By Paul Thomson :: 2:11 PM
Snapchat, the disappearing short video messaging service, has reportedly turned down an all-cash acquisition offer from social media giant Facebook. Parties close to the companies claim the deal was valued at around $3 billion.
The company, led by CEOÂ Evan Spiegel, who, at 23 is also a co-founder of the service, is not likely to consider an acquisition offer until early next year. Company sources say that the leadership team is counting on the user base to grow, which will, in turn, justify a larger price tag.
This is not the first time that Faebook has tried to buy Snapchat. An earlier offer was valued closer to $1 billion. Had the deal gone through, it would have been Facebook’s largest acquisition, coming in at more than double what it paid for Instagram in 2010.
Earlier in the summer, Snapchat raised $60 million from a group of investors. That round of investment had valued the company at $800 million.
Snapchat claims that its usage has nearly doubled recently, to 350 million messages sent per day. This is up from 200 million recorded for the month of June.
By Gilbert Falso :: 6:53 AM
The U.S. postal service, hit lately from declining mail volume revenue, might be getting a shot in the arm from online retailer Amazon. The Seattle-based online marketplace today is announcing a partnership with the post office to offer package delivery on Sundays at normal postal rates.
Under terms of the deal, U.S. Postal Service employees will deliver Amazon goods to homes and businesses on all days of the week, including Sundays. While the USPS has, in the past, offered Sunday shipping in some areas, it required use of the agency’s Express Mail class of service and higher rates. The deal with Amazon will deliver packages at standard rates.
The program will begin as a pilot in the Los Angeles and New York City metro areas, and is expected to quickly expand across the country. The Postal Service believes that the partnership with Amazon could help lift it out of its current financial funk.
“As online shopping continues to increase, the Postal Service is very happy to offer shippers like Amazon the option of having packages delivered on Sunday,†said U.S. Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe.
With its volume of letters dropping by half in the past ten years as Americans shift bill payment and personal correspondence online, the agency is looking for arrangements like the one with Amazon to help boost revenues.
Although no specific numbers were given on the expected revenue increase, historical growth shows the number of packages shipped by the agency on the rise. In 2012, the USPS delivered 3.5 billion parcels, up from 3.3 billion in 2011 and 3.1 billion in 2010.
By Gilbert Falso :: 12:35 AM
Two people were shot late Saturday evening at the Bryant Park skating rink in New York City.
According to published reports, an unidentified gunman opened fire at the rink shortly after 11:00 PM.
One victim was struck in the leg, and another victim was struck in the back. Both have been transported to an area hospital, and their conditions are currently unknown.
An Instagram user shot the video below immediately after the shooting took place, and it shows the chaos and confusion happening on the scene. The photo above was taken by Twitter user Raghuram Krishnamachari.
By Leslie Spellman :: 3:35 PM
Another Tesla electric vehicle has been involved in a fire, the second known instance to occur after the vehicle struck a piece of debris on the road, and the third Tesla fire in five weeks.
In the latest incident, a Tesla Model S sedan struck a tow hitch that was lying in the lane of travel on a highway in Tennessee. The hitch penetrated part of the undercarriage of the vehicle and started an electrical fire. The Tesla’s driver was able to safely pull the vehicle to the side of the road and exit it without injuries.
This fire is very similar to a Tesla fire that occurred in Washington state last month. In that incident, the car struck a piece of metal rebar lying in the road, which penetrated the car’s electrical system and started a fire. The driver in the Washington fire was also able to safely exit his vehicle without injury.
The third Tesla fire happened in Mexico when the driver collided with a concrete barrier.
While the  National Highway Traffic Safety Administration declined to investigate the fire in the Washington incident, the agency has not yet decided whether to look into the fire in Tennessee. Yesterday, the agency issued the following statement: “NHTSA is in close communication with Tesla and local authorities gathering information about the incident to determine if additional action is necessary.”
Tesla Motors has dispatched a team of engineers and accident investigators to Tennessee to look at the vehicle and better understand the cause of the fire. Tesla currently has about 19,000 of its Model S electric sedans on the road across the globe.
Photo above courtesy of the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
By Paul Thomson :: 12:42 AM
If you head over to Google’s website today, you’ll see some pretty funny looking inkblots. Those are from the Rorschach inkblot test, named after famous Swiss Freudian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Hermann Rorschach.
Today is Rorschach’s birthday – he was born in 1884. The inkblots in Rorschach’s test are used as psychological evaluation tools where subjects’ perceptions of the images are recorded and analyzed using psychological interpretation and complex algorithms.
Practicing psychologists can use this test to evaluate a patient’s personality characteristics and their emotional functioning. It is often used to detect underlying thought disorders, chiefly in cases where patients are reluctant to describe their thinking processes to a psychotherapist.
However, today on Google’s homepage, there’s no need for deep psychoanalysis – you can just click through some of the different inkblots, and share what you think you see with your friends on Google+, Facebook, or Twitter.