Contextly Expands Its Content Recommendation Platform To Include Videos And For-Sale Products, Too

With the latest expansion of its content recommendation tools, startup Contextly isn’t just pointing visitors to relevant articles, but videos and products, too.

Co-founder and CEO Ryan Singel (a former editor at Wired) told me that this is “doubling down” on the company’s current strategy.

As Singel has said in the past, he’s taking a different approach from content recommendation services like Outbrain and Taboola, which take visitors to other sites. Contextly is all about keeping visitors on the same site — by keeping convincing them to read additional articles, it hopefully turns them into repeat visitors and long-term fans.

With that in mind, the new features seems like a natural move — if you’ve got different types of content on your site, why limit yourself to news articles? Video, after all, is becoming increasingly important to online publishers. And the commerce offering highlights the fact that content is becoming increasingly important to many online stores.

You may, incidentally, be seeing a “related video” widget next to this very post (or below it, if you’re on a smartphone). But one thing that’s different about Contextly’s approach is that it treats all this content similarly, rather than creating separate widgets for articles and video.

The company offered a few more details about the new features in a blog post, saying it’s now using its existing “smart data analysis and recommendation system to provide a far more comprehensive set of recommendations for publishers that make videos and sell items.” To illustrate that, it points to this how-to post on Adafruit about making a Fire Tie, where it makes sense to point readers to a product that’s mentioned in the article and to a demo video.

In an email, Singel elaborated how this represents an increased commitment to oOntextly’s core strategy:

Our focus is on computational journalism, using our tools that identify relevant, trending, evergreen and personalized content to give readers an awesome experience. In an age of drive-by readers and social networks with ever-changing algorithms, the future will belong to publishers that forge real connections with their readers.

Meanwhile nearly all of other companies that use some of the same real estate on publishers’ pages that we use are focussing on how to fill that space with ads. And all too often, these recommendations don’t disclose these are paid ads. We see lip service being given to “engagement” or “content discovery,” but these companies’ focus on traffic arbitrage.

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This Week On The TC Gadgets Podcast: HP Sprout, New Fitbits, And Other Wrist-Worn Tech

Fitbit announced a few new devices, including the Fitbit Charge and the Fitbit Surge, both of which we’re excited about. Plus, HP is doing all kinds of weird things, not least of which is the announcement of an odd new computer, projector type device called the Sprout.

Plus, we’re still fascinated with the Apple Watch so we’re talking about all things wrist this week.

We discuss all this and more on this week’s episode of the TC Gadgets Podcast featuring John Biggs, Matt Burns, Darrell Etherington, and Jordan Crook.

Have a good Friday, everybody!

We invite you to enjoy our weekly podcasts every Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern and noon Pacific. And feel free to check out the TechCrunch Gadgets Flipboard magazine right here.

Click here to download an MP3 of this show.

You can subscribe to the show via RSS.

Subscribe in iTunes

Intro Music by Mendhoan.

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Next-gen firewalls need to evolve to avoid becoming irrelevant

When Gartner coined the phrase "next generation firewall", in 2003, it captured a then-nascent approach to traffic classification and control. Combining traditional packet filtering with some application control and IPS layered on top, today's 'legacy' NGFWs do pretty much what they say on the tin.

However, while NGFWs continue to be a vital part of an organization’s protection, they were designed for a time before advanced targeted threats started attacking our enterprises -- threats which often go undetected until it's too late.

Most organizations today secure their networks using disparate technologies that don't -- and can't -- work together. They leave gaps in protection that today's sophisticated attackers exploit. These point solutions lack the visibility and control required to implement effective security policy to accelerate detection of all threats and response. In addition, disparate solutions add to capital and operating costs and administrative complexity.

From my own discussions with security professionals I know that they are frustrated with disparate point solutions and the cost, complexity and administrative headaches they create -- not to mention the gaps in security.

So what's to do?

NGFWs must evolve to stay relevant in a world that is dealing with dynamic threats -- threats that we couldn't have anticipated just a few years ago. It's time for a shift in mindset regarding the level of protection an NGFW must provide, to improve visibility, detect multi-vector threats, close security gaps that attackers exploit, and combat other sophisticated threats.

Until now, NGFWs have focused on policy and application control and have been unable to address advanced and zero day attacks. In short, existing detection mechanisms -- even the latest innovations around sandboxing -- simply won't protect against the advanced malware and zero-day attacks we're seeing today. In order to combat today's dynamic threats a different approach is needed -- one that delivers continuous monitoring and full contextual analysis of threats before, during and after the attack.

In order to deal with today's security challenges, an NGFW must offer capabilities that address these three strategic imperatives:

Visibility-Driven

To address today's era of threats, a visibility-driven approach enables insight into all users, devices, OS, applications, virtual machines, connections and files, to provide real-time contextual awareness, give network defenders a holistic view of the network and make it easier to pinpoint suspicious behavior, when it happens. Full stack visibility and contextual awareness for integrated security serves as the basis for both streaming and automating defense responses. Granular application visibility and control and URL filtering are also crucial to reduce the overall attack surface.

Threat-centric

This entails delivering integrated threat defense, across the full attack continuum – before, during and after the attack. Threat-centric protection must combine market-leading NGIPS, with advanced malware protection (AMP) that is third-party tested to confirm security effectiveness. Because today's advanced malware is designed to evade "point-in-time" security layers, threats still get through, so organizations now require technology that not only scans at an initial point-in-time to detect, understand and stop threats, but also makes use of continuous capabilities, which can "go back in time" to alert on and remediate files initially deemed safe, that are later determined to be malicious.

Platform-based

IT professionals are now under tremendous pressure to reduce complexity in their environments, keep operational costs low and maintain the best defenses to keep pace with the dynamic threat landscape. In today's world, platform-based now entails delivering a simplified architecture and reduced network footprint, with fewer security devices to manage and deploy. To meet today's challenges, a next-generation firewall must combine proven firewall functionality, leading intrusion prevention capabilities, and advanced malware protection and remediation in a single device. These firewalls must be highly scalable, and enabled by open APIs, to deliver security across branches, the internet edge, and data centers (physical and virtual environments) in order to cope with growing demands.

Organizations are continuously evolving their extended networks and must have defenses in place that can address the dynamic threat landscape. To remain relevant, an NGFW must offer next-generation security capabilities that are visibility-driven, threat-focused and platform-based.

Addressing these three imperatives is crucial in enabling organizations to maintain a robust security posture, that can adapt to changing needs and provide protection across the attack continuum -- before, during and after an attack.

Sean Newman is a security strategist for Cisco Security Business Group

Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

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Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Has Crashed

This morning, Virgin Galactic tweeted that their SpaceShipTwo spaceplane had experienced an “in-flight anomaly”

We have now confirmed that SpaceShipTwo has crashed during a test flight due to currently unknown causes. A press conference is planned with more details at 2 pm pacific.

WhiteKnightTwo, the craft that carries SpaceShipTwo to altitude before detaching, landed safely.

There were at least two pilots on board the craft before the crash; their status is unknown. We will update as soon as we hear more.

SpaceShipTwo was designed primarily for space tourism, meant to carry passengers high enough to experience near-weightlessness for roughly $200,000 per ticket.

Story developing…

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Mad Genius Radio Feels Like A Smarter Version Of Old-School Radio

Mad Genius Radio is taking a somewhat old-school approach to streaming music.

In a world where most radio services use correlation algorithms to figure out what you want to hear, based on beats per minute and cadence and genre, without really thinking about the right rotation of new and old music. Thus, the stations you end up listening to the most become a bit stale.

But Mad Genius is different.

The newly launched platform offers users up to five presets, just like you’d find on a car radio, each of which can be tailored to the listener’s tastes. The presets offer an infinite playlist, where they can add up to seven different genres. Then, upon listening, users can give more of their rotation to certain genres, as well as rank specific songs and artists, upping the frequency with which that type of music will be played.

But most importantly, the genres are being constantly updated with the best and most interesting music, so that each users presets are constantly changing based on the songs in each genre’s rotation. The user still maintains control of the overall tone of the preset, dictating the value of each genre, artist and song, but the content itself is being updated by the Mad Genius algorithm.

However, users who listen to Time Machine stations for decade-based playlists (Best of the 80’s) will get the same songs in that station every time, with the ability to add in other genres that do update.

