Like Microsoft did in their own press conference, Sony was quick to point out that their consoles aren’t just gaming gadgets — they’re great for consuming media too. To further cement that point, Sony Computer Entertainment America chief Jack Tretton just revealed that Hulu Plus and Crackle will soon find their way to the PS Vita.
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If a company needs to send marketing emails, it choose from a range of email service providers, such as iContact and Exact Target. But a startup called Ongage says that if you want your emails to make it into everyone’s inbox there’s a better approach — instead of choosing one ESP, why not use different providers for different recipients? → Read More
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Looks like the seed funding wave continues to get stronger. The latest evidence: Khosla Ventures, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm headed up by tech industry veteran Vinod Khosla, appears to be raising a new seed fund, according to regulatory documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission this afternoon. → Read More
CloudFlare, the increasingly popular security and CDN service, suffered a security breach last week that allowed hacktivist group UGNazi to hijack the company’s CEO’s Matthew Prince’s Gmail account and gain access to the account of one of CloudFlare’s customers. CloudFlare won’t say who exactly the hacker targeted with this attack, but rumor has it that 4chan.org was likely on the hacker’s hit list. Now, after investigating the problem over the weekend, CloudFlare is releasing more information about how this could have happened. As Prince told me earlier today, the attack was the result of flaws in AT&T’s, Google’s and CloudFlare’s security protocols. The hacker smartly exploited all of these to gain access to the CloudFlare user’s account. → Read More
Netflix announced today that it is rolling out a new CDN of its own, called Open Connect, which will reduce its costs of delivery and could improve delivery of its content. But Open Connect isn’t just about reducing its reliance on third-party CDNs like Akamai, Limelight, and Level 3 — by connecting directly with ISPs, Netflix could improve the relationships it has network operators.
Through Open Connect, ISPs can choose to peer directly with Netflix at one of eight settlement-free peering exchanges. Or, if they want to, they can install one of Netflix’s Open Connect appliances into their own network. That would allow them to cache the content locally so that it doesn’t have to be transferred over the network whenever it’s requested. Either way, doing so could reduce the strain of Netflix traffic going over their networks. → Read More
I’m a full supporter of e-books, e-book devices, and agree (mostly) with this excellent WSJ assessment by Rob Reid of the the e-book business. In short, Reid points out that 10 years ago this month the music industry began prosecuting its users and implementing draconian DRM to stave off an impending piracy revolution. That was the year Napster closed shop and pirates, however briefly, lived in a hostile environment. Since then, the music industry has lost $7 billion in music sales. Their war is lost and that sum, however paltry it looks, is pretty much the new normal.
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Today, I participated in a meeting at the White House described as an “expert roundtable on patient access to health data” hosted by Todd Park (Chief Technology Officer of the United States), Farzad Mostashari (the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology), Leon Rodriguez (Office of Civil Rights) and Peter Levin (CTO Veterans Administration).
Being at the White House within a week of the 25th anniversary of President Reagan’s famous “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” speech at the Brandenburg Gate, it struck me that tearing down a wall was a good metaphor for what was the goal of today’s meeting. In many respects, healthIT is similar to the “walled gardens” that persisted in mobile phones until they were torn down by the iPhone and Google’s Android. Just as the wireless carriers had their own proprietary environments for apps, health systems (and their EHR vendors) severely limit what can tie in with their systems directly impeding patient access to their health data.
The desired outcomes of the White House roundtable were: → Read More
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If you liked the larger photos that Facebook introduced to its mobile news feed last month, here’s some good news: It’s bringing a similar redesign to its Web interface.
Specifically, Facebook says photos in the news feed will now be enlarged to up to 2x their previous size, and displayed in a new layout that can bring more photos from an album into the feed. Text in news feed posts is also going to be larger and wider spaced.
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The Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator is back, with 10 new startups just announced as part of its Summer 2012 class. From political fundraising to group travel to social business referrals, the incubator has a wide range of startups going through its latest three-month program.
Like other incubators, the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator is aimed at helping early stage startups get off the ground. Since it was launched a year ago, the program has provided startups with working capital and mentorship in New York City. Participants receive a $25,000 investment, free co-working space, and access to a network of more than 200 mentors, including entrepreneurs and investors. → Read More
Meebo, the seven year-old chat service that morphed into a website toolbar and ad platform, is indeed selling to Google. The company confirmed the news a few minutes ago, and we’ve since dug up some more details.
First, the amount. After raising some $70 million in four venture rounds, Meebo’s acquisition was in fact for around the rumored $100 million, we’ve heard from a source close to the matter. → Read More
Meebo has been around in Silicon Valley for seven years, starting off with a site that let users chat with each other across different instant message services — then becoming a social toolbar, and ad platform and much more. Now it’s joining its Mountain View neighbor to the east, Google.
