Category: Tech news

Hey, remember those bulletin boards in your neighborhood coffee shop? The ones where people would post all kinds of fun, random crap? To a certain extent, Craigslist has replaced those boards (heck, you could argue that the entire Internet has replaced those boards) but there’s a new startup called Tackk that’s trying to replicate that experience.

It is, in other words, a simple publishing tool for content that’s “single use” and “disposable” — basically the online equivalent of a flier. The goal, says co-founder Eric Bockmuller, is to create something that’s simple to use, but also expressive and customizable. He describes Tackk as filling a gap on the publishing side. Sometimes Facebook or a Twitter are too limiting, but you don’t want to have to go through the trouble of creating a blog post on a platform like WordPress. With Tackk, users upload an image (or embed other media), enter some text, and then customize the appearance (colors, fonts, that kind of thing) as much or as little as you want . Then they can share it via the Tackkboard or other social networks.

The service was in private beta until today, but there’s already some impressive diversity in usage. For example, here’s a flier for an album release party. Here are instructions on how to make homemade bacon. And here’s a commemorative Tackk for Neil Armstrong.

Tackk is also announcing that it has raised a seed round of $400,000 from Hatch Partners and other Cleveland-area investors. In fact, the investors are getting extra hands-on with the company, with Hatch partners Christopher Celeste and Robert Hatta becoming CEO and COO, respectively. (Tackk’s co-founders remain involved, while Celeste and Hatta say they will be pulling back from active investing, at least for the next six to 12 months.)

As for making money, Celeste says Tackk will be working with marketers to create branded content on the site, and also offering premium features for consumers.

This piece of news comes wrapped up with quite a few bows-of-interest.  If you’re familiar with how Google+ Hangouts work, then you’ll be interested to know that Steven Spielberg and Joseph Gordon-Levitt will be participating in one on September 13th at 4 PM PT.

If you’re a super movie buff, then you’ll be interested to know that the duo will be debuting the trailer for their latest film, “Lincoln”, during the Hangout.  The movie is due out in November and buzz about it has been pretty loud.  In case you haven’t heard, Daniel Day-Lewis will be playing Abraham Lincoln.

The “Lincoln” Hangout will be broadcast live in New York City on the ABC SuperSign in Times Square, which turns this into an even bigger spectacle, to say the least.

This is a pretty high-profile event utilizing Google’s social technology, which has also recently been re-purposed for NFL fantasy footballing.

As I’ve noted in the past, Google+ has become a project that socializes all of Google’s products, and Hangouts is often the “success” story, although it’s a platform of its own.

With the Google+ team wheeling and dealing with high-profile celebrities, the company gets to ride the wave of popular worldwide happenings like the Olympics, NFL football and now movie openings.  For companies like Twitter and Facebook, which are also getting into the “media” game, the advantage appears to be going to Google with this grab.

The two stars will be answering questions from fans, but I’m pretty sure that there will be a heavy vetting process put in place to keep everything moving along.

This will be the first time that a movie trailer has been debuted during a Google+ Hangout and most certainly the first time that one will be broadcast on the “big screen.”

It’s too bad that Lincoln’s hat won’t be joining the Hangout as well.

[image via flickr]

The next iPhone will be called simply “iPhone” if this pic is to be believed. Published by iPhonenieuwsblog.nl, the image is reportedly of the next, ahem, new iPhone’s packaging fresh off a massive printing press. And within, clear as day, is the new iPhone with five vertical rows of icons and the wording “The New iPhone.” Gone is the numerical designation that’s been with the iPhone for the last four generations. Apple is making it as simple as possible with the next iPhone — and this will likely be confusing to a lot of people.

The next iPhone is actually the sixth generation but the Internet has taken to call it the iPhone 5. Even Apple played with that naming a bit in the invite for the new iPhone’s launch. But it’s been speculated that Apple would drop the version number on the iPhone ever since it did so with the new iPad.

iPhone 5? iPhone 6? The rumor mill never really decided on what to call the next iPhone, but with Apple announcing the next iPhone next week, it really doesn’t matter at this point. Plus, logic dictates that this image likely tells the truth.

The iPhone was the lone product in Apple’s lineup to feature a version designation ever since the latest iPad launched. Throughout several major redesigns, the iMac has always been just the iMac. The Mac Pro is just the Mac Pro. The Apple TV has always been the Apple TV even when Apple completely revamped the product.

If this image is legit, Apple is blazing forward into unknown territories. Cell phones are selling at bulk commodity levels. Year over year, this simple naming scheme could be confusing as more models come out. That said, keeping it simple is what Apple does best.

