Pebble Adds Bluetooth Smart Notifications For All Apps On iOS 7, Gives Devs More Tools With SDK 2.0

Pebble's creators didn't just make a functional smartwatch when they designed their device, they packed it with a lot of potential for the future, too. Much of that potential has lain dormant while Pebble focused on ramping up production and building an enthusiastic community of dedicated independent developers, but today, the startup is activating some more of its smartwatch's superpowers, and laying the groundwork of the next generation of Pebble apps. iOS 7 Notification Updates For users, the immediate benefit of this announcement is that the latest firmware adds full integration with iOS 7, and no hassle notifications via third party apps, configurable via Notification Center settings. Any apps that you've enabled Banner notifications for in iOS 7 on your iPhone (any model with Bluetooth 4.0), will now show notifications on your Pebble, too. In practice, I had to reconnect the second Pebble that shows up in your devices menu under Bluetooth in Settings (which is the BLE connection) once to get this to work consistently. The notifications work very reliably, though in the version I tested there were some issues with some primary apps like Mail sending duplicate notices. Pebble says it's aware of both issues and working on a bug fix currently, however. And despite some growing pains, the changes are tremendous for iOS users. On Android, of course, Pebble has always been able to support third-party notifications, but on iOS, at best you needed to implement workarounds, and really there was no generally satisfying option. Now, I'm getting Skype, Hangouts, Twitter and many more notifications direct to the watch without any fiddly changes to existing settings. Bluetooth Smart (or Bluetooth 4.0, or LE or what have you) was always built-in to Pebble, so whether you've got a Kickstarter edition, one from Best Buy or one ordered direct, you'll have that ready to go. I spoke with Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky, who explained that they developed a way to use Bluetooth 3.0 to connect to devices for more appropriate tasks for that tech, like updating firmware and controlling the iOS music player, and Bluetooth LE for thing like notifications and other lightweight tasks. The combination should help the Pebble continue to enjoy long battery life, all the while improving general functionality. Pebble SDK 2.0 The update for iOS users is just one of Pebble's big announcements today; the other is aimed at developers, as the startup introduces version 2.0 of its SDK for building Pebble apps. So far, even with the limited tools provided for making crude apps and watchfaces, developers have created 2,200 apps on MyPebbleFaces.com, and uploaded over 80,000 watchfaces on the community-built watchface-generator.de. There are already over 50 companion apps designed to be used with Pebble on iTunes and Google Play, and over 10,000 individuals Pebble classifies as developers for its platform. Version 1.0 of the SDK was little more than a testbed, however, and 2.0 opens up many new possibilities, according to Migicovsky. That's because it unlocks various Pebble components that make building apps native to the watch much easier, including access to its onboard accelerometer, data storage, and logging of activity which it can automatically report back to an app once the watch reconnects to a device. These features mean that Pebble can act as a fitness tracker for any app that wants to use its data – and unlike APIs from Nike, Jawbone and others, the data isn't pre-formatted, so devs get access to raw activity information that they can parse using whatever algorithm they choose – including some that may be more accurate that those currently employed by competitors. All of a sudden, Pebble isn't just a smartwatch, it's a flexible smartphone accessory that any developer can make their own. Plus, there's a new JavaScript API that means developers can build software that works regardless of what platform (Android or iOS) a Pebble owner is on, instead of having to recode for each. “Our attitude is that we as a company are not necessarily going to be the ones writing the hero apps all the time for Pebble,” Migicovsky explained. “But it's our job to make sure that for a third-party developer, they can get started as easy as possible, building apps that could potentially be equivalent to other pieces of hardware. Maybe the next person that comes up with a fitness tracking algorithm at Stanford, MIT, Harvard or wherever, instead of having to go start their own hardware company, can just walk down to Best Buy, grab a Pebble and get started.” Big Name App Partners Since its launch, Pebble has had interest from big companies who want to integrate their products or services with the platform, but Migicovsky says they were waiting for the right moment to start bring those on board. The new SDK means that they've been able to work with some early partners to build products that complement some top-tier apps, including Foursquare and Yelp. The Yelp Pebble app will offer up listings for nearby locations to check out, and the Foursquare one actually allows you to check in direct from the smartwatch itself, which should help Foursquare drive more active engagement for its service among Pebble users. Other partners include iControl, which is building remote control of Xfinity home monitoring and automation services for the watch, and GoPro, which is making it possible to completely control its Wi-Fi-enabled GoPro action cameras from your wrist via Pebble. These initial partners aren't launching their apps immediately, but they'll be available sometime over the next few weeks. More info on SDK news can be found via Pebble's announcement livetsream, going on right now. Now that Pebble has fulfilled the backlog of early demand it faced, and shipped over 190,000 Pebble watches to backers and buyers, and released a mature software development framework, I asked Migicovsky what's the next phase for the company, suggesting new hardware product might be on the horizon. Predictably, he wouldn't speak to future product plans, but instead pointed to the chance the company has now to build a true software ecosystem, and make those apps easy to access for users. When asked whether he was working with third-party portal like MyPebbleFaces to make that happen, he said that they were indeed speaking to them directly, but that there's nothing more to announce at this time in that regard. With a community built-in, however, bringing MyPebbleFaces in-house to form the foundation of a software marketplace makes a lot of sense. Taking The Next Step Pebble is also now back in stock on the website, and for a limited time, is being offered in all colors with free worldwide courier shipping. This should make it so that anyone can get one in around four or five days, Migicovsky says. Catching up with demand is good for consumers, but it also means Pebble is facing a new challenge: After satisfying initial appetite, it now needs to bring consumers back to the table for the rest of the meal, and the announcements today are designed to help do just that.

