Category: Tech news

Nodejitsu announced a long awaited public beta for its Node.js platform cloud service this week. The service can be run from private or public clouds, including Amazon Web Services, Joyent and Rackspace. The company also offers suites of tools for deploying, monitoring and managing Node.js applications in cloud environments.

Nodejitsu launched its first private beta, which co-founder and CEO Charlie Robbins calls “more of an alpha,” way back in November 2010. It was one of the first platform-as-a-service (PaaS) providers to focus on Node.js, a development platform that enables programs to run JavaScript on the server. Since then there’s been an explosion of interest in Node.js and companies like Wal-Mart.com Labs, LinkedIn and Yahoo are now running Node.js in production. Meanwhile, PaaS competitors such as Cloud Foundry, Heroku and Windows Azure have announced Node.js support. But Nodejitsu is only just allowing the larger Node.js community a peak at its service.

Robbins says other companies were able to bring Node.js support to market quickly by using off the shelf software like Puppet and Chef while Nodejitsu has obsessively built custom infrastructure automation and orchestration tools. Robbins is confident that the custom tools will make Nodejitsu more competitive in the long term, and the patience is starting to pay off. In April Joyent, the company that sponsors Node.js development, shuttered its competing Node.js PaaS and partnered with Nodejitsu instead. “PaaS was outside their core business, and they wanted someone who would take it on as their core business objective,” Robbins explains. Robbins says Nodejitsu’s focus on building custom tools has also landed the company some major customers who are paying for services and support for private clouds, but he declines to name those customers.

But as it competes with tech giants like Microsoft, Salesforce.com and VMware, Nodejitsu’s greatest asset may be its roots in the Node.js community. Robbins first became interested in Node.js in 2009 while working as a .NET developer on Wall Street. “With Silverlight Microsoft had been extremely effective at marketing the idea of writing the same code on the server and the client,” Robbins tells me. “In their mind it was going to be .NET.” But Robbins eventually realized that JavaScript was winning the client side wars, and that there would be a need for a server side JavaScript solution. He was drawn to Node.js and started attending JavaScript meetups with his high school friend Marak Squires. There the pair met Paolo Fragomeni. The three decided to start a Node.js company.

The team spent much of their first year building open source libraries and tools for Node.js, such as the command line deployment tool Jitsu. These tools were necessary for the development of Nodejitsu, but they also helped the Node.js community during its formative years. This work, along with the partnership with Joyent, gives Nodejitsu some real Node.js street cred.

Nodejitsu is going to need that cred as it tackles the giants.

Popular car service Uber is delivering ice cream today only to promote their newly diversified private rides. Last week, Uber expanded its fleet from Lincoln Town Cars to SUVs and hybrids in an additional service called “Uber X.” To market the change, Uber is offering on-demand ice cream to users, ordered and paid for through their app, in Boston, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and Washington D.C.

In San Francisco, you can get ice cream between noon and 6 pm (a few hours left, hungry readers). I just got back from riding in one of the trucks (AOL actually pays me in Choco Tacos), and saw the marketing genius firsthand.

I rode along in “Molly Moo’s Ice Cream,” which the owner purchased a year ago from a puppeteer in Las Vegas, with Molly and Uber engineer Dom Narducci. As we pass one of Uber’s signature black town cars and pull up to the first stop, a group of coworkers comes running up to the truck like children. While Narducci starts handing out ice cream, I sit back and watch the genius of the operation.

The first customers work together at The Climate Corporation and are purchasing ice cream for their all company meeting. Narducci gives them ice cream, t-shirts, stickers and $10 gift cards for new customers for their office. No money exchanges hands, as they pay for the ice cream on Uber’s app. Meanwhile, one self-proclaimed Uber-lover organically makes an Uber sales pitch to her co-workers.

Four young professionals—potentially prime customers—walk past the truck. “It’s an Uber promotion, right?” one asks. Two of his friends haven’t heard of Uber before; he explains the service as they walk down the street.

Uber engineer Dom Narducci awaits the first customers of the day. I wonder if he codes in that outfit.

At a later stop, an advertising agency spills out of the office to get ice cream and the user-generated marketing pitches continue. The system isn’t perfect, though. As we leave one stop, a group of Uber users comes up to buy ice cream but can’t get their request through on the app. Sticking to a tight schedule, we leave them behind, ice cream-less.

Most of the times I see advertisements, I want to punch their marketing director in the face (Cross-advertising for Prometheus and Coors Light, every Verizon commercial ever). But a few glorious times (AmeriCan Budweiser, anyone?), I want to shake the marketing genius’ hand or give them a medal. Whatever Uber employee came up with this idea deserves a big raise, whether it’s in Choco Tacos or, you know, real people dollars.

Uber’s promotional video for the ice cream. Sadly, I saw no one chasing us in slow motion today.

Dalton Caldwell is a very smart guy who has been a prominent entrepreneur and programmer on the Silicon Valley scene for a while now, so any time he announces a new project you can pretty much tell it is going to be newsworthy. The blog post he published today about “refocusing” his App.net company to being a real-time feed API and service (essentially, a new version of Twitter) was no exception.

