Wednesday, July 13, 2016


Zillow CEO Buys House In LA
Spencer Rascoff, the CEO of real estate site Zillow, is heading to Los Angeles, after buying a $20M mansion in Brentwood. According to a note sent to employees in May, Rascoff will split his time between Seattle and Los Angeles. Rascoff said that LA is where he and his wife grew up, and where their parents live, and the move is for "personal family reasons." It's unclear how Rascoff's presence in the city might or might not benefit the local tech community, as Los Angeles is a popular location f (More info...)
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Santa Monica Convicts Man Over Illegal Airbnb Rentals
The City of Santa Monica has convicted a man who rented out five, short-term vacation rental units on Airbnb, for failing to operate with the proper city permits. According to the Santa Monica City Attorney, Scott Shatford plead "no contest" to a misdemeanor charge of operating his rentals illegally, and has agreed to cease operating in the city--in addition to paying a number of fines and other investigative costs. According to the Santa Monica Lookout, Shatford is the author of a book about op (More info...)
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ShareGrid Finds $1M For Film, Photo Equipment Marketplace
ShareGrid, a peer to peer marketplace startup which has been operating an online, peer-to-peer marketplace in both Los Angeles and New York, allowing users to rent out their idle film and photo equipment, has raised $1M. The seed funding came from MHS Capital and Archer Gray. ShareGrid says it currently has over 12,000 film and photo professionals using its marketplace in Los Angeles and New York, its pilot cities, letting them rent out their idle equipment to others. ShareGrid is headquartered (More info...)
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Report: Pokemon Go Now On More Phones Than Twitter
Irvine-based research firm MFour Mobile Research says that the Pokemon Go phenomenon has now resulted in the new, augmented reality game passing up Twitter in installations on smartphones. MFour said among its million-member panel of users, it found that 33 percent of them are now using Pokemon Go, easily passing up the 30 percent who have Twitter installed on their phones. Pokemon Go was only released on July 6th, and has since create a nationwide phenomenon of video gamers wandering the street (More info...)
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HireRight Opens Office In Dubai
Irvine-based background check verification service provider HireRight. said today that it has opened up an office in Dubai, as part of a drive into the Middle Eastern market. According to HireRight, the new office will service its client base in the Middle East and North Africa. HireRight says the new office, in particular, will serve clients in the oil and gas, technology and financial services industries.
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Interview with Justin and Dawn Newton, Netki
A lot of consumers have heard of Bitcoin and blockchain, but haven't actually used it, in part because the cybercurrency can be complex and difficult to use. One of the largest areas of complexity is the use of the Bitcoin address--a long, complex string which is used to uniquely identify your Bitcoin wallet. Los Angeles-based Netki (www.netki.com) is addressing that complexity, with a product called WalletNames, which replaces those long, complex, easy to confuse strings with easy to remember, (More info...)
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Loot Crate Rolls Gears Of War Bundle
Los Angeles-based Loot Crate, which sells curated, subscription boxes for pop culture, videogame, comic, and other fans, says it is rolling out a new, "mystery crate" to coincide with the release of Gears of War 4. According to the company, the "Gears of War 4: Loot Crate Edition" will include a number of Gears of Wars items, and also include an optional bundle of the Gears of War 4 game for Xbox One and Windows 10. Loot Crate says the offer is the first time that it has enabled pre-ordering a g (More info...)
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Sienna Biopharmaceuticals Ups Series A To $46M
Westlake Village-based Sienna Biopharmaceuticals has had a second close on its Series A funding, bringing the total raised in the round to $46M, the company said on Tuesday. The funding was led by ARCH Venture Partners and Partner Fund Management, and also included Two River, Altitude Life Science Ventures, Venvest Capital, and angels. Sienna Pharmaceuticals said the new funding will go towards its pharmaceutical research efforts and business development. Sienna is initially targeting the medica (More info...)
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Activision Rolls Out New Call of Duty: Black Ops III Expansion
Santa Monica-based Activision Blizzard has rolled out a new expansion pack for its Call of Duty: Black Ops III title, saying that it has rolled out "Descent", the third expansion pack for the popular game. The new expansion was developed by Treyarch, and is published by Activision Publishing. The company said the new pack is available on PlayStation 4. The company said the pack includes four new multiplayer maps, in addition to other featuers.
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