Category: Tech news

Earlier today, Zynga filed a scathing legal response to EA’s copyright lawsuit — with a few sensitive areas redacted. However, it turns out that TechCrunch readers are even more awesome than I expected, because one of them figured out how to un-redact the document and sent us the full countercomplaint, sans black bars.

So what was missing? Basically, more details about supposed agreements between Zynga and EA, and allegations that EA has violated the terms of those agreements.

If you read our earlier coverage, you may remember that in addition to responding to EA’s accusations that it had stolen copyright-protected elements from The Sims Social, Zynga filed a counterclaim accusing EA of anti-competitive behavior. Specifically, the counterclaim alleged that EA tried to convince Zynga to enter into a no-hire agreement and threatened to sue Zynga if not.

The counterclaim also states that during the course of those discussions, Zynga reached multiple settlement agreements with EA over the hiring of EA executives. In the version sent to reporters, the details of the settlements were redacted. We still don’t have a copy of the settlements themeslves, but the big one seems to be summarized in the now-unredacted portions of the agreement: According to Zynga, it agreed not to solicit EA employees in limited circumstances, in exchange for EA’s “release of claims,” i.e. agreement not to sue Zynga over the hires. Here’s how Zynga describes the agreement (previously redacted portions in bold):

Even though Zynga was confident that it had done nothing wrong, Zynga agreed to enter into a settlement agreement that included lawful, appropriate, and extremely narrow non-solicit restrictions in the context of a non-monetary settlement agreement that included a release of claims as well as a means to address any related dispute that might arise.

Later, in the now-unredacted sections, Zynga alleges that EA violated by “bringing suit against Zynga for purported claims covered by the releases set forth in those agreements” and “failing to comply with the mandatory dispute resolution provisions set forth in those agreements.”

You can read the unredacted counterclaim below.

Counterclaim Unredacted

A database migration gone awry caused the outage and poor availability that GitHub customers experienced this week.

In a lengthy blog post today, GitHub’s Jesse Newland apologized for the outage and said overall it was way below the company’s standards.

The root of the problem stemmed from a database replacement done last month. During that maintenance, the GitHub team replaced its aging pair of DRBD-backed MySQL servers with a 3-node cluster. The new infrastructure is designed so the MySQL database can run on all nodes at all times. This means a failover “simply moves the appropriate virtual IP between nodes after flushing transactions and appropriately changing the read_only MySQL variable.”

With the new architecture, MySQL can run on all servers all the time. In the old way, failing over from one database to another required a cold start of MySQL.

It sounds basic enough but as often happens, seemingly insignificant events can create a series of problems. As a result, GitHub is now taking a closer look at how it manages failovers and the overall management of its new cluster environment.

On Monday, the outage stemmed from what GitHub called an innocuous database migration.  What resulted were some higher-than-expected loads that the GitHub operations team has not previously seen during these sorts of migrations. And that led to a cascading series of errors that resulted in the downtime.

On Tuesday, a cluster partition occurred that caused customers to get data from other users’ dashboards. In addition, some repositories created during this window were incorrectly routed. Newland said the company has removed all of the leaked events and performed an audit of all repositories that were incorrectly routed.

Newland said 16 of these repositories were private. For seven minutes they were accessible to people outside of the repository’s list of collaborators or team members. Newland said all of the owners of these repositories were contacted about the problem.

Newland said in summary that three primary events contributed to the downtime of the past few days:

• Several failovers of the “active” database role happened when they shouldn’t have.
• A cluster partition occurred that resulted in incorrect actions being performed by its cluster-management software.
• And the failovers triggered by the first two events impacted performance and availability more than they should have.

GitHub’s problems stem from a change to its database stack. It illustrates an issue with growing online communities.  MySQL simply does not scale very well. And so when problems occur, it can cause issues that affect the entire organization, its customers, and overall perception.

Photo courtesy Ferrari S.p.A.

In a hushed corporate dining room not far from the foundry where his company’s engines are born, Ferrari S.p.A. chairman Luca di Montezemolo distills the essence of his latest flagship, the F12berlinetta. The dapper Italian conjures the requisite analogy to the female form while expounding how the front-engine two-seater complements the current Ferrari lineup. But his conclusion says it all: “I wanted this to be the highest-performance Ferrari ever made.”

