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MetaLab Launches Flow, A Beautiful Tool For Task Management | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 3 | 22 |
You may not be familiar with , but you’ve definitely come across their work: they designed sites for Qik, Sugar, Texts From Last Night, and the ubiquitous Tumblr theme ‘Fluid’, among other things. And today they’re launching a new app of their own: a new simple tool for managing and delegating tasks. The first thing you’ll notice is that the app is beautiful (and I don’t throw that word around lightly). This isn’t a huge surprise given MetaLab’s background, but the web app looks and feels a lot like something you’d expect from a polished native iPad application (in addition to the web app, there’s also a native iPhone app available ). MetaLab founder and CEO Andrew Wilkinson says that Flow tries to address a common problem: there are plenty of services that offer task management and to-do lists, but people often have their tasks scattered across multiple services. You might have your work projects stored in one place, like Basecamp, and then your personal tasks (“buy groceries”) or freelance work stored somewhere else. Unfortunately when you’re juggling multiple systems, things often fall through the cracks. Flow tries to solve this problem by making it easy to manage both personal and work-related tasks from one place, and by offering a streamlined interface that’s relatively easy to use. After signing up (which takes about 30 seconds), the app will walk you through most of its core features. To create a task, you enter a name, a due date, any contacts you’d like to delegate the task to, and relevant tags (most of these fields are optional). Tasks can be grouped into projects, and team members can append attachments and comments to each task (in a nice touch, all comments are posted in real-time, so you don’t have to refresh the page). The app also supports email — shoot a quick note to tasks@getflow.com, and you can add a task and delegate it to your colleagues. And you can check the current status on delegated tasks from a single dashboard. Above all, the app feels slick. It isn’t overly complex so it’s pretty easy to get started — though if you’re used to other robust task management tools, you might find some more advanced features are missing. If you’re looking for an alternative to GTD lists, Outlook, or Basecamp, it’s certainly worth checking out. The service will also be competing with , the site Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz, which is currently in private beta. Flow offers a 14 day free trial, and then runs $10 a month or $99 a year. This isn’t MetaLab’s first product — they also did the invoice service . [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxF7F5T-_Z8&rel=0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3]
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Adobe Beats The Street; Revenue Up 20 Percent To $1.03 Billion | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 3 | 22 | Adobe is another today. The company announced the results for the first quarter of fiscal 2011, reporting record revenue of $1.03 billion, which an increase of 20 percent from the same quarter in 2010. Adobe just beat analyst of $0.57 per share; posting non-GAAP diluted earnings per share at $0.58. Adobe’s non-GAAP operating income was $400.1 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2011, compared to $289.3 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2010 and $384.0 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010. Non-GAAP net income was $298.1 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2011, compared to $211.7 million from same quarter in the previous year and $285.7 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010. Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said in a statement: In terms of financial targets, Adobe remained cautious due to the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Says CFO Mark Garrett: Adobe is targeting revenue of $970 million to $1 billion for the second quarter of 2011. |
First Look: With Disco, Google Also Joins The Group Messaging Dance (Care Of Slide) | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 3 | 25 | As we just , Google has a secret group messaging project that was built from within their confines: . Slide, which , are the ones responsible for the app. And since word is that they’re allowed to run autonomously within the company as their own startup of sorts, the app probably doesn’t have anything to do with Google’s broader social strategy. Still, it’s a group messaging app that Google owns. So how is it? Well, it’s very barebones right now. We’ve been playing around the app every since we stumbled upon it, and it’s pretty safe to say at this point that it’s not yet a GroupMe/Fast Society/Kik/Beluga/textPlus-killer. But it is also still in beta, and the iPhone app design implies that it will expand beyond its current shell which is little more than a way to organize group text messages. In fact, better than the app is the Disco website, which provides a simple, streamlined way to send text messages to your groups from the web. And new messages appear in real time. You can also manage your groups from here, create new groups, and edit your profile. The site also works beautifully with the Google Voice Chrome extension if you have it installed. As I said, the iPhone app is more of an initialization/organizational one. In fact, when you message someone, it simply loads up an iPhone-style SMS window which doesn’t show you previous messages sent in the group. This means your phone’s built-in SMS app is better to use for context. Maybe that’s the idea — it’s definitely simple, which is nice. And the app looks good (which is not something you can say for all Google products). But I suspect updates to the app may allow you to see threads and perhaps even use Push Notifications instead of straight-up SMS (similar to the way GroupMe recently ). Also funny: where’s the Android version? This is Google after all. But that should show you just how autonomous Slide is — they built an iPhone app within Google and completely neglected Android (I wouldn’t be surprised if one is coming though). It also speaks well to the notion that Google is looking for mobile developers to build hot apps from within the company. Regardless of how it came about, Google now owns a player in the red-hot group messaging space — and it was actually built within the company! This means they don’t have to rush out to try and acquire someone to match . The next question is how this will tie-in with Google Voice, if at all. . |
Meet 'Disco', The Group Texting App Built Secretly Inside Google | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 3 | 25 | It seems like Google has made a foray into the group messaging space today with , a new iPhone app and website. Well, they sort of have. The service utilizes the Disco.com domain that Google last year for $255K. The Disco.com site went up today and the beta app hit the App Store yesterday, but no one noticed it — until now. And here’s the thing: it was made by Slide. We’ve been testing the app here at TC HQ and thus far its pretty fast, perhaps because it’s initial build is more bare-bones than fellow group messaging contenders like Fast Society, Beluga and GroupMe. It’s actually pretty similar to the initial build of GroupMe before it added push notifications. Again, the app is made by Slide, the storied social apps property which Google in August for $182 million. Slide has made iPhone apps before, but the last one was Super Poke, an app created pre-Google acquisition. But Slide is being run as an autonomous business unit within Google, so this app is unrelated to any Google “Plus One” social projects, we hear. We’ve reached out to Google for comment on the app and will update when we hear back. How the app will fare competing in the already saturated group messaging space remains to be seen, and you read MG’s take . In the meantime here’s two fun facts: that’s Slide founder Max Levchin’s in the app screenshot (he’s the one on the bike) and the sample group on the Disco homepage is named GaGa Fan Club, interesting light of Lady Gaga’s . h |
Blunt Umbrellas Reduce The Possibility Of Rain-Related Impaling | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 25 |
You would that, in a city like Seattle, people would learn to A: not have gigantic, pointy umbrellas, and B: look where the they are walking. But no, that is not the case. I fear for my life on blustery days when iPhone-absorbed pedestrians of smaller stature menace my eyeballs with their spiky bumbershoots. Today I learned that there are . I implore you, world, And make them cheaper, $80 is too much. [via ] |
Dwolla's FiSync Lets You Instantly Access Cash, Eliminates ACH Wait Times For Banks | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 3 | 25 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W89wEc59g9U&w=630]
Innovative web and mobile payments platform is announcing today its FiSync integration for financial institutions, a technology which lets users of participating banks integrate their accounts with with the Dwolla platform. FiSync will let members of partner financial institutions send and receive money via phone, web, Twitter and Facebook as well as at actual stores instantly. Because of a technology partnership with The Members Group, a full Dwolla FiSync core integration will eliminate the 2-3 day wait times associated with Automated Clearing House transactions and will allow users to directly transfer cash from their bank accounts, without the need for a pre-loaded Dwolla account. Dwolla provides a free web based software platform which allows users to send, receive, and request funds from any other user, charging merchants and others receiving funds only 25 cents. The service just released a pretty amazing location-based check-in and pay service called , which basically eliminates the need for NFC or hardware dongles like Square at locations with the integration. Says CEO Ben Milne, Banks like Premier and several unnamed others have already signed up to use the service through their home-banking functions, and Dwolla is offering its custom APIs for free in case others are others interested. |
Specialized And McLaren Claim "The Fastest Complete Performance Bike In The World" | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 25 |
Cross-discipline collaborations are nothing new for the car, bike, or any industry, really. By putting their heads together, people can produce truly works of engineering, though the result is almost always horrendously expensive. In this case, considering the collaborators are the well-known bike maker Specialized and the famed auto designer McLaren, you know it’s going to cost you a dollar or two over the competition. They’ve created to be a record-breaker, and in fact call it “the fastest complete performance bike in the world.” The carbon fiber frame tips the scales at under a kilogram: 950g, or around 2.09 pounds. Once you add in seat, handlebars, and so on, it comes to about 4.5 pounds. My bike’s weighs 4.5 pounds. The tubing is aerodynamically optimized (or “optimised,” as the Brits would say) and cabling runs internally, so once you get your tight bike suit and teardrop helmet on, the air won’t know what hit it. It should be available in the UK for £5000, or $8000 US. (BYO wheels) [via and ] |
FYI: New MacBooks Have High-Power USB Ports For Quick Charging | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 25 |
A nice little unpublicized feature in the latest : the USB ports , allowing devices like to charge as fast as they would from an outlet. Good for people who use their laptop as their main power hub. The more you know! |
null | Nicholas Deleon | 2,011 | 3 | 22 | null |
Woah, This Robobird Really Flies Like A Bird – Like, With Wings | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 25 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnR8fDW3Ilo&w=640&h=390]
, is an ultra-light flying machine modeled on “herring gulls,” whatever those are (we have “seagulls” here), and it actually flies by flapping its wings as a bird would — not just up and down, either, but twisting at the precise angles that make precise flight possible. It should be said that it’s not actually the same size as a bird — it has a 2-meter wingspan, making it more of an albatross simulator than anything. But it weighs less than half a kilogram, meaning it doesn’t take much to get it into the air. It can take off, fly, and land without any interference. It’s really a bit creepy — like that we saw a little while back. But like that thing, the important part is really making it practical, by which I mean giving it more than a ten-second flight time. Batteries are heavy. But hey, if these guys can design a flying bird machine, I’m sure they can figure out the next bit. [via , and ] |
Cobra USB For PS3: In Case Jailbreaking Is Too Hard For You | Nicholas Deleon | 2,011 | 3 | 25 | It’s only a matter of time till shuts these guys down, so better write about this quick. It’s called the , and presumably it has nothing to do with . Actually, no, I know it has nothing to do with Sanitno, for it’s a USB dongle that unlocks a few handy features, including region free Blu-ray playback and the ability to play DVD ISOs right from the PS3’s hard drive. Clearly this is not an official product, and, again, I wouldn’t be shocked if these guys are shut down by the time this post hits the front page. You can also play PS1 and PSP ISOs from the hard drive. Legal grey area says hi… Not that jailbreaking your PS3 is hard, but this is plug-and-play, for the truly lazy among us. You will, of course, need an older firmware (3.41) to get it to work in the first place. It should be available on April 11. |
Color's Totally Public Photo Swapping Service Has A Public Office To Match | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 3 | 25 |
Stroll through downtown Palo Alto right now, and there’s a chance you’ll pass by one of the most buzzed-about startups in the Valley: , the new that raised $41 million pre-launch and has been met with waves of hype and . Color’s office is pretty nondescript from the outside — that is, until you notice the handwritten note that’s hanging on the door. Color CEO , who sold Lala to Apple in 2009 before starting Color, has written a letter to passersby inviting them to come inside and check out the office — where they’ll actually be able to submit ideas for the product. Here’s the full text: “What is Color? We are an open social network for your iPhone and Android. This is our home that we’ll be opening to our community. You can come in during the day and participate in our product vision. We’ll take your ideas and build them into our efforts. Whether you are a high school student, Stanford Phd candidate, or just an interested Palo Alto neighbor we can’t wait to meet you. Regards,
Bill, CEO, Color We’ve confirmed that the letter was indeed written by Nguyen, and he isn’t just paying lipservice to the neighbors — Color has every intention of opening parts of its office to the public. John Kuch, who is the company’s VP of marketing and communication, explains that Color has set aside a room of its office where it will hold meetings, public events with guest speakers, informal chats, and other activities that are focused on explaining and improving the product. There will also be conversations around what Color’s vision of ‘public’ really means. I suspect this is a preemptive measure they’re taking against the inevitable waves of privacy concerns we’ll see if the service takes off. The room itself is quite large and looks like a dining hall, complete with long wooden tables. And there are windows around the exterior so that people can see inside (again, fitting with the public theme). As for the handwritten note — it really just fits in line with Nguyen’s irreverent personality. .
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OS X Lion Already Nearing "Golden Master" — Release Around WWDC? | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 3 | 25 | It has been one month since Apple of their latest operating system, OS X Lion. And while the initial deployment was , Apple appears to have worked through their initial Mac App Store distribution issues. And now another update looms — and it’s potentially a big one. Specifically, Apple is gearing up to deploy an OS X Lion update to developers that they may be classifying as the “GM1” release, we’ve heard. “GM” or “Golden Master” is a title reserved for software that is complete. But from what we’ve heard, this is only the initial Golden Master candidate. In other words, don’t get too excited just yet. Apple has been working through many OS X Lion bugs and performance issues as they move towards the stated Summer release date. Given that GM candidates are already nearing, they definitely appear to be on schedule. With OS X Snow Leopard, Apple the GM version to developers just a few weeks before the actual software launched to the public. Presumably, if there were no bugs in this first GM candidate for Lion, they could stick to a similar timetable. But there probably will be, so instead I’d guess that a June timeframe will be more likely. That would still mean an early Summer release — and potentially one before Summer technically even begins. After all, early June would line up nicely with the June 5 to 9 timeframe that Apple’s WWDC event is . We’ll see — but work is clearly progressing quickly. |
Time Waster: Play Old Handheld LCD Games In Your Browser | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 25 |
Here’s a great way to fritter away your Friday afternoon. Remember those little LCD games you used to play before Game Boy? With only like two or three buttons, and the static graphics? Well, , photographed the assets carefully, and remade them for you to enjoy. I think you’ll find that some of these are still pretty fun, while others are just terrible, as they always were. Autoslalom? There’s literally no way to avoid the things sometimes! Who made this thing? [via ] |
Video: Inside BMW's Secretive Plant Zero R&D Manufacturing Facility | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 3 | 25 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AYPeSyeJB8&w=640&h=390] Take a quick look at where BMWs are conceived. The video doesn’t show much, but clearly gets across the message that BMW is committed to making the world’s best cars. Crafting prototypes out of solid aluminum says commitment. Nuts. [via ] |
Nook Confirms April Update, New Applications | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 3 | 25 | Looks like HSN wasn’t lying when they said the would be . Of course, they continue to lie about the price of the device ($500, HSN? Really?), but that’s a whole other . Barnes & Noble confirms: the update “will give customers access to explore exciting new applications, email and many other requested features. (Some of the popular apps will include Angry Birds, Drawing Pad, Lonely Planet Phrasebooks, Tikatok, and Wine PhD.” Email, too. Huzzah! Nickelodeon is partnering with them, a good deal on both sides, to provide special children’s e-books of the Dora and Spongebob varieties. I know kids like the tablet-style color books, so this could be an opportunity to really hook parents into the Nook system. They would also like you to know that Barnes & Noble is the only place where you can get an e-book of . Quick! Buy it before their exclusive ends and the price goes down! Here are the two full press releases, in case you want to jot down the new titles for future purchase: Customers Can Enjoy Multitudes of Newly Added Digital Books, Magazines, Children’s Books, plus Exclusive Content in Barnes & Noble Stores Exclusive: The King’s Speech Digital Book Only Available for NOOK Customers New York, New York – March 25, 2011 – NOOK Color, the award-winning, bestselling Reader’s Tablet by Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS) keeps getting better with additions to its expansive digital catalog including everything from interactive versions of Travel + Leisure and Food & Wine to exciting children’s books featuring Barbie, Dora the Explorer and Mickey Mouse. Barnes & Noble, the world’s largest bookseller, continues to enhance the NOOK Color reading experience, enabling customers to read even more of what they love in rich, beautiful color. The company offers one of the world’s largest collections of digital content – which includes the only digital version of bestseller The King’s Speech, an unmatched children’s book collection, and more magazines and newspapers offered in color for subscription or single copy issue from one bookstore. “We created NOOK Color for people who love to read everything – books, magazines, children’s books and more – in rich, beautiful color, and are continually adding terrific new content our customers have asked for – from ESPN The Magazine and The Economist to children’s stories featuring favorite Nickelodeon and Disney characters,” said Jamie Iannone, President of Digital Products, Barnes & Noble. “With more than two million digital titles to browse, download and enjoy in seconds, NOOK Color customers repeatedly tell us how much they appreciate the ability to virtually turn the page on their favorite monthly, dive into a bestseller, and bring story time to life for their children – all using one device. And as always, Barnes & Noble will keep making NOOK Color better with new titles and featured enhancements for the best-in-class reading.” NOOK Color will get even better this Spring when a major update to the device’s firmware will offer customers access to explore exciting new applications, email and many other requested features. Having exceeded one million digital periodical subscription orders and single copy sales, NOOK Newsstand™ continues to grow with the addition of great titles in the last few weeks that include The Economist, Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, ESPN The Magazine, Saveur and PC Gamer. Barnes & Noble customers can now enjoy more than 135 digital periodical titles including exciting full-color digital versions of their favorite print brands, all available by subscription and single copies. Current bestsellers in NOOK Magazines include US Weekly, Cosmopolitan, National Geographic, Reader’s Digest and O, The Oprah Magazine. There’s also lots of new stories for Barnes & Noble’s youngest customers. Recent NOOK Kids™ additions include titles featuring favorite characters like Barbie, Nickelodeon’s Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob Squarepants, Disney favorites featuring Mickey & Minnie Mouse, Phineas & Ferb, Beauty & the Beast, Snow White and the fun, fast, four-wheeled friends from Cars. Kids continue to be enchanted by stories featuring Barnes & Noble’s exclusive Read to Me™ feature, with Are You My Mother, Go Dog Go, I Saw an Ant on the Railroad Track and Little Red Hen the current category bestsellers. With NOOK Kids, Barnes & Noble customers can choose from more than 300 titles in the world’s largest collection of digital children’s picture books, and more than 12,000 children’s chapter books on NOOK Color, as well as the free NOOK Kids for iPad™ application (www.nookkids.com/ipad and www.itunes.com/appstore). And for book lovers, Barnes & Noble offers the largest number of The New York Times bestsellers, offering the Academy Award®-winning The King’s Speech only for NOOK customers. Among the recent bestsellers are Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen, Toys by James Patterson and Neil McMahon, and Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult. NOOK customers will also find more than 75,000 independently published works through Barnes & Noble’s PubIt!