The post, entitled “Announcing an audacious proposal,” hit Techmeme within minutes after it was published, and he immediately started receiving enthusiastic messages from other influential industry folks.

Lots of things about Caldwell’s new direction for App.net are interesting: It’s a big idea, attempting to go up against a big competitor, and he’s going about funding it in an interesting Kickstarter-like way. We will absolutely be reporting on all of that and more in the coming days. But to me, perhaps the most compelling aspect of the whole thing is his assertion that the currently dominant revenue model for web startups — advertising — just cannot go on any longer.

In his pretty epic blog post, Caldwell points out that the major sites of today’s social web — Facebook, Twitter, Google+ — all make money primarily by selling ads targeted to users based on the data they feed into the system:

“Why isn’t there an opportunity to pay money to get an ad-free feed from a company where the product is something you pay for, not, well, you. To be clear: I’m glad there are ad-supported options, but why does that seem like the only option? … I want a real alternative to advertising hell… I would gladly pay for a service that treats me better.”

And it’s not just social networks that are dependent on ads, it’s practically all startups in the “Web 2.0″ space, Caldwell says. This is an era that he and others feel is now reaching its inevitable end:

“One session at Foo Camp this year felt like a wake for Web2.0. We discussed the progression: a free service with a vague business model captures the hearts and minds of a large user base, and becomes vitally important. Because the hosting bills and payroll balloon as the service grows, founders are left with a very difficult decision to make. Sell the company? Cram the site full of ads? Keep raising money to delay having to deal with this issue as long as possible?

…If I am honest with myself, I just don’t have the will to ever play that particular game again. Running a service that is important to people with some sort of hand-wavy platitudes about someday launching a ‘new form of advertising’ is not OK. It’s not fair to users, it’s not fair to employees, and we should all know better.”

And that is what he is shooting for with this new direction for App.net — it will be something that he calls a “financially sustainable ad-free service” that sells a product, not its users’ data. This of course means that people will have to pay. He’s crowdfunding the site’s development, soliciting $500,000 from anyone who wants to pitch in. According to him, they’ll need just 10,000 paying users to make it work.

It’s a very ambitious proposal indeed, but I have to agree that it’s high time that the advertising dominance has to come to an end. We pay for so many other things in our lives — it’s how commerce works — but for many reasons we haven’t become used to pulling out our wallets for services we use on the web. It’ll certainly be exciting to see if Caldwell can help push people forward into changing how they feel about that.

Lightspeed Venture Partners has had a phenomenal run in the next generation storage market. In the past 12 to 14 months, four of its portfolio companies have been acquired and one has gone to IPO. Here they are:

• XtremIO sold in May to EMC for an estimated $430 million.
• In June, SK Hynix said it will acquire Link-a-Media.
• Portfolio company IO Turbine sold for $95 million to Fusion-io.
• Fusion-IO, also a Lightspeed investment, had an IPO last summer. It is now valued at $1.7 billion.
• Lightspeed sold its investment in Pliant Technology when SanDisk bought the company for $327 million last May.

This week  the venture capital firm made an investment in storage provider Avere Systems. The Series C funding round was led by Lightspeed and also includes previous investors Menlo Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and Tenaya Capital.  Avere has now received $52 million in overall funding.

Avere Systems  gives a window into the disruptions facing storage companies and why Lightspeed has had such success by investing in the sector.

Lightscale Partner Chris Schaepe says flash, virtualization and the cloud are the big disruptors in the storage market.

Flash makes data available far faster than hard disk, which relies on mechanical parts to spin its discs.  That’s increasingly important in this age of big data. Hard disks don’t spin fast enough to manage the new deluge of data that runs in and out of the enterprise.

Virtualization has allowed companies to consolidate its servers but with a storage cost. It  often means finding new ways to keep the apps running at the same performance level. Servers get overloaded as virtualization taxes the system. New storage environments are needed to accommodate virtual machine loads.

Cloud computing has changed the way IT  views the enterprise. Over the next few years, we will see continued focus on how companies turn IT into a service. They will need ways to bridge its existing infrastructure with public, scaled out architectures from providers such as Rackspace and Amazon Web Services.

Schaepe says that Avere is at the center of this disruption. It has hardware that speeds up performance by caching data and integrating a hierarchy of storage media from DRAMthrough Flash memory and disk drives. This allows the most frequently accessed data to be served quickly. Less frequently accessed data is migrated to slower and cheaper storage tiers such as storage disk systems.

For Schaepe, it makes for a compelling story. Avere’s “edge filers,” helps an enterprise provider get better performance. Capacity issues are handled by traditional disk-based storage. That means companies don’t have to keep adding storage boxes to optimize performance. Performance is managed by the edge filers. Avere is also well-suited to companies adopting the cloud as the technology is designed to integrate on-premise and off-premise infrastructure.

Looking from the outside, it’s the data story Avere offers that I find most compelling. Avere’s products helps IT organizations consolidate the management of distributed data across different locations and vendors. The data is pooled, That solves a key challenge. Data is often left in solos. By pooling it, a company can capitalize on its data assets.