[Update: See our followup post for more info -- we've confirmed the amount, the focus of the product team within Google, and the sales and marketing layoffs.]
The company confirmed the sale today in a post on the company blog, after we reached out due to a tip. → Read More
Movile has spent the last decade providing content to Latin American audiences primarily on feature phones through partnerships with mobile carriers. Now Movile, which is based in Brazil, is looking to target Latino audiences globally, including in the U.S. and Europe. It’s doing that with an office in Mountain View, Calif., which expands its presence in the U.S., as well as through the launch of an HTML5-based video service called ZeeWe TV.
Zeewe TV is a Facebook application that will combine both short-form and long-form content aimed at the global Latino market. It already has rolled up content from a number of major content providers, including MTV, Nickelodeon, Azteca TV, Band, and Terra. That includes videos in Spanish, Portuguese, and English that highlights Latin American news and celebrities. → Read More
Google just added a small but interesting new feature to its Google Analytics product. You can now see how much of your site your visitors are really seeing, based on the new browser-size analysis the company just added to Google Analytics. With Analytics, Google already knows what screen sizes your site’s visitors are using, so it is now combining this information with its previously released browser size tool from Google Labs. Google is rolling this new tool out slowly, so chances are it will be a week or two before you see it in your Google Analytics account (it’s already live in my personal accounts, but your mileage may vary). → Read More
San Francisco has had an awesome few weeks of 75th anniversary celebrations. The Golden Gate bridge celebration was pretty obvious, as there was a lot of fanfare with fireworks etc., but another celebration went on rather quietly and TechCrunch was fortunate enough to be part of it.
The 75th anniversary of the Herman Street US San Francisco Mint.
One of the most mysterious buildings in San Francisco, The Mint is located behind a Safeway on Market Street, nestled between the Mission, Castro and Lower Haight communities. I pass by the ominous building all the time and I see the guards, but I’ve never seen anyone go in and out. I guess I just haven’t been there at the right time, because there are well over 300 employees that work there creating limited edition uncirculated collector sets, proof coins and will soon launch quarters you could (but shouldn’t, they are valuable) circulate with the famous S stamp. → Read More
Gemvara, a Boston-based custom jewelry site we’ve written about in the past, just announced that it has closed a $25 million Series D funding round. This oversubscribed round was led by Norwest Venture Partners and also includes funds from all existing investors, including Highland Capital Partners, Canaan Partners and Balderton Capital. The company says that it plans to use this new influx of cash to “enhance all aspects of the customer shopping experience and continue to drive innovation that will bring the jewelry industry to the cutting edge of commerce.” Gemvara previously raised a total of $20.2 million, including a large $15 million Series C round led by Balderton Capital. → Read More
Microsoft just threw down at E3 2012. After exciting the crowd with Halo and Gears of War titles, the company unveiled new additions to the 360′s vast media offering. Don’t be distracted by the video game trailers: this is Redmond’s biggest news of the show. In fact the new offering could lead to a rival of the cord cutting movement.
The Xbox 360 has nearly always had an impressive suite of media streaming options with Netflix and others. For most households, though, the offering was never enough to replace cable. In fact, it was more of a supplement. But today’s announcement brings a host of new options, stations, and apps to the Xbox 360.
With these new features, the Xbox 360 has finally become Microsoft’s Trojan Horse. The target? Cable companies. → Read More
Zynga just closed a talent acquisition of Oregon-based video game maker Buzz Monkey, which will add about 50 people to its arsenal of game developers, we’ve confirmed with sources who have knowledge of the deal.
The price isn’t being disclosed and the deal literally just closed at the end of May. It wasn’t a “material” acquisition, meaning it was not financially large enough to break out in a release or an SEC filing. Buzz Monkey will become Zynga’s Eugene, Oregon office.
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We haven’t been paying much attention to new games this E3 but a new title, Wreckateer, should be interesting to casual gamers who have a passing familiarity with another title involving avians who are peeved.
The game uses the Kinect interface to allow you to pull back a giant crossbow and throw rocks and bombs at ugly green trolls in castles. Using hand gestures you can move the missiles around and into different configurations, thereby allowing you to wreck the aforementioned trolls and castles. → Read More
The announcements just keep pouring out of Microsoft’s press event at the Galen Center, so here’s another one to chew on — Microsoft has announced that a version of their Internet Explorer browser will make its way to the Xbox 360 some time “this fall.”
“Internet Explorer coupled with the power of Xbox will for the first time deliver a fast, fluid, intuitive web experience in the living room,” Microsoft’s Marc Whitten said. → Read More
Microsoft just announced a new feature called Xbox SmartGlass, a “second screen” feature that allows you to view information about media on the screen of a mobile device or PC.
SmartGlass allows you to view movies on multiple devices – viewing a movie on a tablet and then transferring the video to the screen, for example – and offers detailed media information on TV and movies playing on the big screen at home or on the go. → Read More
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