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Google Ventures introduces a site and book to help make your startup’s product better in 5 days

Jan30
by on January 30, 2015 at 10:47 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Google, Insider

Are you putting together a startup based on a weird idea you had while drinking with friends? Well if you are, you should check out Google Venture’s site about a five-day process for answering “critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers.” Called the Design Sprint, the site and upcoming book are meant to help new companies really focus on what it is they’re building. The process was used by startups like Next, Blue Bottle Coffee and Foundation Medicine so you know it works. Well at least it worked for those companies. Regardless, it looks like a…

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Must-see: ‘The Queen of Code’ gives the lowdown on Grace Hopper, who should be a tech household name

Jan30
by on January 30, 2015 at 10:38 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Shareables

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Considering the scandalous lack of women entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, and the debased treatment some receive in the industry, it can be hard to remember that women helped form the backbone of computing when it mattered most. ‘The Queen of Code,’ a brand new 16-minute film from actress Gillian Jacobs, serves up a humorous and inspiring reminder that there is indeed a Mother of Computing. Her name was Grace Hopper: mathematics professor, US Navy Admiral, instrumental in creating the first compiler and the COBOL programming language, popularizing the terms “bug” and “debugging” and much more in her long career. Starting in World War II, the US…

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Uber scores well in independent privacy review, but is tightening employee training and data access

Jan30
by on January 30, 2015 at 8:59 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider

Barcelona Cabs Strike Against Uber Taxi App
In case you’ve forgotten, Uber had a terrible PR week last November. One of its executives suggested hiring “opposition researchers” to fight back against negative press, and the company admitted to employees accessing its user data. Uber tried to win back some trust by hiring a private law firm, Hogan Lovells, to review and improve its privacy practices. Today the company is making the results of that internal review public. In short, the firm gave Uber a good score. Hogan Lovells suggests “Uber has dedicated significantly more resources to privacy than we have observed of other companies of its age, sector, and size.” That…

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Facebook is improving the News Feed by directly questioning real-life testers

Jan30
by on January 30, 2015 at 8:29 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider

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The News Feed is probably Facebook’s most important asset, and there’s no doubt the company spends a ton of money researching algorithms to feed you optimal content. But it turns out algorithms may not be enough – sometimes asking real people direct questions yields better results. According to Backchannel, since News Feed’s inception in 2006, Facebook has realized that simply observing reactions to a user’s feed and counting likes and shares does not fully correlate with whether people are enjoying the content they’re fed. A News Feed Project Manager made the analogy of feeding people donuts. If you bring me donuts,…

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The free Windows 10 upgrade offer doesn’t extend to Enterprise

Jan30
by on January 30, 2015 at 8:20 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Design & Dev, Windows 10

Everyone got excited when it was announced at the Windows 10 event that users of Windows 7 and 8 would be able to upgrade to Windows 10 for free for one year. Unfortunately, Windows 10 for Enterprise customers won’t be able to partake in all the freeness. Microsoft’s General Manager of security, Jim Alkove wrote in a post about the security of the upcoming Windows 10 for Enterprise: Windows 7 Enterprise and Windows 8/8.1 Enterprise are not included in the terms of free Windows 10 Upgrade offer we announced last week… Bummer. But if you’re using Windows 10 for Enterprise, you…

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