Category: Tech news

 The ongoing tug of war between data capture and individual privacy in the digital space involves myriad threads, usually moving in different directions. Getting an overview of and a handle on developments can therefore be almost impossible. It’s as if — ironically enough — this issue itself needs to be observed within a Panopticon. Read More

 In less than an hour the streaming TV service Aereo will “pause” its operations. In an email sent at 9 AM Eastern Saturday, Chet Kanojia informed customers that because of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling earlier this week , the company would temporarily halt its operations at 11:30 Eastern as it consults with the court to plan its next steps. The New York based company is… Read More

 TalkBin, a customer feedback platform for businesses that was incubated at Y Combinator and then acquired by Google in 2011, is being shut down on July 31, citing “dwindling usage.”
Enquiries sent to the company are receiving a brief autoreply saying that the service is no longer being maintained or supported, that it will be shut down effective July 31, and with suggestions of… Read More

 Foursquare, Quora, Path. Each is (or was) a Valley darling; each has millions of loyal users; each has raised more than $50 million, albeit nontraditionally, and been valued at $400 million or more — and each has recently done something remarkable. Foursquare and Path pivoted, hard. Quora, bizarrely, joined Y Combinator. Are they flailing, or is there method to this madness? Read More

 Andreessen Horowitz managing partner Scott Kupor argued that there doesn’t seem to be a bubble in tech at the PreMoney 2014 conference in San Francisco this morning. In a presentation that lasted a bit over ten minutes, Kupor laid out a series of trends that indicate things aren’t quite as exuberant as some fear. Read More

 Aaron Swartz was a young, bright genius who believed in the open Internet. A self-made millionaire by the age of 19, he co-founded Reddit, was part of the creation of RSS and became a political organizer and Internet hacktivist who was instrumental in the fight against SOPA. The Internet’s Own Boy, a film first released at Sundance and now opening to the public today, follows the story… Read More

 On July 2nd, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) will release a report on the government’s use of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to execute surveillance. The NSA’s PRISM program, for example, is legally grounded in Section 702. The independent oversight group is part of the Executive Branch, and is notable for its sharp rebuke of the… Read More

 The news earlier this week about the impending shutdown of Svpply, the social shopping and personal product curation site acquired by eBay nearly two years ago, was met with a fair amount of sadness. Svpply’s been known from the start for its clever design, user experience, and functionality, and many of its dedicated fans lamented that there’s nothing out there to take its place… Read More

 The Director of National Intelligence on Friday followed through on calls for the government to be more open about its NSA surveillance programs, releasing its first transparency report. The problem is the transparency report wasn’t all that transparent. When reading the report, I was immediately struck by the revelation that under the bulk telephony metadata collection program, there… Read More

 No ProTools, no record players, no DJ skills required. With Crossfader, you just swipe between songs, pick two you like, and tilt back and forth to mix them into a mashup. This is Turntable.FM co-founder Seth Goldstein’s plot to turn legions of young ravers into creators. Read More

 The first Android Wear smartwatches aren’t yet available to consumers (though two start shipping July 7), but already we’ve managed to enjoy some time with each of the new devices, and while we can’t speak to things like battery life and durability over time, we can share impressions on the relative merits of each so far. Is the Moto 360, the LG G Watch, or the Samsung Gear… Read More

 When the government is out building a massive data center so that it can store more of the data that it hoovers up from around the world, what do you do? Well you probably can’t get much in the way of a day pass, but as Firefly taught us, you can’t take the skies from me. Read More

 Has your distaste for one-off browser plugins kept you from using Google+’s group video chat service, Hangouts? That’s okay. I feel you. Plugins are the worst. What is this, 1999? Want me to install Shockwave, too? Hell, give me a couple sketchy browser toolbars while we’re at it. BONZAI BUDDIES FOR EVERYONE!!! What was I talking about? Oh, right. Hangouts. Good news!… Read More

 You can’t keep Matt Rutledge down. At least not for long. And goddammit, if he wants to sell you one item a day at an unbelievably discounted price, and to accompany that item with irreverent and sometimes nonsensical marketing copy that will make you decide to buy it (or maybe not), then he’s going to do that. Read More

 Last week, I went to a party celebrating the 10th anniversary of Jeff Clavier’s SoftTech VC. What I didn’t know was that the partners were also likely celebrating the close of the firm’s $85 million fourth fund for investing in startups. Read More