Tipped off by an anonymous tipster, Engadget brings word that ATT is planning to axe its Messaging 1000 plan for individual users and leave behind just the unlimited plan, in a bid to simplify its offerings. The new plans are supposed to go into effect starting on August 21, 2011. Come Sunday, Ma Bell...
Daily Archives: August 17, 2011
For our sensor heavy future, IBM cooks up a new silicon brain
Far right is the new chip on a board. What you are about to read is not science fiction. IBM, the 100-year-old company that started out making old-fashioned cash registers and “business tabulating machines” has come up with a new chip that marries our brain’s architecture with silicon guts. Like people, it learns instead...
Ask.com gets smarter with help from Lonely Planet, others
Exclusive: Ask.com is amping up its star power. The QA search engine — which provides a mix of user-generated and algorithmically sourced content — has added several heavyweight partnerships to make sure it answers users’ questions in the best way possible. Ask has inked new partnerships with Lonely Planet, Sports Network, Weather Underground, Lyrics.com and...
Accel Leads $10.5M Round In Cosmetics Discovery Platform Birchbox
Birchbox, a startup that serves as a makeup discovery retail platform, has raised $10.5 million in Series A round of funding, led by Accel Partners with First Round Capital, Harrison Metal, Forerunner Ventures, Lerer Ventures, Sam Lessin, Consigliere, Gary Vaynerchuck, Dave Morin, Stanford University Endowment and Andy Dunn participating in the round. Similar to...
Don’t Mean To Be Alarmist, But Groupon Is Running Low On Cash
We owe $304 million more than we have…but don’t tell anyone, okay? See Also: BOMBSHELL: Groupon’s North American Merchant Pool DECLINED In Q2 CHART OF THE DAY: A Big Red Flag In Groupon’s Latest IPO Filing Groupon’s Main Problem Is That It Hasn’t Yet Discovered A Viable Business Model One of the fastest-growing companies...
YouTube Makes Peace With Music Publishers, Will Continue to Host Songs
The National Music Publishers Association (NMPA), a group that represents hundreds of songwriters and music publishers, has backed out of four-year-old litigation against YouTube after reaching a settlement with the video-hosting giant. The agreement, which the Google-owned video site struck with the NMPA and its subsidiary Harry Fox Agency, will allow music publishers and...
Evan Weaver, the man who helped save Twitter from its Fail Whale, has resigned.
Remember when the Fail Whale was so common place that “Fail Whale” would find a home on Twitter’s trending topics? At one point it really was that bad folks; and there were endless repetitive questions about whether Twitter would manage to resolve its uptime issues and, more importantly, whether it would be too late by...
The Land Rush: Why Google Won’t Bless Motorola As Its Favorite Android
The basics: Google is buying Motorola, pending government approval. Everyone and their editor-at-large has written about it. Now I’ll take my shot at the soapbox. I don’t know why Google acquired Motorola as opposed to simply licensing its trove of patents. My hunch is that it had more to do with fending off a...
Twitter users are more likely to impact your brand than any other social network
Now, more than ever, is the time for brands and companies to begin understanding how the chaotic and real-time world of Twitter can massively influence the ways in which consumers perceive them. With so many different channels of communication and new social networks popping up every other day, it’s not difficult to see why...
Settlement with FTC in First Test of COPPA Law for Kids Online
A maker of iPhone games targeted to kids has settled a case brought against it just last Friday by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The case concerned use of child players’ personal information without parental consent. Broken Thumbs Apps is the maker of Emily’s Girl World, and a series of spinoff games, primarily for...