Google, the world’s largest search engine and one of the most powerful tech companies around, is now using its muscle to search for something new: social entrepreneurs. Today, the company is announcing the Global Impact Challenge, a new prize that will award £2 million ($3 million) between four non-profit startups based in the UK that are using technology for social good in areas like education, economic development, health, environment and community service. Judges for the award include Tim Berners-Lee, Richard Branson, and we the people via a public vote. If successful, the prize could serve as a template for future social enterprise competitions in other countries.

“Today we’re starting the hunt in the UK, but we also know that nonprofits all over the world are using techy approaches to develop new solutions in their sector,” writes Jacquelline Fuller, director of Google Giving, in a blog post. “Who knows, the Global Impact Challenge might head your way next.”

Applications for the award open today, with the deadline April 17. A Google team will make the first cut down to 10 finalists in May, at which point the public will vote for favorites, also being given a chance to make donations directly to each shortlisted project. Then, in June, Berners-Lee, Branson, Fuller and the other judges — Jilly Forster (social campaigns PR supremo) and Matt Brittin (Google’s VP for Northern and Central Europe) — will cast their votes for three winners, with the fourth coming from the public vote. Each winner will get £500,000; each of the 10 finalists will also each be getting 10 Chromebooks — a generous contribution for a startup non-profit.

“The Web’s contribution to economic progress has been much celebrated, but I believe that we are only scratching the surface of its potential to solve social and political problems,” said Berners-Lee in a statement. “On behalf of the World Wide Web Foundation, I’m delighted to join Google in this exciting and innovative initiative.”

The final four winners will also receive assistance from Google to get their projects off the ground. This could run from mentoring through to technical assistance — and potentially more, since some Googlers could even get involved as part of their GoogleServe program, which encourages all employees to give up 20 hours of the year to volunteer projects.

The Global Impact Challenge is an extension of the Global Impact Awards, $23 million award that Google gave out in December among seven non-profits using technology to solve world problems like clean water (charity:water) and endangered species (Consortium for the Barcode of Life).

A Google spokesperson says that the difference between that round of awards and this newest Global Impact Challenge is that the latter features a competitive element, with the prize open to any non-profit in the UK that chooses to apply. On the other hand, with the earlier grants, “there was no entry criteria, rather, [the] grants [were] awarded to exceptional orgs doing amazing things with tech.”

Or, as Brittin notes in a statement: “Over the years Google has sought to support great organisations that are using innovation and technology to improve the lives of millions around the world. With this new Challenge, non-profits will have the chance to make their own pitch for why they deserve the money.”

The spokesperson told TechCrunch that Google does not have any specific plans to extend the open competition model to other countries right now, “But would love to be able to roll the Challenge out if possible.”

As with Microsoft’s recent Windows 8 Apps for Social Good contest — outcome still TBA — Google’s initiative is a nice way of leveraging some of its profile, and a sliver of its profits, for something that’s been under-represented.

Yes, there have been a growing number of startups cropping up around the concept of social entrepreneurship — the socially-minded crowdfunding platform Rally.org being one example — and larger organizations like the Mozilla Foundation proving that non-profit does not have to equal weak. But on balance, these days, when you hear the phrase “social startup” you think more of Facebook, Twitter and social media than you do of charity and good causes.

For Google, this also comes at a time when the company is being scrutinized in Europe in a less flattering light.

Google has been embroiled in a three-year antitrust investigation by EU regulators over its search products, with opponents continuing to put on the heat for Google to change practices, while regulators have pushed back final decisions to August of this year. Google could be liable up to $5 billion in fines if it does not settle with regulators.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

The 6th Annual Crunchies Awards will soon be upon us and (if you hadn’t noticed) we just announced our new host. The Daily Show’s John Oliver will take the stage at this year’s Crunchies Awards and we couldn’t be more excited. Not only is he hilarious, but he has been nominated for multiple prestigious awards and won the Emmy Award for Best Comedy Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series in 2009 and 2011. We told you this award show, coined the Oscars of tech, will not disappoint, and we meant it.

We’re incredibly lucky to have John Oliver host, but we also have plenty of surprises up our sleeves — expect to hear more about them in the weeks leading up to the show on January 31st at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.

