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955 Dreams Set To Rock The iPad Again With "On The Way To Woodstock" | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 3 | A couple months ago, we noted that a company called was with their hot app, The History of Jazz. Now they’re back again with another musically-themed iPad app. And it’s far out, man. takes everything that 955 Dreams learned from the jazz app and expands upon it. I had a chance to sit down with the team a few days ago and play around with the app. It’s beautiful, fun, and engaging. And much like The History of Jazz, I suspect it’s exactly the type of app Apple likes seeing pop up from developers to showcase their device. Users who got a chance to use The History of Jazz should immediately feel right at home with On The Way To Woodstock, as the look and feel remains largely the same. But 955 Dreams has blown the doors off this new app when it comes to content. Specifically, while Jazz had a robust 55 hours or so of consumable content, Woodstock has roughly 100 hours, co-founder says. And the new app includes a lot of editorial work. It’s basically “a book designed and created for the iPad,” Bellubbi notes. It tells the story of Woodstock ranging from the 1950s (to set the political and social stage leading up to Woodstock) to the aftermath. The meat, of course, are the days of the festival itself which can be traversed in a truly immersive experience complete with videos and music. But the real key may be the photography included in the app. 955 Dreams worked with one photographer to get all of his best shots into the app, head of design notes. This includes a lot of photos that most people have never seen from Woodstock. And there are some amazing shots as the photographer was on the team that helped shoot the official documentary about the show — meaning he had access to a helicopter. The app, will be available for a limited time at $6.99. After that, it will raise to the standard $9.99 price point that 955 Dreams likes to sell their apps at. And the pricing has worked well for them. They’ve been pulling in significant revenues since day one, they tell us. Of course, this revenue stream has been helped by the fact that Apple has featured Jazz a few times. And in fact, Apple selected the app to be included in the App Store “Hall of Fame” — they’re one of just 45 or so app to get this distinction out of the hundreds of thousands apps in the App Store. But that’s what happens when you make an app that seems perfect for the platform. And it also shows some big potential for the future of other content on these devices, like music. Bellubbi notes that more people are consuming music today than ever before, but they’re just not buying as much of it. Apps like Jazz and Woodstock hope to serve as a platform to get people back to investing in music. While they wouldn’t give actual numbers for how much music they sold through Jazz (each song has an iTunes preview button and link to buy the song), they note that sales have been very good. And they suspect they’ll be even better through the Woodstock app. And that speaks to where 955 Dreams is looking next. Music discovery is what interests them the most right now. And these first two apps just scratch the surface in a very packaged way, they note. In other words, expect even more coming out of these guys in the coming months. For now, enjoy On The Way To Woodstock and The History of Jazz . |
Vague Details Surface For Next Dell Adamo Laptops | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 3 |
Most of this on Dell’s next series isn’t really news, but one good sign is that the company appears to be looking at serious performance as well as good design. That’s nice, but of course the result will be an extremely high price. Problem? Nah, sounds good to me.We need more of that in PC laptops. I’ve had enough of five-million-run pieces of garbage that take cues equally from Apple and Fischer Price. Bring it on, Dell. |
Nintendo Rumor Roundup: Storage, Disc Format, And Vitality Sensor | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 3 |
The Wii successor/Project Café rumors have died down since a week ago, but there’s still a little info leaking out (allegedly) here and here. Today has brought a few more nuggets to the web, so let’s take a look. There are reports that the new console only has 8GB of storage. I’m not sure how I feel about this, because putting too much on external storage (SDXC cards, for instance) is asking for piracy and media-mounted hacks. This spec could easily refer to system storage and not a “mandatory add-on” like a hard drive unit. Game discs are rumored to hold 25GB of data. The only discs in production capable of doing that kind of density are Blu-ray; I doubt Nintendo secretly developed an entirely new disc format, and micro-DVD-DLs would likely be even expensive. And I’m pretty sure we’re definitely getting discs. It’d be cool if it were not 25GB of disc space, but 24GB of solid state space, but with 32GB going for around $30 in bulk, that’s