Fresh crowdfunding rules give you a bigger stake in startups
If you’ve ever wanted to support a young company beyond pledging money toward its products, it’s time to act. After years of waiting, the US has enacted new rules that make it much easier to crowdfund a company through investments. Before, you had to be an accredited investor with some wealth (making over $200,000 per year, or a net worth of over $1 million) to contribute significant money and get a stake. Now, anyone can invest $2,000 or more online and get a say. Companies can’t raise more than $1 million per year through this method, but that could frequently be enough to get the ball rolling.
There are worries about the rules. Even with the funding cap, there’s a concern that fraudsters will prey on rookie investors willing to spend big without investigating a company’s prospects. And the likelihood of a crowdfunded company becoming the next big thing is rather small — a truly hot startup probably won’t need this, since it can usually raise capital the old-fashioned way. Still, the new rules could make all the difference for up-and-comers that missed out on professional investments, want to involve their communities or just need a little nudge to make their dreams come true.
Source: New York Times
‘Mr. Robot’ season 2 trailer makes us giddy for revolution
After last year’s surprising (but not completely unexpected) Mr. Robot season finale, hacker Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek) and the fsociety are back. But, if you’re hoping the season two trailer will shed any light about what’s happening with Alderson and his hactivist collective, you’re out of luck.
The Golden Globe-winning series has been lauded not only for its compelling characters and storyline, but also its realistic portrayal of hacking. Don’t worry if you haven’t caught up with the show, though. Season two premieres July 13th, so you still have plenty of time to binge-watch the compelling adventures of a genius who might also be insane.
Source: Mr. Robot
The glorious gore of ‘Doom’ chainsaw kills
The new Doom is buttery, plain and simple — no other word captures the ridiculous smoothness imbued in the game’s mechanics. As he traverses Hell on Mars, the protagonist moves at a constant sprint, but the controls never feel too sensitive or rushed; it’s the perfect speed for rapid-fire, twitchy gameplay. With Doom, developer id Software and publisher Bethesda have crafted an innovative first-person shooter that pays homage to the series’ long history while propelling it into the future.
A large part of Doom’s history involves the chainsaw. Doom and chainsaws go together like lumberjacks and flannel, and the latest game doesn’t disappoint in this department. It brings the close-up brutality of chainsaw kills into the 21st century, in glorious high-definition.
Waze begins testing new carpooling service in the Bay Area
Google-owned navigation app Waze is bringing their carpool pilot program stateside. The company will test the new Waze Rider app with 25,000 employees at select Bay Area companies who will be able to get a ride to work with the over 700,000 local drivers using Waze.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Waze Rider app simply matches users with a driver heading their same direction, like a virtual version of a casual carpool. Riders will pay a standard 54 cents per mile based on IRS guidelines and, at least to start, the app will not be taking a cut of drivers’ pay.
Google has already been testing Waze Rider with its own employees and the new companies included in the test program include Adobe, UCSF and Walmart’s Global eCommerce division — all of which are located near Google’s headquarters. For riders whose employers aren’t yet involved, there’s a signup page where you can sign up to be notified when the program expands.
“This is kind of an extension of what we do at Waze, to build this trusted community,” said Josh Fried, who is heading up the company’s carpooling program. The new program comes two months after Lyft expanded its own ridesharing options to include carpooling service in the Bay Area. Last year, Uber also tested an UberCommute option in China and a Pool to SF option to help commuters get to San Francisco from cities further south in Silicon Valley
Report: Twitter won’t count links, photos in 140-character limit
According to Bloomberg, Twitter is prepping an update to its service that will keep photos and links from counting against the 140-character limit of a post. Currently the URL that points to images and sites takes up some of that available space.
The new feature is expected to launch within two weeks according to Bloomberg’s anonymous source. Part of the attraction of Twitter’s existing setup is that it limits the amount of information shared in each post. An early version of the service relied on SMS so that limiting the characters to 140 was more of a technical issue than anything else.
But, long-time users have asked that links, photos and usernames not count against the character limit. It looks like at least two of those items will no longer suck up valuable tweet real estate.
Twitter has been on a feature-adding spree lately as it tries to attract new users. But it’s stopped short of creating a purely algorithmic timeline like what you’ll see on Facebook. Instead, it’s enhanced DMs and surfaced what it believes are the most important tweets so that they appear at the top of users’ feeds.
We’ve asked Twitter for comment and will update this article if and when we hear back.
Source: Bloomberg
Disney puts all of its movie VR experiences in a single app
If you’ve got a VR headset, you’ve probably noticed that finding compelling virtual experiences isn’t as easy as it could be. Disney is hoping to fix that, at least for its own properties, with its new VR app on Steam. It puts all of the company’s virtual offerings — including experiences for Star Wars, The Avengers and The Jungle Book — in a single location. And best of all, it’s free and compatible with both the HTC Vive (which runs SteamVR) and the Oculus Rift.
Obviously, these VR tidbits are really just interactive marketing for Disney’s franchise empire, but they could still be a fun way to show off VR to kids. It doesn’t look like the long-awaited Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine VR experience is a part of this app, but we hear it’ll be launching sometime soon for the HTC Vive.