Maranello’s storied manufacturer is responsible for extreme designs that inspire wild superlatives, yet even in this landscape, the F12 is a bit of a curiosity. The numbers are breathtaking: 730 horsepower from a naturally aspirated, 6.3-liter V12 driving the rear wheels through a 7-speed transaxle. But the look is not: More Speed Racer than textbook supercar, this cab rearward sled is highlighted by a hood-mounted heat extractor flanked by two “aero bridges” whose negative space divert airflow to deep, upwardly swept grooves along the door panels. The appearance isn’t as otherworldly as the insectoid Enzo, but this aluminum 2-seater is almost two seconds faster around the Fiorano test track than its more unattainably priced, carbon-bodied ancestor.

A decade after the Enzo made its first mark, I’m ready to lap the fabled proving grounds where countless Ferraris have debuted. The sights and sounds on this warm July morning are, frankly, daunting. Test driver Rafaelle De Simone blasts out of the pits, the V12′s ascending bellow echoing off the Armco as the transmission bangs off incomprehensibly quick gearshifts before the rear brake lights flash for turn one. During a technical presentation the night before, several executives suggested the F12 was intended to be enjoyable at a broader range of speeds than its 205 mph predecessor, the 599. How on Earth 730 cavallini are to be tamed into two-wheel-drive submission seems like a mystery for the automotive ages, but the answers start to unfold when I take my turn behind the wheel.

My test car is finished in a crimson shade of “Rosso Berlinetta,” and climbing inside reveals traditional tan leather offset by aluminum trim. The optional carbon fiber package swathes the bucket seats, door panels, and various switchgear bits in the shiny, lightweight black stuff. In sum, the carbon, along with optional wheels, shaves 66 pounds from the 3,659.5-pound curb weight. As it stands, the car is 2 inches shorter in length, 2.3 inches lower, and over 100 pounds lighter than the 599 it replaces. The rear luggage compartment delivers 17.6 cubic feet of storage space with the rear bench panel removed.

Photo courtesy Ferrari S.p.A.

The center of gravity has been dropped to only 18 inches off the pavement, and once you’re nestled inside the cabin, the F12 feels palpably low to the ground. An F1-inspired, all-in-one steering wheel theme carries over from the 458 Italia, and includes wiper, turn signal, high-beam, manettino and suspension controls, as well as a large red “Engine Start” button at 7 o’clock.

Turn the key in the steering column — a silly ritual in this age of proximity sensors — and simple white-on-black logos fade up on the dash like the opening credits of an indie flick. Press the big red starter button, and the V12 stirs with a cabin-filling growl. A tug of the right paddle, with its surprisingly long throw, engages first gear, and attention diverts to the massive, centrally positioned yellow tachometer that dominates the dashboard. The tach is flanked by multi-function TFTs depicting everything from a faux analog speedometer to temperature, trip computer, and navigation displays.

Photo courtesy Ferrari S.p.A.

Revs unfurl into a steady crescendo of forward motion whose momentum escalates at around 4,000 rpm, and continues to accelerate strongly towards all but the tail end of the upper registers. Seat-of-the-pants sensations are supported by the engine’s torque curve as plotted on graph paper: while torque peaks to 509 pound-feet at 6,000 rpm before dropping off, horsepower burgeons with a steep rise all the way to 8,250 rpm, softening just short of the 8,500 rpm redline.

The sensation of speed in the F12 is thrilling off the line, and only intensifies as the needle rises; there’s a point at which burying the right pedal turns from anticipatory to exhilarating, and just beyond that, downright scary. Select “Race” mode and press a center-mounted “Launch” button, and torque braking sends revs to 3,000 rpm before they settle at about 2,500 rpm; lift off the brake while pinning the throttle, and the F12 catapults cleanly off the line, producing brief wheelspin on slicker surfaces as it hurtles forward with smooth, almost instantaneous gear shifts. A sprint to 62 mph requires a claimed 3.1 seconds, and top speed is estimated at 211 mph.

Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

There’s a reason most subwoofers have boring, cube-like designs: They’re meant to be tucked into a corner or under a cabinet, out of sight and out of mind.

Edifier’s 2.1-channel Bluetooth sound system bucks that convention with a subwoofer that’s so elegant, so eye-catching, it would be criminal to hide it away. And therein lies the conundrum: Do you make room on your desk or bookshelf for that winsome woofer, or let its looks go to waste somewhere unseen?

A first-world problem, yes, but one worth grappling with. The Prisma E3350BT is not only easy on the eyes, but also awesome on the ears — save for a few minor miscues.

Edifier’s curvy, pyramid-shaped subwoofer comes flanked by taller, more monolithic satellites, all of them coated in your choice of silver, white, or black. Whatever the finish, this is one sexy-looking speaker system.