™ digital platform, which add even more exciting self-published selections including current PubIt! bestsellers Diary of a Mad Fat Girl, Daniel’s Gift, Switched and Spying in High Heels. More in Store for April Barnes & Noble also announced its April More In Store™ content, exclusively available for NOOK Color and NOOK™ eReader customers in any of Barnes & Noble’s more than 700 stores. In April, NOOK customers can connect to Barnes & Noble’s free in-store Wi-Fi® service to access exclusive content – including essays, short stories and more – from authors including: Alexander McCall Smith, bestselling author of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency; Erin McKean, author of The Secret Lives of Dresses; multi-bestselling thriller author James Grippando and Paula McLain, author of the much-reviewed-and-lauded The Paris Wife. More In Store is updated weekly and each new feature is available for four weeks on a rolling basis. Once a customer downloads the content to their NOOK, it is saved to their digital locker and can be accessed at any time. NOOK customers can always check the recent content by visiting www.bn.com/moreinstore. Barnes & Noble Review Welcomes Katherine A. Powers’ A Reading Life Barnes & Noble is also proud to announce that the literary column A Reading Life by Katherine A. Powers, formerly appearing in The Boston Globe, will now be featured exclusively in the online Barnes & Noble Review. The popular and acclaimed reviewer and essayist will offer her insightful contributions for Barnes & Noble customers through her bimonthly column beginning in April. Learn more by visiting http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/. Barnes & Noble Welcomes Nickelodeon’s First-Ever Digital Children’s Books to Expansive NOOK Kids™ Collection Marks First Time Children Can Enjoy Digital Books with SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer and Diego, Only Available on NOOK Color™ and NOOK Kids for iPad™ New York, New York – March 25, 2011 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today announced the continued expansion of the largest collection of digital children’s picture books through a partnership with Nickelodeon, offering the first-ever digital books from the number-one entertainment brand for kids. Books featuring popular Nickelodeon favorites SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer are available in a fun, engaging, digital format, only for Barnes & Noble customers through the award-winning NOOK Color Reader’s Tablet (www.nookcolor.com) and the free NOOK Kids for iPad application (www.nookkids.com/ipad and www.itunes.com/appstore). Now, kids and parents can take their favorite Nickelodeon digital books with them wherever they go. Barnes & Noble is now offering a dozen interactive NOOK Kids Nickelodeon titles, and will expand to more than 20 next month, as the partnership continues to grow with new, exciting digital books. Camp SpongeBob, Happy Birthday SpongeBob! and others are perfect for the reader who loves zany stories. For young explorers there are fun-filled adventures including Dora Loves Boots, Crystal Kingdom Adventures, Dora Helps Diego, Dora’s Sleepover and more. With NOOK Kids exclusive AliveTouch™ technology, kids can easily find an exciting story, engage with the books and their favorite characters by simply tapping to turn pages, interacting with the text, and zooming in and around gorgeous graphics in SpongeBob’s world under the sea and the places on Dora’s map. Coming soon, select Nickelodeon NOOK Kids titles will also include Barnes & Noble’s exclusive Read to Me™ feature offering professional narration, so kids can choose to explore books on their own or hear them read out loud. “Barnes & Noble is proud to deliver the largest, richest digital collection for kids and families. Our technology enables families to read whatever, wherever and however they want. We are thrilled to partner with Nickelodeon to bring their much-loved characters and books to our NOOK Kids platform, enhancing what we firmly believe is the most enjoyable and imaginative digital reading offering for kids,” said Wendy Bronfin, Director of Product Management at Barnes & Noble. “Children of all ages love the NOOK Kids experience, and we are so pleased to collaborate with a leading children’s entertainment brand to welcome stories featuring SpongeBob, Dora and Diego to our best-in-class digital children’s reading experience.” “Through this partnership, we’re able to provide our young fans with a revolutionary new way to experience and enjoy reading Nickelodeon books,” said Paula Allen, Senior Vice President, Global Publishing, Nickelodeon Consumer Products. “The NOOK Kids platform delivers an interactive way for kids to engage with their favorite Nickelodeon characters like SpongeBob and Dora by using this exciting technology.” Coming soon, kids and their parents will delight in books like WhoBob WhatPants?, The Big Win, Man Sponge Saves the Day and SpongeBob, Soccer Star!. Since its launch last year, Barnes & Noble’s youngest customers have been taken with the state-of-the-art NOOK Kids’ reading experience, which lets them explore more than 300 NOOK Kids digital picture books, all presented in a consistent format, so parents and kids can keep the focus on the fun and interactive content, while encountering a familiar reading experience. NOOK Kids also features more than 12,000 children’s chapter books, from classics to new releases. Learn more about NOOK Kids at www.nookkids.com, or visit a local Barnes & Noble today to let your children experience NOOK Kids firsthand. |
Crysis 2: PC vs. Xbox 360 Showdown | Nicholas Deleon | 2,011 | 3 | 25 | If nothing else I can now report that is quite a bit longer than Homefront. I’m still churning through it, even after a good four hours last night. Hopefully I can finish it tonight or tomorrow. So at least the game has a decent length campaign going going for it. What it may have going for it is, how shall I put this… the PC version looks too similar to the console versions. If you’re playing on an Xbox 360 and all you’re used to is, say, Dragon Age 2, then sure, the game looks pretty great. But PC gamers expect more. The jump from Far Cry to Crysis was pretty much insane. The jump from Crysis to Crysis 2 was . Up top is the PC version running on “extreme” graphics mode (whatever that means, since we’re not able to change AA, filtering, shadow detail, etc.) and the bottom is the Xbox 360 version. The top version, (a fine site, by the way), is running at 2560×1600 (it’s powered by a new Nvidia GTX 590) while the Xbox 360 has to upscale from 1440×720. Yes: the PC version clearly looks better, but if there’s one thing I’ve noticed it’s some of the uneven texture work. I didn’t take , but it’s about what I’m talking about: The low-res textures are easy to spot on things like vending machines. It’s just weird seeing perfectly good textures one minute, then the next you’re like, “Whoa, what happened here?” Also for PC Crysis 2 players is that does, in fact, let you edit some of the game’s graphics settings, but I’ve read here and there that it’s prone to causing glitches every so often. |
Yet Another Senior MySpace Exec Bails: SVP Tish Whitcraft Joins Tagged | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 4 | 3 | the in mid 2008 when , a seasoned big company executive, joined the team. Now, three years later Whitcraft joins countless other MySpace execs, and about , and leaves. She’s joining , a social network that has somehow survived, and , in a Facebook world. Her first day at Tagged as Chief Customer Officer is on Monday morning. Part of her job will be what CEO is calling “onshoring” of a bunch of customer service jobs. Fifty customer service reps working with Tagged in India as contractors will be let go, and the company will be replacing them with new full time employee hires in San Francisco. Tagged, with more than 100 million users, is on track to meet their $50 million revenue goal this calendar year, and are currently at a $40 million run rate, says Tseng. They have 65 full time employees, and will be at 100 by year end (not including the new customer service reps). |
How We All Missed Web 2.0's "Netscape Moment" | Sarah Lacy | 2,011 | 4 | 3 | On May 26, 2009 Mike with Yuri Milner, Mark Zuckerberg and a Flipcam to talk about the then-scandalous $200 million investment DST made in Facebook, at a price that valued the company at about $10 billion. The camera-work is Blair-Witch-Project-like at best. You can barely hear the audio, and Zuckerberg can’t for the life of him figure out whether to look at the camera or Mike. It doesn’t really matter because, just after he asks, Mike proceeds to cut off half his face anyway. But shoddy production aside, this may have been one of the most pivotal moments TechCrunch has ever captured on camera. We didn’t know it at the time, but this was something more than an unexpected investment by an unheard of investor in a seemingly overhyped social network. It was a moment we’d been waiting for for more than a decade. Something we’d been obsessing about. It was the moment when a Web startup fundamentally broke all the normal rules of gravity that govern all Web startups. It was the moment that would eventually spawn a new, unchartered frenzy of late stage dealmaking. In my opinion, it was nothing short of the Web 2.0 generation’s answer to “the Netscape moment.” THE. NETSCAPE. MOMENT. Anyone who was in the Valley in the 1990s likely hears dramatic music when they read those words. It refers to Netscape’s , when an 18-month-old company that wasn’t yet profitable electrified the public markets generating one of the biggest first day stock pops in history. It wasn’t just the dream team of the Svengali-like Jim Clark, Marc Andreessen and the operationally rigorous Jim Barksdale. It wasn’t just that Netscape stood at the forefront of a multi-billion wave of Internet creativity that would transform nearly every industry and the lives of the billion people online today. And it wasn’t just that Netscape was a better business then than people like to remember, doubling revenues quarter-over-quarter. It was also Netscape’s timing: The IPO coincided with a greater democratization of stock market investing. It wasn’t the banks– it was the everyday retail investors flooding brokerages to buy a piece of a product they loved that caused the stock to pop so dramatically. And Andreessen was a symbol to every hacker or geek that you could move to Silicon Valley and build something huge (and get rich) in a matter of months– something that had never been possible in business before. Put the two together and there was an irresistible new reality where a smart idea posting dramatic growth that a huge number of consumers loved could now operate by new company formation and liquidity rules. Was it any wonder a flood of new companies followed? Of course, everyone knows the inevitable happened next: Greed and latecomers pushed things too far, and we ended up with a dramatic crash that psychologically much of the Valley is still reeling from. (Don’t believe me? How many times this week have you read an alarmist report about whether or not the Dot Com Bubble is back?) It didn’t take long for nostalgia over Netscape’s IPO to set in. One of the biggest stories when I first moved to the Valley was the IPO of Loudcloud, Andreessen’s second company. It was the fall of 2000 and the IPO market had ground to a halt. But there were still plenty of people who believed it was only the frothiest companies that would die and that, after a pause, the new economy would keep surging. Quarterly venture capital investments were still increasing, launch parties were still held, and the Red Herring was still as thick as a phone book. As times got worse, everyone needed something concrete to pin their hopes on, and for many that became the Loudcloud IPO. Afterall, Andreessen had changed the markets once, why couldn’t he do it again? The story that rang across CNBC, the Wall Street Journal and countless other media organizations: Could the Loudcloud IPO be the new Netscape moment? . And yet, the press still yearns. Since then there have been no fewer than 10 million Google mentions of the phrase, as the press and analysts have predicted that each impending liquidity event by an outperforming company lead by a charismatic CEO would be the thing to get the broader public markets moving again. Each IPO above has been newsworthy and an industry milestone in its own right, but each has fallen short of the Netscape yardstick. Here’s a spoiler alert: When LinkedIn becomes the first social network to file later this year, no doubt the same story will be written, and LinkedIn won’t produce a Netscape moment either. As each IPO fails to be the next Netscape, more expectations pile onto the IPO everyone really wants to see: Facebook. Since 2007, stock “experts” have been reading tea leaves to predict its imminent arrival, and even today every move the company makes is pinned to speculation that the IPO is coming soon, nevermind executives take every opportunity to say there are no immediate plans for one. Facebook has a young wonder-geek CEO. Facebook is growing a fast rate. Facebook has 650 million users, who no doubt will produce a strong retail pop. The obsession is palpable. Of course none of these things will be the next Netscape moment, because Netscape has already happened. Crash-aside, the new rules created by the Netscape IPO are still pretty much the rules high-growth startups play by today. It’s no longer shocking that a 20-something kid could move to the Valley and build a billion-dollar world changing company. We’ve seen it dozens of times– in good economic times and bad. And it’s no longer shocking that an Internet company can grow very fast because of quick product cycles and a huge market of 1 billion people these companies can reach. These trends have developed and intensified, but today they are the norm. In our obsessive zeal to witness the next Netscape Moment, I submit we missed it. As a business reporter, the Netscape moment wasn’t so pivotal because it was an initial public offering; it was pivotal because of what it represented. It was pivotal because of the impact that it had on entrepreneurs– allowing them to build companies based on a set of new rules, not the old rules that had been defined for them. It was about a company not only disrupting an industry, but disrupting the laws of gravity associated with being a startup itself. Just as Netscape proved you didn’t have to be profitable or fully-baked to go public, Facebook has proved the inverse: That you don’t have to go public to get liquidity for investors, a huge marketing event, and cash to acquire competitors and keep growing. That you don’t have to go public just because the playbook says so. One was about pushing a wave of companies to surge towards an IPO faster; the other has been about giving permission to a wave of companies to put off the IPO as long as possible– but the two have been equally dramatic changes that have impacted the broader economy. Netscape gave Wall Street and investors a new high growth industry to pour money into; Facebook– starting with that first DST deal– has deprived the market of it. But because we were so conditioned to view the next pivotal moment in startup economics as an IPO, we continually saw these secondary deals as something leading up to that pivotal moment– not as the pivotal moment that changed everything itself. Facebook and DST won’t comment on the record about things like this– particularly since it involves IPO specualtion– so the natural people to talk to are the two guys who have been in the middle of it all: Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. Andreessen was the co-founder of Netscape and the Mark Zuckerberg before Mark Zuckerberg. He was the reason Loudcloud had so much hype. And he’s not only on Facebook’s board, his and Horowitz’s firm has been one of the most aggressive investors in the Web 2.0 late-stage frenzy DST sparked. Horowitz gets fewer headlines, but he was a manager at Netscape, the co-founder and CEO of Loudcloud and the co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz too. When I mentioned this story to Andreessen at a dinner party a few weeks ago, I could see the involuntary facial tick as his smile faded. He was polite, but his face said: Indeed. I do. There’s a reason I quickly added: “HEAR ME OUT!” I sat down with Horowitz this week for his take and I saw the same look momentarily cross his face– the fleeting desire to throw me out of his offices for bringing up such a silly, overused press gimmick that they’ve been asked about thousands of times. It’s the only thing worse than asking if the current wave of frothy valuations are “ANOTHER TECH BUBBLE.” It’s the same look when someone asks me if China is the next Silicon Valley. Both Andreessen and Horowitz granted the dramatic change prompted by both the DST and Netscape deals – but to them, DST’s investment in Facebook was still just a precursor to a potential IPO. They argue what was so revolutionary from within Netscape was the retail pop– the sense of every rabid user owning a piece of the company and that reinforcing the marketing of the company itself. “It was one big feedback loop,” Horowitz says. Granted, just like a comparison of 2011 to 1999 is inane, so too are there huge flaws with my comparison. As Andreessen likes to say, “There are no ‘nexts’.” To call Facebook the next Google misunderstands what each company has built. Predicting the next industry changing moment is like predicting the next industry changing technology– by definition it’s something we can’t envision before it happens. And that’s why we didn’t realize at the time just how transformative that DST-Facebook deal would be. In the Milner-Zuckerberg video above, Mike asks a few times why the company would raise this much money when it didn’t need the cash and why Milner would invest so much without a board seat. Zuckerberg says, “We have no plans to use this money immediately and we may never use it. We may use it to make an acquisition or to open up data centers, if some strategic option makes itself available, and now we might be able to do it whereas otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to, that’s the option value that we gain through this investment.” Was he being cryptic? Maybe. More likely, even he didn’t realize the flood of follow-on secondary opportunities the deal with unleash allowing Facebook to put off an IPO for years without hurting the company’s growth. Some more parallels jumped out at me, the more I thought about the two moments: In the late 1990s four San Francisco-based boutique investment banks were the first to spot the potential of small tech IPOs that could get huge. The incumbent Wall Street vets missed it completely, obsessed with playing the old-economy game. This time around it was DST that was the outsider to the establishment who spotted an opportunity that all the billions of dollars in Silicon Valley was ignoring: Facebook couldn’t go public, and it needed money and liquidity. The deal was reviled at the time and DST was deemed to be paying an outrageous price for such a speculative company– the same thing that’s been said at every Facebook valuation, by the way. But pretty soon everyone around the company warmed to the idea: With Facebook’s earliest investors using these secondary deals to lock in returns, Facebook’s earliest employees using them as a pseudo-IPO, major firms like Kleiner Perkins, Elevation Partners and Andreessen Horowitz using them to manage to get a pre-IPO chunk of the company, and of course, Facebook using them to put off going public, but still get the benefits. Just as the boutique investment banks spotted an inflection point in the market to break the traditional rules that the establishment initially mocked and then jumped all over, so too did DST spot an inflection point in the market, broke traditional rules, was mocked and then billions of dollars and many of the biggest names . . The impact of each of these moments was about so much more than the companies themselves, and that’s what makes them different from, say, Google’s IPO which was a huge moment in tech, but didn’t have much of a macro-economic impact beyond Google, Google investors and Google millionaires. Netscape’s IPO came at a point in time that it represented a catalyzing of the birth of the modern startup, the birth of the Internet and the impact of a truly democratized stock market. The latter was continually goosed by CNBC and only become more pronounced with the birth of subsequent companies like eTrade and Ameritrade. The role so many individuals played in the bubble was what made the crash so devastating. Likewise, Facebook’s reluctance to go public is wrapped up in a lot of bigger macro trends that have been more than a decade in the making. It’s not so much the psychological impact of the Dot Com Bubble, Mark Zuckerberg has always been one of the few people in the Web 2.0 world immune to that. As he once told me, “I was in middle-school then.” It’s the transformation of what it means to be a public company. To many CEOs, the benefits– liquidity, marketing and a stock currency to purchase other companies– have been outstripped by mounting costs. There are hard costs like Sarbanes Oxley compliance, but more problematic are things like , or ‘Reg FD’. It was created to make sure all shareholders got the same information at the same time, but in practice means a company can’t defend itself against rumors started by hedge funds without the dangerous precedent of issuing a press release to rebut every rumor. That’s augmented a new reality where gossip and perception drives a stock price, not the actual health of a company. Technology has also changed how quickly investors can trade in and out of stocks, giving the entire ecosystem an increasingly obsessive short-term mindset. And the separation between research and banking meant research had to tailor to brokerages, who mostly want reports about the large-cap companies. As a result, smaller companies that manage to go public wither and die with no one evangelizing them to investors. These changes help explain why the concept of going public radically shifted from something companies couldn’t do fast enough in the Netscape era to something companies wanted to put off as long as possible in the Facebook era. Without these changes, we wouldn’t be seeing the explosion of late stage funding. DST’s investment in Facebook might have been singular secondary deal, because by the time the markets opened back up, companies like these would have just filed. The public markets are starving today– it’s these companies that are dragging their feet. Coming into the Web 2.0 movement, the appeal of the IPO was gone. Founders had three choices they didn’t like if they were lucky enough to succeed: Suck it up and go public, hire a new CEO who wanted to deal with Wall Street, or sell the company before it got to that point. Mark Zuckerberg gave everyone a fourth option: Put off the IPO for years, until you have $1 billion in revenues and are so dominant you can operate by your own rules and continually do secondary rounds to give anyone who doesn’t like that strategy a way to get a return in the meantime. While Google’s IPO didn’t have an immediate impact ala Netscape, there are roots in all of this that go back to Google. Google was the first company to dramatically stand up to the new unpleasant Wall Street reality, going public by dutch auction and announcing it would never give guidance among other non-traditional terms. Horowitz describes Googles IPO without words– by dramatically lifting his arms over his head, pulsing two middle fingers in the air and making a face like a headbanger. And Google paid the price: The stock didn’t have a dramatic Netscape-like pop. But over the next few years it soared from $85 a share to more than $700 a share. That sent a powerful message to Greylock’s David Sze of how much growth you could still have in Internet companies after the IPO when you weren’t operating in the dot com bubble– especially now that more than a billion people are online. He says that insight was a big reason he invested in Facebook in 2006 at the then-outrageous $500 million valuation and why Greylock has in general. Of course the biggest similarity is how both Netscape’s IPO and Facebook’s lack of an IPO have set a new model for others. In the case of Netscape, the floodgates opened wide. In the case of Facebook, it’s been far more measured in terms of the number of deals. Less than a dozen startups have raised these kinds of late-stage secondary mega deals, and the total activity on secondary markets is estimated to be less than $1 billion a year. But in the case of Facebook, the best companies have followed suit, and that matters because venture capital is a home run business where the top 5% of companies make 95% of returns. Anything they do, effects the entire industry and the absence of those companies from the public markets has a big opportunity-cost impact too. Within Silicon Valley, the impact has been massive– dictating the investment strategies of some of the Valley’s biggest and best firms, and impacting lives of thousands of employees of Facebook, Zynga, Twitter and every other company doing these secondary deals. This much liquidity before an IPO was unheard of before that DST-Facebook deal, and we don’t yet understand the impact. I’ve argued before that it makes the rank-and-file Valley executives more short-term focused and more mercenary, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. Pre Facebook-DST, companies could hold onto the best and brightest employees up through the IPO and its trading lockups. Now, the churn out of companies happens before they even file to go public. And the appeal of getting pre-IPO shares in a company like Facebook is a lot more nuanced when a company is valued at double-digit billions and employees are given restricted stock units instead of options. But you could argue the downside for a company’s ability to retain employees through an IPO is the Valley’s upside. In the case of Facebook, we’ve already seen a developed from early employees who were able to cash in and leave. Usually “mafias” like these don’t start to bear fruit until a company is purchased in the case of PayPal or Netscape. The big question with the ripple effect is whether things get pushed too far as they did post-Netscape moment. Netscape itself turned a profit quickly after it went public and had heathy revenue growth. While that IPO was speculative compared to what had come before it, it was boring and rational compared to what came next. So too are we already seeing the degradation of quality in late stage deals. There is only one Facebook, and while Spotify was “only” valued at $1 billion in its recent DST deal, that’s ten times what Pandora– a company that has solved its legal issues with the RIAA– was valued at . I don’t care how much smaller the price tag is, $1 billion for a company that can’t legally operate in the world’s largest Internet market despite two years of trying is a different risk profile than buying shares in Facebook at a $30 billion price. Facebook, after all, is already doing more than $1 billion in revenues, used by more than 650 million people and growing. It’s not just macro-greed the Valley needs to worry about: It’s micro-greed. Last week, we reported about a Facebook employee named Michael Brown being fired for insider trading. We use those words, because we were told those were Facebook’s words to describe the internal rule he broke – and that fact wasn’t disputed by any of the sources we spoke with. We didn’t take the allegation lightly. Contrary to suggestions from Brown’s friends and associates, before we wrote the story we talked to several people around the case including the employee’s attorney. Moments after the piece posted, we talked to the attorney again and later that night we spoke with Brown himself for more than an hour. We would have preferred to speak to Brown sooner, but his attorney denied our initial request. The content of those conversations was off the record and will remain off the record, but we updated the story with information gleaned during those conversations and remain comfortable that, on several points, we gave Brown the benefit of the doubt. But the fact that so many people rushed to the employee’s defense without knowing the facts could be a worrying sign that others view what he did as rational and reasonable, and not equivalent to insider trading at a public company. Maybe it was an isolated incident and a naive mistake. Hopefully shining the light on it will show how serious such mistakes are. But one thing is clear: Even if companies act as swiftly as Facebook did in this case, if more employees view this behavior as acceptable, the Securities and Exchange Commission will come down on secondary markets , effectively shutting down a new way to get liquidity as quickly as it started. Congress and the SEC already made IPOs an undesirable route, through well-meaning reforms that had unforeseen consequences. It’s up to the Valley to show restraint and make sure this is one way history doesn’t repeat itself this time. |
