Monday, June 17, 2013

tech now

tech now

Automattic Acquires iOS WordPress Client Poster To Improve Its Own Mobile Apps

Posted: 17 Jun 2013 08:42 AM PDT

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Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com, has acquired Poster, the popular iOS WordPress client. Its sole developer, Tom Witkin, will join the WordPress mobile team. Poster, which launched its 2.0 version in January, has already been removed from the App Store, but users who previously bought it will always be able to re-download it. Witkin also promises to continue to support it.

For Automattic, this is a smart move. Poster was always one of the most elegant and smarter mobile WordPress clients, and while the company itself has made great strides with its own mobile apps, they couldn’t quite rival Poster’s design. As Automattic’s founder Matt Mullenweg told me, “we have acquired the Poster app and its technology, and we're excited to have Tom contributing to the Automattic mobile team. WordPress on mobile is growing rapidly and so is our investment in it.”

Witkin says that this move will enable him to keep doing what he loves — “creating apps and experiences that enable and delight.” Poster included features like Dropbox integration, Markdown support and full WordPress integration, including support for custom posts.

It’s worth noting that WordPress’ own app doesn’t currently have most of these advanced features, but chances are the addition of Witkin and some of the code he developed for Poster will soon find its way into the official client.

Sunrise Update Brings Foursquare, Crunchbase, And Google Maps Integration To The Already-Smart Calendar

Posted: 17 Jun 2013 08:29 AM PDT

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Sunrise, the Google-friendly calendar app that focuses on design, may have some competition coming from iOS 7, but even with the added pressure, the Sunrise team is clearly making strides.

Today, Sunrise was updated in the App Store to add support for foursquare check-ins, Crunchbase and Google Maps, along with some design tweaks.

The biggest part of the update comes via foursquare. Users now have the ability to see their past foursquare checkins direct from the app, complete with mapping support. As the folks over at Sunrise know, the more information you can source from a single app, the better.

Foursquare integration makes sense, considering that the Sunrise team is made up of ex-foursquare engineers and designers. In fact, it’s a wonder why it took so long to bake in the location-based social network in the first place.

Foursquare integration transforms the calendar into a log of where you’ve been just as much as a plan for where you’ll go.

Speaking of where you’ll go, Sunrise also added Google Maps integration to the app instead of Apple Maps, which should make many a weary traveler feel just slightly better on their way to someplace new.

But the update isn’t just about where you’re going, but how awesome you are at life when you get there. That said, Sunrise has baked in support for Crunchbase, a database of people, companies, and investors that is a part of the TechCrunch network. Crunchbase support will now automatically pull in extra data about companies and people you’re meeting with based on the domain of their email address.

In terms of design tweaks, Sunrise has switched up multi-day events to show their duration on the main view, with a countdown for the duration left of the multi-day event. Moreover, the app now offers cilckable links for all phone numbers, websites and addresses.

Sunrise v 1.4 is available now in the App Store for free.


Meet DotEEBubble, The Mysterious Estonian Start-Up Critic Who Throws Cold Water On Government-Backed Ventures

Posted: 17 Jun 2013 08:20 AM PDT

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DotEEBubble is one of the most controversial startup blogs in the world and you’ve probably never heard of it. In the rah-rah world of entrepreneurs, accelerators, and incubators, it’s rare to see much talk about the problems with the government funded VC model and how the biggest players look more like scamsters than bootstrapping entrepreneurs. That’s just what this blog is – a cold, hard look at the problems that come when you throw big money at little ideas.

The blog, written by an anonymous commenter in Estonia, is a cross between a research-heavy economists report and a jeremiad against what looks to be a EU-funded startup bubble. With excitement rising about ventures throughout the EU, the site’s calm, reasoned take on Estonia’s darlings is stirring up quite a bit of controversy in the small country.

One startup that we prominently covered, Fits.me, a clothing fit “start-up” that uses robotic mannequins to show you what clothes will look like on your body, took 3,773,456 euros of government money over the past few years. The company has been in business for seven years in total and its customer implementations are either well-hidden or nonexistent. In short, the company looks like a dog. DotEEBubble writes:

In summary, we have a company that has been around for many years with little success, a questionable product, and few customers. This doesn’t seem like a recipe for success.

We could be wrong of course. Maybe a large retailer like Amazon will just buy them out. Maybe robot mannequins will take over the world, and form the new ruling class. The future is hard to predict.

The blogger who runs the site refused to be named in this piece but he took a bit of time to explain his methodology, his beliefs, and the reasons behind his thorough takedowns of what he sees as excesses in the Estonian startup market. It would be interesting to see a similar tack taken in other markets. His model could be exported but it’s clear his style and intensity can’t be matched.

John Biggs: Why are you doing this?

DotEEBubble: Many in Estonia have been trying to pitch the country as the "start up nation," but the details paint quite a different picture. In talking with some other business people in Estonia, I started realizing a lot of this is not quite what they make it out to be. A lot of the start-up community and companies are propped up through taxpayer money, much of it from the EU.

What's worse is that no one in the media was bothering look under the covers to realize how much of this was built through public funds. I decided to start the blog to bring some of these companies to light.

Estonia receives a massive amount of EU funding (more than 18% of the 2012 budget), and I think they've chosen to spend too much of it on risky startup companies and startup incubators. It reminds me of the .com days in the US in the late 90's, when there was too much money chasing too few good ideas. The difference is that in Estonia, the money is coming from taxpayers and not private investors.

I would not be so critical of this use of public funds if everything else was going well in Estonia, but it's not. Estonia has the lowest GDP (per capita) in the eurozone, and its people are the second poorest among eurozone members when measured by assets held per person. There is a television show (Kodutunne) on an Estonian television channel that is similar to Extreme Makeover : Home Edition in the US. They pick out a needy family in a rural area and renovate their house. The difference is that in the Estonian version, most of these families live in homes without indoor plumbing or hot water! It's unconscionable that there are people living in these conditions while at the same time the government is giving millions to risky startup companies. I think they need to reconsider their priorities when it comes to public spending.

It was eye-opening what we uncovered. In one case, a company set up in both Estonia and the UK at the same time, in order to take advantage of taxpayer-funded support intended for companies in each region. Another company we wrote about got millions of euros, over the course of many years, to fund robotic mannequins.

