Startups

Your government is worried. The world is “going dark.” Once upon a time, telephones were the only way to talk to someone far away, and the authorities could wiretap any phone they wanted. Nowadays, though, suspects might be communicating via Facebook, Google Hangouts, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Skype, Viber. And so, inevitably: “Today, if you’re a tech company that’s created a new and popular way to communicate, it’s only a matter of time before the FBI shows up with a court order to read or hear some conversation.” But some of those providers have no interest in spying on their users. The FBI is not amused. “A government task force is preparing legislation that would pressure companies such as Face­book and Google to enable law enforcement officials to intercept online communications as they occur,” according to the Washington Post, by fining them increasing sums until they build government-accessible back doors into their systems. Which invites the titular question of this post. The FBI may be looking back with dewy-eyed nostalgia on the phone wiretaps of yore, but I think we can all agree that those would have been ridiculously ineffective if anyone with anything to hide had been able to easily acquire and attach tiny devices that made wiretapping impossible. That’s exactly the case today: anyone even remotely au fait with technology can securely encrypt their digital communications themselves, via eg RedPhone. So the FBI would only be able to wiretap suspects who are either too dumb to use encryption — in which case they ought to be easy enough to catch without wiretaps — or who think they have nothing to hide. Meanwhile, they’d be setting a terrible precedent for other, more draconian governments. Critics say “We’ll look a lot more like China than America after this” … but the Obama administration, which not coincidentally appears to hate whistleblowers above all else, still seems poised to support this initiative. But wait, it gets worse. In order to claim this empty chalice, the powers that be will require a surveillance system that could be abused by the very kind of people it’s supposed to be used against. Could, and almost certainly would: if you build a tool that can be used malevolently, then inevitably it one day will be. Consider how Google was hacked in 2010 by adversaries who used the intercept facilities built into GMail – at the FBI’s insistence – to access the private email of Chinese dissidents, and: Google had a database with "years" worth of FISA surveillance orders it received.The Chinese hacked it. washingtonpost.com/world/national…— Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) May 20, 2013 Put another way: Basically, FBI is proposing massive fines for companies that design their systems to be secure. Insanely bad idea. j.mp/Y9hiL3— Julian Sanchez (@normative) April 29, 2013 Is the FBI actually too stupid to realize that this is a terrible, horrible, very bad, no good idea? Or — get your tinfoil hats on — is the pretext of hunting criminals and terrorists merely a smokescreen for requiring what in effect will be a gargantuan cross-platform surveillance system that will let them spy on anyone’s conversation at any time for their own ulterior motives? Probably not. (At least, he said paranoiacally, not yet.) But that is exactly what’s happening in other countries. Witness this post by legendary security guru Moxie Marlinspike, the creator of RedPhone among other tools, who was approached by the Saudi Arabian government to help monitor and block tools like Twitter, Viber, Line and WhatsApp. When he declined, they suggested: If you are not interested than maybe you are on indirectly helping those who curb the freedom with their brutal activities. That’s right, folks: if you’re not helping the government of Saudi Arabia secretly spy on all of its residents, then you’re on the side of the terro