Schaepe said Lightspeed identified disruptive trends in the storage about five years ago. They saw the price of Flash and DRAM begin to drop. That became a critical factor for the innovation cycle. It helped startups innovate with next generation storage architectures that fit well with the maturing trends in IT around virtualization and scale-out architectures. Other Lightspeed portfolio companies:

• Tintri combines Flash and disk media. it has developed a storage management software that is customized for the needs of  needs of virtual machines.
• Nimble combines primary storage and backup in a system with Flash and disk media.
• Nutanix combines compute and storage. That allows for consolidation of infrastructure environments – a huge priority as companies seek to shed their data centers.

Data is the disruptor. Lightspeed seems to understand this by investing in companies that will be crucial in shaping next generation architectures for the new age of data.

Competition in the tablet space has been heating up for a while now, and it’s not just the big guys that are feeling the strain. Take the tumultuous story of OGT Mobile, for instance — they tried to make their mark on the industry by creating their own Android tablet, but just couldn’t see the project through.

I can’t blame you if you’ve never heard of OGT before, but back in April 2011 when the company revealed their Eros tablet, it made a few waves thanks to its claims of being the thinnest Android tablet in the world. The spec sheet wasn’t too shabby at the time either — it featured a 1GHz processor, what appeared to be a 7-inch screen running at 188 ppi, 3G/WiFi radios, and either 16 or 32GB of internal storage, all crammed into a frame that was 7mm thick.

Sure, the company had a long road ahead of it, but the OGT tablet had the makings of a solid device. That said, you can guess where this story is going. Thanks to some funding issues, a general sense of distaste for the versions of Android available at the time, and the speed of the market, the Eros never made it off the ground.

Earlier today, OGT CEO Alix Narcisse posted an open letter to the company’s supporters explaining why that Eros tablet never officially came to be. Here’s the juicy bit:

Last year, the tech world, saw an influx of interest in tablet PCs from a variety of companies both large and small. We were among the many companies. Tablets represent the next wave of technology and the power of mobile computing, but we had to be honest with ourselves knowing that our hardware was too advanced for the software that was available at the time. We took heed to what consumers wanted in a tablet and challenged ourselves to deliver it.

Unfortunately, with the instantaneous changes in this developing marketplace, we could not bring our tablet to market in time for your enjoyment and satisfaction. We apologize. Our integrity is exhibited in our interaction with you. This is the first step in establishing and maintaining that integrity.

Narcisse goes on to promise that the company still has plenty up its sleeves, but this is the sort of game that’s just damned hard for smaller companies to crack. Established players like Apple, Asus, Motorola, and the like are capable of iterating much faster, cramming an ever-increasing number of features into devices meant for consumers who have been conditioned to expect continuous, unyielding innovation. It’s little surprise that little guys like OGT struggle to keep up with that blistering pace, so does that mean they should stop altogether?

The short answer is no, of course not, but even an even weightier question comes to mind — how do hardware startups like OGT make a dent in a market that seems to be doing just fine without them? That answer could be worth millions, if only someone could come up with it. So far, we can surmise what that answer isn’t: it’s probably not fighting on price (Amazon and now Google have that segment well-accounted for), and shooting for mass market appeal is difficult when a brand doesn’t mean anything to people yet.

As far as Narcisse is concerned, his and other companies like it have to “create something new from something old.” Easier said than done, certainly, but here’s hoping that someone cracks that formula soon — after all, more competition pushes everyone else forward too.

Photo courtesy of HyperDrive

If there’s one big gotcha on mobile devices — phones and tablets alike — it’s the lack of widespread USB support. Some Android devices have SD card slots or USB ports, but the tablets lack the power to run bus-powered USB drives. And Apple’s mobiles famously have neither SD nor USB support built in.

But at long last, CloudFTP, one of the most successful gizmos ever funded by Kickstarter, fills in this missing USB link.

Connect any USB device to the CloudFTP box, and it becomes accessible on your phone or tablet via an ad hoc Wi-Fi network. It works with cameras and card readers as well as storage devices that require bus power. Connect a USB drive, and that drive essentially becomes a wireless file server. Also, any data stored on the USB drive becomes cloud-accessible — create a cloud backup, or transfer files to and from services like Dropbox.

The seven-ounce box is the epitome of simplicity. It’s outfitted with a small, two-line LCD display on top, a power button on one side and a recharge port on the other to top off the internal Lithium-ion battery. There’s a single, powered USB port on the rear, and it provides enough juice to connect an USB hard drive for up to five hours without requiring any additional source of power.

To test the CloudFTP’s mobile fortitude, I USB-ed it out the wazoo. I connected an array of drives, from a 1TB Seagate drive to a 32GB USB 3.0 Lexar Triton flash drive. The CloudFTP handled each with aplomb. I was delightfully surprised that its single USB port could handle the 1TB Seagate drive — to power the same drive on a laptop, I had to use two ports.

I was able to play the videos and music loaded on each drive on my iPad by switching to the CloudFTP’s unique, ad hoc wireless network, and accessing the directories of each drive using iPad’s Safari browser (CloudFTP has its own built-in HTML web app for poking around on your drives). All media played as seamlessly as if it was stored on the iPad. HyperDrive, the manufacturer of CloudFTP, says you can use it on a PC or Mac as well, but only if you browse with Safari. No other browsers are supported at this time. If you want to browse a drive on an Android tablet, you may need to download a free file manager app like ES File Explorer.

