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that drew
drew olanoff is a geek. he beat cancer...by blaming it. also brained up "Social Good", Gmail4Troops, BlogAbroad, and other stuffs.
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Tweets
- Microsoft's Cheap Shot At The iPad Actually Points Out Exactly Why Windows 8 Tabs Suck http://t.co/aV4NmMyi3s via @techcrunch
- RT @KIRO7Seattle: RT @gina_svh: North end of I-5 bridge over #Skagit River collapsed http://t.co/m6MLU2XFi7
- And... I'm sick. Ack.
- RT @big_ben_clock: BONGMay 23, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- I'm at AOL @TechCrunch HQ (San Francisco, CA) http://t.co/6Ia91RDxdt
- OH "Fix your shit."May 23, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Report: Google Could Soon Face New FTC Antitrust Probe Into Its Display Ads Business http://t.co/UymKPD49Sl via @techcrunch
- the parse folks are still filling out paperwork. way to rally for a whiteboard, really smart stuff.May 23, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- RT @ryanlawler: Ex-Googler Ben Ling Brings His Operations Experience To Khosla Ventures http://t.co/FTR36loiaz via @techcrunch
- RT @stevel: I like to think this was due to my kite flying shenanigans this weekend. http://t.co/SLvieJBbsq
- I'm at Facebook MPK 15 (Menlo Park, CA) http://t.co/vyCHP93F4V
- I'm at @Facebook HQ (Menlo Park, CA) w/ 9 others http://t.co/IGEWtR7AE5
- RT @LIVESTRONG: A challenge for today: Think about a time when you overcame something truly difficult. Share your experience in 3 words. #F…
- RT @Techmeme: Twitter Launches TV Ad Targeting And Twitter Amplify For Real-Time Videos In Stream … http://t.co/X5uMnl32le http://t.co/YM0J…
- @didierh dude.
- RT @ripemp: This is amazing. BearCrunch. RT @ryanlawler So this happened. RT @elinblesener: Only at TC http://t.co/16vpxnq1Im cc: @ripempMay 22, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- RT @mager: She said yes!!! http://t.co/PT4Pt6RjiCMay 22, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- RT @JoshConstine: Kim Dotcom Claims He Invented Two-Factor Authentication, Has A Patent To Prove It http://t.co/mouRjk5TOZ the court jester…May 22, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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Posts
New Tumblr is nice on android.
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Info
- Summary
My name is Drew Olanoff, and I have over 10 years of marketing, PR, customer service and support, relationship building and management, product management, and technical support experience in multiple verticals. Online, including mobile.
I coined the phrase "Social Good" for online charitable movements, and invented the online "donation by action" charity model. I founded #BlameDrewsCancer
I pride myself on being a connector. Connecting people, stories, information. I have worked under some amazingly talented and gifted PR pros while working for startups as a "Director of Community", "Community Manager" and "Technology Evangelist". I have the knack of working stories both mainstream as well as online. Bridging that gap is my passion.
I am a leader AND a team player, and strive for nothing short of success. My life motto is "failure is not an option".
Specialties: podcasting, videoblogging ,blogging, community management, social networking, technology evangelist, tech, technology, marketing, pr, outreach, customer service, social media, product development, UI, UX, mobile, user acquisition, technology trendsExperience- Sept 2012 - PresentCommunity Director / TechCrunch
- May 2009 - PresentFounder / BlameDrewsCancer.com
During my personal fight with Hodgkins Lymphoma, I created a website that leveraged tweets to raise money for charity. During my treatment, I was able to:
- Participated in official LIVESTRONG events as a Global Envoy
- Appeared on both national and local news (CNN, Fox Philadelphia) to talk about our mission
- Held a 24 hour livestreamed marathon to raise money for LIVESTRONG
- Worked with Drew Carey to raise money by auctioning off the Twitter handle @drew
Additional Information-
Websites:
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Interests:travel, music, creativity, technology, gadgets, games, management, training, mentoring, leading, new media
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Tweets
- Moneyball got robbed. So gonna kick that artsy fartsy dog's ass.
- Happy anniversary @thatdrew and @Melbellie. I promise I won't tell anyone who my favorite is. If it makes you feel any better, it's close.
- Running for president.
- I'm thankful for whipped cream from @starbucks. Oh and for @Melbellie @thatdrew too. And @adrianbellie I guess.
- @Alyssa_Milano right back atcha! <3
- I'm dog tired. Long flight. But I got some bacon!
- Why does @Melbellie and @thatdrew get to pick pumpkins? I like pumpkins. Jerks.
- Sorry @thatdrew. I'm so damn cute, I make everyone want to talk to you. If it helps any, they're dumb.
- I get to fly and see @Melbellie tomorrow. Not a happy visit though :(
- Both of my parents work from home. This sucks. Can't even lick my junk in privacy anymore. I need a break. #rufflife
- Fan of @bifnaked's music even though I don't understand the words. Well, I don't understand ANY persons words really.
- I want to move to Ohio.
- Where the frig am I. What is this Ohio????
- you should feel how soft I am right now.
- sometimesmytweetsdonthavespacescuzigotnothumbs.
- oh and don't forget to do number one AND number two, even if the ground is wet. #hurricaneirene #wooftip
- to all of my furry friends out there on the right coast, please stay safe and take care of your people #hurricaneirene #woof
- come home @adrianbellie :(
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Posts
- Viki expands its music video collection, bringing Universal Music’s full catalogue to Southeast AsiaMay 23, 13
Exactly one year (to the day) after it began offering music content, global video streaming site Viki has announced a deal with Universal Music that will see it offer the label’s entire worldwide music video collection in South Korea and nine markets in Southeast Asia.
Viki made its debut streaming movie and TV shows from a diverse range of countries and global broadcasters, including NBCU. It makes the content accessible to global audiences thanks to its unique, crowdsourced translations, which are managed and translated entirely by its community.
Last year, the Singapore-based company landed deals to stream music videos from Warner Music, SEED Music Group of Taiwan and Korea’s LOEN worldwide. Now, users in South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, The Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam will gain access to 7,500 music videos from Universal Music’s global roster. That includes US artists like Jay-Z, Ne-Yo and Lady Gaga, as well as those from Korea, other parts of Asia and worldwide.
Razmig Hovaghimian, CEO and co-founder of Viki, tells TNW that the move to expand its music catalogue makes perfect sense since it “cross-pollinated” its TV and movie content in many markets, such as Korea, where a number of music artists also act or appear in TV shows. Not to mention that it will bring music videos from truly global stars in a number of markets in Asia that are not served by streaming services.
Hovaghimian says Viki in the process of introducing new content to its global markets after it took time to review and analyse how its content was being consumed. Interestingly, he says that there are some unusual patterns emerging, for example Korean dramas are particularly popular in Saudi Arabia — thanks to the subtitles — while Bollywood is popular worldwide.
That opportunity to search new audience segments that, without Viki’s subtitles, would struggle to consume content in their native language is attractive for music companies, which can broaden their reach using the service.
That’s the message from Loo Yew Ming, VP of Digital & Business Development in Southeast Asia for Universal Music Group International, who comments thusly:
We see a lot of potential in Asia and Viki offers an interesting and innovative way for our artists to engage fans who don’t speak their language. At the same time, translations help fans discover new music from artists they’ve never connected with before.
Hovaghimian also reveals that mobile is becoming a prominent platform for Viki, with video consumption from phones and tablets overtaking that of desktops in a number if markets, including Singapore.
That is, he says, in part due to a deal that sees the Viki service bundle on the Samsung Galaxy S4. For now, that deal is operative in Singapore only, but Viki is in talks to expand it to other “significant markets”, Hovaghimian explains.
Viki fans in the selected countries can access the following initial 10 channels as of now, the remainder of Universal Music’s collection will follow very soon:
Headline image via piitaaraq / Flickr
- May 23, 13
Google on Thursday announced Gmail users will soon be able to see relevant emails, Google Drive files, Calendar events, and so on as they type out a query. The search feature is rolling out to US English users “over the coming week.”
For many months now, Google has been running a trial of the feature for those users who specifically chose to opt-in. The company has now apparently deemed the test a success, and is thus ready to push it out, at least in its home country.
Here’s how it looks (notice that the query hasn’t been typed in completely and results are already popping up):
As you can see, results in the Google search box feature not only the usual email messages, but also information that Google considers to be relevant, as well as content from other Google services. We can presume that the company will continue to expand the list beyond just Google Calendar and Google Drive.
This is part of Google’s broader plan to unify all its services under one search roof. Gmail is arguably the company’s most popular product, so it makes sense to start there.
Sagar Kamdar, Director of Product Management, Universal Search at Google, in August discussed this vision under what he referred to as “Universal Search.” He noted email is a natural extension for the company, saying that “Gmail is almost larger than our web corpus and it continues to grow.”
One day, it’s easy to imagine being able to search in Google on your Android phone and see everything from your emails to files to photos show up, regardless of where they’re stored. This will naturally only work if you’re signed in with a Google account, a practice which of course the company wants to make a habit so it can track you everywhere and serve you all the more relevant ads.
See also – Google lets you add Calendar events directly from Gmail by clicking on a date and time, English-only for now and Gmail is getting quick action buttons that let you RSVP to events, rate restaurants, view flights, and more
Top Image Credit: AFP/Getty Images
- May 23, 13
Microsoft has clarified that the next iteration of Kinect, the motion tracking peripheral unveiled alongside the Xbox One earlier this week, will be coming to Windows next year. We had previously known that the device would eventually be supported by Windows, but didn’t know when.
