XING Founder Launches HackFwd, A Ycombinator Re-made For Europe
Like a Klingon starship de-cloaking in the middle of Europe, Lars Hinrichs the founder of LinkedIn competitor XING who exited for $58 million last year is putting his efforts onto a new startup investment vehicle dubbed HackFwd. But although the web site for the new venture is packed with advisors and mentors, HackFwd will take 27% of a company it invests in - that's a sizeable chunk.
Trazzler Gets $1 Million From Star Investors, Takes a Page From Twitter’s Playbook [Video]
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At first glance, Trazzler— a travel site that focuses on unique, local destinations— doesn’t seem like an obvious bet. With a handful of employees sprinkled across Florida, California, and Spain, it’s a small startup that operates in a highly competitive market.
23andMe Sends Wrong DNA Test Results To 96 Customers
Sending your spit sample to a startup may not seem like such a good idea, after all. On Friday, 23andMe, the company that allows consumers to get portions of their genome tested for a relatively modest fee, announced that “a number of new 23andMe customer samples were incorrectly processed” by the lab 23andMe contracts” to carry out its tests.
Pandora Working In The Background On iPhone 4. Awesome. [Video]
By now, you’ve undoubtedly heard about all the big features of both iPhone 4 and iOS 4 (the artist formerly known as iPhone OS 4, which we heard about previously). But something that Apple didn’t address too much today was a feature I’m most looking forward to: background tasks. I was pretty sure that being able to run apps like Pandora in the background while I do other things on the iPhone was going to be awesome.
iTunes 9.2 Coming Alongside iOS 4 — Yes, It’s Still Called iTunes
It shouldn’t be a huge surprise to anyone, but alongside the new iOS 4 (formerly iPhone OS 4) software launching on June 21, Apple will be releasing a new version of iTunes. I was told as much by an Apple employee during the hands-on time following the keynote at WWDC today when asking how certain new features would work.
Another Round Of Layoffs At Yahoo, Search Team Gets Hit
Yahoo has laid off part of its search team as part of a new restructuring move, we’ve learned. Yahoo declined to comment on the number of people who were affected, but did confirm that there were layoffs in its Search group and gave us the following statement:
We Lose A TechCruncher To Y Combinator
Damnit, a sad day at TechCrunch – we’ve lost one of our own, drawn by the allure of a startup to call his own. TechCrunch research analyst Dan Levine will be leaving us to start his own company as part of the next batch of Y Combinator startups. You’ll hear more about the company, which he is founding with David Fowler, in the coming months.
Twitter Looking To Hire A Government Liaison In Washington D.C.
According to a job post today, Twitter is looking for a government liaison to serve as a point person for the company in Washington D.C. The staff member will be the first D.C.-based employee for Twitter.
The post reads:
It Didn’t Make The Keynote, But Safari 5 Is Here (And Faster Than Chrome And Firefox)
One of the things rumored to be appearing during Steve Jobs’ keynote at WWDC today was the next version of Safari, 5. That didn’t happen. But Apple occasionally gives us some quiet surprises, and that appears to be the case today as Safari 5 is in fact being released — at least according to a press release.
AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui On The FTC, Competing With Apple, And Google’s Mobile Plans (Video)
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Today, I had lunch with AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui just before he went onstage at the CM Summit in New York City. The FTC finally approved Google’s $750 miillion acquisition of his mobile ad startup on May 27.
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