Saturday, 23 November 2013
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler backtracks, says he's against in-flight voice calls
Top 25 Digital Media Resources This Week
A better, yet more cumbersome iOS 7 gamepad: hands-on with the MOGA Ace Power
Daric, A New Peer To Peer Lending Platform, Will Go Live Next Week
Daric, a new peer to peer lending platform, will launch next week as a place for individuals and small businesses to obtain loans, and a place for lenders to see up to 9-10% returns on their investments.
Individuals will be able to apply for a loan up to $35,000 and small businesses can apply for a loan up to $50,000 on Daric. According to an SEC filing, the company will offer up to $10 million on the platform.
Daric raised an angel round of funding in January 2012 from Goldcrest Investments; Dick Kovacevich, former CEO of Wells Fargo; Jennifer Johnson, COO of Franklin Templeton Investments; and others.
The company was co-founded by Greg Ryan, Vasant Ramachandran, and Cooper Dawson.
Dawson notes that Daric hopes to differentiate itself with a great user experience, as other financial services companies haven't focused on design much. He explains that users don't have to upload any documents to Daric, and can make an account, apply, and (if approved) receive a loan in just a few hours, instead of weeks.
Ramachandran tells me the company wants to focus on the positives of a person's accounts: the income, cash flows, and the ability to pay back a loan, instead of looking at traditional frameworks like credit lines, delinquencies, and credit scores.
Daric raised an angel round of funding in January 2012 from Goldcrest Investments; Dick Kovacevich, former CEO of Wells Fargo; Jennifer Johnson, COO of Franklin Templeton Investments; and others.
Ryan, whose father was an early employee at Goldman Sachs, says his "fundamentally different approach is that this is a technology play." He believes Daric can leverage big data and be much more efficient and cost effective than a traditional bank by using computer algorithms.
Daric will go live on Wednesday, November 27, barring any unforeseen regulatory issues.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/THgHJunRWGQ/
Down, The App Formerly Known As Bang With Friends, Relaunches On The iPhone
Following a trademark dispute with Zynga, the team behind the hookup app Bang With Friends rebranded as Down, adjusted their approach, and launched on Android. Now those changes have come to iOS as well, with an update that was quietly released earlier this week.
I never tried Bang With Friends (that's my story and I'm sticking to it), but in addition to a revamped user interface, it sounds like the new Down app differs in two big ways.
First, it's no longer just focused on, well, banging. Instead, users are asked to distinguish between people they want to date and those they just want to hook up with - they swipe up to “get date”, swipe down to “get down”, and swipe left to skip. (People are only notified of your response if they say they're interested too.)
In addition, Down has expanded its potential matches, so it doesn't just show you Facebook friends but also friends of friends. That doesn't just expand the pool, but may also make the “get down” dynamic feel a little less awkward. (I felt pretty mortified when I opened the app for the first time and was immediately asked about my interest in various Facebook friends.) Plus, you can now search through friends and friends of friends by name.
Founder Colin Hodge told me via email that many of the changes came “directly from our female users.” For example, here's how he explained he expansion to friends of friends (for readability, I've tweaked some of the spacing and capitalization):
One of the things women told us they loved in the first version is that it feels safer than other dating apps because you already know the other person is real and you're connected to them (you are friends on Facebook). We took this to heart when thinking about the best way to expand everyone's dating pool. Now many users have thousands of potential dates or hookups because we expanded it to people your friends know. By looking at who your Facebook friends are connected to, we can show you real people who likely have lots in common with you – and at a minimum, you run in the same circles.
The company says that the new version on Android has already encouraged repeat usage of the app, with more than 300 percent growth in two-day retention and 200 percent growth in one-day retention.
You can read more about the apps and download them here.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/qQOcQEITCiE/
Todos tenemos un pequeño i-diota dentro
Idiots es un imprwsionante vÃdeo de autopromoción de Big Lazy Robot que hay que tomarse con una pizca de buen humor y autocrÃtica porque todos hemos pecado de esto alguna vez.
(VÃa @EDocet).
- En este corto de ciencia ficción lo de «ficción» ya es relativo, una anotación en la que sale otro vÃdeo de esta gente.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/humor/todos-tenemos-un-pequeno-i-diota-dentro.html
Singapore 21: a farewell trip on the world's longest flight
¡Mira, un avión de British Airways!
British Airways ha instalado anuncios en Piccadilly Circus y en Chiswick en Londres en los que un niño o una niña señalan a un avión de la aerolÃnea está a la vista, indicando además su procedencia o destino.