CloudFTP can also join other existing Wi-Fi networks. This makes it possible to share with multiple devices on the same network, and to automatically connect to the internet so it can back up and sync your USB drive’s data with cloud storage services. There’s a slight usability issue here, since connecting to an existing network takes a bit of finagling with settings in the CloudFTP’s menus. Following the instructions posted in the online manual, I was able to maneuver through the setup fairly easily.

Still, it seemed a long way to go to add files to my Dropbox account. I already have the Dropbox app on the iPad, but using the default ad hoc connectivity modem I could only read what was on the USB drives, not move the files into the iPad’s Dropbox. So to get the true power of the device, jumping through the extra hoops and connecting to an existing network is essential.

Still, CloudFTP is a unique and useful product that works as advertised. There are stand-alone Wi-Fi drives that perform the same ad hoc networking tricks. But with its ability to connect anything to your iPad or phone, the CloudFTP brings much more versatility to the table.

WIRED Tiny, portable device gives USB connectivity to mobile devices lacking USB ports. Connects via its own independent wireless network, or can join other existing networks to back up and sync USB drive data to the cloud.

TIRED Works only with Safari browser. Additional file browsing apps may be required on non-iOS platforms. Included recharging cable does not come with AC adapter. At $100, a tad expensive.

Photo courtesy of Panasonic

LCD or plasma? By now the question feels as quaint as “Coke or Pepsi?” Plasmas consume more energy, have shorter lifespans, and suffer from burn-in issues, so it’s an easy choice. Right?

Wrong. Panasonic’s TC-P55ST50 makes a solid case for giving a plasma a shot at the living room, especially for viewers who like their black levels inky and their colors resplendent. True, a 55-inch plasma consumes considerably more power than a 55-inch LED-backlit LCD. But long-term burn-in? And fast flame-outs? Technology has largely cured both early-plasma ailments.

Perched atop an attractive silver base, the ST50 catches the eye with its clear acrylic-framed black bezel. Unfortunately, that bezel stands in sharp contrast to the screen, which has an unappealing gray-green cast when turned off.

At the rear you’ll find the usual array of ports, including an SD slot for those still rocking their old-school cameras. However, while that slot and the TV’s HDMI ports are conveniently side-facing, Panasonic supplies only three of the latter. Many models in this class offer four.

If you’re thinking that’s a deal-breaker, however, consider this: The Wi-Fi-equipped ST50 packs nearly as many apps as a Roku box, offering every streaming source from Amazon Instant Video to YouTube, with Hulu Plus, Netflix, Vudu, and a bevy of sports channels in between. It’s a cord-cutter’s wet dream.

Still, once you connect your DVR, Blu-ray player, and Xbox, where does that leave your Apple TV? Or your TelyHD? More ports, please, Panny.

At first blush, the ST50 razzle-dazzles with all the finesse of a fine sports car. Colors seem more vivid than in real life, while black levels suck you in like, well, a black hole. This is an ideal set for revisiting Alien before heading to the multiplex for Prometheus, as the spooky dark corners of the Nostromo have rarely looked darker. And forget trying to inch out of the room; the picture stays crisp and visible even at the widest angles.

However, once the flash wears off, you’re left with a few sobering realities. For starters, there’s an atrocious soap-opera effect (i.e. video looks too much like, well, video) that mostly goes away when you disable motion-smoothing — but even then you can still detect a trace at times.

What’s more, Panasonic’s automatic brightness control, which dims the display when the lights are low, goes too far. While watching the original Men in Black at dusk, I could see the picture getting dimmer — eventually getting so dark as to be muddy. Once I disabled the feature, the ST50 snapped back to its reasonably bright self.

Yes, only reasonably. Though plasmas have a reputation for retina-searing brightness, this one delivers only average levels. If it’s headed for a room with a lots of ambient light, you may find yourself longing for more lumens. It’s not a dim screen by any stretch, just not as bright as some.

Likewise, the ST50′s 3-D capabilities tread closer to “nice” than “yowza.” Panasonic includes no glasses with the TV, which seems a bit cruel, and charges $65 per active-shutter pair. I screened some Comcast-supplied 3-D content as well as few 3-D Blu-rays, and noticed a bit more crosstalk, or ghosting, than on other screens.

With eight mini-dome speakers and a slim subwoofer, the ST50 sounds unusually good. But its built-in simulated surround circuitry does little to actually simulate surround sound. I noticed very little difference when it was on and off.

Panasonic deserves an “A” in remote design, with oversize volume and channel rockers smack in the middle where they belong, plus a bright green “Internet” button for accessing the ST50′s apps and web browser. And its perfectly placed (top-right corner) Light button actually provides enough red-glow backlighting that you can see all the buttons in the dark.

With a competitive price point and one of the loveliest pictures you’re likely to find, the TC-P55ST50 is definitely worth a look. Just be sure you can live with that soap-opera effect, otherwise you may end up living one of your own.

WIRED Splendid color and deep blacks. Enough built-in apps to make a Roku box jealous. Better-than-average speakers. Blissfully smart menu system.

