disrupt

Annoyed theatergoer ejected after grabbing cell phone and tossing it

I think of it less as a cell phone than as a self-phone.

So in a land so fond of the individual's primacy over the group, it's inevitable that having a gadget that contains the whole of your life is more mesmerizing than, well, anyone else or anything else.

The proof of this in public places is constant. And yet some choose to fight back.

In the very latest incident of someone using a cell phone when they should have been watching a cultural performance, Kevin Williamson decided he'd do something about it.… Read more

Facebook endures hours-long outage in the U.S.

Many Facebook users in the U.S. are apparently having a hard time getting onto the social network.

Twitter is abuzz with user comments that Facebook isn't working for them. And, the site downforeveryoneorjustme.com is also reporting the social network is down. According to The Next Web, users from Texas to New York have complained of intermittent access. Many users have not been affected by the outage, however.

While the site is down for many people, mobile notifications seem to be working, as is the mobile site m.facebook.com.

Facebook has had outages here and there over … Read more

Amazon apologizes for Netflix's Christmas Eve streaming outage

Amazon has posted an apology for a disruption in its cloud services that hobbled Netflix's streaming services on Christmas Eve and said it is taking steps to prevent future disruptions.

Although Amazon's explanation of the outage didn't identify Netflix by name, the streaming service blamed Amazon Web Services last week for an outage that affected "many but not all devices" across the Americas.

"We want to apologize," Seattle-based Amazon said in its statement. "We know how critical our services are to our customers' businesses, and we know this disruption came at an … Read more

The evolution of Mark Zuckerberg as a leader

With Facebook's stock price crashing and employee morale sinking, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stepped up and delivered a home run he would never have been able to hit even just a year ago.

As you may know, Zuckerberg has been under fire the last few months for Facebook's plummeting stock price. A darling of Wall Street before its IPO, Facebook fell to half its IPO price in just a few months. As a result, a growing chorus of critics have called for new leadership at Facebook. Some have even called for Zuckerberg himself to resign.

While I've … Read more

MindMeld voice and video app instantly anticipates your needs

SAN FRANCISCO--A new iPad app announced today aims to give users instant contextual information based on nothing more than what's being talked about during a voice conversation.

Launched out of stealth today, the eight-person San Francisco startup Expect Labs unveiled MindMeld, an app designed to interpret what people using it are discussing and instantly deliver sharable useful information about it.

For example, explained Expect Labs CEO Tim Tuttle -- who previously built and sold video search engine Truveo to AOL -- if several people using MindMeld were talking about going out to a Blue Bottle cafe in San Francisco, … Read more

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong: 'We haven't won yet'

SAN FRANCISCO--AOL CEO Tim Armstrong said he's happy with his oft-troubled company's progress -- including a tripling of its stock over the last year -- but said there's much more to do. "We haven't won yet," Armstrong said.

Speaking on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt not long after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave his first live interview since the social networking giant's May IPO -- an event owned by AOL -- Armstrong told interviewer Michael Arrington that the company's comeback has been fueled by three main things: better internal operations; a focus on … Read more

An energized Mark Zuckerberg seeks to calm Wall Street

SAN FRANCISCO -- An energetic Mark Zuckerberg addressed a rapt crowd at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference here. The 28-year-old CEO wore his traditional gray T-shirt and sat on the edge of his chair as TechCrunch co-founder and angel investor Michael Arrington fired questions at him, starting with the botched IPO. Zuckerberg powered his way through the conversation, talking fast and confidently about the opportunities that lie ahead for Facebook and its investors.

While the hall was packed with techies and Zuckerberg had the hometown advantage, he clearly knew that he was talking to Wall Street -- and, by default, all … Read more

Zuckerberg calls Facebook phone 'the wrong strategy'

A Facebook-branded smartphone wouldn't make any sense for the company, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said once again on Tuesday.

In response to a question from moderator Michael Arrington at TechCrunch Disrupt, Zuckerberg said the long-rumored Facebook phone wasn't likely to spur significant new usage of the service.

A Facebook phone might draw 10 million buyers, he said -- a pittance compared with the 950 million users that the company is now approaching.

"It doesn't move the needle for us," he said.

In his comments, Zuckerberg echoed the thoughts of those who said Facebook's … Read more

ZeroUI promises hands-free 3D model creation

SAN FRANCISCO--Building 3D models should be something everyone can do. That's the pitch from ZeroUI, a Silicon Valley startup that has created a technology platform designed to let anyone create their own digital models, whether a robot, drum, table, or anything else.

The Cupertino, Calif., company is relying on gestural input technologies such as Microsoft's Kinect, and soon, Leap Motion's Leap controller, as well as systems built into some computers, to allow users to create their models with nothing but their hands.

The company's name comes from the fact that its system has an extremely minimal user interface. Rather than requiring users to understand the mathematics and physics of a model they might want to build, the ZeroUI system simply allows them to stand in front of the input camera and use intuitive hand gestures to craft their 3D model (see the video below). … Read more

Zuckerberg: Facebook to move into search

Here's a Tuesday afternoon headline courtesy of Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook search.

Speaking at TechCrunch's Disrupt conference, Facebook's CEO didn't get specific about the timing. But he left little doubt about the direction in which the company was moving:

"We do a billion queries a day and we aren't even trying. Mostly trying to find people or brand pages or apps. There is a big opportunity in search, evolving to giving a set of answers to a specific question and Facebook is uniquely positioned to do that. For example, 'Which of my friends or friends … Read more