Unfortunately, Microsoft is keeping quiet in regards to how developers will actually be able to take advantage of the new Kinect; the firm simply stated that it will share more details at its BUILD conference next month.
Microsoft did share a number of potential use cases with us, however. The company highlighted how Kinect for Windows could be used in particular for “interactive displays in retail environments,” rehabilitation and fitness applications, as well as education and training software.
The company clarified that the existing Kinect sensor serves retail environments well, but that HD video will “make this a lot better,” especially for augmented reality displays. Microsoft also shared that the rehabilitation and fitness use case is “most exciting for us.” The company stated that the “need for extremely high precision human tracking is critical,” and the next generation Kinect features a whole new level of fidelity to make this possible.
New Kinect, new
The new Kinect offers an ultra wide-angle 1080p HD depth camera, which should offer professional recordings and video calls for apps such as Skype, as well as improve its sensitivity and practicality in small living rooms.
The device captures RGB color video at around 30 frames per second and comes with a few interesting parlor tricks, such as the ability to monitor the user’s heart rate. Kinect has always been an input device for the Xbox first and foremost, but it’s a fairly unique piece of hardware that has also attracted the attention of the modding community.
Who knows what Microsoft has planned this time around. Perhaps it will simply sell the peripheral separately and let developers do as they please, as before. Or, there’s a chance that the company will integrate it somehow with Windows 8, introducing a new user interface similar to Leap Motion.
We’ll just have to wait and see.
- May 23, 13
A new piece of Android malware has been discovered that can intercept your incoming text messages and forward them on to criminals. Once installed, the trojan can be used to steal sensitive messages for blackmailing purposes or more directly, codes which are used to confirm online banking transactions.
The malware in question, detected as “Android.Pincer.2.origin” by Russian security firm Doctor Web, is the second iteration of the Android.Pincer family according to the company. Both threats spread as security certificates, meaning they must be deliberately installed onto an Android device by a careless user.
Upon launching Android.Pincer.2.origin, the user will see a fake notification about the certificate’s successful installation but after that, the trojan will not perform any noticeable activities for a while. Here are a few screenshots:
The malware is loaded at startup via CheckCommandServices, a service that runs silently in the background (right-most screenshot above). It will then connect to a remote server and send over the following information about the mobile device to those behind the attack: handset model, device’s serial number, IMEI, carrier, cell phone number, default system language, operating system, and availability of the root account.
The threat then awaits instructions that contain commands in the following format: command:[command]. Doctor Web has found criminals can send the following instructions to the trojan:
- start_sms_forwarding [telephone number]— begin intercepting communications from a specified number
- stop_sms_forwarding — stop intercepting messages
- send_sms [phone number and text] — send a short message using the specified parameters
- simple_execute_ussd — send a USSD message
- stop_program—stop working
- show_message—display a message on the screen of the mobile device
- set_urls – change the address of the control server
- ping – send an SMS containing the text ‘pong’ to a previously specified number
- set_sms_number—change the number to which messages containing the text string ‘pong’ are sent.
The first one allows attackers to indicate the number from which the trojan should intercept messages, meaning this can be used for targeted attacks to steal specific messages. The third one from the bottom shows the criminals have planned for changing servers in case they believe the current one will be shut down.
Although Doctor Web doesn’t say so, the good news here is that Pincer2 is not likely to be very prevalent. It has not been found on Google Play, where most Android users should be getting their apps, and appears to be meant for precise attacks, as opposed to being aimed at as many users as possible.
In short, this malware threat isn’t one that you will likely be hit with, but it is an interesting example of how Android malware is evolving. Our advice is the same as always: only install apps that you know are safe.
Top Image Credit: Flavio Takemoto
- May 23, 13
Evernote has added customizable reminders, one of the company’s most highly requested features, to its popular note-taking app on Mac, iOS and the Web today.
Users will now see a small alarm clock with a tick symbol above each note. Clicking or tapping it once will initiate a new reminder, which can even be static – simply notifying users that it still hasn’t been completed – or scheduled for a particular date and time.
Evernote offers some common deadlines by default, such as tomorrow or in a week, but there’s also a compact calendar for more precise scheduling. Selecting a specific day will trigger another field above, where users can set a specific time to be notified about the note.
While using Evernote, users can also clear the reminder, or just mark it as completed. Upon setup, users can also ask that they receive reminder emails on the day that the note is due.
Ongoing reminders are added to a separate list that sits just above the notes section in the Mac app. It’s clear, unobtrusive and doesn’t take up too much screen space, which is vital for an app like Evernote where there’s already so much information being displayed at once. Users can also click a ‘plus’ icon here to add their own custom reminders alongside a new note.
The introduction of reminders shows that Evernote is prepared to expand beyond a simple note-taking service and begin moving into the same space already occupied by calendar and to-do list apps.
In theory, the feature should streamline users’ workflow; rather than receiving a reminder in a completely different app or service, launching Evernote and then returning to the original notification to dismiss it, everything is now self-contained.
It’s not quite as simple or beautiful to look at as a dedicated service such as Clear, but it’s certainly a start. The new feature follows an update to Evernote Food on iOS earlier this month, which added improved Foursquare integration and new recipe partners.
The company has also teamed up with Korea-based Kakao to integrate its note taking service in Kakao Talk, a cross-platform messaging app with more than 90 million registered users.
Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service.
Image Credit: Joern Pollex/Getty Images
- May 23, 13
The HTC First, the only smartphone to come pre-installed with Facebook Home, is no longer coming to the United Kingdom.
At least not right now, anyway.
The device was originally set to launch with local network operators EE and Orange this summer, but Facebook has reportedly decided to cancel all pre-orders and shipments until further notice, due to “customer feedback” following its availability in the United States.
“Following customer feedback, Facebook has decided to focus on adding new customization features to Facebook Home over the coming months,” a statement sent to Engadget by EE reads. ”While they are working to make a better Facebook Home experience, they have recommended holding off launching the HTC First in the United Kingdom, and so we will shortly be contacting those who registered their interest with us to let them know of this decision.”
It continues: “Rest assured, we remain committed to bringing our customers the latest mobile experiences, and we will continue to build on our strong relationship with Facebook so as to offer customers new opportunities in the future.”
It’s a huge blow for Facebook Home. The service, which combines an interactive lockscreen experience with its new cross-platform Chat Heads messaging service, was met with a rather mixed reaction when it was unveiled earlier this year.
The service is available to a large number of Android users to install as a custom app launcher, but it doesn’t come with all of the functionality found on the HTC First. This is because the hardware was designed from the ground-up to take advantage of the software, thereby allowing Facebook to dive a little deeper into the Android operating system.
There have been rumors that the HTC First isn’t selling very well in the United States, but this hasn’t been confirmed with any concrete sales figures. Regardless, the statement from EE shows that at least in Facebook’s eyes, the dedicated smartphone isn’t ready to be sold to the British public.
“We’ve listened to feedback from users on their experience using Home. While many people love it, we’ve heard a lot of great feedback about how to make Home substantially better,” a spokesperson for Facebook told The Verge.
“As a result we’re focusing the next few months on adding customization features that address the feedback we received. While we focus on making Home better, we are going to limit supporting new devices and think it makes a lot of sense for EE and Orange to hold off deploying the HTC First in Europe.”
By putting the breaks on a wider release, Facebook will give itself some time to improve Facebook Home and fix any glaring problems. It’s a sensible move, given that it’s vital both HTC and Facebook make a good first impression with new users.
- May 23, 13
Nextdoor, a private social networks for neighborhoods, has launched an iOS app for its service. In doing so, the company is giving the 12,000-plus communities that are currently on the service more flexibility and options.
Previously only available through the browser, Nextdoor has been growing quite rapidly since its founding. According to the company, in its first year, it had signed up residents in 176 neighborhoods across 26 states in the US. In February, there were more than 8,000 in all 50 states. Now, it is available in more than 12,600 neighborhoods. The five cities where Nextdoor is used the most are San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, San Diego, and Dallas.
A mobile app had been one of the most popular requests from users, CEO and co-founder Nirav Tolia told TNW. Indeed, already 30 percent of traffic comes from mobile devices, which Tolia says, is proof enough of the need for a native app.
Nextdoor functions as a way for people to reconnect with their neighbors. Perhaps akin to a virtual neighborhood watch program, residents can sign up and share their experiences, problems, and advice with those that live right down the street from them. Each user is limited to interacting with those in their legally defined neighborhood, which makes sense because those people share a common bond with that area and are most affected by things that happen there.
Fundamentally, Nextdoor’s iOS app is its Web version optimized for the mobile device in a way that users are accustomed to using it. It has a clean design and performs all the same functions as its browser counterpart. Users can share updates about what’s happening in their neighborhood right from within the app while also posting photos using the device’s camera.
The app also comes with notifications and real-time alerts. These alerts are useful in times of emergency, whether it’s dangerous weather, police advisories, or something really important. When one is sent, it is delivered both as a notification and by SMS to ensure that it is seen.
Cities can also pair their law enforcement agencies with Nextdoor to share important information — cities like San Diego and Dallas already have done so.
While the 12,600 neighborhoods Nextdoor extols is a fascinating statistic, what the company won’t reveal is the number of actual users. After all, if a neighborhood has signed up, how many people within the community are actually using it. All the company well say is that there are “hundreds of thousands” of users.