This sponsored post is produced by MicroVentures. VentureBeat recently reported that funding marketplace MicroVentures raised over $16 million for tech startups. Over the past 2 years, MicroVentures has reviewed over 2,000 companies and through its rigorous review process, filtered the prospective list to less than 40, which met the criteria to raise on the platform. This represents approximately 2 percent of the companies that initiated the process. Once the SEC issues the final rules around the JOBS Act, it will pave the way for funding portals to start equity-based crowdfunding, giving more startups an opportunity to find a place to raise capital. Many of those 2,000 companies will now have another resource available to raise capital online. What does this mean for investors? It means that investors will likely spend more of their time searching multiple “Equity Crowdfunding” sites attempting to understand the risks associated with deals on any given platform. Early stage investing is inherently high risk/reward. However, risk correlates closely to transparency, which can only be achieved through professional due diligence performed by experienced individuals. Over the last year we have seen an uptick in the number of companies requesting funding as a result of the JOBS Act. Because of this, it is critical that investors are only offered opportunities that have been properly vetted and reviewed prior to listing on a given site, in order for the investor to make an intelligent and informed investment decision. This review coincidentally also adds value to the company looking for capital, as it helps them understand what information is important to investors from Day One, helping them start with shareholder value in mind. What do online investors look for in a deal? Here are a few of the many factors investors look for when reviewing a startup: 1)     Experienced Team – Investors look for a team that has experienced both success and failure. They look for teams that have met challenges and figured out how to get over, under, around, or through. 2)     Traction – For early stage companies traction doesn’t necessarily have to be revenue. It could mean a successful beta with active users and a healthy growth rate. However, proof of execution is key. 3)     Angel Money – Investors would like to see investments from angels or VCs, who can add value beyond simply capital. Receiving positive feedback in the three areas above may create initial interest from investors reviewing an opportunity on an online platform. However, in order to create a win-win for both investors and the company raising capital, investors must have access to fundamental information about the company and be able to determine whether any growth inhibiting liabilities exist. Without rigorous due diligence, this is impossible. For example, it is great to see high profile angel investors participate in a round with a company you might have interest investing in, but that information alone provides you with no detail regarding that investor’s agenda, reason for investing in the given company, personal relationship with the company, etc. It is paramount as an investor that you understand how each startup featured is being vetted and that the due diligence criteria matches aligns with your methodologies for making risk-based decisions. At MicroVentures, we proactively perform two levels of due diligence before our investors review an opportunity to ensure that we are offering what we believe are high quality, curated opportunities. Further, MicroVentures provides the necessary transparency and tools to investors so they can perform their own due diligence before investing. If you would like to be a part of the investor community at MicroVentures, please sign up today. It is free to join. Sponsored posts are content that has been produced by a company, which is either paying for the post or has a business relationship with VentureBeat, and they’re always clearly mark

One of the problems for copy writers for web pages is that they have far more interest in words than they do with the overall presentation. While it is the written word that is going to sell your product or idea to your customers, there is not a lot of point if your visitors get bored with the site before they get your message. This can be achieved a number of ways but the simplest way is to illustrate your article with relevant pictures to draw the eye of your visitors and have a better chance of keeping them reading. It can be very painful and time consuming to find relevant free images to flesh out your site so a publishing and photo application like Imonomy could come in very handy. It scans your web pages and automatically finds free relevant photos that match up with your written content. If you have a large amount of written content across your site it is important that you have balance and add high quality content related images that will encourage your users to stay longer on your site. Great looking images create a much higher user engagement and give your pages the exposure that they deserve while reducing bounce rates significantly. Thats where imonomy comes in. They have developed a special web-app using algorithmic technology that scans the text from webpages and instantly and automatically locates free images and finds the optimal image placement on the webpage layout. This unique engine also creates intelligent links between pages, encouraging visitors to engage more on your website and stay longer while easily navigating through more relevant content. Your website is more attractive to your visitors and user engagement can increase significantly. The special semantic visual engine constantly scans the text on the publisher's website and fits relevant images to the pages that are posted. The content related images give readers a more pleasurable experience while reading through the website content. The bottom line is that when you use the app you get the chance to improve your page views, lessen your bounce rates and use the best copyright-free images on the net. What we are all looking for with our websites is better visitor engagement and, as a consequence, the chance to sell something to them and make your bank manager happy. But you can write the most fluent piece of prose about the service or product that you offer and it still doesn't capture the attention of an audience that generally has a short attention span. So we tend to spend as much time searching for pictures that are relevant as we do writing the more important text. Imonomy is an easy way to automatically illustrate your text with pictures based on the content of your article. This means better audience response - they might even take the time to read your article while looking at the pictures - and better monetization and revenue for your site.

