of this device launching with Gingerbread first before receiving the 4.0 update. Considering that HTC plans to push ICS to certain devices as early as this March though, the thought of HTC launching a handset without the latest software is more than a little puzzling.
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| Foursquare Adds NFC Support To Its Android App Posted: 10 Feb 2012 07:04 AM PST  In addition to the updated “Explore” feature that rolled out to Foursquare’s Android and iPhone applications this week, the social discovery service also added a special feature to its Android app that sort of flew under the radar: support for NFC. NFC, or near field communication, allows devices to exchange data over short distances, typically with a wave or a tap. In Foursquare’s Android update, NFC support has been added for the app’s Venue, Lists and Me pages. On Android, NFC support has been rebranded for marketing purposes, and is called “Android Beam.” The touch-to-share functionality lets NFC-enabled Android phones share information between each other, including contacts, web pages, and videos, for example. Any Android developer can also use the NFC APIs provided by the mobile operating system to add specialized NFC actions to their own apps. With the Foursquare update, Android 4.0 users with NFC phones can now share their lists and the venues they’ve visited with a friend just by tapping phones. Users can now tap phones to initiate friend requests or tap their phone against an NFC tag or poster to check in. Unfortunately, the functionality is currently limited to phones that have both an NFC chip built in and run Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0). At this point, that means the Galaxy Nexus is pretty much your only option. (But that’s why you got that phone, right? You wanted to use the latest technology first. Well, here you go.) The question remaining is why would Foursquare bother to push out an update that impacts such a small niche of the current Android user base? In an Untether.tv interview with Holger Luedorf, VP of Mobile and International at Foursquare, he talked about why Foursquare added NFC to its app. “The good news is the technology is already there,” he says. Plus,”going forward, some of the other platforms will be NFC-enabled.” (Please mean iOS!) But it’s also about making the Android experience the best for its users, Luedorf said. “The user experience is great. You just hold your phone against the tap [point]. The checkin screen automatically pops up with the right venue. You’re basically shaving very valuable seconds off the checkin process,” he says. “We try to leverage the native experiences and APIs that are available through the platform as those usually drive the best user experience,” Luedorf continued. “We’re trying to leverage this because we feel that pinpointing someone down to a location through an NFC chip definitely has some value.” Hat tip: NFCWorld
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| Tesla Unveils The Model X, An Electric CUV With Futuristic Gullwing-like Doors Posted: 10 Feb 2012 06:39 AM PST  Tesla Motors’ family is growing. The company just unveiled its first crossover, the Model X. Like the Roadster and Model S, the Model X is a purely electric vehicle, built on the same platform as the Model S. Tesla says pricing will be similar to that of the Model S, making the base model around $50k after tax credits. But, if all the available options are checked including the largest battery pack and performance drivetrain, the price could close in on $90k. But who cares about the price when the vehicle packs gullwing-like doors — Tesla calls them Falcon Wings, but you can call them awesome. The Model X is built on the same skateboard platform as the Model S. This shared design allows the for the relatively affordable price. The CUV will come in both rear- and four-wheel-drive flavors with the 4-wheel drive model packing independent electric motors at each axle. Since the larger Model X will use the battery system as the Model S, Tesla says the range on the 40-, 60- and 85-kWh battery packs will be about 10% less.
Space is abundant in the Model X. Since there isn’t a traditional engine, the Model X has a front and rear storage space. Elan Musk bragged at the unveiling that there’s enough room in the front storage compartment as the Audi Q7 has in the rear. Tesla is now taking reservations for the Model X. But you’re going to be waiting a while. Tesla doesn’t expect production to begin until 2014. Click to view slideshow.
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| Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 Leaks With Upgraded Display, Processor Posted: 10 Feb 2012 06:18 AM PST  After a year on the market, the Samsung Galaxy Mini is certainly due for a refresh. That said, GSMArena seems to have received promotional materials and photos for the Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 from an anonymous tipster. It bares a resemblance to the Galaxy Ace in many ways, with that flat home button and silver bezel. Codenamed Jena, the Galaxy Mini 2 sports a larger 3.3-inch HVGA display, a considerable step up from its predecessor. Past that, we’re also seeing a processor upgrade in the form of an 800MHz chip along with 3GB of on-board storage. Android 2.3 Gingerbread will be present and accounted for, as will a 3-megapixel camera and support for AT&T’s 7.2Mbps HSDPA network. According to the materials, the mini 2 will show up “February 2012,” making an MWC launch sound pretty logical.
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| QWERTY FTW! The Droid 4 Is Now Available, $199 From Verizon or $99 At Amazon Posted: 10 Feb 2012 05:49 AM PST  The Droid 4 has landed. The fourth incarnation of the most important Android series is now on sale. Verizon is hawking the phone for $199 with a two-year contact, but the phone is also available through Amazon where it’s only $99 on-contract. Either way it’s a solid buy considering the LTE capability and quality hardware. The Droid 4 shares much of the RAZR’s styling: cropped corners, silver trim, and similar soft buttons. It also packs much of the same internals with a LTE radio, 16GB internal memory, microSD card slot, 8MP camera, and the same, 12.5 hour battery. Plus the Droid 4 has a slide-out QWERTY keypad — something that is a must-have for some buyers. We’ll have a full review of the phone in the coming days. So far we like what we see. The QWERTY keypad is tops.