Source: Steam
Walmart Pay launches across Texas and Arkansas today
Walmart’s mobile payment service is beginning a massive rollout today, with Walmart Pay launching at around 600 stores across Texas and Arkansas.
We first learned of Walmart’s impending mobile payment push last December, and the first rollout here is taking place five months later, with a full national release coming by the end of June. Previously Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma got a chance to try out the payment method before it came to Texas and Arkansas as well.
Walmart Pay will be available for all major bank cards and Walmart gift cards, tied into the existing Walmart app. Both iOS and Android users can utilize the new payment method by opening the app at a checkout, choosing “Walmart Pay,” and scanning the QR code that appears to connect to the service. After that, you’re sent a receipt in the app.
While Walmart Pay’s convenience echoes that of its competition, Walmart is quick to point out that this isn’t about remaining competitive with Apple, Google or Samsung, and instead it’s about getting customers to the store and improving their checkout experiences as a whole.
We’ve all been to a busy Walmart with one or two checkout lanes open as customers fumble with payments and lines back up across the store. This might be a step in the right direction for both consumers looking to consolidate their wallets and those looking to conduct even more business via their smartphones.
Source: VentureBeat
iTunes update delivers ‘simpler design’ with modest changes
Apple is still trying to figure out how to improve the usability of iTunes. Today, the company released an update that tweaked the interface a bit, adding a sidebar and media selection tool that make navigating through libraries a bit easier. That sidebar menu is the biggest and most useful change, bringing back a UI feature from older versions of the app. From there, you can easily edit playlists, drag and drop songs to build playlists and hide or expand parts of the menu.
There’s also a media selection drop-down up top that allows you to jump from music to movies, TV shows, podcasts and more. That change doesn’t really simplify things, it just hides the category icons that used to be always visible in menu that displays one at a time. It does tell you exactly what items you’re looking at with a glance.
One issue that hasn’t been fixed is where to find Apple Music. There’s no menu item specifically labeled for the service, but instead its pieces are separated in tabs For You, New and Connect in iTunes. While reports indicate that Apple Music’s app is in for a major redesign at WWDC, we’ll have to wait and see if that includes how you use the service on the desktop. We’d surmise that Connect tab won’t be around much longer, though, as the social features don’t appear to be very popular.
Today’s update to version 12.4 also mentions the usual generic bug fixes and performance improvements, but doesn’t specifically list the file-deleting bug users have discovered in iTunes. Apple confirmed the issue late last week and said that it was working on a patch to fix the issue. We’ve reached out to the company for confirmation on whether on not the problem has been resolved and we’ll update this post when/if we hear back.
Via: AppleInsider
Apple to Open First Apple Stores in India Within 18 Months
Following the Indian government’s approval of Apple’s request to open retail stores in the country, Apple is planning to launch three stores in India over the course of the next 18 months.
Apple will open Apple-branded retail stores in Delhi, Bangalore, and Mumbai before the end of 2017, according to a source that spoke to Indian website FactorDaily.
A team of more than 40 Apple executives and employees is said to be searching for ideal real estate locations for the three stores, each of which will span more than 10,000 square feet and will be located at “high street locations.” Apple is planning on investing $3-5 million per store.
At the current time, Apple has no retail stores in India and instead sells its products through third-party distributors in the country. India has decided to exempt Apple from a policy that requires foreign stores to source at least 30 percent of their goods from domestic suppliers, opening the door for the first retail stores.
While Apple will be able to open Apple Stores in India, a second request to import refurbished iPhones, which it could sell at lower price points, was recently denied. India, like China, is seen as a largely untapped market for Apple, and the company is eager to gain a stronger foothold in the country.
In addition to retail stores, Apple is planning to open a $25 million technology development site in Hyderabad, India, which will house more than 125 employees and focus on maps development. Apple is also said to be planning to unveil a startup accelerator in India, designed to incubate ideas for new iOS apps.
Tim Cook is planning to visit India this week, where he is expected to announce the accelerator and perhaps the new retail stores.
Related Roundup: Apple Stores
Tag: India
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Twitter Plans to Stop Counting Links and Photos in 140-Character Limit
Twitter has plans to stop counting photos and links within the 140-character limit allowed for each tweet, reports Bloomberg. Removing photos and links from tweets will allow tweets with media to contain more text.
At the current time, photos take up 24 characters and links take up 23 characters, eliminating 47 available characters when both are included in a tweet. Twitter is reportedly introducing the change to give Twitter users “more flexibility” after exploring methods that would allow users to include more text in tweets.
Twitter has made efforts to give users additional characters to work with in the past, implementing tweet quoting features, using link shorteners, and removing character limits from Direct Messages.
Twitter has included a 140-character limit since it launched in 2006, put in place to mirror limits on SMS messages. Reports in January suggested Twitter was considering eliminating the 140-character limit and allowing tweets to contain up to 10,000 characters as part of a project it called “Beyond 140,” but Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey later said the character limit would not be changed.
Twitter is expected to implement the change in the next two weeks.
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