Mailbird, a very Sparrow-like email client for Windows users, is launching into beta this week with plans to take its email desktop app beyond where Sparrow left off  before being acquired by Google last July. The similarity between the two clients is striking, but co-founder and CEO Andrea Loubier insists that Mailbird isn’t copying Sparrow – it’s using that mail client’s look and feel for inspirational purposes only. And those similarities are only skin deep.

“By no means are we copying Sparrow,” says Loubier of the two apps’ differences, besides the fact that one is for Mac and iOS users, while the other is for Windows. “What we’re using right now – it’s not like it’s something that only Sparrow did,” she adds. “It’s what we’re seeing as a trend in app design right now.

“We looked at different apps that have this modern, flat design and went with those. They’re not exactly identical,” Loubier notes.

To the layperson who’s not a regular Sparrow user, the differences might be harder to spot, of course. And now that Sparrow is Google-owned, it’s unclear to what extent Sparrow’s new owners will have an issue with the user interface inspiration. However, given that the app is starting off with support for Gmail and Google Apps on Windows computers, Mailbird will probably get the chance to fly.

Though it was important to address the look-alike issue out of the gate here, the differences between Sparrow today and Mailbird don’t extend much further than that. Under the hood, Mailbird is working to bring some unique features to desktop mail clients, the most notable of which is an email app store. The company will open source that part of its code on GitHub, allowing third-party developers the ability to build their own integrated experiences into Mailbird itself.

The Mailbird team has already written some integrations of its own – not full email apps, but extensions – for Google Calendar and Dropbox to start. “The idea is that you can access everything from your email application, rather than have to navigate outside of it,” Loubier explains. “It’s like a one-stop shop in that sense.”

Mailbird also supports more advanced features, such as shortcuts, for those who want them. In fact, it supports the same shortcuts found in Gmail today, and will also allow users to customize their own shortcuts for things like compose or inline replies, for example.

“That’s the thing about the app – it’s super lightweight and simple, but there’s a lot of deep functionality about it,” Loubier says.

Another idea on the roadmap is a plan to include an email dashboard called “Wingman,” which would show users how productive they’re being within their email (or, perhaps, the opposite) with stats for how long you spend composing messages, turnaround time for replies, who you email the most, and more. (That sounds inspired by Google’s own Account Activity Report or Gmail Meter, actually).

And Mailbird will move to support multiple accounts in the future, too. For now, though, it supports a “send as” multi-identity feature for Gmail, Google Apps, Yahoo and Hotmail/Outlook.com.

Mailbird is currently based out of Bali, where’s it’s hosted under the incubator Contenga International, following Mailbird co-founder Michael Bodekaer’s Bali-based startup event, Project Getaway. Bodekaer has invested in the startup, but other than that, Mailbird is entirely boostrapped.

TechCrunch readers can gain early access ahead of this week’s official debut, as well as access to the Pro version for free for six months, which will include more features in the future. (Pro pricing is $12/year/user, will remove ads, and include “Wingman,” multi-identity and more; Business accounts with five-plus users will be $9/year/user). The sign-up is here: http://www.getmailbird.com/signup/?ref=techcrunch.

Mailbird works on Windows XP, Vista, 7 and Windows 8 (desktop not tablet). Plans to extend to other platforms – yes, including Mac – are in the works.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Here’s the rub. “Web 2.0″ was an idea which came about to describe the Web not just as a series of pages, but as a platform in its own right. And thus we have seen the rise of a new technology wave based entirely on that idea. But trapped inside the web is enormous amounts of data inside documents which has to some extent been forgotten about in our race to create new platforms.

Addressing this issue is a new startup out of London, Importio, which today announces a £600,000 ($900,000) seed round from Wellington Partners, Alta Vista founder Louis Monier, and long-time French technology investor Emmanuel Javal.

Essentially, Importio turns the web into a database, allowing companies and developers to extract and connect that data to create new data sets and apps.

“importio turns Web sites into data sources… into single real-time, virtual databases” says David White, CEO of Importio.

In theory, if you can use a spreadsheet you can use Importio to make the data inside documents on a website or several sites into an API. This has significant implications for business, obviously.

