Kiran Upadhyay

Jewelbots, a programmable friendship bracelet that debuted on Kickstarter last week, is on a mission to make coding popular among pre-teen girls. Jewelbots surpassed its $30,000 crowdfunding goal in the first 19 hours. In the past five days, the campaign has pulled in over $70,000 from nearly 800 backers, and it still has 25 days to go. “When MySpace was a big thing, knowing HTML and CSS was cool, and now that Minecraft is big, kids want to make awesome models so they’re coding in Java,” says Jewelbots co-founder Sarah Chipps. “We’re trying to reverse engineer that with Jewelbots.” The relatively simple friendship bracelets are equipped with four LED lights and a button. They pair with the Jewelbots iOS or Android app and are designed to hold a charge for three days. Girls can add their friends to different friend groups designated by color, and the bracelet will light up with that color when their friends are nearby. They can also send “secret messages” in the form of vibrati...

India’s e-commerce boom continues unbounded. Beyond the top players such as Flipkart and Snapdeal raising billions to support their capital intensive businesses, startups in other parts of the online retail space are raising significant numbers too. One such company is MySmartPrice, a Hyderabad-based price comparison and search site, which has landed $10 million. The round was led by Accel with participation from Helion Venture Partners. MySmartPrice, which was founded in 2010, plans to use the fresh influx of capital to grow its focus on the offline shopping experience. The startup raised $1.3 million across two prior funding rounds. The company began life as a tech and gadget-focused price comparison service, but over the years it has added verticals and new components to the experience. Today, it is designed to navigate the maze of Indian e-commerce sites to find specific products, and at the best prices possible. MySmartPrice co-founder and CEO Sulakshan Kumar told TechCrunc...

Unless you’re Jaqueline Voorheese from The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, chances are you’re not letting Uber drivers shuttle around your kids to and from school, practice, classes, etc. But that doesn’t mean there’s no need for a little transportation-based help with the little ones. HopSkipDrive, a startup that just received $3.9 million in seed funding, is looking to hook up cautious yet busy parents. The startup lets parents set up pre-scheduled pick-up times for their kids with trusted, thoroughly vetted drivers to help get kids around town when time simply doesn’t allow parents to do it themselves. Here’s how it works: Parents schedule a ride with a ‘CareDriver’ and are sent a short bio for that driver, a picture, and are required to enter in a code word for the ride. The parent then relays that information to the child, and then to the school or daycare organization from which the kid is getting picked up. That way, little Tommy or Patty knows how to identify their ‘CareD...

Tesla’s Model S P85D is well known for its wonderfully named “Insane” mode, which tunes the car to go from 0 to 60 in 3.1 seconds. Not insane enough for you? Now the Model S is getting a “Ludicrous” mode. Seriously. The aptly named Ludicrous mode will do 0-60 in 2.8 seconds. According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, that acceleration pins you to the seat at a 1.1 Gs. “It’s faster than falling,” he adds. “It’s like having your own private roller coaster.” One catch: unlike most Tesla Model S tuning enhancements, this one isn’t a software update — and it’s not free. Why? Because Tesla had to make new, physical hardware to make this possible. Specifically, they had to make a fuse that didn’t melt when you pulled ridiculously high amperages over it. The fuse upgrade will be a $10k option for new buyers, and cost $5k (before installation) for existing P85D owners. Musk also announced two other bits of news surrounding the Model S: They’re introducing the Model S 70, a new single mot...

A spot of consolidation in the online dating space today, with Match Group, the subsidiary of Tinder and OkCupid owner IAC, announcing it has agreed to acquire PlentyOfFish (POF) for $575 million in cash. Match Group said it expects the transaction to close early in the fourth quarter, pending Canadian regulatory approvals. The acquisition looks squarely focused on snagging a fresh pool of digitally active singles to feed into its portfolio of digital services. With dating apps’ free-at-the-point-of-use model superseding desktop era subscription-for-access online dating there’s greater need for businesses in the space to ramp up their volume of users to boost conversions to paid services. Tinder, for instance, flicked the monetization switch this spring, launching Tinder Plus: a monthly subscription that gives access to features such as a Rewind option for those who swipe too quickly and regret consigning a potential match to the virtual dustbin. Such business models flourish w...