Hercules Makes A Couple Pint-Sized eCafe Netbooks Available | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 3 |
Although the craze has pretty much passed over, it’s easy to remember why they were so popular for a while. Look at these little guys: they’ve got a unique design, 10.1-inch screen, 13-hour battery life, they weigh about 2.4 pounds and are just over an inch thick. At $250 plus or minus a twenty, who wouldn’t want one? Well, lots of people, probably the ones who got burned by the last generation of netbooks. The fact is no matter how cute they are, they’re pretty underpowered and end ultimately disappoint. In the eCAfe’s case, it doesn’t really even have a real OS, but a sort of faux-OS devised by Hercules that, while it boots in a fantastic four seconds, doesn’t sound too compelling. The specs are buried pretty deep, and for good reason: the 800MHz Arm A8 processor, 512MB of RAM, and 16GB of storage aren’t very impressive. However, it is well-provided with ports: three USB 2.0, HDMI out, a card reader, and Ethernet. But while this might have pushed a few units back in 2009, I just don’t see it making a splash in today’s -obsessed world. [via ] |
Email Breach At Email Marketer Epsilon Affects TiVo, Citi, Marriott And More | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 4 | 3 | In case you haven’t already received the ominous sounding email, data held by email marketing firm Epsilon was compromised earlier this week — the hack apparently executed by one person. The breach, which keeps broadening in scope as more companies inform their customers, has thus far these top brands: TiVo, Walgreens, US Bank, Disney, JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, Citi, Home Shopping Network, McKinsey & Company, Ritz-Carlton Rewards, Marriott Rewards, New York & Company, Brookstone, and The College Board. The notification emails each brand has been sending their customers is some version of the below. We have been informed by Epsilon, the vendor that sends email to you on our behalf, that your e-mail address may have been exposed by unauthorized entry into their system. Epsilon has assured us that the only information that may have been obtained was your first and last name and e-mail address. REST ASSURED THAT THIS VENDOR DID NOT HAVE ACCESS TO OTHER MORE SENSITIVE INFORMATION SUCH AS SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER OR CREDIT CARD DATA. Please note, it is possible you may receive spam e-mail messages as a result. We want to urge you to be cautious when opening links or attachments from unknown third parties. In keeping with standard security practices, the College Board will never ask you to provide or confirm any information, including credit card numbers, unless you are on a secure College Board site. Epsilon has reported this incident to, and is working with, the appropriate authorities. We regret this has taken place and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We take your privacy very seriously, and we will continue to work diligently to protect your personal information. Sincerely, The College Board Epsilon is assuring its customers that “only” email addresses and customer names were revealed in the breach but that’s actually not so reassuring. The ability to target spam emails to specific people leaves those affected by the attacks more vulnerable to phishing scams. People are more likely to trust something that looks like legitimate, direct communication. Again: Put on your thinking cap before you give anyone sensitive information like a password or social security number online. The world’s largest email marketing service, Epsilon sends 40 billion emails a year and manages the customer email database for 2,500 clients according to It is currently investigating the incident according to its own |
null | Mg Siegler | 2,011 | 3 | 25 | null |
Gillmor Gang 4.03.11 (TCTV) | Steve Gillmor | 2,011 | 4 | 3 | The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, John Taschek, and Steve Gillmor — plus an active set of realtime commenters on Building 43’s realtime Friendfeed chat, added up to an interesting tour of the emerging AirPlay platform. The Apple TV-delivered streaming service hooks content from iTunes and iOS devices up to the big HDTV screen. According to @Scobleizer AirPlay support is growing from other similar services including Hulu et al via something called Sqrrl. With Google TV ineffectual in delivering content from major studios so far, Apple TV’s low price keeps getting lower as new services are integrated. In cartel news, Time Warner continues to put pressure on the studios to treat the tablet as a first class citizen. The cable company did pull back from a few networks, most notably Comedy Central and DIscovery. Apparently the Viacom suit still has some teeth left in it with YouTube, as @kevinmarks mentions, encouraging transformers like the cable companies to be careful how they approach the home set. The studios have one more shot with those of us who’ve finally finished the MadMen season 4; creator Matthew Weiner has finally signed a deal to produce at least two and preferably 3 final seasons. Season 5 will return in March, 2012, leaving a whole year to get bored with and abandon network fare. There’s a new sheriff in town as the disruption known as the iPad continues to move through the media. |
Facebook Comments Epitomizes Everything I Hate About Facebook | Jon Evans | 2,011 | 4 | 3 | So it’s been a month now since we round these parts, time enough to have given it some serious consideration. And my conclusions are as follows: …are you me? This is the best a company could come up with? Isn’t Facebook supposed to be the new home of software’s ? Is this some kind of elaborate practical joke? The whole point of a comment is to make new information or a new opinion available. Good luck with that. As far as I can tell you cannot deep link to Facebook comments, and searching through them is at best a pain and can verge on outright impossible. A memorable comment on included the phrase “I’ve been inside the sarcophagus at Chernobyl”: when I mentioned this on my Twitter feed, I was deluged by “couldn’t-find-it” replies, because it takes three clicks to reveal that sentence… and there is no way to make that comment more visible. You can’t even sort comments by date – in case, say, you’ve gone back to a previously viewed post, and you want to see what’s new. Facebook’s Simon Cross patronizingly (scroll down – I’d link directly to his comment, except, oh, that’s right, I can’t): “The plugin automatically sorts the comments based on relevance to the viewing user based on friends, friends of friends and most active posts. We currently feel that a chronological view is not the best view for the viewing user to give them an immediate sense of relevance.” …which kind of makes me want to burn down his workplace and then salt the charred earth so that nothing ever grows there again. God forbid that they even pay lip service to the notion that users might perhaps be given —for then they might start to them, and then where would we be? Sheer anarchy! Far better to reduce everything to a single dumbed-down inescapable standard, relentlessly mediocre and devoid of any color or possibility, like a tapioca straitjacket. I’ll grudgingly grant that there has been one giant benefit: the army of trolls who used to plague TechCrunch have been reduced to a tiny grunting handful (most of whom log in with fake Yahoo accounts) thanks to Facebook’s insistence on real names. I actually even had mixed emotions about this – Objectively, yes, but I actually kind of miss the trolls. They added unintended hilarity. — Jon Evans (@rezendi) – but I can’t deny that the overall level of conversation has gone up a notch as a direct result. Balanced against that, though, is the single most infuriating and baffling thing about Facebook comments: they only allow a single level of replies. The notion of “a comment which is a reply to another comment” is built into the system—but you cannot reply to a reply. This conversation, for no good reason, and it’s clearly a deliberate design decision: an ugly, clumsy, and completely inexplicable misstep. It’s like Facebook developers are literally incapable of thinking outside of the box that is their feed. And the worst thing of all? Next time I build a site that requires some kind of commenting system, I might wind up using Facebook Comments. Yes, despite my hate and loathing. Because as frustratingly mediocre as it is, it easy to plug in, and it does solve the troll problem, and everyone’s already on Facebook, and it helps to spread links, and it’s just barely good enough and easy enough that it’s not worth wrestling with alternatives. Facebook Comments is basically Facebook writ small: while it’s maddeningly mediocre lowest-common-denominator crap, it’s not quite bad enough not to use. But just take a moment, please, if you’d be so kind, to scroll down to the bottom of this page, consider the comments section, and reflect on the fact that what you are looking at is the very best product that a $75 billion software company, one famous for , was able to build. If that doesn’t make you weep for the future just a little bit, then I don’t know what will. : Zitona, . |
Metal Gear Solid Now Has A Clothing Line | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 4 |
Now, you could of course always get promotional shirts and stuff with Solid Snake (or whoever he is) on them — I vaguely remember something like that for the original NES game. But now, my friend, now you can get inspired clothing. Like, clothing the guys in the games might have worn. This just saved me a lot of work on my “Metal Gear Throwaway Enemy” cosplay project. I’m not really loving the shirt with the diagonal pockets, but the raincoat looks all right (if you’re into that) and the grey FOXHOUND shirt is actually pretty understated and attractive. The good part is most people would probably just think it’s for some obscure band or something. Only the truly nerdy will know how much of a nerd you are. That’s the best kind of nerdy clothing (I have a great N.E.R.V. shirt that fills this role). All this gear is actually based on only the game, which I haven’t played, but I supposed if it takes off they’ll expand to other games. Probably not , though, we all know where to get camo if we need it. . It’ll be available online starting April 11th – no word on pricing or whether it’ll be out here in the states. My guess? You’ll have to import. [via ] |
Nikon's D5100 DSLR: Swivel-LCD, In-Camera HD Movie Filters, $800 | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 4 |
The DSLR wars continue, and Nikon may have taken the lead against today with the new D5100, which more than matches Canon’s similarly-priced on features. It has the swiveling LCD we saw back in March, and the specs that Nikon Romania posted by mistake today appear to have been accurate. Here are the vital statistics (the full specs are at the bottom of the post): Only tests will show performance, of course, but Nikon seems to be leaning on its sensor and image processor pretty hard here, so I’m guessing they’re confident in this model’s capabilities. The new in-camera effects on movies thing was compelling when I first read it, but that was because I thought it was live. But no, you can only put effects on after shooting. If it were live, that would be killer, but as it is, I don’t really trust cameras to do serious color correction or effects, especially on HD video, where details are so important and cheap effects really stand out. I would have liked more framerates on the video. I’m not sure how encumbered the various standards are, but it’d be nice to at least have 48 and 60fps available. Incidentally, I’d advise Nikon to remove the “D” branding from its movies, since “D” really isn’t associated with Nikon by many consumers, and anyway it makes the movies sound worse than B-movies. Then there is the ridiculous “night vision” mode that boosts the ISO to 102,400. I mean really now. That’s four times the maximum boosted ISO in normal mode. If you can’t take a decent shot at 25600, you need to start thinking about your lens and lighting setup. That said, only tests will tell if this mode is a joke or something actually useful. Here are the full specs, for the curious: How does it compare to the T3i? Favorably, but it’s not a knockout. The Canon has 18 megapixels, but that really doesn’t matter. Tests will show image quality and ISO differences (I suspect Nikon might jump ahead here), but Canon also offers more framerates in video — the screen is also slightly more high-resolution (720×480). I’ll see if I can get them both sent my way for a real comparison; in the mean time, I’ll keep an eye on the photo-centric sites and update if I see anything interesting. |
Want To Buy The UK's Oldest Working Television? You Can! | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 4 |
Here’s something fun to have around the house. The world’s (or maybe just the UK’s) oldest working television! I thought we had the world’s oldest TV at my dad’s house when I was a kid (10 buttons, one for every channel we got), but it turns out there actually is one more aged. This 1936 model produced by Marconi (yes, Marconi) is , where it’s expected to go for £5000 at the very least. That’s if everyone doesn’t use up all their money on this Yes, even without HDMI, 1080p, local dimming LED backlighting, or Netflix support, this thing is going to sell for twice the price of TVs ten times the size. Why? Oh yeah, because it’s awesome. The owner, Londoner GB Davis, bought it the week after TV transmissions began in the UK (in November ’36) for £99, 15s. Tragically, the Crystal Palace that housed the TV transmitter burned down only days later, and the device wasn’t in use again until 1946. It’s an incredibly rare variety of TV, as appraiser Laurence Fisher notes: This is being sold by the late owner’s family and is the oldest working TV set in Britain. These sets were really a side effect of our secret radar research and they are very similar inside to the radar. Logie Baird and Marconi had separate companies but used the same people to make the sets, but Marconi became the most popular maker. Baird made the first mechanical television in 1926 and this was the first electronic version. I’ve handled 38 pre-war tells and this is the finest and even comes with the original invoice. It’ll be sold on April 19th at Knightsbridge. They expect it to pull in quite a few pounds. Sterling, that is. [via and ] |
Social transportation platform Tickengo scores seed money from Kima Ventures | roxannevarza | 2,011 | 4 | 4 | With gas at roughly $4/gallon, French carpooling site has just announced some on its site. Now, its competitor has just scored a seed round with . Coincidence? The rather seed fund of and did not reveal the exact amount invested in Tickengo’s platform, which was initially launched in 2006 in only 4 French cities: Paris, Lyon, Marseille and Toulouse. It wasn’t until 2008 that the platform opened up to all of France and later became available to the US, Canada, the UK and Belgium. Like other carpooling platforms, Tickengo offers various tools to calculate rates and also has an integrated payment solution to facilitate exchanging money between drivers and passengers. However, unlike some of the other sites, Tickengo’s solution uses a ticketing mechanism whereby users must print tickets and validate them upon arrival at their destination in order to pay the driver. Tickets are validated either via scanning the QR code on the ticket or entering in a pin number. While printing tickets may go counter to the eco-friendly image of carpooling, this type of ticketing does provide a more official and secure way of payment for passengers. Tickengo’s solution is also available as a free cloud application for companies, organizations and events that wish to facilitate access to their locations for employees and participants. In Europe, carpooling sites have definitely gotten a lot of attention with last year’s volcanic cloud and the winter snow storms that closed airports and canceled numerous trains. However, a new generation of Zipcar-inspired services have popped up as part of a more eco-friendly initiative, including -like . Tickengo is one of the 100 investments that Kima Ventures has made since its official launch last year. As part of a new international initiative, the fund now only accepts applications in English. In addition to Tickengo, Kima also in the iPhone app-turned-restaurant-server . |
From Search Engines To Lunar Landers: Barney Pell's Next Startup Is Moon Express | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 4 | 4 | Most people wouldn’t think a good follow up to selling your search engine company to Microsoft would be to then start a company that will build lunar landers. But that’s exactly what , the cofounder and CEO of , is up to. He sold Powerset to Microsoft for $100 million in 2008. He still works there, but he’s cofounded a new company called that plans to build lunar landing craft for commercial purposes. Joining him are Robert Richards (CEO) and, inexplicably, . How Jain plans to rip people off from space eludes me, but I’m sure he’ll figure out a way. Putting Jain aside for a moment (Pell and I have argued for hours about his ), Moon Express is an audacious company. They were one of six companies chosen by Nasa to receive funding from it’s $30 million Lunar Demonstrations Data (ILDD) project. And they are companies to actually receive part of that funding. Their aim is to create “reliable precision transports” that will allow people to develop, explore and research the moon. Over time, these landers will be able to return to earth safely with samples, etc. Commercial exploit of the moon may feasible in the near future, says Pell, particularly mining of certain materials like Platinum, which is scarce on earth and useful as a catalyst in fuel cells. “We’re effectively selling shovels to miners,” he says, and funding from NASA as well as can help fill in the funding gaps until that market develops. Science fiction? Perhaps. But so is Space X, founded by another Silicon Valley dreamer, . And in fact, it’s very likely that the will be the rocket that delivers the Moon Express lander into space. The company hopes to be conducting trials by 2013. They’ve raised funding, they say, but won’t disclose the amount or who it’s from. I’m guessing we’ll be hearing a lot more from them in the near future. |
Drink-Making Unit 2.0 Makes Mixology Into Actual Science | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 4 |
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories put together an impressive automatic drink-making machine last year which they called the . This year they’ve reinvented it with a whole new style and twice as many ingredient options. And in keeping with the descriptive style of naming, it is known as the . The design is based on the “deer chaser” model, which you may have encountered in Japan or Japanese media: liquid is poured into a cylinder that gradually fills until the balance changes, tipping the container and pouring out the contents. In order to make it science-y, EMSL made its deer chasers out of graduated cylinders. Liquor is pulled out of flasks and poured into these, and when it reaches the measure necessary (an ounce, I suppose), in it goes to the central funnel. The flasks are filled with the liquor of choice and sealed; liquid is expelled from the bottom of the flask by pumping air into the top. It’s all direct by a little microcontroller that takes input from a panel of buttons and keeps track of liquor supply and timing of pours. Although part of the draw of getting a drink made is, of course, the human element, this little bot would no doubt be a hit even at the high-end cocktail-science bars in Seattle like the Zig Zag and Liberty. Lots more info can be found at , and more pictures at their . [via ] |
Order now! Nu-Screen Is A Screen Protector In Chapstick Form | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 4 | I have to say I’m skeptical of a product that is not only inadequately described on its own page, but , but hey. Maybe it works! This Nu-Screen stuff appears to be a coating you put on your mobile’s screen (or anything else, I suppose) that protects against scratches and helps dirt and oil wash off. But wait! There’s more! It also creates “a richer, more intense screen display.” If there’s anything that raises a red flag, it’s that. The coating on the display isn’t going to make anything more intense. It’s like saying “turn the lights down, it makes things brighter!” I’m also afraid it won’t be easy to apply correctly, since it is essentially a Glu-stick. Well, if you’re curious, . Comes with a free “Laser Etched” microfiber cloth. |
Make Your iPad 2's Collar And Cuffs Match With AviiQ's Smart Case | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 4 |
Love that baby blue Smart Cover, but think it looks weird against the plain back of your iPad? The solution (apart from getting a grey Smart Cover, of course) is as simple as putting a matching rear end on the thing. For example, . These little cases don’t offer much in the way of protection, but they are aluminum and color-matched to the Smart Case colors. If you’re compulsively fashion-conscious, this could save you from a number of potential faux-pas. Doesn’t come in tan (eh) or that navy blue color (damn!), though. Oh well! Costs $50, which seems a bit much to me, but what do I know? |
Comprehend This, If You Can: Super Mario Bros 1, 2, 3, and Lost Levels Played Simultaneously | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 4 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_AerCVhoTM&w=640&h=390] All these games are being played by one (virtual) controller sending the same controls to four different (virtual) systems. This video, and others like it, is mind-blowing in the truest sense. My brain can’t really even compass what’s going on at any one time, but I know there’s a system behind this madness.
