#Adyen Raises $250m From General Atlantic To Expand Its International Payments Platform International payments startup Adyen is growing fast,
doubling the number of payments processed over the last year as well as revenues over that time.
Capitalizing on that growth, the company has raised $250 million in a giant Series B round of funding that values the company at $1. 5 billion.
The new financing was led by growth equity firm General Atlantic with participation from existing investor Index Ventures,
Also participating were Silicon valley Felicis Ventures and Asian investment firm Temasek Holdings. Over the last several years
Adyen has worked to enable payment solutions for companies seeking to offer their goods in an increasingly global marketplace.
Rather than relying on a combination of different banks and other payments processors for individual markets,
To enable that, Adyen has created a platform that allows companies to accept payments from basically anywhere.
It has partnerships with all the major credit card companies, as well as local payment processors around the world.
Its platform works in nearly 200 countries, allowing partners to get paid in virtually any currency and through a wide variety of payment methods.
Finally through its platform payments can be accepted either online, via mobile devices, or even in store for businesses that have operations in multiple countries.
Due to the increasingly global nature of business, that attracted huge interest from a wide range of companies.
500 different merchants for its platform, including well-known tech companies like Facebook, Airbnb, Spotify, Evernote, and Groupon.
For companies using its payment network, it can simplify the process of accepting payments in multiple territories.
At the same time, it can also improve conversion rates in places where it supports local forms of payments
according to cofounder and CEO Pieter van der Does. That flexibility has led even some clients to sign up to address specific markets where they hoped to grow,
In addition to its payment network, Adyen has also been investing in offering a mobile point-of-sales system called Shuttle.
By growing both the size of its customer base and the number of payments it processes for them
Adyen will process nearly $30 billion in payments, van der does told me. That means revenues have doubled also in that time, to $185 million.
Since it previously only raised $16 million, with its last money raised in 2011, the mega-round it announcing signals a huge commitment to growth.
The company, which is headquartered in Amsterdam and San francisco, has 240 employees spread across a number of international offices,
including Sao Paolo and Singapore. But Adyen sees an opportunity to expand its business further
That why it took money from Temasek, according to van der Does. Given its clients and the size of Adyen existing business,
Over the last few months, its profile has been raised by several major funding rounds, including those of e-commerce site Coupang;
Yello Mobile; 4: 33 Creative Lab Game Studio; and food delivery app Baedal Minjok. Now the city government hopes to get more people interested in its startup industry by sponsoring Global Hackathon Seoul,
which will take place from July 29 to August 1, 2015. According to the event organizers, this is the first time Seoul has sponsored a hackathon.
These include isolation from startup ecosystems in other countries, lack of early-stage funding opportunities,
and the fact that many talented people would rather pursue a career with a corporation like Samsung instead of taking the riskier step of becoming an entrepreneur.
while the administration of Seoul mayor Park Won-Soon has launched the Seoul Social Investment fund, which supports companies that solve social problems.
Yoo hopes the hackathon will get more students and recent graduates interested in startups, even as they deal with fierce competition for spots at prestigious universities
and large corporations. eoul already has an incredible infrastructure (fastest Internet/mobile speed), highest smartphone penetration,
and tech savvy people. What we need is a cultural shift. Through Global Hackathon Seoul and other awesome hackathons
I don want to just show people but let them experience the hacker culture, and collaborate with really different thinkers of this world,
He adds that the organizers of Global Hackathon Seoul will work with the most promising teams after the event to provide them with mentorship and opportunities for funding.
and you can even run the sound through an ios device to use software filters and effects.
As Techcrunch resident SHRED MAETERXXXTOTHEMAXXX I actually curious how this sounds and how it works outdoors.
the next busker you meet may be able to truly SHRED a little Stairway next to the Cold Stone using electronic effects and an old Fender e
#Doctors Can Now Successfully 3d Print A Knee joint While this footage isn as exciting as
Essentially, doctors at the Columbia University Medical center have been able to print a knee meniscus using a degradable plastic scaffold and a protein growth system.
there little that orthopedists can do to regenerate a torn knee meniscus, said study leader Jeremy Mao in a release. ome small tears can be sewn back in place,
While removal helps reduce pain and swelling, it leaves the knee without the natural shock absorber between the femur and tibia,
which greatly increases the risk of arthritis. The scaffold isn just a plastic shell, however.
