Techmeme: The story of Boomtrain: one startup's struggle to survive the Series A crunch (Gideon Lewis-Kraus/Wired)

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April 27, 2014, 11:05 PM

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Jason Tanz / Wired:

How Airbnb and Lyft Finally Got Americans to Trust Each Other — In about 40 minutes, Cindy Manit will let a complete stranger into her car. An app on her windshield-mounted iPhone will summon her to a corner in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood, where a russet-haired woman …

More: New York Magazine, Sarah Perez and Fast Company

Tweets: @balajis, @pmarca, @epicureandeal, @lyft and @stevesi

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

RadiumOne Confirms That It Has Fired CEO Gurbaksh Chahal — RadiumOne just announced that its board of directors terminated CEO and Chairman Gurbaksh Chahal on Saturday night. The company said in an emailed statement that Chief Operating Officer Bill Lonergan will be taking over the CEO role.

More: Re/code, Wall Street Journal, NEWS.com.au, Forbes, Fortune, VentureBeat, BuzzFeed, Ars Technica, Valleywag, CNET, Business Insider, The Raw Story, PC Magazine, Mashable and Talking New Media

Tweets: @owenthomas, @jkrim and @danprimack

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

RadiumOne CEO Gurbaksh Chahal Says He Didn't Do It: “I Didn't Hit Her 117 Times” — It is hard to know where to start in this astonishingly vehement account that RadiumOne CEO Gurbaksh Chahal just posted on his personal site, titled “Can You Handle the Truth?,” in which he defends himself from charges of domestic violence.

More: Gurbaksh Chahal, TechCrunch, Fortune, TechCrunch, AdAge, bizjournals, Business Insider, thedrum.com, TechCrunch, San Francisco Citizen and Re/code

Tweets: @danprimack, @karaswisher, @danprimack, @shouviknyc, @ryanlawler, @graubart, @pkafka, @danprimack and @fmanjoo

Gary Kamiya / San Francisco magazine:

San Francisco Is Dead. Long Live San Francisco. — Yes, the city we know is going away. But, as has happened throughout its history, a new one will arise. Let's give it a chance. — In 1999, my wife and I saw a For Sale sign on a small house on Nob Hill, two blocks away from the apartment where we'd been living for years.

More: New York Times. Tweets: @elaineishere, @byjocelyn, @scottlucas86, @mattrosoff, @tedr, @dougw, @abrams, @abrams and @startupljackson

Gideon Lewis-Kraus / Wired:

The story of Boomtrain: one startup's struggle to survive the Series A crunch — One Startup's Struggle to Survive the Silicon Valley Gold Rush — It was an unseasonably warm December, and somewhere nearby a rising tide in the San Francisco Bay was lifting all kite-surfers …

More: Felix Salmon and Valleywag. Tweets: @kevinroose, @boltron and @carnage4life

The Atlantic Online:

Net Neutrality: A Guide to (and History of) a Contested Idea — This week, news broke that the Federal Communications Commission is considering new rules for how the Internet works. — In short: the FCC would allow network owners (your Verizons, Comcasts, etc.) to create Internet …

More: Vox, eWeek and Hit & Run. Tweets: @tonyromm. See also Mediagazer

Lee Fang / VICE:

Several key FCC staffers recently worked for ISPs who would benefit from net neutrality defeat

More: Trends, Digital Trends, Re/code, Boing Boing and GamePolitics blogs

Tweets: @kwerb, @lhfang and @jbrodkin

See also Mediagazer

Barbara van Schewick / Center for Internet and Society:

The FCC changed course on network neutrality. Here is why you should care.

Tweets: @kwerb, @camholm and @rsingel. See also Mediagazer

Benedict Evans:

Why iPad plateaued: tablets are eroding the PC market, but the smartphone is the transformative new category — iPads and tablet growth — Apple's revenue has pretty much stopped growing. This chart shows the quarterly revenue the company has reported - a series of ever larger spikes upward around …

More: Medium, TechCrunch, AVC, Stowe Boyd, Fortune, The Atlantic Online, Business Insider and 9to5Mac

Tweets: @benedictevans, @niallharbison, @joshconstine, @benedictevans, @nathanborror, @bertmmi, @pefnam, @dkthomp, @stevesi, @rjs, @borthwick and @rwd

Signe Brewster / Gigaom:

Rabbit Proto makes it easier to get circuits into 3D printed objects — Circuit printers and 3D printers are relatively accessible these days. Rabbit Proto, an open source project based out of Stanford University, wants to make it a little bit simpler to put the two together with a set …

More: TechCrunch, Computerworld, SlashGear, Tom's Guide, Geeky Gadgets and htxt.africa

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

Bitcoin Slips Following News Of Fresh Restrictions In China — Bitcoin, which has recently traded under $400 and over $500, shed more than 10% of its value over the past few days, falling from around $500 to under $440, before recovering slightly. — As has happened many times in recent months …

More: CoinDesk, Bloomberg, Forex Minute, Zero Hedge, Forex Minute and ForexNews.com

Lisa Fleisher / Wall Street Journal:

Duolingo Tests Waters with App-Based English-Proficiency Exam — Standardized testing may be headed to the smartphone. — A language-learning startup plans to offer an app-based English proficiency exam, challenging big test-makers that have long dominated the market.

More: Android Police, Slate, The Next Web, Gigaom, TechCrunch, PC Magazine and Fast Company

Tweets: @lisafleisher and @wsjd

Ms. Smith / Network World:

Microsoft warns Internet Explorer 6 - 11 vulnerable to zero-day spotted in the wild — FireEye researchers spotted a new zero-day in the wild, with all versions of IE vulnerable, but with IE 9 -11 being targeted for ‘Operation Clandestine Fox.’ — “Microsoft is aware of limited …

More: technet.microsoft.com, blogs.technet.com, Re/code, The Verge, NEWS.com.au, Ars Technica, Engadget, FireEye Malware …, Wall Street Journal, ZDNet, WinBeta, SecurityWeek, The Hacker News and Krebs on Security

Tweets: @ow, @dannyyadron, @cwarzel, @dangillmor and @startupljackson

John Zorabedian / Naked Security:

Viber images and videos were not encrypted during transit or storage, company says “issue has already been resolved” — Here we go again: Viber mobile messenger app leaves user data unencrypted — Viber, a mobile messenger app that allows users to make phone calls …

More: UNHcFREG, CNET, The Hacker News, The Register, Softpedia News, SC Magazine and Android Community

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