In many cases, the companies that received government money were being run by people with no experience in the field. We wrote about an incubator for gaming startups, where none of the people running the incubator had ever worked in the gaming industry! Then there was the incubator that received nearly 700,000 euros from the government to set up in a small town of 20,000 people to promote creative arts startups, which as far as we can tell was just a few women making dresses and jewelry.

We also wrote about a private equity fund with more than 100 million euros under management, that received over 100,000 euros from the government to market their fund abroad. Do they really need this kind of aid?

The main criticism is this is all being done with taxpayer money. If private investors want to spend their money on these companies, that's fine with me. That's how it seems to work in almost every other country.

JB: Who are you?

DEEB: There is more than one person behind the blog, though I am the primary author of most of the posts. I own a successful Estonian software company, and we built it through hard work and without government handouts. I've been in the tech industry for many years, so I was around to witness the dot-com crash in the US that happened a number of years ago.

None of the people behind the blog have any stake in any of the companies profiled on the blog, so we have nothing to gain or lose when these companies do well or poorly. I like to see startups in Estonia do well, which is why I mentor some companies and also give training sessions. I never accept any payment or stake in the company for it. It's my way of giving back to the community.

JB: What can governments do to fix these sorts of problems? Should they be investing at all?

DEEB: One of the co-founders of TechStars, Brad Feld,wrote a good post about why the government should not be in the incubator business, and I agree with him.

As for the government investing in startups, I can only see it being necessary in rare cases, like in cases where there are externalities involved that benefit the public. One example would be a new type of clean energy technology that may not be profitable on its own, but with environmental benefits to society that make it worthwhile.

This isn't what is happening in Estonia though. The companies we have profiled on our blog include a social network for household pets, and a browser-based e-book reader. The government shouldn't be wasting money on these types of ventures. One Estonian report noted that “the largest investor in Estonian startups in 2012 was the taxpayer. They poured more money into Estonian startups than all private equity combined.”

Some will say that the reason the government is stepping in is that there is no private equity market. I disagree. Good ideas will always find funding, and there's even an Estonian Venture Capital Association with plenty of members.

JB: What is the primary problem in the .ee environment? Is it widespread?

DEEB: Imagine opening up the newspaper every summer, and reading about how many schools will not open their doors again in September due to lack of enrollment. That's actually what happens in Estonia.

The Estonian population is rapidly declining, through a mix of emigration, low birth rate, and low life expectancy. It ranks 228 out of 232 countries when it comes to population growth. Net emigration last year was over 6,600 people, and the majority of those were people in the 20-34 age group i.e., people in their prime working years. This may not seem like a large number, but Estonia is a small country with a population of less than 1.3 million. Last year, the total number of students in 12th grade was 7,810. Imagine if 85% of all fresh high school graduates in the US left the country the day after graduation, and that gives a better idea of the impact.

The government isn't doing much to address the problem, though I think this is common in many countries with long-term demographic problems. It's easier to ignore it since the impact is not immediate or sudden.

Admittedly, it's a tough problem to solve. My theory is that a lot of the emigration is driven by quality of life issues. That's not easy to fix, but throwing money at startup companies does not seem like the solution.

JB: Are people mad at you?

DEEB: The main criticism we receive is that the blog's authors are anonymous, but I think this is from people eager to attack the messenger because it's difficult to attack the message. We're very careful with our fact checking and post links to our source material.

As for the reason we're all anonymous, it's important to understand that Estonia is a small country, and all members of the startup community could easily fit in a high school auditorium. The community is too close-knit to write what we do any other way. Besides, none of us need the fame. We'd rather readers focus on the message not the messenger.

Other than the criticism about anonymity, the feedback we've received has been quite positive, and readers tell us that this is the first time anyone has bothered to analyze the startup community in Estonia with a critical eye. We've heard that many high-ranking Estonian government officials are regular readers of our blog, and it's also required reading in some entrepreneurship courses in Estonian universities.

JB: So what do you like in Estonia?

DEEB: Estonia is a great place to first launch a new product or technology, because the country's small size makes it easy to implement. For example, let's say you've come up with a personal finance tool that requires access to the user's spending details from their bank account. In Estonia, there are only 5 consumer banks, so it's easy to set up those relationships since you only have to talk to 5 banks.

One cool thing in Estonia is how the government is so open and online. It makes it easy for people to track what's going on and get information. In fact, so much data about government spending is online that if we can't find information about government spending on a project after 5 minutes of searching, then that's a sign that the project manager may be trying to hide their spending, and it makes us more likely to write about them.

[Image: Oleksiy Mark/Shutterstock]


Lumu Launches Kickstarter To Fund Its Digital Light Meter For iPhone-Owning Photographers

Posted: 17 Jun 2013 07:53 AM PDT

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Last we saw Lumu Labs it was in Hardware Alley at Disrupt New York where the Slovenian startup was showing off a prototype of its digital light meter plus iPhone app — aiming to convince photographers to replace “bulky” traditional light meters with a pocketable gizmo that plugs into their iPhones. Now, the startup has just kicked off a Kickstarter campaign, aiming to raise $20,000 over the next 25 days to get its light meter into the wild.

Lumu’s hope is to replace the standalone light meters that pro photographers carry around with them by harnessing the iPhone’s processing power and battery, and coupling that with its own digital light sensor. The sensor plugs straight into the iPhone’s headphone jack. Lumu says its hardware is more sensitive than the on-board iPhone light sensor, hence it’s able to provide photographer-friendly luminance measurements.

The basic idea is for a photographer to grab a light reading using Lumu on their iPhone, then input the suggested settings into their camera. Settings are displayed in Lumu’s app, which also allows the user to save data to the cloud so they can retain light-setting and location info, plus add voice records, notes, pictures, photo parameters, and more.

Returning to Kickstarter, Lumu said campaign funds will be used to help with the manufacturing costs of the device, and to recruit more coders so it can further extend the features of the app. The startup’s main software guy, Benjamin Polovičm, told TechCrunch: “We want to take advantage of the smartphone’s processing power and different sensors. The plan is to make different smartphone apps with custom functionalities for all sorts of professionals (photographers, videomakers…).