TIRED Horrendous soap-opera effect that’s hard to fully eliminate. So-so brightness paired with an overactive auto-brightness control. Not enough HDMI inputs. 3-D glasses not included.

Photos by Grayson Schaffer/Wired

Sony’s new ?57 is aimed at serious enthusiasts who are more interested in the outcome than the process. The camera delivers some high-powered DSLR features in a package that’s intuitive enough for less-experienced shooters. And at a print-worthy 16.1-megapixels, it won’t be fighting for supremacy only in Facebook photo galleries.

Start with the LCD viewfinder. Swapping out a physical mirror for a digital viewfinder allows the camera to shoot as fast as it can process the images. For the ?57, that’s a blazing 10 frames per second at full resolution or 12 fps cropped down to half resolution — quick enough to get the best moment out of any sports action. Some purists will chafe at having to view the world on an LCD monitor instead, but the benefits — like the ability to autofocus while recording 1080p HD video at a motion-slowing 60fps — win out. (Note that Canon’s $1,550 7D drops to 720p to shoot 60 fps video.) A bottom-hinged LCD panel on the back makes for convenient and less-conspicuous waist-level shooting.

Full manual overrides give more experienced shooters the ability to perfectly control the settings, but thanks to a few simple and well-placed buttons, I never strayed from the auto settings. The two most important features, exposure compensation and ISO setting, sit right next to the shutter button and allow for quick adjustment without a learning curve.

The Sony Exmor APS-HD CMOS sensor has a 2:3 aspect ratio and about two-thirds the surface area and image clarity of the ones you’ll find in a pro-level DSLR — but this camera will make up for it by doing some of your Photoshopping before the files ever reach the computer. Besides the built-in Instagram-type filters for both photo and video, the ?57 includes one of the better panorama-stitching settings I’ve seen. Hold the shutter down and sweep from left to right to create seamless panos right in the camera. Its facial-recognition auto-focus also seems particularly good at locking onto any mug in the frame.

An example of the a57′s in-camera panorama feature

The basic kit model comes with an 18–55mm lens, but for an extra $200 you can get the more versatile 18–135mm. Both lenses open up to a respectable f/3.5 and, paired with the camera’s onboard 2x digital zoom, can produce tight, if somewhat grainy, action shots. With the 18–135 zoomed in and doubled on the camera’s cropped sensor, you’ll have the equivalent of a 300mm lens. On a jerky point-and-shoot, that wouldn’t be much to brag about, but at 10 fps and with the camera’s high ISO range and quick and reliable autofocus, you’ll be able to freeze crisp sports action across the field.

WIRED Saves you a bundle on software. Pro-level functionality at rookie prices. Higher frame rate than all but the top-shelf HDSLR cameras. 

TIRED The bells and whistles come at the expense of image quality; low-light, high-speed, and digitally zoomed photos will be noisy. If you ever upgrade to a full-frame HDSLR, it likely won’t be a Sony, so you’ll need all new lenses.

HTC’s Droid Incredible 4G LTE performs well enough, but it doesn’t advance smartphone design, nor does it have the hardware specs to fully compete with today’s top-tier phones. Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

The newest Droid Incredible is a phone with one foot stuck in the past. Interior components like the processor and camera are stellar, and they’re on par with other $200 smartphones on the market right now. But the smaller, 4-inch display isn’t a true HD screen. And the design, dominated by a stubby and chunky chassis, feels like it was drawn up a few years ago when the Droid brand was first launched.

I applaud HTC and Verizon (the new Incredible, like its namesakes, is a Verizon exclusive) for having the stones to offer a new 4-inch Android smartphone. The world needs smaller smartphones, honestly. The Samsung Galaxy S III, with its 4.8-inch screen, is damn near impossible to use with one hand. The Droid Incredible 4G LTE, meanwhile, is a breeze to use single-handedly. The super LCD display looks sharp, detailed and flatly better than any other screen I’ve seen with a 960×540 “qHD” resolution. But at this point, the standard on phones at this price range is to offer an actual HD screen, not a fake HD screen. I’m talking at least 720p, not 540p. It’s not good enough. And while it looks good, 720p would look better.

On paper at least, the CPU is also lagging. It’s a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor, while HTC’s other big-name phones — the One S, One X and HTC Evo 4G LTE — all pack 1.5-GHz dual-core Qualcomm CPUs. But as the Droid proved, you can’t judge a phone by its box copy. It had plenty of horsepower to take on the daily tasks I threw at it: multitasking apps, web browsing in Chrome, games and streaming videos. HTC’s Sense 4 wrapper over the top of Ice Cream Sandwich ran smoothly, and HTC’s skin remains one of the best alternatives to stock Android. So while the new Droid Incredible may be slightly slower than HTC’s other flagships, it’s still unquestionably capable and speedy.

With its cutting-edge One X and One S handsets, HTC has shown it can make thin, powerful phones that are among the most attractive and dynamic on the market. But Verizon opted out of the One Series, preferring to stick with its Droid branding. The results are less compelling than what else is available at $200 (or $150 after a mail-in rebate).

Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

Overall, the styling gives me the impression that the Droid formula has been recycled one too many times. The new Droid Incredible falls right in line with 2010′s Droid Incredible and 2011′s Droid Incredible 2. It’s small, with a rubberized, matte-black, removable rear panel. Red accents are found on an aluminum bezel around the 8-megapixel rear camera and there’s a Beats Audio logo on the rear.