The repository for these “tool-assisted” gameplay videos, , is down at the moment (likely being hammered as a result of this video being posted around the net), but if it weren’t, it would probably tell you this: This is a movie made for entertainment, and utilizes all kinds of shortcuts, input hacks, and so on to achieve a performance , which is kind of the point (though they can be ). And it’s worth noting that although the controller output was likely engineered frame by frame, these are the original games running on faithful emulators, no “cheating” apart from sending a recorded controller signal to each one. If you want real people beating games quickly, skilfully, and authentically, you want . Just thought some of our retro-gaming-loving readership might appreciate this. Fun fact: I used to do TASes, even had the record for Snake Rattle & Roll and Ninja Gaiden II for a while way back when. [via ] |
Tech City Launchpad – £1m in match-funding for startups in Silicon Roundabout | Steve O'Hear | 2,011 | 4 | 4 | The UK’s has unveiled a new £1m fund to support “digital businesses” in the around Old Street and Shoreditch in east London (‘Silicon Roundabout’ to you and me). The initiative will be announced by Universities and Science Minister David Willetts, while visiting the co-working space and startup community . The Tech City Launchpad will be targeting “small or micro companies” in Silicon Roundabout – although applicants from anywhere in the UK can apply as long as the project will be predominantly Tech City-based – with up to £100,000 in . In other words, a requirement of the competition is to partner this public money with that of the private sector. The Technology Strategy Board, working closely with UK Trade & Investment, will however help the selected startups attract that extra investment through a funding workshop involving “key potential investors such as business angels, venture capitalists and other companies in the digital and creative industries.” The successful companies will also have twelve months to secure the match funding that’s required. The competition will open on 6 May 2011 through for startups to submit a two-minute video pitch, which will be judged by the public and experts. Then about 20 project applications will be invited to submit written proposals, of which ten will tbe selected and offered up to £100,000 (match) funding each. |
Sony's NGP/PSP2 May Only Hit One Region In 2011 | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 4 |
One of the many side effects of the catastrophic quake and tsunami that hit Japan last month ( ) was an interruption of the normal operations of tech manufacturers. With schedules put off by months and factories disrupted and possibly damaged, high-profile projects like Sony’s NGP, AKA the , are at risk of being delayed. SCEA President Jack Tretton said recently that the disaster may have . “It may be the straw that says ‘maybe we get to just one market by the end of the year’,” said Tretton. Whether that market would be Japan (likely) or the US (not as likely) wasn’t addressed. That could at making a serious dent in Nintendo’s (and, increasingly, Apple’s) share of the mobile gaming market. , if it comes to market 8 months after the 3DS and six months after the iPhone 5, a lot of their potential customers will have gotten tired of waiting |
Watch McKay and Woosley On Tonight's Stargate Universe | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 4 | 4 |
Things are for . The show is coming to an end while it was just getting good. Oh well, at least tonight’s episode should make Atlantis fans happy with both Meredith and Richard appearing on tonight’s episode. The trailer is embedded after the jump, but if you’re anything like me, you’re not going to watch it because of the spoilers. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KqP4GIAATo&w=640&h=390] |
1 million using French carpooling platform Covoiturage.fr | roxannevarza | 2,011 | 4 | 4 | Remember that pesky volcanic cloud from last year? Yes, the one that caused all kinds of transportation trouble all over Europe and was coming from the Icelandic volcano with the impronouncable name, . Well, while many of us were frantically wondering how to get to where we needed to be, came to the with its online carpooling platform. And thanks to Iceland’s volcanic ash, Covoiturage.fr more than doubled its trafic. Now, roughy one year later, Covoiturage.fr is officially announcing some 1 million carpoolers registered on the site. It’s leading in terms of stats alongside other French carpooling sites, like – which currently counts 400K users. With over 440K offers published daily, more and more internet users are turing to Covoiturage.fr as an eco-friendly way of getting to where they need to be. Users all have to fill-out profiles, naturally helping with traveler security, and prices are all – not arbitrarily proposed by various drivers. The site funded by ISAI last year has doubled its userbase since closing the €1.25 million round with roughly 600K users. Moreover, the platform is available in English and Spanish and covers travel to/from Spain as well as France. |
LivingSocial Files To Authorize Up To $565M In Series E [Update: And Raises $400M] | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 4 | 4 | of daily deals site LivingSocial being in talks to raise around $500 million in Series E are now backed up by LivingSocial’s amended and restated Certificate of Incorporation filed on March 31st and unearthed today by the The form shows that Hungry Machine Inc, the holding company for LivingSocial, has filed an intent to raise up to $565 million in Series E financing, with 100 million shares authorized, at $5.65 a share. The amended Certificate of Incorporation form confirms that the company is allowed to raise the funds, but doesn’t necessarily mean that it already has the money in its coffers. I wouldn’t be surprised if we come across the round’s SEC Form D sometime soon. As LivingSocial has 630 million authorized common shares, this could value the company at over $3.5 billion, a stark jump from its back when it received the Amazon and Lightspeed Ventures $183 million investment in January. LivingSocial has also raised $49 million from Revolution Fund, Grotech Ventures and U.S. Venture Partners in addition to $2.9m two weeks ago, which makes its total (confirmed) funding to date $232 million. Representatives from LivingSocial would not provide official comment on the news. The is that the total amount of the funding was $400 million from existing investors Amazon, Lightspeed Ventures, T. Rowe Price as well as Institutional Venture Partners. |
Think AT&T's Bandwidth Cap Is Bad? Try Living Down Under. | Nicholas Deleon | 2,011 | 4 | 4 | Bandwidth caps. We all love ‘em. Wait, no, we hate ‘em. Sorry. But even as AT&T to impose bandwidth caps on its DSL subscribers, it should be pointed out that it’s hardly the only ISP that does so. You might even say that other countries . Look at the UK, home to and . BT’s lowest tier tops out at 10GB per month, while its top tier, BT Infinity Option 2, offers “unlimited” bandwidth, but the fine print notes that once you fly past 300GB the company reserves the right to slow down your download speeds. Virgin has similar plans, but it goes to great lengths to say that it’s unlimited plans are truly unlimited—until you run afoul of its acceptable use policies. On to Australia, home to perhaps the world’s . They’re basically living in the stone age down there. The top tier there taps out at 200GB, and after you reach that you’re connection is slowed down to 256kbps. “I’ll never use 200GB per month!” you might shout. (Why are you shouting?) And maybe so—for now. All it takes is a few downloads, perhaps a lossless album here and there, and you could very quickly find yourself brushing up against that kind of cap. That’s why Netflix recently for Canadian users, so as to help prevent people from mistakenly going overboard. You can always stick to if all of this bandwidth nonsense has you down. |
The Product Shakeup At Google Begins | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 4 | 4 | Larry Page’s first day as CEO of Google again after ten years began with a shakeup at the very top of the company. Google’s longtime senior VP of product management, , announced that . Rosenberg is an extremely well-respected executive who was often on quarterly conference calls with Eric Schmidt and helped guide the company for the past decade. If Schmidt was the adult supervision for Page and co-founder Sergey Brin, Rosenberg was the adult supervision and management mentor to the other young executives who filled Google’s management ranks, including Marissa Mayer, Susan Wojcicki, and Salar Kamangar. Rosenberg was brought on by Schmidt years ago, and the two worked closely together. Rosenberg’s stated reason for leaving is that Page asked his senior team to recommit to Google for the long haul and he wasn’t planning on staying past 2013. That’s fair enough, but his departure also signals the possible start of a shakeup in Google’s product management ranks. Page famously has a low opinion of managers, especially product managers who try to tell engineers what to do. “People don’t want to be managed,” he is quoted in Steven Levy’s new book, . Page is a big believer in self-management. At one point early on in the company’s history, he and Brin tried to get rid of managers. Google is too large to be self-managed at this point, but many of its products are perhaps not as engineer-driven as Page would like. In certain areas, like social, Google’s products lack a certain oomph. So far, it’s been playing catch up in that area. Maybe Page wants his engineers to swing for the fences more even in areas outside their comfort zones. No replacement for Rosenberg was named today. |
App-Related Privacy Concerns Being Looked Into By The Feds | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 4 | When Pandora was filing its IPO papers, it noted that it had been for documentation of its information sharing practices. The purpose of the grand jury wasn’t officially stated, but Pandora (who knows what type information was requested) suspects it to be related to “sharing processes of certain popular applications that run on the Apple and Android mobile platforms.” This is actually quite reassuring. Considering how out of touch legislation generally is with the fast-moving tech world, it’s nice to know that a new, popular, and representative company like Pandora is being tapped for this kind of information. It is, after all, a very complicated and relevant issue, and people like the judge on the shouldn’t be allowed within spitting distance of such questions. That Pandora is being queried suggests at least some level of competence. Beyond the fact that there such a grand jury (presumably looking into whether a crime has been committed) and evidence is being procured (Pandora speculates they are far from the only ones), there isn’t much to say. We’ll follow up when more is known. [via ] |
RockHealth Opens Incubator to Get the Web 2.0 Generation into Healthcare | Sarah Lacy | 2,011 | 4 | 4 | We’ve written about the younger generation of consumer Web entrepreneurs taking on enterprise software, aiming to make truly usable business software that– to put it bluntly– . Now, at least one group is aiming to apply all the lessons of the consumer Web and mobile apps to revolutionize another neglected, stodgy industry: Healthcare. , a new incubator for healthcare IT startups, opened its doors for applications on Friday and has already received more than forty submissions. RockHealth’s founder Halle Tecco didn’t want to spill the beans on specific ideas, but examples include home health monitoring apps via the iPhone that can update physicians on chronic conditions or iPad games that can be used as hospital therapy for sick kids. This isn’t your parent’s healthcare IT movement. The intersection between technology and hugely inefficient health care was talked up in the mid-1990s and again in the early 2000s but hasn’t yet yielded many huge companies. Innovation in the healthcare industry usually comes from inside hospitals and heathcare organizations– not always the best technologists. Meanwhile technologists don’t usually get real problems patients, doctors and hospitals face. “It’s a culture of ‘no’ and a culture of red tape,” says Tecco. “You can’t iterate, and you can’t move fast.” So why bother? Tecco has had an obsession with applying consumer Web technology to solve healthcare’s problems since she entered Harvard Business School. Her application said she wanted to help bridge the two worlds, and unlike most HBS students, she graduated with the same idea. Her summer internship was even approving healthcare apps for Apple’s app store. She sat next to the woman approving gaming apps, and they had utterly different jobs. “She’d have all these cool things coming in, and I’d be begging for a hospital to just update its logo,” Tecco says. Sexy or not, Tecco was determined to create a bridge between hot shot Web entrepreneurs who want to build something useful and places like the Mayo Clinic who don’t have a clue how to recruit them but desperately need their skills. She’s raised $500,000 for RockHealth and will be giving up to a dozen selected companies $20,000 grants to build their products, along with contacts at hospitals, healthcare organizations and even the FDA to help remove barriers. The plan is to have all the company selected by RockHealth’s June 16 launch party, and open the doors to the incubator June 20. The main parameter is that teams can’t have raised venture capital yet, but angel funding or friends and family money is fine. As far as her own funding, Tecco decided to build RockHealth as a nonprofit, so that it could be more mission-than-sheer-returns-oriented. That said, many of her backers are venture capitalists, hoping she’ll spur more innovation for a huge, inefficient and lucrative market that Web 2.0 has mostly ignored. Supporters include Accel Partners, Aberdare Ventures, the California HealthCare Foundation, Microsoft HealthVault, Mohr Davidow Ventures, NEA and Nike; partners include the Mayo Clinic and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. |
Lensbaby's Composer Pro Offers Metal Construction, Better Focus | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 4 |
I’ve only played with one of the cheaper Lensbaby models, and the plastic, creaky construction made me nervous, although it was fun to play with. Their new o is supposed to be the best-constructed yet, though. It boasts metal construction and a better focus mechanism, which will feel better under the fingers of a pro photographer who’s used to heavyweight accessories and L lenses. It’s compatible with the existing “optics,” and costs $300 with the default “double optic” or $400 with a Sweet 35, the popular new wide-angle optic. If that seems a little expensive, reflect: it has in its name. |
Leaked Keyboard-less HP Device Said To Be Like "an EVO with webOS" | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 4 | 5 | While Palm’s and their decision to launch exclusively on Sprint may not have made webOS’s pre-HP life any easier, there’s one thing that just straight up them: the hardware. Be it design issues (the razor sharp lip on the original Pre) or underpowered specs (see: the Pixi), Palm got off to a pretty rough start on the hardware front and nothing they’ve released since has really been enough to get’em past that. But this… this might just do it.
just nabbed the image above from an unnamed (but thus far dependable) source. Alas, there’s not much to be said about it beyond what can be gathered from the photo, though the original source says its like “an EVO with webOS”. Uh, sold. There are a few codenames being thrown around with this one, ranging from “Mansion”, to “Stingray”, to “Windsor”. My sources have previously told me that the “Mansion” codename was just nonsense churned out by the rumormill — and given that the Pre 3 is dubbed the “Mantaray” behind closed doors, the “Stingray” name fits this one pretty well. Think that’s a front facing camera on the face, or a proximity sensor? We’ll dig for more information on this guy, if only because I want one. |
Spanning Cloud Apps Raises $2 Million For Cloud Backup Services | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 4 | 5 | The Austin-based startup , a cloud-based app developer, today announced that it has closed a $2 million series A round, led by the , a VC firm based in Boulder. , Foundry Group’s managing director, will be joining Spanning’s board of directors. Founded in 2010 by , Spanning Cloud Apps is the maker of Spanning Backup, a backup service for Google Calendar, Google Docs, and Google’s other cloud-based apps. It’s probably safe to say that Google Apps is the most widely used cloud computing suite out there, and yet, while it’s true that the search giant has great disaster recovery services, Google Apps is missing a fairly important feature — data backup. So, Google protects you from any kerfuffles that might take place on their end, but if, say, your colleague Bob is distracted by his TPS reports and accidentally deletes a shared company calendar or presentation, Google will not be coming to the rescue. That’s where Spanning Backup comes in. The service continually backs up your Google Apps data, so that you don’t have to worry about what will happen to your data should disaster strike. Spanning Backup is built on Amazon Web Services and stores user data using a combintaion of Amazon’s Simple Storage Service and Elastic Block Store, which safeguard your Google App data in a purely cloud-based app. It’s also pretty reliable. And can store your Google Apps domain. Spanning will be competing with the well-established and funded cloud backup and restore service, . Though Backupify currently offers a wider array of services that it can backup and restore (like, most importantly, email), the company has been a bit unreliable of late, suffering from at least . So, there’s plenty of room in the field, and Spanning hopes to compete by remaining focused on cloud apps, security, and scalability. The startup currently has a staff of six, and plans to use its series A round to ramp up hiring efforts and expand into other cloud services. Founder and CEO Charlie Wood said that Spanning’s goal is to be the “Norton Computing of the cloud computing era”. In other words, the startup hopes to provide cloud consumers with the services that should have come in the box, but didn’t. It aims to be a one-stop solution for all the major cloud service providers, be it Google, Salesforce, Workday, Oracle, or Apple. In terms of pricing, if a business chooses to use Spanning’s services, your first 3 employees would be free. Beyond that, Spanning charges $30 per person for one year of backup. So if you have a business of 6, you pay $90 a year. For more on Spanning Cloud Apps and Spanning Backup, check out the video below: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47MRuxqBOlc] |
Apple Granted Patent For USB/Thunderbolt-Compatible 30-Pin Connector | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 5 |
Apple has just won a , which I totally saw coming a mile away, that seemingly allows for their semi-ubiquitous 30-pin connector to support “DisplayPort (dual lane),” which sounds a lot like the standard so recently added to the Apple stable. When I wrote that with the new port was nice but not earth-shattering (a post that had a record number of misinterpretations in the comments), I noted that if they could, they’d standardize all the ports on the side to be one proprietary Apple port. It would simplify their ecosystem and at the same time lock it down. Everybody wins! And now here is a patent that shows a step in this direction: further coalescing different protocols into one mega-connector. The patent is for a new 30-pin connector that’s compatible with both USB and DisplayPort dual-lane (AKA Thunderbolt, though it’s not referred to by name). The composite video and audio out pins are used to make room for the bandwidth. Having a single connector for all Apple-related devices is the natural endgame here, and it’s not so bad if you’re in the Apple ecosystem — though from a broader perspective it’s worrying. At any rate, we can probably expect to see Thunderbolt in iPhone 5 and combined ports in the next generation of MacBooks. [via ] |
Estimate: In Two Years, Streaming TV Will Be An $800 Million Business for Netflix and Hulu | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 4 | 5 | By the end of this year, an estimated 2 million households in the U.S. will have abandoned TV for the Web, with their cable companies. This estimate comes from Convergence Consulting Group, a Toronto-based research firm with a new on That 2 million is up from the 1.6 million it was , but it is still rather small and the number of cord cutters may very well have peaked last year as cable companies begin to fight back with TV Everywhere offerings. Nevertheless, the big beneficiaries of cord cutting are Netflix, Hulu, and Apple TV. They benefit even if people keep their cable but add Internet TV streaming or downloads to their viewing repertoire, as is much more common. According to Convergence , 18 percent of viewers in the U.S. watched free, full episodes of TV on the Web last year, and that is growing by a percentage point every year: 2009—16%
2010—18%
2011—19%
2012—20% Streaming has helped Netflix in particular in terms of , and it is also a gateway drug to cord cutting. Convergence estimates that Netflix revenues from online-only subscribers in the U.S. will grow from $172 million this year to $578 million in 2013. And if you add in Hulu Plus, the combined streaming revenues from both companies will reach an estimated $800 million in two years. Netflix may be paying up to be able to stream and left and right, but it is still paying only a fraction of what the cable companies shell out for programming. For instance, Convergence says that this year Netflix will double the amount it is estimated to pay for programming to $1.1 billion, while Apple will pay about $450 million, and all the other online providers will pay almost $400 million. Not quite $2 billion total from the Interent for TV and movie programming rights. Meanwhile, traditional TV access providers are expected to pay $38.7 billion for programming. On a per subscriber basis, last year Netflix only paid one tenth the amount for programming ($34/subscriber) as did cable and satellite TV providers ($359/subscriber). As a percentage of revenues, it is approaching what TV access providers pay for content. Last year it was 25 percent of revenue going towards content, and this year it will be an estimated 39 percent, versus 42 percent for cable companies (and 70 percent for Apple TV). But the absolute gap will remain massive for the foreseeable future.