La idea es que quien lo vea vaya luego al URL de la campaña, bautizada como #lookup , que también se muestra en los anuncios, aunque esto quizás sea más complicado, y que se anime a volar a alguno de esos destinos.
Me parece un uso la mar de curioso de una tecnologÃa que lleva tiempo disponible y que los aerotrastornados usamos con aplicaciones como la de Flightradar24, que permite hacer lo mismo apuntando con la cámara del móvil a los aviones que vemos pasar.
Esta tecnologÃa se conoce como ADS-B, que básicamente es un equipo de comunicaciones capaz de recibir y enviar un montón de información sobre un vuelo, como son su posición gracias al GPS, qué avión es –por eso la aplicación de Flightradar24 puede mostrar fotos del avión en concreto– y su origen y destino, etc.
Cada vez más aviones la incorporan, ya que da más información y más precisa que el radar.
(Lo vi en SimplyFlying, aunque @claudix también me escribió para avisar).
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/aerotrastorno/mira-un-avion-de-bbritish-airways.html
Fisker files for Bankruptcy, hopes selling company will restart Karma sales
The AUUG iPhone Grip And App Turns Your Body Into A Musical Instrument
Anything that encourages people to stop hunching over their iPhones like a tech-literate Mr. Burns is a good thing–especially when it also looks cool and makes fun noises. The AUUG Motion Synth, a grip that attaches to your iPhone or iPod touch and creates sound by tracking your movements through its app, was designed for electronic musicians, but I can see other people using it, like dancers, artists or music teachers looking for an engaging way to teach kids music scales. It recently launched on Kickstarter and is scheduled to start shipping in April if it reaches its fundraising goal.
The AUUG platform, which consists of an aluminum grip with an elastic strap, app and cloud-based platform, can wirelessly control software on a PC or non-wireless music hardware with a MIDI cable. It was developed at product engineering studio SGW Designworks by a team led by neuroscientist Joshua Young, who wanted to release electronic musicians from their laptops and give them a more expressive way of creating sounds and connecting with audiences.
The AUUG app doesn't product its own sounds, but instead gives users a wide array of options by converting motion data from their iPhones or iPod Touches into signals that are then transferred to other sound apps or external devices. Its performance screen has 8 buttons that line-up with the AUUG grip's overlay and let musicians play diatonic scales like C Major. Once the AUUG launches, users will be able to connect at www.auug.com to share app presets or setup ideas in an online forum.
More information and to see samples made by electronic musicians with AUUG, check out its Kickstarter page or Web site.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/oF29ZgKrziY/
Raspberry Pi hack creates a smart TV from a not-so-bright set
Coursera Adds Another $20M To Its Already Massive Series B
Back in July, Coursera announced a $43 million series B. Now the round has grown to an even more impressive $63 million with the addition of funding from three undisclosed university partners.
The education startup told AllThingsD that the delay was due to the new investors' longer due diligence process. The round also includes additional funding from existing investors GSV Capital and Learn Capital.
Coursera has now raised a total of $85 million to fuel its ambitious mission of offering Ivy League-caliber education online for free. The startup competes with other MOOCs (massive open online courses) companies like Udacity and EdX. Udacity recently launched an comprehensive degree track program meant to compete with a much more expensive online master's program in data science from UC Berkeley and 2U, while EdX partnered with Google to launch MOOC.org, which will allow teachers and businesses to create their own digital courses.
In addition to its VC funding, Coursera's competitive advantages include its sheer size (it currently has 5.5 million students signed up for classes from 100 institutions) and its Signature Track program, which lets students pay for verified certificates so they can prove that they have completed one of Coursera's online classes. A verified certificate obviously does not have the same cachet as a university degree, but Coursera's agreement with the American Council on Education (ACE) to evaluate a subset of courses to see if students can use them to qualify for credits toward a degree is an important step as the company seeks to radically redefine higher education.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/qVs1NdQuw2A/
Ubuntu desktop and mobile icons redesigned, united at last
Twitter's new encryption could prevent governments from snooping on old tweets
Google+ for iOS gets full-res photo backups, lets you share your location
Xbox One crosses million sold mark in under 24 hours
Daily Roundup: PlayStation 4 and Xbox One comparison, unlocked iPhone 5s from Apple, Yoga Tablet review and more!
Must Reads: Dream Control, Tragedy That Binds Us and More
The 13-Inch iPad Rumor Makes Absolutely No Sense
Huawei's Ascend Mate successor said to feature higher-res display, slightly improved internals
