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Europe has its fair share of hub cities for Internet tech, but it wasn’t a startup from London, Berlin, Stockholm or Dublin that won the European Commission’s Tech All Stars competition yesterday. Instead it was Trustev, based in Cork on the south coast of Ireland that took the prize.

Now in its second year, Tech All Stars was launched as part of a wider drive for the European Union to officially recognize the work of Internet tech entrepreneurs. The competition saw 300 entrants whittled down to 12 who took part in a pitching competition in Berlin earlier this month. Three finalists; Trustev, EcoChain and Snap Fashion, then went on to the Founders Forum event near London yesterday, where a panel of judges selected the winner.

We covered Trustev in February this year when it raised $300,000 in funding for its ‘social fingerprint’ service that uses online account information to help online retailers determine whether potential customers are trustworthy.

All three finalists were awarded €10,000 ($13,335) worth of Amazon Web Services and access to the exclusive Founders Forum event to mingle with A-grade entrepreneurs from around the world. Trustev will now go on to present at the European Commission’s Digital Agenda Assembly in Dublin next week, where decision makers and members of the tech community from across the EU will gather to discuss Europe’s digital future.

Tech All Stars is part of a wider drive by the European Commission to support Internet entrepreneurship in the EU. Other initiatives include the recent Europioneers ceremony, a European ‘Leaders Club‘ and the forthcoming Eurapp workshop. By way of disclosure, I was a member of the panel that selected the final 12 startups for Tech All Stars but had no say in the selection of the final winner.

Image credit: AFP/Getty Images

The Xbox One, Microsoft’s upcoming gaming console, might not receive support in countries where the platform hasn’t been launched officially, reports the Verge.

On the Xbox’s Product Pre-order Information Page, the company states that the console “Requires broadband internet (ISP fees apply), a Microsoft account and an account on Xbox Live in an Xbox One-supported Xbox Live country/region.”

We already knew about the broadband Internet connection, but the notion of an “Xbox One-supported Xbox Live country/region” appears to be an additional restriction on the console’s functionality.

The page lists 21 countries deemed “Xbox One-Supported Xbox Live Countries,” and then states, “Xbox One games are for activation and distribution only in specified geographic regions.” The countries are:

• Australia
• Austria
• Belgium
• Brazil
• Canada
• Denmark
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Ireland
• Italy
• Mexico
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Norway
• Russia
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• United Kingdom
• United States

The Verge’s correspondence with Microsoft seems to imply that users in any country not listed will be unable to use the Xbox One, even if they use a foreign account.

Meanwhile, on Microsoft’s Xbox Support 2 Twitter account, the company has sent mixed messages to followers.

@jarydavis That is not recommended or supported. ^RH

— Xbox Support 2 (@XboxSupport2) June 14, 2013

 

@ElieZzzz No official info has been released regarding a region lock. There are currently speculations going around…^ML

— Xbox Support 2 (@XboxSupport2) June 14, 2013

On the one hand, using a US-purchased Xbox One in Japan is “not recommended or supported.” On the other hand, “no official info has been announced regarding a region lock.”

Microsoft has attracted controversy for its restrictions on the Xbox One, and also for the relative lack of diplomacy they’ve shown when confronted by skeptical fans. At E3, Xbox representative Don Mattrick bluntly told users that if they wanted a Microsoft console that could function without Internet connectivity, they ought to stick with 360. Last April, the company suffered from a PR blunder when a representative responded tersely to similar complaints.

The Xbox One is set to be released in November and will retail at $499. It will face competition from Sony’s PS4, which will retail at $399 and features no restrictions on old titles, regional access, or connectivity.

The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 were definitely the main event at E3, but there were plenty other interesting reveals at the show. Here are some of our favorites.

Titanfall

Titanfall is a multiplayer shooter with mechs and the first game from Respawn Entertainment, the new independent studio from Call of Duty creators Jason West and Vince Zampella. The gameplay demo, which used Xbox One-specced PCs, was the most thrilling moment of the show for me.

Going into the demo, I was curious to see how the balance between the mech and solo pilot modes would be. I left impressed. The pacing of the game is incredibly fast, and the addition of mini-thrusters and wall-running give the pilots a chance when they’re up against enemy mechs.

