As reported on TechCrunch. by Matt Turck Editor’s note: Matt Turck is a managing director of FirstMark Capital. Follow him on Twitter at@mattturck. Almost 15 years ago, a friend of mine at McKinsey spent a few nights writing a document called “The Battle for the Home”. The thesis at the time was that with broadband, the home PC was gradually going to challenge the TV as the core home digital system. Over the following few years, that…
As reported on TechCrunch. by Ingrid Lunden The growth of tablet sales has been outstripping that of more traditional desktop and laptop personal computers for a while, and now it looks like we are finally approaching the tablet/PC tipping point, where the cheaper, more portable tablet is becoming the de facto PC: 2014 will be the year that tablets account for 50% of all “PCs” shipped globally, according to researchers at Canalys. Leading the charge will be…
As reported on Engadget. BY MARIELLA MOON The smartbulb throne isn’t exactly the most exciting one to occupy, but Philips Huehas its fair share of challengers, such as the freshly released Bluetooth-controlled Lumen. Similar to Hue, you can tweak not only the bulb’s color, but also its intensity. In addition, several modes come baked into the light source, including one that programs the Lumen to flash whenever a call comes in, and another that syncs its effects…
As reported on TechCrunch. by Alex Williams Salesforce.com is launching Salesforce1, its next-generation CRM platform that it has designed for developers, independent software vendors and customers to connect apps and third-party services such as Dropbox, Evernote and LinkedIn. The mobile first environment symbolizes the company’s focus as a platform provider with the promise of connecting the enterprise to the billions of things that are increasingly capable of being programmed through APIs. It’s a big promise, especially considering…
As reported on Wired. BY NADIA DRAKE Normally, the colors we perceive are determined by the wavelengths of light reflected by objects in the world around us. But not all surfaces reflect light the same way. Picture an iridescent butterfly, for example. It might look drab from one direction, but explode into bright yellows or purples from another. That’s because of microscopic structures that alter the way light bounces off the butterfly’s wings.At the NanoPhotonics Centre at the…
As reported on TechCrunch. by Chris Velazco Cyanogen Inc. revealed a few months back that it closed a $7 million seed investment from Benchmark Capital. The vision it laid out at the time was no small one: it wants its cooked version of Android to become the third most-used mobile OS behind iOS and Android proper. Naturally, that involves getting CyanogenMod onto as many devices as it can, and today the company took one giant leap in…
As reported on The Verge. By Bryan Bishop A conversation with visual effects supervisor Matthew Butler Translating the sci-fi classic Ender’s Game to the big screen required tackling iconic locations and sequences in a way that honored fan expectations while still playing to audiences that were new to the material. To accomplish that goal, writer-director Gavin Hood joined forces with Digital Domain, the visual-effects powerhouse originally founded by James Cameron and Stan Winston. In the years…
As reported on The Verge. By Rebecca Ruiz It’s the go-to method for trauma relief — but nobody knows if psychological first aid actually works Last month, floodwaters dark with silt and mud devastated a 1,500-square-mile area surrounding Denver. Nine people lost their lives. Some survivors lost their homes, and others couldn’t return because of the damage. Since those catastrophic days, Janine D’Anniballe has tried to help as many as she can. But unlike other responders,…
As reported on TechCrunch. IBM reported its third quarter financials this past week that showed a company struggling with its legacy hardware business and the problems that come with a confused cloud services strategy. Revenues were down $1 billion with hardware sales declining 17 percent. Overall revenues for the nine-month period totaled $72.1 billion, a decrease of 4 percent, compared with $75.2 billion for the nine months of 2012. The software division is not having tremendous success, either. This last…
As reported on TechCrunch. by Josh Constine It’s hard to get people to concentrate long on anything on their phones and tablets, yet YouTube seems to be the exception. The video service is quickly going mobile, with small screens making up 40% of its traffic now compared to 25% last year, Google said on its earnings call today. In 2011, just 6% of YouTube traffic came from mobile. Google’s not the only one rapidly shifting a 1…