Another big differentiator for Mad Genius Radio is that users can always “undo” any of their settings. In most streaming services, like iTunes Radio, Songza, etc., when you delete a song or mark it to not play, you lose it forever. But sometimes you just want to mute some of your favorite songs so you don’t over-listen to them, which Mad Genius Radio allows for.

The company has $2 million in funding from undisclosed investors, and charges $5/month or $48/year. However, an extended free trial is currently underway with a paywall going up next year.

The service launched this week and is available now across iOS, Android and the web.

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Super-Agent Andrew Wylie Calls Amazon An “ISIS-Like Distribution Channel”

Andrew Wylie is a major book agent who many in the milquetoast publishing industry call the “jackal.” His fiery pronouncements are much-read in certain circles and his latest one, in a speech given at Toronto’s International Festival of Authors, is a doozy. Wylie, who sees Amazon as a threat to all that is good and holy in the book industry, called the organization “brutal” and equated it with a terrorist organization.

“I believe with the restored health of the publishing industry and having some sense of where this sort of Isis-like distribution channel, Amazon, is going to be buried and in which plot of sand they will be stuck, [publishers] will be able to raise the author’s digital royalty to 40% or 50%,” he said. “Writers will begin to make enough money to live.”

Wylie, who was specifically backing Hachette in the ongoing battle of the bookselling stars, told writers in March that “If you have a choice between the plague and Amazon, pick the plague!”

The problem here is that authors are already making enough money to survive. Authors who make an effort to survive on their ebooks – be they serial producers like the RealmAndSands or lucky ducks like who converted effort, personality, and good writing into an amazing career – the generally accepted notion that mainstream publishers help writer survive is continuing to crumble. In fact, the primary reason most publishers exist – the ability to pay an advance before the writing of a difficult book – is being threatened. As Matthew Yglesias writes:

The final role of the modern book publisher is as a payer of advances. The way the money end of books work is that the person who wrote a book gets paid a royalty on each copy sold — a sum that is generally much less than half the retail price of the book, and dramatically lower than the 70% that Amazon is willing to pay to authors who bypass the publishing incumbents. In addition to royalties, a publisher will typically pay you an advance. The advance is a special kind of loan. When your book first starts selling copies, the royalties you would be owed are kept by the publisher to repay the advance. If you sell a lot of books, you’ll fully repay your advance and start seeing money. If you sell very few books, you’ll never repay your advance and are under no obligation to do so.

…

My best guess is that this is too pessimistic about the financial logic behind giving advances. It is not, after all, just a loan that you may or may not pay back. An advance is bundled with a royalty agreement in which a majority of the sales revenue is allocated to someone other than the author of the book. In its role as venture capitalist, the publisher is effectively issuing what’s called convertible debt in corporate finance circles — a risky loan that becomes an ownership stake in the project if it succeeds.But what really matters here is that book publishers are not charities. They are for-profit business enterprises. If advances don’t make financial sense, then they will die off regardless of what happens to Amazon. If they do make financial sense, then they will live on as financial products even as the rest of the industry restructures.

Folks like Wylie are important cheerleaders for their industries. The book industry in particular enjoys its firebrands, elevating people who will say goofy stuff to positions of power in order to maintain the confirmation bias necessary to survive in a beleaguered industry. But if Wylie thinks that Amazon is so bad I do encourage him and his cohorts to pull their books. The following will happen: sales will drop, good editors will be laid off, those editors will go entrepreneurial, and a new generation of pro-Amazon writers and readers will fill in the ranks of the fallen. Still, Wylie is willing to go to war.

“The publishing industry, up until now, has cowered and whined and moaned and groaned and given Amazon pretty much everything they want. Now I think that’s going to stop,” he said.

To quote Marco from Tropojë, “Good luck.”

IMAGE BY Flickr USER nseika UNDER cc by 2.0 LICENSE



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How to choose the file sharing service that's right for your business

In only a handful of years, a wide range of file sharing services have popped up, from completely free services aimed at consumers (including the likes of Dropbox, Google and WeTransfer), to enterprise-focused services (such as Mimecast, EMC and Citrix).

Considering the long list of available offerings on both sides, making the right choice for your business can be difficult, so it's a good idea to do your research first...

Security

For every organization, security is a key consideration in the selection of any new IT service. When it comes to a file sharing service, it can be no less vital. Data privacy features can start with role-based access control and encryption for files in transit and at rest, but may differ between services.

More robust authentication mechanisms should also be provided by the service during sensitive transactions or when users are accessing sites from less secure locations. The provider being considered should also offer integration with policy-based data leakage prevention tools and be capable of limiting where and with whom files can be shared.

Integrated anti-malware controls are also invaluable, particularly in terms of protection against spam and phishing attacks. The latter are now routinely used in the majority of the advanced targeted attacks (or spear-phishing) and should be carefully guarded against.

Compliance

For compliance purposes, it's important that businesses know where their data and files are shared and stored. In order to meet compliance standards and to provide a measure of disaster recovery protection, files should be duplicated and stored in geographically dispersed data centers in geographically defined locations.

Availability

Any service being considered should provide a 100 per cent service availability SLA. This should include automatic failover during outages in order to provide a seamless, uninterrupted service and constant access to files.

Scalability

The service chosen should be as flexible and scalable as possible, providing support for an unlimited number of users at any given time. Services that use file volume upload limits should be avoided as they often encourage users to bypass the corporate service and use consumer-oriented offerings instead.

Administration

A particularly useful function of enterprise-grade file sharing and storage services is the ability to manage all processes via a single management console.

This saves IT time and money by providing centralized administration and can help to encourage enforcement of corporate policies. Native integration with Active Directory and other LDAP directories is also helpful in terms of assisting in the effective provisioning of users.

Devices and support

So many firms are employing BYOD policies, it's vital that any solution considered is able support a wide range of devices. It's likely that users will need to access the company systems via mobile browsers, the web, desktop and mobile applications, so all possibilities should be seamless and integrated, whilst also providing support for a wide range of document types.

Telephone and email support options are often overlooked at this stage but it's important these suit the company's needs and all the locations in which it operates. For example, such services should be available during local office hours in each region and SLAs should also be in place regarding timescales for resolving issues.

End user tools

It's vital that ease of use should be on a par with, or better than, consumer-oriented services. The service should be so tightly integrated with commonly used programs such as Outlook, that end-users may not even notice that it is in place.

A number of self-service tools such as self-service sign-up, file recovery and password resets would also be recommended. IT support should also not be needed when users want to perform basic search and retrieval activities.

Awareness and user training

Any service, no matter how well considered and implemented, will not be effective if end-users do not buy into it. Users should be informed of the security issues surrounding file sharing services such as Dropbox and WeTransfer, otherwise there is a strong likelihood that they will continue to make use of them, regardless of the company's new investment. Similarly, policies should be put in place so that end-users are provided with sufficient training on the new service, showing them how to get the most out of the improved functionality.

Image credit: Modella/Shutterstock

Orlando Scott-Cowley, is an evangelist, strategist and technologist at Mimecast.

Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

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Your Next Passport Could Be On The Blockchain

A blockchain tinkerer named Chris Ellis has created a system to build an actual digital passport that, through use of the Bitcoin blockchain and some encryption, will allow you to identify yourself online and off. Called World Citizenship, the project just launched on Github and shows some definite promise.

“The goal of this project is to learn and layout a simple process for anyone in the world to create their own Private Passport Service that can be used to validate and prove the existence of other persons using nothing but available tools,” wrote Ellis. To build a passport you basically take a photo of yourself and then build a private and public key. This cryptographically signs the document, proving it is legitimate. A number of other aspects, including the state of the bitcoin ledger called the blockchain, further confirm the issuance. Still confused? Read on:

By including the Merkle Root of the latest block we prove we have knowledge of an event that cannot have taken place any time prior the latest block being published.By signing the Passport with a PGP key we bind the state of the document to it’s cryptographic signature preventing us from changing its contents without detection.By stamping the digest of the resulting passport and its signature in to the blockchain following these steps we prove that it existed in this state at no time later than the block in which it was published.By using the venue’s Bitcoin address (preferably one used by their customers) with a public IP address we prove that it exists in this space.

This is because Bitcoin nodes collect IP data in the debug.log file. Additionally since the venue is commercial they have an interest in maintaining their reputation and advertising their location. (Note: GPS data on phones can easily be spoofed).

