On Sunday, the Kepler telescope, which hovers in space about 40 million miles from Earth, suspended its operations and automatically put itself into a pre-programmed safe mode. By Tuesday, space-agency mission workers had determined that one of the three reaction wheels required to orient the spacecraft had jammed, NASA officials said. So far, engineers have been unable to get it moving properly.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

The researchers stopped well short of creating a human clone. But they showed, for the first time, that it is possible to create cloned embryonic stem cells that are genetically identical to the person from whom they are derived.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Photo courtesy NeuroGaming Conference & Expo

In San Francisco this week, a nonprofit group dedicated to neurogaming — the intersection of brain science and videogame playing — is taking its turn at bat in predicting the next wave of game-changing technology.

The conclusion of the NeuroGaming Conference and Expo’s organizers, unsurprisingly, is that hardware and software that monitor and respond to your body’s electrical and chemical signals will do for games what synchronized sound did for movies. Zack Lynch, CEO of the neurotech industry’s trade group, said the end goal is to create a new, deeper category of games.

Speakers and expositioners all had their own takes on how to reach that goal, including (just to name a few):

• “Mind-reading” headsets with sensors that attach to the ear and forehead
• Smooth, unassuming touchscreens that provide haptic (touch) feedback
• Headphones that convert low-frequency bass sounds — think explosions in an action game — into physical vibrations
• Neurotech integrations with much-discussed emerging wearable technologies like Google Glass and the Oculus Rift
• Experimental sensors that could estimate a player’s emotional state by, for instance, calculating the pH of their sweat.

But questions about the technology’s future abounded throughout the first day of the conference on Wednesday. At the root of all their caveats was a single point of potential failure: those pesky consumers.

“Most consumers are not going to put down their hard-earned money” for experimental one-time-use gadgets, NeuroSky CEO Stanley Yang said. “There has to be lasting value.”

(Yang should know: his company’s first consumer product, the Star Wars Force Trainer, was a $130 ping pong ball-levitating device … batteries not included.)

Photo courtesy NeuroGaming Conference & Expo

“Regardless of how we define it, keep the consumers in mind,” Petrovic said in a venture capital-focused panel about investing in the technology. “Don’t call this ‘the next great neurogaming platform’ or ‘neurogaming device,’ because it won’t sell.”

Those terms, he explained, connote an invasion of one’s body and may seem scary to those unfamiliar with the technology — that is, almost everyone.

A few of the speakers and numerous attendees (Lynch said about 300 registered for the conference online) suggested that the best immediate hope for brain-powered technology is not consumer gaming at all, but rather improvements in the places where it has already succeeded, like clinical therapy for those with limited mobility or as a teaching aide for children with mental disorders like ADHD.

The problem is that most brain-training games are just, well, boring, said Petrovic’s fellow panelist Roger Quy, a general partner at Technology Partners. A popular refrain throughout the day was that without great content, all attempts at neurogaming would be doomed to the same fate as 3-D TV, which fizzled despite enormous hype and investment.

Union Square associate Nate Hennings added that games targeted at a niche of enthusiasts may prove to be a testing ground for the mass viability of neurotech, just as the Tesla Roadster laid the groundwork for cheaper versions of the electric cars.

The dream, though, is that one of the companies represented at the conference will come up with a device that immediately “clicks” with consumers, as the Wiimote did starting back in 2006. To that end, perhaps the most important axiom to measure future brain gaming products’ success came out of Yang’s appearance earlier in the day.

“What happens to the consumer when they open up the box?” Yang asked. “Are they able to plug it in and start having fun instantly? If you can’t deliver that, nobody will jump in.”

Rapp, whose last position was president at how-to video maker Mahalo, is supposed to “find and develop new opportunities for the Science portfolio and offer strategic counsel to the firm.”

Science is best known for funding and launching e-commerce companies like Dollar Shave Club.

Rapp’s e-commerce experience includes a stint running Gifts.com for Barry Diller’s IAC conglomerate. Rapp also worked on M&A at IAC, and had a similar role at the New York Times.

Former Vice President Al Gore took to the stage at the SXSW interactive festival today to tell a packed auditorium at the Austin Convention Center about the future.

No, really, “The Future,” which is the name of his new book, with the heavy-duty subhead “Six Drivers of Global Change.”

Among these drivers are — no surprise for him — severe environmental damage, as well as overpopulation and changes in biology via technology, and all the problems that come with that. Among the other critical issues, Gore also noted money politics, the ever-more-sophisticated antibiotics for livestock, and the reliance on supercomputers for stock market trading.

Gore told AllThingsD editor Walt Mossberg in an interview that some of these global developments were both a “peril and opportunity.”

But, in all, it’s a pretty depressing picture overall that he is painting, despite pointing out that knowing you have a problem is the first step.