Together, the 5-inch downward-firing subwoofer, 2.75-inch midranges and 19mm PV dome tweeters crank out 48 watts of audio goodness. That’s an impressive amount of power for a system of this size, and the result is enough oomph to fill a small- or medium-size room with music.

Music, and wires. The Prisma necessarily employs several of them: one to link the satellites, one to connect the satellites to the subwoofer, one for AC power, and a fourth for the wired volume-control puck.

That puck engenders mixed feelings. It’s sleek and metallic and ringed in glowing blue, and it hides convenient headphone and line-in jacks. But it controls only the volume. The Prisma’s power button sits atop the subwoofer, while its bass-volume control hides beneath it. Why not group all these controls together on the puck?

To wit: To access that bass volume dial, you have to grope behind and beneath the subwoofer. And if you want to plug something into the secondary line-in jack, you have little choice but to pick up the subwoofer and flip it over. It’s a necessary concession to the design, though at least not something you’ll need to deal with often.

Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

Indeed, the most appealing way to use the Prisma is to pair your phone or tablet for wireless streaming of your playlists, Pandora stations, Spotify picks, and the like. Just one problem: This system limits you to one paired device at a time. Plenty of other Bluetooth gizmos can accommodate at least two. This will definitely cause hassles in multi-device households.

The good news — no, the best news — is that the Prisma system sounds superb. Its midrange comes through strong and smooth, and it delivers more than enough bass to keep the joint jumping and thumping.

Bluetooth stereo often gets knocked for compressing audio, and although my ears had no complaints with the overall quality of the speakers — quite the opposite — there’s just a trace of “muffledness” that might be attributable to that compression. More discerning listeners may prefer to plug in their devices rather than letting Bluetooth mess with their music’s fidelity.

It’s worth noting that the Prisma has a price tag lower than some standalone Bluetooth “brick” speakers, most notably the Bose SoundLink and Jawbone’s Big Jambox. Those models pull off some masterful feats of audio wizardry, but they don’t — they can’t — sound anywhere near as “big” as the E3350BT.

WIRED Big, smooth sound. So beautiful, it’ll improve your décor, not detract from it. Two auxiliary inputs, one on the sub, one on the remote. Priced lower than many single-speaker Bluetooth systems.

TIRED Pairs with only one device at a time. Sexy subwoofer design wasted on a component that will probably end up on the floor. Controls are spread out rather than centralized on the volume puck, including one that’s shoehorned beneath the ‘woofer.

Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

Photo by Peter McCollough/Wired

If you were to gather one of each of the battery recharger packs out there, you could probably fill an Olympic-size swimming pool. They’re all designed for the same single purpose: Juice up your cellphones, tablets, and other power-hungry mobile devices. Aside from the obvious stuff like size and weight, what separates one from the next is how much power each one has to share, and how each connects to its supported devices.

So if there’s one feature on this myCharge Peak 6000 unit I’ve been testing that stands out more than any other, it’s that it talks to me. You read that right. On most juice packs, you check how full the battery is by pushing a button. By counting the number of LED lights that blink or light up, you can see whether you’ve got full tank or you’re running on empty. The Peak 6000, however, just tells you. It has a female voice that speaks the battery’s status in your choice of four languages. Press the button for an update and she’ll tell you how far along you are: 25, 50, 75 percent, or full. When you recharge the Peak 6000 itself, the little lady (let’s call her Nancy), delivers a confirmation that “recharging is activated” in a lilting contralto.

The 9-ounce brick has three conveniently built-in cables. There’s one for iOS devices — iPhones, iPods and iPads — a mini-USB cable for non-Apple cellphones and smaller Android tablets, and a full-size USB cable for charging up the Peak 6000 itself. Using the USB cable to charge it is pretty slow, so there’s also a set of wall prongs that fold out for speed-charging it in just over 3 hours. Finally, there’s a full-size USB port for charging other devices using your own USB cable.

About that iOS connector: As you’d suspect, it has a 30-pin terminal at the end of the cable, which Apple has effectively killed off with the introduction of the new iPhone. So, if you’re considering using the Peak 6000 to charge an iPhone 5, you’ll need to use Apple’s adapter plug to hook the phone’s 8-pin socket to the charger’s 30-pin cable. Of course, older iOS devices will connect just fine.

Photo by Peter McCollough/Wired

The capacity of the Peak’s lithium polymer cell is 6,000mAh, and its maximum output current is 5V and 3.1 amps. That’s enough to charge up to three separate devices at once. Also, a 6,000mAh battery is truly huge compared to most portable chargers (the bulk of which are under 3,000), and the company claims it has enough power to fully charge “the average smartphone” four times.