Expectations are dangerously high for this title, but West and Zampella have the credentials to pull it off. Assuming that the final version lives up to the promise of the demo, this game is going set the new standard in first-person shooters.

Titanfall drops onto PC, Xbox One and Xbox 360 next spring.

Disney Infinity

Disney’s upcoming collectible-based cross-franchise game universe might seem like it’s just for kids, but adults are going to love this too. The company isn’t usually one to mash up its franchises (Kingdom Hearts being a notable exception), so seeing all the different characters in Toy Box Mode is a blast.

John Day, a producer with Disney Interactive, described the project as an effort to recreate the “universal truth of fun” that comes from playing with toys. Most of us probably mixed together different figurines when we were kids, and, starting this August, we’ll be able to do that virtually as well.

Starter kits will retail for around $75 and will provide three single-franchise campaigns and their respective figurines: Mr. Incredible from The Incredibles, Sully from Monsters University and Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean. Each character will come with its own 10 to 15-hour single-player campaign and will also be playable in Toy Box Mode.

The campaign mode, which is a combination of action-adventure and platforming, would be a solid standalone game on its own with a few interesting uses of the portal technology, but the real fun is going to come when players begin creating and sharing their own toy boxes. Disney has built a simple trigger-based language that should make for some really interesting possibilities.

Disney Infinity is coming to Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U and Wii. In an added bonus, Toy Box sharing will be cross platform.

The company doesn’t yet have plans to include content from the Marvel and Star Wars universes, but representatives kept it open as a possibility. Mobile integration would also be a nice touch for the platform, but it’s starting out just on consoles.

Battlefield 4

Electronic Arts wowed at its press conference with its highly-coordinated 64-player Battlefield 4 demo. Things got a little chaotic once gamers started playing the mission, but the ambition and scale of the game is still noteworthy.

There’s still a lot of work that developer DICE needs to do for Battlefield 4′s gameplay to even come close to living up to EA’s dramatic E3 performance. The truth is, though, that my friends and I have a lot of training to do too if we want to pull off in-game stunts like shooting the ground out from under a tank.

Rocksmith 2014 and BandFuse: Rock Legends

I already gushed about these games in a separate post, but Rocksmith 2014 Edition and  BandFuse: Rock Legends were a big highlight for me at E3. There’s a rare sense of wonder that comes with playing these titles. It might not be for everyone, but Rush did after all call living in the limelight a “universal dream”.

Elder Scrolls Online

The Elder Scrolls franchise has a loyal enough following that the massively multiplayer entry is going to make some people very, very happy when it arrives. The hands-on demo set in Daggerfall had a traditional RPG feel to it, with the occasional multiplayer coop.

Bethesda did, however, show a clip of a massive multiplayer battle and PvP action, so there’s still plenty of hope that ESO will manage to combine the depth of the single player Elder Scrolls with the unique interactivity of a MMORPG. You’ll just have to wait until next year to find out.

Quantum Break

I’m still not entirely clear on how Remedy plans to connect its upcoming time-manipulation game/show, but I’m definitely intrigued. The Xbox One title will come packaged with a season of live-action TV that will morph as you make decisions during gameplay. It’s certainly an interesting experiment, and I hope they manage to pull it off so that we see more projects like this in the future.

Image credits: iStockphoto, EA, Disney

Microsoft, Yahoo and Google and others were tarred by PRISM after exposed for providing data to the US spying program, and that’s helped lesser search rival DuckDuckGo record its best-ever day of traffic with 2.35 million search requests made on Wednesday.

For those not familiar with it, DuckDuckGo provides ‘private’ Internet searches. That means that the company does not track users in the same way that the big listed above do, and is instead focused purely on results. It does serve Google-like ads, but without the customization.

As VentureBeat reports, Wednesday’s haul was an impressive 26 percent rise increase on the number of searches made via the service one week previous.

DuckDuckGo’s own data – includes a refreshing transparent set of statistics showing traffic broken down by daily and monthly rates – shows a consistent rise in usage in recent times. It racked up its first million search day back in February 2012.

That growth isn’t solely down to PRISM-related privacy concerns, since DuckDuckGo has been ramping up its media efforts of late. The service was recently profiled in the Washington Post and founder Gabriel Weinberg appeared on CNBC in April and Bloomberg this week.

Speaking in the later interview, Weinberg claimed that it was “a myth” that Google made money by tracking people on search.