Tickets are already on sale and we are filling up fast. Since we have just released the full list of the finalists nominated, voting has begun. However, since we know not all of you will be able to purchase tickets, we wanted to give our loyal readers a chance to win some. Today, we are giving away two free tickets (valued at $120 each) to the Crunchies Awards — only one reader will win, but they’ll be able to bring a friend, colleague, date, or whomever they choose. The night will be filled with surprises, influential tech gurus, drinks, hors d’oeuvres, giveaways and much more.

Want a chance to come join us? All you have to do is follow the steps below!

1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do one of the following:

- Retweet this post (making sure to include the #Crunchies hashtag)
- Or leave us a comment below telling us what your favorite comedy show is

Please only tweet the message once or you will be disqualified. We will make sure you follow the steps above and choose our winner January 6th at 7:30pm PT. Anyone is the world is eligible. Please note: this giveaway is for two tickets only and does not include airfare or hotel.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Turns out, Forest Whitaker isn’t just an Academy Award winning actor and accomplished producer and director — he’s also really into technology and social media. He brings together both worlds as a co-chair of JuntoBox Films, a brand new kind of movie studio that brings together its own social media platform with a traditional film production process.

Whitaker was at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas this past weekend, where JuntoBox announced it has greenlit its first film, a movie called Passenger — the first of five films the studio plans to produce in 2012. Watch his interview with TechCrunch TV to see him discuss how technology is democratizing the filmmaking process, how Hollywood is slowly getting over its fear of the web, and how many apps he has on his iPhone (spoiler alert: it’s a lot!)

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Last November, TechCrunch’s own Sarah Lacy sat down with Vineet Devaiah from “social streetview” startup, Phototour.in, which, at the time, had just received term sheets from a number of high-profile U.S. investors and had recently been awarded the “Top Emerging Technology Company of 2010″ by Nvidia. The startup was the first international, non-funded, under-20-member company to win the award, according to Devaiah.

Since then, Phototour added Academy Award certificate-winner and entrepreneur Bala S. Manian as an advisor (who was honored for “technical achievement” for his contributions to optical technologies used in films, including Star Wars) and has gained more than 47,000 users for the alpha version of its image and panorama crowdsourcing app, “360″, on Android. Users have logged more than 75,000 panoramas in a relatively short period of time, so, considering the rumors that the iPhone 5 will have a native panorama app, sources tell us that 360 might be a candidate for a potential partnership with Android, so that it can remain neck-in-neck with Apple.

What’s more, Today the startup is officially announcing that it is rebranding as TeliportMe and is bringing 360 out of alpha and into the public sphere in ready-to-wear form. For free. Granted, 360-degree panorama apps for smartphones are nothing new. There are quite a few cool apps and gadgets that have these capabilities on the market, like “You Gotta See This!”, Occipital’s 360 Panorama, and Microsoft’s Photosynth, to name a few.

In light of this competition, TeliportMe wants to distinguish itself from the field by building a high quality Android app, that works across OEMs. According to Devaiah, panoramic apps tend to be very hardware centric because of their reliance on a smartphone’s camera, accelerometer, gyroscope, RAM, and so on. Because Android relies on so many different OEMs, it becomes a tricky proposition to build a good 360-degree app for Android and is the reason why most panorama apps are built on iOS (thanks to the vertical integration it has with its hardware).

Another obstacle for Android is that only about 20 percent of its smartphones have the processing capability of the iPhone, and as panoramic apps require a lot of image processing during photo stitching, many Android phones don’t have enough RAM to make this possible (at least at speed). Devaiah cited the example of a phone like the HTC wildfire, which has the processing capability lesser than that of an iPhone 2G.

This is where the technology that won the startup the “best emerging tech” award comes into play. TeliportMe brought its photo stitching technology to the Android phone, which to a large extent negates the issues caused due to multiple hardware configurations, allowing it to function smoothly over 200 models of android phones. (The startup has also built a version of its photostitching app that works on the browser, which it will be launching soon.)

