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Tuesday 8 October 2013

A Whole New Yahoo Mail: Flickr Themes and Storage Boost



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PayPal's Payment Code lets you purchase with QR codes



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If You Can't Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em - U.K.'s Angels Den Jumps On Crowdfunding Bandwagon

Screen Shot 2013-10-08 at 13.18.06

Well, what do we have here? Angels Den, Bill Morrow’s old skool angel network, has jumped on the crowdfunding bandwagon.


That’s somewhat puzzling as Morrow is a well-known critic of the equity-based crowfunding model pioneered by the likes of Seedrs and Crowdcube in the UK. But, then again, the Angels Den business has always been about matching starry-eyed entrepreneurs with potential investors, charging a fee and taking a cut of any funding raised along the way, so perhaps it’s unsurprising if it’s been feeling the crowfunding heat.


As they say, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.


In what’s being billed as “the world’s first integrated angel and crowdfunding platform” — whatever that means — Angels’ Den Crowdfunding actually combines three crowdfunding models: Crowdinvesting (i.e. equity-based crowd funding), crowdlending, and no-strings-attached or stretch goal-driven crowdfunding. It’s as if the site can’t decide what crowdfunding model to focus on. Or maybe this is how it plans to stand out from what is fast becoming a crowded space, not least in the UK where Crowdcube and Seedrs are clear market leaders, but also elsewhere in Europe and the U.S.


Morrow is also talking up the platform’s ability for it to tap into Angel Den’s claimed “6,000 strong angel community”, as part of its previous ventures, which its says has seen £16 million in funding raised over six years.


“Angels can invest money for a share of the business, lenders can offer a fixed term loan and donors can simply make it happen, no strings attached, in return for a reward,” says Morrow in a statement.


Interestingly, should startups opt to try to raise equity-based crowfunding on Angels Den, the model isn’t a million miles away from its existing offering, in terms of fees and commission charged. Or that of its crowdfunding competitors.


Under its old skool model, Angels Den charges £800 to pitch, which isn’t without criticism, and then takes a 5% cut of any subsequent investment. For that fee, it pushes selected startups to its angel network via an email newsletter and through “Speedfunding” and various other events. “There is no incentive for us to take people on who we believe are at risk of not getting funded, as the angels would unsubscribe,” says Morrow, in defence of charging to pitch. “They don’t have time to see muppets,’ he adds.


The primary difference with its crowdfunding option is there is no fee to list (the online equivalent to pitching), though if funding is raised through Angels Den Crowfunding, a retrospective fee of £1,600 is charged plus 5% commission. Angels Den also takes care of things like legal documentation and provides access to its platform to keep investors up-to-date with how their investment is doing.


In comparison, Crowdcube charges 5% of any successful fund-raise plus a £1,750 fee, and Seedrs charges a flat 7.5% commission, which sometimes works out as less and sometimes more than competitors depending on how much is raised. The latter also takes a cut of any exit — carry — if investors choose to use its nominee services in which the platform manages the investment on their behalf.


To that end, in a thinly-vieled dig at the likes of Seedrs, Morris says in a statement: “One of the problems I had with crowdfunding was how to be responsible to both sides of the deal, the investors and the entrepreneurs. I didn’t like the nomination structure on crowdfunding deals where the investor doesn’t have a say in the business after putting money in.”


Of course, one could look at it the other way around. Equity-based crowdfunding, to a certain degree, can be seen as encouraging what I call ‘armchair investors‘. It can also see a funded startup end up with multiple, possibly running into hundreds of shareholders. In this context, having the crowdfunding platform act on their behalf as nominee (giving them the same rights as angels or VCs e.g. voting shares, full shareholders agreement, etc.) can make a lot of sense for both parties — see this discussion of the pros and cons of the nominee model.