[Google] needs to track you for another reason, they have all these other services — Gmail, YouTube, etc — that they have trouble monetizing. They use your information there to serve ads for you across the Web.

As a result of its non-tracking policies, DuckDuckGo has no issue with PRISM or other government orders, he furthered explained:

If the FBI or NSA comes to us, we have nothing to tie back to you.

Weinberg says around half of DuckDuckGo’s users are based in the US, with most of the rest based in Europe. The company has multiple servers based worldwide, and has attracted investment from Union Square Ventures — raising a $3 million round in 2011.

Image credit: Picsishouldshare / Flickr

In what seems to have garnered precious little attention, Sweden’s data protection agency earlier this week ruled to (again) disallow an agreement between a tiny municipality and Google for the use of cloud services, such as Google Apps, within the public body.

The Swedish data regulator had requested changes in the agreement between Google and the municipality of Salem in order to comply with local privacy laws. On Monday, the bureau said a new deal between the two parties came with “the same shortcomings”, however.

This resulted in a ban (PDF), although it may still be lifted in the future.

Simon ‘the privacy surgeon’ Davies highlighted the news yesterday, calling it a ‘landmark ruling’, because it effectively applies an immediate ban on Google cloud services across all Swedish municipal authorities which, by default, extends to national government departments.

He writes:

The ruling – which bans Google cloud products such as calendar services, email and data processing functions – is based on inadequacies in the Google contract.

A risk assessment by the Board determined that the contract gives Google too much covert discretion over how data can be used, and that public sector customers are unable to ensure that data protection rights are protected.

The assessment gives several examples of this deficiency, including uncertainty over how data may be mined or processed by Google and lack of knowledge about which subcontractors may be involved in the processing. The assessment also concluded that there was no certainty about if or when data would be deleted after expiration of the contract.

In a statement given to PC World, Google said believes that “Google Apps complies with Swedish law” and that they will “continue to work with all involved parties”.

We’ve reached out to Google to see if they have more to share.

Not the first time

The move itself isn’t unprecedented in Northern Europe: Norway’s data protection authorities outlawed the use of Google Apps by municipalities for nine months straight before lifting the ban in September 2012 (following a ton of deliberations and some changes from Google’s side).

Spain has also bumped heads with Google over data protection and privacy concerns earlier this year.

The bigger picture is Google’s increasing number of run-ins with local government bodies across Europe – and the European Commission. Last year, the latter proposed comprehensive reforms to strengthen online privacy rights across the board — changes that could have significant repercussions for US tech companies with operations in Europe.

Evidently, that group includes Google, which has also come under intense scrutiny from the European Commission in recent times for the way it presents search results, and the way it handles user data (etc.).

The proposed ‘modernization’ changes to EU data protection and privacy laws resulted in a massive lobbying campaign by US policy makers and a host of American companies aimed to water down the amendments and reduce its impact, much to the dismay of privacy groups.

As Davies points out in his blog post, the decision in Sweden will likely be monitored very closely by other data regulators across Europe, as well as the European Commission.

Image credit: Thinkstock

Interview Master, a Bangalore-based app that screens job candidates, has received a round of funding from Indian venture capital firm VentureNursery that will allow it to expand globally, Tech in Asia reports.

Companies can use the software to streamline the entire job application process, from the initial job posting to the final selection of candidates. The core of the service, however, is its management of job interviews.

HR departments can submit pre-recorded and customized interview questions to candidates, who then respond through video as if the interview were live. The recruiters can then collect the videos and evaluate them. Once a candidate is selected, Interview Master collects a fee based on the total number of interviews conducted.

Interview Master has a chart comparing traditional face-to-face interviews with its own recruitment solutions on its website. There, it admits that its method of conducting interviews through canned, pre-recorded questions lacks spontaneity, but argues that this prevents charismatic candidates from unduly influencing the recruitment process.

Interview Master also offers a practice interview service for candidates who want to sharpen their skills, as well as a platform for college admissions consultants, which recalls the China-based Initial Views (though that firm focuses exclusively on Chinese students).

While job hunting has evolved in such a way that tools like LinkedIn and Twitter are now essential, the traditional face-to-face interview has not yet been optimized by Web 2.0 services (save for Skype and other video-chat platforms).