It also ranks as thick by today’s standards. The Incredible 4G LTE is 0.46 inches at its fattest point, and it weighs 4.64 ounces, which is the same weight as the One X. But the One X packs a bigger 4.65-inch display, and is only 0.37 inches thick, and the One S has a 4.3-inch screen, weighs 4.21 ounces and is 0.31-inches thick. When you move to a smaller screen, you naturally have to squeeze the internal components into a different configuration, and you end up with a chunkier device. But the results feel unusually bulky, especially when compared to the thin and light phones I’ve been testing all year.

At least it’s a strong performer. The 8-megapixel camera is fantastic, producing great shots in low light situations or out in the sun. Video also looked good, with the new Incredible being able to capture 1080p video at 30 frames per second. Battery life was solid.

Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

I normally got through a full work day without having to charge up. And, as usual, Verizon’s 4G LTE service is fast, not to mention more widespread than any other carrier’s 4G LTE network.

In all, the Droid Incredible 4G LTE left me with mixed emotions. The 4-inch display is welcome, the price is good and performance is admirable. But I can’t help but feel that HTC and Verizon took the easiest, most cost-effective route here, delivering the slightest tweaks to an old formula and an unspired update to an aging design. The result is a Droid Incredible 4G LTE that simply doesn’t fully live up to the incredible name.

WIRED A quick, smaller-screened Android phone. Detailed camera and sharp screen look good. All-day battery life is the norm. Verizon 4G LTE is fast.

TIRED A 960×540 display isn’t good enough in an HD world. Design is boring and uninspired. It’s overly thick and bulky by today’s standards.

Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

The Crowd is on the loose. Thanks to the JOBS Act, mainstream attention came to crowdfunding this year, and platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have been benefitting in kind. Kickstarter, in particular, has seen an exponential increase this year in how much capital its projects have been able to raise. (Exhaustive post on the subject here.) The Crowd has pledged $275 million to some 63,000 Kickstarter projects to date, and companies of all breeds are now using these platforms as launchpads and for a little proof of concept.

But, sadly, you know who really isn’t benefitting from the crowdfunding boom? Healthcare startups. Brian Dolan of MobiHealth points out that, in fact, Kickstarter officially prohibits health, fitness, and medical projects. Healthcare is absolutely jonesin’ for innovation, and there are tons of cool health companies trying to change the world — some of them even a little sexy and consumer-facing.

That’s why serial healthtech entrepreneur Alex Fair and founding Kickstarter product manager Mike Pence have set out to give health-focused entrepreneurs and projects a Kickstarter of their own. Medstartr, which launched in beta today, is a crowdfunding platform designed specifically for healthcare companies, providing startups with a vehicle to market their wares, generate awareness and raise capital — direct from strangers, investors, and Doogie Howsers alike.

Sure, support for healthtech startups — and their small victories — are worth noting just on principle. But, MedStartr isn’t aiming just to be a lazy port of Kickstarter/Indiegogo to healthcare. Fair was inspired to create Medstartr not only because of the rejection his healthtech ideas found on Kickstarter, but also because of the much-ballyhooed JOBS Act. The legislation legalized funding in startups by non-accredited investors and has likely changed early-stage investing for good.

The SEC is still working out the specifics of the regulations aimed at bringing some order to the wild and wooly west that will be Crowdfunding 1.0. In particular, the government must decide on where to cap the amount of capital businesses can raise via crowdfunding platforms, whether or not they’ll be able to raise cash by selling securities, etc. And, as it goes with medical biznass, the regulations will have specific measures (i.e. restrictions) on health businesses, with some of those being determined by the FDA.

Until the regulations are released, crowdfunding platforms have to wait and over-prepare if they can. In the meantime, MedStartr is limiting the amount of capital its projects can raise to $40,000 and, like the Kickstarters of the world, MedStartr is non equity-based, instead offering market validation and non-dilutive funding as value propositions for startups. Once SEC rules are set, however, Fair tells us that the company will establish an equity model.

In this way, the co-founders have plenty of plans for how the platform will differentiate from the big names, but some are still incipient — in part because the platform was founded about three months ago and in part because some may be subject to change.

For starters, Fair has nearly two decades worth of experience in healthtech, health IT, and consulting, which he plans to leverage to help MedStartr’s health projects not only reach their targets but find follow-on funding and support. Of course, while it will become trickier at scale, entrepreneurs can expect much more of a hands-on, or proactive, approach from the founders in comparison to Kickstarter.

They have already started to, and plan to continue with an events-based model, in which MedStartr will hold mini-conferences (with panels, etc.) in various cities, allowing project creators to set up booths and interact and network with potential investors. Like a MeetUp for Medics.

Fair also sees some bigger potential industry benefits than the requisite low-cose inbound marketing that is typically a built-in perk of crowdfunding platforms. Up to this point, hospitals, doctors, patients, and healthcare companies have largely lacked public resources by which to discover, interact with, and invest in health companies.

