Two Genius Coders Just Got $2.5 Million From Peter Thiel And Andreessen Horowitz For Their Startup, Blend Labs

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/blend-labs-eugene-marinelli-quinn-slack-peter-thiel-andreessen-horowitz-2012-6

We don't know much about Eugene Marinelli and Quinn Slack, or their new startup, Blend Labs.

But we have heard this much: It has just raised $2.5 million from Facebook investor Peter Thiel and venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, according to a source.

It makes total sense, given that Slack and Marinelli are both former software engineers at Palantir, a secretive Thiel-backed company which processes massive amounts of data for corporate clients and government agencies.

We couldn't find an SEC filing showing the investment, though there are ways for companies that want to stay stealthy to avoid such filings (by, for example, filing with state regulators).

From what we can see, Marinelli and Slack are interested in the following hot areas:

• Big data. They just gave a presentation at Stanford about using technologies like Hadoop, HBase, and Scala to handle huge quantities of information. Or as they put it, "you have a ton of data, need to handle a lot of users, and want to perform heavy computation over the data."

• The social graph. They posted code to GitHub, an open software repository, for "Facebook social data modeling." And their Stanford presentation shows an example of handling data about individuals including email addresses and groups they belong to.

• Mobile platforms. Slack has contributed some code to the Play 2.0 platform, which is used for mobile applications.

Okay, so that doesn't give us many clues to what Blend Labs is doing. But big-data applications for social and mobile platforms seems like it hits just about every investing buzzword.

Andreessen Horowitz, Slack, and Marinelli did not respond to emailed inquiries about the investment.

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ASUS N56VM laptop gets Ivy Bridge processor, Kepler GPU for Japan launch

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/22/asus-n56vm-ivy-bridge-processor-kepler-gpu-japan-launc/

ASUS' N- and K-series notebooks may have debuted under the discerning eyes of Milano fashionistas, but it looks like an already refreshed version will arrive in Japan stores first. The ASUS N56VM benefits from recent hardware refreshes from both Intel and NVIDIA, with a Core i7-3610QM 2.3GHz processor and NVIDIA's GeForce GT 630M running the graphics-heavy show. This is joined by a 15.6-inch (1920 x 1080) screen, 8GB of RAM, Blu-ray drive and a 750GB hybrid SSD, while connectivity includes four USB 3.0 ports and a combination memory stick / SD card slot. The notebook is set to arrive this Saturday in Japan, with prices starting from 99,800 yen ($1,240).

It's accompanied by two lower-spec K55A and K55VD models, with the major difference between them being the addition of an NVIDIA GeForce GT 610M in the latter. Otherwise, the two pack the same 15-inch WXGA (1366 x 768) screen, Core i5-3210M 2.5GHz processor and 750GB HDD. The laptops also house a pair of USB 3.0 ports, with an SD card slot and a single USB 2.0 port in reserve. The K55A is priced at 59,800 yen ($744), while the K55VD starts at 69,800 yen ($869), with both arriving alongside the N-series model tomorrow.

ASUS N56VM laptop gets Ivy Bridge processor, Kepler GPU for Japan launch originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jun 2012 08:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Falling SSD prices might give you a swift boot (up) sooner than you think

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/22/falling-ssd-prices-swift-boot-up/

Solid state drives are the one piece of gear that can turn a dog computer into a cheetah, and it looks like you may not have to scrape much longer to get one. Floods in Thailand made prices for their spinning-plattered brethren climb, but many SSD models like those from Crucial, OCZ and Intel have fallen up to 65 percent in the last year. Lower NAND prices, along with cheaper and better controllers from Sandforce and Indilinx have no doubt contributed to the boon for performance-hungry consumers. All of that means that a 256 GB drive which cost $500+ in June 2011, now runs less than $200 -- and at $.82 / GB, it turns from a near-luxury good to at least a thinkable proposition for many.

Falling SSD prices might give you a swift boot (up) sooner than you think originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jun 2012 09:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Facebook rolls out comment editing, embraces your change of heart

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/22/facebook-rolls-out-comment-editing/

Facebook has long betrayed you by forwarding your drunken wall ramblings in an email for posterity. Previously, though, the only way to limit further public shame was to try to delete the comment altogether. Now, it looks like the loose fingered have been given a reprieve, as the social giant is rolling out the ability to edit your ill-thought missives long after the fact. Even better, this seems to extend back to those written in the past. Don't think you can be sneaky though, as an "edited" link will appear below, letting everyone see the thread history. So even if you change your opinion, that indecision remains for all to see.

Facebook rolls out comment editing, embraces your change of heart originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jun 2012 11:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cropp.me Automatically Crops Multiple Images Online [Webapps]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5920259/croppme-automatically-crops-your-images-online

Cropp.me a handy webapp designed to do just one thing well: crop images in your browser. No need to open up a bulky photo editor if you just want to crop even a bunch of images at once, thanks to Cropp.me's
auto-crop feature.

Using Cropp.me is dead simple. Upload your images (up to five at once), select from the predefined output sizes (avatar, Facebook cover image size, etc.) or define a custom size, and hit the button. The best part is, using clever image analysis algorithms, Cropp.me selects which part of the image to crop when your output size doesn't match the original's aspect ratio. You can always manually adjust the final cropping if you need to.

One difference from other online cropping tools is that Cropp.me can conveniently download all the images at once in a zipped file.

Cropp.me

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