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Ever Wonder What Ansel Adams' Darkroom Looked Like? | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 5 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZlovMptjyQ&w=640&h=390] This is an interesting video for anyone who’s ever done black and white . I’ve spent my fair share of time in the darkroom, but I wouldn’t say my technique is quite as refined as that of Ansel Adams. Whether you consider his photography wonderful or staid, timeless or out of date, you have to admit that he was a master of the process. shows off his personal darkroom and the tools he used to make the prints we’re all so familiar with. The twist? It’s really not much to look at! That doesn’t surprise me, really. A methodical photographer just needs a clear space, plenty of chemicals, and time. Ansel Adams was certainly methodical. I like that the enlarger is mounted horizontally, so you interact with the photo as it would be shown when it was done. I’ll have to try that if I ever find myself in possession of a darkroom. [via and ] |
Slow-Motion Segway Joust Break | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 5 |
Take one minute out of your life to watch these two grizzled warriors in . Yeah, I’d probably do that too if I won the lottery. The rainy bits were shot on a Phantom, by the way. I know how you guys love those. [thanks for the tip, Mike] |
Sequel Power! Buy Dragon Age 2, Get Mass Effect 2 Free | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 5 |
Either Bioware is just overflowing with love for gamers, or sales are slowing. Maybe a little of both. Whatever the case is, it’s a good deal for consumers: if you bought Dragon Age 2 or buy it before April 30th, you get a copy of Mass Effect 2. That’s it! Already own Mass Effect 2? Give it to a friend! Oh wait, you can’t, because this new copy is tied to your EA account. |
Video: The Last Unboxing Video You Should Ever Watch | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 4 | 5 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrdHe__tt3U&w=640&h=390] Watch this unboxing video by and put that fad behind you. Not only will you never see one as entertaining as this one, the whole concept is dumb. (Yes, I knew we’ve done them in the past) The video is just under three minutes long but $10 says you’ll watch the whole thing and smile the entire time. The video that good and it’s just an unboxing of some random projector. |
null | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 4 | 4 | null |
Get Your Wordstar On With These "Abandon Wear" Shirts | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 5 |
: site isn’t loading for me a couple days later. My guess? Cease and desist. If you lived through the 80s, . I mean, there’s no shortage of logo or retro T-shirts, but how often is it you see an Accolade one, or NeXT? I kind of wish this “Abandon Wear” line had a little more of the actual I love so much: X-COM, Syndicate, Captain Keen, Blake Stone… all the gems from the 80s and early 90s. There’s no shortage of great logos and graphics there. But! This Abandon Wear is more focused on companies from that era: Compuserve, Aldus, Tandy… you may have forgotten them briefly, but you’ll remember them all right. My favorites? is pretty sweet, is looking good (but why “creme”?), of course, will get you some high fives, and this is great. All the shirts are $25, printed using the RedBubble shirt printing service, on American Apparel Tees. Anything less would be uncivilized. [via ] |
Shpigler The Shark’s advice to Mark Zuckerberg – Walk like a man, get a nice shirt | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 4 | 5 | “Shpigler the Shark” is a Tel Aviv-based advisor to startups. Whether fictional or real, this guy is funny. He’s already to Yahoo back when it might even have been listening. Today at , he debuted his latest missive, this time to Mark Zuckerberg. What is the future of Facebook? Ask Shpigler! “From here you can only go down. Don’t be Myspace,” he starts, gently. “Make some changes. Enough with the Like. Do Unlike. Be evil. Start a war maybe? Not nuclear… but war.” It gets better. “Hey, Mark, you’re the of the book. Walk like a man. Buy a nice shirt. Like mine!” The rest of the advice is almost plausible: Hire all of Google and buy Twitter. “10% for this idea!” And lastly, my favourite: “You are Facebook, we are the people of the book. Let’s do something together!” |
Marin Software Raises $16 Million For Paid Search Management Platform | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 4 | 5 | a startup that creates search engine management software for advertisers and agencies, has raised $16 million in Series E funding led by with with and participating in the round. This brings Marin’s total funding to The company also announced that Eric Chin, partner at Crosslink Capital, will join the Board of Directors as an observer and that former Shutterfly VP of Finance John Kaelle has joined the executive team as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Marin Software offers a browser application to help advertisers and agencies managing paid search advertising campaigns across Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search sites. In the past year, the company expanded its product offering beyond paid search and now for managing Facebook ads, as well as Marin Retargeting, a complete workflow, analysis, and optimization solution for advertisers and agencies. In addition, Marin also launched Marin Professional, which offers a simple version of the company’s platform for search marketers who spend less than $100,000 per month. The company plans to invest the Series E funding to support the growth of its customer base which includes advertisers and agencies industries such as retail, education, financial services, insurance, travel, lead generation, automotive, B2B, and local. Marin currently serves 800 clients worldwide and manages 600 million keywords and more than $2 billion in annualized paid search spend for its customers. And could the addition of a new CFO could mean that Marin may be eyeing an IPO in the future? John Kaelle joined the company from Shutterfly, where he was Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations. While at Shutterfly, Kaelle managed company growth from 150 to over 600 employees, revenue growth from $54 million to over $300 million, and an IPO in 2006. |
Apple Makes Toyota Pull Scion Theme For Jailbroken iPhones | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 5 |
Spoilsports! As part of a marketing campaign (what isn’t these days?), Toyota’s super-hip Scion brand decided to put out a Scion theme for the iPhone. But wait, you say, there’s no such thing as an iPhone theme. No indeed! This theme was only installable by jailbroken iPhones and only downloadable through the Cydia black market app store. Now, looking at the theme (above), I can’t say it’s much of an argument for jailbreaking. If anything, it’s a warning to the curious. But Apple took umbrage that this attempt at viral marketing essentially condoned that unforgivable act, and have asked that Toyota pull it. Not a great loss, but kind of an interesting interplay. |
Apple To Show Off New Final Cut On April 12th? | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 5 | An upcoming Final Cut Pro-related event has been taken over by Apple, creating speculation that the new version of Final Cut, which we’ve heard is in the works, . Canon and Avid have both had their presentation times nixed, reportedly so Apple can monopolize the stage. It’s a logical conclusion. And it’d be nice to see Apple debut something big at such a user-dominated venue. [via ] |
Fitango Teaches You How To Get Stuff Done; Adds Sharable Self-Improvement Features | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 4 | 5 | In February, fellow John Biggs on , a social marketplace that allows users to learn about and buy action plans for everything from finance to fitness and romance. As Biggs pointed out at the time, many of us have problems self-motivating when it comes to getting in shape or, say, learning to speak Mandarin — and oftentimes, we’re not sure how to best attack these goals. As such, Fitango offers its members step-by-step guides, or action plans, which include videos and detailed instructions on how to approach your education. The idea behind the plans being that you are more likely to confront your self-improvement if these efforts are broken down into manageable, bit-sized subtasks. And it helps if you have to pay for it. After all, becoming a concert-ready jazz pianist doesn’t happen overnight, and it isn’t free. Then, once you embark on your education, Fitango gives you the ability to track your progress, ask questions of experts, and post messages and notes to help others in their educational pursuits. There’s even a badge system to help reward users as they progress, most notably a “mother-in-law” badge for members that religiously nag their friends and keep them from back-sliding. Since launching in December, Fitango’s action plans have been determined by experts, who are chosen by the company. But the fact of the matter is that everyday users have valuable insight into performing certain tasks, too, and many of us are more inclined to listen to self-improvement advice if it comes from our friends. So, the startup is now offering regular users the ability to create and share their own action plans. Now you can make your own action plan, and you don’t even have to know how to code. Huzzah! Embedding a video in your plan is as easy as dropping in a Youtube link. And, what’s more, if you think that your action plan is of value to your fellow Fitango-ers, you can distribute your plan through the Fintango Marketplace. But, you won’t be able to sell your plan, because Fitango wants to ensure that when a user purchases an action plan, he or she is receiving Fitango-certified expert instruction. So you won’t be able to make big bucks (or, really any bucks), but you can have the satisfaction of knowing that you helped other people achieve their goals. And that has to be worth something, right? Action plans are also easy to view and interact with on your iPhone or iPad. Fitango’s mobile version offers the same features as its Web version, with the exception of being unable to upload video or mp3 files. Fitango has also updated its iOS apps, which are pretty slick, and even offer retina graphics — if you’re cool like that. Fitango does not yet offer apps for Android, but those are in the works. The New York-based startup currently has over 10,000 registered users and is drawing 20,000 monthly visitors, according to founder Dov Biran. And Biran and one outside investor have seeded Fitango with cash “in the millions”, according to VP of Business Development Parinda Muley. |
A-97 Knockoff Tablet Dual-Boots Windows 7 And Android 2.2 | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 5 |
Do you want a tablet that has not one, but two OSes not designed for tablets? There are a couple choices out there, but the has to be the most anonymous. It’s like a debranded iPad with netbook guts, able to switch between Windows 7 and Android 2.2 with the greatest of ease. I mean, you have to restart it and everything, but still. That’s pretty easy. It’s got a Z530 1.6GHz Atom, a gig of RAM, and 16GB of SSD storage. The 9.7″ 1024×768 LED-backlit IPS display is from LG and may in fact be the same one as the iPad. Visually it’s a pretty decent copy of that particular tablet, but I get the feeling it’s not quite the same user experience. Wake me up when they dual boot Chrome and Android 3.1. [via ] |
Microsoft's New Xbox 360 Dev Kits ‘Significantly’ Cheaper | Nicholas Deleon | 2,011 | 4 | 5 | It’s now quite a bit cheaper to develop games. Then again, you could probably develop for any new Android phone and be dealing with more powerful hardware, but that’s for another day. Microsoft has developed a new Xbox 360 development kit that’s smaller than the previous kit and has more memory and hard drive space. Microsoft, without listing a price, at a “significantly reduced price from its predecessor.” It’s partially down to the addition of the fancy new Sidecar, which lets developers without having to buy separate kits. The new kit will initially be available to people with existing deals—rumor has it that the kits initially cost $10,000, but that’s not exactly public knowledge—before moving onto new customers, if you will. This story was a lot more interesting when I first noticed it, sorry. |
Twitter Accidentally Shows Users Someone Else's Timeline, Disables #NewTwitter To Fix | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 4 | 5 | After launching a feature yesterday, and rolling out a new homepage today, Twitter has been acting for the past hour or so, with people seeing random chunks of other user’s tweets in their timelines, including retweets while using the Twitter web client and browsing. Twitter is aware of the problem and tells me it’s not a security issue — and that it’s working on getting it resolved. The solution apparently involves disabling #NewTwitter, which has lead to retro jokes galore on where else, Twitter. As of yet there’s no word on when it’ll bring the redesigned site back. Maybe the should revert their name back to while they’re at it? See what I did just there … And #NewTwitter is back, from the looks of it. http://twitter.com/#!/rsarver/status/55439067277570048 |
Has The Age Of Totemic Gadgets Passed? | John Biggs | 2,011 | 4 | 2 | The lads here, mostly Devin and Matt, were talking about , a website dedicated to the things we carry in our bags, pockets, and purses. Most of the EDC gear looks pretty heavy-duty – many EDCs include guns and long stickin’ knives for, you know, those times when you need to stick stuff ( is particularly interesting, for example) – and from the looks of the site it seems lots of people have totemic items, items of power that they carry to get things done. You’ve got Leathermen and diving watches. Little Moleskine notebooks. Pocket cameras and .
I remember my first totemic item, a fat Wenger 30-tool Swiss Army Knife my father bought me when I turned eleven. My dad picked it out for me at Lev’s Pawn Shop on Main Street in Columbus, Ohio, and that knife held great power to me. I carried it everywhere, used it on my “projects” and learned how to take care (or not take care) of good things by learning to care for that knife. I still have it, a quarter century later, and it holds a place of honor among my tools, a veteran fading away next to my harmonicas and a nice Gerber aluminum-handled stickin’ knife. These items still hold power and they are important to me. But we’re fast reaching the end of that era. What do we do that requires a knife? Our food is pre-portioned and cut, our McDonald’s apples sliced into shards and vacuum packed, our cheese pre-packaged, or meats pre-marinated. We don’t hunt – most of us don’t – and we don’t tinker – most of us don’t – and we carry most everything we need in one or two disposable devices. Who needs a Leica when we carry an iPhone? Who needs a notepad when we carry a Nexus S? Who needs a book when we carry an iPad? These devices don’t have the same import, the same heft as their simpler counterparts but does that really matter? They do the job well enough or better. I worry that Everyday Carry is a window on a vanishing cargo cult, a group of men and women who think that something out there needs tightening and that at some point they’ll need to tell the time and the power will be out and the world will have stopped and the only thing running will be an automatic Seiko diver in blaze orange strapped to their wrist. It’s the survivalist instinct in miniature. They’re going away. Instead we now carry one or two items – maybe keys and a phone – and go through life in a soft cushion of air conditioning. It seems that everywhere you go, there are eyes on you who will frown if they see your potentially lethal Leatherman or (and I find this inscrutable, but I’m not other people and so I won’t judge) your licensed firearm. As a watch fiend I learn the risibility of wearing a nice timepiece on an almost daily basis. After all, the cellphone has a clock right on it, right? So maybe we’re losing totemic items or maybe we’re replacing them when magic items, items that the makers of the first knives and the first leather notebooks and the first pocket watches would have considered mesmerizing at best and witchcraft at worst. I’ve often said that if Ben Franklin came back today, what would we be able to show him that would prove he had not landed on an alien world? We’d bring out a knife, a watch, a notebook and say “Look at that. We’re still here. We still exist. We made it through ages of darkness and we made it out and this is what survived that crucible. We’re still human. This is us.” |
Instagram Founders: Instagram Is A "New Entertainment Platform" (TCTV) | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 4 | 2 | Somewhere between yesterday afternoon and last night, hit 3 million users after only six months of existence. To put that into perspective, that’s like 1% of the population of the US using a service that currently only fully exists on a iPhone. Instagram’s explosive growth has made them the current for pivoting and unleashed a torrent of buzz around the white hot photo-sharing space. But founders and don’t think of the service as just a simple way to share images, but as more of mechanism for users to tell stories and discover the world around them, a the co-founders told me in an interview for TCTV yesterday. said Systrom. During our interview Systrom and Krieger outlined a couple of interesting use cases for the service. Systrom explained how he often goes to and observes location-based phenomena like users uploading pictures of the same sunset in Portland and in Seattle. Brands Burberry who (has over 13,000 followers) hold man-on-the-street Instagram hashtag campaigns like #TheArtOfTrench to help build brand engagement. BravoTV, which just joined the service a couple days ago, photographed and uploaded its entire Top Chef finale to #TCFinale. The founders have a sharp idea of where the service is headed, including how they will eventually handle revenue. Systrom explained, The co-founders are cool with sacrificing short term profits for long term value. “ Systrom continues. And while both co-founders do insist that an Android app and website are both in the works (they’re ), their grander goal for the product goes beyond any particular avenue for distribution, Instagram currently has $7.5 million in funding from Benchmark Capital, Baseline Ventures as well as investment from angels Chris Sacca, Jack Dorsey and Quora’s Adam D’Angelo.
