Ellen’s Oscars selfie now the most retweeted post ever — a huge win for Samsung March 2 Devindra Hardawar
Julian Assange to SXSW crowd: Even billionaire Pierre Omidyar sees that there’s no real liberty March 8, 2014 12:55 PM | Tom Cheredar AUSTIN, Texas — Wikileaks founder Julian Assange warned a crowd of attendees at SXSW today about the growing threat of police states in many of the world’s most powerful countries.
Why companies are not startups March 8, 2014 12:49 PM | Steve Blank, The Lean Startup While it’s fashionable to build corporate incubators, there’s little evidence that they deliver more than “innovation theater.” Big companies just aren’t set up for real innovation and agility.
Watch the live stream of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s SXSW Keynote about ‘Cosmos’ March 8, 2014 12:10 PM | Tom Cheredar Famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson took the stage at the South by Southwest interactive show just moments ago to chat about his upcoming new show Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, which will premiere on Fox this week to a global audience.
6 Austin startups to watch from Capital Factory’s SXSW demo day March 8, 2014 11:34 AM | Tom Cheredar This crop includes companies tackling agriculture, subscription services, loyalty programs, and more.
A Delaware story: Lyft’s $150M round of funding March 8, 2014 10:43 AM | J. O'Dell No SEC Form D has yet surfaced to confirm whether the offerings have been sold in their entirety, but that filing is likely around the corner.
How these social robots are helping autistic kids March 8, 2014 10:00 AM | Christina Farr Recent studies have shown that social robots like Romibo can be used to provide therapy (or co-therapy,in collaboration with a human), and potentially even help teach autistic individuals new skills.
5 mistakes you’re making when you try to build a private cloud March 8, 2014 8:55 AM | Kent Christensen, Datalink The growing popularity of private clouds brings with it some expensive lessons. While success is definitely within reach, private clouds are not without their share of pitfalls.
Viralheat adds Zendesk integration, boosting social customer support for brands March 8, 2014 8:00 AM | Kia Kokalitcheva Enterprise social management platform Viralheat seems to be playing nicely with a lot of new friends — it has just added Zendesk integration after recently partnering with Salesforce.
LG’s G Flex: Is a curved smartphone screen innovation or desperation? (review) March 8, 2014 7:17 AM | Devindra Hardawar I’m all for novelty gadgets, but when it’s something as important as a smartphone I tend to fall on the pragmatic side of things. It’s clear that LG doesn’t know what to do with its curved screens just yet.
PayPal adds new accelerators, incubators, and Braintree features to Startup Blueprint program March 8, 2014 6:00 AM | Devindra Hardawar PayPal is sweetening the pot for its ambitious startup initiative.
T-Mobile adds more data to its cheaper plans — but unlimited data is now $10 more March 7, 2014 9:36 PM | Devindra Hardawar T-Mobile’s latest plans are great if you’re looking to save money — but a pain if you want an endless supply of data.
Get ready for ‘Insta-ads’ — Instagram signs $100M deal with Omnicom March 7, 2014 7:23 PM | Kia Kokalitcheva It’s official — Instagram has finally signed a deal with an advertising agency, and the winner is Omnicom. Get ready to start seeing some ads amidst all the food porn and “fitspiration” pictures in your current feed.
Epson’s smart glasses try to reach beyond ‘Minority Report’ March 7, 2014 4:53 PM | Barry Levine In Minority Report, Tom Cruise waves video, photos, and data between large, translucent screens. But that was the past’s version of the future.
Recruiting platform Workable gets $1.5M to make hiring a breeze March 7, 2014 4:49 PM | Kia Kokalitcheva As it’s mainly geared towards small and medium-sized businesses, it helps these companies take advantage of all recruiting opportunities and resources — even professional recruiters.
Funding Daily: Big-money Friday March 7, 2014 3:34 PM | Eric Blattberg Unlike most Fridays, there were a ton of funding deals today: a huge round for online home-goods retailer Wayfair, $35 million for startup school General Assembly, a $20 million round for Shazam, and more.
Thousands show up for Salesforce.com’s 15th birthday party March 7, 2014 3:04 PM | Jordan Novet Salesforce.com does have a reason to celebrate its 15th birthday, doesn’t it?
Facebook cozies up with partners in new API support program March 7, 2014 3:01 PM | Jordan Novet Facebook is introducing a program to work more closely with companies that use the social network’s publicly available data.
Unexplored opportunities of mobile: Android, tablet, and wearables March 7, 2014 3:00 PM | Sponsored Post LOGIN Conference 2014 will bring today’s industry leaders of the mobile platform and the developers of the next wave technology together. The main purpose is to guide the direction to unexplored opportunities of mobile and wearable technology.
Knowledge Delivery Systems takes $6M to lift up urban school districts March 7, 2014 2:49 PM | Richard Byrne Reilly We’re taking something to scale here. We’re helping up to 5,000 teachers in a district get up to speed. … We’re not helping just 5 percent of teachers, but 100 percent.”
Why marketers shouldn’t fear Gmail’s new unsubscribe button March 7, 2014 1:50 PM | Bob Sybydlo, Yesmail Interactive Guest Post Contrary to popular belief, Gmail’s new unsubscribe button is a good thing for marketers.