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Google announces HP Chromebook 11 for $279, we go hands-on



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Microsoft and EA's CoachGlass Madden app for Xbox One lets you act as a defensive coordinator (video)



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Nest's Protect smoke detector warns you before it's about to go off, works with Nest thermostats; coming soon for $129



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Google Unveils HP Chromebook 11 for $279



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Any.DO's Cal app scores Uber, Waze and Google Maps integration



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BlackBerry developing 'simple' enterprise cloud service for BB, Android and iOS



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Raspberry Pi celebrates a million boards made in the UK



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No hay sorpresa: François Englert y Peter Higgs se llevan el Premio Nobel de Física de 2013



El bosón de Higgs en tres minutos


La verdad es que estaba cantado, así que no ha sorprendido a nadie que la Real Academia Sueca de las Ciencias haya dado el Premio Nobel del Física de 2013 a François Englert y Peter Higgs


por el descubrimiento teórico de un mecanismo que contribuye a nuestro entendimiento del origen de la masa de las partículas subatómicas, y que fue recientemente confirmado por el descubrimiento de la partícula fundamental predicha, por los experimentos ATLS y CMS en el Gran Colisionador de Hadrones del CERN.

Aunque las normas de la Real Academia hacen que sea un poco injusto, ya que Robert Brout, coautor con Englert de Broken symmetry and the mass of gauge vector mesons, una de las bases teóricas del descubrimiento, y los científicos del CERN que trabajaron en la construcción del LHC y en la detección del famoso bosón de Higgs, se quedan sin premio y son simplemente mencionados en el fallo.


Esto se debe a que las normas que rigen la concesión de los Nobel no permiten darle el premio a alguien que haya fallecido ni a más de tres personas.


En cualquier caso, caben pocas dudas de que la confirmación de la existencia del bosón de Higgs es uno de los descubrimientos más importantes de los últimos tiempos, ya que nos permitirá avanzar en nuestro entendimiento del universo en el que vivimos.


Y es que, por muy increíble que parezca, conviene recordar que no teníamos una confirmación de por qué las cosas tienen masa.



# Enlace Permanente







via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/ciencia/no-hay-sorpresa-francois-englert-peter-higgs-se-llevan-premio-nobel-fisica-2013.html

Kahuna Raises $2M To Help Mobile Marketers Get Smarter About Engaging Their Users

kahuna logo

If you’re a mobile publisher, getting lots of people to install your app is nice, but if you can’t convince any of them to actually use your app, much less spend money, well, that’s a problem — one that a startup called Kahuna is trying to solve.


Co-founder and CEO Adam Marchick has experience thinking about user engagement, having worked on Facebook’s growth team. More impressively, he said he approached “the best growth marketers in the world,” including Chamath Palihapitiya (Facebook’s former vice president of growth), and “they all personally invested.”


Today, after testing the product with a limited group of customers, Kahuna is opening to the public, and it’s also announcing that it has raised $2 million in seed funding from SoftTech VC, Costanoa Venture Capital, Tim Kendall (head of product management at Pinterest and former director of monetization at Facebook), BloomReach CEO Raj De Datta, Lee Linden (head of commerce at Facebook), Kiwi CEO Omar Siddiqui, RentJuice co-founder David Vivero, Matt Wyndowe (who’s currently product manager for identity growth at Facebook), Palihapitiya, and others.


Marchick described Kahuna’s product as “an engagement engine” that “understands customer behavior on mobile and web and automates marketing campaigns based on usage patterns.” The product comes with more than 50 pre-built engagement campaigns — namely, automated outreach strategies for push notifications and emails — that customers can then tweak based on A/B testing and the initial results. Marchick added that Kahuna learns from campaign data over time: “The cool thing about the engine is it gets better the longer it runs.”



While different companies will want to use different strategies, Marchick said the two big things that many of them don’t understand are the importance of recency and the importance of personalization.


“If there are users who browsed but didn’t purchase anything, or who wanted to use a feature but didn’t, and you don’t send a message to every single one of them within five seconds, you’re missing out,” Marchick said. “You can’t just message them four days later.”


Does that mean apps using Kahuna are going to send a ton of annoying push notifications? Marchick said the opposite is actually true — his customers send fewer messages and find that those messages more effective.