Basically you are confirming that the document couldn’t have been created by any other person at any other time, an assumption that goes into the production of government passports (the need to go into a post office to confirm your existence for a passport is a low-tech version of this process). Obviously you’re not going to be breezing through security with your new digital passport quite yet but it’s an interesting step in a very interesting direction.

Ellis is essentially creating trust where there was none initially. By doing this – and supplanting the old passport systems with this trust – he is looking toward a fascinating new future. In you have a full hour feel free to watch his video below.

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This Ambulance Drone Can Fly Into Trouble With First Aid

A Dutch engineer has created a flying defibrillator for emergency situations. The drone, called the Ambulance Drone, would be stationed at various points in the city. In an emergency, people on the scene can call it in and it arrives a few seconds later. The built-in defibrillator unit can be used by anyone and it allows doctors to monitor the situation after the shocks are administered.

The drone includes a webcam and loudspeaker and allows remote doctors to walk people on the scene through the process of attaching the electrodes and preparing the defibrillator. The creator, Alec Momont of TU Delft’s Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, said that 20% of people can operate a defibrillator without instruction and the number rises when they have prompts from trained personnel.

‘Some 800,000 people suffer a cardiac arrest in the EU every year, and only 8% survive,’ Momont explains. ‘The main reason for this is the relatively long response time of the emergency services (approx. 10 minutes), while brain death and fatalities occur within 4 to 6 minutes. The ambulance drone can get a defibrillator to a patient inside a 12 km zone within one minute. This response speed increases the chance of survival following a cardiac arrest from 8% to 80%.’

The system is still in prototype stage but there is a good chance it could be launched in five years for about $20,000 each. Drones are still not allowed to fly autonomously so they can’t wing their way around downtown Delft with their helpful payload… yet. It will be interesting to see these robots flying around one day, dropping first aid when needed.

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New Outlook For Mac Now Available, Rest Of Office For Mac Updates Coming In 2015

We’ve seen leaks of a new Office for Mac 2015 suite circulate, but the new version of Outlook for Mac is already here, at least for Office 365 subscribers. The overhauled email client includes a new look and feel, as well as search that extends to archived mail (whether stored online or on corporate servers), better all around performance, push email support and more. Microsoft also took this opportunity to make its Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote for Mac updates official, announcing public beta availability beginning early next year, with a general consumer launch in the second half of 2015.

The new Office apps for Mac will be available to Office 365 subscribers with no additional cost as part of their subscription, once released, while the company also plans to launch a perpetual license for a one-off buy at the same time as Office for Mac becomes available as final shipping software.

The new Outlook has a redesign that makes it look a lot more like its companion apps on other platforms, including Windows, and the web on both desktop and mobile. Using Outlook on a Mac is still mostly inconceivable to me, but then again, I rarely have to deal with a corporate email environment and unlike the bulk of large enterprises out there, we run a mostly Mac shop.

Microsoft’s continued commitment to Mac users is a good thing overall, since it means more platform choice for those who have need of Office software. The company seems even more committed to supporting customers beyond the Windows ecosystem than ever, thanks to the release of surprisingly impressive Office mobile apps for iPad earlier this year. Microsoft says the reason its Mac software is lagging behind its usual update schedule relative to the Windows release this time around is because it chose to focus on those mobile apps mentioned above first this time around.

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Amazon’s Fire Phone Product Efforts Will Continue Despite Early Stumbles

Amazon is taking the long view on the Fire phone, despite poor early sales, a huge price cut and $83 million in surplus inventory that resulted in a $170 million charge for the excess hardware and supplier costs combined. Amazon’s SVP of Devices David Limp told Fortune the big issue was a miscalculation on pricing, which later resulted in Amazon slashing the price of the device from $199 on contract to just 99 cents.

Limp said that the Fire phone is selling better post-price cut than it had been before, by a significant margin, though as usual Amazon declined to share any actual numbers. The SVP also pointed to software improvements that have addressed a lot of early customer complaints about the device. The plan is to continue to release software improvements for this generation of device, and Limp says they’re looking at the Fire phone as similar in trajectory to the Kindle.

Amazon’s first Kindle had a lot of kinks that left reviewers unimpressed. Compared to the current generation of device’s, it was a largely uninspiring mess that few would’ve pegged for continued survival. The Fire phone, likewise, has analysts and press proclaiming its demise. But Amazon can likely stick out a few generations of Fire phone in the interest of finding a better formula that customers will respond to. This generation was too focused on building a funnel for Amazon’s shopping experiences, and future devices will probably strike a better balance.

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Mobile devices make sales work more complicated

We're frequently being told that the use of mobile devices makes our work lives easier, but it seems that a sizable percentage of people don't share that view.

Mobile sales solution company Seismic has released the results of its Salesforce Spotlight survey showing the complex relationship between business users and mobile technology.

The survey carried out amongst Dreamforce attendees reveals that Salesforce is still the main platform for handling sales data and that 57 percent of respondents use the package for more than two hours a day. When it comes to mobile access though, 21 percent said they had no plans to implement the Salesforce1 platform.

Of those who have already implemented Salesforce1, 66 percent say they access it via both smartphone and tablet. Those that use it on just one platform favor their smartphones, but more than 60 percent of respondents using both reached for their tablet more frequently than their smartphone for CRM, content management and presentation tasks.

Perhaps most interesting though is mobile's perceived impact on working lives. Whilst the previous survey in 2013 showed that seven percent of Dreamforce users thought mobile technology would complicate their work life, this year's findings show nearly 20 percent feel that mobile technology has made their work lives more complicated in the past year.

"While our survey findings validate the growing importance of mobile devices in the enterprise, it was surprising to find that users view mobile technology as a complication to their work lives," says Seismic CEO Doug Winter. "Cutting-edge mobile technologies should be simplifying marketing and sales processes, not complicating them. Organizations need to become more strategic and agile when implementing new software if they want to gain a competitive advantage".

The full report is available to download from the Seismic website.

Image Credit: Sergey Nivens / Shutterstock

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Understanding the cloud

How many of you really understand the cloud? If you were tasked with explaining "the cloud" to a child could you manage it?

A recent discussion with top industry professionals and cloud thought leaders revealed that, for cloud solution providers, education was the biggest hurdle in cloud service adoption. Thankfully at a SAGE hosted round table, we dissected exactly what the cloud is, what it does, and how it can benefit you.

This is what the cloud is

Are you ready for a single sentence to surmise the cloud?

"The cloud is a range of IT services that aren't on the premises" Craig Sharp, Director of Abusi, proclaimed. IT service meaning; encryption, backup and storage, security, servers, applications, and any other IT service you can think of. All these services are now available through the "cloud".

"The cloud" utilizes the speed of our communications networks to use Internet-based services as a sort-of virtual hard drive (HDD). Instead of physically accessing data stored on your HDD (such as documents, applications, or other data) or using your computer's processing power you can use offsite servers to complete tasks.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (an arm of the US department of commerce) lists five "essential characteristics" that determine if an IT service is under the cloud umbrella:

• "On-demand self-service" -- A user can use more computing resources (storage, processing, bandwidth, active user accounts) as need be without needing to talk to anyone


• "Broad network access" -- The services can be used or accessed by different devices, such as smartphones, laptops, work stations


• "Resource pooling" -- The cloud service provider's computing resources are utilized by multiple organizations, and the computing resources adapt to suit each organization’s computing needs


• "Rapid elasticity" -- The scale of the user's available resources can expand or contract according to need, so that to the user computing resources appear unlimited


• "Measured service" -- A user's computing resources use is measured and can be controlled. The usage data can be reported to both user and provider.

Rather than treating the cloud as a separate entity, understand that "the cloud" is a set of Internet services that have the aforementioned features.

This is what the cloud does

In the previous section we looked at the "essential features" that a provider has to demonstrate to qualify as a cloud service, in this section we'll discuss how those features are actually utilized. I'm going to gamble that you're already using/have heard of consumer cloud services, such as Netflix, Dropbox, or Spotify so I'll relate those to businesses-use cases of the cloud.

On-demand self-service

In my household we have Netflix, me and my housemate like to watch on our laptops but my girlfriend enjoys watching on her iPad. If suddenly my sister drops by and demands "I must watch my television shows!" what we can then do is set up another Netflix user on the same account and my sister can then watch Netlfix on another device.