Editor’s note: Jon Gottfried is a Developer Evangelist at Twilio, Co-Founder of the Hacker Union, and a StartupBus Conductor. Follow him on Twitter @jonmarkgo. Being one of the first cyborgs in the world, I have been privy to a unique set of bizarre experiences that have led to some early observations and theories about the future of Google Glass and wearable technology. At Glass Foundry SF, among the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, the New York Times and Hearst, was a rag-tag group of independent developers building Ice Breaker: myself, Song Zheng, and Rajiv Makhijani. When I pitched the idea of creating a Google Glass version of the dorm-room game Assassins, I thought it would be an interesting tongue-in-cheek jab at the Terminator-esque form of this new piece of technology. I could not have imagined it would turn into a six-month secret project slated to launch at one of the largest tech conferences of the year. We were building the first (and only) game for Google Glass. We had a six-month head start, early access to the Google Glass Mirror API and Glass devices as early as they were available. Developing applications for Glass is actually more similar to building a website than it is to building an Android application. Let’s start off by talking about the reality of what it is like to develop applications for Google Glass. Like many of you, I expected it to be very similar to building mobile applications for Android. In fact, I began learning to build Android applications in preparation. My efforts were for naught, because the Mirror API is a RESTful web service. This means that developing applications for Glass is actually more similar to building a website than it is to building an Android application. Once a user logs in to your application, they grant you permission to push “cards” to their Glass devices and to receive responses from it. It is purely asynchronous, and is not designed for real-time applications, such as an augmented-reality game or a Call of Duty-style, heads-up display. This will likely change with the upcoming release of the GDK, but for the moment you are restricted to building asynchronous applications. No problem for Twitter or Tumblr, where there is no need for instantaneous interactions. However, it certainly puts a damper on many of the science-fiction-esque predictions for Glass. But there are still many reasons why I am excited about Glass and will continue to develop applications for it: 1. It gives us all a nerd boner. Developers love technology for the sake of technology. People flock to line up for product launches with the same excitement that a tween feels when they spot Bieber for the first time. Glass is exclusive, mysterious and futuristic. As the first wearable-computing platform to have even a hint of mass availability, it makes us feel as if we are truly living in the future. You could meet a thousand Valley founders all creating the “next big social network,” but no amount of SoLoMo innovation can match the excitement or fear that we will all soon be addicted to The Game, only to be saved by a young Wil Wheaton. We have the opportunity to create the canonical user experience for wearable computers. 2. We are defining the future. As developers, we have the unique opportunity to quite literally define the experiences that consumers have with technology. The first third-party applications for the iPhone set the stage for all mobile apps to follow. The same rings true for Glass. Whether or not the product itself is successful, we have the opportunity to create the canonical user experience for wearable computers. In the future, when there are both iGlass and Microsoft Senior Professional Heads-Up™ Displays for Business, they will all be modeled off of these initial applications for Glass – consciously or not. 3. There is money to be made. While it is unclear whether there will be mass consumer adoption of Glass, it is obvious that this will be a valu

Here in this post we will tell you 5 things to check before deciding to buy UPS. Here are some important points you should keep in mind: UPS stands for Uninterrupted Power Source and it’s an electrical apparatus that provides backup/alternate power during power failure from actual power source. The UPS is different from standby generator or emergency power system since it offers instantaneous protection from power failure as the energy is stored in huge lead batteries or flywheel. There are certain things which you need to consider before purchasing a UPS battery which are listed below, 1. Decide the Size of the UPS Required Before you purchase an UPS battery you should decide the amount of power required. You should only connect the UPS to equipment that requires protection from power failures which includes Emergency lights, personal Computers, backup servers, communication systems etc. You should not connect printers, fax machines, air conditioners, fans or any other device that does not impact your business productivity. You can calculate the total power requirement of all individual devices based on which the amount of power required from UPS can be derives. In order to calculate VA rating you should multiply total current for each device with local grid phase for neutral voltage.  In a 3-phase system you should find the total current by adding all 3 phases. You can find the current demand from user’s manual or from electricity meter in your home. You should check with equipment manufacturer to find accurate value and generally VA rating will be thirty percent higher than current rating since some power will be consumed by equipment as well. The power factor 0.7 can be used normally to calculate VA rating. 2. Determine the brand/budget There are many brands of UPS systems available in the market and you should device which brand and model is suitable for your requirement. Some popular brands like EXIDE, APC , MGE, Libert are widely used in the market and the quality of these products are very good. If you are going for a good brand with decent warranty and service, the cost involved will also be higher. So you should decide based on your budget and model, which brand can be suitable for your business. To know more details and find out best deals available in market Click here for a UPS battery. Once you have decided everything, check for best deals from popular manufactures and choose the one with aligns your requirements. 3. Decide the Backup Time Autonomy time refers to time required by batteries for backup operation and switchover immediately after power failure. Size of the batteries and load consumption will determine the time requires for back-up. UPS systems having the rating of 20-30 KVA generally have internal batteries. High and medium power system with KVA rating of 3-5 will have external batteries for back-up time expansion. If there are frequent power failures in your area, then you should purchase huge batteries to backup more power and protect expensive hardware and data. 4. Decide the UPS Model and Type Before you purchase an UPS power supply, you should determine which type of UPS you require. There are 3 main classes of UPS which include Offline UPS, Double Conversion On-Line UPS, Line Interactive UPS. Offline UPS is very cheap and simple model, which feeds the load from Main continuously. When there is outage of Main, the load connection will be shifted to the invertor that gets power from batteries. There are risks when using such batteries during over voltage or voltage spikes because of transient nature. Such models are preferred in home computers and small offices where there is no critical application. The line Interactive model also has drawbacks similar to offline model while the On-Line or Double Conversion UPS is the most expensive and offers maximum protection from power failures. The Online UPS is preferred for large business where power consumption is in range of megawatts. In this case, loa