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| Murtazin: The Samsung Galaxy S II Will See Ice Cream Sandwich On March 1 Posted: 10 Feb 2012 05:40 AM PST  Notorious industry insider Eldar Murtazin has made yet another forward-looking statement, this time regarding Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and one very special Samsung device. This leaves just one question in our minds: Is this one of his hits, or is it another miss? According to a tweet (below) from the Moscow-based blogger, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich will be delivered to the Samsung Galaxy S II. After its regional offices had announced which devices would receive ICS, Samsung confirmed in December that the GS II, the Galaxy Note, and Galaxy Tab models will get Android 4.0 in the first quarter of 2012.
Murtazin’s comments are in line with the time-table given by Samsung, but his prediction seems to exclude the Galaxy Tabs and the Note. At the same time, the Galaxy S II is in over 10 million hands so perhaps Mr. Murtazin just decided to lead with the flagship. Or he only has information on the Galaxy S II. Either way, this gives us something fun to think about. Even if the Galaxy Tab and Note updates are released a little bit after the Galaxy S II, chances are we can assume that the much-anticipated Galaxy S III will launch with ICS. Here’s why: The GS III isn’t launching at MWC. If Murtazin is right about a March 1 OTA update, and the GS III launch is undoubtedly post-March 1, it’s pretty safe to assume that ICS will be ready to ship on the GS III along with its predecessor.
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| Posted: 10 Feb 2012 01:00 AM PST  Here are some recent stories on TechCrunch Gadgets: Microsoft Explains Windows On ARM, The Latest Addition To The OS Family Kodak Shutters Digital Camera Business In Favor Of Licensing, Photo Printing You Can Buy Me Love, But Please Don't Buy Me Gadgets
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| Take A Photo And Stop Your Junk Mail With PaperKarma Posted: 09 Feb 2012 11:54 PM PST 
PaperKarma is one of those ideas that make you realize that the future is nigh. The concept behind it? See a piece of junk mail that offends you in your mail box — anything from magazines, catalogs, coupon books, fliers, credit card offers, and the root of all evils, the Yellow Pages — take a picture of it and boom, the PaperKarma team will “take care” of it, mafia style. “ I love Costco, I love Trader Joes, but I don’t want to constantly get their magazines and catalogues,” says PaperKarma CEO Sean Mortazavi on the motivation behind the project. So what does it do? Well every time a user takes a photo and taps “Unsubscribe,” PaperKarma either uses its “massive” database or Mechanical Turk to figure out who sent the junk mail. Then it either submits an “Unsubscribe” form or sends an email application in order to eliminate the paper spam, gradually cutting down on pollution and annoyance. Cool right? The company — which is in the same space as Catalogchoice and Unsubscribe – is bootstrapped and completely mobile. Sweet. It’s future plans according to Mortazavi? Growing into the largest “this thing” of its kind built. You can download PaperKarma from the iOS store here.
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| Is Amazon Web Services’ ‘SWF’ A New Workflow Manager? Posted: 09 Feb 2012 08:13 PM PST  It looks like Amazon Web Services may be launching a new workflow manager called SWF. First spotted by TechCrunch reader Michael Hood, SWF is listed as a service under AWS’ Free Usage Tier. Unfortunately, clicking on SWF takes you to a ’404′ page. Upon further digging, it looks like SWF stands for ‘Amazon Simple Workflow Service.’ It basically starts, runs, and retains workflow executions, as well as schedules tasks, adds markers, receives signals, and starts timers for those workflow executions. According to the information listed, with the free usage tier, “1,000 Amazon SWF executions can be initiated for free. A total of 10,000 activity tasks, signals, timers and markers and 30,000 workflow-days can also be used for free.” Amazon’s free usage tier allows users to run a free Amazon EC2 Micro Instance for a year, and use Amazon S3, Amazon Elastic Block Store, Amazon Elastic Load Balancing, and AWS data transfer for free as well. AWS's free usage tier can be used to run an application in the cloud, including launching new applications, testing existing applications in the cloud, or more. SWF would be included for free in this package. Obviously, with so little information, it’s hard to determine the exact details of what SWF does or who it will compete with at this point, but it appears to be new. We’ve reached out to Amazon for comment and will update when we hear back. Update: Amazon has taken all mentions of SWF off of the AWS Free Usage Tier Site; and has yet to comment. We’ve embedded screenshots below:
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| Facebook Starts Turning Listen, Read, and Watch Stories Into Ads Posted: 09 Feb 2012 05:58 PM PST  When you listen, read, or watch through a Facebook Open Graph app, a few of your friends hear about through the news feed, Ticker, or Timeline. Starting this week, Facebook is allowing advertisers to pay for more exposure of listen, read, or watch stories that mention them by turning the stories into a new form of Sponsored Story social ads. Open Graph action Sponsored Stories could further Facebook’s goal of turn all ads social, and boost revenue by filling the new inventory from Facebook now permitting Sponsored Stories ads in the news feed. Facebook tells me that for now this is a small pilot program being tested with just a few advertisers, but it could blossom into the ability for advertisers to sponsor any Open Graph action. Above you’ll see a mockup of what the ads could look like in the news feed. Previously, advertisers could only turn actions taken by users on their own Pages, apps, and local business Places into Sponsored Stories. This excluded plenty of advertisers whose content was being interacted with through apps owned by others. For example, a record label could Sponsor Likes of their artists’ Pages, but not listens of those artists through Spotify. Now, a band could sponsor listens of their songs, and TV studios could sponsor watches of their episodes on Hulu or Netflix. Catering to a wider range of advertisers, anyone featured in a news article could pay to expose a link to it to the friends of those who’ve already read it. These action Sponsored Story ads complement Open Graph activity ad targeting that lets advertisers reach users who’ve taken a selected action with traditional ads. Facebook sees Open Graph applications as the soul of its future ads business. Rather than letting advertisers bombard users with irrelevant pitches based on general biographical data, ads show the actions of friends and are targeted by a user’s own behavior. This creates a win trifecta — more relevant ads for users, better - and conversion rates for advertisers, and more money for Facebook and its future investors.