To test this, I let my iPhone 4 drain to 20 percent capacity, then plugged it into a fully charged Peak 6000. Once my phone was fully charged, the Peak had gone from full to 50 percent remaining. At least that’s what Nancy told me. So, while my test couldn’t verify the manufacturer’s claim of up to four charges, a pair of charges to my iPhone isn’t too shabby. It’s enough to get me through a weekend on the road. With my iPad 3, I got one full recharge out of the Peak before Nancy told me she was plum tuckered out.

I also found one other use for the Peak 6000 that myCharge probably didn’t think about: I was able to power an external hard drive. This came in handy because the drive requires two USB ports for power and data transmission, but my notebook didn’t have two adjacent USB ports. So one side of the Y-cable went into the notebook and the other into the Peak 6000. Nancy had nothing to say about that.

WIRED Powerful mobile device charger comes with necessary connecting cables built in. Voice confirmations indicate power levels. Flip-out wall plug proves convenient for re-filling it, and thankfully keeps it an all-in-one unit.

TIRED Recharging cycles didn’t match manufacturer’s claims. At 9 ounces, it’s pretty heavy. It’s also large, and works better in a backpack than a back pocket.

Photo by Peter McCollough/Wired

Photo by Peter McCollough/Wired

Edo, a card-linked local offers platform which targets customers based on their real-world spending behavior, has closed a $15 million Series C round of funding, the company announced today. The round was led by VantagePoint Capital Partners, and saw participation from Baird Venture Partners and other existing investors, bringing edo’s total financing to $54.3 million.

Unlike many of the current local offer platforms, edo doesn’t require a check-in, a punch card, a mobile app, or specialized point-of-sale hardware. Instead, it ties to consumers’ bank cards (credit or debit), and then tracks spending behavior to know which offers to send.

These offers can come through a mobile app, SMS or email. But edo is a white label platform, so it’s up to the consumer’s bank as to the specifics surrounding the implementation. The benefit of having the offers platform tied to the card is that, when redeemed, offers can be immediately credited to a consumer’s account. For example, if you’re out shopping and you get a text for a discount or deal at a sandwich shop and you decide to go there for lunch, you don’t have to show the store anything or take any further action beyond paying with your card at checkout. The discount is immediately applied.

The company reports having over 140+ bank and financial institution partners, including Fifth Third and Ally Bank, and over 200 local and national merchants on board, including Nordstrom, Target, Subway, Crate & Barrel and Home Depot. These are the same numbers as edo announced in May, however. The company says that over the past three months, it has pushed more than 200 million card-linked offers through its platform and it previously reported being on track to 50 million users by Q3 2012. Banks on edo were seeing card volume up by 20%, and average redemption rates of 2% to 4% in the early days of testing. But edo seems to do better in dining where redemption rates are 10% to 20%, on average.

With the new funding, edo will specifically target the local SMB market, and plans to scale through partnerships with merchant acquirers, mobile payment providers, and media publishers. The company competes with Cartera Commerce, which reaches some 65 million U.S. consumers and 150 million worldwide. Cartera, incidentally, closed a $12.2 million Series D in June, also with the intention of moving into the local offers space. Groupon, watch out?

With little time for the Reality Distortion Field to wear off, a survey conducted just hours after yesterday’s Apple press event reveals that a whopping 44% of current iPhone owners in Britain want to upgrade. That’s probably good news if you’re Cupertino-inclined. But for some of Apple’s competitors, bad news could be on the horizon.

According to the poll, 18% of current HTC smartphone owners in Britain want the new iPhone too, while Nokia fared even worse with 20% of owners displaying iPhone 5 lust.

Overall, 20% of all smartphone owners said that they wanted to upgrade to the new iPhone without needing any further information about the product. Clearly, the iPhone’s magic trick is still resonating with plenty this side of the pond.

Conducted by Usurv, which rather conveniently offers a self-serve online survey platform for exactly this type of quick fire research, the sample size of the poll was limited to 1,000 participants, so the results are pretty heavily extrapolated but quite telling nonetheless.

Amongst Apple’s competitors, there was better news for bitter rival Samsung, for example. Owners of its Galaxy smartphones in Britain appear to be the most loyal of the bunch, with only 5% saying they want to switch to the iPhone 5.

Driving the iPhone 5 lust is, unsurprisingly, its larger screen, highlighted as the most appealing by 19% of respondents. In second place, the higher speed Internet access, making use of the new LTE network which is being introduced to the UK by EE, was highlighted by 17% as most appealing. Interestingly, however, 39% of those surveyed said that none of the new features appeal to them, and 27% thought that the iPhone 5 had been over-hyped without anything exciting or innovative.