Of course this pic could be easily faked. Anyone with a $100k printing press could run a job and have their girlfriend hold up the results. Because that’s what sane people do.

So much for that. In a victory for all of us who find the idea of trying to trademark generic-sounding terms tedious — and a victory, too, for those who actually work in the world of social enterprise — Salesforce.com has announced that it has withdrawn its applications to trademark the term “social enterprise,” originally filed earlier this year in the U.S., UK, Australia and Jamaica. It’s also promising to stop using the term “social enterprise” in its marketing materials in the future.

In a statement, the company today acknowledged that part of the reason for its turnaround was the response from the “social sector” — that is, non-profits — who worried that Salesforce’s trademarking of the term would cause a lot of confusion. Indeed, while Salesforce applies the term to how businesses use social media, Saleforce today acknowledged that the social sector uses the same term for “organizations that apply commercial strategies to improve human and environmental well-being such as reducing poverty or improving education.” In other words, not quite the same thing as monitoring a hashtag around a new perfume.

The response from the non-profit sector had been strong. It included a letter to Salesforce’s CEO Marc Beniof, signed by Professor Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, and Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, co-authors of The Spirit Level, among others, asking the company to stop using the term to refer to massive corporates’ use of social media as “social enterprise.”

Meanwhile the Social Enterprise Alliance has taken to the internet in its fight, launching a site, THISisSocialEnterprise.com.

In short, Saleforce was headed for PR disaster the more it tried to push its idea.

Salesforce’s client list includes Burberry, Spotify and Virgin America among many others.

Salesforce had already had a setback in its applications — originally filed in the U.S., UK, Jamaica and Australia — when the USTPO in March initially rejected its application saying the term was too general. It had six months to appeal, taking it to the middle of September. Today’s move pre-empts that deadline.

“It was never our intention to create confusion in the social sector which we have supported since our founding,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com, said in a statement. “As a result of the feedback we received, salesforce.com has decided to withdraw its efforts to trademark the term ‘social enterprise’ and plans to discontinue its use in our marketing.”

Still, for a company that prides itself on its burgeoning corporate client base and rapidly growing social media assets — the jewel of which is its $689 million acquisition of Buddy Media earlier this year — the move is a setback, and will likely send the company out in search of a new way of describing this part of their business to be able to sell the idea better to its users. Any suggestions?

With its share price ailing, Facebook doesn’t want to flood the market with any more stock, so it has cancelled its secondary offering and will instead pay for taxes on its RSUs with cash as detailed in an 8-K filed with the SEC today. Also, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has informed the SEC he has no plans to sell any of his stock in the next year. Meanwhile, board members Marc Andreessen and Don Graham will sell some to cover taxes but beyond that “have no present intention to sell any shares”.

Along with allowing employees to sell up to 234 million shares two weeks sooner than the original November 14th lockup expiration date when the other 777 million go free, today’s announcement will let Facebook get the lockup over with sooner, avoid a secondary sale or big shareholder dump from hurting its share price, and finally get back to business.

In Facebook’s original S-1, it had given itself leeway to sell up to 122 million shares to the public market in a secondary offering to pay for taxes involved in settling the distribution of pre-2011 RSUs. Later it planned to sell 101 million shares to cover these taxes. But now with its share price so volatile, it’s chosen to scrap the secondary offering and spend some of the $10 billion it raised through the high-priced and divisive IPO to pay these taxes in cash.

Zuckerberg’s commitment alone will ensure none of his remaining “444 million shares of Class B common stock as well as 60 million shares of Class B common stock issuable upon the exercise of an option” will reach the market any time soon. He would need to file with SEC well in advance if he wanted to release any of his stake.

Meanwhile, after selling some shares to pay taxes, Andreessen will retain the rest of his 0.25% stake and Don Graham will keep the remainder of his 770,000 shares of restricted stock for the foreseeable future. And these pledges are likely not just some showy moves to stabilize the share price. It seems Zuck and the board members truly believe that if Facebook stays true to its mission and continues focusing on the user experience, they’ll see the company succeed and the share price climb in due time.

$FB did hit a new low at $17.55 earlier today before closing at $17.73 in reaction to news that an analyst from lead underwriter Morgan Stanley reduced his 12-month price target for Facebook by 16% from $38 to $32, and J.P. Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth dropped his target for the end of 2013 from $45 to $30 according to the Wall Street Journal.