So, 360 allows its users to quickly take high quality panoramas, which they can then view on the apps 3D viewer. Users can share panoramas via Facebook and Twitter, as well as view, comment, and “like” photos taken by people all over the world on 360′s public realtime feed. The app also taps into the phone’s location to allow users to discover other people using 360 in close proximity, using its “Around Me” option.

Check out 360 in the Android Marketplace here, and for the 360′s humorous take on “the Google+ guy” dissing other photo apps, check out this video. For more on 360, look out, video below:

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

A New York state judge has confirmed lawyer firm Quinn Emanuel’s $13 million payout for representing ConnectU in intellectual property litigation against Facebook, distorting its former client’s attempts to stay the award while it challenges the $65 million settlement it struck with Facebook back in 2008.

Ok, that may be a bit of a confusing lede, so let’s tackle this one from A to Z. Trust me, it’s quite worth the read.

Assuming you’ve read up on Facebook‘s origins, or if you’ve seen the movie The Social Network, you know that Mark Zuckerberg and co allegedly stole the idea for the site from fellow Harvard students Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss and classmate Divya Narendra.

The latter three men co-founded HarvardConnection, which was later renamed ConnectU, and ultimately took Zuckerberg to court, alleging that he had copied their idea and illegally used source code intended for the site he was hired to create.

The lawsuit against Facebook was filed in 2004, and a settlement agreement for both cases was reached in February, 2008, valued at $65 million. In May 2010, it was reported that ConnectU was accusing Facebook of securities fraud on the value of the stock that was part of the settlement, alleging the stock was worth $11 million instead of $45 million that the social networking giant had proclaimed.

The Winklevoss twins and Darendra then moved to get the settlement undone.

One of ConnectU’s law firms, Quinn Emanuel, didn’t want to wait for their part of the settlement deal, 20% of the settlement fee or $13 million, as part of a contingency agreement. ConnectU subsequently fired Quinn Emanuel and sued the firm for malpractice by failing to obtain recent valuations of Facebook’s common stock before negotiating the settlement.

On August 25, 2010, an arbitration panel ruled that Quinn Emanuel “earned its full contingency fee” and found that the firm had committed no malpractice.

In a decision filed Monday, Judge Richard Lowe of the Supreme Court of the State of New York concluded that Quinn Emanuel has waited long enough for its contingency fee, although he refused to bump the interest on the award from 6 to 9 percent as requested by the firm.

ConnectU had urged Judge Lowe to stay confirmation of the arbitration award until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rules on the validity of the Facebook settlement, claiming a successful appeal would obliterate Quinn Emanuel’s claim to its portion.

“The respondents have waited over two years for its fee, and have had to oppose several attempts to delay the payment,” Judge Lowe said. “To continue to stall payment of the award would be to frustrate the very purpose of and reason for the arbitration.”

TL;DR ConnectU retains law firm, sues Facebook and reaches a settlement with them for a reported $65 million. ConnectU later appeals for a higher settlement fee and delays payment to said law firm, Quinn Emanuel. Law firm doesn’t want to wait for its money and gets sued by ConnectU. A judge has now awarded Quinn Emmanuel its $13 million contingency fee.

(Source: Law360 – image from The Social Network movie)

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

TechCrunch Disrupt winner Soluto has apparently been having quite a time with the Disrupt Cup, the award they received, on loan, for winning the overall startup battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York in May.

They have to bring the award back now so that we can give it away again in two weeks at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco. In the meantime they’ve upgraded the cup, they’ve taken it all sorts of places and put it in all sorts of compromising situations. Looks like fun!

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

One thing you can say about the Flickr team – there’s some fight in ‘em. They apparently were not super pleased with our coverage of their annual (and unofficial) Grant-Pattishall Award given each year to the Yahoo engineer who “who breaks Flickr in the most spectacular way.” I’m not sure why, I think the award is fun.

So now they have a new award, called the Bogan-Martin Award: “The Bogan-Martin Award is given yearly to the Flickr staff member who inadvertently generates the most spectacular media overreaction to a personal comment or inside joke.”

So who won? Daniel Bogan this year, who was also this year’s winner of the other award. And last year was Chris Martin. Both winners names link to previous posts we’ve done. Suggesting that we’re the media that is engaging in the spectacular overreaction.

Ok, Flickr. You won this round.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch