alexander
What Took So Long? Germany’s Samwer Brothers Rumored to Launch a Square Clone Soon
techcrunch.com
Square, the mobile payment startup founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, is one of Silicon Valley’s hottest companies right now. It’s no surprise then, that German clone factory Rocket Internet, which is run by brothers Mac, Oliver and Alexander Samwer, is now rumored to be developing its own blatant Square...
Huawei hardware won't be part of National Broadband Network, says Australia
www.engadget.com
Huawei just can't catch a break -- first the US blocks it from being a part of its first responder wireless network, and now, Australia is following suit. According to the Australian Financial Review, the Shenzhen-based outfit has been barred from tendering contracts for the country's A$43 billion National...
Fancy doubles its user base to 500k in two months, launches an Android app
thenextweb.com
Since launching its commerce platform in February, Fancy has gone on to double its user base to 500,000. A lot of signups is all good and well, but what really counts is how often engaged those users are. While Fancy itself wants to veer away from the Pinterest comparison, it’s...
SoundCloud announces next version of its site, hits 15M users
thenextweb.com
Social audio sharing service SoundCloud is announcing its “next” version of the service during a press event in San Francisco. We last told you about the company when it hit 10M users in January of this year. SoundCloud allows anyone to upload audio of any type, including music or messages...
China nabbing 'great deal' of U.S. military secrets
news.cnet.com
That's the word from National Security Agency director Gen. Keith Alexander, who also said that China was responsible for last year's RSA attacks. [Read more]...
Y Combinator-Backed Virool Provides An Easy Way For Video Producers To Boost Their Views Online
techcrunch.com
Virool, which is part of the current Y Combinator Summer 2012 class, has launched a self-serve platform that will let any YouTube user increase their video views through placement in Facebook and mobile apps. Its platform works like this: On the publisher side, Virool provides an API that developers can...
Big-six publishers refuse to sign new contracts with Amazon
paidcontent.org
Several of the big-six publishers are refusing to sign new annual contracts with Amazon. While that could result in their “buy” buttons being turned off, it is more likely for now that the feud will result in less promotion of big-six publishers’ titles on the site. The news was first...
Best Buy offers $50 discount on iPad 2 models
www.tuaw.com
Reader Alexander Wright dropped us a line this afternoon to point out that Best Buy is now selling all variants of the iPad 2 for $50 off the usual list price. Given that the Apple-authorized big box electronics retailer usually sticks to the regular pricing, this is a bit...
Iran-targeting Flame malware used huge network to steal blueprints
arstechnica.com
Kaspersky Lab Attackers behind the Flame espionage malware that targeted computers in Iran used more than 80 different domain names to siphon computer-generated designs, PDF files, and e-mail from its victims, according to a new analysis from researchers who helped discover the threat. The unknown authors of Flame shut...
A Boeing phone: Aerospace giant making Android device
www.geekwire.com
Boeing is jumping into the smartphone business, developing a new mobile device – but we probably won’t be buying this one at our local wireless store. The company is working on a secure communications device for the U.S. government defense and security market, a spokeswoman for the company confirmed this...
Fortune names Steve Jobs the 'greatest entrepreneur'
tech.fortune.cnn.com
He tops a list that includes Gates, Bezos, Page, Brin, Schultz and Zuckerberg "Though he could be abusive and mean-spirited to people who threw themselves into their work on his behalf, Steve Jobs has been our generation's quintessential entrepreneur. Visionary. Inspiring. Brilliant. Mercurial." So writes Fortune's John Byrne in the...
IBM Think: Explore Innovation From the Dark Ages to the Present
gizmodo.com
Did you know the first metal detector was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1881 in order to extract a stray bullet from President James Garfield's back? This is the kind of interesting innovation revealed in IBM Think, a free app that maps out the roots of technological advances....
The Best Uses For The Facebook Timeline We've Seen So Far
www.businessinsider.com
Facebook began rolling out its new Timeline to users and brands earlier this year. It organizes your entire Facebook news stream, all the way back to when you started using the service, in a chronological timeline. Businesses can also use it to show the history of...well, anything they want. Some...
Giant Star Wars TIE fighter for sale on Craigslist in Olympia
www.geekwire.com
Maybe the Museum of Flight could buy this thing and put it next to that replica Space Shuttle when it arrives? This replica TIE fighter has been generating a ton of buzz online today after it was put up for sale on Craigslist by someone in Olympia, Wash. The...
Director Roland Emmerich turns entrepreneur with 'earn-per-view' film portal
gigaom.com
You’ll know him as the man behind blockbusters such as Independence Day and 2012 (and Universal Soldier, but we’ll let that pass), but it turns out that German film director Roland Emmerich has an entrepreneurial bent as well. His new project is Flimmer (German for ‘flicker’). We don’t know a...
NSA Chief Says NSA Doesn't Need Access To Your Info... As Whistleblowers Say They're Already Getting It
www.techdirt.com
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) recently held an event about cybersecurity and cybersecurity legislation. The keynote speech was from NSA boss General Keith Alexander. He of course talked about why he supports cybersecurity legislation, such as CISPA and other proposals that will make it easier for the NSA access private...