In sheep, the first test subjects, the meniscus regenerated in four to six weeks. The body degenerates the scaffold
and shipping the scaffolds to patients and their doctors s
#Why It s Right To Report On The Sony Hack o one private life can totally withstand public scrutiny,
reads an NYT op-ed penned by screenwriter and playwright Aaron Sorkin, angrily blasting the media for reporting the private details revealed through the recent hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment, in
what shaping up to be one of the largest corporate data breaches to date.?Every news outlet that did the bidding of the hacking group Guardians of Peace is morally treasonous and spectacularly dishonorable,
he adds. Meanwhile, Sony Pictures blithely ignoring the First amendment (and the Streisand effect) has threatened legal action against journalists reporting on the findings from the stolen documents.
Sorkin and Sony are both wrong. Sony may be a victim, but there is data in the breach that worth reporting to the public but not the social security numbers, private and personal information,
or insider-y emails about films. That those things were stolen, however? Yes. Especially since former employees weren even being made aware of the situation.
In addition, one of the largest takeaways is for other corporations to react to Sony cautionary tale
and beef up its own servers and security infrastructure. Sony Tries Silencing Reporters Sony hack was made worse by its poor security infrastructure,
but that alone does not mean all the data needed to be revealed in detail by the press if that Sorkin critique,
it would be accurate. But he would rather none of the content be reported. That not correct.
One thing the world needs to understand immediately is that all information can be made public
and the only real privacy protection is that its exposure has yet to be targeted by determined hackers.
Over the past several years, hackers have stolen consumerspersonal information and credit card numbers from some of the largest retailers.
Theye pulled nude photos off celebrity phones and from rivatemessaging app Snapchat. Large companies like Adobe and ebay have seen emails and other personal account information stolen.
And whistleblowers like Snowden have revealed the most private and devastating aspects of government spying agendas.
There is literally nothing that is above being exposed publicly if the right people are focused on a specific agenda.
Sony did not take the necessary protections to mitigate against this level of damage. The Sony hack was carried out by a group referring to itself as the uardians of Peace.
The group has demanded that Sony pull its upcoming movie he Interview, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco,
which was based on a fictional plot to assassinate North korean leader Kim Jong Un. The group has leaked a number of Sony movies online including the yet-to-be released remake of nnie, plus r. Turner, till Alice,
and o Write Love on Her Arms, alongside large data dumps from inside Sony corporate network.
The reaction, however, of hacking victims like Sony should not include tantrums like those now demonstrated by Sorkin and the studio itself.
They should only offer apologies to employees if they say anything at all. Apologies for making the hack just so damned easy,
keeping some of the company most private information on its operations, its employees (and their families) in unencrypted Excel and Word files and carelessly shared emails.
That not to blame the victims themselves, though individuals make mistakes, but corporate IT policies are meant to protect those mistakes from becoming publicly shared data.
Sony Pictures, one of the U s. largest studios, has now, somewhat ridiculously, asked journalists to destroy the stolen documents,
and warned that those who didn comply will face further action, the company threatened via letters sent to a number of online and print publishers. ony Pictures Entertainment will have no choice
but to hold you responsible for any damage or loss arising from such use or dissemination by you, the letter states.
News media has reported on a number of these leaked emails, which have included private jabs, jokes and commentary, including a director referring to Hollywood star Angelina jolie as a poiled brat,
Sony botching of the Steve jobs movie, and racist riffs between studio co-chairman Amy Pascal and producer Scott Rudin about what President Obama favorite movies might be.
Beyond providing fodder for gossip blogs, the Sony hack has revealed also serious information that arguably more serving of the ublic interest.
The Sony hack has displayed a lot about the failing of our modern, wired corporate culture. Like just how casual internal company HR employees treat email communication, for example.
Email is not private; as a former IT worker, I could have accessed any inbox on my domain
(and often did, though not for reading emails, but for legitimate reasons like backup, archiving,
or transfer to a new hire). But more importantly, employees dealing with sensitive information seem not to understand that email is not a place where an HR employee needs to be detailing a child medical treatment,
where that treatment is taking place, the child name, how the child was doing in treatment, and more.
Sony, and likely other organizations that are currently fortunate enough to not have their poor security policies exposed,
also does not seem to understand that if youe choosing to record Social security numbers, birth dates and salaries in Excel spreadsheets,
you should protect them with at least a minimum amount of security, by way of encryption.