As Interview Master claims it can save firms up to 80% in time and cost, if HR departments are comfortable sacrificing intimacy for efficiency, Interview Master could see itself becoming a popular platform across many industries.

Note: This post was initially published stating that Interview Master is based in Bangladesh, but it is in fact from Bangalore, India. We quickly removed the error, apologies for any confusion. Image Credit: Chris Hondros/Getty Images

It’s been a week since leaks of the US government’s PRISM spying program, and information on how the government works with tech companies continues to unfurl. In the latest twist, Bloomberg reports that Microsoft shares details of software flaws with US agencies in advance to aid their cyber-espionage activities.

Microsoft’s software is installed on the systems of countless companies — big and small — and governments worldwide so the claim is not to be taken lightly.

The news agency claims that the ‘heads-up’ is provided to authorities before Microsoft publicly announces software vulnerability and issues. That’s significant because it ”can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes”, according to sources familiar with the process.

The report further claims that other software and Internet security firms provide similar details to the US government.

Two anonymous US officials suggest that the companies are aware of why the government requests the information, but — due to the top-secret nature of the situations — they are unable to query how the information is used. Either way, officials would not be able to explain the motivations on account of the law.

Microsoft has — in part — acknowledged that it supplies such information. Company spokesperson Frank Shaw said the tip-offs give the US government “an early start” to patching its own systems.

Bloomberg further explains that “some U.S. telecommunications companies” freely provide US officials with data that requires a court-issued warrant. It’s alleged that such arrangements are struck at a high level, with few individuals aware.

Intel-owned McAfee is specifically cited as an example. Bloomberg explains that the government would agree to a deal to get specific data at CEO level, with perhaps a small technical team involved in the process to complete the request.

The US government has balked at the prospect of Chinese telecoms equipment makers like Huawei and ZTE gaining traction in the US over fears of cyber-spying, so it’s a little more than ironic to hear speculation — from multiple sources — that the US taps into its own software makers to access information overseas.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden this week provided the South China Morning Post with information that he claims showed that the US has targeted and hacked into Hong Kong-based systems and data centers.

Headline image via Shutterstock

Norwegian browser software company Opera has opened a regional head office in Singapore today as it seeks to extend its reach in the Asia-Pacific region with a focus on developing its advertising business.

Opera already has a presence in Asia — with offices in China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan — but the new Singapore office will be home to its  operator and advertising business, technical support, and marketing activities across the region.

Citing the increasing amount of time people spend online via their mobile phones, and given the large number of mobile-only consumers in Southeast Asian countries (such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam), Opera says the mandate of the new base is working with operators and advertisers to help them reach more mobile Internet users.

Fabrizio Caruso, Opera’s Senior Vice President for Asia will head up the Singapore presence, and he explains: “We plan to use our Singapore office as a hub to fuel the mobile Internet and advertising economy in APAC.”

Opera’s plan isn’t altogether surprising for many reasons. Chiefly because Singapore is widely recognized as a hub for Southeast Asia, it is already home to many international tech firms, including Facebook, Twitter, Google, Airbnb and Uber.

This year Opera consolidated its advertising business after combining the various units it has acquired in recent years to create Opera Mediaworks, a fully-owned subsidiary, that it says is the world’s largest mobile ad platform. More than advertising, Opera is interested in the business of getting new Internet users on to the Web, and few regions are bursting at the seams like Asia.

The company says it has already partnered with 17 mobile operators in Asia to roll out co-branded Opera Mini browsers coupled with data plans, in a bid to bring more people online through their mobile phones.

Earlier this month, Opera also announced a new version of its Opera Mini browser, targeted at the low-end mobile phone sector and that is likely to be among the services that it places greater emphasis on in Asia-Pacific.

With the opening of the Singapore office, Opera now has a total of 17 offices around the world, which house more than 900 employees.

Headline image via Opera

Norwegian browser software company Opera has opened a regional head office in Singapore today as it seeks to extend its reach in the Asia-Pacific region with a focus on developing its advertising business.

Opera already has a presence in Asia — with offices in China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan — but the new Singapore office will be home to its  operator and advertising business, technical support, and marketing activities across the region.

Citing the increasing amount of time people spend online via their mobile phones, and given the large number of mobile-only consumers in Southeast Asian countries (such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam), Opera says the mandate of the new base is working with operators and advertisers to help them reach more mobile Internet users.

