General Harmonics Is Basically Pied Piper From “Silicon Valley”
General Harmonics is a small startup from Canada that’s looking to revolutionize the way we stream media. Rather than risk sounding like I’m writing some kind of self-parody, I’ll be blunt about it: they’re basically Pied Piper from HBO’s Silicon Valley, only with a few decades more experience and technology that’s way farther along. Read More-
Airbnb Showdown On San Francisco’s November Ballot Averted For The Time Being
It looks like Airbnb is going to get a reprieve on facing a huge regulatory showdown on November’s ballot in San Francisco. A former planning commissioner and affordable housing activists had paired up to put new regulation on the ballot that would have clarified rules on short-term rentals throughout the city. It would have been far stricter than a set of rules supervisor David Chiu… Read More -
Keith Rabois’ Homebuying Startup OpenDoor Raises $9.95M From Everyone
Well. It seems like a lot of Valley investors want to see the process of buying homes become a lot more efficient. After Khosla Ventures VC and former Square COO Keith Rabois teased that he was working on a project to make buying homes as simple as clicking a few buttons, a horde of Valley angels and VCs started circling. Read More -
Blek Comes To Android, And I Get Stuck On Level 23
Earlier this year, iOS game Blek drew critical cheers and enthusiastic reviews from gamers. Android fans who watched from the sidelines but haven’t yet actually Blekked can now try out the puzzler for themselves. The game uses a curious drawing mechanic as its only moving part basically, allowing the player to sketch a line with their finger that then becomes an animated in-game… Read More -
TechCrunch Disrupt Europe Meetups: London, July 11 And Berlin, July 17
European startups! TechCrunch Disrupt Europe, our stupendous conference, is coming to London in October. To tell you all more about it, we’re taking TechCrunch on the road this summer. Read More -
MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, A Next-Generation Email Platform
Founded by Dropbox and MIT alums, a new startup called Inbox is launching out of stealth today, hoping to power the next generation of email applications. Similar to the newly launched Gmail API, Inbox offers a more modern way to build apps that access end users’ inboxes. But instead of being limited to Gmail, it also works with Yahoo, Microsoft Exchange and others, the company says. Read More -
Adtile Raises $4.5M To Create A Marketplace For Interactive Mobile Ads
Adtile, a startup that says it’s bringing an “app store”-style approach to mobile ads, is announcing that it has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding. Earlier this year, I wrote about the company’s Motion Ads format, which asks users to interact with their ads by shaking, turning, and otherwise playing with them. For example, a coffee shop ad could ask users to… Read More -
As Music Curation Heats Up, Playlists.net In Talks To Be Acquired
Music curation seems to be a hot space right now. We’re hearing Spotify community and playlist sharing site, Playlists.net, could be the next music curation startup to be acquired. According to industry sources, the UK startup is in talks with a number of “prominent music industry companies,” with one potential suitor currently in the lead, though we’ve been unable… Read More -
LokLok’s New Messaging App Lets You Draw On Your Friend’s Lock Screen
Another experimentation in mobile messaging arrives today, this time from a company innovating on the Android platform first. Yes, Android. LokLok, as this latest app is called, replaces the Android phone’s lock screen with a “synchronized whiteboard” that allows you to leave notes and drawings directly on your friends’ lock screens. That means, unlike traditional… Read More -
We’ll See You Tonight At KrakowCrunch
Get your tickets printed and your networking pants on because tonight is KrakowCrunch, the first TC pitch-off in Krakow. As a reminder it’s happening today, Monday, July 7 at The Stage, ul. Lobzowska 3, from 6pm until 11pm. Read More
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Programmer Craig Muth Kickstarts A New Version Of His (Arguably Amazing) Shell, Xiki
Put on your nerd hats, kids, and let’s sit back and bask in the glory of Xiki. Created by Craig Muth, founder of Memorize, Xiki and its shell product, xsh, allows for some amazing autocompletion tricks, as well as interactive command line trickery that would make the average bash ninja salivate. The previous version of the shell is available now but Muth is Kickstarting a new… Read More -
Virtual Reality Gets A Real Content Studio With Launch Of Alchemy VR
In the wake of the Facebook acquisition of Oculus VR, and the launch of Sony’s Project Morpheus a week earlier, virtual reality has quickly moved beyond its gaming roots and has seized the imagination of a generation of designers, entrepreneurs and technologists. Now you can add award-winning storytellers to the list, with the launch of a new entertainment studio from London called… Read More -
Crowdfunding Platform Seedrs Begins Offering ‘Convertible’ Equity Option
Proof there’s still room for innovation in the equity crowdfunding space yet, if Seedrs‘ claims of a first hold true. The “pan-European” equity crowdfunding platform is adding ‘convertible’ equity as an option for startups wanting to raise funding via the site, with the UK’s Future Ad Labs being the first to use the new investment mechanism. Read More -
Wearable Solar’s Prototype Dress Combines Fashion With Phone-Charging Capabilities
Here’s an unusual way to keep your smartphone charged — with a solar-powered dress. That’s what fashion designer Pauline van Dongen is developing with her startup Wearable Solar. She brought a prototype dress to Brooklyn’s Northside Festival last month, where I had a chance to see the dress in action. Read More -
StepUp Lets You Easily Chop YouTube Videos Into Bite-Size Chunks
Step forward UK startup StepUp which has built a platform for turning existing video content into shorter snippets that can be looped for repeat viewing, or watched in sequence — one segment after another, as tasty bite-sized chunks. Read More -
Israeli High Tech Gets Aggressive
Israel has always taken a disproportionate share of global media attention. This has long held true in international politics, where Israel would prefer a little less attention, but also in high tech where the media attention on start-up success has often been overstated and anecdotal. Read More -
Meet The Winner Of PragueCrunch III: Cloudfender
This man is very happy. He’s Tomas Soukup, one of the contestants in last night’s PragueCrunch pitch-off and a proud drinker of fine Czech beer. He is just one of the cool people we met in Prague last night. The pitch-off, judged by Yao Huang of the Hatchery, our own Natasha Lomas, and Andrej Kiska of Credo Ventures, also made this man very happy. We listened to eight startup… Read More -
Rovio Owner Backs Teller, A Startup Aiming To Make Email Work Better When You Check It Less Often
If you’re in the U.S., you’re probably taking a well-deserved break from work and all the accompanying email today for the July 4th holiday. But when you return, your inbox is going to be a nightmare. An unsorted, unfiltered, unorganized mess. A new startup called Teller wants to help with that. The company also has a small round of funding as one of the first investments from… Read More -
A Drone Over PragueCrunch
When I held the first PragueCrunch in 2008 I didn’t expect much. I loved the city but I wasn’t sure what sort of start-up ecosystem it had. But, in those strange days when live streaming was still a clever trick (don’t try finding those streams. Technology changed so fast that they essentially evaporated) and money was contracting, I found everything about the Czech… Read More -
Everyone Seems Mad At ReservationHop, Founder Admits He Was “Taken Aback” By The Criticism
So … have you heard about ReservationHop? I mean, it’s not quite the hottest topic on Twitter, but among the folks who have heard about it, the idea seems to have unleashed an impressive torrent of malevolent creativity. The idea, basically, is that Reservation Hop will help users get a table at in-demand restaurants. How? The company will make reservations in advance, and then… Read More
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