So what’s next after releasing its iOS app? Tolia says his company will release an Android app.
What’s more, Nextdoor is looking to grow its business internationally later this year. We’re told that English-speaking countries will be targeted first, including Canada, South Africa, and the UK.
In 2014, more countries will be added like Brazil, Japan, and Singapore. Many of these countries are ones where there is a lot of citizen demand or the government is heavily interested in implementing the service.
Nextdoor has raised $40.2 million in funding from Benchmark Capital, Greylock Partners, Shasta Ventures, and Bezos Expeditions, with $18.6 million from its Series A in 2012 and $21.6 million coming from its Series B last February.
Photo credit: Thinkstock
Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service.
- May 23, 13
Today Mailbox, the quite popular email client that landed first on iPhone, announced the release of an iPad version of its app.
The move is hardly surprising, but it does continue the Mailbox story, one that saw the firm launch to mass impact, and then exit to Dropbox for a reportedly nine-figure sum.
TNW met with Mailbox at its new home in the Dropbox offices – try the bacon, it’s excellent – to see the new app. What will become immediately apparent to you provided that you are familiar with the iPhone version of the service is that the iPad build is remarkably similar.
For reference, here’s Mailbox on your phone:
And here is the iPad application:
It’s the same app, with a reading screen appended to the right side. Other visual effects present in the iPhone version persist in the iPad edition, such as swiping to sort emails, and the color scheme.
Frankly, it’s a great move. The core reason that Mailbox took off as it did was that its design, and user experience were incredible. Those success are repeated in the iPad app by not changing them. In testing, it takes under a minute to become fully comfortable on the new app if you are already a Mailbox user.
It is in fact so stripped down, that you cannot use it in any view but landscape. I suspect the app will be both well received, and highly used.
Mailbox: What’s Next
While I had their ear, I walked with Mailbox’s co-founder Gentry Underwood about its future plans, current growth, and the move to Dropbox. Regarding when it will arrive on the Android platform, the company demurred to comment, stating that it doesn’t comment on release schedules. Though the line was delivered with a knowing smile; they have heard that question before.
How has growth been since it was acquired? The service says that it is “excited” by the rate that new people are singing up, and by “the frequency that they stick around.” No hard numbers, however, it will share.
The reason is actually somewhat interesting: Underwood told me that it doesn’t want to get into a position in which it is optimizing for user numbers, and not user experience. The company, instead of trumpeting user levels, merely wants to “build a great user experience,” and then “get that to as many people as possible.”
If you are a fan of priority inbox, or Gmail’s labels, the company knows that you want that support inside of its product. When? No comment. Underwood did inform me that it is not complete; more, at some point, is coming.
How well has Mailbox fit into the Dropbox family? The fair analogy it seems is that Mailbox fits inside of Dropbox as Instagram has slotted into Facebook. Not too much product pressure, but instead a focus on keeping up what made the service so popular to begin with.
In Underwood’s words, both Dropbox and Mailbox both want to “take the friction out of work.”
Finally, and just for fun: Mailbox brought a mere 14 people to Dropbox. It’s core team is now 16. Now you know.
Top Image Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
- May 23, 13
Red hot payments startup Square is invading Asia after it announced that its service has launched in Japan, which becomes its third market worldwide in addition to the US and Canada.
The company — which counts Starbucks among its investors — will be supported by Sumitomo Mitsui Card Corporation, the same firm that co-launched Visa in the country. Square has long been linked with a launch in Japan (TNW has heard whispers of an early-stage recruitment drive and domain name acquisition since December 2012) and the expansion makes a lot of sense given the relative maturity of mobile payments among consumers in the country.
The Japanese service will be the same as in North America, taking a 3.25 percent of the cut of transactions across its platform with no contract or additional fees.
Square is by no means the first overseas firm to launch a payment solution in Japan. Arch-rival PayPal partnered with SoftBank back in 2011, creating a joint venture to manage its PayPal Here service, while a range of domestic players, including local e-commerce giant Rakuten, are involved in the space.
Jack Dorsey, Square CEO and co-founder, has had much success in Japan already with Twitter, and he’s optimistic on continuing that with his other startup:
I am honored to introduce Square to a country with a rich history of design, innovation and tradition. Square shares the same values and attention to detail in our products. Our tools are made to enable business owners to create a delightful, seamless experience for their customers. I look forward to Square assisting in Japan’s continued economic growth and entrepreneurship opportunities.
The timing of the news is particularly interesting since it comes off the back of news of the departure of Vice President of Partnerships Alex Petrov and Vice President of International Alyssa Cutright which was revealed yesterday.
Cutright, who departed in March, had been responsible for the company’s first international expansion into Canada. The dismissal of Petrov was more bewildering since he was hired from PayPal at the beginning of May, and left without actually starting at Square.
Square’s absence from Europe is all the more marked following its entrance into Asia, but that hasn’t stopped the local payments in Europe scene from blossoming. Startups like Rocket Internet-backed Payleven, Sweden’s iZettle and SumUp in Germany have raised significant funding, introduced requisite Chip & PIN solutions and are expanding across the continent at pace.
Ever the advocate of his companies’ services, Dorsey — who earlier teased a significant news announcement via Twitter — posted a Vine to mark the occasion.
- May 23, 13
As the global PC market continues to spiral downwards, Lenovo, the world’s second-largest PC maker after HP, has reported solid earnings for its fourth fiscal quarter and full-year ended March 31, 2013.
The Chinese multinational is in fact boasting that, “despite a challenging macro-economic environment and ongoing PC industry transformation”, it has reached a record 15.5 percent PC market share for the full year.
All in all, it has shipped 52.4 million PCs during the year.
That has translated in record annual sales of $34 billion for the fiscal year, and $635 million in income after taxes (up 34 percent year-over-year).
It also reported an estimate-beating 90 percent rise in quarterly profit.
Notably, the company says in a statement that it will “enhance the profitability” of its core PC business but look to smart devices (tablets and smartphones) and enterprise hardware for future growth.
Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo Chairman and CEO, notes:
“Not only were we the fastest growing among all major PC players, with record market share, revenue and profitability, more importantly, our smartphone and tablet businesses saw dramatic growth.
In fact, smartphone shipments were 3.7 times greater than last year globally and we are now number two in the China smartphone market. This has laid a solid foundation for the successful transformation of Lenovo into a PC Plus leader.”
Also read:
As expected, Dell reports miserable $0.21 per share profit on revenue of $14.1B in Q1
Hewlett-Packard misses street on low PC sales with Q2 revenue of $27.6B and $0.87 EPS
Image credit: DIBYANGSHU SARKAR for AFP / Getty Images
- May 23, 13
KakaoHome, the Facebook Home-style Android application from Korea’s top messaging company Kakao, is seeing impressive uptake after passing 500,000 downloads nine days after its launch last week. That’s actually quicker than the 10 days it took Facebook Home to reach the same number.
The milestone — listed on its Google Play page – is pretty impressive considering it is only available in Korea, and it follows a jump in downloads after the app was promoted via the Kakao Talk and Kakao Story apps this week. KakaoHome adopts a Facebook Home style approach, giving users more visible notifications, quick replies, various Kakao-branded widgets and a deeper integration than the regular chat app offers.
The Kakao Talk service has 90 million registered users worldwide, but it remains strongest in Korea. There, the company says it is installed on more than 90 percent of smartphones, of which 90 percent are Android-powered. That’s pretty solid ground for an Android launcher and early adopters seem pleased; the app has an average rating of 4.1, a vast improvement on Facebook Home’s current score of 2.3.
As is the case with Facebook Home, it is not clear just how many of those who downloaded the Kakao app are regular users.
The service is available for all smartphones in Korea that run Android 4.0 or upwards, which has helped it overcome the device support issues Facebook has run into. Nonetheless, the world’s biggest social network says that Home — which is now past 1 million downloads — has boosted the engagement of users by 25 percent on average.
Kakao is aiming to increase its international standing, having inked a deal with Evernote, but global users shouldn’t expect to see KakaoHome in their markets for some time. Last week, the firm told TNW it has no initial plans to launch it outside of Korea.
While the two services are coming from different angles — one is worldwide but limited to certain devices, the other limited to one market but open to numerous devices — KakaoHome’s quicker adoption is likely a greater indicator of Facebook Home’s early issues. With wider support for devices under its belt, Facebook will hope downloads will pick up.
Headline image via TNW, screenshot via The Verge
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- May 23, 13
AngelPad, the San Francisco-based accelerator founded by former Googler Thomas Korte, held its sixth demo day yesterday. I wasn’t there (I know, it’s super-embarrassing), but I did get to meet with Korte and partner Carine Magescas today to talk about the newest batch of companies.
Magescas said that in the three years since AngelPad was founded, “the premise of what we had in the beginning has been validated.” That premise breaks down to three main ideas, she said. First, she and Korte “push [the startups] really hard.” That’s particularly important in the company’s early stages, Korte said, because it can be hard for the founders to get honest feedback from their family and friends, and because making a relatively small change can have a big effect on a startup’s ultimate trajectory.
Another reason the partners might be particularly tough on the startups is because they’re investing their own money. There’s no separate fund — at least not yet. (When I asked, Korte said, “There hasn’t been a fund to date,” followed by what may or may not have been a significant pause.)
