The pro-privacy Blackphone, a hardened Android smartphone that focuses on making rigorous security features more accessible to a general phone user, has started shipping to its first wave of buyers. Blackphone is a partnership between Spanish mobile maker Geeksphone and security company Silent Circle. The phone, which uses a “security-oriented” Android build called… Read More
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More consolidation afoot in the world of mobile ads. Perion, the publicly-listed mobile app services company that was the subject of a reverse takeover by Conduit last year, is today announcing an acquisition to further build out its marketing business: it’s buying the young (but profitable) ad aggregation platform Grow Mobile. Read More
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In watching the latest drama unfold over Facebook and its experimentation with users, I’m moved to argue that sometimes you can be too honest. For game makers especially sometimes it’s better for users not to know, for you to hint and inspire but never reveal the inner secrets. To preserve the numinous magic, it’s often better not to show the man behind the curtain. Read More
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I’ve been gay since I was… well, born. At seven years old, I knew something was different when I felt an overwhelming affection for my 19-year-old basketball coach, Cathy. By the time I figured out how sex worked, I had also learned that my Southern Baptist private school and religious community weren’t cool with the whole “gay” thing. At 13, despite truly… Read More
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Historically, when looking for opportunity in the financial industry where technology can have the greatest impact — for investors and entrepreneurs — the best place to start has been with one of our oldest institutions: banks. However, while critical to our economy, banks are generally inefficient, have high fixed costs and don’t exactly elicit happy thoughts from the… Read More
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TalkBin, a customer feedback platform for businesses that was incubated at Y Combinator and then acquired by Google in 2011, is being shut down on July 31, citing “dwindling usage.”
Enquiries sent to the company are receiving a brief autoreply saying that the service is no longer being maintained or supported, that it will be shut down effective July 31, and with suggestions of… Read More
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Andreessen Horowitz managing partner Scott Kupor argued that there doesn’t seem to be a bubble in tech at the PreMoney 2014 conference in San Francisco this morning. In a presentation that lasted a bit over ten minutes, Kupor laid out a series of trends that indicate things aren’t quite as exuberant as some fear. Read More
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The first Android Wear smartwatches aren’t yet available to consumers (though two start shipping July 7), but already we’ve managed to enjoy some time with each of the new devices, and while we can’t speak to things like battery life and durability over time, we can share impressions on the relative merits of each so far. Is the Moto 360, the LG G Watch, or the Samsung Gear… Read More
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Companies face an inherent tension between being open or proprietary, but we’ve seen, again and again, that open systems can act as catalysts for entirely new businesses built on top of a popular platform. Earlier this month, we encountered examples of each approach, as Tesla Motors opened up its patents and Netflix decided to shut down, or at least severely limit access to its API. (To… Read More
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I’ve been waiting for the Supreme Court ruling on Aereo all week. When it came down yesterday, it felt a little bit like Groundhog Day. If the Supreme Court sided with Aereo, winter would be over; if they didn’t, six more weeks of cold. Either way, I think Aereo will eventually have its own spring… but now it will take a while. So here’s the bad news: the Supreme… Read More
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