Fabrizio Caruso, Opera’s Senior Vice President for Asia will head up the Singapore presence, and he explains: “We plan to use our Singapore office as a hub to fuel the mobile Internet and advertising economy in APAC.”

Opera’s plan isn’t altogether surprising for many reasons. Chiefly because Singapore is widely recognized as a hub for Southeast Asia, it is already home to many international tech firms, including Facebook, Twitter, Google, Airbnb and Uber.

This year Opera consolidated its advertising business after combining the various units it has acquired in recent years to create Opera Mediaworks, a fully-owned subsidiary, that it says is the world’s largest mobile ad platform. More than advertising, Opera is interested in the business of getting new Internet users on to the Web, and few regions are bursting at the seams like Asia.

The company says it has already partnered with 17 mobile operators in Asia to roll out co-branded Opera Mini browsers coupled with data plans, in a bid to bring more people online through their mobile phones.

Earlier this month, Opera also announced a new version of its Opera Mini browser, targeted at the low-end mobile phone sector and that is likely to be among the services that it places greater emphasis on in Asia-Pacific.

With the opening of the Singapore office, Opera now has a total of 17 offices around the world, which house more than 900 employees.

Headline image via Opera

Dropbox, the incomparable file hosting service, posted a brief notice on its blog today introducing a minor but useful new feature – link sharing from one’s desktop.

Now, when users right click on any file stored in Dropbox from their desktop, they’ll see the option “Share Dropbox Link.” Clicking will provide users with hyperlinks that can then be copied and pasted.

Here’s how it works in practice (pic from the Dropbox blog)

Updates that eliminate a few short but tedious steps tend to excite users of any service, and the comments section of the Dropbox blog page is already brimming with enthusiasm for the new feature.

Within the past month, Desktop has introduced two other features that streamline its overall functionality. Last week the company rolled out an experimental photo-transferring feature, and in late-May it introduced single sign-on for Dropbox for Business. The steady stream of updates confirms that the company isn’t content to sit pretty as it faces competition from Google Drive, iCloud, Box, and Windows Skydrive.

Dropbox has a base of over 1oo million users, and over 1 billion files are shared through the platform daily. The company is rumored to be preparing for an IPO later this year.

 Top image credit: ilamont/Flickr    

That didn’t take long. Today, Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) filed suit in the Southern District Federal Court in New York, asking the court to set rates for Pandora’s online radio business, on behalf of its “600,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers.”

The long-standing fight between Pandora and those who control music copyright took a new turn yesterday, when Pandora announced in an op-ed published in The Hill that it had purchased a small terrestrial radio station - KXMZ-FM of Rapid City, South Dakota – in a bid to pay royalty rates in line with other, traditional radio stations.

Pandora, in its post, stated that it is being forced through “discriminatory treatment” at the hands of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). The company, in a list of grievances, stated that it was being subjected to “discriminating in license fees and terms between Pandora and other similarly situated licensees such as Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio.”

So, Pandora bought a small radio station that has its boots on the ground, so that it would no longer be an online-only provider of radio, but instead a more traditional, hybrid provider. As quoted in The Hollywood Reporter, BMI’s not taking too kindly to the move: “Pandora’s stunt makes a mockery of the performing rights licenses and the rate court process.” Well then.

BMI claims that it offered Pandora fair rates that were refused. Pandora, in a statement claims that “Pandora offered to pay ASCAP higher rates than it currently pays, but ASCAP refused, choosing instead to enable the publishers to try to extort even higher rates through a scheme of ‘selective withdrawals.’”

That this is going to court isn’t a surprise. Pandora, to its credit, pays a massively higher percentage of its revenue to copyright holders than other radio services, including, it claims, other online-only providers.

The KXMZ maneuver might not work, but Pandora is going to have its day in court. Again. According to Casey Newton on the Verge, Pandora provided comment that it looks “forward to the court’s oversight of this matter.”