“Our country is in very serious trouble,” he said. “But that does not mean I am not optimistic.”

Which is right before Gore started reeling off the problematic pressure that money has put on politics. “Our democracy has been hacked,” he said.

“American democracy has never been perfect, but more often than not, the will of the people did drive policy,” he added. “Congress today is utterly incapable of passing any reform of any significance unless they get permission from special interests.”

For example: “The NRA is a fraud,” about the National Rifle Association and its links to gun manufacturers.

“I wish I could get you to be more outspoken,” joked Mossberg.

“Timidity has always been an issue with me,” joshed Gore back.

Gore, who often likes to talk in full and very extended paragraphs, slowly worked through the rest of the list, before he got to the issue of spider goats.

Indeed, spider goats, which are created using genetics to mix the genes of spiders and goats.

“You can’t farm spiders for a number of reasons, so people are talking the genes from spiders and splicing them into goats,” explained Gore. “They look like goats, then these spider goats secret silk through their udders. ‘Everyone okay with that?’”

Um, no.

Still, Gore added that there are “blessings” that come with genetic engineering, including the elimination of a range of devastating diseases.

Gore soon moved onto the issue for which he is best known — global warming — after his movie “An Inconvenient Truth” gained worldwide attention.

“It’s not me saying it — I’m delivering the message. Every single national academy of science on the planet agrees with this, he said, before moving onto the recent devastation of Hurricane Sandy on the East Coast. “Mother Nature has the most powerful voice in this debate.”

But Mossberg and Gore soon parried over the sale of Gore’s media company, Current, to Al Jazeera.

You sold your network to Al Jazeera, which is owned by a government that’s a big oil producer,” asked Mossberg. “How could you do that?”

While hemming and hawing about that, Gore then came back with a good one: “I don’t ask you why you continue working for Rupert Murdoch.”

This meant war, since this site is owned by News Corp. “Last I checked, he’s not in the oil business,” countered Mossberg.

“He’s also not strictly in the news business, either,” said Gore.

Oh dear, time to get back to global warming, because it’s getting hot in here.

It was then onto a short Q&A, with one question about the Internet — an issue near and dear to Gore’s heart. In truth, despite all the jokes, he was critical when a senator to turning the Internet over to the people, from its origins as a government project.

And in this Gore finally pointed to a bright glimmer of hope. “The future of democracy,” he said, “may well depend on the continued freedom and independence of the Internet.”

RELATED POSTS:

• How One Boring Company Pulled Off the Perfect SXSW Troll
• Attention SXSW Hipsters: Watch This Video and Get Some Much-Needed Help
• WordPress’s Matt Mullenweg Talks About Future of Blogging in a SXSW Pedicab
• Google’s Smack-Talking Shoe of South by Southwest
• Some More Inconvenient Truths (Including Spider Goats): Al Gore Talks About “The Future” at SXSW
• Moon Shot: Earthbound Investor Milner Talks About Origins of the Universe at SXSW
• People of South by Southwest — Please, Free Grumpy Cat
• MakerBot Unveils Desktop Scanner Prototype for Amateur 3-D Printing
• Ready, Set, Collaboratively Design a 3-D Printed Rocket
• This Year at SXSW, the Next Killer App … Maybe Isn’t
• Artificial Intelligence, Al Gore, Modern Blogging and More: Where to Find ATD at SXSW

Scientists likened the Brain Activity Map effort to the Human Genome Project, the government-led initiative that helped decipher the human genetic code and provided a huge boost for the genetics industry.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Hearst Ventures, the investment arm of media giant Hearst Corporation, said it was making a minority equity investment in Science, the Los Angeles area tech “studio.”

Privately held Hearst is the sole investor in the new funding, although the company declined to reveal financial terms of the investment.

But sources with awareness of the deal said it was close to $30 million for a stake above 20 percent.

Somewhat akin to a startup accelerator, Science is attempting to quickly create and scale a number of promising companies in a variety of areas, and has launched 13 so far.

Among the Santa Monica, Calif., tech studio’s recent efforts: Dollar Shave Club, a subscription-based products company aimed at men; Ellie, which sells high-end activewear for women; and Wittlebee, a clothes club for kids.

Hearst Ventures is operated by Hearst’s Entertainment and Syndication unit, which is run by Scott Sassa and George Kliavkoff. Kliavkoff will join Science’s board of directors.

“It’s clear to us that, while we have these brands that resonate with consumers, we think there are some learnings we can get from these guys that are hard to get in a big company,” said Sassa. “Being able to be nimble with insight and guidance is important for us.”

Kliavkoff also noted that this was a way to get immediate ownership in a range of promising companies. “We are writing one check and will have an immediate stake in more than a dozen great startups,” he said. “[Science] has been very thoughtful in starting companies in smart areas.”

