blogger better: 2016-07-10

Saturday, July 16, 2016

How Drake can help you understand your business

APTOS, CA - FEBRUARY 27: Dr. Frank Drake, the founder of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), poses for a portrait at his home in Aptos, California, Friday, February 27, 2015. Dr. Drake also created the Arecibo Message - a simple binary encoded message broadcast into space by the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico in 1974. The message encodes several things: the numbers 1 to 10, the basic chemistry of life on Earth, the double helix structure of DNA, Earth's population, a graphic of the Solar System, a human figure, and a graphic of the Arecibo radio telescope and it's dish' dimensions. (Photo by Ramin Rahimian for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

As a founder or someone working in a startup, the main priority is always staying alive. Every ounce of your budget needs to be spent efficiently. It’s all about difficult decisions, and some of them can be messy and complex. With options coming from every angle, you need to find ways to make them as simple as possible. This is where our good friend Drake comes in. Read More

http://ift.tt/2ajJllQ How Drake can help you understand your business http://ift.tt/29MTKrn

This week on Technotopia I talked to Neeraj Bansal the co-founder of education startup Simversity. He has a deep understanding of what it takes to build an online education platform and he also notes that the only jobs worth having in the future are the ones that can’t be replaced by machine learning. Education right now, he says, is a form of data replication. But when computers and… Read More

http://ift.tt/1oumKIE Simversity’s Neeraj Bansal talks about the future of education http://ift.tt/29Gp9Jk

As the internet social turf wars continue to mature, the land grab is becoming much better understood. With a few companies controlling 95 percent of the social data, the internet is more closed and much more controlled than ever before. Read More

from Social – TechCrunch http://ift.tt/29LbLcJ Big data and its developer fallout Ben Schippers http://ift.tt/29Mitfw
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How to get your photos featured on Apple’s Shot on iPhone billboards

Been anywhere near a billboard recently? You’ve probably seen some magnificent photographs with “Shot on iPhone” plastered underneath. As a photographer, you’ve probably felt a pang of envy; why aren’t your photos up there for the world to see? I tracked down one of the photographers in the current campaign to find out how his images came to be featured in the… Read More

http://ift.tt/29KGCmV How to get your photos featured on Apple’s Shot on iPhone billboards http://ift.tt/29K3kJo

I’m in Canada, and I”m having a conversation about weed. So far, everything’s tracking. But this isn’t just a casual convo – HelloMD is a startup focused on health, community and access to information, and they’re based in the U.S. (with people in SF and Colorado). And while the core business began as a way to use telemedicine to connect doctors with… Read More

http://ift.tt/2agWTi4 HelloMD looks to its ‘Quora for cannabis’ as a source of growth http://ift.tt/29KDdUY

Sales startup Immediately will shut down as team members join New Relic

{rss:content:encoded} Sales startup Immediately will shut down as team members join New Relic http://ift.tt/2agLQ8E http://ift.tt/1IpsM3z July 15, 2016 at 11:11PM

Immediately, a startup that built mobile sales tools, will be shutting down at the end of the month, while part of the team will move on to cloud monitoring company New Relic. According to the official announcement, both the Immediately app (which offers a number of features including phone logging and detecting when emails are opened) and the company’s Gong app (a “pocket… Read More

The Turkish military have deployed in Istanbul and Ankara, and the government has apparently blocked social media in response to what is being reported as an attempted coup. Read More

from Social – TechCrunch http://ift.tt/29ZiLzf Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube blocked in Turkey during reported coup attempt Devin Coldewey http://ift.tt/2agGABN
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Encrypted comms company Silent Circle closes $50M Series C

{rss:content:encoded} Encrypted comms company Silent Circle closes $50M Series C http://ift.tt/29KlZXR http://ift.tt/1QImm1m July 15, 2016 at 09:53PM SilentCircle_Blackphone2_Angle-A

Encrypted comms company Silent Circle, which also makes a security-focused Android smartphone called the Blackphone, has announced it’s closed a $50 million Series C round of financing, led by Santander Bank. Read More

Legion Analytics is looking to make your sales team more productive with the help of artificial intelligence. We covered the startup last year when it was part of Y Combinator’s fellowship program and offered to help companies find sales leads. CEO Jamasen Rodriguez told me that the company’s vision has expanded — it’s not just focused on lead generation anymore, but… Read More

http://ift.tt/1UIwtsf Legion Analytics is building bots to automate your sales pitch http://ift.tt/29CvDtn

Just in time for the weekend, Netflix today announced the launch of a new service called Flixtape, which the company describes as a way to make short playlists of your favorite Netflix titles. “It’s like a mixtape, but for Netflix,” the site explains. The new tool lets you create these lists based on a genre or theme of some sort, then share them with friends or family… Read More

from Social – TechCrunch http://ift.tt/29KdVq1 Netflix launches Flixtape so you can make ‘mixtapes’ of your favorites movies and shows Sarah Perez http://ift.tt/29IPsnR
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The team behind project management service Wrike spent the last few years building a general-purpose project management service that businesses can adopt to their own needs. That clearly worked, because as Wrike CEO Andrew Filev told me, the company’s revenue grew 120 percent last year and it now has about 400 employees and 12,000 businesses on its paid platform. Now that this platform… Read More

http://ift.tt/2ag8LRh Wrike launches project management tool for marketers http://ift.tt/29AJ298