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Will Social Media Save WrestleMania 27? | Nicholas Deleon | 2,011 | 4 | 2 | Well, maybe not “save” WrestleMania, but help ensure than last year’s edition, , which, at well under one million pay-per-view buys worldwide, was considered a bit of a disappointment. What’s different this year is WWE’s use of social media—that is to say they’re actually using it this time around. But even if this year’s edition, , which airs from Atlanta tomorrow on pay-per-view, does better than last year’s, how much of that can be attributed to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, and how much of that can be attributed to the return of The Rock? Serious business, etc. To be fair, it very much is . pulled in $477.7 million in revenue last year (up from $475.2 in 2009), and its flagship TV program, Raw, on the USA cable network, [PDF] five million viewers per week. The move to a more family friendly, may have upset some fans—you can’t visit a pro-wrestling message board without seeing fans clamoring for a return to the late 1990s/early 2000s Attitude Era, what with its edgy content and more adult-oriented storylines—but the shift has enabled the company to strike lucrative deals with the likes of Mattel. The company has had a somewhat unusual relationship with technology in recent years. While it was quick , it did so only , Smackdown, which made its SyFy debut last October. (NXT still airs on television networks outside of the U.S.) It made available, on YouTube and WWE.com, full episodes of some of its television programs last year, but this was long after people had been watching TV shows online on services like Hulu and iTunes. But the embrace of social media has been a concerted effort. The company’s chief marketing officer, Michelle Wilson, that the company’s increased use of Facebook in particular should help the company achieve its goal of one million worldwide buys. (The company 4.9 million “likes” on the site.) It has promoted its talents’ individual Twitter accounts, who use the platform as an extension of on-air goings-on, as seen here: .bbpBox53911207068975100 {background:url(http://a1.twimg.com/profile_background_images/214515143/Rock-Twitter-back-revised.jpg) #C0DEED;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block} Dear John Cena – let’s just hug it out ok? APRIL FOOLS – IN 2 DAYS IM STOMPIN A MUDHOLE IN YOUR FRUIT LOOP PUNK ASS – TEAM BRING IT. The fact that there are so many things working in the company’s favor this year—not coming the day after as it did last year; the return of The Rock; the presence of Jersey Shore’s Snooki—will make it difficult to pinpoint one particular reason why the show does better (if it does, indeed, do better). Although, to be honest, we know The Rock is the real draw here. I’d find it hard to believe even one person would buy the show to see Snooki, who’s regularly on free TV doing whatever it is she does that makes her famous. Incidentally, wouldn’t the Italian feminine diminutive of “guido” be “guidetta” and not “guidette” as Snooki claims? I’m pretty sure the “-ette” ending is French and not Italian. But then again I don’t have a fancy MTV show, so what do I know? Another wild card: online piracy. We’re all familiar with against illegal online streams, but there’s but so much a company like it or WWE can do to fight streams that are oftentimes based overseas. It’s not a problem that will go away quickly, or easily. Stream quality will only improve as bandwidth becomes cheaper and more plentiful (“ ” notwithstanding); most everybody by now knows that with a cheap HDMI cable you can connect a laptop to a big screen HDTV in order to watch the stream there. How will these streams affect the event’s buyrate, and will UFC’s lawsuits have scared off potential pirates? Tough to say, but it’s not as if piracy is a new thing phenomenon: “black boxes” could illegally tune into pay-per-view channels on analog cable systems in the 1980s and 1990s, and WWE and boxing still had a number of events then with massive buyrates. I’m pretty sure Mike Tyson is still the biggest pay-per-view draw of all time, and he was at the top of his game when these “black boxes” could be pretty easily obtained, as anyone who read the classified ads in electronics magazines will tell you. Getting one million worldwide pay-per-view buys is no easy feat, and how just because something is popular on Twitter doesn’t automatically mean money is being made, so it’ll be terribly exciting to see if WWE’s social media push has any impact whatsoever on WrestleMania 27’s numbers. Again, if the show does do well much of that success will have to be attributed the return of The Rock, whose main event with Stone Cold Steve Austin in 2001 led to an estimated 1.04 million worldwide buys. Outside of Brock Lesnar, The Rock’s the closest thing to a surefire (if short-term) pay-per-view draw you’ll find. |
(Founder Stories) Moot On The Origin Of 4Chan And The Evolution of Memes | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 4 | 2 | When Christopher Poole (aka Moot) was 15 years old, he founded the image board on an IRC channel with 20 people. Today, the site attracts about 12 million people a month and is the font of many of the Internet’s most pervasive memes, from Lolcats to Rickrolling. Moot doesn’t like to do video interviews, but after much pestering, Chris Dixon got him to come on for a rare video appearance. We’ll be running the entire conversation throughout the week, including a sneak peek at what he’s doing with his latest startup, . (Disclosure: Dixon is also an investor in Canvas through Founder Collective). In this first part, Moot explains the origins of 4Chan in the video above. Both the idea and software was borrowed from a Japanese site called , but 4chan took on a life of its own—a completely anonymous site where community members felt free to express themselves in all sorts of ways. One of the unique characteristics of the site is that there are no archives. The most popular images, gifs, and comments bubble up to the top, and cascade through the site like a waterfall. Every so often, a meme will develop on the site and be picked up elsewhere. In the video below, Moot talks about the evolution of memes, how they start as one thing and change over time. For instance (which thankfully is a meme in decline), got it’s start on 4chan as a bait and switch where the word eggroll became filtered into duckroll, and then people started linking the word to a picture of a duck on wooden wheels. Somehow this static image of the duck on wheels got posted to YouTube, where duckroll evolved into Rickroll. Part of the appeal of 4Chan is to watch these memes as they spring up and influence them. Since everything is so ephemeral on the site, it’s hard to go back later and reconstruct what happened. “It’s hard to find a primary source,” says Moot, “the primary source deletes itself every five minutes.” Which is exactly why we need , which was just by the Cheezburger Network. According to Moot, the life cycle of a meme is that it starts on 4chan, is studied on Know Your Meme, and then is monetized by Cheezburger. (Subscribe to on ). |
State Department Builds A Panic Button App | Jon Orlin | 2,011 | 4 | 2 | Imagine you are a pro-democracy protester on the streets of a repressive government. You’ve got your cellphone and you are messaging your friends. In the crowd near you, the police start making arrests. Fearing the government will confiscate your phone and investigate your contacts, you push a “panic button” on your phone. It deletes the contacts in your address book and sends out an alert. Such an app wasn’t readily available so the U.S. State Department, acting as a venture capitalist, decided to build one. The State Department tells TechCrunch government funded work is underway to build an version of this “panic button” app. No release date has been set. Another version designed to work on low-cost phones, more common in the developing world, is being considered. No iPhone app is planned for now. The special app, first by Reuters, is part of an initiative to promote new technologies for social activists. So far, the State Department has funded $22 million in “Internet freedom programming.” The money goes to innovators in the form of small grants ranging from a few to tens of thousands of dollars. TechCrunch asked who was getting the money, but due to the sensitive nature of the project, the government won’t disclose names. An open, competitive bid process was used to award the grants. While the government isn’t looking for more help building these apps, they may have future projects designed to advance “Internet Freedom” in other ways. Keep an eye on for any additional info. Some of the past have included developing technology “to enable users in closed societies to get around firewalls and filters in acutely hostile Internet environments” and training bloggers and activists to safely and anonymously participate in online forums. The effort is another example of how the administration sees the important role social media and technology has played in global politics. In 2009, the U.S. to delay maintenance work so real-time information about the Iranian protests could continue. The White House has also called on Egypt and Libya to restore internet blackouts. The State Department says it’s not just writing checks. The government is trying to use venture capitalist techniques to produce the best results. No, the goal is not to make 10x on the investment. But, the government is supporting a diverse portfolio of innovation rather than just funding big established technologies. It’s providing knowledge and connections, not just cash. And they are investing to incubate a new community focussed on the intersection of technology and human rights. Of course with any well intentioned program, there could be negative side effects. What happens if the panic button app gets into the wrong hands, such as drug dealers or terrorists? A State Department spokesperson tells TechCrunch it’s a legitimate concern and they are taking that into account when planning the distribution and publicity of the app. It seems TechCrunch readers won’t be a problem. |
Weekend Giveaway: A Tagged Tumi Bag | John Biggs | 2,011 | 4 | 2 | This weekend we have a jam for the ladies (and the fashion forward men.) Tumi would like to offer you this handsome $445 suitcase tagged by some guy named Crash. I didn’t dig too deeply into this one but I assume someone out there a) likes Tumi and b) likes stuff like this, so here you go. How do you win? You comment below, describing your favorite piece of art. This could include a fancy car, a painting in a museum, or a grilled cheese sandwich sainted by the likeness of Elvis. Your call. Enter once and make sure you include your email address (not in the comment but in the email field). We’ll pick one winner at random on Monday. UPDATE – Congrats to MsJoanne for winning the case. |
True Colors: Bathing Mobile In An Entirely New Light | Semil Shah | 2,011 | 4 | 2 | is assumed to be the newest combatant in the . Many people its , interface, crashes, and some are feeling creepy about the Chatroulette aspect. Then there was the , where believers applauded the vision, risk-taking, and promise of mining meta-data from phones. Even with the pushed out last night to address some of the initial product’s shortcomings, Color remains the most polarizing Silicon Valley startup since ’s rise and, appropriately enough, folks at Color have been answering questions on the company’s Quora page. The source of the furor varies from the amount of money raised ($41m) to the team size (27) to the buggy app (despite updates). A good chunk of the backlash is because users perceive it as a photo-sharing service. But, what if Color is more than a photo-sharing service? Color Labs is stating they are more of a company with technology that, operating in concert on the phone, can paint a detailed mosaic of our mobility. Its patent-pending technologies are said to able to place users in proximity to others based on sounds and images, can capture the angle at which we hold our phones, how fast we move them in gestures, and how bright the environment is. And when users actually have the camera open, that’s when the real show begins, tagging images, setting context, and opening the type of world Christopher Nolan of in The Dark Knight, when Lucius Fox and Bruce Wayne use cell phone triangulation to create a digital reflection of the real world. At the same time Foursquare and Facebook are clamoring to obtain our location, others already have a much better implicit depiction of our whereabouts and purchasing behaviors, mainly . For months, Facebook’s mobile apps have gently signaled to users if friends have been spotted nearby. A few weeks ago, Foursquare inked a with AMEX to tie the app to a payments system. And, a well-known secret in Silicon Valley is that Facebook is hard at work that will bake “social” into as many mobile devices as possible. In order to get more information than credit card companies have, the phone companies need the user’s assistance and permission. And in the case of Color, the user has to have the app running, preferably with the camera open—at dinner, at a sports game—along with all the other apps competing for attention in a crowded, fragmented mobile apps marketplace. Color could give phone companies the chance to get as much as, or more, information about us than the credit card companies have. Before any of this can happen, however, the question looms: Will Color be able to withstand this initial backlash, iterate, and keep improving on their app? Some believe the team will find its way. Others believe that in such a competitive environment, it’s not possible to get a . The truth is that nobody knows, but if Color weathers this initial storm and is successful, what could it evolve into? My sense is that Color Labs is thinking ahead two to three years, by which time users may grow tired of sorting through a constellation of apps and services to share and broadcast their location, purchases, and pictures. Instead, these features will converge in a slightly smaller number of unified apps. We’ll have folks using phones running on Android, iOS, or Facebook variants, among others, and we’ll have a chance to leverage features from Color Labs’s systems. This is what I believe Color Labs is going after: The augmentation of mobile operating systems. Ultimately, they don’t want their service to run as yet another fragmented app on your phone—they want their system to entirely augment mobile operating systems, using their technologies to document every sound, image, movement, transaction, and message your phone transmits or receives. The folks creating this system are building tools for a world in which our mobile phones and tablets will take the place of many of today’s traditional computing devices. In this world, users will carry around their wallet, books, and other files in their phones and tablets, docking them into monitors and screens as they move from location to location. This is pure speculation on my part and nothing more than a fun attempt to connect some dots. But if a seamless mobile operating experience is their ultimate goal, this is the type of undertaking that truly needs venture capital, and lots of it. Part of the reason folks may be lashing out against the concept and launch is that, frankly, we haven’t seen a concept this big emerge for a while. Everyone loves a big concept, but a concept remains just that until the products gets in the hands of enough users to make a real impression. Color Labs may be on a mission to perfect and harmonize its technologies to dramatically augment the mobile operating experience. Its founders are accomplished, its team is big, its technologies are novel. The brand is polarizing. Its a company that can convince Sequoia Capital to invest about 1.8% of its current fund for the chance to build something fresh from the ground up. It’s a company that’s being , an attempt to test the lasting power of Facebook’s symmetrical relationships and offer, as notes, a more “ ,” or as the company notes, “elastic” network, one that is built with a different set of rules, norms, and permissions that could perhaps more accurately reflect the random ebbs and flows of our social interactions in real life that have yet to be captured fully by any digital network.
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RockMelt Mobile, The Demo Video | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 4 | 20 | , the social browser, came out with an today. If you are familiar with RockMelt, which last month after much of its initial fanfare died down, it adds feeds and streams along the righthand rail. RockMelt Mobile is essentially this right-hand rail repackaged as a mobile app. Co-founder and CTO Tim Howes showed it to me recently (watch the video). RockMelt Mobile expands that rail into all of your favorite feeds, both news and social. In one place you can read your Twitter and Facebook streams, as well as RSS feeds from your favorite sites. Web pages can be saved for later, or shared via Facebook. The app also gives you access to your bookmarks. And , it syncs with the desktop browser. A web search bar is also thrown in. If you are one of the couple hundred thousand or so hardcore RockMelt users, you are going to love this companion mobile app. It combines a mobile Twitter client, Facebook news feed reader, RSS reader, and Instapaper-like page saver all in one. If you are not a RockMelt user, you can still try it, but it probably won’t replace all those other mobile apps for you. |
Daily Crunch: Cloudy 3D Edition | Bryce Durbin | 2,011 | 4 | 2 | |
After A Full Afternoon At Facebook, Obama Collects Largesse From Tech Elite | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 4 | 20 | My mother flew from San Francisco to Seattle today, and was annoyed to be kept sitting on the runway for two hours while President Obama flew into town. “How rude,” she said. Obama probably shouldn’t count on her vote when he’s up for reelection. But I’m guessing the trip was worth it anyway. Besides pissing off my mother, he entertained the rapturous digerati at a meeting today. Afterwards, though, it was back to the business of raising money. And the tech elite did not disappoint. Seventy or so CEO and finance types congregated at the San Francisco home of Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff, paying $35,000 each for a steak dinner with the president, plus a photo opp. Yes, I did the math, too. That’s $2.5 million. Not bad for a day’s work, even when you factor in disappointing my mom. It probably almost made a dent in the government’s security and other expenses in sending him out here. Among the techy attendees: Drew Houston (Dropbox), Jeremy Stoppelman (Yelp), Marissa Mayer, Craig Newmark, Jonathan Kaplan (presumably still lamenting the end of Flip), Ron Conway, Frank Quattrone and others. Will.i.am was also there, as was Stevie Wonder (who sang for the president). What’s fascinating to me is how eagerly all these fabulously wealthy men and women look forward to another term for Obama. He’s going to tax these people until they cry, and then tax them some more. And then I realize, these people aren’t really getting taxed. That’s because they’ve already made their money, and it sits safe and untaxed in whatever investments they’ve chosen. That’s because there’s no wealth tax in the U.S. like some European countries have implemented. All that gets taxed is the income and the capital gain. The big wealth sits untouched. I wonder how eager they’d all be if Obama suggested a tax on accumulated wealth. Say 1% to start things off. And like any progressive tax, the people in that room would pay far more. Maybe 5% for a billionaire. That’s just $50 million a year. And they can more than afford it, right? Enough with , riding on the backs of those hard working people in Washington. It’s time to pay up, Silicon Valley. Our leaders just said so. |
LDC Snatches Up Web Hosting Provider UK2Group For $77 Million Big Ones | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 4 | 20 | Lloyd’s Development Capital ( ), the private equity arm of Lloyd’s Trustee Savings Bank, the third largest bank in the U.K. (and state-backed) announced today that it has acquired a majority stake in leading web hosting provider . The equity group paid a total of $77 million for its majority stake in partnership with the current management team. Founded in 1998, the UK2 Group is an international provider of domain name registration and website hosting services, best known for its acquisitions of big hosting properties, such as and and for launching its own innovative hosting services, like and . , UK2 Group’s CEO of 5 years will be leaving the company to focus on his role as CEO of — a cloud hosting software platform spun off from the technology behind VPS.NET. Phil Male, previously Chief Strategy Officer at Cable & Wireless Worldwide and Chief Operating Officer of Thus Group plc, was appointed by Lloyd’s as executive chairman. With a state-backed bank behind them, and a reputation for acquiring hosting companies, look for UK2Group to be getting involved in some M&A activity in the near future. |
null | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 4 | 5 | null |
Yahoo Pointing Finger At Microsoft For Search Revenue Shortfall | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 4 | 20 | Yahoo had another . Revenues were down 6 percent, profits were down 28 percent. What’s more, it’s search partnership with Microsoft isn’t going so great. And the finger pointing is starting. In a very , Danny Sullivan of SearchEngine Land charts the decline of Yahoo’s search revenues over the past two years. What he calls “net search revenues” (the money Yahoo gets to keep after paying off partners) is down 35 percent from a peak of $551 million two years ago to $357 million. He shows the decline in this first chart below. During the last two quarters, Microsoft has taken over Yahoo’s U.S. search advertising in return eventually for 12 percent of Yahoos’ search revenues. The red line shows what Yahoo got to keep after paying Microsoft, and the blue line is what it makes off of search before paying Microsoft. That blue line is down 8 percent in the last two quarters You can see the gap between the red and the blue lines in the second chart below. Remember, was supposed to come with all sorts of benefits like lower costs and money for Yahoo. But the deal is not working out as planned, and Yahoo blames Microsoft. It’s not quite where it should be yet in terms of its revenue per search. Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz said during the earnings conference call: On the downside, however, adCenter isn’t yet producing the RPS [revenue per search] we hoped for and are confident as possible. In other words, Microsoft is under-monetizing. And organic search results from Bing apparently are too good, which makes people click the paid search ads even less. Even Yahoo’s inflated search market share figures (due to slideshows and other forced search methods) weren’t enough to generate more revenues. |
TiVo And Dish Continue Court Slapfight Over DVRs | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 20 |
A Federal Court of Appeals has Dish to cease operation of a series of DVRs which TiVo said . In a slightly petulant-sounding statement, Dish said it plans to appeal and that there weren’t that many of the infringing DVRs in service anyway. Chances are you won’t be affected by the change, but in case your old Dish DVR just croaks for no apparent reason, it might be this. |
Hey Google, Wikio CEO says he's not scared of your little Panda | roxannevarza | 2,011 | 4 | 20 | By now, most of you have probably heard of . The Luxemburg-based media group first started making headlines when it with French blogging platform, Overblog, back in September. The rumor at the time was that it was going to be a “European Google News for blogs”. Just a few weeks later, Wikio went on to up , which describes itself as a “personalized search engine”. And as if that wasn’t enough to make Europe feel like it was living the Silicon Valley life, rumors of a huge, potential surfaced. That funding is yet to be confirmed but all the news concerning Wikio over the last few months has been nothing shy of impressive. Oh, and then Google came along. Wikio, like many companies, has been hit by Google’s recent update of its algorithm, Panda. Panda – which is simply meant to provide less spammy search results – has reduced the visibility of a number of sites, including , and Microsoft-owned by up to 94%. For all the SEO freaks out there, you can check out some of the here. And according to an published in Capital, Wikio’s visibility also dropped by 91%. Ouch. But Wikio founder and CEO, , says he’s not scared of the big, bad Panda. And no, it’s got nothing to do with Google’s . In fact, he published on his personal blog to explain exactly what Wikio would do in the face of Panda. First off, Chappaz explains that he’s been an internet entrepreneur for the last 12 years. And as the former founder of Kelkoo, this is not the first time he’s had to deal with a change in algorithm. Plus, he’d already been concerned with being overly Google-dependent. I guess this is why he had been concentrating on building Wikio Groupe and on leveraging B2B and B2C services in parallel. But still, today’s typical internet user doesn’t go directly to the site he or she is looking for. A majority of us just type something into Google Search and never click beyond the first page of results. And so, rather than worrying about SEO, Chappaz says the key is to concentrate on providing users with added value. For example, Wikio News tries to differentiate itself from Google News by providing additional curated content pulled from social media. Oh yeah, and there’s also the . But thankfully, Wikio isn’t expecting to combat Google with just that. In addition, he states that the company has had limited means and hasn’t been able to build “the service of its dreams”. (No comment on that 8-figure investment round, I guess.) He’s event had to do a bit of down-sizing with the Wikio News team recently. Sad, but true. Still, the company counts additional services, like Overblog, Nomao, Wikio Shopping and Wikio Experts – a marketplace for freelancers. And so Chappaz states that thanks to this strategy, the company expects to make €20 million in revenue this year with 100% growth. Yeah, I guess that makes the Panda less scary – but who knows what these figures could’ve been… |
Toshiba Joins The Waterproof Camcorder Party With The Camileo BW10 | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 20 |
Earlier today we saw Samsung’s make its debut, and now Toshiba is entering the ring. That makes three newish candybar-style waterproof camcorders out there (don’t forget the ). So what sets the apart? Not a lot! It does 1080p, like the W200 and Playsport, and has USB and HDMI out like the W200 and Playsport, but is only rated to 2m of water, but falls behind the W200 with a slower (F/2.8) lens and smaller (2″) LCD — like the Playsport. MSRP is $150 — like the Playsport (the W200 is $160). I’m going to have to get one of each of these things and tell you which is worth your money. Be patient, it’s not summer yet. |
Self-Healing UV-Sensitive Material May Soon Coat Your Devices | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 20 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-fka0wfY8w&w=640&h=390]
Minor scratches to things like flooring, gadgets, and cars may soon be a thing of the past, if… wait, no, that lede is a little too . Let’s try again. have come up with a new material that acts like a normal polymer coating under most circumstances, but when exposed to UV light, spontaneously heals nicks and scratches. Here comes the science! Basically, the material (made of “metallo-supramolecular polymers”) isn’t actually polymeric, but acts like it; instead of long strands of molecules, there are lots of shorter ones, and in most cases they act the same. But the researchers made these sub-polymers sensitive to UV light, essentially “melting” when exposed to it. When the material melts, it naturally fills in any areas that have been roughed up or scratched, as you can see in the video above. Looks pretty real to me. Unfortunately, not every coating is right for every situation. This particular one may be too easily disrupted (by heat or friction) to use on, say, your iPhone, and may be too unstable in sunlight to use on cars. But it’s too cool not to use , so that’s the next problem these guys will have to solve. The research was a collaboration between Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, the University of Fribourg in Germany, and the Army Research Laboratory. [via ] |
"Constrained" iMac Supplies Point To Imminent Refresh | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 20 | Although the last iMac refresh took place in , we heard rumors a little while back that new ones would be this year. And with Sandy Bridge and Thunderbolt, the expected improvements, ready to go, it seems like the new iMacs could drop any time. And what’s this? You know what that means. Expect the news some time in the next month, perhaps as early as next week. |
"Industry Sources" Say New Xbox And Playstation Not Coming Until 2014 | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 20 |
Although the chatter around the games industry indicates that E3 will bring a new console from Nintendo — and . But what of the Xbox 360 and PS3? Is it time for them to get a refresh? Not quite, says one insider. First, it’s important to remember that it was only last year and a half that we got the and — both significant improvements, and both heralding new accessories intended to extend the life of the consoles. And then there are statements on the record showing how Microsoft and Sony execs don’t really feel any pressure to upgrade the machines, since they’re selling well and the competition isn’t really doing anything new. And there’s word from the games development industry that a new generation of even more powerful consoles would make games So really, nobody should be expecting a new console from Microsoft or Sony this year, and even 2012 would be something of a stretch — the way we felt about the possibility of a WiiHD being released last year. It would have been surprising. But 2013 — by that point it will be clear (whatever Nintendo does) that the consoles need a refresh. Why? Well, pressure from the rest of the industry, I’d say. More focus on integration with other platforms, adoption of new media and display standards, attachment to new markets. Why? Probably just to save money. A year spent on squeezing the last drops out of the old generation is a year they save a billion dollars on R&D, marketing, manufacturing, and so on. And since Sony and Microsoft want to release around the same time (unlike last time, a staggered launch wouldn’t provide much advantage, only give the other an opportunity to respond), it’s likely they’ll both delay as long as humanly possible, unless they get some serious push from outside. Some may be disappointed, but personally I think it’s just fine. The current consoles are quite powerful, though whether they have much room to grow is a hard question. At any rate, it’s $400 you won’t be spending this year or the next, and that’s something. |
Potential 3DS Design Flaw Causing Screen Scratches, Cracked D-Pads | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 4 | 20 | You would think that Nintendo would have foreseen all the design issues of the 3DS, well, years ago. The company has been working with clamshell handhelds . However some owners are reporting that their top screens are getting scratched and some d-pads are cracking. The common thought is that most of these scratches are really lines caused by oil and humidity building up when the unit is closed. Users report that they’re easily whipped off at first but become more permanent as they build up over time. Some turn into scratches as well. Users have resorted to sandwiching a cleaning cloth between the screens when closing the 3DS. a cracked d-pad, apparently the from the same design flaw as the lines and scratches. It seems the rubber stripping around the 3DS is too thin. So thin that the top screen is close enough to the bottom to result in oil build up and a cracked d-pad. Chances are Nintendo will resolve customer issues on an individual basis. Of course most 3DSs are under warranty and most retailers will probably still accept them as returns. Still, if this is happening to your 3DS, let Nintendo know so the full scoop is known and can be properly resolved. |
Review: T-Mobile G2x (Optimus 2X) | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 20 |
Perhaps the most powerful phone on the market, the G2x is certainly impressive technically, but physically it’s uninspiring, and a lack of compelling HD and gaming content catering to Android makes its greatest assets (large screen and powerful processor) underwhelming. And where’s my Gingerbread?