Second, Magescas said, “We are a really small family.” Twelve startups were chosen from thousands of applicants. The first AngelPad group had eight companies, and there was one with 15, but they’ve settled on a dozen for the last few classes. That allows the AngelPad team to spend a lot of time working one-on-one with each company.
“I feel like it’s better to spend more time with less companies,” Korte said, adding that he’s realized that having a long list of well-known mentors isn’t as useful. There are outside experts who come in and give talks on a specific subject, but it really falls to Korte and Magescas to work closely with the founders. When you have too many different people offering “cookie cutter advice,” Korte said, “It hurts more than it helps.”
Third, they said AngelPad has always had a strong focus on business-to-business companies. In fact, there’s not a single consumer-focused company in the current class, according to Korte — some of them might offer consumer products as part of their business, but none of them are focused on building large-scale, free services that make money from advertising. At the same time, Magescas said they’re open to consumer startups, they just have to be “really good.”
So that’e the vision. Here are the companies, in alphabetical order:
Audience.fm uses data from existing music services to help bands and marketers reach their desired audience. For example, if a band was making a tour stop in San Francisco, Audience.fm could identify the band’s biggest fans, and they could offer free or discounted tickets.
Boxbee is a storage startup that delivers boxes to its customers. You fill the boxes with whatever you want to store, then Boxee picks up them up. It won the best new startup prize at this year’s Launch conference.
Chasm.io is a content marketing network, where influencers and brands share content that they want to see promoted. Rather than getting paid for sharing sponsored content, it’s more of a quid pro quo system, where influencers are rewarded for successful sharing with points that they can redeem to share content of their own.
DroneDeploy has built software for commercial drone operators (just to reemphasize — commercial drone operators, not military ones). The founders are former Googlers with machine
learning PhDs from Cambridge and Edinburgh. We covered the company here.Fieldwire is a mobile task management system designed for workers who are out in the field. For example, it could be used by a team of construction workers while they’re on a construction site.
HumanAPI aims to build an API for accessing all the data that’s being gathered on various health devices, sensors, and services. So instead of figuring out how to work with dozens of different devices, a medical provider could just pull data from HumanAPI.
Iterable is an email marketing startup founded former Google and Twitter engineers. Customers can test different emails and also personalize the messages to each user without any coding.
Pogoseat integrates with existing ticketing solutions and apps, allowing them to offer seat upgrades. Partners already include Ticketmaster, the Golden State Warriors, and other NBA teams.
Roobiq aims to build a layer of voice commands and natural language processing on top of existing CRM systems, so a salesperson who’s out taking meetings could update their CRM from their phone without slowing down to type.
SensorTower has built a marketing platform for mobile app developers, allowing those developers to track and improve their rankings on different search keywords.
TheShelf is a collaboration platform where fashion brands can interact with fashion bloggers. There are already 1,500 bloggers on the platform.
TrulyWireless has built an enterprise phone system that’s cheaper than traditional systems and runs entirely on smartphones.
Interested investors can find the AngelList profile of each startup here.
- May 23, 13
Video ad network Tremor Video has filed for its long-awaited public offering. The company’s shares will trade on the NYSE at TRMR and it wants to raise at least $86 million.
Tremor Video, which runs ads on more than 500 Web sites and mobile apps, disclosed in its S-1 filing that from 2011 to 2012 its revenue increased from $90.3 million to $105.2 million. During that period, its gross margin improved from 35.2% to 41.7%, due in part to the adoption of its performance-based pricing models, while its net loss decreased from $21 million to $16.6 million.
Since its founding in 2005, Tremor Video has received a total of $116 million in funding from Canaan Partners, Masthead Venture Partners, W Capital Partners, Meritech Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, General Catalyst Partners, as well as investors Jason Glickman, Mark Pinney and James Rossman. Its IPO will be underwritten by Credit Suisse and Jefferies.
Tremor Video is among several video startups that are anticipated to launch IPOs this year. Bloomberg reports that YuMe and Adap.tv have also began planning public offerings as they look forward to strong growth in the video-ad market this year thanks to a boom in online commercials.
- May 23, 13
Adly, a startup that connects advertisers with celebrities willing to post promoted messages on social networks, recently raised $2 million in additional funding.
The new funding came from previous backer GRP Partners and new investor Siemer Ventures. Adly has now raised a total of $7.5 million.
The company also launched a new product this week. It’s the first thing you’ll see if you go to the Adly website — a button that says “Match Me Up!” which allows Adly to analyze a business’ existing content and followers, then find publishers who are a good match to “amplify” their content.
For example, when I signed in with my personal Twitter account, Adly said it found six celebrity publishers who, collectively, could increase my reach 61x and my engagement 31x. They include a blogger/entrepreneur with 103,000 followers, an analyst with 180,000 followers, and a podcaster with 199,000 followers. (I also tried to analyze TechCrunch’s account, but we have too many followers.) Who are these people? Well, you don’t actually get to find out until you actually start a campaign with Adly.
Walter Delph, who became Adly’s CEO a little more than a year ago, said this is part of his larger strategy. One of Adly’s big selling points is the fact that advertisers aren’t just getting access to a lot of eyeballs. By enlisting celebrity endorsers, they’re hopefully prompting lots of conversation and engagement, i.e. reach that’s “earned” rather than paid for. The company’s next step is building more tools to ensure that the conversation and engagement is happening.
To that end, Adly has been adding analytics to track the results of each campaign — the full reach of the message, the replies, the shares and the clicks. That dashboard, however, is really about looking back at a campaign (though customers get the data in real time, so they could adjust their spending accordingly). On the other hand, Delph said the celebrity matching tool is all about looking forward — it’s a way to get people started with Adly campaigns. He added that we can expect more features to come that take advantage of the company’s “reams and reams of data.”
By the way, even though Adly is known as a celebrity endorsement network, it’s actually broader than that. The company has relationships with 75,000 influencers, and Delph estimated that only about 2,000 of them are celebrities in the traditional sense — “By celebrity, what I mean is, if you walked down the street you would recognize them.” The other 73,000 aren’t at that level, but they have influence that’s valuable to advertisers (at least when it comes to certain topics).
- May 23, 13
No longer just an oddly flavored potato chip, the Limon is also a new sexy-time vibrator from a startup called Minna. The company is looking for backers for its “couples’ vibrator”, which just so happens to look like a pink lime-lemon hybrid.
However, the Limon is no lemon or lime. It’s an ultra-powerful bullet vibrator that is controlled by how hard you squeeze it. That is, the harder you squeeze the lime part of the Limon, the harder the lemon-style tip will vibrate.
Minna claims that it’s the strongest vibrator of its type in the world, thanks to the fact that they squeezed a motor made for larger toys into a lime-sized bullet vibrator. Of course, I’m sure the Jimmyjane Form 6 or the Hitachi Magic Wand beg to differ.
The Limon also has a customizable memory, meaning that you can record and playback the vibration levels exactly how you did before.
Interesting, right?
Consider the scenario: Two lovers are chilling with their Limon and one has to go away for a week on some business trip. They can use the Limon the night before, and the lonesome lady will then have a recording of her partner giving her the good stuff. Sexy.
Minna Life – Limon Couples Vibrator from BENT LENS Productions on Vimeo.
The Limon battery will last anywhere between 90 minutes and three hours, depending on how aggressive you are. It’s waterproof, charges by USB cable and comes in both teal and pink.
Of course, we’ll have to conduct a complete review, lest we shamefully leave these claims unverified. But for now, the Limon is looking for backers so that it can be made into a reality. It’s expected to go for $120, but donations start at $25.
- May 23, 13
It’s almost impossible for the average computer to mine Bitcoins in any efficient way, hence the rise of Bitcoin mining machines so tuned to their specific purpose that they barely resemble PCs. To wit: the Cryonic Bitcoin FrostBit machine is a PC in name only and contains a liquid nitrogen generator, special ASIC chips, and a price tag that would make the Winklevii twins think twice.
“It’s the first time a ‘PC’ has been built for consumers with built-in liquid nitrogen generators. We use helium compression technology to super-cool condensers that in turn condense nitrogen air into its liquid form. There’s nothing even remotely similar available to the consumers,” said CEO of Cryoniks, Inc. Fahad Koumaiha. “By sustaining cryonic temperatures we were able to achieve superconductivity with our custom designed ASIC processors. Not only do we get a huge boost in speed, but we cut down power consumption to around 2800W per unit; significantly less than anything on the market today.”
The PC hits a peak of 2800W – the average PC hits 200W on a bad day – but the device can perform 1000 Gigahashes a second. To put that in perspective a strong PC with good graphics card can hit about 100 GH/S and in my experience I haven’t been able to get any my machines to hit higher than 50 GH/S.
What are you going to pay for this ridiculous machine? Try a cool $15,000, which, sadly, you can’t pay for in BTC.
Can this thing really pay for itself? Probably, but not immediately. There are some BTC fans who believe a $10,000 BTC isn’t too far off and if that happens the potential benefits of this machine far outweighs the cost. They are planning on shipping this monster in July so if you’re seriously into mining, it may be worth a look. Everyone else? Be satisfied with your low GH/S. It’s a cryonic, nitrogen-cooled world out there and we’re just visiting.
- May 23, 13
As great as the web is, I still haven’t been able to kick my habit for buying fashion and lifestyle magazines off the newsstand. One of the things I love the most about monthly glossies are features like Vanity Fair’s My Stuff and Us Weekly’s What’s In My Bag, in which notable people reveal the exact products that they actually buy and use (celebrity chef David Chang uses Sensodyne toothpaste and wears Levi’s jeans, FYI.) It’s just compelling to find out more about people through their stuff.