Here’s BMI’s press release regarding its suit:

Broadcast Music Inc (BMI) filed an action in New York City today asking the Federal Rate Court to set royalty fees for internet radio service Pandora on behalf of the organization’s 600,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers.  The action asks the court to set reasonable, market driven fees for Pandora after negotiations did not result in an agreement.  BMI represents the public performance copyright interest of its affiliates when their works are played across all venues including the internet, cable, broadcast television and radio, satellite and in nightclubs, bars and other commercial establishments.  BMI negotiated the first music industry blanket copyright license agreement for the performance of music online in 1995.  Today, there are approximately 10,000 digital properties covered by BMI licenses.  This is the first time the organization has resorted to litigation on fees in the digital arena in the 18 years since it signed the first music industry copyright license for the performance of music on the internet.

Top Image Credit: Erwin Bernal

Let’s play the ‘clear the channel’ game: Teachers that attended the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference are eligible to receive a free Microsoft Surface RT device. The giveaway isn’t too surprising, but its scale is, as it could amount to 10,000 tablets.

Assuming that Microsoft is giving away the cheapest Surface RT configuration, sans luxuries such as Touch Covers, the total MSRP of the handout would total $5 million. That’s a bit of coin.

The teacher deal isn’t the only bit of work that Microsoft is doing to clear the current channel of Surface devices. In late May the company offered blistering discounts to attendees of TechEd North America:

• Surface RT 64GB with touch cover bundle for $99.99 USD
• Surface Pro 128GB standalone for $399.99 USD

That sale is being repeated at TechEd Europe, with the following discounts in place:

• Surface RT 64GB standalone (with FREE touch cover) for €79.99 for EU customers and £69.99 GBP for UK customers
• Surface Pro 128GB standalone for €349.99 for EU customers and £299.99 for UK customers

Here’s the kicker: those deals are not just open to fully paid up attendees of TechEd Europe, but also to press, third-party staff, and students. In short, if you are even in the vicinity of TechEd Europe, you can get your mitts on some cheap Surface action.

Why is Microsoft doing all of that? There are two options, as far as I can tell. Either Microsoft has surrendered the Surface line, and is simply giving away the final units as it hands its head in shame and exits the OEM stage, or it is simply clearing channels as it prepares for new, or updated models. The first possibility isn’t happening, so we are left with only a single idea.

Do we have any evidence for the latter? Yes. As TNW reported before, Microsoft is slowly rolling out higher-capacity Surface devices, including a 256GB model in Japan. It isn’t hard to imagine that those expanded units will hit other shores as well. Thus, the smaller, earlier devices have to go. And what better way to lower supply than hand the hardware to teachers – good press, and a nice thing to do – and sell the rest at fire sale prices to technology-related folk.

TNW reached out to Microsoft for note on what the apparent channel clearing and was given the following statement from a spokesperson:

Similar to other product lifecycles, these offers are in response to the positive reaction we’ve had from Surface customers since its launch in October, and our goal is to help as many customers as possible experience all the benefits Surface has to offer. We have nothing to share about future Surface plans.

That statement says nothing at all. Whatever the case, look for larger capacity devices in the near future.

Top Image Credit: Vernon Chan

JustGiving, the online platform for donating to charities, has simplified the process for giving cash from a mobile phone  in the hope that it will encourage future repeat donations.

The new ‘one-touch’ donation process was announced by the London-based company on Thursday.

Lee Marshall, Product Manager at Just Giving, said the the way that people donate is changing and that “more than ever, people want to give wherever and whenever they want, on any device”.

Instead of having to tirelessly re-enter details and select your preferences every time you want to make a donation from a mobile (or tablet), the one-touch process remembers your details and choices making things a whole lot less laborious, which JustGiving hopes will encourage repeat donations.

“Our next challenge now is to encourage mobile donors to give more, and more often, to their favorite causes,” Marshall added.

For UK donors it also provides a simplified but officially recognized Gift Aid process, which the company believes will increase Gift Aid reclaim on mobile “across the board”. Gift Aid in the UK can provide charities with an extra 25 percent on top of donations, a sum that comes from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

While JustGiving helps charities all over the world, the company itself is a for-profit organisation that was established in 2000. It makes its money by charging a fee of between two and five percent on donated Gift Aid once it has been received, meaning the charity gets the full donation from the individual, plus the remainder of the gift aid. It also charges charities a flat £15 per month fee for access to its platform and technology.

The redesign of the system follows a huge growth in the number of people using the service on a phone or tablet. In fact, just a few months ago in April 2013 the company saw its first month where mobile usage overtook the desktop. It estimates that by as early as next year around 70 percent of its traffic will come from mobile users.

