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Google acquires Gecko Design for its Google X labs

Aug22
by on August 22, 2014 at 6:22 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Design & Dev, Google

When you’re trying to change the world, it’s important that the products you create actually look nice. To that end, Google has acquired hardware design firm, Gecko Design for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition was confirmed on Gecko Design’s site with the company’s President, Jacques L. Gagne, stating, “This is an incredible opportunity for everyone at Gecko. We are very excited and honored to join Google(x) and work on a variety of cutting edge projects.” Google X is responsible for Google’s moon shot products including Glass, the upcoming driverless car and Internet-by-balloon Project Loon. It is run by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. ➤ Gecko Design…

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Here are the tasks startup CEOs should always outsource

Aug22
by on August 22, 2014 at 5:49 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Entrepreneur

Video thumbnail for vimeo video Wake is a beautiful iPhone alarm clock that lets you slap, flip, shake and swipe your

Mikita Mikado is the co-­founder and CEO of electronic signing software PandaDoc. This article was co-written by Christy Delehanty, the Content Manager at PandaDoc. “There isn’t enough time.” It’s a common complaint. A familiar refrain reverberating through the startup world, picking up volume as it swells to a more-or-less deafening roar in Silicon Valley. It’s “go, go, go” in startup land. And whether you’re just beginning to bootstrap or hustling to get funded, your time is your most valuable asset. Still, the thrifty culture and informal atmosphere keeps many founders and CEOs locked in DIY day in and day out. But if you’re…

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An incredible music scene is growing inside Vine

Aug22
by on August 22, 2014 at 4:46 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Investigations, Profiles and Interviews, Social Media

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Eric Nakassa was lying in bed when the notification came through. Ahead of everyone else, the team at Vine had chosen his clip as an Editor’s Pick. The decision meant his loop was suddenly visible to almost every user of the app, triggering an explosion in views. “I couldn’t believe it,” he says wistfully. “I looked at it gaining thousands of likes every ten seconds and I was just speechless.” Eric is one of many talented musicians to have embraced Vine, the bite-sized video-sharing app owned by Twitter. The platform is still in its infancy, with no native advertising and…

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Coin is recruiting 10,000 more testers for its much-hyped smart payment card

Aug22
by on August 22, 2014 at 4:00 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Gadgets, Insider

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While other companies are looking at NFC (Near Field Communication) and QR codes (Quick Response Code) to replace all the cards in your wallet, the user-backed Coin aims to replace all your swipeable cards with a single smart card. The company is announcing, CoinBeta and expanding is its beta testing pool to 10,000 users. Currently, 1,000 users in San Francisco are testing the card. The new users will help Coin test the product against more POS systems to better understand how users will interact with the card in the wild. According to Coin, the card works in 85 percent of locations in San Francisco. So…

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Secret to block posts naming ‘private individuals’ after closing 42 privacy holes this year

Aug22
by on August 22, 2014 at 3:32 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Insider, Product Updates

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Anonymous sharing app Secret is getting a raft of updates designed to make sharing secrets on the platform easier as well as more private following the news that it had 42 security holes that could potentially have disclosed user’s real identities. Announced today, the incoming update (due today for Android users and next week for iOS devices) outright blocks “posts containing names of private individuals whenever possible”. The company says that the best Secrets shared on the network rarely have names in them, so it makes sense to block them in order to encourage more interesting posts. What isn’t clear is whether it…

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