But the 8-K was released just after the market closed, and the share price has rebounded another 1.98% up to $18.08 in after-hours trading as of press time, showing the 8-K’s announcements may already be doing their job of reassuring investors. Now the question will be how the market reacts when Facebook announces its third quarter financial results on October 23rd, and the sped-up employee lockup expiration hits on October 29th.

Here’s the full 8-K filed wit hhe SEC:

Facebook retired Face.com’s facial recognition APIs less than a month after its $55-$60 million acquisition of the Israeli-based company, which previously offered developers tools to build applications that could identify people based on digital photos. The move left Face.com’s some 45,000+ developers stranded, and saw the developer community demanding an open source alternative. And now, there is one. In response to the outcry, an early stage startup out of San Francisco called LambdaLabs has launched an open beta version of its Lambda Labs Face API to developers.

I spoke with Lambda Labs co-founder Stephen Balaban back when the technology was still in development. He explained to me that the company wanted to go the open source route, but planned to eventually monetize by charging larger customers for support, as is a standard practice for open source-based companies. “With proprietary companies, creating these APIs for people to use – like Twilio, like Face.com, like Twitter, like Facebook, and Craigslist,” said Balaban, “when those companies shut down, get acquired or, for whatever reason, decide to discontinue their API, a lot of other startups and other smaller companies get screwed over there.” The only real future-proofing against this problem is to go open source, he said.

Lambda Labs had originally started making a facial recognition-based contact book called HeadsUp, which used several different computer vision and facial recognition algorithms they had in development. But after Facebook acquired Face.com in June, Lambda Labs realized they woud soon have an opportunity to offer an alternative – having already expected the subsequent shuttering of the Face.com API.

As for the Lambda Labs Face API itself, the main difference between the Face.com API and itself is the price – it’s 100% free. But from a consumption standpoint, former Face.com developers won’t have to change much because the Lambda API is basically fully compatible with the results that the Face.com API was returning. “To switch over, you don’t have to change anything other than swap out the API keys you were using,” Balaban explained. As for how the algorithms themselves vary, it’s hard to say – Face.com was closed off, and didn’t share the details of how it operated.

But the company is also planning to do some things that Face.com did not. It’s planning on offering a pure Javascript, HTML5 API, for starters. (Face.com required developers to have a server which would ping Face.com and then send the response from Face.com to their front-end). “We’re going to have an API where you can just drop in some Javascript, and it will do a lot of the functionality that you’re already looking for,” Balaban said.

In addition, while the Lambda API now does facial detection, facial recognition and gender detection, it’s working to develop an API that would also work on video. And image processing, or computer-vision-as-a-service, could also follow. This would allow developers to do things like automatically crop photos to avatar-sized images of just a user’s face, for example, or detect parts of the body in a photo (porn filtering?) or detect whether or not a photo contained a specific object.

When the company first announced the API on Hacker News, it saw 4,000 signups in four days for its private beta. Today, it’s now seeing 60,000 API calls per day. Operating as a super lean startup out of San Francisco (or, as they claim – “the leanest startup in San Francisco” – they operate out an apartment in Chinatown), the only thing Balaban and his co-founder don’t skimp on is coffee. “We do have a French press coffeemaker,” Balaban says. The company is in the process of raising an angel round right now.

Once, buyers were overwhelmed with choice. Now, they’re just overwhelmed with a choice of tools to help them choose. But gdgt, one such site, is hoping that it can build the ultimate solution for consumers looking to make smart gadget buying solutions, is launching new custom search tools it hopes will make using it to clear up shopper confusion a no-brainer.

Gdgt is the brainchild of former Engadget founder Peter Rojas and former editor-in-chief of the same site Ryan Block, offering users a huge database of products to rate, review, compare and declare both their ownership of and desire for. For the gadget space, which is pretty strongly rooted in conspicuous consumption, it is a mecca. You can search for search for virtually anything that runs on electricity and get a look at how it’s been reviewed around the web by professionals, and what other users think. Lately, the team behind it has been quietly and steadily adding new features to make it even better at its job.

“We look at everything holistically when we make an evaluation of a product,” Block told me in an interview, explaining that a lot of what gdgt is has to do with what the founding team saw at Engadget. “We kind of sat down and we took a look at what was wrong with the consumer electronics buying experience online, and we came up with this idea that was somewhat akin to Rotten Tomatoes for personal technology, and that is that we wanted to look at everything there was to know about a product and come up with a very simple, easy-to-digest assessment.”