Image Credit - Suzanne Tucker / Shutterstock.com

After hitting $3.6 million in revenues and raising $7 million earlier this year, tech education startup Treehouse announced that it has passed 35,000 users and is launching a new points system to help users track their progress.

While gamification has lost its luster as a buzzword, Treehouse has seen quite a bit of success with its badge-based courses. The site, which offers everything from Android and iOS development guides to lessons on the principles of design, has seen its total user-base grow by 47 percent this year. Currently, 98 percent of Treehouse’s users are paying members.

Diving into the points system, Treehouse tells us it was created to “help students compare their progress with each other and also help them see where they’ve done the most learning.” You can see the points system in action on user profiles like this one.

While points could help the company juice its growth stats, Treehouse tells us its mission is grander; it envisions that points will eventually “help potential employers see quickly how skilled Treehouse users applying for jobs are.”

This concept isn’t far off from what Mozilla hopes its Webmaker Badges will become, and it makes quite a bit of sense, too. Alternatives to traditional, university-style education continue to emerge and appear to be growing at a rapid pace; as adoption grows and standards are set, services like Treehouse could help hiring companies measure the skill levels of potential employees.

Image credit: CARL COURT / Getty Images

The legal battle over PRISM and the NSA’s phone records program is only getting under way, but advocacy groups are striking while the issue is hot. Stop Watching Us, a website that encourages citizens to digitally sign a letter that will be emailed to their elected representatives, today passed the 100,000 signature mark.

That milestone, passed this morning, comes less than 48 hours after the start of the program. Currently Stop Watching Us has collected 112,279 total signatures. A quick multiplication indicates that 336,837 emails will be generated, at a minimum; each person has two Representatives and one Senator.

The quick pace to 100,000 does belie the fact that many Internet-savvy individuals are unsettled about the NSA’s activities. Reaction to the revelations in the Guardian and the Washington Post have ranged from outrage, to shaken heads and statements of ‘what else did you think they were doing?’

Still, the issue of mass data collection of citizen activity – as in the case of the NSA’s collection of a record of every phone call placed in the United States – has become part of the current national discussion. Criticism has been sufficiently withering that the NSA has stated that it intends to declassify some information regarding the programs that have become common knowledge.

Stop Watching Us is more than concerned individuals. It’s publicly backed by dozens of companies, privacy advocates, and legal groups. At a minimum, people opposed to the NSA’s activities will be noticed.

For notes on the ACLU’s lawsuit challenging the NSA, head here.

Top Image Credit: ttarasiuk

BlackBerry today released the much-anticipated beta release of the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps and Plug-in for Android Development Tools for BlackBerry 10.2. That’s a mouthful, but all you really have to know is that the new version adds the Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean runtime; you can download the latest release now directly from BlackBerry Developer.

One of the biggest gripes with the Android runtime on BlackBerry 10 and the BlackBerry PlayBook is that it’s still using the ancient Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread version, which was originally released back in December 2010. At BlackBerry Jam Europe in February, BlackBerry announced it would be updating the Android runtime to support Android 4.1 Jelly Bean (June 2012). Now it has delivered, and with the latest Android 4.2 Jelly Bean release to boot (November 2012).

BlackBerry promises that all the features that were previously available in Gingerbread will continue to be supported, but additional Jelly Bean-specific features have also been added. These include fragments, embedded fragments, animation framework, and hardware acceleration.

In short, this is excellent news for both developers looking to port Android apps and users who will be using them. The better Android apps look and function on BlackBerry, the more of them will be ported and the better the overall app experience will be on BlackBerry.

Again, this is still the first beta, and BlackBerry wouldn’t say how many more betas it has scheduled. The company wouldn’t offer a date for when the gold release would be available, including support for Jelly Bean in the BlackBerry 10.2 device simulator, though it did vaguely say “later in the summer.”

Developers will want to check out the release notes for both the BlackBerry Plug-in for the Android Development Tools and the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps.

See also – BlackBerry is finally taking BBM cross-platform, launching on iOS and Android this summer and Review: With its US launch, can the Z10 save BlackBerry from itself?

Top Image Credit: Chris Denham

Today grocery delivery service Instacart announced a new service, Instacart Plus, a shopping option that has prices competitive with local stores. The company now claims to be “the least expensive option for grocery shopping, period.”