Digital dating is nothing to scoff at; it’s a big business, and it’s changed a lot of lives — mostly for the better. Yet, while dating has seen enormous progress during the Digital Era, there’s still a lot garbage out there, and the space is still mostly dominated by a handful of old names. A gaggle of dating sites and apps have appeared over the past five years, but few have had real staying power, and many have gone the way of the dinosaur. While it’s still too early to make any pronouncements, it’s looking more and more like Tinder could buck the trend. Created by Hatch Labs — an LA-based startup backed by IAC, the same Barry Diller-led digital media giant that owns Match.com and OKCupid — Tinder has grown like a weed since it launched in October. A crazy, dating weed. In part, that’s due to timing, and in part because Tinder is based on a familiar, throwback model, drawing on the same addictive formula behind Hot or Not. Essentially, it’s Hot or Not made mobile, casual and connected to Facebook, but rather than promising to introduce people to their one true soul partner/life mate, Tinder just wants to make it easier to flirt — and get you off your ass to meet people. In the real world. By focusing on reducing the “creepiness” factor (always a relative term in dating, mind you), reducing spam and by targeting young people, Tinder has been able to find that elusive, exponential growth curve. (Unsurprisingly, it’s initial growth spike came from college campuses, and the average age of its users is still 23.) It’s also fairly easy to use: It’s free, it doesn’t focus on building traditional profiles, instead pulling basic info from Facebook, is location-enabled, and matches users to other people nearby based on similar behavior, interests and so on. If you’re not interested, you can pass. If you are, it connects you with the other person, allowing you to chat and arrange a meeting offline. Thanks to the above, the app has been seeing the same kind of growth that Facebook, Instagram and Twitter saw in the early days, Tinder co-founder and CEO Sean Rad tells us. But what does that mean, exactly? When we wrote about Tinder in early January, it had served one million matches and users had made 35 million profile ratings. Today, Rad says, Tinder has served 50 million matches and users have made 4.5 billion ratings. So, while the team is keeping a tight lid on the number of downloads and users it’s attracted to date, from what we do know (and what we’ve been hearing from other sources), it’s safe to assume that both number well into the millions. And keep in mind: The app was released in late October. Tinder also seems to be avoiding a common trend among popular mobile apps: High number of downloads, but comparatively low engagement. In Tinder’s case, Rad tells us that around 50 percent of users open the app once a day, while approximately 75 percent open the app once a week and around 85 percent use the app every month. Based on this growth, rumors have been circulating for months now that claim Tinder is in the proces of raising a big round of outside funding, or is in the process of being acquired. At this point, the founder says, neither of those are true. While the company isn’t sharing how much it’s raised to date, we do know that IAC is it’s primary investor, and owns a minority stake in the business, having been the sole investor in its seed and series A rounds (which we hear total in the millions). And the startup was incubated within IAC. IAC would likely love to own Tinder outright, as would others, but at this point the startup is resolved to stay independent, and go public rather than sell. Of course, there’s a long road ahead, and these things have a habit of changing. Furthermore, while Tinder has opted not to raise outside capital, our sources tell us that this h

