SeqCentral crunches genetic data in the cloud
As scientists have to process growing amounts of data, hardware with heavy-duty computing becomes one of the most important tools for research. For that reason, a new startup called SeqCentral said it can democratize science by using cloud computing infrastructure.
Specifically, SeqCentral said it offers online infrastructure for genetic sequencing — not for the sequencing itself, but for the “alignment” of genetic sequences. That’s an important step in the research process where scientists identify similar … Continue Reading
CloudFlare brings big-company speed to your itty bitty website
Most of you have probably had the experience of visiting a website and finding that it’s running incredibly slowly, or that it has disappeared because of some attack. Big companies try to fix this problem by using content distribution networks (CDNs) and hiring security teams.
Now a startup called CloudFlare said it can bring comparable services to small Web publishers who can’t afford big-company solutions. Co-founder and chief executive Matthew Prince said publishers just add … Continue Reading
e-Rewards acquires Peanut Labs for survey offers
e-Rewards has agreed to acquire research offer firm Peanut Labs for an undisclosed price. The result could be very disruptive for the alternative-payments business known as offers.
Dallas-based e-Rewards is the owner of Research Now, an online sampling and data collection company. Peanut Labs creates market research surveys that get lots of results because they are based on offers, or special ads that serve as alternative payments for game and app makers.
In social games, … Continue Reading
Snapdragon aims to be a humorous Foursquare for products
Snapdragon is applying the check-in concept that many apps, such as Foursquare, use today to products like Ramen Noodles — except it plans to bring in humor to differentiate itself from competitors. CEO and co-founder David Hegarty demoed the app at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco today.
Snapdragon is essentially Foursquare for products — users “check in” to products by scanning a bar code and then broadcast the check-in to their friends on Twitter or … Continue Reading
Can OneTrueFan kill off ‘Foursquare for website’ competitors?
Boulder, Colo.-based OneTrueFan today announced its new service to help website publishers connect with their most loyal readers.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because Badgeville, a startup making similar promises, launched earlier in the afternoon. Both of them demonstrated at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference. But OneTrueFan’s approach is a bit different. It offers a toolbar for users to “check in” when they’re reading an article, similar to what users do in location startup Foursquare. They … Continue Reading
Gifi lets you hide money for your friends to encourage Foursquare check-ins
Payment service Venmo announced today that it has launched Gifi, its newest iPhone app that allows users to leave money at various Foursquare check-in locations for their friends to find. The app is available in the Apple app store now.
The company made the announcement at the TechCrunch Disrupt event in San Francisco.
Users can link their bank accounts or credit cards to Gifi to leave money at any Foursquare check-in location, with the option … Continue Reading
AOL reportedly in talks to acquire TechCrunch
Updated
Points for timing if this rumor is true: Tech blogger Om Malik reports on GigaOm that AOL, the Internet giant struggling to reinvent itself as a Web content powerhouse, is in talks to acquire TechCrunch, the technology-news website currently holding its Disrupt conference in San Francisco.
TechCrunch co-editor Erick Schonfeld declined to comment on the report. Malik said AOL CEO Tim Armstrong might appear at the conference to make an announcement of the rumored … Continue Reading
Badgeville brings loyalty badges to any Web publisher
A startup called Badgeville wants to bring the badge concept (popularized by Foursquare and other location-based startups) to any online publisher.
Chief executive Kris Duggan said Badgeville’s goal is to increase reader engagement and help its customer sites build a community. As he put it, “It’s not about pageviews anymore.” Publishers can award badges for the behavior of their choice, such as leaving a comment or becoming a fan of the site on Facebook. Readers … Continue Reading
Datasift tames Twitter overload for companies seeking specific data
Tweet-filtering technology startup Datasift is offering a special platform specifically for companies. Rather than filtering tweets for individuals, it combs through topics relevant to a company and displays the information in a single feed. CEO Nick Halstead demoed the service at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco today.
The new service could serve as a boon for companies that don’t have the computing firepower to handle the entirety of the Twitter information stream or to develop … Continue Reading
Gunzoo lets you search a ‘fabric’ of videos
Japanese company Gunzoo demonstrated a new way to search for videos today.
As shown on-stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Gunzoo’s experience is much slicker than most video search options today, which mainly involve scrolling through thumbnail image previews of each video. The company merges all the videos into what looks like a fabric of videos, all playing at once, which you can zoom into on your own.