What Netflix allows consumers to do is set up more users on the same account, with all the users having access to the same library, and assigns enough bandwidth to the account for each user to watch different videos simultaneously. Using a cloud based service such as Office 365 is the Netflix of office documentation. You can add users on the fly, choose which documents your staff can access, and have everyone use the same Office 365 account on separate devices at once.

Broad network access

I have the Spotify app on said girlfriend's iPad, my laptop, and my Windows phone, this means that I can use my login details on any of these devices and have access to my playlists, my favorited artists, and artists Spotify has recommended to me. So I can enjoy a new album on my laptop, log in to the app on my phone and listen to the same music as I walk to the shops, and then show-off my musical discovery to my girlfriend on her iPad.

Because I can access the same data on a multitude of devices I have a much greater degree of mobility. Utilizing a cloud service you can conceivably; write a first-draft of a report on your home PC, re-read the report on your phone during your commute making annotations and editing notes, then have the report with the annotations available at your work station. If you choose your data can be synchronized across multiple devices. At a basic level this avoids embarrassing cock-ups like forgetting a USB stick or bringing the wrong version of a document. At a complex level it allows easier collaboration between staff regardless of their locations.

Resource pooling

Both my father and I use Dropbox, we have separate accounts, separate files, and separate subscription models. Just because I have 10GB of storage and my father has access to 5GB it doesn't mean that he couldn't upgrade to 10GB. Similarly if my dad suddenly needed a whopping 1TB of Dropbox storage, Dropbox wouldn't need to limit my usage to accommodate my father's.

Essentially no matter how many people from different enterprises are actively using the service there should never be a drop in quality for any user. What this means for businesses is that SMEs (small to medium enterprises) have access to the same level of computing resources as MNCs (multi-national corporations). This means your organization is incredibly scalable, we'll talk more about that under the next heading.

Rapid elasticity

I couldn't think of a particularly good analogous consumer service, but "rapid elasticity" is a simple concept to understand.

Say your company is expanding and you need more storage space for your data and more people need to access that data, so you buy more servers. Your company keeps expanding and you buy more and more servers, but there's an unexpected financial crash and suddenly you can't afford to keep on the same number of staff. The reduced staff number means that all those fancy servers you bought are now just boxes with lights on, not being used by anybody.

As we touched on under the previous heading, one of the strengths of cloud services is their scalable nature. This means that if your business begins hiring new staff, you don't need to buy more servers or data racks to accommodate the new users, you can just acquire more computing resources in the cloud. Similarly if you downscale your operation you can simply tell the cloud service provider that you don't need the extra storage space, number of user accounts or bandwidth anymore.

Measured service

Amazon's on-demand video service allows you to "rent" video for a single watch much like visiting Blockbuster (other video rental shops were available). Assuming I don't want to clutter my house with DVDs I may only watch once, this means that I only get charged for what I use.

Because cloud services are strictly measured and both you and the cloud service provider have access to the measurement data, you can judge what level of computing resources you know you need. Although most cloud services providers won't provide you with an exact you-pay-for-what-you-use model, most will offer a flexible payment model that fits in with their product.

Do you now understand the cloud?

The cloud is the future of IT infrastructure, owning physical servers is expensive and cumbersome and severely limits a business's agility and growth prospects. The biggest takeaway from the roundtable was this: the jargon surrounding cloud technology gets in the way of selling it.

All of the attendees were confused by the tech industry's insistence of using confusing terms to describe basic functions. A great litmus test for determining if a sales person is full of it or if they can actually help you is query every word you don't understand, that'll have some sales people nervously tugging their collar!

Image Credit: ND Johnston/Shutterstock

Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

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Getting the basics of network security right

With every new breach, network security hits the news, yet many people and companies still don’t get the basics right.

UK-based wireless network specialist Exigent Networks has produced an infographic that looks at the importance of network security and offers tips and expert advice.

It covers the essentials of what network security does as well as looking at some of the most common attack vectors like eavesdropping, trojans and denial of service attacks. It also looks at the technology of network security and sets out some best practice guidelines for businesses.

It concludes with quotes from some of the industry's leading security experts on why network security is vital. You can see the full infographic below.

Image Credit: rosedesigns / Shutterstock

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Samsung's new Galaxy A5, A3 smartphones boast very thin metal designs

Samsung is slowly moving away from its oft-maligned, all-plastic smartphone designs of the past, in an attempt to convince consumers that it too can make premium-looking and feeling devices. The first smartphone to reveal what the future holds was Galaxy Alpha, announced just a few months ago. Then Galaxy Note 4 came along, stepping things up even further in the high-end segment.

And now we see how Samsung's vision will impact its less expensive Galaxy devices, as the company just took the wraps off Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A3 today, two mid-range to low-end smartphones featuring "refined full metal unibody designs" that happen to be very, very thin (for whatever reason): 6.7 and 6.9 mm, respectively.

"The Galaxy A5 and A3 offer a beautifully crafted full metal unibody, slim design, superior hardware and the best possible social media experience", says Samsung CEO JK Shin. "These devices make our advanced Galaxy experience even more accessible to young and trend conscious consumers". In fact, Samsung is calling Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A3 its "slimmest smartphones to date", thanks to those low profiles.

And when Shin says Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A3 are designed for "young and trend conscious consumers", he means it. Both smartphones have 5 MP front-facing cameras, which should take quality selfies. But they also support 4G LTE connectivity, which means that those selfies should be uploaded in no time to Facebook or Instagram. Here's what Samsung says: "Users are also able to quickly and easily share photos or videos on their favorite social media channels with the device’s fast network speed of LTE Category 4 standard".

Both smartphones ship with Super AMOLED displays, a feature that is rarely seen in below-premium Galaxy smartphones (like Galaxy Alpha, Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 4). Galaxy A5 has the bigger panel, measuring 5.0 inches, with the higher resolution, of 720 by 1,280. Galaxy A3 makes due with a 4.5-inch screen with a resolution of 540 by 960. There's a similar thing going on inside. Here are the other noteworthy specs:

Galaxy A5: 1.2 GHz quad-core processor, 13 MP main camera, 2 GB of RAM, 2,300 mAh battery; 16 GB of internal storage; microSD card slot; Wi-Fi 802.11n; Bluetooth 4.0 LE; NFC (only in the 4G LTE model); Android 4.4 KitKat. It comes in at 139.3 x 69.7 x 6.7 mm and 123 grams.

Galaxy A3: 1.2 GHz quad-core processor, 8 MP main camera, 1 GB of RAM, 1,900 mAh battery; 16 GB of internal storage; microSD card slot; Wi-Fi 802.11n; Bluetooth 4.0 LE; NFC (only in the 4G LTE model); Android 4.4 KitKat. It comes in at 130.1 x 65.5 x 6.9 mm and 110.3 grams.

As you might have figured out after going through the specs, both will be sold in 4G LTE and HSPA+ versions. And, of course, they will feature Samsung's usual TouchWiz add-ons, like Ultra-Power Saving Mode and Adaptive Display.

Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A3 (pictured above) will be sold in Champagne Gold, Light Blue, Midnight Black, Pearl White and Platinum Silver, starting in November; the color names (trickling down from more expensive Galaxys) sound fitting for their upmarket designs.

I do have to wonder what Samsung means by "full metal unibody designs", as the backs of the two smartphones look like they are still made out of plastic (polycarbonate). That is not a problem in my eyes, as the design seems to work great for Galaxy Alpha and Galaxy Note 4 where the back cover can be removed to switch the battery and insert a microSD card. But that description may lead people into thinking that it will feature as much metal as an iPhone, which does not appear to be accurate.

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Novelty T-Shirt Maker Print Syndicate Raises $4.25M Series A

Print Syndicate, an e-commerce store that sells printed T-shirts and other fashion and home decor goods, has raised $4.25 million in Series A funding led by Data Point Capital.

Other investors include Groupon founders Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell’s Lightbank Capital, and Tech Fund, which was launched by Zappos founder Tony Hsieh, as well as CNF Investments and TechColumbus. The company, which runs retail sites LookHuman.com, ActivateApparel.com, and Mericamade.com, will use the capital to increase its production capacity and make additional senior management hires.

Based in Columbus, Ohio, Print Syndicate claims it will grow 300 percent year-over-year in 2014. While it competes with other online retailers like CafePress and Zazzle, Print Syndicate wants to stand out with what it calls its “Just In Time model.” In other words, its employees keep an eye on social media to spot memes, catchphrases, and other things that can be turned into T-shirt designs and home goods, hopefully before they go viral.

