Facebook Home Event in Menlo Park, CA, on April 4, 2013.

Facebook’s New Android Beta Program Could Help Spruce Up Home

Beta, come Home!

News Byte

Security Startup Synack Raises $1.5 Million

Synack, a startup that allows users to crowdsource security testing of their software systems in virtual private environments, announced Thursday that it raised $1.5 million in a seed round of venture funding. Contributors to the round include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Greylock Partners, Wing Venture Partners, Allegis Capital, and Shape Security CEO Derek Smith.

News Byte

Twitter Releases Mobile App Testing Tools for Android Phones

Twitter on Thursday released Crashlytics for Android, a toolset that helps mobile developers test their software on mobile devices to improve apps before they are released to consumers. Twitter acquired the Crashlytics team earlier this year, and has taken multiple steps to court developers and encourage them to integrate their applications with Twitter.

You Say Potato, I Say Wi-Fi

Boeing ensures that its in-flight Wi-Fi systems are fully baked.

News Byte

Twitter Open-Sources Mobile Testing Software Clutch.io

Attention, mobile wonks: Twitter is making it easier for you to test your homegrown iOS apps. The company announced Thursday that it will open-source Clutch.IO, the recently acquired code library that helps developers make, test and deploy iOS applications. Twitter acquired Clutch two months ago; open-sourcing the code allows others to continue to use Clutch after Twitter shuts down the service on Nov. 1.

News Byte

eBay Quietly Tests Local Same-Day Shipping Service in San Francisco

E-commerce giant eBay began testing a same-day delivery service on Sunday, quietly sending out invitations to San Francisco residents. Dubbed “eBay Now,” the mobile app-based service allows city residents to order items $25 and above from local businesses, and have the purchases delivered directly to their homes on the same day. The service, which was first noticed on Sunday by TechCrunch, is currently in its pilot phase, though it may roll out to more cities in the future.

Exclusive: BermanBraun Buys Most of Shelby Bonnie’s Whiskey Media

Can’t we all just get along? Yes! Hollywood grabs a piece of Silicon Valley content tech.

An Exclusive Look Inside Nokia’s Smartphone Torture Chamber

Take a rare peek inside the normally off-limits labs in which the Finnish cellphone maker drops, freezes and bakes its latest devices.

Voices

App Developers Skirt Apple’s Limits With Work-Arounds

The cat-and-mouse game between the Bay Area’s legion of mobile developers and app kingmaker Apple Inc. is heating up.

Voices

Early Adopter: Is the Future of User Experience Design Made of Paper and Polish?

Everyone can move a sticky note. This is the concept of the trio of creators of UXPin, a paper prototyping kit for mocking up a Web site before a single line of code is ever written. It has become popular with designers who value speed and iteration–and, now, they’ll be able to UXPin-up a whole new set of interfaces.

Twitter: Nope, We're Not Testing a Self-Serve Ad Platform (Yet)

Twitter does indeed plan to roll out a self-serve ad platform this year. But it hasn’t done so yet, isn’t testing one and has yet to build the thing. So says Twitter, which is publicly calling out a MediaPost report that says otherwise.