How does Importio work? With a point-and-click interface you can work out what data you want out of a site, no coding is involved. Then Importio creates a real-time connection to the data and creates real-time data sets from the underlying sources. You can then access the data in real-time via a single API call, through the Importio website or export the data into a spreadsheet, database, or search index.

So far it’s been used by Why Waste A Vote, where teenagers pulled data about MPs and bills awaiting passage in Parliament to create a web app in one weekend; Smartward, an app that combines NHS data; and PlanVine an events data company.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

In June, recruitment software company Bullhorn got bought by Vista Equity Partners in a deal we heard was in the lower-nine figures. Today, Bullhorn is announcing two acquisitions of its own: it’s picking up Vancouver-based MaxHire Solutions and St. Louis-based Sendouts. The deals beef up Bullhorn’s cloud-based portfolio, with both companies specialists in recruitment software-as-a-service. Financial terms of the two deals were not disclosed.

The acquisitions fit in with the profile of Bullhorn’s new owner, Vista, which is known as a SaaS specialist with other assets covering verticals like banking, real estate and the legal industries. It also helps Bullhorn to build up its own cloud-based services portfolio to compete against the likes of IBM, which in August paid $1.3 billion to buy recruitment software giant Kenexa. TechCrunch understands that Bullhorn (and Vista) will be eyeing up further strategic acquisitions going forward to continue consolidation and scaling up.

Among the services that are getting added to Bullhorn as a result of the deal are the ability to mine prospect data from sites like Data.com and Hoover’s Inc.

And it looks like Bullhorn is looking to the new acquisitions for more tech innovation. As part of the deal, MaxHire’s CEO Peter Blitz will become Bullhorn’s product innovation officer, and Sendouts’ CEO Brian Hopcraft will become general manager. “Sendouts and Bullhorn share a strong, positive culture as well as a passion for making elegantly usable software for recruiters,” said Hopcraft in a statement. “We’ve worked hard building a great team and look forward to applying our joint expertise to help even more recruiters connect job seekers with opportunities.”

It is also about picking up new customers: The company now counts some 5,000 staffing and recruitment agencies.

“This is an incredible moment for Bullhorn customers,” said Art Papas, co-founder and CEO of Bullhorn in a statement. “These acquisitions dramatically increase our ability to execute on our vision of helping recruiters be more successful, develop new products, and serve our exponentially expanding user base.”

The combined companies will operate under the Bullhorn brand.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Microsoft will finally launch a preview of Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 in mid-November, the company announced today. With the Windows 8 launch less than two weeks away, Microsoft has obviously been focusing on the release of Internet Explorer 10 for its new operating system lately. Internet Explorer 10, after all, will be an integral part of Windows 8, both on the Metro/Windows 8 UI side of the OS and on the classic desktop. As far as IE10 for Microsoft’s older operating systems, though, the company has stayed relatively quiet until today.

In the age of rapid-release schedules, Microsoft’s release schedule for Internet Explorer feels almost glacial. Microsoft announced IE10 at its MIX 11 conference in April 2011. Since then, the company released various preview builds, but with few early exceptions, all of these previews were for Windows 8. Even today’s announcement remains rather vague and doesn’t specify an actual release date beyond “mid-November.”

According to Microsoft, IE10 for Windows 7 will be based on the “same standards based platform for developers to target as IE10 on Windows 8.” It still remains odd that Microsoft won’t ship IE10 for Windows 7 weeks after its launch on Windows 8. While IE10 is fairly deeply integrated into the Windows 8 experience and has been optimized for touch, it’s hard to see why Microsoft couldn’t release it for both operating systems at the same time.

IE10, it is worth noting, won’t run on older Microsoft operating systems like Vista and XP.

Over the last few months, Microsoft has made a concerted effort to highlight the strengths of Internet Explorer 10 through collaborations with Pulse, Atari and the developers behind the popular game Contre Jour.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Microsoft kicked off its Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto with a bit of a bang earlier today — during the event’s keynote address, Microsoft VP and Windows CFO Tami Reller revealed when manufacturers and consumers would be able to get their hands on Windows 8.

The long-awaited operating system is on track to be released to manufacturers in the first week of August, with a consumer launch slated for “late October.”

Though it’s nice to finally have an actual timeline for the Windows 8 release process, the particular launch window Microsoft announced isn’t much of a surprise — rumors of an October launch have been swirling for a little while now.