what3words Raises $500K Seed For Its Location-Pinpointing Push To Reinvent Postcodes

London-based U.K. startup what3words has closed a £500,000 (circa $800,000) $500,000 seed round of financing from a group of angel investors, including Shutl's Guy Westlake. The startup launched an ambitious bid to reinvent ZIP codes/postcodes back in July using location-pinpointing alternatives made up of a combination of three words - such as meowing.creatively.drives or lung.lots.transmitted - each representing a 3m x 3m square of the globe. (Any serendipitous poetry generated by what3word's location marking linguistic algorithm is entirely accidental.) what3words' premise is that words are easier to share and memorise than ZIP code style strings of letters and/or numbers. The accuracy level of its word trios can also be greater than some postcode/ZIP code areas, with the startup promising accuracy to the nearest two metres. And even to the nearest metre if you're prepared to get out your wallet and pay for that portion of its offering. what3words began monetising its linguistic location markers immediately by selling personalised combinations of words - confusingly called OneWords - to anyone (consumer or business) that wants to badge a particular location so it stands out in a map search. Or becomes easier to remember. Pictured below is an example of one of these OneWords being used to mark out a building on The Strand in London - and also what looks to be an example of brandsquatting on the service, unless TechCrunch has a London office that I didn't know about… OneWords currently have to be at least six characters long, and can be a single recognisable word (if it's not already claimed) or a customised string. Anything presumably goes - although, despite the above example, directly infringing others' IP is explicitly disallowed in what3words' T&Cs - so long as the string is not obviously offensive. what3words claimed to have sold 10,000 OneWords a week after launching, priced at £0.99/$1.50 per year. Today it said it's now sold 25,000 OneWords after around four months up and running. It's also had some 12,000 app downloads and 200,000 unique visits to its website since launching the service on July 2. It said the new funding will be used for “developing the platform to be used by businesses” - but declined to provide further details, saying only that “several discussions” are going on in the ecommerce space. It's notable that OneWords currently have a six-letter character cap in place. Opening up even shorter OneWords could be one premium revenue stream it's considering. Also today, what3words has released its first API to encourage developers and businesses to start using, and therefore spreading, its location pinpointing tech. Simplified postcodes are only going to be useful if enough people realise they exist and start using changing their location-sharing habits. Commenting on the funding in a statement, Shutl's Westlake said: "what3words shares much in common with Shutl, not least the fact that they both straddle B2B and B2C markets. I believe it's a very exciting space to be in, and am delighted to put my experience to use and help the team navigate the challenges ahead." what3words said Westlake brings “relevant recent experience” to its business. Westlake was a founding team member at Shutl and also one of its earliest investors. Shutl, a UK-based courier marketplace that delivers local goods within a couple of hours of an online purchase, was acquired by eBay last month - to help it expand its same-day delivery service, eBay Now, to the U.K.

De Blasio’s NYC Will Be A Grand Experiment In Tech For Equality, But Startups Lose