Or hell, even a password. That not to say the files couldn have still been hacked,
whose recent barrage of diversity reports have revealed their tendencies toward monoculture, for instance. Another key item that was revealed by journalists reporting on the Sony leak was that of Hollywood war against Google,
which was code-named roject Goliathin email threads. As detailed by The Verge lawyers from the MPAA and half a dozen major studios refer to oliathas their biggest enemy in their battle with online piracy,
and the Sony emails discuss a variety of tactics to fight oliath, including site blocking,
legal action involving state attorneys general, political lobbying, and more. Things like this (below), make the issue surrounding the ethics of reporting on the hacked content more complicated.
Writes The Verge: t the beginning of this year, the MPAA and six studios Universal, Sony, Fox, Paramount, Warner bros.,
, and Disney joined together to begin a new campaign against piracy on the web. A January 25th email lays out a series of legally
and technically ambitious new tools, including new measures that would block infringing sites from reaching customers of many major ISPS Documents reviewed by The Verge detail the beginning of a new plan to attack piracy after the federal
SOPA efforts failed by working with state attorneys general and major ISPS like Comcast to expand court power over the way data is served.
If successful the result would fundamentally alter the open nature of the internet. Sony Emails Could Be Your Emails Sorkin
(and Sony) are fine to criticize reporterseditorial choices. But Sorkin, in a nutshell, is wrong to say that reporting on the leaks is pectacularly dishonorableas a whole.
And neither is he correct in thinking that the right to report should be shut down.
These leaks have contained thousands of Social security numbers, personnel files containing employee salaries and severance costs, personal information on employees and execs including birth dates,
and even health records for dozens of employees, their spouses and their children. Responsible press is not pointing to the actual files in question
hosting them on their own sites, copy and pasting emails in full, or revealing specific personal details like which employees had high medical bills,
or which child medical claims were being denied. The media has reported, however, that is the kind of information these documents contain.
And it worth doing so: Sony emails could be your emails. They could be your company emails.
Those could be your kids. If an organization of Sony size is susceptible to hacking,
anyone is. In the aftermath, Sony has hired now Fireeye Inc. Mandiant forensics unit to clean up this massive cyber attack,
as the FBI investigates the incident. But the immediate damage has been done and the damage may continue for some time.
Only a small number of documents have been revealed so far the hackers reportedly captured over 100 terabytes of data.
Headlines about Hollywood actors or ego-damaging asides may draw pageviews (and may be in poor taste), but what not up for debate is
whether journalists can report on illegally obtained files they can, thanks to First amendment protections. Is there anything in the files that an help,
inform or protect anyone?,asks Sorkin, mid-tirade. Yes, as our above examples show. But also, more generally, that this happened, that this level of private data can be revealed,
and that it can be revealed with ease can help us all. Let it serve as a warning to everyone from corporate IT to everyday consumers to protect ourselvesr risk becoming the next Sony
#Skype Translator Preview Going Live Today Skype has been talking about and demoing its new real-time translation software for Skype for a while now
but users will begin getting firsthand experience with the tool as of today. The Skype Translator preview program begins welcoming its first participants into the fold based on sign ups to the Translator preview page we told you about in early November.
The Skype Translator project offers on the fly-fly translation of both spoken and written languages for participants in Skype conversations making it possible for two people who speak completely different languages to communicate with virtually no barriers to understanding.
The preview program starts with support for English and Spanish spoken translation as well as over 40 languages for real-time text chat.
At launch tis also limited to users of Windows 8. 1 software (either desktop or mobile) so Microsoft is playing platform favorites with this early beta program.
They ve also already been testing it out with schools in the U s . and Mexico as you can see in the video above.
The tech behind the translation involves advanced machine learning which also means that it ll get smarter with time
and increased use; the more time it hears a word in conversation the better it ll become at translating it accurately.
The early tests look promising but everything we ve seen so far has been from Skype direct
and likely involved a lot of control. The classroom tests in the video above also involve mostly fairly rudimentary translation
so it ll be very interesting to see how it performs in real-world situations with more complex language.
This could be one of the most powerful technologies ever created if it can live up to the hype
but the real test of its worth begins now w
#Gartner: 301m Smartphones Sold In Q3 As Xiaomi Muscles Into The Top 5 At Samsung s Expense Smartphones now account for 66%of all mobile phones worldwide
and are on track to see 2014 sales of 1. 2 billion units in 2014.