Facebook mimics Ikea in flat-packing equipment for its newest data center March 7, 2014 11:51 AM | Jordan Novet Facebook today said the second site for its data center site in Sweden will follow some interesting design concepts. It’s the latest way the social network is innovating with its underlying infrastructure.
Music identification service Shazam confirms new $20M round and $500M valuation March 7, 2014 11:38 AM | Kia Kokalitcheva Today, we identified two things: which new pop princess sings that song playing inside the local Starbucks, and that handy music- and TV-tagging service Shazam has officially raised a new $20 million funding round from undisclosed investors. This brings its total to $92 million.
An uproarious Q&A with director Scott Waugh and ‘Breaking Bad’ alum Aaron Paul of the ‘Need for Speed’ movie March 7, 2014 11:00 AM | Dean Takahashi The director and lead actor talked about their homage to car culture movies with abandon at a recent screening.
Comparing the virtual worlds of Warcraft, Second Life, and Eve Online to our own yields some surprising stats March 7, 2014 10:45 AM | Dean Takahashi At its peak, the number of people in World of Warcraft was bigger than Moscow, the world’s fifth-largest city.
Tech-savvy European governments bet big on SXSW March 7, 2014 10:21 AM | Harrison Weber Like clockwork, each and every visiting state promises SXSW attendees the same thing: That theirs is among the world’s top destinations for entrepreneurs, engineers, and designers.
Win $30K in prizes and sitdown VC meetings at Vator Splash Oakland March 7, 2014 10:00 AM | Sponsored Post Vator, one of the largest business networks dedicated to entrepreneurs and investors, is holding its popular inaugural two-day event on May 6 and May at the historic Jack Landon Square in Oakland, Calif.
Spokefly is a bike-rental service with all of the convenience of hailing a cab March 7, 2014 10:00 AM | Tom Cheredar AUSTIN, Texas — Choosing to ride a bike instead of driving in crazy busy traffic seems like a good idea, but in reality its usually only practical if you live within a downtown area and own a bike. For everyone else, it’s just not always an option.
New startup Spellgun will take Western mobile games to China (exclusive) March 7, 2014 10:00 AM | Dean Takahashi Talkweb and Concept Art House are creating Spellgun to bring Western games into China’s complex mobile market.
Samsung’s ‘Milk Music’ service brings free tunes to Galaxy phones March 7, 2014 9:51 AM | Devindra Hardawar It seems just about everyone wants a glossy new streaming music service to call their own.
Judge shoots down FAA drone fine March 7, 2014 9:40 AM | Barry Levine A federal judge decided Thursday that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) does not prohibit commercial droning. Could this be the beginning of a whole new phase in drone use?
With a huge $157M round, Wayfair wants to be the Amazon for home goods March 7, 2014 9:18 AM | Jordan Novet If you go up against big home-goods sellers like Sears, you’re going to need some money. Wayfair just announced it’s re-upped with $157 million.
Inside Nvidia’s plan to give $100K to the next hot emerging startup (interview) March 7, 2014 9:00 AM | Dean Takahashi Nvidia’s top investment executive, Jeff Herbst, also tells us what he looks for investments.
Transcatheter Technologies Wins ‘Best Business Pitch’ Award at “Ger... March 7, 2014 8:22 AM | Business Wire Sponsored Post Transcatheter Technologies GmbH, an emerging medical device company that is developing a third-generation transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) system-TRINITY-announced today that its CEO, Wolfgang Goetz, M.D., Ph.D.,…
Caterina Fake’s Findery finally launches its travel app March 7, 2014 8:15 AM | Richard Byrne Reilly Caterina Fake is back.
‘Street cred’ art-sales site Redbubble eyes $80 million year March 7, 2014 8:03 AM | Richard Byrne Reilly Graffiti, graphic design, and modern illustration make their way onto T-shirts and tote bags at Redbubble — to the tune of $80 million annually.
The DeanBeat: Sony’s executive change makes you wonder how much the old guard is necessary March 7, 2014 8:00 AM | Dean Takahashi Now it’s Sony’s turn for change as Jack Tretton, a 19-year veteran, exits the U.S. games division.
Banter’s anonymous social app makes chat rooms cool again March 7, 2014 7:28 AM | Tom Cheredar Does the term “chat room” conjure up bad ’90s memories for you? Well, an updated form of the genre could soon have you hooked.
YouTube and Facebook may soon be banned in Turkey March 7, 2014 7:10 AM | Harrison Weber “We will not leave this nation at the mercy of YouTube and Facebook.” — Turkey prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Apple’s latest OS X update adds support for 4K displays running ‘Retina’ resolutions March 7, 2014 6:45 AM | Devindra Hardawar Got a fancy 4K resolution monitor? Soon, OS X will finally be able to take full advantage of all those sweet pixels.
Tumblr’s sponsored posts may soon appear on other Yahoo sites March 7, 2014 6:18 AM | Harrison Weber Blogging platform Tumblr is eyeing new monetization strategies post acquisition, according to product VP Derek Gottfrid.