In a statement, Scott Savitz, the founder of Data Point Capital, said “Our firm invests in game changers who leverage and scale on the Internet. Print Syndicate built a pioneering e-commerce business over the last two years that we believe will transform how products are created, marketed and sold in our social media culture. It’s a perfect example of how businesses can offer a better, more relevant buying experience through innovation.”

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Apple's Tim Cook is gay -- the fact it needs to be announced shows what’s wrong in tech

The sexuality of people in the public often comes in for scrutiny. Whether we're talking about Michael Stipe coming out at the same time as REM released Monster, Morrissey using Autobiography to give a beautifully tender glimpse into the loves of his life, Ellen DeGeneres revealing her sexual preferences to Oprah Winfrey, or any one of countless other celebrities who chooses to make their sexuality public, where those in the limelight fit onto the sexual spectrum has long been -- and will undoubtedly continue to be -- of endless interest to people.

Writing in Bloomberg Businessweek, Apple CEO Tim Cook, entirely unprompted, has said that he is gay. For many people this will come as no surprise, for most it will be of no consequence, some will take exception to it. But what's interesting is that, in 2014, a man (or woman, for that matter) proclaiming their sexuality, is news. Tim Cook is currently the top trending topic on Twitter.

The whole thing is slightly odd. Tim Cook is CEO of Apple, a technology company loved and hated in just about equal measure, but always regarded with sage admiration. In the realms of the tech world -- which is what we at BetaNews generally concern ourselves with -- what we are interested in is the hardware and software that is pumped out with reassuring frequency , and assessing it in terms of value for money, aesthetics, usefulness and so on. The sexuality of the man at the top matters no more than whether he likes to eat cereal for breakfast or fruit and yogurt.

And yet tech blogs, newspapers, computing websites, social media have lit up at Cook's editorial. I realize there is a slight irony in writing a news article proclaiming that the very thing being referred to may not be newsworthy. But the fact that it is in the news, and so prominently, makes it newsworthy; it's slightly meta in that way.

Cook's sexuality was never a secret as such. As he says, "while I have never denied my sexuality, I haven’t publicly acknowledged it either", and "plenty of colleagues at Apple know I’m gay". It wasn't even an open secret, it was just something that many people assumed, some knew, and most couldn't care about. There has been an incredible reaction to the words "I'm proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me". It is an interesting turn of phrase which is sure to set tongues wagging.

Websites have practically fallen over themselves to heap their praise on the announcement. Some, like Neowin, have also questioned whether it should be reported as news, and plenty have labored over carefully chosen words that the writers hope convey how totally cool they are with the notion -- is acknowledging one's sexuality better than "admitting" it? PC Mag seems to suggest that Cook has been mute for a while ("Tim Cook today broke his silence"), and Ars Technica seems to think there has been "debate" about his sexuality. Re/code points out that Cook is "the most prominent openly gay business executive" -- Harvard Business Review says that he is the first CEO of a Fortune 500 company to come out.

Cook says that while he has "tried to maintain a basic level of privacy", he feels that "I've come to realize that my desire for personal privacy has been holding me back from doing something more important". Men and women who work their way to the top of the world of tech often become known for other things. Bill Gates is now more readily associated with philanthropic work than Microsoft -- something Mark Zuckerberg would no doubt like for himself and Facebook. Cook makes it clear that he is not an activist, but says that "if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it's worth the trade-off with my own privacy."

Part of the problem -- if it can be described as such -- with anyone coming out as gay, bisexual, lesbian, transgender, transvestite or as falling into some other group covered by the broad LGBT umbrella, is that all too often it reduces people to fitting into a particular box. Many people's view of Cook will now be forever colored by today's announcement. If this sounds like glib, it is certainly not supposed to. The whole event, and the sickly sweet reactions, is a sad state of affairs, and it just goes to show that the world of technology -- like many other businesses and the world in general -- remains dominated by white, heterosexual, middleclass, right wing men, and any deviation from this is frowned upon, or requires a special announcement followed by acceptance.

Cook's public proclamation was a brave move. Even with the support of friends, family and colleagues, it cannot have been an easy decision. But the very fact that there is such a reaction to something so... normal... is sad. Big love to you, Tim, your anti-discrimination article is inspiring. You're right to be proud. A person can only be proud of two things -- who they are and what they do. You’ve done better than most on both fronts. The fact you're gay simply doesn’t enter into it.

Photo credit: Lester Balajadia / Shutterstock.com

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GoPro Shares Spike As It Handily Beats Street Estimates

GoPro’s earnings for the third quarter were pretty as a picture for the company’s investors, with earnings coming in above analysts’ expectations

For the quarter, GoPro racked up sales of $280 million, up 45.7 percent from the $192.1 million reported in the third quarter of 2013. Adjusting for generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), profits were $14.6 million, or 10 cents per share, compared to a $1.1 million, or 1 cent per-share, loss in the third quarter of 2013.

Analysts had predicted revenue of $265.6 million and earnings of 8 cents per share.

On a non-GAAP basis, GoPro earned $0.12 per share, putting its normally accounted for profit, and its adjusted profit in reasonable harmony. Companies like Twitter that have higher share-based compensation costs have larger negative deltas between their GAAP and non-GAAP profit margins.

The company, which has seen its stock price tumble from the peaks it reached in the first months after its public offering, was buoyed by a strong showing for its new line of cameras, which the company called the most successful launch in its history.

Shares were up over $5 or more than 7 percent in after-hours trading on the Nasdaq, as investors responded favorably to all the good news.

Here’s the chart:

“The global scale and execution of our HERO4 launch made this the most successful roll out in GoPro’s history,” said GoPro founder and chief executive, Nicholas Woodman., who also touted advancements in the company’s desktop and mobile content management applications aimed at making it easier for GoPro owners to create and share content.

With the earnings, GoPro is sitting fairly pretty as it heads into the holiday season. As part of the bigger muscles the strong public offering afforded the company, Best Buy customers around the country can expect to see more of an in-store presence from the camera maker.

GoPro went public for $24 per share. It closed regular trading at $68.25, and is up past $72 in after-hours trading. Nascent media business or not, investors are happy with what they see. The company is worth around $9 billion.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/R7EataAeuHU/

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Autodesk Invests $100 Million Toward The First 3D Printing Fund

Autodesk is opening up a first of it’s kind $100 million 3D printing fund and new partners 3D Hubs, Authentise, and MatterFab. The idea for the new Spark Investment Fund is to give money to startups and designers in the 3D printing space.

The company is now encouraging those interested in developing hardware, software, materials, marketplaces and maker spaces to apply to participate in the Spark Investment Fund’s investment portfolio.

Autodesk announced its Ember open source 3D printer and the Spark platform back in May. The platform is not on the market just yet, but it can work with many different types of 3D printers and materials to create specially designed objects. The design software firm is hoping those in the 3D printing community can help collaborate and improve the platform as well as its associated Ember 3D printer and materials.

Autodesk is looking for some of the best up-and-coming 3D printing companies to invest in. Those who receive investment from the Spark fund will become part of the Autodesk’s Spark partner program and will have access to marketing and other developer services available to Spark partners.

“Numerous industries recognize the value of tapping into entrepreneurs or startups with better ideas and approaches, and 3D printing is no exception,” says Autodesk’s VP of consumer products and 3D printing, Samir Hanna.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/bTdyq1Mt4LE/

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University Beyond Raises $300K Seed To Hook Up Brands And College Kids

Plenty of companies are looking to give brands and recruiters a way to connect with the ultra-valuable, soon-to-be-working, super influential college demographic, and University Beyond has just raised $300,000 in seed funding to do just that.

The round was led by Innovation Garden, with participation from two unnamed angel investors.

The idea behind University Beyond is to first connect brands with students who are interested in being in brand ambassador programs, and then facilitate that relationship through an online dashboard.

The first step is accomplished with a simple nationwide job board, but the back-end dashboard allows brands to assign and monitor student tasks, live chat through an inbox or videoconference, and handle payments through the system.

On the other side, obviously, students also have access to jobs as brand ambassadors and an easy online portal to see assignments and get paid. In fact, students can even download an auto-generated resume and certificate of completion for their college work as a brand ambassador.

“University Beyond is changing the landscape of ambassador programs through an educational focus,” said cofounder Doug Messer. “We are working to provide students not only internship opportunities for completing their ambassador program, but actual credit toward graduation.”