“Push messaging feels a lot like email 12 years ago,” he said. “It’s a new, bright, shiny object that’s scary, but if you do it right, it has a 5x response rate versus email.”


This approach seems to be paying off. Among “a doze”n beta customers, revenue has reportedly risen by more than 15 percent, and mobile gift card service Gyft says it saw a 240 percent in increased users and a 17 percent boost in revenue.


Kahuna isn’t just for mobile apps. Marchick said it also works on the desktop web and mobile web, but he suggested that the problem is most obvious on mobile — Kahuna estimates that 90 percent of mobile app installs provide zero value.


By the way, a number of companies seem to be turning their attention to mobile engagement. For example, Facebook recently revamped its Mobile App Ads to include custom calls to action that allow mobile advertisers to re-engage with users.








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Seems the wait may almost be over if you're lusting after an HTC One Max--the company has a launch e

There's a Massive US Salmonella Outbreak Amid the FDA Shutdown

BBC to offer 30-day catch-up and more online shows as part of iPlayer revamp



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BBC launches Playlister music discovery service (video)



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Accelerator Numbers - 20 Months In, Telefónica's Wayra Shares Data On How It's Fared So Far

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Wayra is Telefónica’s network of startup accelerators. Running for around 20 months in Latin America, and just a year in Europe, the telecom giant has established 14 Wayra Academies in 12 countries in the cities of Bogotá, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Lima, Madrid, Barcelona, Caracas, Sao Paulo, Santiago de Chile, Munich, London, Dublin, and Prague. That equates equates to opening an academy every two months.


Today the accelerator network is sharing some data exclusively with TechCrunch on how it’s fared so far in its young existence, including key metrics such as how much money it’s invested in the startups put through its programme, follow-on funding raised, how many companies have entered the dead-pool, and number of exits (spoiler: none so far). Yes, folks, we bring you more startup accelerator numbers.


But first let’s backtrack a little and delve briefly into how Wayra operates. Startups accepted into the programme receive up to €50k in funding, in the form of a convertible note, for which Wayra takes between 7% and 10% equity during any later investment round. They are also housed in one of the Wayra academies where they are supported for a minimum of 6 months, including mentoring and that all-important investor demo day with the aim to raise follow-on funding.


Being attached to a major international telco, one of the draws of Wayra is that synergies can be forged between the participating startups and Telefónica’s existing customers. On paper at least, there’s also an obvious potential exit path, too.


Accelerator Numbers


Wayra’s biggest asset is Telefónica. This is something that no other accelerator has.


Since launch, Wayra says it’s accepted 295 startups into its programme (either graduates or currently under acceleration) in the 12 countries it operates across Europe and Latin America. Of those, 109 are in Europe. In total, it says it’s received 20,544 applications to its academies.


Failure rate for its accelerated startups currently runs at around seven percent, with 21 companies entering the dead-pool so far. However, only 7 of those are from Europe, which makes sense given that Wayra’s European academies have been running for a significantly shorter time than in Latin America.


Perhaps further reflecting the immaturity of Wayra, it says that to-date none of its startups have been acquired, though it notes that several negotiations are currently taking place. Zooming out, however, it’s keen to stress that, although exits are certainly one measure of success, it has a slightly different focus compared to most accelerators in that backing companies who can leverage Telefónica’s 317m customers is also key.


Wayra says that where that happens it’s in no rush to push for a sale, giving companies in its programme a longer period in “revenue-generating acceleration” than they might find elsewhere. “Unquestionably, right now Wayra’s biggest asset is Telefónica. This is something that no other accelerator has,” it says.


The total amount of funding that Wayra has invested in its accelerated startups stands at $12.3 million – split between $5.6 million in Europe and $6.7 million in Latin America. Of the 150 or so startups that have graduated, more than half have secured outside funding, including grants as well as other equity investments.


Breaking this down further, approximately 40% of all graduating Wayra startups (and 51% in Europe) have secured non-grant follow on funding (either equity rounds or convertible notes from accredited investors or angels).