The first car Tesla ever built, the Roadster, hasn’t gotten a whole lot of love lately. They stopped building them back in 2012, after all. It looks like the Roadster is set for a revival, though. Buried deep in today’s other Tesla news was word of a brand new Roadster model. After announcing a holy-crap-that’s-fast, 0-to-60-in-2.8-seconds mode for the Model S P85D that the company rightly calls “Ludicrous mode”, Tesla CEO Elon Musk dropped this little detail: There is of course one speed faster than ludicrous, but that is reserved for the next generation Roadster in 4 years: maximum plaid. (Both “Ludicrous mode” and “maximum plaid”, of course, being Spaceball references) So it’ll be a few years, but Tesla isn’t done with the Roadster just yet. And that’s good news — particularly for those who want the breakneck speeds of the Model S P85D in a body that’s a bit more exciting. Musk confirmed on a press call that, Spaceball references aside, this would be a new model.

After a year of previews and one release candidate, Microsoft today officially launched the latest version of its Visual Studio integrated development environment (IDE) together with an update to its .NET framework. Visual Studio 2015 (VS 2015) is now available for download (and purchase), but Team Foundation Server 2015 — part of Microsoft’s online services for development teams — will remain in its release candidate phase until next month. As part of today’s announcement, Microsoft also released a couple of new download numbers for various tools in the Visual Studio ecosystem. Visual Studio Community, for example, the much-improved free version of the software for non-enterprise users, has now been downloaded 5 million times since its launch seven months ago. More than 3.2 million developers have now registered for the Visual Studio Online services. Visual Studio Code, the standalone code editor for Windows, Mac and Linux, has seen half a million downloads since its launch thr...

A who’s-who of early stage investors are putting a $2 million bet that two young Northwestern grads can teach millennials a better way to eat with their new startup Spoon University. Founded by Mackenzie Barth (not a foodie) and Sarah Adler (total foodie), New York-based Spoon University is a crowd-sourced, would-be Food Network for millennials, according to Barth, who serves as the company’s chief executive. “We’re building it from within the community,” Barth says. “We have 3,000 college students around the country who are building up content. They all volunteer. What motivates them is this whole food movement.” Like every other demographic, twenty and early-thirty somethings want to embrace healthy eating and living, and Spoon University wants to be their source for tips, tricks, food reviews, and content. Popular stories on the site include “18 Facts Every Tofu Newbie Should Know” and “11 #SpoonFeed Ice Cream Concoctions That Are Dope AF” (not necessarily your typical Food...

Everybody expected PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) to be worth more than eBay following its split with its parent company (NASDAQ:EBAY), but not that much. After a short period of trading on a “when issued” basis, PayPal is now officially an independent company. On its first day of trading, shares opened at $41.63, 8.3 percent above Friday’s last temporary closing price before its public introduction. With shares trading at $41.63, it values the company at $50.8 billion, above eBay’s current intraday valuation of $34.5 billion. PayPal shares are now trading at $40.21 minutes after NASDAQ’s opening bell. Shares are still up 4.74 percent even with this small market correction. As a reminder, shortly after PayPal’s first IPO, the company was acquired by eBay in July 2002 for $1.5 billion. The same company is now worth 33 times its last public valuation. Until now, PayPal has managed more than 18 billion transactions and over $1 trillion. It now has 169 million consumers in 200 countries. In...

The fallout of the Hacking Team leak is hitting Adobe hard. The leak revealed two unpatched vulnerabilities in the company’s ubiquitous (and ubiquitously disliked) Flash Player. Because it took Adobe a while to patch these, Mozilla decided to block all versions of Flash for Firefox users. Adobe today finally released a patched version of Flash, but Firefox users may have to manually update their Flash installs to get this new version (assuming they actually want to use Flash again). This marks the second time in a week that Adobe had to patch a Flash vulnerability because of the Hacking Team leaks. Read More

This news comes just months after Grooveshark was shut down following a settlement in legal battles against record industry giants UMG, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group. The cause of death is currently unknown; Gainesville Police confirm that there is no evidence of foul play or suicide. Greenberg’s mother told the Gainsville Sun that Josh had no known health problems, and that he was “excited about new potential things.” In a eulogy to his friend, Life360’s Ben Erez writes: I’m sad and shocked but I can’t stop imagining what Josh would say. Probably something very zen like “appreciate me for who I was, mourn my loss, and get back to enjoying life. It’s too short to not. Here’s to Josh Greenberg, true leader, a stand up guy, and one of my favorite people ever. May he rest in peace.” Our thoughts are with Josh, his family, and his friends. Via