“We also believe that other developers are more creative than us and hope that they make their own software with new ideas and features, or inspire us. Further, we have to make Lumu work on (almost) all Android devices. But we don’t want to be too specific about our future ideas, because we don’t want to limit our supporters’ creativity.”

Disconnect, An Ex-Googler's Social Enterprise/Privacy Startup, Raises $3.5M, Extends To More Browsers

Posted: 17 Jun 2013 07:46 AM PDT

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As we continue to see more details brought to light in how the government requests and uses information about what we do on the web and on our mobile devices, an ex-Googler and a consumer rights attorney who have dedicated themselves to helping users remain private have raised some funding to do this better and in more places.

Disconnect, the startup behind the Disconnect.me extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Safari browsers, which lets users of Facebook, Google and Twitter keep themselves from being tracked by third party sites, and the Disconnect 2 app that covers some has raised a $3.5 million Series A round.

At the same time, as a measure of dedication to its principle of being positioned not for profit but for social good, Disconnect has been designated as a B Corporation, a semi-charitable certification. With the tax breaks and other help that this offers, it will let Disconnect dedicate time to raising awareness and campaigning as well as to creating for-profit products.

“As a B Corporation, we're able to spend more time than a traditional company on activities such as consumer education, petition drives, and close collaboration with non-profits,” Gus Warren, a former Venture Partner at FirstMark Capital who is part of Disconnect's executive team, noted in a statement. “Disconnect is committed to benefiting not just shareholders but all stakeholders, including the public.” Warren will run the company's New York office.

This most recent round of funding was led by FirstMark Capital, and comes on the back of a $600,000 seed round announced in March 2012. That round was led by Highland Capital Partners with participation from Charles River Ventures, and angels including David Cancel, Mark Jacobstein, Ramesh Haridas, Vikas Taneja, Chris Hobbs, and Andy Toebben.

Founders Brian Kennish, formerly an engineer at Google who left to work on this full-time, and Casey Oppenheim, a consumer rights attorney, say the startup will be using the funding first of all to help with the launch of Disconnect 2 for Safari and Opera browsers.

Disconnect 2, launched in April 2013 as a Chrome and Firefox extension, blocks some 2,000 third-party websites that track you across the web. That vastly expands the power of the service that initially focused on a handful of portals Disconnect.me first kicked off when Kennish was still at Google and created the Chrome extension for Facebook specifically, in October 2010.

Kennish notes that Disconnect 2 has gotten more than 250,000 new users since launching in April and that all the startup’s apps combined have more than 1,000,000 weekly active users. Within the current range of software, it is charged on a pay-what-you-want model. “Like Humble
Bundle,” says Kennish, who adds, “Some of our upcoming releases will also include freemium
features.”

In addition to helping block some 2,000 third-party sites that track users’ browsing histories, the Disconnect 2 extension also helps filter out malware and encrypts data that you share on sites “to prevent wireless eavesdropping.” The company also promises that by cutting down on a lot of the tracking noise, users are actually able to see faster-loading pages and use 17% less bandwidth on average.

“Increasingly, people want to know who's tracking them online and want to have a say about what information is being collected about them,” Oppenheim noted in a statement. “Our software is designed to put users back in control so they can decide how their personal data is used,” adds Kennish.

Longer term, the company also hopes to focus more on protecting users around the various features of data mining. “We’ve always thought one of the biggest threats to people’s online privacy is just how big data mining is getting,” noted Kennish. “There’s so much personal data being collected about us in so many places now and all that data is susceptible to being used in ways we don’t want. So our goal is to help people minimize the unwanted collection and use of their data. We started by tackling third-party tracking because most people don’t know their browsing history is being tracked by thousands of invisible websites they’ve probably never even heard of.”

The company is also becoming increasingly focused on security services? “We think there are way
too many holes in online consumer security, which recent events have made even more obvious, and we want to help plug some of those holes.”

iOS Platform Of Choice For Shoppers, All But Biggest Companies Focus On iOS And Android

Posted: 17 Jun 2013 07:41 AM PDT

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Apple retains the top spot when it comes for uses making actual purchases on their mobile devices, according to a new Forrester report. iOS shoppers are around 30 percent more likely to make a purchase on their device, and about 15 percent more likely to do product research on their smartphones and tablets than Android users, the survey of 58,000 U.S. respondents found.

But despite the discrepancy, companies are still targeting both platforms en masse. The survey also found that 99 percent of ebusiness professionals surveyed during the study intended to launch either a native or hybrid iOS app by the end of 2013, and 96 percent were also targeting the same for Android. Beyond Goole and Apple, however, there’s a very steep drop off in interest, and only larger companies with big budgets are really looking further afield at companies and platforms like BlackBerry and Windows Mobile.

That’s because around 41 percent of ebusiness pros have only $500,000 or less to spend on their mobile budgets, and 56 percent have less than $1 million. That money can only go so far, and still pales in comparison to general marketing budgets, and even budgets devoted to general web-facing property. This alone is a prime reason why cross-platform solutions will continue to succeed, even as developers debate the merits of cross-platform technologies like HTML5 vs. native tools.

And while the market appears unified between Apple and Google, that actually belies a fair amount of fragmentation that occupies sufficient developer time and resources within those two larger camps, Forrester points out. Developing for either iOS or Android is a much more resource-intensive affair than it once was, despite efforts made by both companies to encourage users to upgrade and to make it easier to build software compatible across OS versions and device particulars.

In some ways, fragmentation is actually a boon to both Apple and Google in terms of helping them maintain their platform advantage. The more resources developers have to devote to catering to those top two platforms, the fewer they have available to spread out on a third or fourth horse, to the continued detriment of smaller players like BlackBerry and Microsoft. It’s easy to paint fragmentation as a problem, and in terms of developer time and spend, it definitely is, but holding on to the market lead may be an unintended consequence for the mobile top dogs.

Skype Brings Free Video Messaging Out Of Preview, Redefines ‘Visual Voicemail'

Posted: 17 Jun 2013 07:16 AM PDT

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Skype has just announced that the previously beta video messaging feature it’s been testing is now a proper release feature of its Skype applications for Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry. Video messaging on Skype simply allows users to record a message for a contact to be viewed later, sort of like a video voicemail, instead of requiring that any real-time communication shenanigans happen.

