Online travel startup Airbnb just hired David Hantman to assist with governmental policies pertaining to people renting out their homes. At Yahoo, Hantman served as the VP of global public policy and the internet giant’s deputy general counsel. [Source AllThingsD]
Sources tell AllThingsD that Yahoo has offered to pay between $30 and $40 million for Xobni, a San Francisco startup that makes address book apps and plugins. [Source: AllThingsD]
The makers of ultra-tough Gorilla Glass are working on a bendable version of its product for touchscreen use. That’s what VP Dr. Waguih Ishak told a crowd at Bloomberg’s Next Big Thing Summit today. [Source: Business Insider]
In a push to get its new tablet into the hands of students, Microsoft is offering its Surface RT to schools for as little as $299, as long as they pick them up before September. The tablet normally runs for $499. [Source: The Next Web]
Smartphones are now scrambling to come up with new and improved anti-theft solutions. One that is being reported is a possible “kill switch” for Samsung phones that would be released in July. [Source: BGR]
Squrl, a video discover startup, has just updated its app for iPhone and iPad. The company claims this new version makes it easier for users to discover and share content. [Source: TechCrunch]
Wonder if the images you use in your website affect its rankings on Google search? According to Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, whether your images are stock or not does not affect its ranking outcome. [Source: Search Engine Land]
Kyocera announced today that it is supplying agricultural facilities with over 30 megawatts of solar power. The deal is reportedly worth 8.5 billion yen ($89 million). [Source: VentureBeat]
Reports are coming out that BlackBerry will be releasing three to four new models by the ends of 2013. This comes as the ailing smartphone company makes a major push to reclaim some marketshare. [Source: - CGW
Intel’s CTO has been talking about the big things the chip-maker has been working on behind closed doors. One new idea he detailed was a smart-watch where users could do perform tasks like texting. [Source: VentureBeat]
NetFlix has announced a new content deal with DreamWorks. This will include as much as 300 hours of brand new exclusive content onto the video streaming service. [Source: BGR]
Yabbly, a startup that offers consumers advice on a wide range of products, has announced an additional $500,000 in angel financing. That brings its total amount of funding as of now at $1.3M. [Source: GeekWire]
Digg has announced that its upcoming newsreader is slated to be released on June 26. This is just days before Google shuts down its Reader service permanently. [Source: BetaBeat]
Proformative, a company that makes solutions for enterprise social procurement, has just launched a new service called Proformative Exchange. This new platform supports “the consideration and selection of high-value, complex products and services for senior corporate finance executives.” [Source: PR Newswire]
Relationship Science, a startup offering an online database of the most influential “decision makers,” has just raised an additional $30 million. The company announced a $60 million round last February. [Source: Venture Beat]
Lone Signal, a project that will allow everyone to send messages into outer space and invite the wrath of our alien overlords hope that alien life will understand what the hell it is that they’re sending, will be used to send the world’s most boring GIF towards a solar system 17.6 light years away.
[Source: The Verge]
Need, a Dallas-based startup billed as a cross between a retailer and a men’s lifestyle magazine, has announced its closing of an undisclosed, “over-subscribed” seed funding round. The company will formally launch later this year on the Web and, later, iOS devices.
[Source: Venista Ventures]
Microsoft has updated Bing for Windows Phone’s voice search to make it more accurate and up to twice as fast at returning results, the company has announced. In other news, Siri is still a bit drunk and wondering why the two of you never talk anymore.
[Source: Microsoft]
Sprint has expanded its LTE network to another 22 markets — Miami, New Orleans, and Tampa among them — the company has announced today. The company plans to offer LTE coverage some 200 million people by the end of the year.
[Source: Sprint]
“As much as we all gripe about email, it is designed to be turned off. Email comes with the vacation-message feature that alerts senders to the fact that we are not available. We can set up forwarding rules that apply to different subsets of contacts. People trying to reach us aren’t left in the dark to assume we have met our demise, entered witness protection, or placed them on a no-reply list of enemies. Email lets us leave.”
— Baratunde Thurston after an email-slash-Internet sabbatical
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