just not going to happen. And let us not forget about the Vitality Sensor! I was there when they (though we couldn’t report it due to bad wi-fi), which was some time ago, and Satoru Iwata says that it has not been forgotten. The delays are Nintendo working to make it work with as close to 100% of the population as possible. Due to “large individual differences in the biological information of humans,” compatibility is not as high as they’d like, so they can’t give a release date. Similarly, Iwata declined to put a date on the new Mario and Mario Kart games — but said they would come out this fiscal year, or else they won’t meet their hardware sales goals. Iwata’s full remarks on this and other stuff , it’s actually interesting reading. He’s very articulate when there’s time to translate properly. |
AppDirect Raises $3.25 Million To Create A Marketplace For Business Apps | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 5 | 3 | , a platform that allows businesses to find, buy and manage web-based applications, has announced that it has closed a $3.25 million round of seed funding to hire engineering talent and expand its network overseas. The round was led by with contributing. You probably haven’t heard of AppDirect yet, but it’s an interesting business. AppDirect is creating a marketplace for marketplaces, or a marketplace-as-a-service. (That’s “MaaS” in cloud-speak.) What does that mean? The startup is essentially building a network of branded application marketplaces it hopes will become a central hub for providers, developers, and business app users. So, for example, AppDirect’s platform provides businesses with a single place to subscribe to applications, provision access to their colleagues, and pay just one monthly bill for all of their app subscriptions. Thus, AppDirect is positioning itself as a kind of all-in-one consolidating tool for enterprises who want to use cloud apps, but struggle to manage the many moving parts of their SaaS tools and find apps that are relevant to their business. Using AppDirect’s API, developers can list their apps in any of the white-labeled, AppDirect-powered marketplaces that will be built around its platform. Bell Canada, a large Canadian telecom company, is AppDirect’s first notable partner. The Canadian telecom giant recently began using the startup’s platform for its Bell Business Apps Store, which aims to connect its SMB customers with the right cloud services. The clincher in all this, of course, is the platform’s built-in recommendation engine, which serves businesses with the most relevant apps for their specific needs. The recommendation engine will be very handy to enterprises looking to discover new, applicable apps, as the engine will allow them to browse results in a detailed listing by function or industry. Users can also compare apps on a range of metrics, as well as access documents, videos, and demos to deep dive into each application. It’s an intriguing idea, to be sure, but we’ll see whether or not there’s room for another -aaS in the cloud space. Marketplace-as-a-service does have a nice sound to it, though, doesn’t it? |
CrunchDeals: Archos 7 Android Tablet For $125 Shipped | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 3 |
Sure, everyone’s talking about Honeycomb (well, some people are), but if you just want a little hackable tablet on which to do whatever it is you do with a 7″ tablet, this is going for a bargain-bin price right now. It was $200 at launch last year, but as you can imagine, there is a bit of stock left over, and it’s It’s from TigerDirect, but cheaper than they have on . Need something to use as a second screen, Twitter/RSS device, or home media controller? This thing might suit you. [via ] |
Apple Granted iPod Touch Design Patents In China | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 3 | Not too much to say here except that is assiduous in its pursuit of lockdown. iDevices are eminently imitable, and in China there’s a whole — one might even say that the industry, and the legit gadgets are the sub-industry. These don’t signal the end of fake iPods or anything like that, but if Apple wants to crack down on design pirates, it’s good to have your paperwork in order. |
Boingo Wireless Prices IPO At $13.50 Per Share | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 5 | 3 | a nationwide WiFi provider, has just issued a stating that it is pricing its IPO tomorrow morning at $13.50 per share, which falls into the The shares will begin trading on the NASDAQ under the symbol “WIFI.” Boingo is looking to raise in its public offering. Boingo claims that it is one of the largest commercial Wi-Fi networks in the world, with 211,000 Wi-Fi locations in over 100 countries. The company installs, manages and operates wireless networks in locations like and restaurant chains, which Boing says had more than 800 million visitors in 2009. Boingo is offering 3,846,800 shares and selling stockholders are offering 1,923,200 shares. In addition, Boingo has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 865,500 shares, on the same terms and conditions. Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank Securities, Pacific Crest Securities and William Blair & Company are underwriting the offering. According to the initial S-1 filing, Boingo had 1.3 million consumers who have purchased its mobile Internet services in the past year. The company’s primary source of revenue is from consumers who purchase month-to-month subscription plans or hotspot specific, single-use access to its network. Boingo also receives money from business partners that pay to allow their consumers to access the network. Other revenue channels include telecom operators and advertisers. |