The folks at New York-based startup Vaunte think so too, and in fact, they think this kind of voyeuristic editorial approach could be the next generation of luxury e-commerce. Vaunte has created a web platform where notable people (think starlets, fashionable executives, designers, and socialites) show off the stuff in their closets — and put things up for sale. Vaunte started off as purely a consignment market that takes 30 percent commission for photographing and shipping seller’s items, but it has since expanded to also sell new versions of the items people show off.
Though Vaunte has made a splash in the fashion news space since its November 2012 launch, it has flown under the radar in the tech and business press. But now for the first time, the company is revealing a bit more on the corporate side. TechCrunch sat down this week with Gilt Groupe veteran Leah Park and engineer/entrepreneur Andy Shin, two of Vaunte’s three co-founders — the third, ex Gilt Grouper Christian Leone, was in Los Angeles working on a Vaunte photoshoot — to talk a bit more about what Vaunte is and what’s in its future (video embedded below.)
First, some numbers: Vaunte has raised $1.125 million in seed funding from Battery Ventures, Maveron, and fashion and retail mogul Christopher Burch. The company has a staff of nine, but is set to expand as it moves into a 6,000 square foot space in Manhattan that will serve as office space and inventory storage. Based on just word of mouth and a few press mentions, Vaunte has grown to 60,000 members and done more than half a million dollars in transactional revenue since launching in November.The big news going forward is that with the launch of its upcoming mobile app scheduled for this summer, Vaunte is set to open up its platform to let anyone display and sell their clothing and accessories on the site. These users will be charged less of a commission than the higher-profile sellers, since they will be responsible for taking their own photos. There is a significant amount of additional technology that Vaunte’s team had to build to make this app scalable to taking items from the general public — quality control on the photos that are taken and having to verify that luxury items are genuine, for example.
It’s an expansion that will put Vaunte in an interesting intersection in the existing e-commerce market — its competitors will now range from Net-a-Porter to The RealReal to Poshmark to Threadflip and more.
Personally, I’m excited to see what Vaunte has in store for its future. The first time I opened the site this week, I had one thought: “Uh oh. I am going to spend so much money here.” I’d imagine that I’m not alone.
Park and Shin stopped by the TechCrunch TV studio to discuss Vaunte’s vision and give us an early look at the new mobile experience. Check it all out below:
- May 23, 13
Bloomberg today reports that Google could face a new U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) antitrust probe into its display advertising business. As Bloomberg’s Brian Womack and Sara Forden note, the FCC is looking into whether Google used its strong position in this market to “illegally curb competition.” The investigators, the report also notes, want to see if Google used its display ads business to “push companies to use more of its other services.”
We reached out to Google for a statement about this new investigation but Google did not have a comment on the report.
As Bloomberg notes, the FCC investigation – assuming it will go forward – will likely focus on whether Google used its dominance in the display ad business to “squeeze out competitors in the display advertising market.”
Google’s ad revenue from display ads was about $2.26 billion in 2012 and, according to a report by eMarketer, could hit $3.11 billion this year. According to the same report, Google currently owns about 17.6 percent of the display ad market, followed by Facebook and Yahoo.
Google and the FTC are, of course, old acquaintances. The two have sparred pretty regularly over the last few years, and just this January, the FTC settled its latest antitrust probe with Google after a 20-month investigation. Google, at the time, agreed to make some voluntary changes, including how it handles its AdWords campaigns.
Google also still faces a similar investigation in Europe, where it recently proposed to settle the European Commission’s investigation into its business practices. A number of other countries, including Canada, are also currently looking into the search giant’s business practices.
- May 23, 13
Features:
- Ships with Windows 8 64-bit
- 13.3-inch display running at 2560 x 1440 (221ppi)
- 256GB SSD
- 2GHz Intel Core i7-3537U Processor
- 8GB of RAM
- MSRP: Starts at $1,599, model reviewed costs $1,999
Pros:
- An incredibly high-res display for a Windows laptop
- 2 years of free premium support
- Respectable battery life
Cons:
- No discrete graphics card
- Man, this thing is expensive
Eye Candy Meets Horsepower
Toshiba isn’t exactly known for churning out attractive, high-end notebooks, which is why the company’s new Kirabook is such an oddity. It’s a handsome little thing if you’re into very (and I mean very) understated designs, though I imagine at least a few people will think the Kirabook looks downright dull.
The Kirabook is wedge-shaped like many of its other ultrabook brethren but it’s thankfully very light on branding (save for a small, chrome-esque Toshiba logo slapped on a corner of the Kirabook’s lid), and a finish that comes as a result of the magnesium alloy chassis is nice enough. Sadly, that magnesium frame doesn’t mean the Kirabook is immune to scratches, something I quickly learned after stowing the thing in a checked bag while flying to Austin.
It’s got a respectable spate of ports for an ultraportable too: AC power aside, there are a total of three USB 3.0 ports plus an HDMI out, a headphone jack, and a full-size SD card reader.
If anything, the real eye-catcher here is that sumptuous screen. The Kirabook plays home to a 13.3-inch display running at 2,560 x 1,440 (that makes for a pixel density of 221ppi), and Toshiba likes to crow about it being the highest resolution display available on a Windows notebook. Credit where credit is due, that display is one of the Kirabook’s most notable high points: colors are generally vivid and bright, and the panel seems hardy enough to handle even the most frenzied touch inputs. That’s not to say it’s without its shortcomings though. There’s a bit of light leakage around the edge of the display panel and viewing angles aren’t the greatest — looking at the thing dead-on is pleasant enough, but there’s a bit of color distortion to be seen once you start moving around.
But there’s one big problem when it comes to the display, and it has nothing to do with the panel itself. I won’t belabor the point too much — by now you’ve probably already made up your mind about Microsoft’s divisive OS — but the biggest disappointment is that Windows 8 and the apps that run on it just aren’t completely tuned for these HiDPI screens yet. Cruising through the touch-friendly start screen is a visual pleasure, as is firing up apps like Internet Explorer, Maps, Vimeo, and Netflix since they all thrive on these sorts of displays. Jumping into the desktop is another world entirely, and it’s full of applications and menus that appear blurry and ill-suited for such a neat display. What a bummer.
When it comes to performance, the Kirabook manages to hold its own very nicely. We like running Geekbench around these parts, and on average the Kirabook scored between 7500 and 8000 when it came to running 64-bit benchmarks: very solid numbers, and there wasn’t anything that came up during my day-to-day use that managed to flummox the little guy. That is, except for gaming — the lack of a discrete GPU in a $2000 machine is concerning, and the integrated Intel HD 4000 plus the need to push a crazy number of pixels means that there will be very little Bioshock Infinite running on the Kirabook unless you dramatically crank down the quality.
Speaking of day-to-day use, the Kirabook has more than enough juice to get you through the day. I’ve been toting the 2.9 pound notebook around for the better part of a week, and I’ve consistently been able to camp out in coffee shops and keep the Kirabook going for just over six hours.
There’s little question that the Kirabook is actually a pretty speedy little bugger, but there is a caveat. The downside to all that power is that the tiny fan nestled on the Kirabook’s bum will fire up after even slight provocation, and it’s just loud enough to be grating if you decide to do anything processor-intensive for a while. If you work in environments with plenty of ambient noise it may not be much of a problem, but be warned — those of you who like to work in quiet, zen-like tranquility will probably get pretty miffed.
I haven’t fiddled with many of Toshiba’s older laptop keyboards, but the consensus seems to be that they were largely rubbish. Keyboard snobs may just turn up their noses after a few moments with the Kirabook’s 6 row affair, but despite the fact that the keys feel a bit small I found that using it to peck out posts and emails wasn’t too bad at all after a break-in period. Sad to say, the trackpad was a completely different story.
See, the trackpad occasionally seems to forget what it’s capable of — I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been able to two-finger scroll in Chrome using the trackpad before the Kirabook suddenly stops accepting multi-finger inputs. This may not seem like a big deal to some of you (especially since the Kirabook sports a highly responsive, glass-covered touchscreen) but it’s tremendously frustrating to discover what worked 5 seconds ago doesn’t work any more for no apparent reason.
The elephant in the room here is the price tag that’s attached to this highly portable package — the configuration I’ve been spending time with will set you back a cool $1,999. Toshiba has tried to temper the sticker shock by loading the Kirabook up with full versions of Photoshop Elements and Norton Internet Security (ugh), not to mention two years worth of premium support from a dedicated team of Kirabook specialists all within the United States, but the price differential will probably be enough to make some would-be ultrabook purchasers balk.
Who is it for?
Designers
No. If you’re an artist looking to get some work done, I suspect the blurry, pixelated text and images that result from mixing a hi-res screen and applications that aren’t really ready for it may be enough to get you running for the hills.
On the plus side, Photoshop makes full use of what limited screen real estate the Kirabook affords you and it’s easy enough to get into the swing of things… if you’re willing to squint, that is. Hooking the Kirabook up to an external monitor helps quite a bit, but the sketchy trackpad means you’ll definitely need other peripherals to chip in too.