Maybe Apple does need a new magic trick after all.

The opening dialogue of Christopher Nolan’s 2006 film, The Prestige:

Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called “The Pledge”. The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course…it probably isn’t. The second act is called “The Turn”. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you’re looking for the secret… but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet. Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call “The Prestige”.

This is what was on my mind following today’s Apple event. It’s essentially the story of the iPhone.

Apple took something ordinary, a phone, did some extraordinary things to it, and then made it re-appear in grandiose fashion. It’s a great trick. It’s so good, in fact, that I think it’s fair to call it true magic.

The problem, if you want to call it that, is that Apple has now been doing this trick since 2007. Granted, they have other solid tricks too (they are far from the one-trick pony claims that several of their competitors face). But the iPhone is the best trick in their bag. And in the last few years, some people have gotten sick of seeing it.

But it’s important to remember that just because you’ve seen a show before, it doesn’t make actually make it any less magical. It’s a perception issue.

Yes, that’s also Apple’s problem — if they wish to entertain. But the reality is that the entertainment value of these events is just icing on the cake. It also probably doesn’t help the current Apple regime that Steve Jobs was especially good at pulling off “The Prestige” part. But the true core of the company with regard to the iPhone has always been about “The Turn”. And I think that was more clear than ever today.

Look at the main video being displayed on Apple’s homepage. It’s several Apple executives talking about just what went into pulling off turning the ordinary smartphone into something extraordinary. Yes, again.

To some, this repetition is now boring. But I think Apple looks at it the opposite way: they’re perfecting their trick.

Look at the mobile landscape right now. There are two companies that are making any money in smartphones: Apple and Samsung. Or, put another way: Apple and the company Apple just won a billion dollar-plus judgement against for copying their smartphone designs. So while some may find Apple’s trick old hat now, no one else has figured out how to pull it off — except for the company doing a mediocre copy of the trick. I’d argue it’s because everyone is focusing on The Pledge and The Prestige, but Apple is the only one focusing on The Turn.

They’re the only ones photographing their assembly process with 29 megapixel cameras to ensure that a machine picks the exact inlet from 725 unique cuts. They’re the only ones who spend three years working on earphones. They’re the only ones who would go out of their way to try to re-design a device to look and act similar even though the bulk of it has largely changed.

That’s the thing — when people say they’re disappointed about the new iPhone, what they’re really saying is that they’re disappointed it doesn’t look that much different from previous version(s). But again, not only is that true, Apple went out of their way to make sure that was the case. Just listen to Jony Ive in the very beginning of the video:

When you think about your iPhone, it’s probably the object that you use most in your life. It’s the product that you have with you all the time. With this unique relationship that people have with their iPhone. We take changing it really seriously. We don’t just want to make a new phone. We want to make a much better phone.

Apple is not and will not make changes just for the sake of change. And while some may now be clamoring for this change, the paradox is that if Apple did make some big changes, many of the same people would bitch and moan about them. Apple is smart enough to know that in this case, most people don’t really want change, they just think that they do because that’s the easiest way to perceive value: visual newness.

Apple’s focus remains on The Turn, the process by which they make the ordinary extraordinary. But even with a masterful Prestige, it’s hard to convey that commitment. That is until you walk into an Apple Store and pick up the product.

While it lacks the pomp and circumstance of a Prestige on stage at some big event, this interaction is much more intimate, and as such, much more powerful. You may not perceive it directly, but the care and craft of The Turn percolates through your hands and eyes. Within minutes or even seconds, you just know this is something different. Something far beyond what others are doing with their false magic. You want this. You need this.

That’s why Apple is now the most valuable company in the world. And that’s why you will buy an iPhone 5. And an iPhone 6. And beyond. You’re upset about The Prestige, or the lack-thereof. But it’s all about The Turn.

Socialance is a startup out of London that has moved to Santiago, Chile, for six months. The reason for the move is pretty straightforward: Start-Up Chile is giving the company $40,000 without taking any equity stake. And the rent is relatively cheap.

Start-Up Chile, which was here at Disrupt San Francisco, has attracted about 500 companies to its startup program since 2010. The program ends its first phase in 2014. By then, it will have provided grants to 1,000 companies for a total of $40 million.

During the three days of Disrupt, I talked to companies from Start-Up Chile that hail from Singapore, Canada, and New Zealand. The effort is helping Chile create what Executive Director Horacio Melo calls a “mini” Silicon Valley. The differentiator is the ease with which international companies are able to go to Chile for the six-month experience. The Chilean government manages all the paperwork to settle there.