Qwiki iPad App Hits 250K Downloads In 11 Days | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 5 | 3 | [vimeo http://vimeo.com/22633007 w=620]
TechCrunch Disrupt winner launched its a less than a week ago and after 11 days has hit the quarter of a million downloads milestone. This is notable for an iPad app, especially when compared to other highly publicized iOS app milestones; It took iPhone app six days to hit 100K, two weeks to hit 250K and a whopping seven months to get to 60K users. Qwiki PR rep CeCe Cheng tells me that Qwiki.com has “millions of users” but that the Qwiki app, which lets users see notable Qwikis around them in map format, has already eclipsed pageview traffic on the Qwiki site by 5x. She estimates that by the end of the day tomorrow the app will hit 300K users after only two weeks. Individual user sessions on the app are averaging 24 minutes. Says founder Doug Imbruce, The app has 2,170 total ratings, with an average of 4.5 stars per rating. The current build has an average 5 star rating at 688 ratings. Qwiki sees the future of its visual Wikipedia search product as resting on the mobile platform, and is currently focusing on releasing Qwiki for the Android and the iPhone. It also plans on eventually letting users create their own Qwikis about themselves and their businesses. |
Facebook's Social Widgetization Of The Web, In A Sweet, Sweet Infographic | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 5 | 3 | On April 21st, Facebook celebrated the 1st birthday of its now ubiquitous “Like” button, and promptly shared the news that 10,000 sites are, like, using the plugin every day. The social networking behemoth then continued its parade of social widgets , giving the Like button a new partner in crime with the “Send” button, which allows users to directly share content with their Facebook Groups, Facebook friends, or any standard email address. And gives site designers yet another widget to integrate into their code. Huzzah! With the “Send” button, Facebook seems to be continuing its quest to eventually replace email with some sort of Facebook-related social service. The button is already available on over 50 sites including The Washington Post, last.fm, 1-800 Flowers, Gilt Groupe, The Huffington Post and Orbitz. With more to come, I’m sure. So, to commemorate Facebook becoming the Big Brother of social widgets, , a creative interactive agency specializing in UX and data visualization, has created a nifty retrospective — timeline of Facebook’s social widgets, beginning with the launch of Facebook Connect back in 2008. Warning: Infographics ahead. Oh, and by the way, you should totally on Facebook. Sorry, I had to. |
null | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 4 | 25 | null |
American Airlines Testing Access To Streaming Video In-Flight | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 3 |
It seems like it was just yesterday that the major airlines were finally dragged kicking and screaming into offering in-flight wi-fi. But now that it’s just another feature of flying, they’re going to be scrambling to differentiate or at least agree on what seems reasonable to offer. American is leading the pack this time, or so it says, by being the first to test I’m not sure how much water that claim will hold. After all, anyone who has wi-fi access can reach a dozen streaming video sites — YouTube, Vimeo, etc. But perhaps American means something a little more institutional, and perhaps purpose-built. The trouble might be bandwidth at that point. If their satellite connection can handle, say, 10Mbps down, that’s probably no more than 10 SD movies playing at one time, and even that’s stretching it. The real numbers may be higher, or lower, but I don’t get the impression we’re looking at any gigabit connections up there just yet. And then there’s the thing. I expect there will be something like the above. : GoGo has contacted me to clarify that the streaming service is actually going to use on-plane storage. Makes more sense, but it’s not much different from the in-flight entertainment systems on most planes today. Nicer screen, though, that’s for sure. They also note that the total bandwidth is more like 3Mbps (using EVDO rev A), so streaming over that would be pretty much impossible. Whatever the case, American also announced that it plans to have installed wi-fi on every single one of its domestic planes by the end of next year. |
