What the hukk?

Lala Land When you plunk down $18 million in hard-won settlement earnings on an 8,000 sq. ft. manse with "a jetliner view of L.A." you don't just around on the couch watching Bravo. Especially not if your names are Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

The strapping venture capitalists recently hosted two parties at their new Hollywood Hills home. The first was feting Katie Finnegan and Erica Bell, cofounders of the fashion startup Hukkster, which recently scored a $1 million seed round from the duo. Guests included actor Jason Lewis (Samatha's boyfriend to the rest of us). 

They followed that up with a fundraiser for Los Angeles mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti, a Democrat. According to LA Weekly, Mr. Garcetti is, "the candidate who pulls out his iPhone and brags that he 'has an app for that.'" Something tell us Silicon Beach found its new mascots.

Movin' on up Looks like fledging startup Branch is taking a flying leap from its betaworks nest. Founder Josh Miller took to Instagram to share the following picture of the company's spacious new digs. The new office is on 23rd Street and 3rd Avenue, and though it will technically be the Branch office, employees of Ev Williams' new startup Medium will also work out of it. "Say hi!" tweeted Mr. Miller. "We have extra desks for creative engs, designers, & writers."

Anti-Social Media  Mixel cofounder and former NYTimes.com design director Khoi Vinh has 295,000 some Twitter followers and plenty of clout/Klout. Startups take note: this is not how you want him to tweet about your company. 

Disrupt litter The employees at Square--who apparently refer to themselves as "Squares," because that's the kind of place Silicon Valley is--gave their neighbors a little holiday present earlier this week. Jack Dorsey reported on Twitter that 30 people spent 30 minutes collecting trash around their office. "Over 300 pounds cleaned up," he added proudly.

Please note that a filter was used in the making of this picture.

Your own dog food Speaking of filters: While doing a little casual perusing of Instagram's relatively new web profiles, we noticed something interesting: It appears that in the month of December, Kevin Systrom has posted exactly one photo (a snapshot from Paris) to the service he founded.

Holidays, Google Style Say what you will about GOOG, but the company knows how to throw a swanky ass party. This year's New York holiday party was a carnival-themed soiree at the Waldorf Astoria, and featured glow in the dark games like Pacman and foosball 3D glasses as party favors. "Google knows how to throw down, wrote one attendee. "Masquerade masks, ridiculous decor, & epic food/booze selection."

(Photo: Instagram/Shaila)

Skype's hairy eyeball only works in China.

Skype has taken to its company blog to reassure users that recent structural changes do not mean Skype has enabled snooping capabilities for itself or The Authorities. In a post titled, "What Does Skype's Architecture Do?" Skype corporate vice president Mark Gillett did his best to refute the main allegations  that have piled up since Skype was purchased by Microsoft.  According to Mr. Gillett, worries that Skype's changes were made to enable spying are pure paranoia:

It has been suggested that Skype has recently changed its posture and policies with regard to law enforcement.

False.

The move to supernodes was not intended to facilitate greater law enforcement access to our users' communications. Skype has had a team of Skype employees to respond to legal demands and requests from law enforcement since 2005. While we are focused on building the best possible products and experiences for our users, we also fundamentally believe that making a great product experience also means we must act responsibly and make it safe for everyone to use. Our position has always been that when a law enforcement entity follows the appropriate procedures, we respond where legally required and technically feasible. We have a policy posted to our main website that provides additional background on our position on this matter.

Mr. Gillett continues in the same fashion for the remainder of the blog post. Charges Skype now monitors all user video and audio? False. Were Skype's changes made "to facilitate law enforcement access" to IMs? Nope. Has Skype ceased protecting user communications in general? Absolutely not.

Except in China, sort of--where Skype does have a "chat filter" which is "in accordance with local law."

So there you have it--outside China, where they're totally "transparent" about it, Skype isn't prying into your late-night flirtations or grandma showing off her new puppy to the grandkids. Apparently they will not do so in the future, either--unless of course the law requires it.

This image is often relevant. (level343.com)

A source has informed Reuters that The Next Web's scoop was on the money: Google's Dropbox competitor, Google Drive, is about to happen. Reuters reports Google may announce the new service as early as Tuesday. There will be a 5 gigabyte free version with paid versions ranging up to 100 gigs. As The Next Web noted in its post about the service, the free space reportedly allotted by Google Drive beats Dropbox's 2 free gigabytes.

Reuters also reported on one of the rumored new service's more interesting possible features:

Google Drive will work with sophisticated image search technology to let consumers sift through a wide variety of document types, which could include the likes of Adobe PDF files and photographs, the source said.

Google, as per usual, wouldn't comment regarding the rumor.

Nineties Leftover, Tehran (Flickr.com/kamshots)

You guys, didn’t anyone tell Iran we’re not doing Internet April Fools Day anymore? Apparently not, because a fake interview with the country’s communications minister has everyone convinced they’re straight-up banning the internet.

An International Business Times piece is currently racing around the internet, giving everyone the impression that Iran is permanently pulling the plug sometime in August. From the article:

In a statement released Thursday, Reza Taghipour, the Iranian minister for Information and Communications Technology, announced the setting up of a national Intranet and the effective blockage of services like Google, Gmail, Google Plus, Yahoo and Hotmail, in line with Iran's plan for a "clean Internet.”

Now, IBT wasn’t exactly pulling this out of thin air, as Iran does have plans for some sort of closed "national information network," and they’ve already got a history of nationwide disruptions. But details are still scarce and the Iranian government now denies these reports, claiming the interview is fake, says the AFP:

The reports derived from a supposed interview with Communications Minister Reza Taghipour published on April 1 that was in fact a hoax, the ministry said in the statement on its own site www.ict.gov.ir -- which itself was not accessible outside of Iran.

The statement alleges the report serves "the propaganda wing of the West and providing its hostile media with a pretext emanating from a baseless claim."

Frankly, this leaves us with even more questions. Who's responsible for the hoax? Is Iran going to pull the plug once they do implement their national intranet? And whatever happened to faking out friends and family with a fictional engagement?