In a statement, Hearst CEO Frank Bennack said: “Hearst is continually looking for smart investments that bring value and intelligence to the company — our investment in Science does both. We’re excited to partner with Science to continue its trajectory of success, gain meaningful industry knowledge and utilize Science’s platforms for current and future Hearst investments.”

Though quieter than most, Hearst Ventures have made many successful investments over 15 years, including in Netscape and Broadcast.com. More recently, it has funded such companies as Brightcove and Pandora, as well as HootSuite and BuzzFeed.

Science was founded in late 2011 — with $10 million funding from big-name investors including Google Chairman Eric Schmidt’s Tomorrow Ventures, Rustic Canyon Partners and White Star Capital. Its CEO is well-regarded entrepreneur Mike Jones, who was most recently CEO of Myspace. Prior to Myspace, he had started and sold Userplane to AOL in 2006. In addition, well-known entrepreneur Peter Pham is chief business officer at Science.

“I am very proud of work that the Science team has accomplished since launching,” said Jones, in a quick interview tonight (short enough so that his wife would not get angry at me for ruining Valentine’s Day). “I am extremely excited about opportunities for Science companies going forward.”

More to come, but here is the very clever viral video that Dollar Shave Club did on its launch:

The scientists encoded in DNA an audio clip of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, a photograph, a copy of Crick and Watson’s famous “double helix” scientific paper from 1953 and Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets. They were then able to retrieve them with 99.99% accuracy. The experiment was reported Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

The razor-blade model has come to mean something in business: Selling something at a loss in order to lock in future sales at a markup.

But that approach doesn’t apply to this Venice, Calif.-based company, which is keeping things simple by creating an online membership service that sells basic razors without any superfluous features. Today, the company has raised $9.8 million in more capital to take the service international, starting with Canada next week.

Since coming out of beta in March, the company has gained a lot of attention for its funny commercials, which feature CEO Michael Dubin hawking the service in the tone of the recently successful Old Spice ads.

It also turns heads with its impressive investor list. The company’s first round was led today by Venrock, but as part of its seed round announced earlier this year, it raised money from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Forerunner Ventures. Other contributors included Andreessen Horowitz, Shasta Ventures and Felicis Ventures. The company originally participated in Science, the Santa Monica, Calif.-based incubator founded by former Myspace CEO Mike Jones.

Dollar Shave Club’s service in Canada will offer the same goods as the American version — shavers with two, four or six blades — at a slightly higher price than it charges in the U.S.; the company plans to expand to other countries, as well. It declined to say how many members it had signed up so far.

The report from the $120 million 1000 Genomes Project project involved 700 scientists from laboratories in the U.S., Canada, China, Japan, Nigeria, and Kenya, among others.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

When you think of online crowdfunding, it’s easy to let your mind jump straight to Kickstarter, which came into its own this year with projects such as the Pebble Watch and Double Fine Adventure.

But with an assist from the popular Web comic artist Matthew Inman, a.k.a. The Oatmeal, Kickstarter’s sometime rival Indiegogo has stepped into the spotlight. In August, Inman launched an Indiegogo campaign aimed at helping a nonprofit buy the land for a museum dedicated to the life and works of inventor Nikola Tesla.

Inman raised his funding target of $850,000 in under a week. And with less than a day until its funding window closes, “Operation Let’s Build a Goddamn Tesla Museum” has raked in over $1.35 million. Indiegogo co-founder Danae Ringelmann said that makes it the largest campaign in the site’s history.

However, Ringelmann said that even without The Oatmeal, Indiegogo already distributes “millions of dollars every single week” to its users. A site spokesperson said the company could not elaborate on those numbers. But by contrast, Kickstarter publicly reports that its users have pledged $350 million since April 28, 2009, which averages out to just under $2 million per week.

In any case, Indiegogo will make out nicely from the Tesla museum barnraiser, since it takes a four percent cut of successfully-funded campaigns (as compared to the five percent Kickstarter takes).

For charity projects such as Inman’s, though, the differences between the two sites are moot. While Indiegogo takes an anything-goes approach to crowdfunding, Kickstarter only selectively accepts projects, and they explicitly ban “charity or cause funding.”

A Kickstarter spokesperson confirmed to AllThingsD that the site has no plans to change that policy, noting that “nonprofits have always been able to use Kickstarter and will continue to be able to, but only for creative projects.”

Ringelmann counters that Indiegogo doesn’t want to have to decide who can fundraise and who can’t.

“That’s kind of the biggest differentiator about Indiegogo,” she said. “The role of gatekeeper is almost nonsensical.”

Inman himself did not respond to requests for comment. However, you can read his entertaining ode to Nikola Tesla here, and (at least for a few more hours) donate to the Indiegogo campaign here.

As most readers know, I love a good internal memo from Yahoo — and now I have landed a really meaty one.

