E-commerce

Peter Thiel leads $6M funding round for TransferWise

TransferWise, a London-based peer-to-peer currency exchange, announced Monday that it has closed a $6 million Series A funding round led by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures.

The investment in the company, which seeks to use the Internet to make it easier to transfer funds among currencies, marks Valar Ventures' first foray into Europe. Thiel, who was Facebook's first outside investor, was joined in the round by SV Angel and previous investors IA Ventures, Index, Seedcamp, and early stage investment firm TAG.

Coupled with a previous seed round, the recent investment brings TransferWise's funds raised to $7.… Read more

Amazon Glass: The ultimate shopping experience

Amazon is a company with a huge appetite. It first remade the publishing industry and extended it to online shopping services, rivaling Walmart and Costco, scooping up Zappos (shoes), and Quidsi (Diapers.com, Soap.com, Casa.com) along the way. Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos then turned Amazon's technology infrastructure into a massive side business, Amazon Web Services, and is taking on Apple, Netflix, and Google with music, streaming video, and original programming.

Then there is the consumer hardware, led by the Kindle e-readers and tablets. Amazon doesn't release numbers, but Pacific Crest's Chad Bartley estimates Amazon … Read more

Google Wallet chief Osama Bedier leaves company

The head of Google Wallet -- the Web giant's mobile payments initiative -- has left the company, Google confirmed Wednesday.

"We can confirm that Osama Bedier has decided to leave Google this year to pursue other opportunities," Google spokesman Nate Tyler said in a statement. "He's achieved a lot during his time here and we wish him all the best in his next endeavor. Payments are a big part of what people do every day, and we're committed to making them easier for everyone."

Bedier joined Google in 2011, leaving eBay's PayPal … Read more

San Francisco hotels pricey? Van on Airbnb is only $92 a night

You can rent a castle on Airbnb and a treehouse. Boats are popular, and there are plenty of farmhouses. So why not a van?

As reported on the SF.StreetsBlog, an enterprising Airbnb user in San Francisco has started advertising a 1990 Chevy Conversion van, offering the vehicle (with just 45,000 miles!) for only $92 a night.

One might think the nightly rate (which is more if you consider the service charge) is a bit much to pay to sleep in a cramped space probably better suited for a Scooby Doo video. But, as everyone knows, real estate is … Read more

Google, authors wrangle in court again over digital books

Google and the Authors Guild are wrangling in court again, with the latter asking for $3 billion in damages related to Google's digital books project.

Lawyers for the two companies on Wednesday presented their oral arguments in an appeal hearing related to class action status for the suit. A judge in the Second Circuit Court in New York last year had granted the Authors Guild the ability to sue Google as a group, but the search giant on Wednesday argued that such status shouldn't be granted.

The company in the past has cited a survey that showed more than half of the authors polled approved of Google scanning their books … Read more

Ford cars now sync with Amazon Cloud Player on iOS

Amazon's Cloud Player for iOS is now available in Ford Sync AppLink-equipped cars, a few months after the Android version hit the market, the Internet giant said Wednesday.

Ford owners can wirelessly connect the Amazon MP3 app on their iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch to the Sync connectivity system to access their entire music library using voice commands or dashboard controls.

Android users have been able to use the app in Ford cars since February.

Carmakers have pushed infotainment as one way to attract new buyers, and it allows app makers to reach consumers in more locations. Ford earlier … Read more

Senate passes Internet sales tax bill by 2-to-1 margin

The U.S. Senate on Monday approved a controversial bill by more than a 2-to-1 margin that would allow states to levy taxes on Internet purchases.

The Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to require online vendors to collect sales and use tax on certain out-of-state purchases, was approved in a bipartisan vote of 69 to 27. The bill, which already has the support of President Obama, will now move on to the House of Representatives.

If approved, the bill would overturn a 1992 Supreme Court ruling that found out-of-state retailers generally don't have to collect taxes unless … Read more

Deep breath: Senate set to vote on Internet sales tax

Many polls from the past few years have found that lawmakers in Washington, D.C. are just slightly less popular than catching the flu while on a beach vacation. Remarkably, the U.S. Senate could approve a bill this week that will likely make lawmakers even less popular with many online shoppers.

The Senate is expected to vote as early as Monday on the long-debated issue of an Internet sales tax. The bill being considered in Washington now would require online outlets with sales of at least $1 million to collect sales tax in all states, even those in which … Read more

Bitcoin exchange partnership dissolves with lawsuit

A Bitcoin exchange partnership designed to smooth the trading process and show the security of the virtual currency has apparently collapsed with a lawsuit.

After struggling to crack the U.S. market, Mt. Gox, the world's largest Bitcoin exchange, announced in February that it had reached an arrangement with CoinLab in which the Seattle-based startup would manage the Bitcoin exchange's operations in the U.S. and Canada. Along with the support of Silicon Valley Bank and $500,000 in VC funding, it was hoped that the arrangement would help increase customer confidence in the decentralized digital currency.

However, … Read more