That said, it isn’t without its shortcomings. With “general availability” set for October, Microsoft and its hardware partners will largely miss out on the lucrative back-to-school computer shopping season that kicks off late in the summer and generally runs through September.

It’s not a complete loss though, as Microsoft has been busy covering its bases. The company revealed its Windows Upgrade Offer back in June, under which customers who purchase Windows 7 PCs between June 2, 2012 and January 31, 2013 will be able to upgrade to the new operating system for a scant $15. What’s more, Microsoft last week has said that users on XP, Vista, or 7 will be able to purchase the Windows 8 upgrade for $40 once October rolls around in an attempt to simplify the transition.

Sure, it’s not the same as actually having Windows 8 PCs on store shelves and displays waiting to be played with (especially when Macs seem to be popular among the back-to-school crowd), but it’s far better than nothing.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Isn’t Power Nap an awesome new feature of OS X? It is if you’re a Mac user but to Windows users, it’s old news. If you missed the news, Power Nap allows your Mac to keep up to date while in sleep mode. So emails are updated, things get synced to iCloud, system updates are pushed through and even TimeMachine backups are performed in a silent and power efficient manner.

(We’d be remiss in not acknowledging the fact that some of this comes directly from iOS 5, too.)

You see, Microsoft had a similar feature in Vista called SideShow. It was supposed to herald the arrival of secondary displays that were going to be built into laptop lids, for example. Those displays were supposed to show you incoming email, upcoming calendar appointments and similar information – all while your computer was in sleep mode. It was, too put it mildly, a dismal failure. Hardware manufacturers never embraced SideShow (with the exception of a handful of laptops) and most consumers probably never heard of it to begin with.

Microsoft being Microsoft, it didn’t quite kill the program, but let it live on quietly in Windows 7, where it also remained forgotten and unutilized.

With Windows 8, however, Microsoft is launching a feature that is pretty much equivalent to Apple’s Power Nap and the spiritual descendant of SideShow (whiteout the reliance on hardware manufacturers). Dubbed ‘Connected Standby,’ Microsoft announced this feature at its Build developer conference in September 2011. In this mode, email will still arrive in your inbox and you will still hear a ping when somebody IMs you are tries to call you on a VoIP app that supports this feature. While all of the desktop versions of Windows 8 will support this feature, Microsoft is mostly aiming it at Windows 8 tablets and apps running in the Metro interface, it seems. Desktop apps will not be able update while a computer is in connected standby mode. It’ll also take the right mix of hardware to make all of this work, though, and many existing Windows 7 laptops, for example, won’t be able to use this mode.

So who gets Power Nap? It’s a little unclear and Apple has yet to clarify (we’ve reached out for comment) but those with the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display and second generation and newer MacBook Airs are eligible. But apparently any MacBook with an SSD is also eligible via firmware update.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

GitHub, the source code hosting and collaboration service, has been growing like gangbusters. The site now has over 1.6 million registered developers, hosting over 2.8 million repositories on everything from jQuery and Ruby on Rails to node.js and Redis. At the outset, Github was just a side project, a tool to make developers’ lives easier (its first slogan: “Git hosting: No longer a pain in the ass.”) Github is still a boot-strapped operation, but as both its user base and its own hacker collective (now at 73 strong) have grown, there has been an increasing demand for tools that fall outside Apple’s domain.

Today, about 50 percent of GitHub’s traffic comes from Windows users, and, as a result, the startup has finally heeded demand and is now officially bringing the party to Windows, launching a desktop app to address the challenges of developing on Windows and to make it easy for Windows developers to collaborate in open-source and private repositories.

GitHub released a similarly-targeted Mac client last year, which has since seen wide adoption. However, as popular as Apple has become, the majority of enterprise development still takes place in a Windows environment. As a result, GitHub has been looking to make its platform more appealing to corporate developers and enterprise, and its new Windows app intends to do just that.

Developing in private or open-source for Windows has lagged behind in terms of adoption among developers because they’ve lacked a full toolset for project collaboration, GitHub CTO Tom Preston-Werner says, so, with its new Windows client, the startup just made it easier to get up and running using Git and GitHub on Windows machines.