The project comes by way of cofounders Doug Messer and Brendan Weinstein, who first sharpened their entrepreneurial chops with a watch company called DBFLY. The watches sold well, and it led the guys to start an entertainment and events brand around DBFLY. As the company grew, Messer and Weinstein looked to infiltrate college campuses, but struggled finding good brand ambassadors and communicating with them.

And so, University Beyond was born.

The platform is free to use for students and brands until 2014, at which point brands will owe a flat monthly fee. The team has not disclosed how much that will be, but it is a different business model from other similar services who charge per posting, per university, etc.

The service is launching at a time when the space is hot, as competitive services like CampusLive are also starting to make a push.

To learn more about University Beyond, check out the website here.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/WtPYXP8vM1U/

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Instagram Video Ads Go Live Because Everything Good Must Come To An End

Instagram has at long last debuted video advertisements after rigorous testing and hands-on work with brands. And because they are advertisements, none of that rigorous work really matters because we simply hate advertisements.

With video ads, the potential for high levels of suckage is high, as brands have a total of 15 seconds to capture you, as opposed to the half-second glance they get with a photo. The same is true for regular users, which is why I never thought video was a good idea for Instagram.

But, as it often goes with incumbents, Facebook-owned Instagram seemed to become more reactive, launching video after Twitter-owned Vine made waves in the space.

Today, Instagram continues to work on the video side of its product, with the launch of a standalone app called Hyperlapse, that speeds up and stabilizes your mobile video.

Whether or not you agree with me about video on Instagram, it’s hard to disagree with me when I say that social networks are often marred by advertisements.

It’s not necessarily the ads themselves that are the problem. In fact, Facebook worked them in so well that for a long time I never noticed the change. Obviously, advertisements pay for the services we enjoy (for now) and are tolerable enough for users of platforms like Twitter and Facebook and Instagram (and now Snapchat) to bear.

But ads are a simple reminder that the social connections and interactions you’re having are actually the main source of income for a global corporation. For some reason, it just feels a bit less special.

And Instagram was special to me. And so I mourn the launch of Instagram video advertisements, because it feels like the end of an era. But… all good things come to an end.

If you want to check out Instagram’s first video ads, I’ve included them below or you can read AdWeek’s full piece on the launch.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ayvVDFLvxVw/

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Alphaworks, The Equity Crowdfunding Platform From Betaworks, Brings On Erin Glenn As CEO

Today the folks at Alphaworks, the equity crowd-funding platform branched out of betaworks, are announcing leadership changes, with Erin Glenn taking the lead as CEO.

Nick Chirls, cofounder and former CEO of Alphaworks, is moving on to pursue another new project.

Glenn comes from four years in a CFO position at KIXEYE, where she helped scale the company into nine digit revenues. Before that, she was working in investment banking with UBS and Morgan Stanley, making her an optimal candidate to take the reins at Alphaworks.

Alphaworks launched back in February of this year with the goal to help community-based startups offer equity and raise funds from their own users and community, people who are already, in some way, truly invested.

Thus far, Alphaworks has helped a number of startups tack on an extra 100k to a round, or close up a smaller seed, including Quibb and betaworks’ own Giphy.

In addition to the appointment of Erin Glenn, Alphaworks is also announcing that Vayner RSE, Crunchfund, Box.net and Whitestar are joining SV Angel and Lerer Hippeau Ventures as founding sponsors on the Alphaworks platform. These are the firms that are bringing deals to the platform.

You can learn more about Alphaworks here.

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LG’s Crazy New Smartphone Screen Has Almost No Bezel

Tired of looking at all that extra space around your smartphone screen?

Let’s ignore for a second that that space serves a rather important function (giving you somewhere to put your thumb/fingers that isn’t on the screen) and just marvel at this thing.

Built by LG, that 5.3″, 1080p display up top has a bezel that comes in at just 0.7 millimeters.

That’s just crazy. It looks like something out of one of those fan-made “next iPhone” mockups that always tend to pop up before each new iPhone’s release, with their endless wish lists of mostly impossible features.

Best part? It sounds like LG actually intends to mass-produce these rather than just using it as a demo to show off their tech prowess. Alas, all of us stateside might have to wait a while; LG specifically notes that these screens will head to smartphones in China first.

Now, to figure out how anyone is actually supposed to hold that thing…

Of course, you can really only cut down the top and bottom bezel so much without ditching things like the front-facing camera, a home button, and that pesky earpiece speaker that lets you, you know, use the phone as a phone. The photo below better displays what a handset with this screen would look like with those things in the mix.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/S1UyU553Hac/

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uBeam Nabs $10 Million In Funding From Upfront Ventures To Make Wireless Charging A Reality

Wireless power seems like one of those things everyone always dreams about. I mean, how great would it be to have your phone just charge while it’s sitting in your pocket, with no need to plug it in? That’s the premise uBeam is setting out to deliver on, and to do so, it’s raised $10 million in Series A funding led Upfront Ventures.

The investment brings total capital raised to about $12 million, with other investors that include Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Crunchfund*, Ludlow Ventures, Marissa Mayer, Zappos co-founder Tony Hsieh, Troy Carter, Shawn Fanning, and Mark Cuban. With the new funding, Upfront managing partner Mark Suster will join the uBeam board.

uBeam is just one among a large number of companies we’ve seen over the years that have sought to solve the problem of charging your devices without having to plug them in. So far most seem to have been focused on magnetic resonance charging, which still requires devices to be close to the charger.

By contrast uBeam wants to enable users to charge their phones without plugging in, and they’re looking to do that through the use of ultrasonic sound waves. Those waves can’t be heard by human ears, but can be converted to energy through the technology that uBeam has developed.

To start, the company is looking to offer up a consumer-facing product that would resemble any protective phone case but have the side benefit of being able to charge a device while in range of a uBeam transmitter. Unlike Mophie battery packs, uBeam wants to make its product as light and unobtrusive as possible — there will be no big battery sitting on the back of its case.

It’s filed a number of patents related to its technology, and founder and CEO Meredith Perry — seen above with a VERY early prototype — says uBeam has a working prototype of the product and hopes to have product in customers’ hands within the next two years. That might seem like a long time, especially for technology that the company has already been working on for a while.

The funding should help accelerate things, as the company has hired 11 new employees recently and is getting ready to actually move into production. The startup graveyard is littered with wireless charging companies, however as the technology always sounds great but takes a good deal to get going.

With so much capital raised, hopefully uBeam won’t the same fate as those that came before it, because yeah, I’d like to just charge my phone while in my pocket, too.

==

* Of course CrunchFund invested. But I wrote about this because I really just want wireless charging in my life.

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Ezra’s Craft Liquor Marketplace Helps You Understand All The Subtle Notes Of Your Drink

At some point in most everyone’s life, alcohol consumption goes from a sport wherein players try to get pounded in the most efficient way possible to an activity all in itself, where people actually enjoy the taste, the flavors, and the experience of drinking a fine liqueur.

But going from ordering a “Jack and Coke” or tequila shots to buying top-shelf spirits can be a difficult leap to make.

That’s where Ezra’s comes in. It’s a curated marketplace for craft distilleries to sell their vodka, gin, tequila, rum, or whiskey, with complete and educational information about what to expect out of every bottle. Users can browse based on what’s popular, search for particular liquors or brands, shop by what’s new, or look at Ezra’s curated picks.

But Ezra’s goes beyond a simple marketplace, offering distillers the chance to post videos, recipes, and tips to connect directly with their customers. Usually, craft distillers work directly with wholesale buyers and liquor stores, never really connecting with the folks who are buying their product. Plus, Ezra’s truly opens up distribution for most craft distillers who, based on regulations in most states, are only allowed to sell online in states where they are sold by retailers.

With Ezra’s every distiller can sell to up to 40 different states.

With today’s launch, Ezra’s is opening up shop with a portfolio of over 125 different liquors, along with ingredients needed to make the original recipes found on the site.

The best part of Ezra’s is that it takes education around the products seriously. You could visit Ezra’s without a cent to your name and walk away more confident for your next trip to the bar.

Additionally, Ezra’s is launching a brick-and-mortar flagship store today in Chicago.

The whole thing is funded and conceived by twins Adam and Parker Newman and their childhood friend Scott Reich. The Newmans come from a private equity background, and have put up their own money to get Ezra’s up and running.