And if the company decides to stay, all they have to do is get a new visa after one year there. The cost? $100. This kind of program is just not possible in the United States. The U.S. government has no willingness to cooperate on such a level.

Vite founder Pablo Saba said all companies in the program can qualify for $90,000 in seed funding after they move on from Start-Up Chile. Funding is dependent on the company raising its own initial $30,000.

Startups are taking notice. The company has had 4,000 applicants through the first five rounds of the program. In the last round, 1,500 companies applied. Every three months, 100 new companies join the program. They come in two groups of 50 companies split every six weeks.

The goal is to make Chile more innovative and build an entrepreneurial community. So far, it seems to be working. People with companies in the program say that more Chilean startups are emerging. Angel investors are funding companies. Today, Pick1, a San Francisco company, announced $1 million in funding that included Chilean investors.

Some of the Start-Up Chile companies have decided to keep a presence in the country.

Quantconnect is a company seeking to democratize tools that banks and hedge funds use to develop trading algorithms. Co-Founder Jared Broad said Quantconnect is incorporated in Chile. He said he will move to New York but keep the engineering team in Santiago.

For Socialance, a freelance service, the move has given the company a chance to get free office space, some mentoring and a two-bedroom apartment for $500 a month. In London, Vigil said they paid about $4,000 for a three-bedroom house that was shared by five people.

And labor costs far less. Engineering talent can cost as little as $1,500 per month. In San Francisco, it can cost a minimum of $6,000 per month to hire an engineer.

But more so, entrepreneurs cite the Start-Up Chile experience above all else.

“You get a really great place to work,” said Paperhater Founder Ashley Reddy. “You get to network and work with the entrepreneurs. And you are tied into the local Chilean ecosystem.”

At TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, Wallwisher showed us the new version of their web application. Wallwisher allows users to write, collaborate and share content on an empty canvas.

The idea is deliberately simple in order to allow many uses for the service. For example, you could create noticeboards, scrapbooks, playlists, charts, polls, use it to brainstorm or to manage events. Usage adoption has been great so far.

Of the 400,000 Wallwisher users, 257,000 used the service over the past 30 days and created 262,000 posts. “If people could put content on the web as easily as putting pen and paper, they can do amazing things,” said Nitesh Goel, founder of Wallwisher. “The idea came from a question – ‘Why do people still reach out for a piece of paper while sitting at the computers?’” he continued.

Flexibility is the key advantage of the service over some competitors, such as Trello or even Google Docs. It was first a side-project but the team is now working full time on the web application.

Two features greatly improve the user experience, real-time collaboration and file uploads. Creating a new wall is just a click away and you can then share it with your friends, family or co-workers. It is another way to put content on the web without any knowledge as well.

The startup received $40,000 from Startup Chile without giving away equity and $16,000 from Thymos Capital LLP.

Online dating is a huge business, but most dating sites are still stuck in the 90s. They don’t take advantage of developments in video and social networking, and they don’t have good mobile experiences.

Here are a few startups I met at TechCrunch Disrupt SF that want to bring online dating into the modern era.

VideoDate

Michael Cafferata, a firefighter, started VideoDate on the side. He says he used to use online dating sites but was always frustrated by the process. Photos and profiles go stale. “And if you go on a date with someone and there’s no chemistry, you’re still stuck trying to entertain them for the rest of the date.” Cafferata met his wife at the mall, ending his tumultuous relationship with online dating. But he still wants to solve the online dating problem.

His solution: a mobile video chat app. The entire experience, including filling out your profile, happens on a mobile device. The app will try to match you with other users, and if you and another person are interested in each other, you can do a video chat. You can’t just do a video call with someone who hasn’t approved you. The app is ad supported, but Cafferata says a paid ad-free version will be released later.

VideoDate is only available for mobile devices, but Cafferata says a full web version may eventually follow.

Frimper, A Video Speed-Dating App For Facebook

Like Cafferata, Frimper co-founder Maayan Kimhi was jaded by online dating and decided to add a video component to the experience. But instead of a mobile app, the company has gone with a Facebook app. There are two main components: matching algorithms and an online “speed-dating” app getting quick impressions of the people you’ve been matched with.

The speed-dating component is the catchy part, but Frimper is investing heavily on the algorithm. “Dating shouldn’t be about demographics; it should be about personality,” says co-founder Itamar Koren, who is focused on the algorithms. Both Kimhi and Koren were psychology majors in college. Prior to Frimper, Koren worked in the human resources industry.