Google's Chrome Team Lends Their Support To The It Gets Better Project With A New Video | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 3 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7skPnJOZYdA&w=620&h=349] A few weeks ago, entered wide circulation in the tech press for two reasons: 1) it featured lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Apple employees talking about their difficulties growing up. And 2) it was very, very well made. But the truth is that the has been around since last September, when columnist and author Dan Savage kicked things off with his own YouTube video with his partner to talk about their experiences. The Apple video simply reinvigorated the project in our circles, helping to keep the message going. And now Google is doing their part to continue the message as well. Yesterday the Chrome team uploaded a new, great . Watch it above. Google has actually participated in this project before. In October, several Google employees were featured . This was immediately followed by President Obama as well. There are now thousands of these videos. Great, great stuff. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYLs4NCgvNU&w=620&h=349] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWYqsaJk_U8&w=620&h=349] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzcAR6yQhF8&w=620&h=349] |
Developers, The Rap (Featuring Steve Ballmer, Naturally) | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 3 | One upon a time, Microsoft CEO interrupted a speech at a developer’s conference with that would set the Internet ablaze. “Developers, developers, developers, developers” was quickly put on the web and just as quickly mixed, , and placed on the mantle of pure Internet gold. But to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever crafted an actual song around it. Until now. Mobile developer shot us an email today pointing us to a song he wrote and recorded. “I’m contrasting developing music and developing software in a hardcore rap kinda way, pretty entertaining,” he notes . “The Steve Ballmer sample is the icing on the cake,” he notes in his message to us. Indeed. Listen to the song below. It’s awesome. And below that, find Smith’s lyrics. If Microsoft is smart, they’ll use this to kick of Ballmer’s next speech much like to kick off the Antennagate presser. After all, the talk is that . The song is perfect. I’m a developer
in many senses of the word
cause I make these applications
but I also use these verbs
to make this music
I construct it line by line
just like when I’m coding
another software design
in both cases
its about design patterns
anyone can get the job done
its the execution that matters
I have many interests
sometimes they conflict
my creativity can usually be a benefit
but sometimes it keeps me
far too busy
but I can’t complain
because my life is hardly gritty
so I think i’ll sit back
and pen myself another ditty
why is it that Linus Torvalds
the only one that Gits me
did you get that reference I was using
or is the thought of source source control too confusing
may just lay myself down a Team Foundation
so I can test the objects of my creation Chorus (Steve Ballmer)
Developers Developers Developers Developers
Developers Developers Developers Developers
Developers Developers Developers Developers
Developers Developers Developers Developers not a fan of jewelry
except for Ruby on Rails
I can use my skills
to increase my online sales
capitalize on the popularity of Facebook
or grill up some beats
so they declare me a great cook
never really been a big fan of insects
so I track down bugs
remove them when in test
make sure they never get pushed to production
but sometimes deadlines decide they get rushed in
I’m the same way
when it comes to my songs
perfection is the goal whenever the mic is on
I don’t want a bad verse to slip in the mix
cause it could look really bad
for Cory or smixx
only a fan of your behaviour
if its driven development
theres no sense of
adding features for the hell of it
complexity is irrelevant
whether its with music or software
your users have stories so you should be telling them Chorus (Steve Ballmer)
Developers Developers Developers Developers
Developers Developers Developers Developers
Developers Developers Developers Developers
Developers Developers Developers Developers seeing my creations
on others devices
after years of concentration
is nothing but priceless
whether its with software
or a song just like this
I put myself out there
so go on and hype this
Running 3 external monitors
off of my macbook
currently reviewer on a Windows Phone Pact book
now I got Steve Ballmer
and he’s bombing on this tracks hook
of course my QA’s on me
cause this app just crashed look
when I write my raps
never use a marker
constantly refactor
like I’m using Resharper
doing ad hoc deploys
and I’m always deliverin’
and I made that choice
regardless of dividends
creating all this noise
in some form
until the bitter end
stating with with my voice
theres no norm
that I can fit within