Many health or medical projects also inherently have highly motivated and engaged user bases (see 23andMe and CureTogether for examples), as they often promote healthier lifestyles, provide support for people in need or suffering from illnesses, try to find cures, and reduce medical and insurance costs. All of which can be emotional issues.

A crowdfunding platform for health projects allows the many who, say, want to help make or find ways to contribute to the health of loved ones to participate actively in the process. And feel a direct connection to projects and their founders and feel they’re making a difference. MedStartr launched with both a diabetes project and a project that supports those with STDS, for example.

On top of this, it seems that MedStartr also has the potential to incorporate some elements of AngelList and healthtech incubators like Rock Health and Blueprint. The crowdfunding platform can function as a screening ground for investors. Startups turn their project pages into pitch platforms, incorporating video, images, etc., and investors can interact and connect with the entrepreneurs through the site.

MedStartr can also incorporate partner programs that allows doctors, CIOs, or executives of health companies to use MedStartr for validation and deal flow and to support them. If they like the idea, they can offer up a deal. If they sign up a certain number of physicians, attract a certain amount of feedback and hit a set target for funding, then a CTO of Pfizer, say, could reward them by funding their first pilot study. The company already has a big pharma company and medical society on board.

All that being said, MedStartr’s current incarnation owes a lot to the popular crowdfunding platforms. Its name (and the design of its site) make that apparent enough. But, if MedStartr is able to deliver on even half of its goals, it can become more than a valuable, feel-good medtech experiment. VCs and investors want to invest in great healthtech companies, and this gives them a great way to interact with health startups and source potential investments.

It’s not clear that there can be enough cross-over from mainstreamers and consumers to give MedStartr the lift it needs to hit scale, rather than remaining a purely industry resource. But if they play it well, and turn it into a viable Kickstarter/MeetUp/AngelList hybrid for health startups, why not?

Find MedStartr at home here.

Seems it’s not time to throw out those business cards just yet.

Hashable, the startup that launched back in fall 2010 with the aim of replacing business cards with mobile and web apps that helped people meet and exchange information, is shutting down its service.

The company announced the move via an email to users sent this evening. The company, based in New York City, had raised some $4 million in funding.

The folks who founded Hashable are in the process of working together on another product. According to Tweets sent by Hashable founder Michael Yavonditte today, the new entity is in the mobile ads space:

We're building a very unique mobile ad system — one that honors both publishers and advertisers, back to world we know better than most—
Michael Yavonditte (@mikeyavo) July 12, 2012

we simply couldn't make Hashable good enough / we know we can build a world-class mobile ad system / back to area of expertise—
Michael Yavonditte (@mikeyavo) July 12, 2012

It’s unclear how much of the current Hashable team is staying on for the new effort — whether this counts as a “pivot” or a whole new company. UPDATE: Yavonditte tells us via email that the mobile ads effort is not a Hashable pivot — it’s a new company altogether.

Here is the email Hashable sent to users:

Dear Hashable Users,

We regret to inform you that the Hashable mobile apps and Hashable.com will be shutting down on July 25th. The service will be unavailable after this date.

While we are still very passionate about making better connections and meeting new people, the time has come for us to focus our energy elsewhere.

Some of you have stored valuable information in Hashable, and we want to give you the opportunity to save that data for your own records. If you’d like to receive a file with your complete history, please log onto Hashable.com, navigate to the “Profile” tab, then to the “Your History” section on that page. You can download the file by clicking “Export full history to .csv” and accepting the dialog that pops up.

We are incredibly grateful for all the people we have met through Hashable. Thank you for all your support, and we hope to connect with you again in the future.

All the best,

The Hashable Team

This is what we talk about when we talk about Disrupt. uBeam, a small startup founded by Meredith Perry, a 22-year-old new graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, has taken on $750,000 in seed funding to build out its technology for wirelessly charging electronic devices.

uBeam’s investors include Founders Fund’s angel investing arm, Andreessen Horowitz, Crunchfund, and a number of individual angel investors including Google’s Marissa Mayer and Zappos co-founder Tony Hsieh, uBeam’s Meredith Perry told TechCrunch today in a phone interview. The news was first posted earlier today by PandoDaily’s Erin Griffith.

But beyond the funding amount and investors, uBeam’s Perry declined to offer too many more details about the company, which appears most certainly to be in heads-down-and-hack mode. The company’s investors also tell us that this round was not raised for publicity purposes.

Here is what Perry would say: uBeam has “several patents” filed regarding its technology for wirelessly charging gadgets such as laptops and smartphones without plugging them into wall outlets or other energy sources, and she is being aided by a team of other people (she would not disclose uBeam’s staff count.)

It’s a super small round for the hardware space, and uBeam clearly has a lot of work and development ahead of it. More than anything, the new funding is really a testament to uBeam’s hustle — a startup getting out there and showing a really sharp demo to some influential people. The excitement was certainly palpable backstage at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC back in May when Perry came to show TechCrunch founder and current Crunchfund head Michael Arrington her technology in action.

At that time, Arrington wrote that with her demo he’d witnessed “the closest thing to magic I’ve seen in a long time.” uBeam almost certainly showed the same demo to its other big-name investors, and the big money was clearly soon to follow.

