TC50 start-ups are flickering beacons of success
It gets harder trying to spot the next big thing, especially when you can’t see the start-ups for the upstarts among the hundreds of pitches being made at TechCrunch50 this week.
In the end, the judges of this tech jamboree of new ideas in search of funding chose RedBeacon – a local service started by former Google employees to hook up plumbers and painters with customers – as winner of the $50,000 top prize. Read more
Opera ups ante in mobile browser wars
Opera upped its efforts in the mobile browser wars on Wednesday with the release of the next version of its Mini browser – Opera Mini 5. The new version comes with a sleek new look, and features such as speed dials and tabbed browsing.
The Norwegian browser company still enjoys the top spot in the mobile market, with 25 per cent market share according to Statcounter. This puts it still just ahead of iPhone’s Safari browser, with 22.3 per cent.
But the competition is tightening. Mozilla is working on its own mobile browser, Fennec, while Research In Motion recently bought Torch Mobile to improve its browsing capability. Microsoft is also understood to be improving its Internet Explorer Mobile browser. Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