A few weeks ago, Google briefly made a “Google Now” topics page available on the web and then took it down again. The page showed a list of topics Google believed you were interested in, based on your search history. Now this feature is back, but it’s a bit different from the leaked page. A few days ago, it seems, the company quietly (re-)launched this feature with the latest Google Now update. The leaked page was also visible on the desktop, but it looks like Google has plugged this hole the cards are now only available on Android – and only by going through Google Now‘s research cards. On this page, you can still see many (but not all) of the topics that Google thinks you are interested in. The feature will now pop up at the bottom of Google’s research cards, which often appear after Google realizes that you’ve been researching a certain topic in depth. One of the reasons for this card to pop up, for example, would be when Google detects you are planning a trip. To see this information, Google Now offers a link will appear underneath these cards (“Explore now,” then look for the “More of your topics” links in the top right) that allows you to delve a bit deeper into the topics you recently looked for and to get a different view of your search history. Indeed, besides powering the research cards, they mostly offer you a richer view of your search history. Unlike Google’s search history page, however, this feature shows you an aggregate view of what Google believes you are interested in, not just a list of all of your searches. In my case, for example, Google knew that I was looking for a hotel last weekend and had been looking at hotels in New York a few weeks ago, too. It also knows that I was looking for restaurants in Portland, did some research on web browsers, smartphones and Sim City. For now, this feature is only available on Android, as the Google Now research cards haven’t launched on iOS yet (where they would be available trough the Google Search app). Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be a way to just surf to this page without having a research card available through Google Now. Google Now has always been about anticipating your needs and performing searches for you before you. The research cards clearly fit into this pattern and so does the ability to delve a little bit deeper into what Google thinks it knows about you. This, of course, shows you how much Google really knows about you – which is either really cool or creepy, depending on your overall thoughts about Google and privacy. When Google mistakenly leaked the topics page earlier this year, it looked like this would be another step in bringing Google Now to the desktop. Sadly, it looks like that isn’t quite the case and that we’ll still have to wait a bit before Now makes it debut on Chrome for the desktop, but with the new notifications system and a flag to enable Now in Chrome, it’s just a matter of time before Google will launch this feature.

The Department of Homeland Security issued a warning to its employees this week, saying it was alerted to a vendor vulnerability that could have exposed social security numbers. The vendor, which DHS does not disclose in its alert, deals with background check information. It helps the investigation process, and stores personally identifiable information collected during a background check. The vulnerability could have exposed names, social security numbers, dates of birth, and other personally identifiable information that stretches beyond the “username and password” you usually see in breach notifications. This, however, did not involve an actual breach. The department says that it has not found any evidence that a breach took place, simply that the vulnerability existed. The vulnerability affects both DHS employees and anyone who was given DHS clearance. The department is attempting to reach out to anyone it believes could have been affected by the vulnerability, which dates back to July 2009. Once the issue was found, the vendor was ordered to stop all work and fix the security hole immediately. The Department of Homeland Security may take legal action and is “engaged with the vendor’s leadership to pursue all costs incurred mitigating the damages.” DHS suggests that anyone whose information was at risk should contact credit reporting agencies to have their credit reports monitored for suspicious activity. via ThreatPost; DHS image via DonkeyHotey/Flickr Filed under: Security

Peter Thiel’s late-stage venture firm Mithril Capital Management is planning to invest in space exploration and transportation. Several sources close to the matter said Thiel’s firm intends to raise $50 million. Mithril partner Jim O’Neill denied in an email that he is raising a fund, but confirmed that the firm just hired several space industry experts to join the investment team. “We are delighted to have hired two space industry veterans on our investment team to help us examine hard technology companies, including transportation and space,” he said. Sources also said that several million dollars has already been poured into the fund to build vehicles for space exploration. Mithril would not yet confirm where the money will come from, but we will update you when we learn more. Likewise, the extent to which Thiel will be personally involved with managing the fund remains unclear. San Francisco-based Mithril is a growth fund that fits between Thiel’s other investment firms, Founders Fund, which typically focuses on earlier stage investments, and Clarium Capital, a global hedge fund. Founders Fund has invested in SpaceX, a private space transport company. And in a 2011 interview with the New York Times, Thiel said that not enough energy is spent tackling big challenging problems, “like space exploration.” Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports that Thiel is a science fiction junkie obsessed with putting his money behind ideas that would expand human possibility. Thiel is known for making risky investments that most venture capitalists wouldn’t touch — the billionaire has backed a nonprofit, Breakout Labs, in a bid to kickstart scientific innovation. Mithril would be among the first private funds to venture into space exploration — Kentucky Space LLC announced last month the formation of SpaceTango, the first business accelerator for entrepreneurial space ventures. Filed under: Business

On this week’s Ask A VC episode, Index Ventures partner Danny Rimer joined us in the studio. Rimer has been in the venture industry for over 11 years so he had plenty to share on how VC has changed, and the differences in the venture world in Europe and the U.S. Rimer, who has led the firm’s investments in Etsy, Nastygal and many others, also talked to us about the future of e-commerce and how the industry is changing for startups. Check out the video above for more!