Food delivery startup Zesty turned corporate last year and began an office catering program. The startup now plans to go beyond serving in San Francisco and recently pulled in $17 million in Series A funding to do that. Index Ventures led the round, with participation from Founders Fund and previous investor Forerunner Ventures. Zesty raised a healthy $3.7 million in seed money from Y Combinator, SV Angel and others in the spring of 2014. The startup now possesses a total of $20.7 million in venture capital to use for its expansion plans. Zesty differentiates itself from other catering companies like ZeroCater by offering startups in San Francisco with 10-1,000 employees a healthier meal option. The startup brings meals into companies on an agreed-upon schedule and works with individual SF restaurants to ensure there’s no added sugar or MSG in meals. All meals come with a list of ingredients, as well as calories per serving so that those watching their weight or wanting to e...

Bolt is a San Francisco-based startup that makes electric motorbikes. The bikes are handmade in a small garage on the edge of town and come with the same type of lithium-ion batteries used in Teslas. Co-founder Nathan Jauvtis grew up riding and assembling motorcycles and bikes, but he really liked the idea of building his own bike – one that would be clean and easy to ride. He started Bolt out of his garage not long ago and just started taking the first orders for these $5,000 vehicles. The price seems steep, considering a brand new Vespa goes for a little less than that, but Jauvtis’ bikes also come with a few key tech innovations that set this bike apart from the rest. The Bolt M-1 is the first Bolt bike off the line. The bike is keyless and can start with a unique passcode or from your smartphone. The Bolt app will locate your vehicle, should any harm come to it. Parents will also enjoy some controls on the app that will allow them to limit the top speed of the bike and keep...

\ Witness, the live-streaming app that serves as a panic button for the mobile age, debuted earlier this year at the TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2015 Hackathon, where it eventually went on to win the grand prize. Now the app is live in the App Store for the public to try, allowing users to broadcast their location, audio and video to a pre-defined set of emergency contacts. You can think of Witness as something like a private version of Twitter’s Periscope, for example, combined with a user safety application designed to quickly alert friends or family if you’re in trouble or are in an uncomfortable or potentially dangerous situation where you may need help. Created by developer Marinos Bernitsas, who quit his job in algorithmic trading in New York to focus on his passion for building mobile apps, Witness was originally designed for those who are in high-risk situations – like when you’re walking home alone at night through unknown or unsafe areas. But the app also resonated with the...

We’ve seen bike helmets with integrated front and back lights before. But Boston-based hardware startup Lumos is hoping to go one better by packing a front light, wireless indicator lights and an accelerometer-powered backlight into an otherwise pretty standard-looking cycle helmet. Rechargeable battery included. The team has just pressed play on a Kickstarter campaign, aiming to raise $125,000 in crowdfunding to turn their current prototype into a shipping product starting from April next year. Thus far they’ve been mostly been bootstrapping development, raising a small round at the end of last year from friends, family and a few angels. “There are currently no bike helmets in the market that feature integrated brake and turn signal lights. Lumos will be the first to do this,” says co-founder Eu-wen Ding, when asked what’s new here. “This is a huge distinctive feature that will help cyclists more effectively communicate their intentions to people around them.” He also points ...

After holding a rally two weeks ago to protest the NYC bill that would severely limit the amount of drivers Uber and other ridesharing companies could add to their platforms, Uber has made another move that is sure to get the attention of New Yorkers. The company just added a “de Blasio’s Uber” feature, now available for over 2 million NYC users that will either always show no cars available or wait times of 25 minutes. Instead of calling a car, the feature prompts users to take action and send an email to Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city council opposing the new bill. Users will of course still be able to use the other Uber features like UberX and Uber Black. Uber told TechCrunch that the new feature will “demonstrate what life for NYC riders would be like if de Blasio’s plan to limit Uber is passed into law”. The bill up for consideration would require the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) to severely limit the issuance of new for-hire vehicle licenses. The law would la...

