News - JELLY !

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone launches social search app 'Jelly' SAN FRANCISCO: One of the creators of Twitter Inc unveiled a new mobile service called Jelly on Tuesday,hoping for another hit product in what has become an increasingly crowded field of social and mobile products. The Jelly smartphone app seeks to improve the way people search for and find information, by querying people instead of Internet search engines."Everyone is mobile, everyone is connected. So if you have a question, there's somebody out there that knows the answer," said Biz Stone , the CEO and co-founder of Jelly in a video on the company's website. Stone was among the team that in 2006 created Twitter, the social network and microblogging service that had a blockbuster initial public offering in November. Shares of Twitter, which has more than 230 million monthly users but has yet to earn a profit, have surged about 145 per cent from their offering price. Stone left Twitter in June 2011. Among the backers of the new company are Twitter co-founders Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams , venture capital investor Reid Hoffman , as well as U2 frontman Bono and former Vice President of the United States Al Gore. The new service, which is available free for devices based on Apple's iOS and Google Inc's Android operating systems, lets users submit questions to the network of friends that they have on social services such as Twitter or Facebook Inc. Users can send a text query or circle something in a photo they've taken to ask for help identifying the object or for more information about it. Jelly became available for download on Tuesday. A number of other services including Quora, founded by former Facebook employees, Ask.com and Yahoo Inc's Answers also let users query people for more information. Many people also use Facebook to get recommendations and questions answered by their friends.

News - Facebook !

Facebook acquires Bangalore based Little Eye Labs The news is out. Facebook has acquired Banglore based Little Eye Labs, a company building performance analysis and monitoring tools for mobile app developers. The acquisition has been confirmed on the website of Little Eye Labs. The acquisition is an obvious indicator of Facebook's mobile ambitions, which have been on the strategy tables since 2013. When it comes to access via mobile devices, Facebook has lagged behind rivals like Twitter. This is the first Indian acquisition by Facebook, and is being touted as a door opener. "We're acquiring Little Eye Labs, a company that produces world-class technology to help developers build more efficient products with Android, " said Facebook engineering manager Subbu Subramanian. He said Facebook is focused on producing useful and engaging mobile apps. "The Little Eye Labs technology will help us to continue improving our Android codebase to make more efficient, higher-performing apps," said Subramanian. Other acquisitions Facebook has made to strengthen its mobile products include Parse, a mobile-backend-as-a-service startup it bought in April 2013. Facebook also recently made an unsuccessful attempt to buy instant messaging firm Snapchat, which reportedly turned down Facebook's $3 bn offer. Both the companies did not reveal the financial details of the transaction, but according to people familiar with the development, the deal is worth Rs 62 crore-Rs 93 crore. Little Eye Labs team will move to Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, where it will build analysis tools to help develop apps. About Little Eye Labs Little Eye Labs was founded in May 2012 by four Bangalore-based technology professionals--Giridhar Murthy, Kumar Rangarajan, Satyam Kandula, Lakshman Kakkirala after working at companies such as Apple, IBM, HP and Yahoo. "This has been a fun and exciting journey. We're eager to be working alongside the incredible team at Facebook,"said Kumar Rangarajan, chief executive of Little Eye Labs. "And together, we'll continue on our mission of building awesome analysis tools to aide in the development of brilliant apps." Little Eye Labs has received seed round of funding from GSF Superangels and VenturEast Tenet Fund. Good news for Indian tech startups "This acquisition is a transformative deal for not only the Indian startup ecosystem but also for the whole of the emerging world," said Rajesh Sawhney, founder of GSF Accelerator."This validates GSF's core tenet that Indian product startups are now ready for a global play." Experts hope small-size technology ventures in India will attract the attention of larger firms. "This acquisition is an indication of what will be happening this year. We will see many sub $40 million (Rs 248 crore) kind of deals," said Sharad Sharma co founder of software product think-tank iSpirt. "Smaller exits are the life blood for healthy startup ecosystems like in Israel and US," said Sharma who is running an active M&A Connect Program at iSpirt that is curating a list of several dozen companies. In 2013, there were 100 merger and acquisition deals across the India's information technology industry. Of this, 31 whose value was announced were worth $1,906 million (Rs 11,807 crore), according to research firm Venture Intelligence. (With inputs from ET Bureau)

News - Hacked !

Hackers hit two popular apps The new year started off a bit rocky for popular apps Snapchat and Skype after security breaches last week caused an uproar among social media users. More than 4 million Snapchat user names and user phone numbers were compromised and posted in an online database by unknown hackers, while Skype’s social media accounts reportedly suffered at the hand of the Syrian Electronic Army. A post on the official Skype Twitter page said no user information was compromised as a result of the virtual attack, while the Snapchat Twitter account and blog remain silent. The website hosting the online database of Snapchat numbers and user names posted the area codes of numbers gathered during the breach, but no Mississippi area codes were on this list. Snapchat hackers have blurred out the last two digits of the phone numbers collected, but could potentially release the original file to interested parties in the future. Those who have been affected by the data breach have a few options — the first is to delete the Snapchat application. Though this will not take the phone number or user name out of the database, users can delete their accounts by visiting support.snapchat.com. Take note that deleting an app from a smartphone does not mean that the account has been deactivated. The second thing affected users can do is request a new number from phone providers. This is a good thing to look into as Constellation Research Principal Analyst Steve Wilson told USA Today that phone numbers can be an asset to criminals in social engineering attacks. Though these breaches are not the fault of Snapchat or Skype users, there’s still a lesson to be learned. Not everything users think is private is actually private. Especially online or on web-based applications. Users should always demonstrate caution when sharing private information with apps, websites and even people on a daily basis. And that bit of advice about changing user names and passwords regularly? Follow it. Constantly updating log-in information can make it more difficult for hackers to access accounts. Other things to ask before surrendering personal information: • Is this a secure website or app? • Have I read the privacy policy to assure my information will remain private? • What information am I asked to provide? • Is the information I’m providing relevant to the purpose of the website or app? Users should also be aware of what information they are allowing on public forums. Phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, etc. can add enough value to the information criminals need for compromising users’ identities. With this type of technology becoming increasingly popular and more of a staple in modern society, now is the time to take steps toward being a safer virtual consumer. USA Today contributed to this report.