In 2013 alone, Wayra says there have been 48 startups (both graduated and currently in the programme) that have successfully secured financing in the form of equity rounds or convertible notes. The average in follow-on funding per Wayra startup is $520,000 in Europe, and $445,000 in Latin America. Meanwhile, the total in follow-on funding via third party investors globally is approximately $26.5 million.


The highest follow-on round was in Marfeel (Wayra Barcelona) which raised $2 million, though Wayra says that a higher round of up to $3.3 million will be announced shortly for another of its European startups. In Latin America, the highest round raised by a Wayra startup was $1.35 million by Plazapoints (Wayra Perú).


Wayra says the list of follow-on investors includes Nauta, Globant, BBVA, Elaia, Bertlesman Group, Dad Neos, Mangrove, Greycroft, Caixa Capital, and 500Startups. Of note is that Telefónica Ventures invested in Wayra-accelerated TaskHub, and Wayra says it’s confident that the telco’s Amérigo funds will make an investment in some of its portfolio companies. It does, however, seem somewhat disjointed that Telefónica Ventures hasn’t participated in more Wayra startup follow-on funding, though this may reflect the fund’s Silicon Valley focus.


Overall, while Wayra’s openness is appreciated, the story here is mainly that it’s too early to tell how well its approach is faring compared to some of the more established and longer-running accelerators either in the U.S. or more specifically Europe. For example, follow-on funding doesn’t look overly impressive and Wayra has yet to see a single exit, but again it’s very early days. Either way, an accelerator network the size and scope of Wayra that targets Europe and Latin America in equal measure is certainly unparalleled.


To that end, Wayra academies in London, Munich, Prague, Caracas, Lima and Buenos Aires are currently open for applications. Teams have until 20th October to apply.








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Amazon now shipping Chromecast orders outside of the US



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Cuando no hay consideración ni respeto es hora de recurrir a la tecnología


Todo el despliegue de tecnología que adorna a este prototipo de Ford para hacer que el coche sea capaz de aparcar sólo una vez que el conductor y los pasajeros se han bajado del vehículo podría terminar para siempre uno de los mayores males: los golpecitos que hacen en el coche de al lado los gañanes que abren las puertas sin cuidado.


Audi por cierto ya mostró hace algunos meses un sistema de aparcamiento automático del vehículo parecido a este de Ford.


# Enlace Permanente







via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/tecnologia/coches-aparcan-solos-consideracion-no-funciona-hora-recurrir-tecnologia.html

Cruce vs. Rotonda: ¿qué es mejor?


Aunque al parecer en EE UU las rotondas no son nada habituales —probablemente porque cuando fueron a comprarlas ya nos las habíamos llevado todas para Europa; y se sospecha que buena parte de ellas las acapara la Nación Rotonda— los Cazadores de Mitos quisieron comprobar si era verdad eso de que las rotondas eran más efectivas que los cruces.


Si ansias conocer tan interesante veredicto puedes saltarte el método de comprobación y pasar directamente al resultado , en el que se contabiliza el total del coches digeridos por un cruce y por una rotonda durante quince minutos.


Lo que no dicen los Mythbusters es que las rotondas también sirven como huerto, algo que no es posible en los cruces.


# Enlace Permanente







via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/mundoreal/cruce-vs-rotonda-que-es-mejor.html

Rocket Internet Launches Real-Estate Listings Site Lamudi In Asia, Africa And Latin America

Lamudi logo

Rocket Internet has consolidated several of its real estate services under one brand called Lamudi, a real estate classifieds platform that officially began operating today in twelve countries within Asia, Africa and Latin America. In a statement, Rocket Internet said it plans to expand Lamudi into new countries over “the upcoming weeks and months.”


The companies now included under Lamudi’s umbrella were consolidated over the past five months and included Nigeria-based Vamido, Mexican real estate marketplace Ubilista and Zamudi and House, both located in Asia. Lamudi’s real estate listings cover Algeria, Bangladesh, Colombia, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Uganda.