The G2x, third in the series of G-series phones from T-Mobile but the first made by LG, is probably the most powerful phone on the market right now. Its dual-core Tegra 2 processor is more powerful than many tablets out there, though of course as an Android 2.2 handset it has fewer opportunities to show this off. But first, let’s talk about the physical aspects of the phone, since that’s the other major difference between this and, say, a Droid Incredible or something. The G2x is really very anonymous. The front of the device is dominated by the 4″ screen, with the usual Android buttons at the bottom. The top has the HDMI port with cover flap, the on/off button, and the headphone port. Left side is empty, right side has volume. Bottom has stereo speakers and the charge port. On the back is the camera with LED flash, on a little plateau perhaps a millimeter up from the rest of the back. There’s a strip of metal embossed with Google’s logo, but the rest of the branding is very subtle. Its measurements are 4.9×2.5×0.4 inches, or 124x64x10mm. The design of the phone is very much intended to be understated and clean, to the point where there is almost no personality visible anywhere on the phone — unlike the slightly polarizing Droid branding or the reassuring textured grey of the G2. That’s not to say there aren’t details to the design: the bezel curves ever so slightly downward at the sides, and upward at the top and bottom, and there is a bit of a lip at the four corners of the phone, on the underside, that doesn’t really serve a purpose but does help distinguish the back panel from the front. Just pretend you don’t see the sticker on the thing, there. And although I say there’s no personality, it’s still tasteful and clean, which is more important to some. The G2x has a large screen, but even so, the phone feels large to me. I put it next to an HTC Inspire with a 4.3″ screen, and the G2x was still longer and felt bigger (though the screen aspect ratio has something to do with that). The amount of bezel on the top and bottom is really quite ridiculous; there’s almost three-quarters of an inch of space on the bottom and half an inch on top. The buttons and front-facing camera are swimming in empty space, and it seems wasteful to me. Removing and replacing the back panel is extremely easy. Underneath, the battery blocks access to the SIM but not the micro SD card, so you can easily swap if necessary. I found the screen to be nice but ultimately unimpressive. 800×480 at 4″ is plenty sharp, but it’s lacking in brightness. I regularly thought it was at medium brightness when in fact it was at full. For comparison, I’ve regularly thought the opposite of the (thought it was on full when it was only on medium, that is), which really has my favorite screen on a non-iPhone handset right now. That said, if you’re not in too bright of lighting conditions, the screen is vibrant and contrasty. The touchscreen was responsive and quick, though I felt that it was not always responsive to quick taps. I touched the screen at the same rate and with the same pressure as I’ve done with the last few phones I’ve reviewed and used, so I don’t think it’s me, though I haven’t seen the issue in other reviews. That said, most of the time (and especially with “normal” touches as opposed to the light taps used on “next” buttons and such) it tracked beautifully. A quick note on the network speed. The G2x is, like the G2, kitted out for T-Mobile’s “4g” HSPA+ network. The G2 got around 9Mb/s down in my neighborhood, with around 3Mb/s up. The G2x reliably goes at half that rate – between 3 and 5 megabits down and around 1.5 up. Not exactly the lightning-fast advertised speeds, but they were fairly consistent and for all the usual uses it was quite fast – loading pages and games in the browser or downloading apps, that is to say. I’m not a fan of mobile phone cameras at all, with their slow lenses and smeary artifacting, and the G2x’s is no different in most respects. The 8 megapixel sensor does not imply a better resolved image than a 5 megapixel sensor, like the one on a Defy I had around. I took the following two pictures within a minute of each other. There’s virtually no difference in terms of fine detail, and if anything the Defy better reflects the color; pictures taken with the G2x camera seemed to have a sort of bluish-green cast. The third picture is from a cheap Kodak point-and-shoot, for reference. That said, it was much snappier to access, and browsing between pictures in the gallery is quick and easy. Unfortunately you can’t view the full-resolution picture in the built-in gallery app, pictures are just a preview. 1080p video gets more or less the same treatment. 1080p, as is often the case with small devices like this, really is just a number and has little to do with how good the video looks. In this case the video looks like any other cheap 1080p video camera. The front-facing camera is about what you’d expect quality-wise, but instead of taking 640×480 images (like most), it takes 1280×960 (sample photo to the right, there). I couldn’t test the video-chatting ability because I don’t know anyone who uses Qik Video Chat. Nobody does, and I doubt all your friends are going to sign up, and T-Mobile is anyway. And since the experience is very much service-limited, I didn’t want to pass judgment on an aspect of the phone over which LG had very little control. When more video chatting apps are out there to make a legit comparison, we’ll include more on this topic. The main selling point of this phone has to be its processor. Tests performed on this device have borne out that it is quite a bit faster on benchmarks than any other phone, though the sad truth is that there’s not much to show it off with. It ships with a couple games, but very few games are made with this much power in mind, and big ones like , while they run extremely well, don’t really look that impressive (like, say, Infinity Blade, made with iPhone 4 in mind). There will be better ones in the future ( looks fantastic), but right now the “Tegra Zone” app is full of May, June, and beyond release dates. I can’t fault LG for being ahead of the curve, but no one should buy this phone thinking they’re tapping into a secret Android treasure trove of high-powered gaming excitement. The most important bit for many people is actually the 1080p support and HDMI out. And it’s everything they say it is. I didn’t have any videos on my hard drive in 1080p that the device could read (WMV, MOV, and MKV files, which make up a lot of 1080p content, don’t go), but MP4 and AVIs at 720p played smoothly and looked great. And of course with a screen resolution of 800×480, 720p is indistinguishable from 1080p. If you want to put it on a big screen, HDMI out works as advertised. Greg notes that you may have to turn off “overscan” if you’re mirroring the display. There may also be frame rate restrictions, but I was unable to test for that. The 1080p sample files played well, but of course they would. Your mileage may vary depending on bitrate. Day-to-day use, I should say, was very snappy and responsive. I felt less hesitation and stuttering in normal apps, and webpages (including Flash stuff) loaded and moved smoothly. Battery life is surprisingly good. Normal use of 3G-4G networks with a little light video watching or gaming will probably net you at least 12-15 hours, and easily more if you’re conscientious. After half an hour of 720p content and a 40-minute phone call today (plus about five hours of idle time), by battery is at 43%. So yes, HD stuff will kill your battery, though there’s enough juice to watch a movie. I can’t be sure this isn’t an Android problem, so I’ve separated it out here, but I haven’t experienced it with other phones so it’s worth mentioning. The G2x seems a little slow to wake, in that when you press the wake button, you often will see your homescreen for a fraction of a second before the lock screen appears. This seems strange and potentially a security risk, though I couldn’t get it to activate anything during that short time. It also would only update the clock and notifications bar after a noticeable (but still only a fraction of a second) interval. It’s just a little jarring to have the world’s most powerful phone, but know it’s displaying the time from an hour ago for some reason. There’s also no notification LED. Combine this with the slow wake mentioned above and it seems like you’re constantly turning your phone on and off to check whether you have messages, only to see your home screen or an out-of-date clock for a quarter of a second. Again, a minor issue but one that would bother me if I’d shelled out top dollar for what’s supposed to be one of the world’s most advanced handsets. Lastly, there is, as expected, a number of carrier garbage apps on the phone. I count about a dozen. : Just two things I would like to add after a little more time with the device. Swype is more responsive and easy to use on the G2x than any other phone I’ve used, so if you’re a Swype lover, think on that. Also, I did get one of the units that randomly reboots. It didn’t do it during the period leading up to the review, but shortly after it started shutting off at random times, as others have reported, perhaps twice a day. If you’re in the market for a big phone, you should certainly at least give the G2x a look. And if you’re interested in the future of Android as a gaming platform, this is probably the best device to test on or just have fun with. And if you’re a ROM hacker looking at trying to get 3.0 on a phone or just love to get cool unsigned apps on your handset, this could be a good choice, as it’s powerful enough to handle anything out there currently and do work (like operating a VM or something) on which other phones might choke. But for the casual user who hears it’s a powerful phone with a big screen, I’d have to recommend they look into the other powerful phones with big screens out there before throwing down on this one in particular. |
ThinkGeek Now Selling The iCADE iPad Arcade Cabinet For Reals | John Biggs | 2,011 | 4 | 20 | Thinkgeek’s i has been on my want list for a while now. Announced as an April Fools joke, the iCADE is now real and it costs $99. It’s on back-order, sadly, or I’d have picked one up.
The cabinet interfaces with the iPad and offers full button and joystick control using a unique API. It is currently compatible with the recently-announced , a $14.99 game pack that includes 100 Atari games. |
Venuetastic Makes Booking An Event Space A Breeze | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 4 | 20 | Finding the right venue space within budget, location and size constraints can be the toughest part of planning an event. And the most time-intensive part of the process is doing the due-diligence around booking a space, from finding contacts to calling event managers to find info about size, price, to signing contracts and more. While hiring an event planner can save some of the strain caused by this responsibility, this can be an expensive undertaking. Today, -backed is launching as an easy to use event venue marketplace. It’s essentially a comparison shopping site for booking event venues. Venuetastic lists features of event space, ranging from those catered towards corporate events, to wedding spaces. People can search for venues and compare them (based on capacity, location, price, type of space, and type of event), and bookmark venues that are promising. For venues, Venuetastic is free to list on the site and free to use it. Venues can upload all the information about their space, including photos, videos and more. And Venuetastic essentially automates the booking process, and coordinates contract signing, and payments. The startup makes money by charging a commission on bookings. The startup’s co-founders Helen Belogolova and Christine Yen (this is the first all-female startup Y Combinator has funded), tell me that the site also aims to bring businesses who don’t specifically work in events (i.e. art galleries) with non-traditional, large commercial space into the mix to provide more options for consumers and potentially give businesses a new revenue stream. While Venuetastic is initially focusing on the Bay Area, the startup already covers a vast number of potential spaces in the region with over 500 venues listed. And the company has already helped coordinate event space for a number of startups. For example, DropBox recently used Venuetastic to coordinate a arty, explaining that using the service “allowed us to have the free time to focus on making it a good time.” Venuetastic faces competition from and But event planning and booking is such a large market, there is room for a number of players in this space. |
Obama: I Want People To Feel The Same About The Next Internet Breakthrough As They Did About The Moonwalk | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 4 | 20 |
Obama spent a considerable amount of time preaching to the choir at today’s Facebook Town Hall event, first bringing up Intel founder and Hungarian immigrant Andy Grove as an example of the kind of immigrant the US should be focused on retaining, in a response to a question about Immigration Reform and the Dream Act Education. the President said. Then in response to a later question about Education reform, Obama said he was inspired by how many smart people were here in Silicon Valley and referred to the ongoing Silicon Valley as reason for cultivating the technological talent we’ve got at home, Sitting here at Facebook Headquarters watching the President of the United States address constituents via Facebook, and have those constituents provide commentary via Twitter, the utter sanity of this statement struck me. Why aren’t Internet achievements treated as miraculously as Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong’s lunar footsteps on July 20, 1969? Well how do we start? The president emphasized that Education reform, which he is pursuing in one way through the Zuckerberg-approved initiative, needs to emphasize STEM fundamentals, or Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics for females and minorities. he said. He continued, The president peppered his talks with zingers about how wealthier people like Zuckerberg should have to pay more taxes, but as Semil Shah , at a $70B valuation, Zuck’s approximately 24% Facebook stake puts him at less $16.8 billion, making roughly 9,880 times more than the $1.7 million the Obamas raked in last year. In a time of rampant unemployment and in National Debt, if that’s not a big argument for teaching kids how to code, I don’t know what is. |
Charlie Rose Comes Back To Disrupt NYC With Ron Conway, Roelof Botha, And Arianna Huffington | Elin Blesener | 2,011 | 4 | 20 | At last year’s NYC Disrupt, we had a . Ron Conway, Tim Armstrong, Carol Bartz, Jack Dorsey, Dennis Crowley, Yuri Milner, and Sean Parker, just to name a few. This year promises another awesome cast of speakers, and we can’t wait to tell you who will be there. Beginning today, we will announce new guests each week until we name them all. For starters, Charlie Rose, who interviewed legendary VC John Doerr last year, will be back. Nobody gets big-name subjects to open up like Rose. Disrupt in New York City wouldn’t be the same without him. We are also ecstatic to welcome back super angel investor Ron Conway of SV Angel and super VC Roelof Botha of Sequoia Capital. Both are in the business of finding and funding the most disruptive startups out there, which is what the conference is all about. And joining us this year for the first time will be our own Arianna Huffington, who knows a thing or two about shaking up staid industries. That’s not all we are excited to announce today. Disrupt NYC is so big this year, we have taken over a whole Pier in New York City. That’s right, we will be holding the year’s Disrupt NYC at —overlooking the beautiful Hudson River in west Midtown Manhattan. Located at 711 12th Avenue (at 55th Street & the West Side Highway), this venue is by far the largest venue we’ve ever had. At over 133,000 sq. ft., this year’s main stage will be an unforgettable launch platform. Not only do we have an amazing venue, we have partnered with who will provide a Disrupt hotel reservation list PLUS your very own Disrupt Concierge Service for all Disrupt conference attendees. To make this even better, Oyster.com is also giving an additional 20% off room rates. You can read more about it . This is one event you don’t want to miss. If you would like to be a part of this year’s Disrupt, tickets are available . Be sure to purchase them soon for the best prices because as we lead up to the event, the prices will increase. We want to give everyone a chance at coming, so if you are feeling lucky and really want to come, we are giving 1 free ticket away every week. Look for our next giveaway this Friday!
Angel Investor, SV Angel Ronald Conway has been an active angel investor for over 15 years. He was the Founder and Managing Partner of the Angel Investors LP funds (1998-2005) whose investments included: Google, Ask Jeeves, Paypal, Good Technology, Opsware, and Brightmail. Ron was recently named #6 in Forbes Magazine Midas list of top “deal-makers” in 2008 and is actively involved in numerous philanthropic endeavors. Ron is Vice Chairman of the UCSF Medical Foundation in SF, Board Member of The Tiger Woods Foundation, and SF Homeless Connect, and on the Benefit Committee of Ronald McDonald House, College Track, and the Blacked Eyed Peas-PeaPod Academy Foundation.
Partner, Sequoia Capital Roelof Botha is a partner at Sequoia Capital focusing on financial services, cloud computing, bioinformatics, consumer internet and mobile companies. Roelof sits on the boards of Aliph, Eventbrite, Mahalo, Meebo, Nimbula, Square, TokBox, Tumblr, Unity and Xoom. Roelof is a champion of consumer Web plays and considers himself as “just another consumer. Roelof’s previous investments at Sequoia include Insider Pages and YouTube. Prior to joining Sequoia Capital in 2003, Roelof served as the Chief Financial Officer of PayPal during its sale to eBay. Earlier, he worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company. Roelof is a certified actuary (Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries).
Co-founder and Editor-In-Chief, The Huffington Post Arianna Huffington is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, a nationally syndicated columnist, and author of eleven books including her latest, “On Becoming Fearless… in Love, Work, and Life”. Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an M.A. in economics. At 21, she became president of the famed debating society, the Cambridge Union. She is co-host of “Left, Right & Center,” public radio’s popular political roundtable program, and a frequent guest on television shows such as “Charlie Rose,” “Real Time with Bill Maher,” “Inside Politics,” “Larry King Live,” “Hardball,” and “Countdown”. In 2006, she was named to the Time 100, Time Magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people.