It’s the “Yahoo! Three-Year Product Strategy” plan, a 21-page report that was completed in mid-2011 by a team headed by former product head Blake Irving.

While it is a year old — and five CEOs ago (no, really) — it’s an important read since it tracks closely to the strategic vision that Yahoo’s latest CEO Marissa Mayer discussed earlier this week at an all-hands employee meeting and, according to sources, is very similar to one she seems to be pursuing.

That includes a focus on personalization, mobile, social, improving Yahoo’s advertising tech platforms and more.

And here’s the centerpiece of goals — called “Five Strategic Elements” — from the Irving memo:

1. Infuse deep personalization using science and data into every consumer and advertising experience we build.

2. Delight our customers with best-in-class products, iterating frequently for constant improvement.

3. Build for connected devices first with localized, in-context, multi-screen experiences in mind.

4. Power real social relationships with features that enable 1:few conversations around content.

5. Build a digital media ecosystem that creates a premium marketplace for advertising and content and distributes Yahoo! experiences across the Web.

Sound familiar?

In fact, at the event’s Q&A part yesterday, one staffer specifically pointed out that her broad presentation to employees sounded a lot like the one Irving had proposed the year before.

Since that was never truly implemented, due to never-ending management crises, the obvious question was asked: “Why would things be different this time?”

Mayer answered that the execution against that strategy wasn’t good and she would have a better model to pull it off.

The memo, embedded in its entirety below, is really instructive to use as a possible roadmap, outlining Yahoo’s challenges, as well as the competitive landscape.

Noted the report, quite clearly: “Yahoo! does not have an audience problem, as we are growing on pace with the Internet. Yahoo! does, however, have an engagement problem, as our share of time spent is flat, relative to our competitors.”

It’s aim is to fix that by building the “One Yahoo! experience, in which each of our current and future products fortifies the whole.”

Easier said than done, especially in building up its ad tech business, as the report adds, zeroing in on its most potent rival:

“To defend and grow our share of the premium advertising market, Yahoo! must continue investing to reach parity where necessary and achieve sustainable differentiation against Google with our premium marketplace and technology stack.”

There’s a lot more than that, so dig in to the document, which suggest a whole lot of spending to turn around Yahoo.

Since Mayer is well on her way in that department — including bouncing CFO Tim Morse, who was very bottom-line wary — more on that, next!

You must now download the full report here, which was removed from DocStoc here after a takedown request from Yahoo’s lawyers.

But the age at which star scientists make their biggest discoveries or have their greatest insights has been rising since Einstein did his pathbreaking work at age 26 in 1905. The “age of invention,” as economist Benjamin F. Jones of the Kellogg School of Management puts it, is rising. Therein lies a threat to prosperity.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

The findings are the product of Encode, or Encyclopedia of DNA Elements, a vast, multiyear project that is trying to pin down the workings of the human genome in unprecedented detail.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

According to sources close to the situation, News Corp.’s Chief Digital Officer Jon Miller will soon be leaving the media giant.

It seems to be a cordial, although perhaps inevitable, parting — sources said Miller will remain an adviser to chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, as well as COO Chase Carey and deputy COO James Murdoch, for a year after his departure in late September.

Update: News Corp. confirmed the departure in a press release, which is embedded below.

His leaving brings into focus the fate of News Corp.’s overall digital strategy in an upcoming new structure. Miller was hired in 2009 to turbocharge the company’s long-troubled digital assets.

But I had noted in an article in July that the well-known Internet exec was not likely to continue at News Corp. in the wake of a complex transaction that will ultimately break the company apart into two separate entities — an entertainment company and a publishing one.

That’s a very different situation from when Miller was hired by the media giant to lead its tech and online initiatives and make digital a priority across its many divisions.

Not for lack of trying or access to powerful News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch — it has been a mixed bag for Miller in his tenure.

That’s due in no small part to a problem faced by many execs like Miller: The difficulty of successfully pushing digital initiatives inside a large traditional media organization.

His job has encompassed everything from a failed effort to revive its once mighty Myspace service to selling it and other properties off to working to improve its Hulu partnership, where he serves on the board.

It is not clear who will replace Miller as one of the News Corp. directors at the complexly-owned premium video service, which had been for sale and then not recently.

One of the brighter Miller accomplishments for News Corp. has been forging decidedly better relationships with key Internet companies, both large and small, as well as with venture investors in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

That was most pronounced and visible between Apple and News Corp., which struck a number of deals to work together, some of which worked and some that had much less success.

Miller has also been active in China, working on several digital investment opportunities for News Corp. there. That included a recent $70 million investment in Bona Film Group.

He was key to a recent $45 million investment by the company and others in the company that sells the Roku video streaming device.

He also worked on various New Corp. efforts on creating channels on Google’s YouTube, including WIGS, a drama series. The jury is still out on these kinds of creative endeavors, of course, especially to a company with much more lucrative traditional film and television assets.