haven’t been sleeping
but using lots of REST
pass the mic back to who rocked it best [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zEQhhaJsU4&w=620&h=449] |
Walking With Robots: A Look Inside Exciting New Technology From Berkeley Bionics (TCTV) | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 5 | 4 | It’s not everyday that one has an encounter with a robot, let alone has the chance to wear one, and recently, I was lucky enough to have just that. Thanks to , I got to take a peak into the future of bionic devices — and get a small taste of what it must feel like to be Anthony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man). The Berkeley-based startup is developing exciting new technology that is truly the stuff of comic books and, formerly, of science fiction. Specifically, the company is making wearable, artificially intelligent bionic devices that it calls “exoskeletons”. This has taken shape in two significant forms: and . Both of which you can see (as well as an interview with Berkeley Bionics CEO Eythor Bender) in the accompanying video. In 2008, Berkeley Bionics introduced the appropriately-named HULC (or Human Universal Load Carrier), which is an untethered exoskeleton that augments the user’s strength and endurance. HULC was specifically designed for those on long, strenuous missions (like soldiers) and allows the user to carry up to 200 pounds. For hours. In 2009, Berkeley Bionics and Lockheed Martin established a licensing agreement, which will enable Lockheed to further develop HULC and make it a field-ready device for military use. Last year, the startup debuted its second exciting (and life-altering) device, called eLEGS, which is a wearable, artificially intelligent exoskeleton that allows people with paralysis to stand up and walk again. The startup hopes that this technology can eventually eliminate the need for wheelchairs, giving millions of people suffering from spinal cord injuries, stroke, MS, and more a new lease on life. Below you’ll find an interview with the Berkeley Bionics CEO, in which he walks through the company’s history and development of the technology behind the devices. You’ll also get a glimpse of eLEGS in action as well as the pleasure of seeing me gracefully trying out, and becoming, the HULC. The second video contains the full interview. Uncut. And, as a bonus, because we thought this was such a cool story and wanted to dive in a bit more, tomorrow we’ll be taking you to the Valley Medical Center in San Jose, where eLEGS is being used and developed as part of patient rehabilitation at Silicon Valley’s premiere hospital. I got a chance to speak with Dr. Akshat Shah, Chief of Spinal Cord & Orthopedic Rehabilitation, as well as VMC Foundation Executive Director Chris Wilder, and to see eLEGS in action. In the field. So stay tuned. |
COLOURlovers Raises $1 Million To Make Everyone An Artist | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 5 | 3 | If you have even the slightest hint of a creative streak, you may be interested in , a startup whose products let you easily express yourself using shapes and colors, even if you aren’t particularly good at it. The Y Combinator-backed company has built up a community around creating color palettes, a matching , and even for sprucing up your Twitter profile. And now the company has closed its first seed round. COLOURlovers has raised $1 million from investors including Atlas Venture, Morado Ventures, Founder Collective, Charles River Ventures, 500 Startups, Seraph Group & Zelkova Ventures, Matt Mullenweg, Alexis Ohanian, Don Hutchison, Dharmesh Shah, Jared Friedman, and Shawn Bercuson (the startup says it got in touch with many of them via Angel List). Founder Darius A Monsef IV (aka Bubs) didn’t want to talk too much about the company’s future plans, but he did say that it would soon be releasing a more robust version of its vector shapes editor, . Seamless has been available as a web app until now, but the company will be selling what he describes as an advanced desktop version within the next few weeks. As for the company’s long term goals, he says they’re working “towards a much bigger vision that builds upon all of the great creative content our community has been generating.” The company’s team now consists of three founders and two recently-hired full-time employees, with plans to hire an additional seven in the near future (if you’re interested they’re targeting hires in Portland — Monsef describes the hiring market in San Francisco as “pretty nutty”. The company was actually already profitable prior to the seed round, and on track to do over $500k in revenue this year. Monsef says that Seamless has been used to create 65,000 patterns thus far, and that 1.5 million color variations have been created as well (users can re-color existing patterns to suit their taste). The Twitter profile designer, which is called Themeleon, is used to design 600,000 profiles per month — and that number will grow once the company launches its upcoming WordPress version and a Themeleon API.