GitHub for Windows is a native app that runs on Windows XP, Vista, 7 and even the pre-release Windows 8, and includes a complete installation of msysGit. The app syncs users’ code to the cloud and allows developers to clone their repositories right from the app or directly from GitHub.com with its new “Clone in Windows” button.

Of course, anyone who’s been following GitHub’s progress will notice that it took the team more than a few days to finally release its Windows client. As one might expect, the reason for this was, besides a need to tear down development hurdles for Windows developers, that the team wanted to create an app (and a toolset) they would actually use themselves. In order words, to build a Windows app by Windows developers — for Windows developers.

To do that, GitHub has been amassing a pretty serious team of developers who collectively — aside from having cache in the community — own quite a bit of experience developing on and for Windows. For starters, GitHub brought on Phil Haack and Paul Betts, both of whom left Microsoft to join GitHub to help ship the app.

Before GitHub, Haack led the development of both ASP.NET MVC and NuGet, among other things, during his four-plus year stint as a senior program manager at Microsoft. Paul Betts joined Github following a four-year run at Microsoft, where he worked on Vista, and created development tools, among other things.

GitHub for Windows also relied on help from Tim Clem, Cameron McEfee (the guy behind GitHub’s Octocats), and Adam Roben to get the startup’s new app ready for shipping.

Developing tools that are useful to Windows developers right out of the box is essential to the success of GitHub. Of course, most big companies are still hesitant to put their code in the cloud, and although the startup puts most of its focus on open source project hosting, it’s free. The company makes its money off of its private repositories, and so better tools for companies and corporate developers could mean a significant boost in revenue for GitHub.

Of course, it’s also for the love of a challenge.

For more, find GitHub’s announcement here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Editor’s Note: This Guest post is written by Max Zachariades, who spent the last five years at Microsoft in various roles. He blogs under the name Max Zografos.

I first used Windows on a TULIP portable computer, some twenty years ago. Graphical user interface, icons, mouse, an amazing new world was ushered in before my wide eyes.

At university, I scored a summer internship with Microsoft. I sported a Microsoft collared shirt and showed off my “Microsoft Product Specialist” badge with infinite pride. When Windows 2000 launched, I distributed official evaluation copies to the School of Engineering. Lecturers didn’t hide their admiration, and wonder, about my infatuation with this company. They called me the “Microsoft man,” which I saw as a compliment.

In 2005, I was commissioned to lead two Microsoft Europe-wide projects. Microsoft seemed way ahead. Virtual meetings, digitized calendars all beeping in tandem, flexible work arrangements, massage chairs, free soda. What’s more, toilets were squeaky clean. Most multinationals I’d worked for had heinous facilities, which pretty much poisoned the well for me.

Like Alice in Wonderland, I pranced around the campus, drinking as much of the Microsoft Kool-Aid as I possibly could. In 2007, I obtained a “blue badge.” I was a full-time employee now. One of them.

Fallen Star

Within my first year, I was awarded the venerable “Gold Star.” It read:

Congratulations! In recognition of your important contribution to our success, you have been selected to receive a special Gold Star Spot bonus award. I am pleased to inform you that you will receive an award of $1,000 less all applicable taxes and withholding. Since joining you’ve hit the ground running — you’re a star in the making!

Microsoft also gave out corporate-branded gizmos, laser pointers, memory keys, plastic crystals and other toys. When I raised a suggestion that we divert some of those funds to charity, my communication style was flagged as inappropriate and antagonistic.

In time, my eyes opened. We were box tickers and pen pushers. Any original thinking was sacrificed at the altar of time-proven, common sense process. Efforts to break the mould were all but punished.

The Microsoft Meeting

Microsoft culture expects you to be in meetings. Calendars need to be decorated with sufficient colourful blocks, to signal over-activity.

Dig a bit deeper and you’ll realise that Microsoft meetings are a way to diffuse and evade responsibility for decisions. Yes – let’s spend weeks on weeks “reviewing with stakeholders.” It’s so much safer that taking swift decisions ourselves. The company places no trust on the individual to make the right decision on their own.

So what happens in those meetings? Are they brainstorming earth-shattering new ideas? Are they inventing new products? Why are they getting paid to join so many of them? How can Microsoft afford to have so many of its employees fluffing about?