WESTFIELD, IN - JULY 12: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets Indiana Gov. Mike Pence at the Grand Park Events Center on July 12, 2016 in Westfield, Indiana. Trump is campaigning amid speculation he may select Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate. (Photo by Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)

With a Tweet from The Donald himself, it’s official that Governor Mike Pence of Indiana will be Donald Trump’s running-mate come November. Gov. Pence has been loudly parading his innovation and entrepreneurship plans for the state of Indiana this week in the run-up to his likely selection as the presumptive Republican Vice Presidential nominee. Thinking of Gov. Mike Pence as… Read More

http://ift.tt/29YCLlx A Vice President Pence would be bad for building US culture of innovation http://ift.tt/29Jia2E

Pokémon Go’s retention rates, average revenue per user are double the industry average

{rss:content:encoded} Pokémon Go’s retention rates, average revenue per user are double the industry average http://ift.tt/29OvYfg http://ift.tt/29JZ53i July 15, 2016 at 06:02PM PokemonGo-Bulbasaur

New data released this morning on the mobile phenomenon Pokémon Go shows that the popular game isn’t only the biggest in U.S. history – it’s also breaking records when it comes to its ability to monetize and retain its users, as well. According to a report from SurveyMonkey, Pokémon Go is seeing retention rates at more than double the industry average, and is pulling… Read More

US to put $400M into Advanced Wireless Research Initiative for 5G networks

{rss:content:encoded} US to put $400M into Advanced Wireless Research Initiative for 5G networks http://ift.tt/29MN7qB http://ift.tt/29qghMy July 15, 2016 at 02:37PM Rows of office workers working on computers with data streaming

Rows of office workers working on computers with data streaming

As President Obama approaches the end of his tenure in the White House, his team is launching a wireless networking research project that it hopes could be part of his wider legacy in the world of tech. Today, the Obama administration announced the Advanced Wireless Research Initiative, a group backed by $400 million in investment that will work on research aimed to “maintain U.S.… Read More

Abstract watercolour painted speech bubbles in yellow orange pink blue and green.

How many times have you wanted to throw your phone out the window of your car because Siri couldn’t understand the most basic phrases? Call Cheryl, no Vyshakh. Siri calls Cheryl anyway. Then a 20-minute argument develops with a series of “Hey Siri” commands followed by a string of unwanted Google searches and maybe even an iTunes song. I personally gave Siri a British accent… Read More

http://ift.tt/29Y8sLu Pat launches private beta to help AI understand what you say http://ift.tt/29Abk3w

The summer in Northern Europe may have been a bit hit and miss so far this year but no one had cause to complain of being chilly inside a packed Glashaus yesterday evening at TechCrunch’s 2016 Berlin Meet Up + Pitch-Off… Read More

http://ift.tt/29JfIeR Green City Solutions wins TechCrunch Berlin Pitch-Off http://ift.tt/2afeLcT

Launch.ed, Edinburgh University. ILG shortlist 2016. © Malcolm Cochrane Photography +44 (0)7971 835 065 mail@malcolmcochrane.co.uk No syndication No reproduction without permission

PureLifi, the University of Edinburgh spin out that is developing what it calls ‘LiFi’ technology, an alternative to Wi-Fi that uses modulating LED light as a way of sending data from one LiFi-equipped device to another, has raised just over £7 million in Series B funding. Leading the round is Singapore’s state-owned investment firm Temasek, while the startup says the new… Read More

http://ift.tt/29HHGdR PureLiFi scores £7M Series B to commercialize pulsating light-based Wi-FI alternative http://ift.tt/29HI1xq

Mushroom leather, tiny Zika detectors and lab-made breast milk debut at IndieBio’s third demo day

IndieBio Demo Day 3, Folsom Street Foundry July 14, 2016

The accelerator’s demo day has grown so big we’re now live streaming it on TechCrunch. But it was just a couple years ago that the only pure biotech accelerator launched out of SOS Ventures. Many accelerators and venture firms have started to take a keen interest in the space in since then, but Indiebio is still the one many in the industry look for crazy and interesting ideas… Read More

http://ift.tt/29GQFfA Mushroom leather, tiny Zika detectors and lab-made breast milk debut at IndieBio’s third demo day http://ift.tt/29HiFM4

How far does the Pokémon brand have to carry Pokémon Go?

{rss:content:encoded} How far does the Pokémon brand have to carry Pokémon Go? http://ift.tt/2adPd05 http://ift.tt/29I70O6 July 15, 2016 at 12:45AM pokemon go brick walk

How far can the Pokémon brand carry Pokémon Go? Will its popularity fade after that initial burst of activity thanks to the power of its brand? That’s a huge question that’s circulating now that the game has immediately popped to the top of the App Store and has cemented itself as one of the most successful game launches of all time. The mechanics of the game are fundamentally… Read More