But while Android appears to have onthe so-called platform war, the two-horse race between the leading smartphone vendors Samsung and Apple looks like it may finally be breaking up a bit,
powered by sales of handsets in emerging markets. Gartner today published its Q3 numbers for how mobile phones fared globally.
A total of 301 million smartphones sold up 20%on a year ago. Within that, Apple and Samsung combined smartphone share totalled 37%,down 7 percentage points from the same period a year ago.
Mobile phone sales overall were 456 million completely flat on Q3 2013. Within the smartphone space, China Xiaomi made its way into the top five for the first time with a sharp rise over a year ago,
while the world biggest OEM, Samsung, declined. Apple saw its share increase up to 38 million,
or 12.7%of the market on strong iphone 6 sales, a trend other analysts have been tracking as well,
while Huawei also saw a small gain to move up to the number-three spot (16 million devices,
5. 3%).That not to say that Samsung is not in the lead: it is, by some margin.
The Korean handset giant sold 73 million smartphones in Q3, giving it a 24.4%share of the market,
although that down by almost eight percentage points (and 7 million devices sold) on a year ago.
Overall, the company sold 94 million handsets (smart and low-end phones combined) for a 20%share of the market (down five percentage points on a year ago.
Xiaomi sales of 16 million smartphones for a 5. 2%share of the market is up nearly four percentage points over a year ago (it only sold 3. 6 million units in Q3 2013.
Gartner says it experienced the highest growth of any vendor this quarter up 336%riven by strong performance in China where it became market leader.
Xiaomi rise is significant not just because it signals a potential rival to the hegemony of Samsung and Apple,
but also because of why it has done so well. In short, it because sales in mature markets (where Samsung traditionally has been strong) are saturated now with smartphones,
and so sales have slowed down massively. Emerging markets, on the other hand, are seeing very sharp sales rises some of the highest ever in smartphone history
in fact. rom a regional perspective, emerging markets exhibited some of the highest growths ever recorded,
with Eastern europe and the Middle east and Africa achieving the highest increase in the third quarter of 2014,
with sales of smartphones growing almost 50%year-over-year, the analysts write. This is also another reason why Chinese vendors,
who started selling low-cost Android-based handsets to these markets early, are doing so well.
In China, one of the most important markets for Samsung, its smartphone sales declined 28.6%.
%ith the ability to undercut cost and offer top specs Chinese brands are positioned well to expand in the premium phone market too
and address the needs of upgrade users that aspire to premium phones, but cannot afford Apple or Samsung high-end products,
Gartner director Roberta Cozza notes. he smartphone market is more than ever in flux as more players step up their game in this space.
As a point of contrast, Western European smartphone sales declined 5. 2%the third consecutive decline this year.
Among mature markets, the U s. saw the highest growth, seeing an 18.9%increase ostered by the launch of the iphones 6 and 6 Plus.
But put another way, neither of these two, big mature markets are keeping up with overall sales growth of smartphones
which were up by 20, %or anywhere near the rates of less mature markets. Gartner predicts that Apple momentum will continue unabated with its iggest ever fourth-quarter salesof both models of large-screen phones,
although there will be other key moves coming from Chinese handset makers. ver the holidays we expect record sales of the iphone 6 and iphone 6 Plus,
but we should not underestimate the Chinese vendors and local brands, writes Annette Zimmermann, research director at Gartner. hinese players will continue to look at expanding in overseas emerging markets.
In Europe prepaid country markets and attractive lost-cost LTE phones will also offer key opportunities for these brands.
While OEM movement is definitely apace right now the situation is very different for platforms.
has essentially now been won by Android. Its share is now at 83.1%on sales of 250 million units.
while Windows, Blackberry and ther OS? s all continue their declines. In real terms, Windows sales were nearly flat over a year ago on 9 million units.
It very hard to think of how Microsoft will manage to turn this around, and you do have to wonder
if the company will eventually give up the ghost. Gartner, perhaps trying to find some silver lining,
when Windows phone-based devices grew quarter-on-quarter thanks to the introduction of more mid-range devices,
The big picture for feature phones is not unlike that of Microsoft legacy smartphone maker Blackberry:
Interestingly, Gartner doesn peg this drop to the ineluctable charm of smartphones, but rather says it because of the narrowing price difference between them and basic devices.