The new gdgt is all about providing a clear ranking methodology to help users get an at-a-glance look at what they should be buying in any given category. All devices get a score, which is built from a variety of different source data, including reviews at tech sites including this one, user reviews, and first-hand research and testing from the gdgt staff themselves. Categories each get Must Haves taken from the highest scoring gadgets (no more than three per) to help make sure that there’s very little digging to do to come up with the best devices overall.

Gdgt’s latest addition is the redesigned ‘Finder’ (the one for cameras is here, but it’s active for all popular product categories and should be available across the site within the week), which uses simple sliders for important factors like price range and screen size, as well as a couple other simple check box filters to instantly narrow the pool of available products. That process is manually tailored for each individual product category, meaning you’ll never have to wade through unnecessary or irrelevant criteria, and Block is keen to note that gdgt also never scrapes its data, instead using a team of editors and curators to manually prune its results so that you won’t run into the sort of screw-ups typical when you hand these kinds of duties over to a robot.

The people-driven approach also means that gdgt can apply a rubric to reviews from sites that don’t necessarily quantify reviews with a firm number score, and still incorporate that input into its recommendations, something a site that scrapes can’t achieve. That leads to the inclusion of high-quality sources, like the New York Times, which otherwise might go overlooked at sites that depend more on strictly data-driven models like Decide.com and Snapsort.

It hasn’t happened overnight, but gdgt’s approach to the world of consumer tech now puts it in the same basic space as something like The Wirecutter, looking to find a better way to help consumers shop. Block notes however that the approach taken by former Gizmodo editor Brian Lam leans even more heavily toward the editorial side of things and away from data-driven techniques, and he sees the two sites as complimentary, not competitive.

The new focused identity of gdgt as an aide for consumers looking for the best way to spend should help the site with its affiliate revenue from retailers, and overall the site’s reputation and growing library of gadget-related knowledge help it with its growing event-driven business. Overall, gdgt has tied its fortunes to the appetites of early adopters and the rapidly growing community of tech consumers, so if it can continue figuring out ways to continue better serving that community, it should be in a very good place.

When James Deer led digital design agency DEER/digital, he says he encountered the same issue over and over — when his team built content-rich websites, it was largely an email-based process, where they had to dig up images and files from email threads that were months old, or copy content from Word documents that were hundreds of pages long. To reduce their own headaches, Deer’s team member built a product to manage the content collaboration process, and eventually the agency spun that product out into a new startup, called GatherContent.

“Content chaos is just rife,” Deer says. “We want to bring content harmony.”

To do that, GatherContent (which is launching publicly today), offers a drag-and-drop interface to lay out the structure of each web page. Someone can create a template that identifies each element of the page, as well as guidelines for length and content — for example, you could say, “The product description goes here (no more than 200 words)” and “product screenshot goes here.” Then other users can come in and fill out the content. So a design agency could work with their client to develop the structure of the website, then different team members can come in and add the element that they’re responsible for.

Of course, you can already manage some of that process through a product like Google Docs, but GatherContent adds more structure, for example by allowing users to manage their approval processes and deadlines. Different users can also have completely customizable privileges depending on their roles within their organization. And there’s a chart showing you how much progress has been made on each project.

When you’re done building the website, you can export the document as a PDF, and GatherContent is also working to integrate with other content management systems, starting with a plugin for WordPress.

The product has been in private beta testing until now, with customers including Unicef and JWT. And although it was built for agency-client collaboration, Deer says companies are using for other types of content creation too, for example writing internal newsletters.

Deer adds that he has actually turned some investors away from the company — for now, it’s being funded by the agency (in the form of loans), though he’s open to raising money later, when the product has more traction. Pricing starts at $24 per month.

How it works from GatherContent on Vimeo.

Earlier today, hackers at AntiSec claimed that they had got their hands on a database containing around 12 million UDID numbers from iPads and iPhones from an FBI employee-owned computer, a breach my colleague Sarah Perez described the significance behind and possible ramifications of in a post earlier today. Now, however, the FBI issued a statement to AllThingsD that refutes the claim.

“The FBI is aware of published reports alleging that an FBI laptop was compromised and private data regarding Apple UDIDs was exposed,” reads the statement. “At this time there is no evidence indicating that an FBI laptop was compromised or that the FBI either sought or obtained this data.”

The FBI has also tweeted that the report is “TOTALLY FALSE” [emphasis in the original], yet AntiSec did in fact release 1 million of its reported 12 million stolen IDs earlier, and tools have cropped up that let you check if you’re affected. Long story short, the FBI statement (which doesn’t actually say anything about the real source of the information, only that evidence isn’t there to suggest it was stolen in the manner described) really raises more questions than anything else. We’ll keep you posted as this develops.