A lot of people are aware that third-world countries still need Internet access. That’s why there’s Facebook’s sometimes controversial Internet.org. What not a lot of people are aware of is that one out of every four people living in the U.S. don’t have Internet at home. One in four. When I heard that census data, I was floored. I had first heard this thrown out as an anecdote when I visited Kansas City a few years ago, but it’s true. The White House wants to change this through its new ConnectHome initiative. Its mission: Every child should be given the same opportunity to build a brighter future and to achieve their dreams. Internet in the home can help build that brighter future by connecting families with information they need to get ahead in school and career life. There are quite a few reasons why not everyone in the United States has Internet access at home (mind you, 98 percent of Americans have access to Internet of some sort), but a lot of it has to do with whe...

According to The Verge’s Tom Warren, Windows 10 is done, having reached RTM status with build number 10240. The timing is not surprising. Microsoft will release Windows 10 to its testing community on July 29, followed by volume partners and, after, the general public through an update process. RTM builds, in contrast, are designed for equipment manufacturers, who need the code ahead of time to prep new machines. Dell, for example, is committed to selling Windows 10 PCs on the very first day, the 29th, that the code is live. Windows 10 is a dramatic departure from prior Windows versions. The new operating system is designed for constant update, with Microsoft pushing the concept of it being more like a service than a discrete piece of software. The company is also offering free upgrades for a year to most PC users, in hopes of creating an updraft in use that can be leveraged into attracting more developer attention. Oddly enough we are both at the near end, and nearly at the ...

Comic Con is full of Vaders, Boba Fetts, and Storm Troopers. But how many people can say they’ve roamed the show in an ultra detailed, kind-of-terrifying Rancor costume? Just one — special effects artist Frank Ippolito. Built in just a month by Ippolito and a team of artists along with our friends over at Tested, the costume is about as intense as they get. My favorite trick of the whole project: as you may note, the Rancor’s eyes don’t happen to fall in a place that offers the wearer much of a view to the outside world. So how do they keep him from running into walls and stepping on small children? There’s a camera hidden in one of the nostrils; inside the costume, he’s wearing a pair of goggles that beams that camera feed to his eyes. (If you just want to see what the costume looks like all together and in motion, skip to 4:30 or so. The first few minutes are a making of — which, don’t get me wrong, is pretty great in its own right.)

The founders of The Pirate Bay, arguably the world’s most visible torrenting site, were acquitted by a Belgian court Thursday of charges alleging criminal copyright infringement and abuse of electronic communications. “The Pirate Bay Four,” consisting of Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström, have faced an almost comical amount of legal action related to their involvement with the torrenting site, which has proven to be an elusive haven for illegal copyrighted content online. The case here hinged on the founders’ claims that they had ceased their involvement with the upkeep of the site and could not be held liable. Read More

Satoru Iwata, the president of Nintendo Co., Ltd, has died at the age of 55. This news comes suddenly and by word of Nintendo’s investor relations team in Japan. The company has disclosed the cause of death as a growth in his bile duct. Iwata was an early employee at HAL, the company behind classics like the Kirby series, Earthbound, and Smash Brothers Melee. Iwata joined Nintendo in 2000, then serving as a Director for the company. By 2002, he was made the company’s President — the first president of Nintendo not related to founder Fusajiro Yamauchi. In 2013, he was also appointed as CEO of Nintendo of America. Iwata was always considered an incredibly hands on leader, with producer credits on hundreds of titles across nearly every Nintendo console, from the NES to the Wii U. Rare for an executive, his programming skills were said to be quite incredible, with Iwata regularly stepping in as a programmer to help games like Smash Bros. Melee and Earthbound meet their shipping ...

If you own an Android phone and a Windows PC with an Intel chipset, you can now control one with the other using Intel’s Remote Keyboard app. Whether you have built a DIY budget Windows HTPC or just want to start the next video on your desktop while lying in bed, you don’t need to get up. If your computer mouse dies, your Android can be a good backup. In fact, this is a great way to repurpose an old phone into a nifty trackpad for your PC! The Easy, Free Way: Intel Remote Keyboard If you use an Intel-based computer, then you will love what the company is doing with the Intel Remote Keyboard. Read More

Felix Kjellberg aka PewDiePie is the king of the YouTubers. He’s a YouTube star with 9 billion views and Expressen, a Swedish newspaper, estimated that he made $7 million last year on advertising, a feat that is no longer an outlier in the burgeoning world of online stardom. In the video Kjellberg described his 5 year career as a YouTube star whose entire oeuvre is dedicated to playing video games while others watch. His videos get over 5 million views per episode. Read More