Asynchronous video is arguably the older form of communication – I can still remember using the parents’ old VHS camcorder to make tapes that we’d later show grandma and grandpa, for instance. But Skype has been slow to integrate it, and it’s possible that the advent of recent startups including Glide, and to some extent Twitter’s Vine, which are focused specifically on time-delayed video broadcasts, have lit a fire under the Microsoft-owned company, lest they get disrupted. Other competing apps like Viber and various messaging platforms have also previously offered the feature.

The video messaging feature had previously been available as a beta feature since February, with a cap on the number of messages in place, and free unlimited use relegated to those with premium subscriptions. Luckily Skype seems not to have seen much value in locking this feature behind a pay wall, unlike its screen sharing option, which is good news for all.

Video messaging scratches an itch that was previously one of the major limitations of video communication, which is, what do you do when the other party isn’t available? All that intent gets lost as you run up against the wall, and consumers are bound to be less inclined to use a service like that should they encounter disappointment. At the very least video messaging offers a way to act on that impulse to connect via video, even if real-time communication isn’t possible or practical.

Skype entering the fray and offering multi-platform support out of the starting gate may put a damper on startups in this space, but we’ll have to see how users respond to this addition to the Skype platform, and whether people think Skype’s implementation is strong enough to replace more feature-rich offerings from Glide and the like.

Sign Up Now For The Seattle TC Meetup + Pitch-Off

Posted: 17 Jun 2013 07:02 AM PDT

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In little more than a month from now, TechCrunch will host its first-ever meetup + pitch-off in Seattle. We’re stoked. Coffee, rain, more coffee, followed by more rain. It’s going to be epic.

General admission tickets are just $5. We’re also looking for title sponsors and companies who want to exhibit at a demo table. Both options are available now here.

But this is more than just a meet and drink affair. This is a pitch-off. And as the attendees of our New York and Austin pitch-offs will likely attest, this is an event you’re not going to want to miss.

We’re looking for the area’s best and brightest young startups to pitch their company or idea to a few TechCrunch editors and local VCs. It’s free to register, and the 30 companies selected will get free admission to the event, as well as some one-on-one time with TC editors earlier in the day.

Best yet, the winners of the pitch-off get a Disrupt SF Startup Alley package. The runners-up get two tickets to Disrupt SF.

Apply here or in the form below. We’re reviewing applications on a rolling basis so it’s best to apply early. Registration closes on July 10.

Our sponsors help make events happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact our sponsorship team here sponsors@techcrunch.com.

PIP Is A Bluetooth Biosensor That Aims To Use Your Phone To Gamify Beating Stress

Posted: 17 Jun 2013 06:53 AM PDT

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Irish startup Galvanic has just launched a Kickstarter to crowdsource funding a wireless stress biosensor it’s calling PIP. PIP — which stands for ‘personal input pod’ — is a Bluetooth biosensor that monitors its user’s stress levels by measuring their galvanic skin response (GSR) as they hold the PIP pinched between thumb and forefinger. GSR means skin conductance — so basically how sweaty you’re getting and therefore how nervous you’re feeling.

PIP isn’t just a quantifiable self-tapping biosensor; it’s been designed to work in conjunction with iOS and Android phone and tablet apps to provide a gamification element. The company has created three games designed to be played using the PIP, which utilises Bluetooth as its data transport tech. The user’s stress level is then incorporated into each game as the core gameplay mechanic — with the ultimate aim being to help the player learn what they need to do to relax.

It sounds a bit counterintuitive, since competitive gaming can be synonymous with sweaty palms, which is presumably why Galvanic’s project extends to designing stress-busting games. It’s created three games to be used in conjunction with the PIP — a relaxing racing game, a seasonal mood game where  players meditate on a wintery scene to turn it into spring, and a more playful lie-detector multi-player game — but it does also plan to launch an SDK in future to get third party developers expanding the PIP’s gaming ecosystem.

With this initial handful of in-house games the PIP can only be so interesting, but if Galvanic can convince enough people to buy in to the gadget and thus lure enough outside developers to join in, there’s plenty of potential for other cool biosensing software ideas. The price per PIP is $79 for a limited number of early bird Kickstarter backers, or $99 thereafter. Presumably each new PIP-compatible game may also carry a consumer price-tag.

Galvanic is gunning for $100,000 in Kickstarter funding, with the money to be used for finalising manufacturing and readying its own apps. Assuming it hits this rather ambitious funding goal, the company reckons it can gear up for mass production by the end of 2013, and expects to be shipping in Q1 2014. In future it said it plans to expand platform support beyond Android and iOS, to add Windows Phone, Blackberry, Windows, MacOS and also game Consoles and set-top boxes.

With More Than 2.5B Monthly Video Views, Fullscreen Closes Funding From Chernin Group, Comcast, And WPP

Posted: 17 Jun 2013 06:03 AM PDT

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Online multichannel network Fullscreen has become the latest in a series of YouTube partners to raise funding. The company has officially closed a funding round led by The Chernin Group, which also included investment from Comcast Ventures and WPP’s investment arm, WPP Digital.

Today, Fullscreen represents more than 10,000 channels on YouTube, which together have more than 150 million subscribers. In turn, those channels genrate more than 2.5 billion views monthly. It’s a huge — and growing — business, with the number of

A report from AllThingsDigital earlier this year pegged the funding amount at $30 million at a $110 million valuation. In a phone conversation, however, Fullscreen CEO George Strompolos wouldn’t confirm the amount.

For Fullscreen, the funding will be used to advance its business on a number of fronts. The company, which is just one of many multichannel networks representing YouTubers, has to date differentiated itself mostly by providing creators with tools to increase their potential audience reach and overall number of video views.

But rather than just rely on its technology platform as a differentiator, Fullscreen is looking to focus more on video production. That means investing in the creation of some owned and operated content, in cooperation with some of its creators. Owning some of its own content will help improve margins over time, since it won’t be sharing revenues with creators — although Strompolos says the company is already profitable.

