TechTech | Tech

Canonical ends support for KDE, Kubuntu lead developer moved to other projects

Jamie Keene — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:24:41 +0000

Ubuntu parent Canonical is ending paid support for Kubuntu, the variant of the Linux OS running the KDE desktop environment. An announcement by lead Kubuntu developer Jonathan Riddell explains that the move is a purely commercial ...

Social Marketing Platform Extole Raises $10 Million

Leena Rao — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:00:41 +0000

Extole, a startup which offers a suite of social media marketing has raised $10 million in Series C round funding, led by Shasta Ventures with participation from existing investors Norwest Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, and Trident Capital. This brings the company’s total financing to $22 million. Extole’s technology makes it easy for brands to power social referral programs, social promotions, social testimonials, and social analytics. Products such as Refer-A-Friend and SocialBuilder are designed to enable brands to leverage referral marketing services and viral Facebook sweepstakes apps to increase sales and brand awareness in a measurable way, such as through likes, recommendations and more.

MeetingCalc for iPhone Shows You How Expensive Those Boring Meetings Really Are [IPhone Downloads]

Alan Henry — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:00:00 +0000

iOS: If your office is plagued by lengthy meetings that drag on while everyone has to have their say, MeetingCalc is the mobile app for you. Start the timer, set the hourly rate of everyone in the room...

Payments Day

Fred — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:25:49 +0000

Yesterday was payments day at USV. Two pretty big things that our firm has been involved in for a while now were coincidentally announced on the same day. First, our newest portfolio company Dwolla announced the closing of a round...

TasteMakerX Raises $1.8M for Mobile Social App Platform

Kara Swisher — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:00:32 +0000

TastemakerX, a San Francisco start-up that is developing a social mobile platform focused "targeted taste graphs," said it had raised $1.8 million in funding from a variety of venture firms, including Guggenheim Partners, Baseline Ventures, True Ventures and Tekton Ventures, as well as angel investors. The company said it will release its TastemakerX Music mobile app as a private beta in early March 2012.

Four short links: 8 February 2012

Nat Torkington — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Mavuno -- an open source, modular, scalable text mining toolkit built upon Hadoop. (Apache-licensed) Cow Clicker -- Wired profile of Cowclicker creator Ian Bogost. I was impressed by Cow Clickers [...] have turned what was intended to be a vapid experience into a source of camaraderie and creativity. People create communities around social activities, even when they are antisocial....

Sony downgraded by S&P due to loss-making TV division and ‘severe’ competition

Vlad Savov — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:27:58 +0000

Kaz Hirai's biggest challenge in his upcoming promotion to CEO of Sony will undoubtedly be to revitalize the company's once-glorious TV division. Having suffered a debt rating downgrade by Moody's three weeks ago, Sony is today ge...

Daily Crunch: Rev

Bryce Durbin — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:00:17 +0000

Here are some recent posts on TechCrunch Gadgets: Honeywell vs Nest: When The Establishment Sues Silicon Valley Thousands Of Webcams Made Publicly Accessible By Software Bug VooMote Zapper Turns Your iThing Into A Universal A/V Remote Pledge Your Andr...

Why Path Pissed People Off

Alexia Tsotsis — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:43:27 +0000

There's a reason why today's news that Path was uploading its users' entire address book to its database was stunning -- all this time Path has been positioning itself as one of the good guys! … Sort of an alternative to Facebook … a kinder, gentler social network that only wanted to keep things between you and fifty of your closest friends, and then 150. And then ... It's sort of jarring when a social network bills itself as private, and then quietly sucks up as much data as its leading -- and notoriously data grabby -- competitor. Still, even Facebook notifies you (via iOS notifications) that it's grabbing your address book data.

Nokia moves device assembly to Asian factories, cutting 4,000 jobs in Europe and Mexico

Vlad Savov — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:24:43 +0000

In a bid to "increase the company's competitiveness in the diverse global mobile device market," Nokia is trimming down its manufacturing operations in Europe and Mexico and transferring device assembly work to its factories in As...