Uber is going to tell you where you should get picked up. A few days after I wrote a story recommending that Uber launch a feature called “Suggested Pickup Location”, I’ve spotted the company testing a feature called “Suggested Pickup Points” in San Francisco. When dragging the pickup pin, the feature explains that passengers can “save time at these locations”, and shows places nearby where it would quicker for the driver to pick them up. Users can drop their pin on these green dots, see the address, and then walk there to shorten their wait time. Only some users are seeing the test, though it’s appeared on iOS for uberPool, uberX, and Uber Black Car. I’ve reached out to the company for more info and will update when we hear back. Though an Uber employee has said the company can crank out updates, a feature like this probably takes more than a few days to build. Still, apparently we agree there’s a lot of merit to this idea. The suggestions pop up extremely quickly as you drag...

Busy sales people want to spend their time interacting with customers, not taking care of administrative work. That’s where PandaDoc comes in, a startup that helps automate creation of quotes, proposals and contracts. Today it announced a $5 million investment led by Altos Ventures with additional participation from TMT Investments and other unnamed investors. The announcement actually encapsulates all of the money the company has raised so far including its previously unannounced seed funding rounds, company co-founder Mikita Mikado explained. The product is essentially a content layer that sits on top of your CRM tool. Currently it’s compatible with Salesforce.com, Zoho, Pipeline and Base. It also works with Zendesk to enable customer service personnel to send out renewal contracts and other information. When sales personnel have to create content for their customers, they can choose from a series of pre-defined templates that have been customized for the company. One templa...

Most of us at TechCrunch don’t get out much, instead choosing to blog from the comfort of our own home or office. However, some more adventurous reporters still crave the thrill of reporting live on scene. Solocam is a selfie stick that may actually provide value (bear with me here) by letting journalists shoot video from the field without lugging around an entire camera crew. The device is a selfie stick attached to a high-definition bluetooth microphone, just like the pros use. While the entire setup looks ridiculous, the video it helps create looks surprisingly professional. The device also comes with an app for your mobile device which lets you record while using features like a teleprompter or special effects. The camera is set at an angle to avoid the dreaded flesh beard under all of our chins. The most basic version will set you back $50, while the pro is selling for $149. The more expensive versions come with upgrade microphones and attachments to mount other cameras b...

“We know the algorithm isn’t perfect” News Feed Product Manager Greg Marra tells me. So to make sure Facebook stays entertaining and addictive, it’s giving users more direct control over what they see by revamping News Feed Preferences Facebook is rolling out to the U.S. a way to choose friends and Pages they want to “See First” atop the feed, after I spotted it testing the feature last month. The upgraded settings section will now display who’s shown most in your feed and let you unfollow them, refollow people you’ve hidden, and discover Pages based on your interests. It’s coming tothe U.S. on iOS today and other platforms soon. After years of suggesting who we should add as friends, Facebook is finally helping us to cull and coordinate who appears in our News Feeds. That could ensure our best friends don’t get drowned out by distant acquaintances. The “Discover New Pages” section could better map interests to connections by letting us explicitly volunteer information, improvin...

Get ready for the rebirth of Google Glass. Details were recently uncovered that indicate Google is working on an upgraded version. However not aimed at the general consumer, but at the enterprise market. According to 9to5google, this upcoming edition will pack a larger display prism, Intel Atom CPU and the ability to connect an external battery pack — all upgrades critical for enterprise users. This model, if real, would be sold to companies looking to equip their workforce with smarter technology. Instead of receiving tweets, these users would get information related to their job. Think warehouse workers. With this version of Google Glass, these works would be able to receive and process orders quicker. Reportedly the new version of Google Glass also sports improved battery life, partly because of the Intel Atom CPU. The specific clock speed is unknown, but this tiny SoC has proven itself by powering most Android Wear devices. The inclusion of an optional battery pack states ...

As announced at WWDC last month, Apple is making a beta of its newly updated mobile operating system, iOS 9, available to the general public for testing starting today, alongside the beta version of OS X El Capitan, its updated desktop OS. The iOS 9 beta build will allow early adopters to try out upcoming features, including new apps like News and a refreshed Notes, transit directions in Apple Maps, an improved Siri, a smarter search which lets you surface results from inside apps, and much more. Meanwhile, El Capitan offers a variety of improvements to core features like Mission Control, Spotlight, native apps, including Safari, Mail, Maps, Photos, plus performance improvements, and other items. “But wait” you say. “My friend has been running an iOS 9 beta for weeks now!” Perhaps! Up until this point, it’s been available as a developer beta, which meant three things: it’s really only meant for people who need early access to ensure their apps are compatible, it was buggy as...

