We’ve written before about how complicated the process of lending an e-book is, and how much of this is a result of conflicting DRM locks and platforms, as well as a reluctance on the part of publishers to allow their books to be loaned. But authors can also be a roadblock when it comes...
Editor’s note: Guest author David Cho is CEO and co-founder of Sidebark, the private photo and video sharing service. Prior to founding Sidebark, he was a leader in Bain Company’s digital media practice. How much more valuable do you think Facebook is than Yahoo? Let’s say I gave you 1% of Facebook’s stock. How...
In July, Facebook rolled out a new “seen by” feature for groups, which let people know who has seen a post or announcement in that group, and when. And, although Facebook didn’t make much of a song and dance about it at the time, it looks like it is actually offering this feature on...
While 3D printing might be all the tech geek rage right now, the cooler story is what some people are doing with it to make an actual difference. We’ve seen stories of medical uses such as new 3D-printed limbs and that’s incredible but USC professor Behrokh Khoshnevis has just blown my mind. Imagine 3D printing on...
Broadcasters have been battling for months to shut down Aereo, a service that uses dime-size antennas to stream TV to Apple devices. Now, the fight has taken a strange new twist. On Friday, Fox Networks filed a new suit against a start-up called BarryDriller.com (a play on the name of TV mogul and Aereo investor...
Google, Mozilla and Wikimedia have joined forces to organize a “translathon” towards Maya, CNNMexico reports. The event took place last Thursday in the Mexican city of Merida, Yucatan, where 537,000 speak the language. The purpose of this translation marathon was to make content available in Maya, which is still spoken in one of its variants by...
Editor’s note: Adam Rifkin is co-founder and CEO of PandaWhale, an online network of interesting things and people. He has never owned Facebook or Zynga shares. . You can follow him @ifindkarma. Facebook and Zynga have experienced similar roller coaster-like devaluation from their peak stock valuations, and they’ve been partners for years, which is why MarkZ and...
Just as the tech press was busy talking about the first academic paper on acqui-hires, another acqui-hire deal closed, with online ad company AppNexus acquiring fantasy sports startup Fantuition. Co-founder and CEO Pat McCarty announced the deal in a blog post that also recounts some of Fantuition’s history and discusses McCarty’s feelings about being...
Editor’s note: Paul Pfleiderer is the C.O.G. Miller Distinguished Professor of Finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and co-founder of Quantal International. A few weeks ago, TechCrunch published a piece arguing software is better at investing than 99% of human investment advisors. That post, titled Thankfully, Software Is Eating The Personal Investing...
Every Sunday morning, millions of people in India tune in to watch Bollywood star Aamir Khan host one of the country’s highest-rated television shows, Satyamev Jayate. Only unlike so many popular programs, Satyamev Jayate doesn’t involve a singing competition or a collection of volatile strangers living under the same roof. It’s a documentary program...