Because they can. Microsoft sits on stockpiles of cash: about $60 billion earning interest in the bank. With that mystery out of the way, let’s take a look at some of those meetings: Strategy reviews, deep dives, virtual coffee breaks, quarterly off-sites, monthly get-togethers, director summits, leadership meetings, etc.

Yikes, who is going to organise all that? Fear not. Every team has their very own “business manager.” And since business managers are too senior to be bogged down with logistics, enter the legions of “support managers” and “administrative assistants” reporting to business managers.

Large companies have overheads, a necessary evil, you say. Overheads need to be managed. And managed they are: Group Managers, Program managers, General managers, together with ‘Senior’ flavours of those and a whole new breed of directors, stakeholders, business owners, relationship leads coupled with their own countless derivatives.

All those meeting-goers are not making anything. Deciding upon and making something is hard. And if this onerous activity has to be done, then hire external consultants for it. It’s easier and less risky.

There is no creative tension, no vision these days. Left to Microsoft’s hands we’d still be toiling on overheating Vista desktops.

This company is becoming the McDonalds of computing. Cheap, mass products, available everywhere. No nutrients, no ideas, no culture. Windows 8 is a fine example. The new Metro interface displays nonstop, trivial updates from Facebook, Twitter, news sites and stock tickers. Streams of raw noise distract users from the moment they login.

In an already loud world, all Windows 8 does is increase the decibels.

Getting Fired

Mea Culpa: I should have left on my own volition, much earlier.

Truth is, I was comfortable. Too comfortable. Stupefied even. Why look for work elsewhere when I could coast from meeting to meeting, uttering and typing meaningless busywork. I could not relinquish that kind of comfort.

Year after year, I began to voice my concerns about the meaninglessness of it all. Why write up dozens of monthly scorecards when nobody ever reads them? Worse yet, why join follow up conference calls? Why schedule get-togethers when there is no agenda? Why spend a month chasing stakeholder-committees for trivial project decisions. Why spam people’s inboxes with monthly newsletters and weekly narratives about how great our team is?

They called it out in my performance reviews: I lacked “respect for authority.” “Microsoft people are well-tenured,” said my boss once. Many employees are with Microsoft for 15 years or more. Sidestep hierarchy and tenure at your own peril.

I became cynical about the whole process. I was seen as a “rebel” and the leadership team began to marginalise me. My planned and promised promotion was cancelled.

Month after month, what I saw as a dubious case was put together. Official HR warnings were sent. My time ran out. I was offered 12-weeks’ pay for an amicable departure. Instead I decided to escalate the thoughts above to the highest echelons of Microsoft.

Below is an excerpt of my email to a Corporate Vice President.

Naturally, large teams are expected to have overheads. However, I’ve never witnessed such a systematic waste of company’s time and resources.

…

including its execs—spend much of their time in informational meetings with no agenda or
purpose. Let me cite an example from today’s newsletter. A senior exec talks about what he will do in March:

‘March is going to be a busy month! I will be representing at the first ever and then will representing at in San Diego on . Then back in the U.S. again the week of for the LT Strategy Planning Workshop. In March, I have 1:1s lined up with and several of her LT: , , , and .”

I struggle to discern what will actually be achieved in March by this exec. All I can see is a series of expensive trips and endless hours spent in gatherings with no outcomes or deliverables.

Can Microsoft afford that? …

Entire days spent on meetings about meetings, drafting and re-drafting ‘team stories’ and participating in endless informational conference calls. I am confident that could achieve the same actual results with just 10 percent of its current funding. Given the opportunity, I can provide more clarity on this topic.

…

In a time of disruptive new technologies and competition, I believe Microsoft, and each organization within, should lead by example. We cannot afford not to.

Within hours of sending this email I was summarily fired and escorted to the door, days short of my 5-year anniversary with Microsoft.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Editor’s Note: TechCrunch columnist Semil Shah currently works at Votizen and is based in Palo Alto. You can follow him on Twitter @semil

In middle school, my teacher assigned a book by Mario Puzo called “The Godfather.” Yes, it was pretty epic. From that work of art, mass audiences were introduced to Don Corleone and eventually its derivatives; Goodfellas, Bugsy, Capone, Casino, Heat, The Departed, and scores of other pieces that romanticized the notion of organized crime across the globe, a world of big bosses, willing soldiers, and internal codes of helping out each other, from family to family.