Founders
No. If you’re a founder looking for a smart way to spend your newly-raised seed funds, you’d probably do well to stay away from the Kirabook. That’s not to say it’s a bad computer, but the crucial bang-for-the-buck factor is notably absent here. The most basic touchscreen-laden Kirabook retails for $1,699, or $100 more than an a higher-end 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro. That’s not an insignificant premium to pay when the Kirabook is marred by a few prominent issues. And sure, you can pick out a slightly less expensive version that eschews the touchscreen, but then there’s really no point in Kirabook in the first place.
Programmers
Maybe? 13.3 inches may seem a little cramped for coding, but that multitude of pixels means that you’ve got plenty of real estate for crafting apps and tapping into APIs. Arguably the price tag is still too steep if all you’re looking for is a machine to run Visual Studio, Android Studio, or good ol’ Notepad++, but there’s nothing here that would immediately disqualify the Kirabook from being a coder’s companion.Bottom Line
You know, for all of the little things Toshiba either got wrong or didn’t execute that well, I still actually really like the Kirabook. The company took a shot on something different, and even though this first iteration isn’t exactly a home run, it has made me rethink the prospect of spending my own money on a Toshiba computer.
Once the Kirabook drops in price (which shouldn’t take long since Intel’s new Haswell chips are barreling down the pipeline), Toshiba’s nifty premium ultrabook may find the success it deserves. For now though, it’s just too pricey and too unpolished for anyone but the biggest Toshiba die-hards to splurge on — here’s hoping that Toshiba manages to firm up the formula when it comes time to whip up the Kirabook 2.
- May 23, 13
Features:
- Convertible laptop
- 13-inch touchscreen
- Up To 128 GB SSD
- Intel Core i5 Processor
- MSRP: $999
Pros:
- Slim form factor works as a tablet and a laptop
- Nice design
- 10-finger multi-touch
Cons:
- Mushy keys
- Accelerator sensing can be frustrating
- Underpowered for the price point
Twist And Shout
Convertibles were all the rage back in the 1950s (thanks to tailfins and the Corvette) and in the early 2000s (thanks to Microsoft and Sony). In the 2000s, however, we saw convertibles in the form of laptops that could twist and turn themselves into tablets. The result, usually, was a not-very-good-laptop folded into a not-very-good tablet.
That’s what makes the Yoga special. This 13-inch laptop is as plain as can be – it has just two USB ports and an SD card slot – but becomes much more usable when you realize the various configurations you can bend it into. For example, as a laptop the screen stays straight up and there is a small central Windows button that you can either press or ignore under the screen bezel. You can also fold the laptop in half along one edge, essentially tuning off the keyboard and making the screen one big tablet. Finally, you can fold the Yoga into a tent, allowing you some modicum of control over the laptop via the keyboard or allowing you and another user to view the screen head-on.
To be fair, the “folding” features are more of a gimmick than anything else. The vast majority of the time you’ll be using this in either standard laptop mode or tablet mode. However, unlike the Microsoft Surface, you don’t have to worry about the screen flopping over at inopportune moments, which is a huge plus.
The Yoga can be rightly termed the perfect Windows 8 machine. Touchscreen access was surprisingly smooth and responsive but it wasn’t mandatory. This is a handsome, cleverly designed laptop that works as both a keyboard-based and touch device. Performance-wise, however, you’re going to take a bit of a hit on this device when compared to similar i5 devices.They Yoga 13 hit a Geekbench score of 4,664, which is low. The i5 MacBook Air, for example, gets about 5,000 other Core i5 laptops can hover at about 8,000 depending on the machine. The laptop lasted for 5 hours of standard use. The Core i5 in this model was enough for most work thrown at it but it’s still considerably underpowered. Other users I talked to mentioned some latency issues with the trackpad although I didn’t experience them during use.
That said, I’m loath to ding the laptop on performance simply because Lenovo did something very unique with their laptop and made something that I’d actually carry. The goal of these reviews is to show some of the most unique and usable laptops available now, not the latest and greatest in terms of chipsets and processors. In terms of speeds and feeds the Yoga 13 does not shine. However, when it comes down to usability and class, the Yoga 13 is a real contender.
Who is it for?
Designers
Yes. Photographers, artists, and media types will love the big, bright screen and the unique “bendable” spine makes it easy to share the screen with multiple users or flip it over to show off a snapshot or sketch. While it’s not exactly a Wacom digitizer – you basically get a capacitive touchscreen that will respond to simpler, passive styli – this laptop is definitely something you can get a little work done on.
I would worry, however, about the limitations of the i5 processor and the on-board graphics. I wouldn’t recommend, say, rendering video or handling massive RAW files. Think of this as a showcase machine, designed to display your work after it is complete.
Founders
Yes. The Yoga is almost custom-built for salesmen and business folk. Want to get a point across? Fold this puppy up and treat it like a mini-whiteboard. Want to give a presentation? Lay it out flat like a tablet and swipe through the slides. Finally, when you have a bit of alone time and need a laptop, it’s right there and ready to go. If you’re running a Windows shop and need something that can act as both a tablet and a PC, this is probably your best bet right now. As an exploration of the Windows 8 form, this thing is great.
Programmers
No. I’m not certain that this is the right laptop for a coder. It’s definitely a cool idea but the value intrinsic in the folding hinge is lost on folks who probably need the machine to act as a primary typing device. I’d recommend looking at this thing in terms of whether or not you’d use the touch features on a daily basis and make your decision that way.
Bottom Line
The Yoga is a gimmick, to be sure. However, I think it does a good enough job at being a laptop and a tablet that the interstitial positions don’t matter as much. The Yoga 13 is everything the Surface was supposed to be and, although I do enjoy the Surface Pro, the Yoga is a superior experience.
- May 23, 13
Salesforce.com met analyst expectations for its first quarter with non-GAAP earnings per share of 10 cents. Total first quarter revenues were $893 million, an increase of 28 percent on a year-over-year basis.
Subscription and support revenues were $842 million, an increase of 29% on a year-over-year basis. Professional services and other revenues were $50 million, an increase of 25%. It had operating cash flow of $283 Million, up 33%. Salesforce also raised its 2014 fiscal year reenues to an estimaged $3.835 to $3.875 billion.
Salesforce.com is on a bit of a roll. Gartner nmed it the number one CRM platform in the world this past quarter. CEO Marc Benioff said in the earnings call that it had a record number of SAP customers moving to Salesforce.
(We will update the story as more information comes available.)
- May 23, 13
Pandora has had a busy quarter. In March, the social radio company saw its long-time CEO Joe Kennedy abruptly step down, leaving the board to scramble to find a replacement. On the bright side, Kennedy’s exit, while likely a result of stress, followed relatively good times for Pandora. And it’s continued to push forward since.
Pandora launched an ad-free version for Windows 8 in March, surpassed 200 million users (with over 140 million accessing Pandora via mobile) in April, then launched a “Premieres” station for U.S. users and deepened its Facebook integration with a new Timeline App.
Today, Pandora’s first quarter earnings reflected this flurry of activity, as the company saw GAAP total revenue increase 97 percent year-over-year to $83.9 million (with non-GAAP mobile revenue of $86.7 million), which outpaced mobile listener hour growth at 47 percent year over year. Meanwhile, total revenue came in at $125.5 million, representing 55 percent year-over-year growth and non-GAAP total revenue of $128.5 million.
What’s more, share of total U.S. Radio listening for Pandora grew to 7.33 percent in April — an increase from 5.86 percent in the same period last year.
This news followed a strong earnings report from Pandora for the fourth quarter as well, thanks chiefly to mobile revenue growth of 111 percent year-over-year (to $80.3 million), which caused the company’s stock to jump for joy.
Based on this performance, Wall Street expected the trend to (mostly) continue for Pandora in the first quarter, with forecasts pegging revenue at $123.9 million (on losses of $0.10 per share) for the quarter, compared to a loss of $0.09 per share for Q1 last year — and revenue of $123.5 in Q4. And so it did.
Of his company’s performance, Kennedy said:
Mobile listening hours and mobile ad revenue reached record highs, with growth in mobile ad revenue exceeding growth in mobile listening hours. During the quarter, we successfully implemented a mobile listening limit, enabling us to manage our content acquisition costs with minimal impact on listenership or revenue growth. Pandora’s subscriber base surpassed 2.5 million, adding more net new subscribers in the quarter than in all of fiscal 2013, giving Pandora the largest US streaming subscriber base of any music service.
It’s also interesting to note that Kennedy resigned after last quarter (as mentioned above), yet Pandora’s release today names him as Chairman and CEO. It seems either Pandora’s copy editors need more coffee or their communications team knows something we don’t. Perhaps Kennedy’s resignation (due, understandably, to heavy stress) was a bit more abrupt than intended and announced early. Although that’s not totally clear at this point.
All in all, it was a strong quarter for Pandora, with advertising revenue showing a 49 percent year-over-year increase to $105.1 million, with non-GAAP subscription and other revenue coming in at $23.4 million — a 114 percent year-over-year increase. Non-GAAP basic and diluted EPS were $0.10, right in line with Wall Street’s expectations, while the company ended the quarter with $75.4 million in cash, compared with $89 million after the prior quarter. (Cash used in operation activities came in at about $12.6 million.)
Some other notable metrics: Pandora’s total listener hours grew 35 percent to 4.18 billion for the first quarter, compared to 3.09 billion for the same quarter last year. According to Kennedy, Pandora’s mobile listening hours hit an all-time high this quarter, alongside significant growth of its subscriber base (which Kennedy claims above makes it the biggest in the U.S.).
As to guidance, non-GAAP revenue is expected to fall in the $155 million to $160 million range, while Pandora expects non-GAAP EPS to be in the range of -$0.02 and +$0.01.
- May 23, 13
Postmates is looking to expand its business and make mobile, on-demand deliveries a widespread thing throughout cities around the country — that we already know. The company has been operating in San Francisco for a while, and launched in Seattle about three months ago. But where will it land next?
All signs point to New York City.
Postmates has a mobile app that allows customers to get food from restaurants, groceries and even goods from retailers like the Apple Store or Nordstrom delivered within an hour for a low, fixed price. Thanks to a little scouring of the Internet and some clues that the company has left behind (as well as a photo from a local
hipstertipster), we have reason to believe that the Big Apple will be the next city to have delicious lunches (or anything, really) delivered with just a few clicks of the Postmates mobile app.For those of you in New York, don’t get too excited — yet. People who have downloaded the app there can’t quite use it yet, several of my
friendssources have confirmed. That said, a tipster in New York swears that he saw a Postmates-branded bike courier tooling around the city, and sent along this photo. (Thanks, Jesus!*)Anyway, if Postmates is about to launch in New York City, it shouldn’t be a huge surprise. Back when I talked to him about Seattle, Postmates CEO Bastian Lehmann had mentioned it as an ideal market for future expansion.
Oh yeah, and the startup has been trying to recruit couriers on Craigslist for about a month now. The company has also recently been looking to hire an operations manager in New York over the last few weeks.
Want more proof that an NYC launch is probably coming soon? Well, Lehmann is in New York City right now as we speak. Coincidence? We think not.
@ded No idea. I'm in New York. Want me to look into it or is someone on its way?—
Bastian Lehmann (@Basti) May 23, 2013(For what it’s worth, he hasn’t responded to our requests for comment.)
In March, Postmates announced that it had raised $5 million in funding led by Founders Fund as it looks to expand. Other investors include Crosslink Capital, Matrix Partners, SoftTech VC, AngelPad, David Wu, Thomas Korte, Naval Ravikant, Russell Cook, Russel Simmons, Walter Lee, Andy McLoughlin, Scott Banister, Paige Craig, and Jawed Karim.
==
* Tipster’s name was not actually Jesus. - May 23, 13
A new bulletin from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warns that lethal, undetectable 3D-printed firearms may be “impossible” to contain, Fox News reports After a Texas law student designed and released digital blueprints for the world’s first fully printable gun, the files have allegedly been downloaded more than 100,000 times, despite a domestic ban on distributing the files from the U.S. State Department.
“Significant advances in three-dimensional (3D) printing capabilities, availability of free digital 3D printer files for firearms components, and difficulty regulating file sharing may present public safety risks from unqualified gun seekers who obtain or manufacture 3D printed guns,” reads a May 21 bulletin from the Joint Regional Intelligence Center obtained by Fox News. “Limiting access may be impossible.”
The threats to plastic guns are so grave that private citizens who control the distribution channels have banned them from their networks. Notorious free-information rogue, Kim Dotcom, and one of the largest consumer-facing 3D printed manufacturers, Makerbot, have both outlawed and removed blueprints.
Still, they exist on the same peer-to-peer file sharing services that distribute pirated entertainment (and legal software). “Even if the practice is prohibited by new legislation, online distribution of these digital files will be as difficult to control as any other illegally traded music, movie or software files.”
The solution: universal searches. One law enforcement source told Fox News, “The only security procedure to catch [the 3D firearms] is a pat down. Is America ready for pat-downs at every event?”
- May 23, 13
Google almost completely revamped the Google+ photo experience last week, but somehow the company didn’t get around to announcing one of the coolest photo-related features in its repertoire yet: Google now uses computer vision and machine learning to let you search your own photos for things like sunsets, food and flowers. I also tried terms like “cars,” “beach” and “bikes” and Google consistently returned the right results. This search is built into Google+, but you can also use the regular Google search and use the query term [my photos of xyz] to find the right images.
That’s a huge step forward for photo search in Google. As Google rightly notes, “searching for your photos can be challenging because the information you’re looking for is visual.” I know I’m anything but diligent about tagging my photos, so this new search feature actually allowed me to find random images I had uploaded to Picasa Web a long time ago.
As Google’s Vic Gundotra noted when he announced the new features for Google+ Photos at I/O last week, Google wants to help its users manage their photos. “Organizing photos is often a hassle,” he said, but oddly enough, the company didn’t announce this search feature at I/O and instead waited a week before launching it.
- May 23, 13
After being acquired by Facebook, the mobile back-end service Parse has been busy integrating itself into the company, as well as launching new services like web hosting for developers.
The service has built tools to help developers focus on the front-end of their product, while handling all of the messy back-end things like cross-platform compatibility and testing. Naturally, Facebook integration is easier than ever for mobile developers thanks to the acquisition. Its been six years since Facebook’s Platform launched, and during a whiteboard session at its Menlo Park headquarters, the company discussed just how far its come.
Doug Purdy, Director of Product Management, and Mike Vernal of Facebook Platform led the discussion. Ilya Sukhar, who recently joined Facebook with Parse, sat in on the discussion as well.
Purdy set up the conversation about next steps by saying: “We’ve been thinking about how we can provide tools to developers to enable a more cross-platform world. We’re trying to create a platform that developers can build something that spans over devices and makes people the center. Regardless of the device that you or your friends are on, everyone can have a rich experience.”
Sukhar, co-founder of Parse, talked a bit about Parse’s beginnings and day four at Facebook:
If you think about applications broadly, there’s the front-end, and below the hood there’s a lot. The data side, how you sync it back to the server, the databases. None of these things bring value to the users or differentiate apps. Our SDKs make this dramatically easier for everyone.
I was originally building mobile apps myself. I was spending a lot of time building things over and over again, things that were quite hard and painful. It’s time that I could have spent on the actual user experience or the utility of my app. So I decided to build Parse. We’ve grown from one person to 24. Since day one, we’ve had 80K apps, 200M installed apps.
Generally, the community is very excited. All of our metrics are up and it’s been a really fun time.
It’s good news that things are going smoothly, and it’s clear that Facebook sees Parse as a huge part of its developer ecosystem push for the future. As far as new services, Sukhar says the team, which is still operating independently, speaks to developers about what should come next. One of the top features that gets requested is functionality around push notifications and offline mode.
The clear value for Facebook is that Parse’s platform could be the easiest way to urge developers to use Facebook ads. Once you get rid of the complexity of building out a backend for an app, you can pay attention to promoting your app more. Hopefully that promotion will come via Facebook, as Purdy mentioned comScore’s findings that the site is the top way to discover new apps.
On whether less backend worries will lead to more promotion, Sukhar said: “This is something we’ve heard: ‘Parse has done well for me to get things out to market, but now I need users.’ We don’t have anything specific to announce today, but it’s clear that Facebook has the solution.”
- May 23, 13
Lambda Labs, an early-stage startup out of San Francisco, is preparing to release a facial recognition API for developers working on Google Glass apps. The API will be available to interested developers within a week, company co-founder Stephen Balaban says. The move comes on the heels of a Congressional inquiry into Google’s new wearable technology, which is still very much in the prototype phase.
The startup’s facial recognition API, launched into beta last year, is already used by 1,000 developers, including several major international firms. It now sees over 5 million API calls per month, and is growing at 15 percent month-over-month. Balaban also says that the company has been cash-flow positive since November.
Now that same API has been tailored specifically for Google Glass apps to enable both facial and object recognition.
Applied to Glass, the technology will enable apps such as “remember this face,” “find your friends in a crowd,” “networking event interest matching,” “intelligent contact books,” and more, Balaban explains. (You can see what apps developers are tweeting about here.)
As potentially amazing/horrifying as that technology sounds, any apps using the technology couldn’t do so in real time – that is, you couldn’t just walk around automatically recognizing people you see through Glass. The way Google’s Mirror API works right now is that you first have to snap a photo, send it to the developer’s servers, then get the notification back. The lag time on that would be several seconds at least, and would depend on how fast you could take a photo and share it. A forthcoming Glass software development kit (SDK), though, may change that.
“There is nothing in the Glass Terms of Service that explicitly prevents us from doing this. However, there is a risk that Google may change the ToS in an attempt to stop us from providing this functionality,” Balaban says. ”This is the first face recognition toolkit for Glass, so we’re just not sure how Google, or the privacy caucus, will react.”
The privacy caucus he’s referring to has to do with the Congressional inquiry from earlier this month where eight members of Congress reached out to Google CEO Larry Page with over half a dozen questions about Glass’ capabilities and the potential impacts to user privacy. The Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus, a group led by Texas Republican Joe Barton, wanted to know if Glass would collect data from users without their consent, whether or not Google would consider privacy before approving third-party apps, and a host of other things.
One of those questions was whether or not Glass would have support for facial recognition. That’s something Steve Lee, Glass director of product management, has already answered. In a statement offered to The New York Times, he replied, “We’ve consistently said that we won’t add new face recognition features to our services unless we have strong privacy protections in place.”
That’s not a solid “no,” of course. It’s more of a “no, for now.” Glass is simply too new of a technology to begin limiting what it will or will not do, at least in such definitive terms.
Facial recognition, however, doesn’t appear to be specifically prohibited in Google’s API policies, which inform Glass developers what they can and can’t do in their applications. That means, for now at least, Lambda’s facial recognition API for Glass developers would be permitted.