Previously, Instacart delivered groceries from stores such as Whole Foods and Trader Joes’s at a small premium. That price differential is a key element of Instacart’s business model, and is in my estimation how its unit economics function. Instacart Plus is cheaper than normal store prices, with delivery priced in keeping with other Instacart offerings; you won’t pay a higher fee to shop using Instacart Plus.

Instead, you’ll simply pay less for your groceries. How can Instacart offer lower prices on the 10,000 items that comprise Instacart Plus? The company keeps tabs on the price of goods across the community, including at discount stores and other outlets. When a user shops the Instacart Plus store, prices reflected are those that are the cheapest around; Instacart essentially takes all the effort out of comparison shopping, executing the task for you.

Now, some specialty items aren’t part of Instacart Plus. If Trader Joe’s has something unique that you need, you’ll have to snag it from that store specifically, and Instacart will happily bring it to you.

TNW spoke with Apoorva Mehta, founder and CEO of Instacart about Plus. He described it as a way to reach more price-conscious customers; Instacart as a company wants to become “the Amazon of groceries,” according to Mehta. To do so, it must reach more than the wealthy.

I gave Instacart Plus a spin – I use Instacart’s regular options frequently – and found it be as usable as the standard option of selecting a store, Safeway for example, and shopping from it directly. Plus, however, does have fewer images of items. If you don’t know precisely what you want, that could be an issue.

Instacart recently expanded to Oakland and Berkeley. The grocery delivery space is heating up, with Amazon expanding its Fresh service to Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2013, and as many as 20 markets in 2014.

Top Image Credit: Mo Riza

Today, following a closed-door session with part of the House, General Keith Alexander stated that he wishes to declassify some information regarding NSA programs that store phone record data, and also collect Internet usage information.

Alexander, current head of the NSA, claims that his agency has “pledged to be as transparent as possible” regarding the programs. He wishes to “provide the American people the information” that can be shared.

However, there are strong caveats to what may be shared. The general went on to say, as quoted in Politico, “[w]e don’t want to cause a terrorist attack by giving out too much information.” That sounds slightly overwrought, but it’s worth noting that the NSA recently stated that the above mentioned programs have been dramatically effective:

[At] a hearing on Capitol Hill, the director of the NSA made a new claim that will alter the debate concerning pervasive collection of phone call metadata, and PRISM, a program to track Internet usage. The director stated that the two previously secret programs have, as Reuters reports, “helped to prevent ‘dozens’ of potential terrorist events.”

The President had claimed before that a single terror event had been compromised by PRISM, a program that tracks Internet usage and information. Others have disputed that claim, calling PRISM in that case superfluous, and nonessential.

Politico goes on to state that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers hopes that the information comes out within a week. The reason for that is obvious: a long, steady drumroll of anger, and even legal action is underway concerning PRISM and the government’s long dragnet of phone record information, including data on every phone call placed in the United States for years.

Revelations about both programs caused furor in the media and technology industries. Information continues to seep out, albeit at a muted pace compared to the initial leaks.

What the government will declassify isn’t clear. However, it may help us better understand just what elements of our private communications are being recorded, by whom, and to what end.

Top Image Credit: Andrew Malone

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It appears Apple has received good news from the US Patent and Trademark Office regarding its much-publicized rubber-band patent (US patent #7,469,381): the organization has shared that it will issue a reexamination certificate to confirm four of Apple’s claims, FOSS Patents reports.

As we’ve previously detailed, the rubber-banding patent refers to the bouncing animation that takes place when a user scrolls past the end of a page. It’s a neat trick that helps make an interface feel more intuitive, but many have argued that it shouldn’t have been patentable in the first place.

Apple shared its victory with Judge Lucy Koh today, and revealed that claim 19 is among those tentatively confirmed — a claim which played a major role in Apple’s massive trial against rival Samsung.

As shown below, claims 14, 17 and 18 were also confirmed.

Previously, the rubber-banding patent was re-examined and tentatively rejected after Apple’s $1.05 billion victory — then three of Apple’s claims were upheld, but not #19.

Samsung has worked diligently to invalidate Apple’s $1 billion win, and today’s news deals a major blow to the South Korean smartphone maker. With claim 19 in its back pocket, this could be Apple’s turning point.

Image credit: iStockphoto