Along with investment in content, Fullscreen will also be putting money into expanding the number of platforms it can reach. That means making its videos available through native apps on mobile devices, tablets, and connected TV devices. Not only will that help its creators better engage with viewers, but it will also be able to better monetize its own apps.

In addition, Fullscreen is looking to expand its international presence. It currently has 150 employees, and has grown headcount by 20 percent over the last quarter, but it sees more opportunity to expand in other markets. “YouTube is a global platform,” Strompolos told me, which is part of the reason it wants more coverage in other markets.


Amazon's Grocery Business Learns From Webvan That Rapid Growth Is The Enemy Of Fresh

Posted: 17 Jun 2013 05:13 AM PDT

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Amazon is moving deeper into at-home grocery delivery with AmazonFresh, which is expanding to L.A. as of last week, and which is set to continue to roll out to further markets over the course of this year and beyond. But it learned to take things slow from Webvan (the name and web presence of which it now own), the famous home grocery delivery flare-out of the 90s, and also to limit delivery areas to only high density urban areas, and to pursue as efficient a warehousing strategy as possible, according to a new Reuters report.

How did Amazon learn those lessons? Well it helped to have the guys who made the mistakes to begin with in the room, for starters. Amazon has four former Webvan executives on its staff, and acquired Kiva Systems last year, a robotics company that was founded to solve some of Webvan’s original problems and answer questions raised during its brief tenure before IPO and collapse in 2001.

While AmazonFresh does potentially offer the chance to disrupt a massive market in a way that could run parallel to how Amazon has already forever changed electronics, home furnishing, clothing, accessory and other retail markets, groceries are a different beast. Margins are low, inventory is infinitely more perishable, and delivering quotidian supplies to an entire market’s worth of grocery shopper is an entirely different type of logistical problem compared with occasionally sending them off a hard drive or t-shirt.

Which is why it has taken AmazonFresh over five years to go from Seattle, to L.A. But now the goal is to cover San Francisco Bay later this year, and then to spread to as many as 20 markets throughout 2014. But the expansion needs not only be city-to-city; a key component of sustainable growth is building up regions within cities to maximize route efficiency, so that plotting customer additions at the level of the neighborhood becomes crucial to successful deployment, the Reuters report says.

Another key ingredient, according to the report, is Kiva. The robotics company that Amazon bought presents an incredible advantage for warehousing, as a robotic workforce can work much more efficiently and quickly than the conveyor belt system which was in place at Webvan, and which broke down completely when just a single element went wrong thanks to its linear nature.

Those factors, combined with Amazon’s massive existing user base, are what the company is betting will help it succeed where Webvan failed. But Amazon also has something that Webvan didn’t necessarily, and that’s massively entrenched brands that have huge existing retail presence, like Walmart, which didn’t really get into groceries in a big way until after Webvan’s collapse, and which is also at least trialling at home delivery. In the U.K., Canada and other locales, other chains are also either trialling or have implemented their own delivery services for groceries, too, which means it’s no longer an uncontested space.

Still, there were online stores before Amazon, too, and we’ve seen how that played out. If indeed Amazon’s five year experiment with AmazonFresh has provided the know-how needed to make online groceries work at scale, the next decade could be one in which everything we know about shopping for food dramatically changes.

Source: Instagram Will Get Video On June 20

Posted: 17 Jun 2013 04:55 AM PDT

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We’ve been working on getting more details on a press event that Facebook is having this week. Earlier, we wrote it could launch a news-reading app, but we have since heard more details that point to something else entirely. On June 20, a source says Facebook will unveil that Instagram, its popular photo-sharing app, will begin to let people also take and share short videos. Call it the Vine effect.

We are still looking for more information because we understand that Facebook has not wanted the details of June 20 to leak out — so this could be an intentional blind alley. But if the Instagram video report is true, you could say the event invite itself — sent by snail mail, coffee cup stain charmingly in one corner — is a red herring of its own.

Earlier reports about Instagram getting video provide some indication, though, that this is not coming out of the blue. Most recently, about three weeks ago Matthew Keys broke a story noting that such a service was getting tested internally. At the time, there wasn’t any information on when it would be coming out, nor whether there would be filters, nor whether this would be in a separate app or part of an Instagram update. The videos would be between five and 10 seconds in length, he noted.

Getting video on Instagram is a move that would make sense. Specifically, it looks like a direct response to the rising popularity of video-sharing services, namely Twitter’s Vine. It, and others like Viddy, Cinemagram and Socialcam, sometimes get described as “Instragram for video” apps.

The Vine app — which lets users take six seconds of video footage on an iOS or Android handset and then share those clips to Vine’s own network, Twitter or Facebook — has shot up in popularity since going live in January. After Twitter debuted an Android version of Vine in the beginning of June, usage reached a tipping point: shares of Vines surpassed those of Instagram photos on Twitter — usage that has only diverged even more since then:

Of course, you could argue that part of the reason is because Twitter no longer shows inline views of Instagram photos — that may have affected how many Instagram photos have been shared to Twitter.

When those Instagram/Twitter cards disappeared, we noted that part of the reason for the move — taken by Facebook/Instagram, not Twitter — appeared to be to drive more direct traffic to Instagram itself, a popular social network in its own right, with over 100 million monthly active users, rising sharply since Facebook bought the company last year for $715 million.

Putting in a video service could serve to further that strategy even more, before new-but-already-popular services like Vine get more of a foothold. It will mean one less app and social network for users to build up, and, for those who like to take and share videos, another reason to visit Instagram. You can see how something like video could be a very sticky complement to its photo service.

There could be another reason for adding video to the service: it’s a very attractive medium for advertisers and marketers.

Of course, Instagram is not running any ads yet — in fact, Facebook and Instagram got a lot of heat over changes in their terms of service in December over how it could implement advertising services in the future — so much heat that they rolled back the ToS and apologized. And in Facebook’s last quarterly earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a point of noting that while big brands were interested in advertising on Instagram, for now there were no plans to implement this. (That’s not to say that Instagram is not already a substantial marketing platform for brands.)

And with 100 million+ users, you could argue that there may not be enough scale there yet to really monetize ads properly. Adding in video is laying the groundwork — and providing one more engine to grow that Instagrammer base.

Facebook declined to comment for this story.