Frimper’s matching isn’t based just on what you say about yourself, but also about what other Frimper users you interact with say about you. Koren says this will give them a better ability to match you with compatible people. You might not describe yourself as shy, but if several people tag you as shy after chatting with you, that will be added to Frimper’s matching system. It’s also looking for similarities between users. “What Amazon does for books, we want to do for people,” she says.

Kimhi says Frimper is dealing with the “flasher problem” in two ways. First, the app validates your profile to make sure you’re a real person. It will automatically try to determine whether you’re real or not, but in questionable cases, a human review will be necessary. At the moment it only exists as a Facebook app. It will eventually be available outside of Facebook, but users will always need to validate through some sort of social networking profile to verify that they are who they say they are.

Users will also be able to report abusive members. As soon as abuse is reported, the video chat ends.

Eventually Kimhi and Koren want to apply the platform to other areas, such as finding roommates, business partners, or investors.

Dateini

Dateini solves a different problem entirely: What do you do once you’ve already got a date? Even if you’re married or in a steady relationship, you might want to plan a date. The company provides a date-planning application that co-founder Rotem Tal describes as a virtual concierge service.

You give Dateini a budget, choose a “theme” (romantic, music, or entertainment) and a good type preference, and it will autogenerate a date itinerary. Tal says all the activities will be clustered together so you don’t have to drive or catch a cab to get around. So far it’s available for the 10 largest cities in the U.S.

Dateini takes a cut of ticket sales, car reservations, and other transactions conducted through the service. It’s also offering a “white label” version that companies can use. For example, a conference organizer or hotel could offer it as a branded service to customers looking for a night out on the town in an unfamiliar city. Tal says the company is already working with an airline on a white-label service. Here’s a mock-up of a TechCrunch version:

Bonus: emotion.me

So you’ve met someone, video dated, real-life dated and now you’re engaged. What now?

Earlier this week at Disrupt, brit.co founder Brit Morin said that engineers might not want to work in the wedding industry, but pointed out that it’s a multi-billion-dollar industry. emotion.me, a wedding planning app, isn’t shying away from that opportunity.

When I read Spestle’s pitch for Startup Alley I thought it was either a prank or a goofy placeholder for a stealth startup: “Spestle lets you create custom seasoning & herb blends.”

But Spestle is real and serious. It’s a service that enables you to create a custom seasoning blend, complete with your own packaging, and sell it online. When someone buys your spice mix, Spestle will make the blends to order, handle fulfillment, and cut the creators a check — just like a print-on-demand service.

Here’s how it works: Once you’ve figured out your blend, you login to Spestle and use the virtual cutting board (shown above) to input your recipe. Then you upload your artwork and voila — you’re in the pork rub business.

Is that really a business model? Perhaps not, but co-founder Steven Waskey says there’s another angle: wholesale.

“What if you’re a restaurant owner and you want to share your secret recipe with your employees?” he asks. You could have Spestle manufacture custom blends to send out to your store managers with them none the wiser as to what’s in it. You still have to share your secret with Spestle, though.

That sounds like an edge case to me. What seems more likely is that a chef would come up with a blend that they’d like to sell, but don’t want to spend their time, or their employees’ time, measuring out spices.

What do you think — does this have legs?

After nearly three days and plenty of pitches, our list of 30 hungry startups was trimmed down until there were only seven startups left standing: Expect Labs, Gyft, Lit Motors, Prior Knowledge, Saya, YourMechanic, and Zumper. Their task? To take the stage one last time in front of our amazing panel of expert judges — Mike Arrington, Roelof Botha, Chris Dixon, Eric Eldon, David Lee, Marissa Mayer, and David Sacks — to undergo even more intense scrutiny.

The deliberation was a lengthy process, so let’s not beat around the bush any longer: This year’s TechCrunch Disrupt SF winner is YourMechanic!

YourMechanic — which is sometimes pegged as being the “Uber of car maintenance” aims to streamline the process of getting your car fixed or serviced without having to leave home. Using either the YourMechanic website or mobile app, users can quickly describe what the problem is (even in vague terms like “smell in the car”), find a local mechanic, and work out the payment details.

According to the YourMechanic team, the service’s independent, insured mechanics are able to handle about 80% of car issues without having to lean on the expensive amenities found in shops. That ultimately means lower prices for the consumers that use the service, and more money going into the pockets of the mechanics that actually do the work. The service has already struck quite a chord, as it’s locked up $1.8 million in funding from Y Combinator, Yuri Milner, Andreessen Horowitz, Lerer Ventures, CrunchFund (disclosure: TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington is a general partner of CrunchFund), SV Angel (disclosure: judge David Lee is managing partner of SV Angel), Paige Craig, A-Grade Investments, Jawed Karim, Justin Waldron, Joshua Schachter and Kevin Freedman.