Ah, Gmail. It has become an integral part of our connected lives, ingrained in our daily flow of getting things done. The downside of that is that, like me, you might have missed out on a few new features Gmail has gradually added in the past year. So let’s look at what deserves our attention. We won’t be looking at third-party tools like Sortd, a smart skin to turn Gmail into a Trello-like board. All the features here are built into your Gmail and you don’t need to download or install anything. Emojis! And More Themes! The Internet’s most popular new language is emojis, the spiritual successor to emoticons. Emojis can transcend languages, so it’s only natural that any form of text communication should support them. Google recently announced that it now has added a plethora of new emojis to Gmail. To insert an emoji, just click the “Insert Emoticon” icon in your Compose window and choose what you want. The emojis are still rolling out to all users, so in case you don’t see ...

Learning a new skill online isn’t so hard. There is an abundance of resources to learn just about anything, including video production. The best part is that a lot of these online sites are free to use; the hard part is that many of of these sites are hard to find. In addition, lessons that cater to your learning style can be even tougher to find. Fortunately, I’ve done the hard work and found the best sites, in my opinion, that will teach you how to be a prolific video producer. Before You Get Started A lot of time and effort goes into the video production process. You’ll need to decide on what editing program you will want to use, what camera best fits your style, whether to use lighting and audio equipment, among other options that can help the process. In this article, you’ll learn about two industry standard video editors that are sure to help create great content. Though there are plenty of other options out there, these video editors have been proven to be the best t...

Simple emoticons have been around for a while but it’s the rise of smartphones that have really brought them into the mainstream. They’re used everywhere; from text messages to Instagram hashtags. However, what each character means is often subject to debate. Unicode publish standards on what each emoji should represent, but they are not always used as intended. Within different groups, different emoji can take on unique and personal meanings that can be hard for an outsider to understand. In this dictionary, in an effort to bring some clarity to the situation, I look at some of the commonly accepted meanings of popular emoji. Happy Faces Smiley Faces Read More

Now that the flagships from Samsung and HTC have been on the market for a little while, LG is here to shake things up with their newest flagship device: the LG G4. The successor to the LG G3 (which we loved), the G4 refines what was great about the G3, and it manages to stand out in a crowded market thanks to a great camera, removable battery, gorgeous screen, and optional genuine leather back cover. Read on to see how you could win the LG G4 for yourself. Specifications Model Number: LG-H815 Screen: 5.5″ Quad HD (2560 x 1440px) IPS with 538 PPI Processor: 1.8Ghz 64-bit Hexa-Core Snapdragon 808 Size: 148.9mm x 76.1mm x 9.8mm (5.86in x 3.00in x 0.39in) Weight: 155g (5.47oz) RAM: 3GB Storage: 32GB Expandable Memory: MicroSD cards up to 2TB Battery: 3,000mAh removable Camera: 16MP f/1.8 rear-facing, 8MP f/2.0 front-facing Operating System: Android 5.1 Lollipop Price: $200 on a 2-year contract with most carriers, $550-$700 off-contract Design The LG G4 is a gorgeou...

Black Friday, the annual shopping extravaganza which brought in more than $1.5 billion in online sales alone last November, is arguably the single most important day for retailers in the U.S. Now Amazon wants to steal its thunder with Prime Day. The e-commerce giant announced that it will mark its 20th anniversary on July 15 with deals for subscribers of its Prime shopping program in nine countries (the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Canada, and Austria). In a press release, Greg Greeley, vice president of Amazon Prime, claims “Prime Day is a one-day only event filled with more deals than Black Friday,” but the company did not specify if that means Amazon will offer more deals on July 15 than it did during Black Friday, if the value of the deals will be worth more, or if it hopes Prime Day eventually trumps Black Friday as each year’s main celebration of consumerism (TechCrunch has emailed Amazon for more information). The latter propositi...