As if our new hardware-based Hackathon opportunities weren’t enough, we’d love to draw your attention to Disrupt Hardware Alley, a collection of hardware startups who are ready to amaze, delight, and stupefy you with crazy hardware from around the world.

This year we have over 25 participants and we’re sponsored by NewBlue Innovators Program by Best Buy. Look for some wild stuff including a programmable flashlight, a compact and effective botanical vaporizer, and a robot that will allow home viewers to motor around the show floor and interact with visitors and exhibitors.

It will be, as they say, a hoot.

Again, special thanks to Best Buy for helping out and thanks for all of our Hardware Alley participants. It’s hard out there for small manufacturers but as we bring more hardware startups into the fold I’m sure we’ll see more respect given those hardworking, non-pivoting, and under appreciated electrical engineers who have to get it right the first time.

Manufacturers: There’s still time to join. Email me at [email protected] if you want a spot. Hurry, because tables are closing fast.

Four years ago, people like me were quite scared to think of a world where we’d only have Internet Explorer and one or two more options for our web browsing experience.  Luckily, Google stepped up and brought us its own offering, Chrome.

Four years later, Google Chrome is the most popular browser in the world and its team is planning on commemorating the event with LEGO, as any proper geek would.

Google’s Sundar Pichai posted a photo of what I have to believe is the best usage of Google’s 20% time ever:

The team is putting together 10000 lego pieces for a 5 ft version of Chrome logo:) To celebrate chrome’s fourth birthday, thanks for all of those who helped us get here

It looks like they’re just getting started, any guesses as to how long the entire process will take?

[image via flickr]

We’re four days away from the TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco Hackathon.

We’re crossing the t’s and dotting the lowercase j’s, and passing the savings onto you!

But more importantly, we’ve been working very hard behind the scenes and pleased to bring you a bunch of new event information, including:
 
 

• API Workshop Schedule
• New API Workshops
• Sponsored Prize Details
• Access to the Hackathon Information Site

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API Workshop Schedule

• 2:00pm – Workshop Area A – Ford
• 2:30pm – Workshop Area B – Evernote
• 3:00pm – Workshop Area A – Stripe
• 3:30pm – Workshop Area B – Dropbox
• 4:00pm – Workshop Area A – Mashery
• 4:30pm – Workshop Area B – Locu
• 5:00pm – Workshop Area A – Tumblr
• 5:30pm – Workshop Area B – Qualcomm Innovation Center
• 6:00pm – Workshop Area A – Qualcomm Labs
• 6:30pm – Workshop Area B – Department of Energy

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New API Workshops

We’ve got several new API workshops, and here are the details:

Qualcomm Labs
Presented by Roland Ligtenberg, Product Manager

The Gimbal Service is a mobile context awareness solution for native iOS & Android that enables developers to create smarter applications for ‘smartphones’. This emerging technology is at the heart of mobility and takes the phone to the next level of utility and personalization. With this solution, Qualcomm Labs, is working to fuse sensors with interests sensing capabilities on the device within an environment featuring user-friendly privacy controls.

Find out more about Gimbal at: http://www.gimbal.com

Department of Energy
Presented by Ian Kalin, Presidential Innovation Fellow

The Energy Data Initiative, launched by U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park, seeks to liberate data as a fuel for entrepreneurship and innovation while also protecting privacy. The Department of Energy, specifically, maintains a number of APIs that are already being used by many successful firms, but that also have not reached their full use potential. Attendees will learn more about the free APIs that are available, the new APIs that have just been liberated, and how some innovative firms are using them.

Find out more at: http://dev.openei.org/apps/alpha-api-browser/apiviz.html

Dropbox
Presented by Chris Varenhorst, API Hacker / Platform Team

Harness the power of Dropbox to connect your app to almost any computer, smartphone or tablet, plus the web. The Dropbox Platform brings storage and sync to apps everywhere. Come learn the ins and outs of the Dropbox APIs, how to use them in your app, and learn about other great apps integrating with Dropbox today. Meet members of the Dropbox platform team and compete against other developers to win the award of Best Dropbox app at TC Disrupt.
Find out more at: https://www.dropbox.com/developers

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Sponsored Prize Details

AT&T

Use AT&T Cloud Architect as the backend of the best mobile application and receive a $5,000 cash prize and new mobile devices for every member of your team (up to 5). You can sign up for a free trial before TechCrunch begins. Simply login to cloudarchitect.att.com. Opt to build a public instance. Choose a monthly deployment with 1 CPU, 1GB RAM and 25 GB local storage. Enter the code ATTDEV-TC at checkout.

dotCloud Inc.