The only cause that would impact its use, according to Google’s policies, is one that says Glass is “not intended for use in connection with applications and services that might be subject to industry-specific privacy regulations.”
Obviously, lawmakers could still enact such a policy, if they chose to do so.
“Assuming Google and Joe Barton’s Privacy Caucus don’t attempt to stop us, [the API] will be available to everybody within the week,” Balaban says.
Google, it should be noted, has long since had the technology to build apps capable of facial recognition itself, but has always tread very carefully to not incite a privacy backlash.
In 2011, there were reports that Google was developing a mobile app that would allow users to snap pictures of people’s faces to access their personal information. That app never arrived, but facial recognition has since made an appearance within Google’s photo-sharing service Google+ Photos (previously Picasa), where users can now opt in to have their face recognized. This makes finding “pictures and videos of you easy,” explains the company’s documentation on the technology.
Perhaps one day, users will be able to “opt in” to having Glass apps identify their faces, too?
Time – and Congress’s reaction – will tell.
Image credit: Glass concept from Jack Morgan on Dribble; Additional reporting: Frederic Lardinois
- May 23, 13
It was just two weeks ago that fast-growing enterprise cloud storage company, Box, went out and acquired document embedding service and Y Combinator grad, Crocodoc. Apparently Aaron Levie sees what Yahoo is doing and he wants to show that Box is ready to do a little acquiring of its own.
Today, Box followed up with its second acquisition in as many weeks, scooping up the tech behind French mobile app and Box, Dropbox and Google Drive client for iOS, Folders. Developed by Martin Destagnol, Folders and its tech will be integrated into Box’s new iOS app, which is currently in development (now with support from Destagnol).
Again, Box already has a version of its storage service on the App Store, but like many other companies of its ilk, the service hasn’t necessarily been putting its best foot forward on mobile, so to speak. Folders, on the other hand, was developed by Destagnol exclusively for mobile and to simplify file-sharing and complementary functionality for users on the go. And it shows: Folders is a good-looking, elegant app. I say that in the creepiest way possible, obviously.
In its announcement today, Box revealed that it’s planning to release a new version of its iOS app “later this year,” and Folders’ design and optimizations appear to be a big part of the mobile revamp. Furthermore, the motivation behind the Folders (and Crocodoc) acquisitions is not only to upgrade mobile, but the big “impact they can have” on the overall “Box user experience.”
VP of Engineering Sam Schillace explains:
I’m a firm believer that even applications developed primarily for the enterprise, like Box, need to be pushing the leading edge for user experience and design. They have to be ‘consumer-grade’ in terms of their usability, simplicity, speed and performance. This definitely raises the bar for enterprise software design and engineering, but there’s no doubt that the higher standards are a big win for users and a massive opportunity for Box.
With the service now used by 15 million people at 150,000 businesses across healthcare, financial services and retail, the company is at a key point in its growth cycle. (Though who isn’t, let’s be honest.) Thanks to building enterprise software “that doesn’t suck” (it’s a low bar in enterprise, people), the company is moving across industries and will probably show up on the public markets in the next year or so.
Box has established itself, but in doing so, it’s now competing with the big boys, and although innovation in enterprise tends to move at the pace of a speeding glacier, the company has to keep pushing forward if it wants to take that next step. The consumerization of enterprise is nothing new at this point; companies and, more importantly, end users expect applications and services that are easy to use. That look familiar and “social.” Whatever that means.
Levie is a champion of this new generation of usable, consumer-friendly enterprise tech, so Box needs to lead there. And, at this point, there’s nothing that embodies the consumerization movement better than mobile and the BYOD trend. Box has to work (and look) better on mobile than the old set of Enterprise leaders.
To wit:
When we saw Folders we saw a beautiful experience and set of design patterns that we had to bring to Box’s users. Adding the Folders technology and Martin’s expertise to Box will help us to continue to improve how people collaborate and engage with their content on Post-PC devices. In the near term, Box for iOS will become cleaner, faster and more beautiful throughout 2013.
- May 23, 13
Former Badoo COO and ex-Googler Ben Ling has joined Khosla Ventures, according to sources. Ling, who has held senior operations roles for a number of big companies in the mobile and Internet space, has been added to a growing team at Vinod Khosla’s venture firm. (Update: Khosla Ventures just confirmed Ling has joined, starting this week.)
Ling most recently served as COO of Badoo, where he was hired to oversee product, engineering, partnerships, and business operations at the company. Ling joined Badoo in May 2012, but he left after only about six months.
Prior to Badoo, Ling spent a number of years at Google, where his last role included overseeing images, videos, books, news, and finance as its senior director of search products and local business products. At YouTube, Ling was senior director of partnerships and platform, where he was responsible for music, movies, sports and news, as well as mobile, TV and API partnerships. In his first role at Google, he oversaw the company’s e-commerce products, including Google Checkout and Product Search.
At Facebook, he served as the director of Facebook Platform, working on developer relations at the fledgling social network. There he helped build Facebook Connect, which is the social network’s hook into a number of third-party websites.
In addition to his senior operations roles, Ling has also been an active angel investor and advisor to startups. Recent investments include Fab.com, Palantir, Square, PracticeFusion, and Quora. Ling has also held an advisory position at Pinterest and Pulse.
In a conversation with TechCrunch, Ling told us that most of his experience as an entrepreneur has been in operations roles, helping companies like Google and Facebook scale their businesses both in terms of users and bringing in revenues. Meanwhile, over the last four years, he’s been working as an angel investor, identifying great products and teams and helping them to scale.
“In terms of thinking about my next steps, and thinking about what I could do next, I wanted to maximize the impact I could have by helping entrepreneurs to grow their businesses,” Ling said. He said that the opportunity at Khosla Ventures enables him to do that, since there are a lot of “parallels and similarities” to what he was doing as an angel investor — evaluating teams and talent, helping companies scale and with their hiring strategies.
Ling said that we can probably expect to see him make investments in a lot of the same areas that he’s worked in previously — that includes companies focused on e-commerce or shopping, developer networks, search, finance, and local. He’s also had some experience with three-sided ecosystem businesses, such as the Facebook platform’s network of users, developers and advertisers.
Of course, Ling isn’t the only operations specialist to join Khosla Ventures. His hire comes just a few months after former Square COO Keith Rabois joined the firm.
Part of the reason Khosla Ventures has been interested in bringing on entrepreneurs with that type of experience is that they can provide guidance for startups who need operational experience. Rabois, who is now 10 weeks in at Khosla Ventures, said, “Our organizing philosophy is to provide assistance to entrepreneurs and help them to build the most interesting companies they can… It’s about understanding what entrepreneurs need is less capital and more formative advice. Every time we evaluate a company we ask whether we can help this entrepreneur build something special.”
Both Ling and Rabois say that they’ve been impressed with the quality of entrepreneurs and the quality of the Khosla Ventures team as it works with those startups. With that in mind, Rabois said he’s really excited about building several big businesses as part of the Khosla Ventures team.
- May 23, 13
This isn’t exactly the launch of Google Now for the desktop, which many of us have been patiently waiting for, but Google today announced that it is bringing a richer notifications experience to Chrome, starting with the latest beta. This definitely feels like it brings Google Now yet another step closer to the desktop.
These new notifications, which developers can easily add to their own Chrome packaged apps and extensions, will pop up outside of the browser window and live in a center outside of the browser, so users will be able to receive notifications, even if the browser is not open.
This feature is now available for Windows and Chrome OS users. Google says it’s coming to OS X and Linux “soon.”
Chrome, of course, already features basic web notifications (and if you’re a Chrome and Google Apps user, you’ve probably seen them from services like Gmail). These rich notifications go a step further, though, as developers can add their own full-bleed icons, images, headlines and short messages to them. Developers can also decide for how long notifications should stay on the screen by specifying different priorities for each alert.
The new notification center will be available through the Windows system tray or from the Chrome OS launcher.
Last week, Google also announced its new Cloud Messaging for Chrome push notification service. While Google doesn’t mention them in today’s announcement, there is no reason why those push notifications couldn’t soon arrive in the new notifications center, too.
You can find a full changelog of what’s new in Chrome 28 here.
- May 23, 13
Score one for technology: Doctors 3D-printed an emergency airway tube that saved a 20-month old baby boy’s life. After imaging the boy’s faulty windpipe, doctors at the C.S. Mot Children’s Hospital printed 100 tiny tubes and laser-stitched them together over the trachea (video below).
“Quite a few of the doctors said that he had a good chance of not leaving the hospital alive,” said the mother of the baby boy, who suffered from a severe version of tracheobronchomalacia, causing his bronchus to collapse.
Desperate for a solution, the doctors obtained emergency clearance from the Food and Drug Administration to surgically sew the 3D-printed splint on the child’s airway. “It was amazing. As soon as the splint was put in, the lungs started going up and down for the first time and we knew he was going to be OK,” said Michigan University Professor Dr. Glenn Green, who came up with save-saving solution, with his partner Dr. Scott Hollister.
“The material we used is a nice choice for this. It takes about two to three years for the trachea to remodel and grow into a healthy state, and that’s about how long this material will take to dissolve into the body,” added Hollister.
Considering that most of the news around 3D printers has been about lethal, undetectable firearms, it’s nice to know that people are also using humanity’s newly found technological powers for good.