Smartphones are already 66%of the world total mobile market and by 2018 Gartner predicts that proportion will be 90
#Nokia s Here Will Power Maps For Baidu Outside China To Cater To China s Globetrotters Search giant Baidu has made no secret of its ambitions to expand its business outside of China by way of mobile services.
Now it struck a deal with Nokia that could help it with that by serving domestic users abroad.
Nokia mapping and navigation business Here says that it will now power maps for Baidu outside of China,
specifically aiming the service at the large number of Chinese lobetrottersthe world largest outbound tourism market.
Here will power both desktop as well as Android and ios apps starting with Taiwan first and then adding other territories at a later stage.
so Baidu is licensing our map data, but we can give any further info unfortunately,
Baidu offers extensive mapping services in China (a screenshot of its existing maps service is pictured above),
and that was one of the key components in a reported investment deal that Baidu is making in car service Uber.
But it less good on that data outside of its domestic market. Mapping and navigation have long been hot areas for platform companies looking for strong positions in mobile.
as our smartphones have turned from basic voice and text communication devices into intelligent assistants, location services
Here is a natural partner for Baidu, in that it not a direct competitor as Google might be
and works cross-platform in a way that Apple does not. Here has announced just an update that will make its mapping apps available across all Google Play markets and Android devices,
and is finally republishing a new ios app in early 2015, after pulling it in 2013.
Here parent company Nokia, meanwhile, has also been focussing on the China market for years now
and so will have some existing Chinese language expertise and IP that it can use to develop custom maps in the language covering other territories. eople are already using HERE in Chinese language in different parts of the world,
the spokesperson tells me. Here offers maps for nearly 200 countries, with turn-by-turn navigation for 118 of them.
According to the China National Tourism Association (via China Travel Guide) the number of Chinese travellers visiting foreign countries have grown drastically over the last several years as China economy has expanded its number of moneyed citizens
up 18%on 2012 and totalling $128. 7b in expenditures (up 27%on the year before).
It estimates that in 2014 that number will have risen to 114 million with total expenditure of $140 billion. very day,
SVP and head of sales for Here, said in a statement. ogether with Baidu, a new customer for us,
Elsewhere, Baidu has been flexing its international muscle by building services for users outside its core Chinese-language market.
Baidu inked a deal with France telecom to load its mobile browser on to Android devices that were getting sold in Africa.
Nokia is not commenting on whether it is going to power any services in these, but it is not ruling it out. ur expertise is in the mapping/location services domain
so that defines the scope of our work with Baidu, the spokesperson says. As we pointed out last week, in the last quarter,
Here posted net sales of#236 million on an operating profit of zero out of total net sales at Nokia of#3. 3 billion
#Girls Who Code Expands To Get More Young Women In Computer science Majors The computer science gender gap struggle in Silicon valley is real.
A mere 17 percent of Google tech workers are women. It 15 percent at Facebook.
Similar stats can be found at most of the larger tech companies. Girls Who Code is trying to reverse those digits with an announcement of a major expansion in partnerships today.
The 7-week program pairs girls interested in computer science education with field trips to top tech companies such as Twitter and Square.
The program recruits and trains teachers and assistants, provides the curriculum, recruits the girls, curates guest speakers, manages field trips and offers mentorship to the girls during the course of each summer session.
Adobe, AIG, Akamai, AOL, Appnexus, AT&T, BSA, ebay, Electronic arts, Expedia, Facebook, GE, Goldman sachs, Google, Groupon, IAC, IBM, Lockheed martin, Massmutual, Microsoft
, Moody, Pixar Animation Studios, Square, The Honest Company, Twitter, Viacom, Intel, Intuit and Verizon in order to reach its goal.
Each company will host and provide mentorship to 20 young women at each of those locations during the 7 week sessions.
Sandra Vivian-Calderon heads the Girls Who Code club at Castlemont High school in Oakland, CA. She says she didn think she was capable of programming before participating in the program. would say h I don know what I doing.
There are more boys so that means they are smarter or better than mevivian-Calderon was able to go through the summer program at Square headquarters this last year. ack Dorsey came in one time
She told Techcrunch that there are actually more girls than boys in her computer science class now, thanks to her involvement with Girls Who Code.
Girls Who Code adds COVERGIRL, Mastercard, and Samsung to its list of foundation partners as well.
This is in addition to The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen Foundation (LAAF), Saban Family Foundation, CUNY,
and Georgetown University. The application for the 2015 Summer Immersion Program will be available on January 15, 2015 b
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