New Yorkers have just voted to conduct a grand experiment in whether innovation can help the least among them. Jolly Green Giant look-alike and newly minted Mayor-Elect, Bill De Blasio, has indicated that he will leverage the Big Apple’s government to promote financial equality, diversity and inclusion, instead of cheerleading disruptive startups. In a not-so-subtle reference to outgoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s pro-business agenda, De Blasio said, “If we were to continue this status quo, some would do very very well, and others would be priced out or left out.” The tech sector is often criticized for favoring rich founders and apps to solve yuppie problems, rather than helping out the poor. I’ve written before that there is a fundamental philosophical difference between politicians who promote equality and those who want disruptive innovation. De Blasio’s administration won’t be an exception to that rule, but his willingness to embrace technology may finally prove that innovation can be used to help out the 99%. Participatory Budgeting and Transparency De Blasio is a big fan of direct democracy over the budget. So-called “Participatory Budgeting” lets all new yorkers vote directly on spending priorities at the polls, just like they do with a referendum. Participatory budgeting has the wonderful side-effect of allocating funds to marginalized communities; in Brazil the process led to a decrease in infant mortality rates, because, it turned out, poor mothers have a better idea of what is killing children than the government [PDF]. San Francisco will be the first major city in the U.S. to test out fully online participatory budgeting, and we expect its east coast counterpart will follow suit. In another example of using open government for equality, De Blasio has spearheaded a data transparency initiative to name and shame slumlords into abiding by their contracts. Sharing Economy’s Enemy De Blasio has not shown that he’ll be a fan of startups, such as Airbnb and Uber, which threaten unionized industries. When asked whether room-sharing startup Airbnb should be allowed to continue to operate in New York, De Blasio told an online forum on Reddit.com, “While I appreciate the potential of the sharing economy, and I do think there’s some historical precedent, the challenges posed by AirBnB today are real, in terms of safety, public tax revenue, etc.” That’s politician speak for ‘They’re going to get regulated and I’m siding with unions’. Uber too, may lose out. When asked about the taxi unions vs. ride-sharing apps, De Blasio told The New York Times, “I want to make sure it’s done in a way that doesn’t undermine the economics of the current industry.” That’s in stark contrast his predecessor, who reportedly threatened to “fucking destroy” the taxi industry. Q: Where Does The Money Go? A: Access “I would like to see our subsidy dollars, used more often than our lines of credit and our equity funds created, that will actually help minority and women owned business in the tech sector that want to go out farther into the five boroughs,” he told a crowd during a “Tech Meetup”. This embed is invalid According to the new mayor, that means pushing Internet service providers to bring broadband all over the city. Bloomberg lavished startups with tax breaks. De Blasio has called for an end to some corporate tax breaks. De Blasio has promised to extend $100 million in investment to startups, prioritizing those that meet a “double bottom line” of social impact and profit [PDF]. Oddly enough, the tech companies that De Blasio touts in his campaign literature–Buzzfeed, Google, and Huffington Post–would probably not meet that criterion. De Blasio also wants to focus on the community college system, rather than the big universities (which arguably are better on breakthrough innovations and have historically been tied to the rise of major tech clusters). I predict that De Blasio won’t be a friend to the tech industry (he might even be an enemy). But, he might just trailblaze a new mission for technology, and that’ll be very exciting to watch.

San Francisco Chronicle President Joanne Bradford Joins Pinterest As Head Of Partnerships

According to a report by All Things D, which Pinterest has now confirmed, San Francisco Chronicle president Joanne Bradford is joining the social sharing startup as its head of partnerships. The company says she will be focused on “both commercial and content partnerships globally,” which will have her developing partnership strategies and overseeing the sales organization, said ATD's sources on the matter. Bradford will report to Don Faul, Pinterest head of operations when she starts in December, they said. Her role will also give her influence in helping determine the products Pinterest develops for its advertiser partners. Today, Pinterest is only beginning to experiment with bringing in revenue. The company just last month launched its first ad product in the form of “Promoted Pins,” for example. These are paid placements that allow retailers and other businesses to have their pins appear within Pinterest's search results and category feeds. Prior to the Chronicle, Bradford was chief revenue and marketing officer at Demand Media, and worked in senior revenue roles and media roles at Yahoo and Microsoft. Her time spent in the industry makes her a valuable addition to the startup as it tries to make good on what's now a massive $3.8 billion valuation, thanks to its recent funding round of $225 million. As we previously noted, Pinterest may have to try some non-traditional means to earn enough money to justify the investment. Instead of charging for impressions or mobile clicks alone, it may need to think about a revenue-share model instead, where it gets paid for leading users to buy things on advertisers' e-commerce sites, after users first find those items on Pinterest.