Host, Charlie Rose Show Charlie Rose is an American television interviewer and journalist. He entered television journalism full-time in 1974, when he became the managing editor of the PBS series Bill Moyers’ International Report. He currently hosts the Charlie Rose Show, where he has developed a reputation as a skilled interviewer. |
Behind Apple's Blowout Quarter: iPhones, MacBooks And China | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 4 | 20 | It is difficult to understate what a run Apple is on right now. Look no further than the Apple reported today for its second fiscal quarter ended in March. Revenues were up 83 percent to $24.7 billion, and profits grew even faster, up 95 percent to $6 billion. Growth was strong across the board (with the exception of iPad sales which suffered from supply constraints and built up “the mother of all backlogs,” according to CFO Peter Oppenheimer). But if you dive into the numbers (click table to enlarge), you will see that three areas drove the overall growth more than any others: iPhones, MacBooks and China. The iPhone now makes up , or $12.3 billion in the quarter. Sales grew 126 percent in dollar terms, with unit sales up 113 percent. In the U.S. alone, iPhone sales were up 155 percent. Bringing Verizon on board helped goose the numbers, but AT&T wasn’t exactly complaining either. As fast as U.S. sales of iPhones keep growing, it is not the fastest growing region. In “Greater China,” iPhone sales were up 250 percent. Sales of all products across Asia Pacific were up 151 percent to $4.7 billion. In contrast, Europe is a $6 billion region for Apple, and the Americas is $9.3 billion. “Greater China” (which presumably includes Hong Kong, Taiwan and other Asian markets, could soon become Apple’s second largest region. Finally, Apple’s MacBook sales were up 59 percent to $3.5 billion in the quarter. Those MAcBook Airs are very popular. Half of all Macs (both portable and desktop) sold were to new customers switching from Windows. Sales from its own retail stores were up 90 percent overall in the quarter to $3.2 billion. And the iTunes store (which is all music, movies, and apps) is now doing $1.4 billion a quarter. So what happened to the iPad? Apple sold only 4.7 million iPads, compared to 7.3 million in the December quarter. To some extent consumers delayed purchases in anticipation of the iPad 2, which came out at the end of the quarter. Apple sold every iPad 2 it could make, but supply issues impacted how many it could manufacture. Apple says the iPad supply issues are now resolved, at least for this quarter. And what about Steve Jobs (who is on medical leave and was not on the earnings call)? Asked about Jobs’ active role in the company, acting CEO Tim Cook responded: “We do see him on a regular basis. He is involved in major strategic decisions. I know he wants to be back full time as soon as he can.” |
iPad 2 Shipping Estimate Drops To 1-2 Weeks | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 4 | 20 |
The is still a hard Furby to find. It’s still sold out mostly everywhere but at least the estimated wait time is dropping to 1-2 weeks on Apple.com. The shipping window shortly after the iPad 2 first went on sale. Well, it’s been a few weeks since then and the estimate dropped as promised even though the Japanese quake reportedly caused part supply issues. It’s just not the US that’s blessed with a shorter wait. that other countries including Canada, Mexico, and Australia also have the 1-2 week window. This comes even as Apple is set to launch the iPad 2 in key Asian regions later this month. |
ScoreBig Scores $14 Million To Be The Priceline For Event Tickets | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 4 | 20 | a new members-only site offering deep discounts on tickets for sports, concert and theater events nationwide, has raised $14 million in Series B financing led by with participating in the round. With this latest financing, ScoreBig has raised a total of Founded by CEO Adam Kanner, former National Basketball Association executive and COO and CTO Joel Milne (formerly founder of SeasonTicket.com), ScoreBig is designed to help owners of unsold event ticket inventory fill seats and make money off the sales. Venue owners, sports teams, producers, promoters and any entity with unsold live event inventory can sell this inventory on ScoreBig. Similar to Priceline.com’s model, consumers can name their desired price for tickets, select seating preference and inventory owners can accept or deny this bid. ScoreBig says that every ticket offered on the site is below face value (anywhere from 10 to 70 percent below), and includes free delivery. Similar to the flash sales site model, Membership is free but by invitation only. In addition to the startup’s executives, ScoreBig has a host of impressive advisors and individual investors including , Shari Redstone (vice chair of CBS and Viacom); Michael Bronner (founder and former chief executive of Digitas); and Finn Wentworth, former president and chief operating officer of YankeeNets. Other startups trying to compete in the space include Ticketfly, which just raised in new funding. |
50% Of Apple's Revenue Now Comes From The iPhone | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 4 | 20 | Over the last 3 months (December 26th, 2010 – March 26th, 2011), Apple pulled in a grand total of . Now, how much of that do you think is from the iPhone? 10%? 25%? Get this: 50%. Yep. According to Apple’s latest earning report, an entire of Apple’s quarterly revenue is coming in from the iPhone and iPhone-related products.
As we , Apple sold 18.65 million iPhones last quarter. This works out to roughly 12.3 billion dollars in revenue — or 50% — for the iPhone division alone. Of course, its worth mentioning that these numbers aren’t based on iPhone hardware — it also includes “Related Products and Services”. According to a footnote in Apple’s report, this is defined as revenue from “carrier agreements, services, and Apple-branded and third-party iPhone accessories.” It does not, however, include revenue from the App Store (that’s categorized as iTunes revenue), iPod touches, or iPads. To dive back into old data for a second, the iPhone is getting more and more important with each quarter. In fiscal Q4 2010, the iPhone accounted for roughly 33%. In Q1 2011, it was 39%. If you’re looking for a reason as to why , that ought to do it. |
Gigantic AR Card Creates Life-Sized Miis (Kind Of) | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 18 | Here’s something to save up your coins for, at least if you’re in Japan. Nintendo’s “Club Nintendo” rewards program lets you trade product registration and stuff for little rewards, like a or a case for your DS. And one new item in the is this giant AR card, that creates virtual Miis as big as you — if you were inside your , that is. . Either way. [via ] |
Vokle Raises $767K For Its Live Video Conferencing Platform | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 4 | 18 | , a web-based video communication platform, announced today that it has closed a $767K round of seed funding. The round was led by , , Grammy-nominated singer , , and various private investors. The round was the second part of a $200K angel investment the startup closed at the end of last year (led by the same investors), and adds to the $300K of seed capital it raised back in 2008, bringing Vokle’s total funding to $1.26 million. The startup will be using its most recent funding to continue building and scaling its user base, to step up hiring efforts, and to finish its move into new, larger office space in downtown Santa Monica, CA. Vokle is a live, web-based video talk show platform that enables you to interact with your audience in realtime. And if that doesn’t get you, the cool thing about Vokle is that it’s a microsite, or an app if you prefer, so you can embed it anywhere, like a YouTube video. Obviously, Vokle isn’t a destination site, so you can add it to your website to give your visitors a one-stop experience, rather than redirecting to Vokle’s homepage, which gives a little boost to those user-retention/bounce stats. Vokle’s platform also allows users to broadcast their live video and audio to a virtual auditorium of viewers, while taking live video calls and text-ed questions from the audience. So, users see the video window on their browser, plus a feedback and chat area, but the broadcaster is party to a backend that enables a number of different curation and editing tools. It aggregates questions from audience members, can assign remote co-hosts, provide screenings to approve video callers behind the scenes, or work with an editor to cut between single or multi-shots in realtime. Unlike , which is really one-way broadcasting, Vokle is going for town hall-style, social video broadcasts. It wants to enable every person in the room to ask live questions and contribute to the conversation in everything from fan clubs and virtual meetups to jam sessions and charity events. Imogen Heap, for example, held live auditions for a cello player before a recent tour, and Arianna Huffington used it to . Check it out to see Vokle in action. |
EFB For iPad: Will Your Pilot Be Using This In 2012? | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 18 |
: I’ve been alerted that EFB may in fact be a pretty blatant copy of , and the screenshots I’ve seen are suggestive. There are only so many ways to display standardized information (especially with Apple’s UI restrictions), but the similarities are striking. Back in February, we heard that a private jet company had to use an iPad-based charting system instead of paper charts, which are the standard throughout the industry. They used an app called Mobile TC, but GlobalNavSource has come up with another app, (“electronic flight bag”), and it’s being offered for free until they release it commercially on June first. This isn’t Flight Control crossed with Google Maps: it’s an actual tool for pilots that could easily be used by commercial airlines in the next couple years. The app includes detailed maps of airports, approach vectors, flight lanes, and actively monitors thousands of weather stations throughout the US. All the data is collated internally and distributed automatically; there’s no need for a secondary subscription or what have you. And it’s downloaded ahead of time, so it can be actually used during flight, not just for prep. One pilot that he would be concerned about two things: a pilot relying too heavily on the iPad, which, while robust enough to garner FAA approval in the previous situation, still has batteries and may fail or get damaged. A lazy or sloppy pilot might not think to familiarize or provide himself with the paper maps. Of course, a lazy or sloppy pilot suggests to me . The bright iPad screen could also be a hindrance to night vision (glowing or lit instruments are generally kept to a minimum during near-ground navigation), but that’s a matter for the pilots to work out . What I wonder is whether an app like this on a piece of consumer tech will be deemed the proper vector, as it were, for this information. Screens built into the cockpit would potentially be more closely tied to the plane, more secure, easier to regulate, and so on. But a plane with such a system might easily outlive the system’s practicality (it would look as antiquated in ten years as the switches and dials look now), and of course there are other risks inherent in such an approach. Yet some companies (as a commenter noted on our previous post) have been using Windows-based tablets for this purpose for quite a while. You can for free until June first, but after that time it will be a subscription service, which really is the only thing that makes sense, given the presumably large cost of operating this service. |
Film Canister USB Drives Hold More Pictures Than They Did As Film Canisters | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 18 | Everyone likes a good novelty flash drive, as long as it’s the right kind of novelty. Photographers will enjoy these little 35mm film canisters converted into 2GB and 4GB drives — at $19 and $24 they’re not too expensive, and there’s a choice of many different film types, so you can pick one he or she might have actually used. No T-Max 400, though, that was my jam. [via and ] |
Buzzd Rebrands As Local Response; Debuts Social Customer Management Tool For Businesses | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 4 | 18 | When launched with co-founder , he believed in the power of the check-in and essentially created an city guide that aggregated check-ins from Foursquare, Gowalla, and others. But because of the competitive landscape in the location-based network space, Buzzd never really took off. So Mehta went back to the drawing board, with the hope of creating a service that would combine the element of the check-in he found intriguing with Buzzd and advertising and marketing elements (Mehta’s first startup mobile marketing service Ipsh! was sold to Omnicom years ago). The result, which he calls “a culmination of everything he’s done,” of this is a new web-based tool that allows local businesses to respond to the “check-in” on social media sites with marketing campaigns to promote transactions. LocalResponse aggregates real-‐time social media check-‐ins from Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, Instagram and dozens of other services to provide a simple interface for local businesses to directly respond to their most influential and valuable customers. What’s compelling about the platform compared to competitors is that it analyzes massive amounts of data in addition to check-ins from the Twitter firehose, photo sharing sites and more to find other forms of check-ins. These could be posting a picture on Instagram of a dish from a restaurant or Tweeting that you are visiting a particular bar. With hundreds of millions of Tweets sent out per day, and millions of check-ins and other data, this is not a simple task. LocalResponse’s proprietary technology collects and prioritizes this information both explicitly (i.e. check-ins on Foursquare) and implicitly (by analyzing natural language on Facebook, Twitter, etc.; e.g. “I’m headed to ShakeShack”). Mehta says most check-ins are actual implicit and many social media platforms catered to helping businesses track check-ins miss this key data. Not only does Local Response track all of this data but it allows businesses to respond to these Tweets and messages with a marketing campaign, coupon or advertisement. So Shake Shack could send a Tweet back to someone who had just snapped a photo of a burger with a link to a 10 percent off coupon on the next visit. The actual page will feature a logo of the establishment, the original Tweet sent by the consumer, the Tweet send back by the business and the promotion or coupon. Local Response has actually creates a number of canned responses which businesses can automatically send. For the past six months, LocalResponse has been running a private beta, with over 2,000 campaigns for local businesses in New York City. The links in the Tweets and messages sent by these local businesses to consumers who “checked-in” to their establishment are averaging a 60 percent click-‐through rate and 15-‐20 percent redemption rates. That’s high and impressive. Mehta says that the platform is so highly-focused in its data collection, that it can send highly targeted Tweets to consumers who are interested in the promotions or campaigns. For example he says that Local Response will run two to three hundred search terms across its data for a particular business. Also, the aim of Local Response is not to overwhelm consumers’ stream with advertisements. Users will never receive more than one message in 7 days, says Mehta. While today’s release is focused on catering to small and local businesses, a platform for brands and agencies is in the works. In addition, Local Response closed a $1.5 million in funding this past December from Verizon Ventures, Charles River Ventures, and Metamorphic. The company plans to raise a new, larger round of funding this Summer. As for Buzzd, Mehta hopes to find the location-based network, which currently has about 1 million users, a new home. For now, Local Response is free for businesses. Eventually the startup plans to go the freemium route and will also charge for the brand-focused application. And Local Response is launching with half a million businesses that are already pre-indexed (with search terms). All they have to do is type in the business name, and they can get started using the platform. Local Response faces competition from social media management platforms like Sprout Social, as well as Foursquare, Gowalla, and other networks that offer their own merchant-focused services. But what makes Local Response so compelling is that it captures more intent-focused data beyond the average check-in. Photos, Tweets about a restaurant or neighborhood, and more can also serve as a type of check-in and Local Response empowers local businesses to turn this data into actionable results and possibly transactions. |
CrunchDeals: 8GB iPod Touch For $185 Shipped | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 18 |
Quick! You’ve got three and a half hours (as of my writing this) to pick up a new iPod touch at this solid price — $185 is $45 off the normal $230. 8GB isn’t a lot of space, to be sure, but for a dedicated streaming music and app machine, this is a great deal. [via ] |
A Wind Farm In Oregon Draws $100 Million Investment From Google's Treasury | Lora Kolodny | 2,011 | 4 | 18 | Google Inc.’s putting another $100 million into large-scale, renewable energy projects. The company’s director of green business operations, Rick Needham, revealed Monday in a post to the : [Google] invested approximately $100 million in the Shepherds Flat Wind Farm…currently under construction near windy Arlington, Ore. When completed in 2012 [the plant] will produce 845 MW of energy. This will be the first commercial wind farm in the U.S. to deploy, at scale, turbines that use permanent magnet generators…The electricity produced at Shepherds Flat will be sold under long-term agreements to Southern California Edison.
Prior to financing the Oregon wind farm, Google Inc. invested $168 million in the Mojave-based, Ivanpah solar power tower plant, another renewable energy project that inked a power purchase agreement with . The Ivanpah solar plant is expected, upon completion in 2013, to generate 392 gross megawatts of energy. As with their a Google spokesperson said the company would not be purchasing energy directly from the Shepherds Flat wind farm but would become part owners through its investment. The money for the investment comes from the Google Inc. treasury, or cash holdings. Besides Google, GE also previously invested in the Shepherds Flat wind farm. GE serves as a supplier of turbines, as well as operations and maintenance services, there. Caithness Energy is the developer of the massive, Oregon renewable energy facility. Co-investors with Google in the wind farm included Sumitomo Corporation of America, and Tyr Energy. |
Yotpo Raises $800K For Its Opinion Aggregation Engine | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 4 | 18 | Tel Aviv-based announced today that it has raised $800K in seed funding. The funding was led by and , two early stage Israeli investment firms focused on communications and new media. According to Yotpo Co-founder , the startup will use the funding to expand its user base, ramp up hiring, and position itself for launch later this year. So what is Yotpo? It turns out this is a surprisingly open-ended question, as the startup only opened its doors to public beta testing a few days ago. But, in the big picture, the company describes itself as a social business-to-business tool that “makes your customers happy” by facilitating a better user experience — specifically for the owners of blogs and eCommerce sites. Though “making your customers happy” may sound appealing, I think that’s what most businesses might say they’re trying to accomplish. So what does that mean for Yotpo, in application? To begin with, as mentioned, Yotpo will be targeting bloggers and eCommerce sites, with plans to expand beyond these venues down the road. So, for example, let’s say you own your own blog. You may then be familiar with the challenge of attracting new readers to your site, and once you’ve got them reading your content, with the challenge of how to keep them coming back. Not to mention, the tricky task of getting your readers involved and engaged by commenting, re-tweeting, sharing, and so on. In turn, bloggers often struggle with creating content that is truly valuable to their user base, and keeping that content applicable as new users arrive and the tastes of existing users change. Of course, this isn’t a problem we at TechCrunch are familiar with, but it’s been known to happen. So, say you’ve just written a post about a new Apple gadget, Yotpo is creating a tool that will read the content of your post and serve your readers with real opinions about the new gadget from elsewhere on the Web. As a blogger, you would embed Yotpo’s tool on your site, enabling it to read your post and (in realtime) scour the Internets to search for related content. Using its algorithm (“special sauce”), it will aggregate opinions on identical subjects, rank them based on how valuable they will be to your users, and then serve them to your faithful. The idea being that your reader, now informed about what others are saying about this very gadget, will be more likely to engage with your content, share a comment, re-tweet, and continue to visit your site. As is often the case, there may be loads and loads of content about the particular subject you’re writing about, and your reader may not have been able to wade through each and every article. Thus, serving him or her with targeted excerpts (the “bottom line”, as Tagrin calls it) from the most relevant articles and blogs on equivalent topics could very well make them feel more informed, fitter, happier, and stronger. Or at least one of those. The application of this idea to eCommerce is easy to see — if marketplaces can serve their shoppers with opinions, reviews, and analysis from others who have bought similar products, for example, then you’ll have more intelligent (and presumably happy) buyers. Obviously, sites like Amazon and Yelp (and hundreds of others) already offer thorough reviews by customers who have enjoyed (or not enjoyed) similar products, or restaurants — and offer recommendations for similar products. That idea is not new. But applying the instant, realtime review and analysis option to bloggers and smaller eCommerce sites is appealing. The ability to use one widget or plugin, (or in whatever capacity Yotpo’s tool is realized), to aggregate and serve users with relevant opinions across the Web is a valuable goal. Hey AdSense makes tons of loot based on not-so-dissimilar model. Of course, creating an algorithm that smartly serves readers with analysis and opinion and not just content based on some keyword that happened to match up with the aggregating algorithm is easier said than done. And, of course, how the tool’s interface is designed, whether it shows 1 opinion or 30, a single line of text, or entire paragraphs, remains to be seen. That’s the real kicker. Good design, easy-to-use, and works everywhere. Now that could have lasting effects. The startup is still in beta, so there is time to work these things out and do necessary testing and due diligence. At the very least, it will be interesting to see how the startup puts its idea into practice. |
null | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 4 | 20 | null |
"Quattrogiga" Leather-Bound Notebook Snaps Shut With A USB Cable | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 4 | 18 |
What’s the main problem with notebooks? You know, like paper notebooks, stacks of paper stuck together, that you write on. What’s the problem with them? They don’t store any gigs of data at all! Unless you manually transcribe the bits and bytes onto their pages, and that’s really not efficient. This notebook is different, though. It has quattro. Quattro. gigs, my friend. , made by Pinetti, part of their new collection — most of which is different kinds of baskets. A strange place for a USB leather notebook case to show up, but there you go. These Italians are cuckoo. The strap is, yes, a four-gigabyte flash drive that attaches firmly to the back and removably to the front. Could be handy, except of course in the many circumstances when you don’t want your notebook attached to your laptop. [via ] |
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