Take your project Live on dotCloud with $2500 credit toward your account. Live applications are able to take full advantage of the dotCloud runtime: they can be scaled, both for performance and reliability, have custom domains attached with SSL, have strong guarantees of dedicated resources and have priority access to support. In short, they’re ready for the real world.

Ford Motor Company

An all-expense paid trip for all team members to attend CES in 2013 and have the opportunity to demo your app within the Ford booth, like last year’s winner: Roximity. Check out this video to see them in action.

Locu

• 1st prize: 1x Apple Thunderbolt Display or Dell 30″ Monitor
• 2nd prize: Audio-Technica ATH-M50 professional studio headphones for each team member

Microsoft

We will be giving out Nokia Lumia 800′s on stage to three lucky award winners. We will be giving out each of these three phone prizes via raffle, where people can submit their business cards at the Microsoft booth.

Dropbox

We’ll have a grand storage prize for the winner, but we’ll have a prize for everyone that builds on the API.

Pearson

Pearson is offering $500 in Amazon Gift Cards to the team that best utilizes a Pearson API in their application. See APIs here: http://bit.ly/PearsonAPIs-TC

Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc – AllJoyn

Best Use of AllJoyn – Easily integrate multiplayer functionality into your app with AllJoyn: a peer-to-peer framework for devices near each other to seamlessly connect and interact in real-time from Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc. See AllJoyn in these apps: Rollercoaster Rush, PacMan Kart Rally, JamJoyn, Bizzabo. The possibilities are endless, we want to see what you can do!

• 1st Prize $5,000
• 2nd Prize $1,500
• 3rd Prize $500

Judging Criteria:

• Innovative Use of AllJoyn
• Real World Applicability
• Simplicity and Ease of Use

Qualcomm Labs Inc.

Best application created using the Gimbal service and SDK based on creativity, usefulness, technical depth & integration

• 1st place: $3,000 + 1 Year Gimbal SDK Access (up to $10,000)
• 2nd place: $1,500 + 6 Month Gimbal SDK Access (up to $5,000)
• 3rd place: $500 + 3 Month Gimbal SDK Access (up to $2,500)

SAP HANA

Build a cool application on a public dataset and become “SAP Hana Hacker of the Year”.
Winners will receive a trip to Las Vegas for two, including complimentary tickets for SAP’s annual techies conference SAP TechEd, and have the chance to win again by presenting their application to thousands of developers at DemoJam.

Oh, and don’t forget the party on Thursday night with special guests 3 Doors Down…

SkyDrive

SkyDrive will be giving out an Xbox 360 Kinect Bundle to every member of the team (up to 5) that builds our favorite hack using the SkyDrive APIs. For all other teams that use the SkyDrive API in their hack, every team member will get 25GB of free SkyDrive storage.

TokBox

The best use of the OpenTok API wins an Apple Thunderbolt Display (27-inch)

Zypr

1st Prize
$5,000 cash plus 2 weeks of PR services from acclaimed PR Agency Horizon Communications http://www.horizonpr.com which includes:

• 1 press release announcing their app
• Distribution of the announcement via Horizon’s worldwide press database
• Support in obtaining reviews of the app
• Follow-up and counsel over the course of 15 days starting October 1.

2nd Prize
$3,000 cash plus 2 weeks of PR services from acclaimed PR Agency Horizon Communications http://www.horizonpr.com which includes:

• 1 press release announcing their app
• Distribution of the announcement to Horizon’s worldwide press database
• Support in obtaining reviews of their app
• Follow-up and counsel over the course of 15 days, starting October 15.

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Access to the Hackathon Information Site

And last, but not least, you can get the latest up-to-date Hackathon details and find someone to hack with at: http://bit.ly/sf-hack.

See you on Saturday!

New entrepreneurs dream about making an impact that spans decades. Bill Campbell has done it. Some readers may know him as a key early Apple executive featured in the Steve Jobs biography, and as an Apple board member today. Others will recognize him for his work as CEO turned now chairman of Intuit. But ask around in Silicon Valley executive circles and you’ll most likely just hear that he’s “Coach.”

He really was a football coach, at Columbia, before he joined Apple. And he really is one today, providing formal and informal advice to industry leaders across the industry. He’ll be bringing his wisdom and experience to bear this Monday at Disrupt SF, where he’ll be interviewing Andreessen Horowitz cofounder and entrepreneur Ben Horowitz.