If you want to check out Ezra’s for yourself, click here.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/bkfg_TwZWJ4/

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About.Me Launches App That Aims To Replace The Business Card

Founder of about.me, Tony Conrad, says it’s time to disrupt the business card. He’s released a new app today called Intro to do just that.

“You don’t always have a business card with you, but you always have your phone,” Conrad explained over the phone. “This takes what we have with About.me and makes it a digital business card for mobile,” Conrad said over the phone.

Intro is pretty simple. It gathers the info you have on your personal about.me page such as your picture and contact info and puts it front and center on the app. You then can share that information with others you meet at a conference or other possible business setting.

You choose what information you give out to others on the app. One person might be privy to the whole shebang – your cell, office and email. Another person maybe just gets your hotmail from nine years ago. Once you have selected what information you’d like to share, Intro sends it to your new contact via email or text message. “It solves the problem business cards have today. You maybe don’t want to give everything out,” Conrad tells me. He says he’s been carrying three different cards around with him to every conference and hands out the right information on each card, according to the person he’s been speaking with.

Some of you may remember about.me tried to reinvent the business card a little while back with a partnership it had with Moo cards. But those were still physical cards. This is a whole new way to share info, via your smartphone.

Intro solves another problem, putting a face to a name. “It seems a little weird to put your picture on a business card,” says Conrad. “But I started doing that and now I’m used to it.” Now the same thing is available on a digital about.me contact via Intro. It can help you remember what the person who gave you their contact actually looks like. That’s definitely a critical change. How many conferences go by with contact info exchanged only to totally forget who a bunch of people were and what they looked like?

This could potentially take on LinkedIn as a business reference rival. LinkedIn currently has a slew of standalone apps for news, sales, and recruiting. One, aptly called Connected, is clearly intended for contact exchange. “We’re not a competitor to LinkedIn,” Conrad tells me. He would like to believe there is not a true competitor to his new app, but admits the resume portion in Intro comes close to what LinkedIn offers.

All of the information you send or receive is also stored within the app and organized into ‘My Shares’ and ‘Shared With Me’ for easy reference. “We created Intro so that the first time you meet someone – the most critical part of building a new relationship you can leave an impression that actually communicates your identity and is remembered long after that first exchange,” Conrad explains.

Intro is available for download in the App Store, starting today.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/7lNKUPz-cW8/

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Google Play Books Updated To Make It A Better eReader For Students And Chefs

Most eReader apps tend to be built for reading something from start to finish — which makes sense, given that that’s how about 99% of fiction works are meant to be read.

But what about non-fiction stuff? The research documents, the text books, and the cook books of the world? In books of that sort, the reader often needs to flip back and forth between opposite ends of the book almost endlessly.

With those folks in mind, Google has just updated its Google Play Books eReader application with a focus on efficient reading.

Since the spirit of this update is efficiency, we’ll keep this one light. Here’s whats new:

• “Skim” mode allows you to zoom between pages in an endless stream, rather than forcing you to flip through page by page.


• “Quick Bookmarks” let you set multiple saved spots in the book and quickly jump back and forth betwen them — perfect for when you’re required to refer to some referrence table 200 pages away from what you’re trying to read.


• You can now view all of your notes and highlights on one page, and quickly jump to the correlating passages. The study benefits there are pretty obvious.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/oHVVazRH4C0/

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Elimi Turns Dating Into Truth Or Dare

Hey, are you interested in ladies or men? Do you like to flirt with a capital F? Then Elimi is for you (or perhaps not if you prefer to meet potential partners at the church, club, or local rendering plant). Created by Adam Labedzki and Sebastian Brzuzek, the app allows allows you to enter into a sort of flirtatious version of truth or dare without the dare part.

It’s a cute idea. Users create questions – “Did you ever kiss a visiting Prussian oligarch on a massive yacht?” or “Do you like chocolate?” – and potential mates answer them. The banter goes on until one person is disgusted by the other or a match is made. Think of it as a sort of Turing Test for love that is completely controlled by the instigating party. It connects to your Facebook account and you’re notified when you have new questions via push notifications.

Labedzki says that the entire game gives the person asking the first question far more power. They can ask the first question and control to whom they want to speak. “People can easily express themselves,” he said. “It’s real time, so there’s no fake content prepared for weeks in advance.”

The company raised $135,000 in seed investment from local Polish angels. They’ve hit about about 1,000 users and have hosted 2,000 games so far.

The product is, arguably, a bit goofy and the lads miss a few cultural cues, but as a first effort it’s pretty cool. Sadly, many of the interactions are currently in Polish but if you’re looking to meet someone in Central Europe, it might be the way to go.

The app is available now and chatters are, it seems, standing by.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/cES6_BaM9SE/

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Mixify’s Clubcast Service To Live Stream DJs Goes Global With Indian Launch

Mixify, the live streaming service connecting big-ticket DJs to clubs around the world, is seeing its Clubcast service take off with DJs like Steve Aoki, Laidback Luke, and Q-Tip from Tribe Called Quest joining the platform.

It’s the low-end theory writ large, with the company’s Clubcast service now also breaking beats for dancers from Miami Beach to Mumbai with the launch of the company’s services in India, where Mixify hopes it can tap the more than 225 million electronic dance music fans currently living on the subcontinent.

Dropping the needle on the company’s first shows, Mixify is bringing in the big (at least for EDM) guns — Steve Aoki and Cosmic Gate are performing exclusively for the company’s inaugural showcase in the country.

The New York-based company is a way for fans to hear exclusive sets that are streamed from an artist’s location anywhere in the world through a two-way high-definition video and audio feed. Think of it (if you must) like a private room for beats.

When it launched earlier this year, Mixify was running two-to-four streamed club shows a month. Now, that number is on track to hit multiple shows in 40 venues across Canada, Grenada, Argentina, the Cayman Islands, Australia and the U.S.

Backed by ace investors like the Australian based CMB Capital, Tim McGee and Richard Mergler of Ministry of Sound Australia and Tommy Trash, DJ and Grammy Award nominated producer, Mixify asserts that the company’s business is expanding at the right time. Attendees to electronic music festivals hit a record 3.4 million ticket buyers in 2013, up from 1.9 million in 2009. Using Mixify allows the company to expand beyond that base and reach fans who wouldn’t have access to big festivals or concerts in their own cities.

“With the growing demand worldwide, it’s becoming more of a challenge to catch your favorite DJ live, especially if you live in an area that doesn’t draw a lot of touring DJs. We’re out to get fans from all over the world better access to their favorite artists, while maintaining the personalized experience between those artists and their fans,” said David Moricca, founder and CEO of Mixify, in a statement.

Going forward, expect to see the company spending more time in emerging markets. “We’re especially interested in markets that artists tour less frequently or have higher barriers to entry, like India and East Asia. The most recent total market worth for Electronic dance music is $6 billion, per a new report issued at the International Music Summit in Ibiza, Spain Wednesday (May 21),” Moricca wrote in an email.

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GoCardless Launches Enterprise Direct Debits, Secures The Guardian

GoCardless Debit Payments

GoCardless is a Y-Combinator alum which created a simple way for online businesses to set up and accept direct debit payments. Why is this important, I hear you ask? Well, out there in the rest of the world, recurring payments are almost always driven by direct debit transactions from bank accounts, a market which is not well developed in the US, but happens to be highly developed elsewhere, especially in Europe. If you wanted a comparison, closest equivalent in the US might be Dwolla.

Today GoCardless has launched a brand new enterprise product, GoCardless Pro. This is specifically designed for larger businesses, to allow them to take recurring payments. The Guardian has signed up as an early user of the service, as has fellow fin tech startup Funding Circle.

It’s a significant move for the company, which took a $7 million Series B round led by new investor Balderton, with existing investors Accel Partners and Passion Capital also participating. So far the company has raised just under $12 million.

We caught up with CEO Hiroki Takeuchi for TechCrunch TV, who says the clunky software of old requires swaths of staff to manage these direct collections. GoCardless Pro allows businesses to automate these operations using the GoCardless API.

He says this move will put them directly into competition with traditional bureaus like Bottomline Technologies, a big global company which has acquired 50% of the UK Direct Debit market by buying up other legacy competitors. In the US, GoCardless might go against PayPal as well.

Kind’ve like a ‘Stripe for direct debit’, using a few lines of code via its API, GoCardless can let any business take recurring payments for things such as subscriptions from consumer or regular services from other businesses. The product is a something of a ‘no-brainer’ for SMEs because it costs 60% less than credit card based solutions.