New Google Maps For Desktop Brings Back Pegman, Adds Waze Data And 3D Earth Tours

Google today launched an update to its new Google Maps for desktop that brings traffic data from Waze to the desktop for the first time (it's already integrated into the mobile Maps apps). This integration will bring information about traffic incidents, construction zones and road closures from Waze, which Google acquired earlier this year, to Google Maps on the desktop. In addition, this update makes it easier to find Street View imagery on the new Google Maps. For the most part, this feature was hidden in the new version and users had to click on a road to bring it up. Just like in the old Google Maps, you can now drag and drop the Google Maps Pegman onto any road again and bring up Street View. The only difference is that Pegman now lives in the bottom right corner of Google Maps and not the top left. As you zoom in, Google Maps will also highlight indoor business photos and user-uploaded pictures, including photo spheres. Street View itself is also getting a new feature: you can now get step-by-step direction cards that show you every stop of your route using Street View imagery to give you a preview of your route. With this update, Google is also pushing the idea of the “tour guide” feature in Google Maps for mobile forward by introducing a new “Earth Tours” feature that, just like the tour guides, auto-generated 3D tours right in Google Maps. It's not clear why Google decided to give this feature a new name, though. It's essentially the same experience as the tour guides on mobile. On the desktop, however, this feature is only available in WebGL-enabled browsers.

Google Says Its Mystery Barges May Be Used As Interactive Space Where People Can Learn About Its Technology

Google has issued a statement (finally?) about its months-long mystery barge project. The barges, which are anchored in both Portland, Maine and San Francisco, have been the topic of intense interest since multiple reports surfaced last month. A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch that the barges are ‘an interactive space' to teach people about its technology: Google Barge … A floating data center? A wild party boat? A barge housing the last remaining dinosaur? Sadly, none of the above. Although it's still early days and things may change, we're exploring using the barge as an interactive space where people can learn about new technology. The statement matches up with sources we spoke to last week, who were still uncertain about the exact uses that all of the barges would be put to in the end. A report by The Los Angeles Times' Chris O'Brien last week noted that most of the reporters going after this barge story had been looking at the wrong San Francisco lease. O'Brien noted that the correct lease's purpose is the "fabrication of a special event structure and art exhibit only and for no other purpose." A story from CBS KPIX outlined a luxury showroom with a ‘party deck' up top and spaces below for retail stores that could showcase Glass and other Google products. The barges, four discovered in all (going by registration numbers) at this point, are floating structures that comprise shipping containers, which Google has a history of using in its data centers. The current structures are said to have large windows cut in them, which could form a presentation space. As we mentioned last week, having a physical demonstration location for products like Google's head-mounted Glass computer would make sense. Effectively demonstrating their capabilities is key to getting any widespread adoption rolling. The construction of the barges is said to be designed with portability in mind, allowing the components to be moved on land or sea. The project is supposedly a product of the experimental Google[x] labs headed by company founder Sergey Brin. The story was broken widely by Cnet, which speculated that they could be water-borne data centers. But, the LA Times report noted that the report was actually chasing the wrong lease, one that was signed on August 1st, while work on the Google barge began last year. A report from The Verge last week noted that the Treasure Island barge will likely be towed across to Fort Mason for display once it's completed.

The Snapchat Co-Founder Lawsuit Drama Drags On

Snapchat is in the middle of its own epic founder lawsuit, Facebook-style. Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, CEO and CTO respectively, are being sued by their former classmate Reggie Brown, who claims to have come up with the idea for disappearing messages and helped start the company. According to new information filed on October 23 by Brown, Snapchat investors are also being sued by Brown. In June, Snapchat received $60 million in funding at an $800 million valuation led by IVP, with participation by General Catalyst and SV Angel. Brown claims that he is owed part of that funding. Earlier filings from Brown indicate he also feels entitled to a full one-third of the company, now valued around $3 billion to $4 billion. The amended complaint, which tells Brown's entire side of the story from app inception to what his lawyer's refer to as the “betrayal” in August of 2011, also indicates that Snapchat really was created with the intent to sext, contrary to more recent statements from Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel. Though he never states it implicitly, this latest filing (from October 23) includes an email sent from Spiegel to a professor who had conducted research on sexting, asking for feedback. Spiegel has said before (in an article for The New Yorker that the idea came about when a friend of his said “I wish these photos I am sending this girl would disappear.” Though it's never been confirmed, given other information about the case that has since trickled out, that friend may very well have been Reggie Brown. Of course, just because Snapchat was potentially built as a sexting app, that doesn't mean its troves of users (sending over 300 million snaps per day) are using it predominantly for sexting. However, it does clash with statements from Spiegel claiming the opposite. This latest filing also uncovers other emails from Spiegel describing an app he built with two of his friends, wording that was later switched to just one friend after Brown's alleged removal from the company. Brown also submitted a conversation between Spiegel's father and Brown's mother during the time that Brown claims to have lived with Spiegel and Murphy in Spiegel's home. That home was located on Toyopa Drive, and the company was originally re-named Toyopa Group LLC from Future Freshman, a failed venture between Spiegel and Murphy. Of course, Spiegel and Murphy haven't told their side of the story yet, so it's unfair to judge the situation just yet.