Campbell will join our all-star list of speakers and guests which now include: Twitter and Sqaure’s Jack Dorsey, Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, super angel Ron Conway, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, Vinod Khosla, Google Ventures’ Kevin Rose, Path’s Dave Morin, Marc Benioff, Jeff Clavier, about.me’s Tony Conrad, Quora founder Adam D’Angelo, Freestyle Capital’s Josh Felser, Reid Hoffman, Khan Academy’s Sal Khan, Yammer’s David Sacks, The Honest Company’s Jessica Alba and Brian Lee, and many more. Also, just announced — Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. This is one show you will not want to miss.

Get your tickets here while you still can (by the way, we just announced that Mark Zuckerberg will be appearing). As always, if you are interested in becoming a sponsor, opportunities can be found here. Students can also come and be a part of Disrupt SF. We only have 300 student tickets available, so be sure to go here to find out how to get yours quickly.

Bill Campbell
Chairman of the Board, Intuit
Board of Directors, Apple

Bill Campbell assumed his role as chairman of the board of directors in August 1998. He previously served as Intuit’s president and chief executive officer from 1994 to 1998 and as chief executive officer from September 1999 until January 2000.

During Campbell’s tenure, Intuit solidified its position as the clear leader in tax, personal finance and small business accounting software. During that time, the company also invented a new class of Web-based finance businesses delivered through Quicken.com, Intuit’s Web site.

For the three years before joining Intuit, Campbell was the president and chief executive officer of GO Corp., a pen-based computing software company. Previously, he founded and served as president and chief executive officer of Claris Corp., which was purchased by Apple Computer Inc. in 1990.

Before starting Claris, Campbell was Apple’s executive vice president, group executive of the United States. He joined Apple in July 1983 as vice president of marketing and added the title of vice president of sales in January 1984. In September 1984, his duties were expanded to include distribution, service and support when he was promoted to executive vice president. In June 1985, Campbell was named group executive of the United States and has served on its board of directors since August 1997.

Yesterday, NPR’s All Things Considered produced a piece on accountability in crowdfunding. That is to say, if a business fails to produce or follow through with its goals, how do financial backers get their money back? The piece focuses its attention on Kickstarter, saying, “while the company’s policy says creators have to give refunds on failed projects, the website doesn’t have a mechanism to do it.”

Today, Kickstarter’s co-founders Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler, and Charles Adler responded in a blog post on the site, saying, “we take accountability very seriously at Kickstarter.” The post addresses NPR’s questions in a Q&A (which has been added to the site’s FAQ page as well), essentially re-stating Kickstarter’s approach to accountability, reviews and their legal involvement.

When the company reviews submissions, it does so to make sure that the project meets the company’s “Project Guidelines,” but it does not do an extensive background check into the creditworthiness of the project’s creators — or their ability to complete the project. Instead, that responsibility falls on those funding the project and the project creators themselves.

By agreeing to launch a campaign, creators are agreeing to follow through with the terms they lay out in their project page and Kickstarter takes no responsibility for the completion of the project. Instead, the company lays out “best practices” in its Project Guidelines (which we’ve talked about extensively) and advises project creators to maintain full transparency if projects should take longer than expected to complete.

In fact, as Kickstarter reiterates, creators are legally obligated (via the company’s Terms of Use) to meet the goals they establish at the beginning of the project:

Kickstarter’s Terms of Use require creators to fulfill all rewards of their project or refund any backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill. (This is what creators see before they launch.) We crafted these terms to create a legal requirement for creators to follow through on their projects, and to give backers a recourse if they don’t. We hope that backers will consider using this provision only in cases where they feel that a creator has not made a good faith effort to complete the project and fulfill.

That being said, Kickstarter does not issue refunds if a creator is unable to meet those proposed goals. NPR implies that the company is not doing all that it can to create some sort of insurance process that protects project backers should project creators fail to follow through.

Just as when a project is successfully funded, money is transferred from backers’ credit cards and Amazon Payment accounts, it’s up to the creator to issue a refund through Amazon Payments. However, Amazon does not allow refunds after 60 days from the date of the charge, so creators have to set up a new transaction through Payments or PayPal, send them a check or some other method.

The co-founders go on to say in their blog post that the reason they have never offered a guarantee for projects (nor will they likely institute one in the future) is because the site was established on the mission that it allows project founders to take a risk, and that they are fully aware of the risk and should take appropriate steps to make good on backers’ trust:

The pursuit of these projects with a guarantee doesn’t work. A Kickstarter where every project is guaranteed would be the same safe bets and retreads we see everywhere else. The fact that Kickstarter allows creators to take risks and attempt to create something ambitious is a feature, not a bug.