Click to view slideshow.

And the runner-up: Lit Motors!

Congratulations are also in order for our runner-up, Lit Motors. The super-ambitious startup looks to shake up the automotive industry with vehicles like its sleek prototype C-1 electric vehicle. It’s the world’s first fully-electric self-balancing motorcycle, and is said to be “untippable” thanks to the inclusion of two gyroscopes. The C1 — which, with any luck will be the first of many similar vehicles — can get up to 200 miles out of a single charge (on about $1 worth of electricity, no less), and has designed to be remarkably less complex than other electric vehicles on the market.

Brazil is rapidly taking its place in the tech world as a fertile place for startups. Evidence of that was clear at TechCrunch Disrupt this week in San Francisco. In order to give you a sense of the sheer scale of the Brazilian presence, we came up with a new format — rapid-fire one sentence pitches. Check it out.

Ooif.me – Location-based and interest-driven network of people and channels.

QualCanal – Qual Canal is a monitoring tool for TV in social networks.

Rota los Concursos – Adaptive learning for Brazil.

SambaAds – Samba Ads is the largest premium video network in Latin America.

Scup – Social media monitoring and management platform.

Site Sustentável – Neutralize CO2 emissions from websites by planting trees.

Verduca

Superlead – Internet marketing platform for Brazilian SMBs.

ViS – Game-changing analytics platform for clinical-trial planning.

WeGoOut – Find the most popular nearby parties and meet friends of friends.

WineTag – An intelligent multi-platform social network that works as a personal sommelier for every consumer, recommending the best wine for each user.

Moovia – Your professional network.

XJOBS – Marketplace for outsourcing online jobs.

Zoop – Zoop is a secure mobile social commerce and payment platform that enables merchants and consumers to take full advantage of a seamless shopping experience anywhere, anytime, anyway.

Universo – Universo.mobi is a powerful DYI App creation platform.

trip2gether – Collaborative and intuitive travel planning and sharing.

Sonoma – Discovery of finest wines and gastronomic products of Brazil.

MyMaket

When Twitter struck a deal to move to San Francisco’s mid-Market neighborhood, the tradeoff seemed pretty straightforward: In exchange for relocating to an economically challenged area, the company would get significant tax breaks. But Jack Dorsey said at the Techonomy Detroit conference today that there’s another benefit.

Dorsey, who is co-founder/executive chairman/product lead at Twitter and founder and CEO at Square (which is located close to the Twitter office), said being in the mid-Market neighborhood has a “good effect” on both companies, because it allows the team to see and try to solve “real problems.”

After all, if you live and work in a Silicon Valley suburb like Palo Alto or Mountain View, you probably drive to work every day, and that means you might miss “the problems facing real Americans.” Dorsey said that’s why he takes the bus to work “every single day” — rather than being stuck in a “wonderland bubble.” He wants to see the basic issues and annoyances that people deal with in their lives.

Dorsey admitted that both offices are in a “pretty rough neighborhood,” but that’s changing. The simple act of moving the 1,400-person Twitter workforce into mid-Market is a step toward “reclaiming” the neighborhood, he said. Square doesn’t quite have that transformative power yet. However, it does regularly bring food trucks to the alley near the office, and when that happens, “People just come from all around. It’s really done amazing things for the neighborhood.”

It seems like Dorsey has a soft spot for cities. After all, that was the big theme at the conference, and he has admitted in the past that his dream job is to be mayor of New York City. Asked this evening by Techonomy’s David Kirkpatrick if that’s still a goal, Dorsey said yes: “I think the mayors are the ones to watch.” Not that he has any immediate plans to leave Square or Twitter. And as he noted, “I still have to move to New York first.”

Dorsey added that he’d like to see governments evolve more quickly. A key step toward making that happen? More transparency, so people have real data on how good or bad a job that different governments are doing. That strategy has been successful at both Twitter and Square, he said. At Twitter, “We make our decisions known. We make the why of our decisions known.” And at Square, the entire team gets to see the presentation that executives prepare for the board of directors, so everyone knows “exactly what we’re telling the board and what the feedback was.”

The interview also covered Dorsey’s thoughts on the future of Square, which I wrote about in a separate post.

[image from Dorsey’s speech earlier this week at Disrupt]