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| Columbia’s DevFest 2012 Showcases Student Hacks, New York Talent Posted: 09 Feb 2012 05:48 PM PST  The culture of hacking continues to bloom in New York, evidenced last weekend by Columbia’s DevFest 2012. DevFest is entirely student run, and had workshops and support from local VC firms and startups. The event culminated with presentations of hacks and awards judged by Fred Wilson (USV), Chris Wiggins (HackNY), Dave Jagoda (Andreeson Horowitz), Ryan Bubinski (Codecademy) and myself (Uncommon Projects). A full list of the winners is below. DevFest and the entire developer scene has really blossomed since I covered last year’s event. To wit: HackNY hosted its successful Raise Cache event, NYHacker organized Game and Music Hackdays, Foursquare hosted its first and second (global) hackathon, we saw our first Art Hackday, New York Tech Meetup launched Hack of the Month, Etsy continued its awesome Code as Craft lecture series, students launched the Hacker league platform, GroupMe (TC Hackathon 2010) got acquired and Docracy (TC Hackathon 2011) got funded just to name a few developments. All this hacking is a huge win for New York because hacking leads to so much innovation – recently Eric Ries argued that the culture hacking and continuous development may be a new way of doing business and the heart of Facebook’s success. But back to the kids. There were tons of great hacks – from a student presenting her very first hack, a crowd-srouced mobile marketplace for buying parking spots and the winning task manager by Sid Nair. Here’s a list of them all. Lerner -Best use of the Twilio API - Zhehao (Howie) Mao
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| Conduit Joins Billion-Dollar Club As Yozma Sells Stake To Silver Lake Posted: 09 Feb 2012 05:00 PM PST  Yozma Venture Capital is selling its stake in startup Conduit for a massive return. The story was reported in the Israeli publication Globes, but I’ve confirmed the details with a source who has knowledge of the deal, and who also identified the buyer (described by Globes only as “a large foreign investment firm that has tens of billions of dollars under management”) as private equity firm Silver Lake. Yozma invested $1.5 million for 9 percent ownership of Conduit in 2006. Now it’s selling its stake for $250 million. In other words, it’s seeing a return that’s nearly 200 times the size of the initial investment. According to Globes, the Israeli venture capital industry has never seen a return on that scale. This deal values Conduit at $2.5 billion — which, incidentally, puts it in the billion-dollar league that Index Ventures partner Saul Klein predicted for it last year. The company started out as a toolbar startup, partnering with both Google and then Microsoft, but it recently rebranded as a wide-ranging service to help publishers engage their users. Conduit says it works with 260,000 publishers to reach 250 million users in 120 companies. I’ve emailed Silver Lake for comment and will update if I hear back.
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| Keen On… Samir Arora: Glam Does Food With Foodie.com (TCTV) Posted: 09 Feb 2012 04:29 PM PST  The pioneer of vertical media, they call themselves. And Glam Media, the publishing network with more than 220 monthly million uniques, announced today their “logical next play” – a vertical food network called Foodie that will offer a social, interactive network (Portal 2.0?) for food bloggers, critics, chefs and, of course, eaters. But, as Glam’s co-founder and CEO Samir Arora told me when he came into our San Francisco studio today, Foodie isn’t just another of Glam’s vertical plays. It represents what he calls a “step further” in Glam’s attempt to dominate what Arora calls the “lifestyle” sector. Foodie, Arora indicated, will be more social and more mobile than his company’s other verticals and, I’m guessing, will be a prelude to other Glam offerings in travel and wine. And that much rumored Glam IPO, I asked Arora. Could be the next next logical play in Glam’s relentless march to verticalize the Internet?
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