There was a possibility that, in his leaving, Miller might form a separate investment fund to focus on digital publishing and media, funded by News Corp. or even by the Murdoch family, who control the company.

But that has appeared not to have worked out, said sources.

Before he came to News Corp., Miller ran an investment fund with former Yahoo exec Ross Levinsohn called Fuse Capital. He also was chairman and CEO of AOL under its Time Warner ownership and was a top exec at IAC/InterActiveCorp.

Miller has remained an active angel investor, funding a range of start-ups such as Maker Studios, Voxer, Science, Solavei, Personal.com, as well many as others.

He is also chairman of OpenX and serves on the boards of Shutterstock and TripAdvisor.

Clearly, this is a world Miller will return to easily and it’s likely he’ll be starting something sooner than later. (Maybe bringing the band back together with Levinsohn?)

JonathanMillerAug23.2012

(Full disclosure: This Web site is owned by Dow Jones, which is owned — in turn — by News Corp.)

Their experiment, reported online Thursday in Science, translated the English text of a coming book on genomic engineering into actual DNA, using the chemical ingredients of genes as a code.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

The data, from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Tevatron collider near Chicago, isn’t enough on its own to confirm the existence of the Higgs particle. However, experimental results to be announced by European physicists on Wednesday will provide a stronger signal of where Higgs is likely to be hiding.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

One of the more important of the interviews at the 10th D: All Things Digital conference was the pairing of Khan Academy’s Salman Khan and Stanford University’s President John Hennessy to talk about the state of online education.

And we have a lot to learn, as it turns out, to make digital education really start to have an impact globally.

Hennessy (who runs one of the world’s most influential educational institutions and a huge engine of Silicon Valley growth) and Khan (whose online site teaches thousands of people in math, science and other subjects daily, and has delivered 150 million Web lessons) are the ones who would know.

Here’s the video of the interview that Walt Mossberg did with the pair:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120628/sal-kahn-and-john-hennessy-on-online-education-the-full-d10-interview-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120626/mayor-bloomberg-wants-you-to-super-size-your-health-the-full-d10-interview-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20120626/mayor-bloomberg-wants-you-to-super-size-your-health-the-full-d10-interview-video/#comments Tue, 26 Jun 2012 15:34:38 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=224460

It was fortuitous for the 10th D: All Things Digital conference that the larger-than-life New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg had just banned giant servings of sugary and high-calorie supersized sodas in the city.

Because of duties back in the Big Apple, the electronic news entrepreneur was broadcast to D10 via satellite, but he managed to strongly defend his latest effort to fight bad health practices by his constituents — whether they like it or not.

Even remotely, the interview was lively and covered a wide variety of topics, including Bloomberg’s thoughts about technology in the classroom, and the reasons he’s not going to run for president.

Among the reasons — he backs gay rights and, “I believe in science.”

Don’t miss this great interview with me and Walt Mossberg:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120626/mayor-bloomberg-wants-you-to-super-size-your-health-the-full-d10-interview-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120626/science-acquires-klout-for-pinterest-start-up-pinpuff/ http://allthingsd.com/20120626/science-acquires-klout-for-pinterest-start-up-pinpuff/#comments Tue, 26 Jun 2012 11:30:44 +0000 Liz Gannes http://allthingsd.com/?p=224351 Science, the hyperactive Los Angeles incubator from former Myspace CEO Mike Jones, has acquired a company. Pinpuff measures influence on Pinterest, which is one of the biggest referrers of sales for Science companies. It’s a tiny acquisition, and the first for Science, with just founder Gaurav Sharma moving to L.A. from India.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120626/science-acquires-klout-for-pinterest-start-up-pinpuff/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120513/exclusive-yahoos-thompson-out-levinsohn-in-board-settlement-with-loeb-nears-completion/ http://allthingsd.com/20120513/exclusive-yahoos-thompson-out-levinsohn-in-board-settlement-with-loeb-nears-completion/#comments Sun, 13 May 2012 15:59:24 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=207290

Yahoo’s embattled CEO Scott Thompson (pictured here) is set to step down from his job at the Silicon Valley Internet giant, in what will be dramatic end to a controversy over a fake computer science degree that he had on his bio, according to multiple sources close to the situation.

The pair will apparently say he is departing for “personal reasons.” Sources said that Thompson will be claiming to be leaving due to a serious illness that he recently discovered he had.

But the evolving crisis — which is just over a week old — centered on his botched resume and how he handled the thorny issue is the key reason for the abrupt end to his tenure as a CEO.

Thompson’s likely replacement on an interim basis will be Yahoo’s global media head Ross Levinsohn, who most recently also ran its Americas unit, including its advertising sales.

In addition to the management upheaval, Yahoo’s board is closing in on a settlement with the man who discovered Thompson’s misstep, activist shareholder Daniel Loeb of Third Point, said sources.