One reason I believe the Valley is so enamored with these types of groups is because individual stars emerge from an organization that go on to become more influential and powerful. And so, in the world of the web, the term “mafia” has also caught on, albeit in a much more positive way. This has all been written about before. The premiere group is the “PayPal Mafia,” which lumped together incredible minds to form one of the world’s most important companies and whose alumni are now founders and/or financiers of some of the most disruptive new technology companies today. The other important mafia hails from Facebook (which Sarah Lacy has chronicled brilliantly), where early employees have gone on to found Quora, Asana, Path, and Cloudera, among others, and who have also quietly provided angel funding to some of the most interesting new startups (and perhaps even acting as limited partners in other investment funds). Facebook liquidity approaches for many more employees, which will only deepen its impact.

Which leads me to speculate where the next mafia could emerge from: Twitter.

It’s a bit early, but Twitter has the makings for the next “family.” At the moment, Facebook is in a significantly stronger financial position and set to go public this year. Twitter’s future is less certain, but as a loyal and heavy user for three years, I am extremely bullish on Twitter and believe it’s currently undervalued economically today despite the kinks it needs to iron out. That’s an argument for another post, but for now, I believe Twitter alumni have a terrific chance to form the next Valley mafia. We are at the early stages of this, but as the first few flocks of early employees and the founders start to move on, they are already spreading their post-Twitter wings and are in a position to exert a good deal of influence, both financially as well as in the formation of new businesses.

To begin, some well-known leaders at Twitter have gone on to found new companies or to make a nest on Sand Hill Road. Former PM Josh Elman is now investing with Greylock Partners, though he also has membership in the LinkedIn and Facebook mafias. Mike Abbott, a former VP of Engineering with Twitter, is now investing as a General Partner with Kleiner Perkins. Alex Payne has gone on to start Simple, a highly anticipated startup focused on banking. Kevin Cheng founded Incredible Labs and is working on a new product called Donna. Anamitra Banerji is currently an EIR with Foundation Capital, perhaps mulling over his next thing, and Abdur Chowdhury left to start a new school in San Francisco, Alta Vista School.

And of course, there are Twitter’s three founders, and early employee Jason Goldman. Obviously Jack Dorsey is still at Twitter but also leading Square, as well as being an early investor in ultra hot startups like Kickstarter, Instagram, Flipboard, and Foursquare. The other two founders, Biz Stone and Evan Williams, have returned to the lab that created Twitter — Obvious Corp — and brought with them product extraordinaire Jason Goldman as a third founder. The group has been somewhat vague so far about its ambitions to date, but we now have an early peek at a potential strategy, as the group is closely tied to Lerer Ventures and  has invested in Caterina Fake’s Pinwheel, incubated Lift, and most recently Branch (formerly know as Roundtable).

Along with their product knowledge, wealth, and broadcast influence through creating Twitter, we may start to see these early Twitter stars begin to flex their muscles as an entirely new mafia in fascinating ways. Though it remains to be seen if Twitter will generate the type of wealth that PayPal and Facebook will, the early alums are a good indication of the diversity of talent within Twitter HQ today. Simply living through the fires that the company has survived will toughen present and future alums for bigger risks, and their intimate knowledge of Twitter strengths and blind spots could help them and others chart more precise courses as the ecosystem grows and widens. Only time will tell if Twitter will join the ranks of PayPal’s and Facebook’s mafias, but if the recent past is any indication, there’s a great chance we’ll be using the term “Twitter Mafia” more regularly.

Photo Credit: Jerine on Creative Commons Flickr

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Still using Windows Vista? XP? Why? Well, whatever the reason, Microsoft has clarified some of their end-of-life dates for older versions of Windows, including XP. This is mostly about support on the business side but it could be useful if you’ve got an old machine that’s acting up (or you refuse to upgrade).

Ed Bott found the actual dates in a Japanese Microsoft blog post:

As he explains, this doesn’t mean you can buy a copy of XP right now for any money but you can get “Mainstream and Extended” support for implementations of the OS. Good to know if you have something mission critical running on an old Compaq.

photo credit: @Doug88888 via photopin cc

Article courtesy of TechCrunch