Photo: ripleyb, Instagram

Additional reporting: Josh Constine

Netflix Keeps Driving For Original Content, Inks Largest Deal Yet For DreamWorks' Characters

Posted: 17 Jun 2013 03:46 AM PDT

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Netflix has been using original programming to power its Internet-TV business, luring viewers to flagship programming such as the Kevin Spacey-vehicle House of Cards. Today another development showing no let up in its strategy to use exclusive content created to air on its platform to put clear blue water between its streaming service and rivals’: it has inked its largest original content deal yet, with DreamWorks Animation.

Netflix’s other stated goal — as Ted Sarandos, chief content officer, expressed it to GQ earlier this year — is "to become HBO faster than HBO can become us”. So it’s not just native online streaming rivals like Amazon Instant Video it’s pushing to elbow past here.

There are no figures on the multi-year deal with DreamWorks — not unusual, since Netflix has never confirmed how much it spent on House of Cards. But the streaming service said the agreement is “the largest deal for original first-run content in Netflix history”. What exactly is Netflix buying? First dibs on some DreamWorks Animation’s characters moving into TV, in a branded collection of shows that will comprise more than 300 hours of new programming.

There’s no word yet on exactly which of DreamWorks’ characters will be translated from silver screen to adventures destined for the living room but the studio owns the IP to the characters like Shrek and Kung Fu Panda, to name two. The first TV series from the original programming collaboration is expected to begin airing on Netflix next year, and will be shown in all the territories in which it operates (currently some 40 countries).

The deal between Netflix and DreamWorks builds on an earlier agreement between the pair, announced back in February, for a Netflix Original Series for kids based on DreamWorks’ film Turbo — due to premier next month. That agreement will bring an episodic animated series, called Turbo F.A.S.T, to Netflix in December, picking up the character from where the feature film sets it down.

Also today Netflix said viewers in the U.S. and Latin America will get exclusive access to DreamWorks Animation feature films next year, including The Croods, Turbo and Mr Peabody and Sherman.

Kids’ content is of a course a big pull for the parents who pay the streaming TV bills — and as AllThingsD‘s Peter Kafka points out, Netflix’s deal with Viacom's Nickelodeon expired last month, leaving a colourful cartoon-shaped hole in its portfolio. Amazon then stepped in and bagged Viacom’s portfolio.

Apple Reveals Number of Customer Data Requests From U.S. Law Agencies, Repeats Denial Of PRISM Involvement

Posted: 17 Jun 2013 12:19 AM PDT

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Apple posted a press release on its site reaffirming its “commitment to customer privacy” and stating that it first heard of the PRISM program when questioned by news organizations on June 6. The company also said that it received between 4,000 to 5,000 requests from U.S. federal, state and local law enforcement for customer data between December 1, 2012 and May 31, 2013.

“Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it,” Apple stated in its press release. Between 9,000 to 10,000 accounts or devices were specified in the requests and “included both criminal investigations and national security matters.”

The press release also states that Apple does not collect maintain personal details about customers: “there are certain categories of information which we do not provide to law enforcement or any other group because we choose not to retain it.” For example, the company says that iMessage and FaceTime conversations are protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can read them, and Apple cannot decrypt the data.

Apple’s statement comes after other tech companies implicated in the NSA scandal also disclosed the number of government requests for information they had received in an effort to support their claims that they denied NSA special access to their servers and win back the trust of users.

Facebook said on June 15 that for the six months ending December 31, 2012, it had received between 9,000 to 10,000 requests for data from U.S. law enforcement agencies. During that same period Microsoft received between 6,000 and 7,000 requests. Meanwhile, Google has asked the U.S. government to be allowed to publish more information about national security requests it has received.


Supreme Court Ruling On Gene Patenting May Be A Boon For Biotech Startups

Posted: 17 Jun 2013 12:00 AM PDT

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Buried in the ongoing PRISM debacle, there was actually some hopeful news out of Washington D.C. for startups this week.

The Supreme Court ruled this week that naturally occurring genes can’t be patented, which should be a boon for the host of emerging gene testing and patenting companies that are coming out of the Valley. Silicon Valley VCs like Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Felicis Ventures and SV Angel have been making more bets in the space, on the assumption that biology is becoming a space that can be attacked by software.

In the case, a company called Myriad Genetics had acquired patents on BRCA1 and BRCA2, two genes that are strongly correlated with breast and ovarian cancer. Because of their patents, the cost of testing for those genes had been pushed higher, sometimes beyond the $3,000 range. That would have made it too expensive for many middle- and low-income women to learn if they were at risk for the cancers.

At the same time, other human genes were being scooped up with somewhere north of 20 percent of all human genes being covered by patents, according to the National Society of Genetic Counselors. The leading gene patent holders are unsurprisingly pharmaceutical giants like DuPont and GlaxoSmithKline, that startups would have a financially hard time competing against in courts.

The court ruled that human genes can’t be patented, but that synthetic genes can be protected.

Now that naturally occurring human genes can’t be patented, expect gene testing companies to benefit broadly with lower-cost products across the board. The costs for full human genome sequencing have already fallen to about $8,000 today from $100 million in 2011.

One of the remaining barriers preventing lower-cost testing has been whether consumers would be on the receiving end of high licensing fees to the patent owners of these genes. Patent holders like Myriad could also monopolize the testing market for these genes too, which would have also forced prices higher.

One company that I’ve written about, Counsyl, tests prospective parents for any hereditary diseases they might pass onto their children like Tay-Sachs Disease. They’ve gotten such broad adoption in medical clinics across the U.S. that they’re now testing for approximately 2 percent of all births in the country every year.

While CEO Ramji Srinivasan didn’t want to comment for this story, you could expect that gene testing companies which don’t currently offer tests linked to patented genes to start considering offering them. 23andMe also didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

At the same time, the host of emerging synthetic biology startups won’t suffer either since the court ruled that synthetic DNA and cDNA or complementary DNA that is synthesized from messenger RNA, can be patented.

“For me, it never made sense that you can patent genes from nature,” said Omri Amirav-Drory, who is the CEO of Genome Compiler, a company that makes software where you can design your own synthetic DNA. “It does say that synthetic DNA is patentable, which means that if one designs a novel sequence…. it will be patentable. That makes a bit more sense as you’ve made this novel sequence yourself.”

But maybe, synthetic biology patents will become less relevant anyway — just like software patents — as computational genetic design power increases, according to Austen Heinz, who runs Cambrian Genomics. He thinks synthetic gene patents may eventually become outmoded in the same way that software patents seem obsolete because the slow and often bureaucratic patent application process can’t keep up with the pace of change in the industry.

“Think of Windows 95′, 98 or Vista,” he said. “Like in the software business, synthetic biology companies will need to ship an updated improved OS (i.e. genome) every few years to stay competitive.”

Social Web Privacy Wonk Andrew Keen Weighs In On PRISM - With More Than Just ‘I Told Ya So' [TCTV]

Posted: 16 Jun 2013 11:00 PM PDT

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Earlier this month many people were surprised to hear the revelation that a number of major web companies may have granted user data access to the U.S. government through a secret program called PRISM. But it’s fair to say that Andrew Keen was likely not exactly dying of shock as these allegations surfaced — he’s been arguing for years that the social web is not nearly as safe as many people presume, and that we give up important rights and principles when we become lax about our privacy.

Keen talks about a lot of these ideas in his TechCrunch TV interview series “Keen On,” but I thought it’d be good to bring him to the other side of the table to hear a bit more about his thoughts on the NSA and PRISM and how people should view privacy in light of the news that’s just surfaced. Talking with Keen is always interesting, so I’d recommend you check it all out above.

Samsung Galaxy Owners Will Get Jay-Z's New Album For Free 72 Hours Before Its Official Release

Posted: 16 Jun 2013 10:46 PM PDT

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If you own a Samsung Galaxy and are a Jay-Z fan, then you will probably be happy to hear that Samsung is giving away one million copies of “Magna Carta Holy Grail” to owners of its flagship smartphone 72 hours before the album’s official debut on July 4.

Jay-Z hinted at the endorsement deal on Sunday when he appeared in a TV commercial during Game 5 of the NBA finals, along with Pharrell Williams and producer Rick Rubin. The tagline was “The Next Big Thing”–a teaser for the early release of “Magna Carta Holy Grail” on Galaxy devices.

Samsung bought 1 million copies of the album, which is scheduled for release on July 4, to give to Samsung Galaxy owners. The Wall Street Journal reports that Samsung paid $5 each for the albums–reaping Jay-Z $5 million for “Magna Carta Holy Grail” before it even goes on sale.

The deal is notable for a couple of reasons. First, it could help Samsung further polish its image in the U.S. as it continues its heated rivalry with Apple. Though Samsung is the top smartphone seller in the world, with a 28.8% percent share of the global market according to IDC, iPhones continue to lead in the U.S. Samsung’s Galaxy series has performed very well in the U.S., but the Korean company still suffers from lingering perceptions that it’s just a copycat thanks to the drawn-out Apple-Samsung legal battles over patents. An endorsement deal with one of the U.S.’s top rap artists may help Samsung gain more cred with consumers, especially younger ones.

The deal may also help Samsung’s Music Hub, a streaming music service available on Galaxy devices, compete with Apple’s iTunes Radio, which will be included with iOS devices and offer preview of tracks before they are available elsewhere. If Samsung is successful in building an attractive ecosystem for its mobile devices, that will help it retain consumers even if the phablet frenzy slows down.

Unofficial Vine App 6Sec Finally Lets Windows Phone Users Upload Their Own Micro Movies

Posted: 16 Jun 2013 10:37 PM PDT

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A few people have taken up the challenge of bringing some kind of Vine support to Windows Phone, but so far all the ersatz Vine apps in the Windows Marketplace do is let people view those six-second clips. According to WPCentral’s Daniel Rubino, developer Rudy Huyn’s 6Sec is different — the third-party Vine app crossed a major milestone with a recent update so Windows Phone 8 users (well, ones that are part of the private beta anyway) can now upload their micro-films in addition to just watching them.

6Sec isn’t expected to shed its beta trappings for at least a few weeks, but it’s big news for folks looking to jump on the next big social bandwagon (as I write this, Vine is No. 4 on Apple’s Top Free app list, and No. 5 on Google’s). The app is a remarkably pretty one considering the fact that it was cobbled together by a single person, but that probably won’t come as a shock to Windows Phone app junkies. After all, Huyn’s Windows Phone development chops are well-established by now: He’s perhaps best known for whipping up an equally handsome Wikipedia app that won Microsoft’s curious Next Big App contest a few months back.

Of course, 6Sec may find itself pushed to the sidelines if the folks at Vine Labs actually decide to craft their own Vine app for Windows Phone. It’s become increasingly clear that Microsoft has no problem throwing its financial resources around if it means getting developers onboard. A recent report about iOS 7 from Bloomberg Businessweek points out that Microsoft has been shelling out plenty of dough (apparently over $100,000 in certain cases) to developers in a bid to get them creating for the Windows Phone platform. That’s not exactly a new story, considering that the folks at Redmond have been trying to sweeten that particular deal for years now, but it speaks to the level of importance Microsoft has placed on getting companies to create quality Windows Phone apps.

Hell, it seems to be working, too — I still see some of those infamous cr-apps pushing their way into the Windows Marketplace, but Microsoft has managed to land surprisingly good WP-specific versions of Zinio, Hulu Plus, and Pandora over the past few months. It wouldn’t be a shock to hear that Microsoft is attempting to tempt Team Vine into building a WP app, especially considering just how quickly Vine shares on Twitter surpassed Instagram shares. Until then though, talented developers like Huyn are working to fill that gap, and I’m looking forward to taking 6Sec for a final spin once it finally graduates from beta.

As Hardware Startups Take Off, Materials And Technology Marketplace Inventables Raises $3M

Posted: 16 Jun 2013 10:01 PM PDT

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Chicago-based Inventables, a marketplace for technology and materials for developers and designers, has raised $3 million in new funding led by Tim Draper (via Draper Associates) with Dundee Venture Capital, Richard Yoo (founder of Rackspace), Georges Harik, and True Ventures participating. This brings Inventables’ total funding to $5 million.