The situation could change, since Yahoo’s full board still has to meet this morning to officially approve the sweeping changes at the long-troubled company.

But, if it is, this development goes a long way toward fixing some of what has been ailing Yahoo recently.

And it’ll also be a stunning victory for Loeb (pictured here), since the pugnacious hedge fund investor is set to get three board seats from a slate proposed by him as part of a proxy fight aimed at Yahoo. The new Yahoo directors will be media exec Michael Wolf and turnaround specialist Harry Wilson. Loeb’s fourth selection — former NBC head Jeff Zucker — will withdraw.

The five current Yahoo directors — who were to step down at the company’s annual meeting this summer — will leave the board effective immediately, sources said, to make way for the Third Point selections.

Finally, Yahoo’s recently added director Fred Amoroso will be named chairman of the board.

Amoroso is the director who has been conducting the investigation into the issues raised by Loeb about how the fake academic credentials got in Thompson’s public bios, as well as in Yahoo’s regulatory filings, and also the hurried circumstances around his hiring in January.

Those mysteries — read, screw-ups — might never be solved now, although Thompson made a convoluted attempt to explain it all in two awkward employee meetings at the end of last week. In those gatherings, according to numerous sources, he blamed a headhunting firm for introducing the mistake when he was being hired for a job at eBay in the mid-2000 timeframe.

That company, Heidrick and Struggles, slapped back last week with an internal memo, noting that Thompson’s claim was “verifiably not true.” Sources said that Heidrick told Yahoo’s board that it was in possession of a resume that Thompson had apparently submitted showing the inaccurate CS degree on it.

That memo, impugning Thompson’s credibility, was one of many that piled on to create an impossible situation for the Yahoo board, related to his leadership ability going forward.

Thompson had also previously issued a Yahoo statement, in which he apologized for the “distraction” caused by the problematic resume, but not for the mistake itself.

And, initially, Yahoo — under his direction — had called the borked resume an “inadvertent error.”

Such fumbling to fix the situation was among the many other issues that the board has been considering relating the ability of Thompson to remain in his job. Also of importance was the sinking morale of Yahoo employees, who had largely rejected Thompson’s excuses in the ResuMess scandal.

Internal message boards at Yahoo lit up all last week, with staffers largely rejecting his explanations. In addition, a number of top execs and engineers approached the board calling for Thompson’s firing.

While that’s not precisely what happened here, it’s close enough to describe Thompson’s departure as inevitable.

All this change comes in the wake of a massive restructuring he was in the midst of at Yahoo, after 2,000 employee layoffs.

Thompson was pushing forward a vision of adding a much more significant data and commerce element to Yahoo’s largely ad-based business.

That is likely to be less stressed under media-focused Levinsohn, who will be essentially trying out to be the permanent CEO.

Well known in the media and advertising communities, he has worked at a number of big online efforts over many years.

According to his bio at Yahoo, where he arrived in 2010:

He previously served as the President of News Corporation’s Fox Interactive Media, where he was responsible for the day-to-day operations, strategy and acquisitions that helped transformed the company into a leader in digital media. He also held senior management positions with AltaVista, an early pioneer and leader in search, CBS Sportsline where he oversaw all content and development for the top rated sports site, and HBO where he launched and oversaw a unit developing new programming and revenue streams. Levinsohn also was the co-founder and managing director of Fuse Capital, an investment and strategic equity management firm focused on investing in and building digital media and communications companies.

Levinsohn sits on the board of Freedom Communications and the Bogart Pediatric Cancer Research Program. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from The American University.

So far in my checking, Levinsohn’s resume is accurate.

More to come, obviously.

I have emails and texts and calls into everyone for comment, but apparently they are all out at a Mother’s Day brunch (except me).

RELATED POSTS:

