Robocoin SDK Lets Any ATM Accept Cryptocurrency
Robocoin released its first bitcoin ATM nearly two years ago, and today the company is announcing a software pack that enables any ATM or kiosk to accept, dispense or transfer money with bitcoin. Called Coin SDK, the software pack is part of the company’s mission to bring the power of Bitcoin to the masses. Read More
Register Now To Exhibit Your Startup At Disrupt NY Startup Alley
According to CrunchBase, of the 126 companies that exhibited in Startup Alley at Disrupt NY 2014, 24 of them have since been funded, raising $90.9 million in seed and Series A funding as of January 2015. And 11 of these companies had raised over $78 million in funding within three months of Disrupt. Considering these impressive stats, why wouldn’t you sign up to have a spot in Startup… Read More
Derek Jeter, Budding Media Mogul, On Launching The Players’ Tribune
As his new company, The Players’ Tribune, plots its course toward dominance in the sports media market after its official launch on Tuesday, Derek Jeter gives us his thoughts on his company and the transition from iconic athlete to startup entrepreneur in the email interview below. Since Jeter took his final bow in Yankee pinstripes, the former shortstop has been working to reinvent… Read More
With Launch Of “Topics,” Imgur Adds A New Way To Explore By Interests
After moving to a fully ad-supported model earlier this month, popular photo-sharing site Imgur is today introducing a new feature designed to make it easier for visitors to explore images that relate to subjects of interest to them. Called “Topics,” these new selections will now appear within Imgur’s main navigation pane, allowing users to explore areas like… Read More
Messaging is the center of mobile. Snapchat is raising at around a $20 billion valuation. And no one cares who owns apps. On February 19th, 2014, we didn’t know any of these things for sure. So when Facebook announced it would pay $19 billion to acquire WhatsApp — an app most American pundits had never used — it seemed ludicrous. Zuck had to be crazy, right? Wrong. Without… Read More
A Year Later, $19 Billion For WhatsApp Doesn’t Sound So Crazy
BuzzFeed Expands Mobile Team By Acquiring “Visual Conversation” Startup GoPop
BuzzFeed just announced that it’s acquiring San Francisco startup GoPop. The startup was originally known as Zeega, and it was part of the first class at Matter, the Knight Foundation- and KQED-backed incubator for media startups. GoPop’s current offering is an iOS app for “visual conversation,” combining photos into simple animations (that’s a sample animation of… Read More
Cloud-Based Bio Lab Startup Transcriptic Lands $8.5 Million In Series A Funding To Help It Scale
Months after announcing its Y Combinator partnership and moving into a giant new Menlo Park facility, the robot-operated biolab startup Transcriptic has raised $8.5 million in Series A funding. Data Collective led the round, with participation from IA Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, 500 Startups, MITS Fund, Y Combinator partner Paul Buchheit and several other angel investors. Read More
Clef Offers Two-Factor Authentication Without All The Codes
The last year has been full of security breaches that have shown the importance of having strong safeguards for our data. As we put more personal and private information in the cloud, there are ever more avenues of attack to reach the things we’d like to keep to ourselves. One popular defense you can use to bolster data security on most services is two-factor authentication. Basically,… Read More
Facebook’s Mobile Apps Now Let You Plaster Stickers All Over Your Photos
Facebook has raised its sticker game with an update to its iOS and Android apps that allows users to decorated new photos with stickers and post them to the social network. Read More
U.S. To Scale Back Its Role In Internet Governance
Even though the Internet has long been an international community, the United States has always been at its center. However, that all may be about to change as the U.S. Department of Commerce scales back its role in Internet governance. The transition is a gradual one, but by the end of the year, the DOC is expected to give up its oversight of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and… Read More
Google’s Mobile Search Now Highlights Recent Posts From News Sources
When you use Google’s mobile search to look for your favorite news sources or more information about a hot news topic, you’ll probably notice there’s something different about the search results. Starting today, Google will not just give you a link to the publication, but it will also highlight that publication’s latest stories. Read More
Today at Yahoo’s first mobile developer conference, the tech giant unveiled its new Yahoo Mobile Development Suite that combines Yahoo App Publishing for monetization, Search In Apps, and App Marketing with its Flurry Analytics acquisition made last year. This is Yahoo’s “ads in dev’s clothing” strategy to convince app makers to buy and host its ads. Flurry now… Read More
New Yahoo Mobile Development Suite Seduces App Makers With Analytics, Search, Ads
The American National Security Agency (NSA), and the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), similar clandestine intelligence agencies, stole SIM card encryption keys from a manufacturer, allowing the groups to decrypt global cellular communications data. The effort, according to The Intercept, took place in 2010, with the agencies breaking into a Dutch firm, Gemalto. The… Read More
The NSA Reportedly Stole Millions Of SIM Encryption Keys To Gather Private Data
YouTube Is Launching A Kid-Friendly Video App
YouTube will launch a new, child-friendly version of its service for mobile phones on Monday. USA Today broke details of the news, which we’ve confirmed with sources at the company. Read More
Celebrate This Terrible Winter With The Highlights Of Amazon’s Summer Preview
Amazon.com hosted a summer preview event in New York City today, and I’ll be real honest: I thought there was going to be more tech stuff. Nonetheless, we soldiered on with a whirlwind tour of the cruelly summer-themed exhibits, highlighting new and popular products on sale on Amazon. Unfortunately, we couldn’t demo the chainsaw or the “Roomba for your lawn,” but I was… Read More
Apple Offers Extended Coverage For 2011-2013 MacBook Pros With Video Issues
Apple is offering a new repair program that extends coverage for certain MacBook Pro models made between 2011 and 2013 that are exhibiting problems related to video. The program offers either free repairs on affected models, or reimbursement for repairs already paid for by users. To check if your MacBook Pro is among those covered by the extension, head to Apple’s support tool and enter… Read More
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How Wearable Startups Can Win Big In The Medical Industry
As attention shines down on fitness trackers and smart watches, one of the biggest opportunities for wearable devices remains shadowed in the corner — medical wearables. Medical wearables present colossal opportunities, but they tend to frighten entrepreneurs and elicit polarizing sentiments from investors. As a healthcare and digital health investor, I am often asked my opinion on… Read More
Multiple Directions On Valuation Multiples
Private company valuation is as much art as science, sometimes as much alchemy as chemistry. Among the few reliable and well-worn guidelines to follow are public companies and recent M&A multiples. This is why we spend so much time refining, tracking and parsing the multiples we use. Oddly, we have observed a strange lag in the re-evaluation of comparable pricing and an over-correction… Read More
Scientists Discover A New Way To Block HIV
A new HIV-blocking compound may be the answer to the now 30-year search for an AIDS vaccine. Scientists, supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, say they have discovered a new compound that produces proteins within the cell that look like normal antibodies, but have Y-shaped heads that act as blockers to the virus that causes AIDS. Read More
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FDA Authorizes 23andMe to Market Genetic Testing For Bloom Syndrome
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given 23andMe clearance to begin selling kits for the genetic testing of Bloom Syndrome. This is a rare recessive gene disorder that is characterized by shorter height and a predisposition to develop cancer. Parents of children with Bloom Syndrome don’t exhibit any symptoms of the disorder. 23andMe’s direct-to-consumer genetic test… Read More