Inventables launched in 2010 as a marketplace for software, hardware and materials for makers, designers and manufacturers to create prototypes and low-volume production runs. Essentially, Inventables sells the parts, machines and materials that many hardware developers or manufacturers need to build their products.

The marketplace itself is similar to any other shopping site, where you can purchase supplies online that are shipped to you within a few days. But Inventables has added a few features which make it friendly for makers. For example, on a product’s page, you’ll see what other designers have made with the material or how they used it to develop a product. You’ll also see questions (and answers) posted about the product.

Additionally, Inventables develops and sells its own products, including a CNC milling machine, called Shapeoko, which is used by a watchmaker to design and manufacture its leather and wood watches. The machine allows customers to create products digitally on the computer and then download them into a digital manufacturing machine where they are actually produced and made. Inventables also has one of the largest selections of acrylic sheets. And as 3D printing has taken off, Inventables sells 3D printers (including Makerbot), and has a selection of filament for these printers in 24 colors.

As founder and CEO Zach Kaplan explains, Inventables is helping to make it possible for a new generation of individuals and companies to manufacture and sell their own products without needing to outsource production. As we are seeing more hardware startups enter the market, Inventables has become a destination to buy the components needed to build these products.

Of course, Kaplan acknowledges that its a competitive market, with Inventables going head to head with AmazonSupply. But he thinks Inventables can differentiate itself via its community of designer, makers and entrepreneurs. Already there is a passionate community around some of the products and functions supplied by Inventables, and the company has even open-sourced the software and hardware behind the milling machine.

Inventables will use part of the new investment to expand to a new 25,000-square-foot facility in Chicago where product development, engineering and distribution will be co­located. And Kaplan is hiring a larger engineering team to develop additional proprietary software and hardware.

Agent Smartwatch Banks On Design, Developers, Distribution To Survive Battle

Posted: 16 Jun 2013 09:00 PM PDT

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Editor's note: Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research and blogs at Techspressive. Follow him on Twitter @rossrubin.

Stop me if you've heard this one. A guy walks into a watch store and a smartwatch business partnership is formed. OK, it's not a funny joke; in fact, it's not a joke at all. Secret Labs' founder and CTO Chris Walker walked into the House of Horology store on Prince Street owned by neighbor Lawrence Layderman. A discussion about the future of watches led Walker to show Layderman a prototype of a state-of-the-art smartwatch he had already been working on for a year and a half.

Walker's company had previously created the Netduino, an Arduino alternative that allows developers to use Microsoft's developer tools. But as anyone who has ever seen most of those projects knows, they're usually not known for their aesthetics. Walker knew he had to partner with a company that understood fashion, but he still wanted to maintain control over the project.

The partners launched a Kickstarter campaign for its Agent smartwatch, which blew through its funding goal in the first nine hours. Now, with less than a week before it closes, it has attracted nearly $900,000 from nearly 5,000 backers, many of whom will be picking up the American-made device for about $150 even though the watch is expected to retail for $100 more than that.

The Agent is a bit thinner than House of Horology's beefy color-accented Bedlam line, key to attracting more upscale shoppers who will encounter the device at its store and other retailers. Despite this, it brims with state-of-the-art components. These include a charging coil to support the Qi wireless charging standard. One of its two processors is a new chip from ARM — the Cortex M4 – that won't be shipping until the summer.

"We've effectively done for watches what Haswell has done for processors," Walker says. The processors team with a next-generation Sharp Memory LCD for some of the best battery life in the category. Agent even supports a licensed version of the Monotype font library to display foreign language characters.

The team has also thought about how to protect against things not going so well. It can be restored via a button-press combination in the event a firmware update goes awry. In addition, it searched globally for a rechargeable lithium ion watch battery that wouldn't explode if punctured, a concern for something kept so close to the body.

But some things will remain out of reach. For example, the team couldn't yet find a color display that presented anything richer than pastel colors. And as for using the phone as a headset, Walker says the project looked into integrating a speaker or microphone to activate features, such as Siri, as the Martian watch does. But the team decided against it, with Walker characterizing taking a call through a watch as "the worst speakerphone experience you've ever had."

The Agent may be loaded with the latest components. Technology, though, becomes available to many in successive generations and it's easy to imagine a second-generation watch from one of the Smartwatch Class of 2012 upgrading beyond what the Agent has locked down. That said, not all watches are open platforms and, as many Kickstarter projects go, some only create development kits optionally after reaching a stretch goal or shipping.

Not so for the Agent, which was created with third-party developers in mind. Here, too, it is not the first. WIMM Labs worked on whittling down Android before being entering into an exclusive, confidential relationship with an unnamed company. MetaWatch, another Kickstarter alum, served as "a lot of the inspiration for what we did," according to Walker. The Agent, though, relies on Microsoft .NET, which allows developers to use a wide array of tools to create apps for it, as well as take care of lots of things under the hood. That might not matter much for a watch face, but it could become more of an advantage as capabilities grow.

Despite this, don't expect too much to differentiate Agent apps at launch. The Agent will be hosting the kinds of apps, including weather, golf swing analyzers and sleep and exercise trackers. Walker expresses faith that developers will create the kind of unforeseen titles that came to flood the Apple app store.

While the House of Horology support has helped with the design up front, it will be at least as helpful when it comes to distribution, a challenge that confronts many tech products after a successful Kickstarter campaign. As the steward of a young luxury brand, Layderman says that his consumers are now looking for a more well-rounded timepiece. While the first Agent is being designed as a unisex watch, interest from women is driving exploration into even smaller casings. The partners think that they can expand far beyond the current watch market to target retailers in the fashion space, phone accessory and electronic enthusiast markets.

Still, despite attracting dalliances from the likes of Sony and Motorola, as well as less ambitious efforts from Casio and Citizen, many of the smartphone-tethered smartwatch market entrants have attracted mostly crowdfunded startups, and the big ecosystem providers have all been rumored to be developing wristwear; Walker provides the classically optimistic take that their entrance will validate the category.

But the particular areas on where the Agent watch partnership has focused — Secret Labs' development and House of Horology's distribution — seem particularly vulnerable to the entrance of an Apple smartwatch. "Hopefully, we can all move this forward together. They're welcome to call us," says Walker. Still, for any new smartwatch, the clock may be ticking.
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