• Yahoo’s Parting With Thompson Will Be for “Cause” (a.k.a. CSLie)
• Ross Levinsohn’s Yahoo Plan: Back to the Future
• Here’s New Yahoo CEO’s First Note to Troops! (The Leaking-Internal-Memos-to-ATD Policy Remains in Effect As Usual)
• Yahoo Officially Confirms ATD Report on CEO Changes and Proxy Settlement
• Meet the Man I Call “The Hair”: The Video Stylings of Yahoo’s Newest CEO Ross Levinsohn
• Will Thompson’s Ouster Mean a Yahoo-Facebook Patent Settlement Too?
• Exclusive: Yahoo’s Thompson Out; Levinsohn In; Board Settlement With Loeb Nears Completion
• Heidrick & Struggles Slaps Back at Thompson’s Yahoo in Blame Game Over ResuMess
• Is He In or Is He Out? Crunchtime for Scott Thompson at Yahoo.
• Not So Scott Free? Yahoo’s Other Big Shareholder — Cap Re — Leaning Toward Supporting Loeb Over Thompson ResuMess.
• Tech Nation’s Gunn Says She and Yahoo CEO Discussed Their CS Degrees Before 2009 Show (Video and Audio)
• Loeb Calls Again for Thompson Firing From Yahoo, as Former eBay Boss Supports Him
• Place Your Bets: Will Loeb Drop Another Bomb on Yahoo at Vegas Confab Later Today?
• Exclusive: Yahoo Director in Charge of Botched CEO Vetting to Step Down From Board
• CEO Says Sorry to Yahoos for Borked Bio “Distraction” — But Will Mea Culpa Work Without an Apology for Error? (Memo)
• Buffett Comments on Trust Issue in Yahoo CEO BioGate: “You’ve Got a Problem”
• Loeb Lobs Lawsuit, as Expected, at Yahoo’s Borked Bio Mess
• As Yahoo CEO Reaches Out to Top Staff, Board Meets to Weigh “Options” (I.E., Deciding Who Gets to Take the Borked Bio Blame)
• Yahoo Should Expect Incoming Lawsuit Lobbed by Loeb Tomorrow on CEO Hiring
• They Shoot Yahoo CEOs, Don’t They? But Not Without a Really Smoking Gun and a Much Stronger Board.
• Yahoo’s Thompson Asks Employees to “Stay Focused” — Except Not on Him
• In 2009 Interview, Yahoo CEO Does Not Deny He Has a CS Degree, and Calls Himself an “Engineer” (Audio)
• Yahoo’s Board Will “Review” Resume Discrepancy of CEO
• How Did a Phantom CS Degree Get on CEO’s Bio in SEC Filings? Yahoo’s Not Saying.
• Yahoo’s Response on CEO’s Computer Science ResumeGate: “Inadvertent Error”
• Dan Loeb Alleges “Discrepancies” on Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s Resume Related to Computer Science Degree

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120513/exclusive-yahoos-thompson-out-levinsohn-in-board-settlement-with-loeb-nears-completion/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120423/all-things-hired-bonnie-cha-is-our-latest-atd-reviewer/ http://allthingsd.com/20120423/all-things-hired-bonnie-cha-is-our-latest-atd-reviewer/#comments Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:01:10 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=197637

On the heels of our recent hiring of Mike Isaac to cover social tech for this site, Bonnie Cha will be joining the staff of All Things Digital as a senior reviewer.

She joins Walt Mossberg and Katie Boehret, as well as recent hire Lauren Goode, as part of our expanded All Things Reviewed site.

Cha has been covering technology since 2002, most recently spending eight years at CNET reviewing various consumer electronics, including printers, software and smartphones, as well as reporting on the wireless industry.

She also wrote for the Crave blog there, covering such topics as robotics and science, and served as a technical editor on several how-to books for McGraw-Hill.

When not tinkering with the latest gadgets, Cha enjoys spending her free time surfing or checking out live music. She is a graduate of Emory University with a degree in English and of the University of Southern California, where she got her masters in journalism.

Most of all, we think she’s a perfect fit for our ever-growing staff, so get ready for some insightful reviews and more when she starts in May.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120423/all-things-hired-bonnie-cha-is-our-latest-atd-reviewer/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120404/l-a-stories-mike-jones-and-peter-pham-talk-about-the-science-of-tech-studios/ http://allthingsd.com/20120404/l-a-stories-mike-jones-and-peter-pham-talk-about-the-science-of-tech-studios/#comments Wed, 04 Apr 2012 20:27:00 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=193100

While swanning about Los Angeles last week, I paid a visit to a number of interesting techies, including Mike Jones and Peter Pham, who recently founded Science.

While there are a lot of incubators and accelerators out there fiddling with start-ups, the pair of well-known entrepreneurs are calling this venture a “technology studio.”

By that, they mean that Science will do a lot more, from coming up with in-house ideas to investing some of their $10 million in backing to advising on how Silicon Valley should look at investments in Southern California to even taking on restructuring of larger entities.

Science investors include Rustic Canyon, White Star Capital, the Social+Capital Partnership and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt’s Tomorrow Ventures, and it also has relationships with private equity firms for the bigger stuff.

The focus of Science, as the pair discusses below in a video interview, will be in three arenas: The intersection of content and commerce, social and mobile, and location.

As longtime entrepreneurs and Internet execs, Jones and Pham know those arenas, both the pluses and the minuses.

Jones tried his best (and, like others, failed) with the Myspace revival and also founded and sold Specific Media, Userplane and Tsavo Media.

Pham was recently helming the high-profile and controversial Color photo-sharing start-up in Silicon Valley and did stints at both BillShrink and Photobucket (a former News Corp. property, as was Myspace. News Corp. owns this Web site.).