The real estate market has been very volatile over the last seven years, making Rocket Internet’s decision to focus on Lamudi especially interesting. In a statement, Lamudi Asia CEO Erwin Sikma said, “We are very bullish on the real estate classifieds market and aim to establish ourselves as the new number one in emerging markets. In particular with the support and knowledge from Rocket Internet, we will grow Lamudi very fast.”


Other key players in the same space include US companies Zillow and Trulia, as well as London-based Rightmove. Of the three, both Trulia and Rightmove have expanded into global markets. The list of countries Rightmove operates in overlaps with Lamudi’s, while Trulia Vice President of Communications Ken Shuman told VentureBeat in March that the company is eyeing small companies that can support international expansion as potential acquisition targets, while . Zillow, on the other hand, is currently bearish about tackling global markets and instead focusing on opportunities in the U.S.


Lamudi appears to build on Rocket Internet’s usual model of launching startups in markets that existing online players haven’t entered yet, with an eye on either expanding rapidly or building up the business to make it an attractive acquisition target. The German incubator, however, has been somewhat fickle with new ventures. If a startup doesn’t pick up traction or a market ends up being too competitive (as was the case with Airizu, Rocket Internet’s Airbnb clone in China, Rocket Internet often just shuts it down.


Potentially lucrative revenue streams for Lamudi include combining it with other services it already offers for residences, such as Indian home furnishings retailer FabFurnish. This gives Lamudi an existing starting point for connecting with potential customers in different cities. Can follow through. This area, called “aftermarket services,” has proven successful for e-commerce sites like New York-based Urban Compass, which recently raised a $20 million Series A round. Urban Compass acts as a one-stop shop for people looking for apartments in New York by offering real estate listings, a monthly rent payment platform and services that provide new residents with broadband, furniture and suggestions for local restaurants and places to meet people.








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HTC One Made of Real Gold Costs $4,400



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HTC to offer five genuine gold One smartphones for £2,750 apiece



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«Busca en Google como un experto», la chuleta

Google-like-a-boss.jpg


Buscar en Google es muy fácil, pero buscar en Google como un Jedi y encontrar los que se busca de forma más rápida y certera tampoco es mucho más difícil, sobre todo con esta chuleta:



  • Comillas (“”) hace una búsqueda exacta de la palabra o frase entrecomillada

  • Guión (–) excluye una palabra de la búsqueda

  • Tilde o virgulilla (~) incluye una palabra en la búsqueda

  • site:microsiervos.com ... hace la búsqueda dentro de este sitio web

  • link:microsiervos.com ... busca en los sitios que enlazan a ese sitio

  • Dos puntos (..) para expresar un rango de cifras (fechas, precios, medidas,...) [esta no me la sabía]

  • related:microsiervos.com encuentra sitios relacionados con el dominio indicado


Más en Todos los trucos y sugerencias de Google , vía Lifehack.


# Enlace Permanente







via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/internet/busca-google-como-experto-chuleta.html

Una chica con telequinesis en un café, una broma tan elaborada como buena


Telekinetic Coffee Shop Surprise, es una broma del carajo, aunque tratándose de la promo del remake de la película Carrie también puede suceder que todos sean actores.


Como sea, queda claro que hay gente que en una situación así no suelta el café, ni deja de grabar con el móvil.


Vía Laughing Squid.


# Enlace Permanente







via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/humor/chica-telequinesis-cafe-broma-elaborada-como-buena.html

Cómo obtener electricidad con una lata de refresco y una moneda


Siguiendo los pasos que se indican en el vídeo y que se explican en Cola Can Battery se puede obtener algo de electricidad con una lata de refesco y una moneda; poca cosa, eso sí —algo más de 0,5 voltios añadiendo algo de sal al refresco. Para obtener un voltaje aún mayor se pueden colocar varias latas en serie.


Saber esto no te permitirá cargar el móvil cuando lo necesites, pero podrás presumir de ser un gafotas sólo por saberlo.


# Enlace Permanente







via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/internet/como-obtener-electricidad-lata-refresco-moneda.html