The experience of zooming … Continue Reading
CheckPoints wants to reward you for checking into store products
Millions of consumers use location-based mobile apps to check-in to locations every day. But CheckPoints, a new mobile shopping application, is looking to take check-in services to the next level by asking you to check into products within stores. Each check-in rewards the user with points that can be redeemed for prizes like gift cards, miles or gadgets. The iPhone app is expected to be approved today or tomorrow by Apple.
Checkpoints has created a … Continue Reading
Storify filters online content into easy-to-read stories
Storify, which allows users to embed content from all avenues of the web like Twitter, Flickr and the like into a continuous story, launched its closed beta today at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco.
The web-based software lets users integrate content from API-enabled sites like Twitter into a single thread where users can place pieces of content in the order that they choose. The “story” is hosted on their home site, Storify.com, but users can … Continue Reading
Qwiki wants to be the multimedia search engine of the future
Startup Qwiki unveiled a new service today that it calls the future of information consumption.
Co-founder Doug Imbruce, who demonstrated Qwiki on-stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, compared the site to what you see in science fiction movies like Wall-E, where users ask a computer a question and then receive an answer with relevant images and narration.
Qwiki makes that vision a reality, Imbruce said. You type in a search term, then … Continue Reading
The secrets behind Zynga's success in social gaming (video)
Zynga has become the biggest social gaming company with its Facebook-based games such as FarmVille. Yesterday, 33 million gamers logged into Zynga games. Overall, 215 million log in each month. Those are incredible numbers that game companies could only dream about a few years ago. How does the company do it? What are its secrets?
The company talked about its progress at the Techcrunch Disrupt conference today in San Francisco. Mark Pincus, chief executive at … Continue Reading
Chegg CEO: I want students' business 365 days a year
High-profile Silicon Valley startup Chegg just raised $75 million to keep expanding its core business of shipping used textbooks to college students. But CEO Dan Rosensweig said that the company is going to woo students every day of the year, not just when they’re checking off their curricula.
Chegg recently acquired CourseRank, a website that allows students to rate professors and download course requirements. The latter is a neat fit with Chegg’s textbook rentals, since … Continue Reading
Kno shows off its new textbook tablet (video)
Kno, a startup designing a tablet computer for students, today announced a cheap, single-screen model.
The Santa Clara, Calif. company doesn’t have any devices available yet, but it already announced a dual-screen tablet. The idea is that you could read a book on one screen, then take notes or do other work on the other screen. The single-screen version will be more affordable, said co-founder and chief executive Osman Rashid (who also co-founded textbook rental … Continue Reading
Uneasy "super angels" discuss their secret meeting in public with Tehcrunch's Mike Arrington (video)
For a short time at the Techcrunch Disrupt conference, Mike Arrington put the so-called “super angels” on the spot to talk about their secret meeting where they allegedly discussion a collusion scheme to hold down startup valuations.
Super angels are well-heeled investors who are veteran tech investors and often have their own funds. Arrington barged in on a recent meeting a group of about 10 of them at the Bin 38 restaurant in San Francisco … Continue Reading
RIM announces 7-inch BlackBerry PlayBook tablet (updated)
Update: Added some more specification details and release date estimate.
Research in Motion founder and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis hit the stage at RIM’s BlackBerry Developers Conference in San Francisco today, where he unveiled the company’s long-awaited tablet — the BlackBerry Playbook.
He described the device as a “BlackBerry amplified” experience. The PlayBook has a 7-inch display, runs a WebKit browser (the same browser framework used on the iPhone and Android’s browser, not to mention RIM’s … Continue Reading
Facebook investor: Social network is undervalued among tech giants (video)
Clarium Capital president Peter Thiel considers Facebook the “least overvalued” of the major Internet giants, which include Google, he said at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco today.
Facebook, already valued at $30 billion, would be his choice over a company like Google when deciding when to go “long” — or invest in the company for an extended period with the expectation that it will continue to grow.
“I think Facebook is still insanely … Continue Reading
Hulu may be headed to a Roku streaming video box near you
Not that this comes as a huge surprise, but it looks like owners of Roku’s streaming video box may soon have access to content from Hulu, according to two of Hulu’s content partners who spoke to Dan Rayburn from Business of Video.
I contacted Roku regarding the story and received the following response: “We have no comment at this time. It’s reasonable to expect we’ll have something to say in the near future and I … Continue Reading