NSA Chief Says NSA Doesn't Need Access To Your Info... As Whistleblowers Say They're Already Getting It
Is Anonymous a threat to national security, or just trolling?
www.theverge.com
With mounting concerns over computer security after a rash of high-profile hacks last year, governments around the world have been increasingly quick to condemn and punish the actions of the nebulous "hacktivist" collective Anonymous and its associated groups. The United States has been particularly bullish in the affair; in...
Blue Origin details testing plans for its next-generation Space Vehicle
www.theverge.com
Blue Origin, the commercial space company founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, is fairly secretive about plans for its Space Vehicle, which is meant to replace the retired Space Shuttles. We got our first look at the new capsule when it was tested in a wind tunnel last week, and...
NSA Director blames China for a 'great deal' of military-related data theft
www.theverge.com
National Security Agency director General Keith Alexander has revealed that the attack against online security company RSA last year originated from China. He told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday that China is responsible for "a great deal" of theft of military-related intellectual property from the US, citing the...
GroupMe launches Groupon-like service to help you plan, discover and pay for your night out
thenextweb.com
For the first time since its creation, GroupMe is expanding far beyond messaging by diving head first into payments and event discovery. The company, which was acquired by Skype nearly a year ago, is launching a new service called “Experiences,” which the GroupMe says is “the easiest way to do...
NSA trolls for talent at Def Con, the nation's largest hacker conference
www.theverge.com
The presence of federal agents at Def Con, declared or otherwise, is nothing new. One of the event's mosttraditions even turns spotting the latter category into a goodnatured sport. But on its 20th anniversary, the world-famous hacker conference experienced an interesting first: a keynote speech from the director of...
Spotify Finally Launches In Germany -- And Immediately Hits Data Protection Problems
www.techdirt.com
The music streaming service Spotify has adopted a rather unusual pattern of launches around the world. Founded in Sweden, it spread gradually to various parts of Europe, and only later arrived in the US. The main reason for this slow rollout seems to have been difficulty striking licensing deals with...
Future Passed: When we dreamed of television
www.theverge.com
The rush to create television was started by a rumor. In 1880 Alexander Graham Bell, the famed inventor of the telephone, sealed documents related to his latest invention and gave them to the Smithsonian Institution. When word got out that his mystery invention was called the “Photophone,” many people...
AVC.fm: Fred Wilson’s blog, podcasted, sans Fred Wilson
thenextweb.com
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that’s the case, then AVC.fm should leave prolific, blogging VC Fred Wilson feeling high on life. You see, AVC.fm is not run by Wilson, but rather by the enterprising people behind VoiceBunny, a startup that I wrote about here...
LightSquared supporters ask for spectrum swap, lenders propose 90-day lifeline
www.theverge.com
A group of lawmakers have sent FCC chairman Julius Genachowski a letter this week asking him to look into whether a spectrum swap with the Department of Defense would allow LightSquared to develop its LTE network, a buildout that had been nixed over GPS interference concerns. While not impossible,...
Band Explains Why It Loves When Fans Download Unauthorized Copies Of Its Music
www.techdirt.com
There's an interesting blog post by Alexander Abnos, who is both a musician in the band Secret Cities and currently working as an intern at WNYC's SoundCheck radio program. He talks about how much his band loves the fact that people download their music, because it's helped them to build...
Branch Joins Obvious Corp, Picks Up $2 M. from Lerer Ventures and SV Angel, and Heads East to Betaworks
www.betabeat.com
Branch cofounders via bulletin.branch.com When you've got Evan Williams, John Borthwick, and Max Levchin chatting it up on your "curated discussion platform," it's probably just a matter of time before the high-powered investors, incubators makers, and other loosely-defined collectives come a' calling. Today, Branch, the startup that initially launched in...
Branch Joins Obvious Corp, Picks Up $2 M. from Lerer Ventures and SV Angel, and Heads East to Betaworks
Conan O’Brien visits Microsoft, tries out for Halo 4 role
www.geekwire.com
Microsoft yesterday announced a Nov. 6 release date for “Halo 4,” the next installment in the blockbuster video-game series for Xbox 360, which is being developed for the first time by Microsoft’s 343 Industries — the first Halo game to be made outside the auspices of the franchise’s original...
NSA Insists It Doesn't Have 'The Ability' To Spy On American Emails, Texts, Etc.
www.techdirt.com
Earlier this week, we wrote about an excellent and detailed article in Wired about the efforts by the NSA to collect and store pretty much all communications data they could get their hands on -- whether originating in the US or not (despite clear rules that the NSA is only...
NSA director refutes domestic surveillance allegations in Congressional budget hearing
www.theverge.com
In its cover story last week, Wired reported that the National Security Agency is building a data collection center in Utah that will store and help decrypt massive amounts of both international and domestic surveillance information that the agency has been collecting since 2001. Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson cited...
×
Just a test of the new info bar. What do you think?