You won’t have any excuse to skip class anymore. French startup OpenClassrooms is launching the first State-recognized bachelor degree in France that relies exclusively on MOOC. The startup partnered with IESA Multimédia to create this program. There are three learning paths in engineering, design and digital marketing. Students will have to complete all the courses and required projects in order to get their degree. It’s the exact same degree that you would get at IESA, except that you won’t see any teacher. IESA is already working on 40 different MOOC for this program. On average, it will take a year of hard work in order to complete all the classes. As always, it’s hard to stay motivated when you subscribed to a MOOC — that’s why every week, you will get to video-chat with a mentor. There are many key advantages for this kind of degree. For IESA, it lets the school enroll more students. IESA is a private institution, and its end goal is to generate as much revenue as possib...

LastPass officials warned Monday that attackers have compromised servers that run the company's password management service and made off with cryptographically protected passwords and other sensitive user data. It was the second breach notification regarding the service in the past four years. In all, the unknown attackers obtained hashed user passwords, cryptographic salts, password reminders, and e-mail addresses, LastPass CEO Joe Siegrist wrote in a blog post. It emphasized that there was no evidence the attackers were able to open cryptographically locked user vaults where plain-text passwords are stored. That's because the master passwords that unlock those vaults were protected using an extremely slow hashing mechanism that requires large amounts of computing power to work. "We are confident that our encryption measures are sufficient to protect the vast majority of users," Siegrist wrote. "LastPass strengthens the authentication hash with a random salt...

Most people didn’t notice last month when a 35-person company in San Francisco called HoneyBook announced a $22 million Series B*. What was unusual about the deal is that nearly all the best-known Silicon Valley VCs competed for it. That’s because HoneyBook is a prime example of an important new category of digital company that combines the best elements of networks like Facebook with marketplaces like Airbnb — what we call a market network. Market networks will produce a new class of unicorn companies and impact how millions of service professionals will work and earn their living. What Is A Market Network? “Marketplaces” provide transactions among multiple buyers and multiple sellers — like eBay, Etsy, Uber and LendingClub. “Networks” provide profiles that project a person’s identity, then lets them communicate in a 360-degree pattern with other people in the network. Think Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. What’s unique about market networks is that they: Combine the ...

YC-backed Cymmetria, which is uncloaking from stealth now after around a year working its cyber security startup business, wants to tilt the traditional security odds so it’s hackers who are left feeling vulnerable and on their guard — by giving the businesses whose systems are under attack a ‘home advantage’. How does it flip the attacker/attacked dynamic? By creating decoys which are embedded into the network and designed to draw hackers to them, making it quicker and easier for a business to detect and mitigate a security breach. And harder for a hacker to know what’s what. “I’ve been sitting on this idea for several years, really, waiting for the right timing,” says co-founder Gadi Evron, who used to head up the Israeli government’s Internet security operation, and has also worked in senior security roles for PwC and Kaspersky. “I got somewhat exhausted with the security industry. From various directions. In a way we’re very defeatist — we go to work everyday knowing that ...

Euphoric reaction to superstar tech businesses is rampant — so much so that the tech industry is in denial about looming threats. The tech industry is in a bubble, and there are sufficient indicators for those willing to open their eyes. Rearing unicorns, however, is a distracting fascination. The Perfect Storm Raising funding for tech startups has never been so easy. Some of this flood of money has been because of mutual funds and hedge funds, including Fidelity, T. Rowe Price and Tiger Global Management. This is altering not only the funding landscape for tech startups, but also valuation expectations. There are many concerns that valuations for businesses are confounding rationale. Entrepreneurs and their investors are deviating from more traditional valuation and performance metrics to more unconventional ones. Another cause cited for increasing valuations is the trend of protections for late investors that cause valuations to inflate further. The combination of a number o...

LOS ANGELES—Microsoft's press conference included the unveiling of a surprising new piece of hardware: a "pro" Xbox One controller coming to stores in October. The new Xbox Elite Controller earns its classification—though perhaps not its $150 price tag—with a huge number of tweaks and options. What has changed? A lot, and much more than the updated standard controller. For starters, this controller has four "paddle" buttons on the back, which replicate other normal buttons. They're reachable by middle and ring fingers—meaning Microsoft has finally replicated third-party offerings that let players keep their thumbs on the joysticks at all times. The paddles are also removable and replaceable, as are the controller's d-pad and twin joysticks—meaning players can switch between concave and convex joystick tops to suit their preferences. The Elite controller will ship with a total of three joystick-head options, along with two lengths of paddle and tw...