Here’s my chat with them about their sun-dappled dreams of SoCal tech hegemony via their Santa Monica, Calif., HQ:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120404/l-a-stories-mike-jones-and-peter-pham-talk-about-the-science-of-tech-studios/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120404/another-science-start-up-wittlebee-gets-2-5-million-in-funding-for-kids-clothes-club/ http://allthingsd.com/20120404/another-science-start-up-wittlebee-gets-2-5-million-in-funding-for-kids-clothes-club/#comments Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:00:30 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=193027

Wittlebee, a monthly kids’ clothing club that was incubated at Los Angeles area “technology studio” Science, has gotten $2.5 million in funding.

Much like another Science start-up, Dollar Shave Club, Wittlebee ships a custom box of high-quality kids’ clothes to members.

The seed round of funding was led by Rincon, with participation from SoftTech, Google Ventures, Matt Coffin, Crosslink, and Morado.

Wittlebee’s CEO and founder Sean Percival said the money would be used to create a private-label clothing line.

Wittlebee uses stay-at-home parents, who have used the site, as customer service reps. The start-up sends a new order of children’s apparel each month, including onesies, t-shirts, leggings, socks and pants, upping the sizes as the kid grows.

In other words, kind of like a never-ending online Gap.

Here’s the official press release on Wittlebee’s funding:

Wittlebee Raises $2.5 Million Seed Funding Lead By Rincon

Children’s clothing membership service to begin manufacturing private label designs to keep up with growing customer demand

Los Angeles, CA. April 4, 2012 — Wittlebee (www.Wittlebee.com), the affordable children’s clothing monthly membership service backed by technology studio Science Inc., today announces the company raised $2.5 million in seed funding leady by Rincon, with participation from SoftTech, Google Ventures, Matt Coffin, CrossLink, and Morado. Jim Andelman, co-founder and General Partner at Rincon, joins Wittlebee’s board alongside Michael Jones, founder and CEO of Science, and Sean Percival, Wittlebee’s founder and CEO.

Since launching less than two months ago, Wittlebee has experienced accelerated growth, in part because of Science’s track record of quickly scaling ecommerce businesses. The company will use the new investment to build out its executive team and user acquisitions.

Upon joining Wittlebee, customers are connected to a team of mom stylists who work with families to compose boxes of high-quality children’s clothing to meet individual children’s needs. Active kids in warm climates like Miami may receive appropriate t-shirts, shorts and socks whereas infants in Albany receive long-sleeve onesies and cozy pajamas.

“Wittlebee’s recent growth has been tremendous,” said Percival. “Our customer feedback is overwhelmingly positive; we are speaking to an audience of 20,000 highly engaged moms across social media who tell us they’re delighted we’re saving them time and money for all their children’s clothing needs. We plan to use Rincon’s investment to create Wittlebee’s private label clothing line that will truly showcase our commitment to high-quality practical children’s apparel.”

In the coming months, customers will receive a selection of parents’ favorite well-known brands in addition to Wittlebee’s private label. Manufactured both locally in Los Angeles and abroad, the new line represents customers’ wish-list of kids’ must-haves, from high-quality soft fabrics, to a wide color palate, to unique graphic designs. After months of research and testing apparel options through Wittlebee’s social networks, the resulting Wittlebee bespoke label will be a timeless array of apparel basics to carry kids through seasons, activities and all their lifestyle needs.

“For every investment decision we make, we care most about customer value proposition, team, and business model,” said Jim Andelman, Managing Partner at Rincon. “We’ve been tremendously impressed by parents’ positive response to Wittlebee’s offering: they love the selections, they save money and you can’t beat the convenience of clothes showing up right to your door. The e-commerce space is exploding in LA, and we’re very excited to be at the forefront with Wittlebee.”

For more on Wittlebee, please visit www.Wittlebee.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120404/another-science-start-up-wittlebee-gets-2-5-million-in-funding-for-kids-clothes-club/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120327/yahoo-prominent-brainiac-drain-continues-goodbye-to-broder-mao/ http://allthingsd.com/20120327/yahoo-prominent-brainiac-drain-continues-goodbye-to-broder-mao/#comments Tue, 27 Mar 2012 17:34:47 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=190434 The departures from Yahoo’s research units — which is the once-vaunted computer science arm of the Silicon Valley Internet giant that is facing big cost cuts — continues. This time, said sources, it’s Andrei Broder, VP of computational advertising and chief scientist of the Advertising Product Group, as well as Jianchang (JC) Mao, who heads advertising sciences. It is not clear where either is going. But this research talent drain comes as no surprise after Yahoo Labs head Prabhakar Raghavan left for Google. He was followed by others, such as Raghu Ramakrishnan, who went to Microsoft. Yahoo declined to comment, as usual — but it is spot-on!

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120327/yahoo-prominent-brainiac-drain-continues-goodbye-to-broder-mao/feed/ 0