Routehappy is about to launch a new way for travelers to search for flights — and TechCrunch readers can actually take a look now. The idea, as explained to me by co-founder and CEO Robert Albert, is to move beyond the focus on price and schedule that you find on every other flight search site. Sure, those things are important, but as I noted when Routehappy raised seed funding last year , when you suddenly find yourself stuck in a cramped seat without Wi-Fi, you realize that other factors matter, too. So Routehappy has built a big database of information drawn from “hundreds of sources” — including commercial data providers (mostly for on-time data), reviews, and the airlines themselves. It then looks at the various factors that a traveler might consider and combines them into a “happiness score” between 1 and 10. Read more »
Leap Motion Controller Ship Date Delayed Until July 22, Due To A Need For A Larger, Longer Beta Test
Leap Motion has just announced that its 3D gesture controller hardware ship date will be delayed, from May 13 for pre-orders and May 19 for general retail availability to July 27. The delay was caused by a need for more testing from the Leap Motion beta testing community, and an expansion of that group with additional members, according to Leap Motion CEO Michael Buckwald, who held a press conference today to discuss the missed dates. This is not good new for a company that has spent a lot of time promoting its product and securing high-level partnerships (with Asus, HP and Best Buy ) up until now. The hype that Leap Motion has been able to build only means that users will be more disappointed by any delays in its launch window, and the effect on public perception is certainly one the hardware startup would like to have avoided. Still, some 12,000 developers have received units and already used them to do impressive things , so Leap Motion is hardly in danger of being branded ‘vaporware’ as of yet. Leap Motion says it wants to make sure that the product they deliver is the best they can offer, and says that there is “nothing catastrophically wrong” with the hardware as of yet. The company believes that it could have shipped by the original date if it had really pushed things, but wanted to make sure that things were ready for prime time. The new July 22 ship date is firmly set, according to Buckwald, and this is “the first and only delay there will be.” When asked if there was a specific cause, Buckwald said it’s more about beta testing everything in general, but that there will definitely be a focus on getting more input on how customers interact with the product Read more »
Facebook Says It Was Victim of ‘Sophisticated Attack’
Facebook issued a statement on its official blog on Friday that it was hit with a "sophisticated attack" in January, but no user data was compromised. More About: Facebook , malware , Mobile , security Read more »
9 Tips to Stay Safe on Public Wi-Fi
Your bank calls you to verify your recent $750 bill at an out-of-state Taco Bell, but you haven’t left town in weeks. You quickly contest the charge and request a new credit card, but when you check your wallet the compromised card is still there. You try to think of shady ATMs or recent cashiers, but nothing comes to mind. Nothing, except the online purchase you made while browsing the Internet at your local coffee shop. The number of free public Wi-Fi hotspots is growing, but not every hotspot can provide the protection of a private home network. Your notebook, tablet or smartphone’s default settings and firewalls may not be enough to keep you safe from prying eyes while on… Continue reading... More About: free wifi , privacy , security , wifi Read more »
Kabam Enters 2013 With More Than A $200M Runrate Even As The Gaming IPO Window Seems Closed
Kabam, a midcore game developer that staged a stunning new chapter on mobile platforms, is out bragging about its expected revenues for the coming year . The company said it ended 2012 with gross revenue of $180 million, up 70 percent from the year before. Gross revenue is bookings, so it doesn’t account for the 30 percent platform cut that a provider like Apple, Google or Facebook would take. Kabam didn’t reveal its margins, except to say that the company was profitable (which I honestly hope should be the case for any mature freemium gaming company). Kabam was a pioneer in midcore freemium gaming on Facebook. Read more »
This Robot Security Portal Defends Against Terror Attacks
A newly patented revolving door can supposedly detect potential threats and prohibit them from entering a building. More About: Newsy , robots , security , videos Read more »
Security Loophole In Facebook’s Camera App Allowed Hackers To Hijack Accounts Over WiFi [Confirmed]
PSA to all Facebook Camera users on iOS: If you haven’t update you app in the past few days, update it now . The older version of the app, pre-1.1.2 and released before December 21, has a security loophole. When used over WiFi networks, malicious hackers can tap the network and hijack Camera users’ accounts, picking up information like email addresses and passwords in the process. The white-hat hacker who ID’d the problem is Mohamed Ramadan , an Egypt-based security researcher and trainer with Attack-Secure who has also found and reported vulnerabilities for Apple, Google, and Etsy — which apparently also had the same loophole in its iOS app. Ramadan tells us that the issue lied in the Camera app’s Secure Sockets Layer certification, which was too open. As he puts it, “The problem is the app accepts any SSL certification from any source, even evil SSL certifications and this enables any attacker to perform Man in The Middle Attack against anyone uses Facebook Camera App for IPhone. This means that the application doesn’t warn the user if someone in the same [WiFi network] trying to hijack his Facebook account.” Testing his theory by using a proxy to listen in on a WiFi network, he was able to type in his username and password into the Camera app, and then see that information appear via the proxy. Ramadan notes that he’s tested all Facebook apps and the rest appear to protect from this similar vulnerability Read more »
Keen On… John Borthwick: Why The Facebook-Instagram Deal Is The Most Important Tech Event Of 2012
What was the most significant tech event of 2012? No, neither Apple after Steve Jobs nor the Facebook IPO. Not at least according to John Borthwick , the CEO of Betaworks and one of the shrewdest observers of the tech scene. Borthwick came on my show to look backwards at 2012 and what he saw was mostly an abundance of tablets and the Facebook-Instagram deal. On the hardware side, Borthwick saw 2012 as the year of the tablet when “everyone gets a fucking tablet for xmas” and when mobile products become so ubiquitous that 2012 might be the last year when we even use the word “mobile”. But it’s developments on the software side that most intrigues Borthwick – who counted, amongst Betaworks’ most significant 2012 accomplishments, the acquisition of Digg. On the software side, Borthwick told me, the billion dollar Facebook acquisition of Instagram is critical for three reasons. Read more »
Instagram Will Basically Sign Your Life Away
Instagram appears to be going through a sea change in popular perception at the moment -- and not one for the better. First came founder Kevin Systrom's active and combative decision to cut support for Twitter cards , a move which seemed designed to anger and make less useful a service loved by many millions of his users. (Do you look at many Instagrams in your tweet stream these days? No, me neither. As I tweeted last week , it's like watching two old friends who aren't speaking pass in the street; strange and sad.) Was it retribution for Twitter daring to develop photo filters of its own, which also happened to come to fruition last week ? Nobody knows. Systrom j… Continue reading... More About: instagram , privacy , security Read more »