Not making a guarantee is understandable, but what about a guarantee for fulfillment? The Kickstarter co-founders say that, since founding the site, they’ve begun requiring creators to list an “Estimated Delivery Date” for all rewards, to get creators thinking about whether or not they could meet demand and have added additional requirements for Design and Tech projects in which they now require more information about background, experience, manufacturing plans and even a functional prototype. This was a step taken in order to ensure that people have enough information when deciding whether or not to fund a given project.

Here’s my take, for what it’s worth: In a way, we went through this during the argument over Kickstarter’s “hiding” failed projects, but NPR’s article raises some important questions for crowdfunding as a whole. Crowdfunding sites need to pursue transparency to a fault and do what they can to protect the people who fund their startups, projects, or whatever they may be. Right now, there’s a lot of pressure on the SEC to institute regulations that will ensure some kind of base level of transparency and accountability, because, let’s be honest, the crowd is fickle, can be swayed easily, and tends to have a lower common denominator in terms of intelligence than the individual. But that’s really when there’s some kind of equity stake involved.

Kickstarter could do more when it approves projects to walk creators through how they could issue a refund if their project is successfully funded but eventually find themselves unable to make good. For Design and Tech related projects stalling is clearly an issue, but Kickstarter has taken to pushing projects in that category to give their backers more info and pile on with the updates and progress reports. What’s more, creators are legally obligated to make good on their rewards and to refund users if not. That’s been in the Terms of Use since the beginning, and really, Kickstarter just reiterated that in its post today.

Yes, there should probably be some limits on the amount of time Kickstarter projects have to follow through with rewards and easier ways to issue refunds. But, in the big picture, is it really too much to expect that the responsibility falls on the person doing the funding to do the necessary due diligence? Most funding on sites like Kickstarter happens in small chunks, but if you’re going to put a significant amount of money into a project, why wouldn’t you do the research to make sure it’s worthy of the investment?

Kickstarter, as John points out, isn’t really a marketplace, it’s more of a dog show. You’re investing in the company’s future — even if you do get a shiny watch or shirt at the end of the process.

Project creators need to be honest with themselves during the process and understand what’s at stake. They need to be ready to respond to customer inquiries — there are many that (like me) want to know what’s going on with the startup if they are going to put in something over $25. Plan as if you expect to raise $8 million, with the necessary contingencies, and scale back if you don’t. The more creators can manage the communication channel (hire a support person even), the better. And it behooves Kickstarter to help grease the wheels for better communication between creators and backers.

Some patience also helps.

Read more on NPR’s story here and what Kickstarter projects are doing to become successful during and after the process here.

Some members of the Tesla community are currently directing a movie about the incredible life of inventor, Nikola Tesla — Electricity, The Life Story of Nikola Tesla. Tesla is the scientist was mostly credited with the invention of alternating current. After The Oatmeal proclaimed him as the greatest geek and helped the new Tesla museum raise one million dollars, Tesla is currently under the spotlights.

His work was essential to make electricity a commercial success because direct current cannot be transported efficiently. Yet, what is fascinating in Tesla’s story is that he used magic to spread the word about his invention.

The duo behind the movie is very serious about the project. Wilhelm Cashen is an engineer and entrepreneur with a long career in electromagnet controls and systems. Carol Bourgeouis has spent years studying and reading Tesla’s life and work.

The targeted audience of the Kickstarter project is clearly the hardcore fan of Tesla’s identity as the incentives indicate it. You can pledge $5 to get a Tesla button. Even more interesting, when you pledge $10 or more, you get a nice “I’m Helping to Correct History” sticker. Other goodies are available as well as copies of the movie when it’s finished. One backer even pledged $5,000 to become a producer and visit sets.

There are only four days to go. With $15,330 pledged of a goal of $35,000 to complete the production costs, the project may be a little too much targeted toward the Tesla fans. Nevertheless, seeing a project carried with so much passion is an inspiration.

Tesla has over 700 patents with his name revolving around radio, wireless telegraphy, remote control and even robotics. But he accumulated many debts and did not have the successful life he deserved.

Here is an insightful quote from Tesla: “We build but to tear down. Most of our work and resource is squandered. Our onward march is marked by devastation. Everywhere there is an appalling loss of time, effort and life. A cheerless view, but true.”