It’ll be very exciting to see how uBeam develops the product now that the company has some serious money in its pockets — and some very smart people on speed-dial.

Feature photo of uBeam’s Meredith Perry via Elle Magazine.

SimpleGeo co-founder and former Digg lead architect Joe Stump has raised 500K in seed funding for his latest startup Sprintly.

The project management and collaboration tool is one of the first investments from Facebook Director of Engineering Andrew Bosworth and has brought together bold-faced backers like Matt Mullenweg, Simple co-founder Alex Payne, Ooga Labs’ Stan Chudnovsky, Twitter lead architect Blaine Cook, About.me’s Ryan Freitas, Chartbeat’s Tony Haile, Founders Dens’ Michael Levit, Ross Dargahi, Engine Yard’s Eamon Leonard, Brizzly’s Jason Shellen, and The Barbarian Group’s Rick Webb. The seed funding was led by Freestyle Capital.

Along with the funding comes a long list of notable advisors (full list here).

“We’re trying to break down a wall between development and business,” Stump tells me about Sprintly,  ”Our goal is to make workflow as smooth as possible with the products people already use. There’s no point in us going out and trying to kill email. We want to work with the flow and adapt to people’s workflow rather than reinvent it. “

Stump views Sprintly as competitive to whiteboards, notecards and Excel, “The vast majority of people aren’t using a specific tool for project management” he says. The service is similar in pricing to Salesforce and Zendesk, costing interested companies, including Live Nation Labs, $9.00 per teammate per month.

Stump sees both Sprintly and SimpleGeo as outgrowths of his desire to make developers’ lives easier, “The task management and product management arena is one that every developer aims to target some day” and plans on using the new funds to hire more developers (of course!) and a designer.

Currently Sprintly is a modest team of three based out of Portland, Oregon, including Stump, co-founder Graham Blache and Ian White.

When you’re a tech startup attempting to do something as ambitious as mining asteroids in outer space, it’s good to make some well-placed friends.

So it makes sense that asteroid mining startup Planetary Resources has inked an agreement with private space flight company Virgin Galactic to utilize its new LauncherOne, a product purportedly designed to send satellites into space cheaper and much more efficiently than the status quo.

Under the terms of the deal, LauncherOne will provide launch capabilities for Planetary Resources’ “Arkyd” series of spacecraft, which are meant to explore and potentially mine and develop asteroids that are close to Earth.

Startups are notoriously competitive with one another, so it’s kind of fun to see two companies in the same space (really, no pun intended there) teaming up and sharing resources. Historically, space exploration and development has needed the backing of governments and the tax dollars of literally millions of people to get off the ground — so it’s nice that privately-owned companies are acknowledging the need to be at least a little bit collectivist in their practices. How far and wide they share any spoils they find in outer space, of course, remains to be seen.

Anyway, rock on space explorers. It’s certainly going to be fun watching this industry develop.

Here is the full press release announcing the Planetary Resources/Virgin Galactic agreement:

Bellevue, Wash. – July 11, 2012 – Planetary Resources, Inc., the asteroid mining company, announced today an agreement with Virgin Galactic, LLC that will enable multiple launch opportunities for its series of spacecraft, including the Arkyd-100 low-Earth orbit (LEO) space telescopes.

Continuous, low-cost launch services for small spacecraft to LEO assists in accelerating Planetary Resources’ vision to make valuable space resources from Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) available to humanity. “While the Arkyd spacecraft line itself radically reduces the traditional cost of exploring the NEAs, the less expensive the cost to launch an Arkyd spacecraft to LEO, the more spacecraft the company will launch. The more spacecraft that the company launches, the faster it will create a future where access to asteroid resources results in a vast network of propellant depots throughout space and a future where once precious and rare materials are abundant for all. This will enable humanity’s prosperity to continue for centuries to come,” said Eric Anderson, Co-Founder & Co-Chairman of Planetary Resources, Inc.

Of the nearly 10,000 known NEAs, there are more than 1,500 that are energetically as easy to reach as the Moon. In the next few years, constellations of Arkyd-100 Series space telescopes will help fulfill the company’s early objective of identifying additional energetically-optimal, highly-valuable NEAs which will then be added to the detailed list of the company’s prospecting targets and pursued for future potential resource extraction.

“We are excited to announce this agreement with Virgin Galactic. LauncherOne has the potential to provide reliable and continuous launch service capability for small payloads. I expect Planetary Resources will launch several constellations of Arkyd-100 Series spacecraft in the coming years aboard LauncherOne,” said Mr. Anderson.

“We are developing the LauncherOne to deliver small satellites to LEO in a reliable fashion, with the capability to fly dozens of times per year. LauncherOne leverages our work in the area of commercial human spaceflight, and will provide reliable, regular launch opportunities to enable Planetary Resources to explore and develop valuable resources from asteroids,” said George Whitesides, President and CEO of Virgin Galactic, LLC.

Chris Lewicki, President and Chief Engineer of Planetary Resources, Inc., noted that “As Planetary Resources works to expand humanity’s resource base, we also plan to increase scientific and commercial access to the Earth and deep space by developing capable and cost-efficient spacecraft. Interest in using our Arkyd-100 Series for commercial purposes – in addition to finding asteroids – has been very strong.”