Although it sounds simple enough this is disrupting the financial sector bureau, because in practice, processing direct debits can be horribly complicated.

Launched two years ago, GoCardless so far collected half a billion pounds per year from over 5000 SMEs with 600% year-on-year growth. In other words it’s take payments from over 1% of the UK’s 64 million population. Not too shabby.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/B8O9R1qYd8s/

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10 clever ways Microsoft could improve Windows 10

Aurélio "Baboo" knows what he wants to see in Microsoft’s next operating system, and has put together his own vision of Windows 10 "build 9928", spending over 50 hours on creating images in Photoshop that show the changes he thinks Microsoft should implement.

Top of his list, and that of many Windows users, is the return of Aero. Flat might be where it’s at right now, but there’s no question that adding some transparency effects to windows looks good, and I’d be happy to see Microsoft include this option in Windows 10. "I’m honestly not worried about the extra cents in energy consumption Aero that costs me when I’m using my desktop or laptop, because Windows is much more enjoyable with it", Baboo says.

Second on his wish list is the ability to easily back up Windows to the cloud using not only OneDrive but third party services like Dropbox. He also wants to see the option to create a system image. Adding third party services to the mix introduces potential security risks, but Microsoft could add a disclaimer, and give users the choice of where to backup their data.

The ability to back up and restore drivers from within Device Manager, Baboo’s third suggestion, is a great idea and while probably less than 1 percent of people will ever make use of it, it’s something I’d like to see implemented too.

Tabs in the Command Prompt, and in File Explorer are other suggestions that could definitely be useful. If you’ve ever used a third party file manager like Explorer++ then you’ll appreciate the benefits that tabs offer.

The introduction of a GPU section in the Performance area of the Task Manager I can personally live without, but others will find it useful.

Baboo suggests introducing an Optimize option that can remove useless registry entries, and run disk cleanup and a smart defrag in one go, which could help with regular maintenance. He also wants the Status Bar reintroduced, so that more options are available when viewing images.

In This PC, Baboo would like to see much more information about drives and partitions, such as the type of disc, fragmentation status, and SMART status, which is something I’d definitely like to see implemented.

His tenth idea is improved zip support, which is something many people would welcome.

All in all, I think the ideas and suggestions that Baboo has come up with are great. They aren’t revolutionary, but they would definitely improve the future operating system which is why I wanted to share them here.

What’s your view on the ten suggestions (you can view the other images Baboo created here), and do you have any ideas of your own you’d like to see Microsoft implement? Leave your comments below.

from BetaNews http://feeds.betanews.com/~r/bn/~3/V8Flgy8M9F0/

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Eco-Conscious Water Filter Company Soma Goes Back To The Well For $2.2 Million

Since the close of its $3.7 million seed round last July, business has been flowing smoothly for the Warby Parker of water filtration, Soma.

The company will be selling its sleek, environmentally friendly water carafes and filters in Williams Sonoma, and has raised another $2.2 million in financing as it rolls out across the U.S.

The round was led by Crosscut Ventures and included all of the company’s previous investors Baseline Ventures and Forerunner Ventures along with Lerer Ventures, Collaborative Fund, Cowboy Ventures, Vast Ventures, Mindful Investors, The 4-Hour Workweek’s Tim Ferriss, Coca-Cola’s Rohan Oza, and Sukhinder Singh Cassidy of JOYUS.

Interestingly, Soma also decided to give back to the crowdfunding community that launched it on Kickstarter it by turning to the crowd-financing platform CircleUp, for a $400,000 piece of the latest financing.

“We wanted to do something around crowdfunding, ended up doing $400,000, and had to turn it off,” says Soma chief executive Mike Del Ponte. “I didn’t know how successful CircleUp was going to be and, to be honest, we could have raised half the round from CircleUp.”

Equity crowdfunding platforms for accredited investors are springing up all over the world. From OurCrowd in Israel, to AngelList in Silicon Valley, and new sites like the New York-based Ingress Capital.

Del Ponte advocates that using the new equity crowdfunding platforms can be a way to push investors who may be on the fence about making a commitment to take the initial plunge. “One of the conversations I’ve been having with a lot of founders is that many investors say ‘Go find a lead and then come back and talk to me.’ But you get so much traction on CircleUp that it pushes them to make a commitment.”

That logic didn’t apply to Soma, which was already floating on clear waters with a clutch of marquee early stage investment names from both New York and the Bay Area, and already had significant traction and press in the wake of its Kickstarter campaign and nice-sized seed round.

Del Ponte says the money will go towards new product development. “We feel like we’ve proven ourselves. We’re the only water filter built entirely with plant-based filters, which is a safer, more natural way to filter water.”

The company has changed its prices since its initial launch. The San Francisco-based company, which targets the eco-design set with glass carafes that can look as good on the table as in the fridge, initially charged $87 for a carafe and starter filter and $14.99 for replacement filters. Now, it charges $59 for its standard white carafe with one filer and each additional filter costs $12.99 customers can pre-pay for a slight discount.

One aspect of the company’s business that hasn’t changed is that Soma still donates money to charity: water, which funds clean water projects, with each filter purchase. Buying a special canary yellow filtered carafe will give the charity an additional $14.50.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/NjaMOCl1ZWA/

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Crowdsourced Design Marketplace Minted Raises $38M To Go After The Textile Market

E-commerce design startup Minted has big ambitions for its crowdsourced marketplace of designs, with plans to launch in a whole new product category as well as giving its artists a platform for creating new storefronts. To realize that goal, the company has raised an additional $38 million in Series D funding led by Norwest Venture Partners.

The new capital comes about one year after the company raised its last round, which came in the form of a $41 million investment led by Technology Crossover Ventures. That firm also participated in the latest raise, which will bring Norwest managing director Jeff Crowe onto Minted’s board of directors.

Altogether, Minted has raised nearly $90 million in funding. However, the company operated for nearly seven years before raising its final $79 million over the last 12 months. Founder and CEO Mariam Naficy says that is due to the growth the company has seen over recent years, as well as its plans to invest and expand its manufacturing capabilities.

Over the years, Minted has established itself as a place where customers could find interesting designs from a wide range of artists. The company got its start as an e-commerce site for selling holiday cards and other stationery products to users. A few years ago, it expanded to also include limited-edition art prints customers could hang on their walls. And now Minted is entering another product category and will begin selling fabric and home decor products.

Minted is able to offer up so many designs because it takes a somewhat unique approach to sourcing its designs. Rather than create the designs itself or commission others to do so, Minted crowdsources art from its creative community through a series of design competitions.

After artists and creative types submit their entries, the company narrows down the field through voting by its community and its own analytics, and it picks the best designs to print and make available to customers. Artists get an upfront reward when they win, as well as a commission for each item sold through its platform. Meanwhile, Minted handles all the sales, manufacturing, and fulfillment of orders that come in from customers.

According to Naficy, Minted sees a small bit of overlap between designers who submit their pieces for use in its stationary and those who have participated in competitions for its wall art. Sometimes a stationery designer will try out for its art marketplace, while more traditional artists may occasionally decide to try their hand at greeting cards and other designs.

In the same way, Minted hopes to recruit talent for its new line of textile offerings and offer them a new creative outlet and medium to work with. Already the company has curated fabric and home decor prints out of more than 1,400 submissions from artists around the world.

Along with the new vertical, Minted is also trying its hand at a new way for artists to sell their goods on its platform. Previously, Minted only sold designs that had been submitted and won its design competitions. But now, the company will allow those artists to make other art or designs they’ve created for sale as well.

Minted is providing winning artists with the ability to set up their own storefronts, which will enable thousands of artists a new opportunity to make their goods available. It’s able to do so because all goods are printed on order, so it runs a lean operation without inventory or having to worry about bulk printing.

And while today the company doesn’t do any of its own printing, it could look to change that. Naficy told me Minted is exploring the possibility of operating some of its own facilities, which would give it more quality control on certain products, as well as the ability to experiment in a way that some suppliers either won’t… or can’t.

The funding is also being positioned to help bring some senior management on board over the coming months. In addition to boosting its overall engineering headcount, Minted is looking to hire for roles that include a CFO, head of operations and head of analytics. Once those roles are filled, Minted should be well on its way to scaling up and potentially adding even more verticals.

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