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Photosharing app Instagram went through a subtle redesign this afternoon. In addition to the brand new "Sierra" filter, Notifications improvements and a UI/UX refresh where the feed, popular, share and news buttons have all been divorced of their copy and are now just streamlined symbols, the company has added the "Lux" feature. Lux, denoted by an eclipse symbol in the bottom left hand corner of the app's image edit dashboard,  is basically an adjustment of image brightness, midtone contrast and saturation in order to bring out the details in an iPhone photo -- sort of like what iPhone HDR wishes it was.<詳細內容>

Padma Rao's analytical marketing skills have made a big impact at more than one company in the Bay Area, and now she's bringing a decade of experiences to her new role as an entrepreneur in residence at Foundation Capital. Her most recent efforts helped turn a gaming startup into a booming public company. Few people realized it at the time, but in late 2008 and early 2009 social game developer Zynga had figured out how to get a great return on investment from Facebook advertising. The social network had developed its ad system over the previous few years to the point that it was able to deliver ads closely targeted to users' interests -- but most people hadn't realized that yet, so prices were cheap.<詳細內容>

When Google Music launched a couple months ago, there was some criticism regarding how the service was promoted. What many saw as just another music locker and streaming service (albeit a perfectly good and free one) others saw as a great new vector for music sales and distribution. But the music locker portion seemed to hog the spotlight, and the cool Band Camp-esque new artist hubs lurked in the gloom. Busta Rhymes seems to be a fan of the latter, and not just because he's in an official partnership. In an interview on MTV, he was positively effusive about Google's new platform. Check out the short clip inside.<詳細內容>

Only about 5% Facebook gamers pay to play freemium games. If Facebook could up this percentage, it and its third-party app developers could make a lot more money. That's the idea behind a new promotion Facebook announced today where those who've never bought Facebook Credits virtual currency before will be offered $4 in free Credits when they buy $1. This gets users to set up their credit card and experience the rush of paying for an enhanced gaming experience.<詳細內容>

They say when it rains, it pours. That's not usually a good thing, but when it's raining money, things are a little different. That was the case at Kickstarter yesterday, where they had their biggest day of funding ever, beating the record set... the day before yesterday. It was also the day that marked the first Kickstarter project to break $1,000,000 in funding. And the day that marked the second project to hit that number. And New York's city council endorsed the site as a way to highlight community projects that need funding. Oh, and they're on Portlandia. Definitely the biggest day in the site's history, then. They've commemorated it with a great blog post that might just make your Friday a little better. It also brings up a few new and interesting questions regarding how the site should or will be used.<詳細內容>

If you’re an AT&T customer coming off of a contract and looking to snap up a new phone, you should get on that right now. According to an AT&T memo obtained by BGR, AT&T will be raising their device upgrade fee from $18 to $36 as of February 12, which means you’ve got until Sunday to swap phones before your first post-upgrade bill gets even bigger. The memo states that the fee hike is needed because “the overall costs associated with upgrading to a new device have increased.”<詳細內容>

Scientists at the University of Cambridge in the UK have found a way to improve the efficiency of photovoltaic cells by as much as 25% through harnessing more of the sun's spectrum than most traditional silicon-based solar cells can.<詳細內容>

On the surface, the StartX Demo Day last night could have looked like any other accelerator pushing its latest class of startups. Nine groups got on stage and fired off presentations about how they were working on something cool, and why they deserved funding. But it wasn't the rash of lightweight consumer applications you often see at other demo days. These were Stanford students, particularly technical graduate students, who have been nerding out on solving real problems for years in their labs and dorm rooms, and who are now in the middle of commercializing their hard work. Big-name investors from around Silicon Valley unsurprisingly showed up to check them out.<詳細內容>

The US Department of Defense Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit is look for a few good coders to help build apps and an entire app store for bomb technicians and soldiers involved in ordnance handling. This is when sliding to unlock could mean the difference between life or death. The request for proposals is as dull as dirt (you can read it hear) but the requirements are clear: they're looking for apps that will replace paper pocket guides and references used by the folks that blow up the big badda booms.<詳細內容>

Gillmor Gang - Robert Scoble, Steve Gillmor, John Borthwick, and Kevin Marks. Recording has concluded.<詳細內容>