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P2P Learning Startup Skillshare Gets $550,000 From Founder Collective and SV Angel | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 5 | 3 | Peer-to-peer education startup , which just launched in April, raised a $550,000 angel round, according to an . Investors in the New York City startup include Founder Collective, SV Angel, Collaborative Fund, David Tisch, and Scott Heiferman. Skillshare is a community where people can offer classes to other members. People sign up online, and meet in person for real classes for everything from how to bake cupcakes to how to get startup funding. People can charge for the classes. “Our business model is similar to Eventbrite,” says co-founder Michael Karnjanaprakorn. “We take 15% off each ticket purchase. We made revenue on the first day that we launched.” Karnjanaprakorn used to be head of product at Hot Potato (since acquired by Facebook), and co-founder Malcolm Ong was the product manager at OMGPOP. The site is focussing on classes about tech startups, food and drink, and arts & crafts to start out. For instance, Chris Dixon of Founder Collective is going to teach a class on for $15 (with proceeds going to charity). The founders are curating the classes to start out in order to attract the right kind of people and define the culture of the site. They are getting some advice from fellow New York startups. “The guys at Kickstarter have given a lot of advice on how to build our community, especially in the early days of the startup,” says Karnjanaprakorn. “Right now, we don’t allow private one-on-one classes, tutoring sessions, or test preparation services. While we think these classes are great, they don’t really fit into our community as we’re going after the ‘creative, unique, interesting and skill-based’ classes.” The goal of Skillshare is to make education relevant and more current to what people need to learn. “While it’s great to learn multi-variable calculus or the economics of China during school,,” says Karnjanaprakorn. “What about the other 99% of skills that will never see the light of day? By the time a college starts teaching “Mastery in Online Community Management”, it will become so outdated and irrelevant. Traditional education will never catch up to the skills needed in the market today.” |
Razer Subtly Improves Their Goliathus Mouse Mats | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 3 |
Mousepads haven’t really advanced much for a long time, but it’s worth noting when a nice one like Goliathus gets a little tweak. They’ve added a little edge reinforcement to the things so they don’t fray. I found that the greater danger to cloth mats after a long time is dirt and oil soaking in and making it overly reflective (not all sensors are good for it), but the fraying did happen to mine as well, and made it look cheap. Unforgivable! The new mats come in two finishes and a number of sizes. |
Olympus LS-20M: A Pocket Cam With A Focus On Audio | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 3 | We recently reviewed the , a pocket cam (like your Flips and Playsports) with a little extra love given to the audio side of things. Olympus has decided to take that route as well with its new LS-20M… a pocket cam with a little extra love given to the audio side of things. What, I it was the same route. The LS-20M will do 1080p video and records 24-bit, 96kHz linear PCM audio with variable gain. The screen is only 2″, unfortunately, but there’s an extra little LCD for crucial information below it, something I found very handy on the Q3HD. It records to SDHC, and will of course also do 720p and 640×480. Everything’s at 30FPS, alas, but that’s to be expected. There sure are a lot of buttons on there. I guess you’ll find your way around it after a while, but I liked the Q3HD’s simple interface. Different strokes! : I didn’t get this at first, but the lens is actually on the “top” of the device, between the microphones. That’s pretty weird, Olympus. How will you look at the screen if you’re pointing this thing like a remote? I’m not optimistic. The device will be for an “estimated street price” of $300. Here’s the full press release, in case you’re curious: New Full-HD Video Combined with Magic Movie Special Effects and Pristine Audio Recording to Create Movies that Look and Sound Like Professional Productions CENTER VALLEY, Pa., May 3, 2011–Transforming everyday videos into memorable movies can be a challenge, but the Olympus LS-20M Linear PCM recorder makes it easy to add creative flair to any recording with the introduction of high-definition video. Record a live recital, create home movies and upload amazing linear PCM audio and high-definition video with the new Olympus LS-20M. Incorporating technologies much like those that debuted in recent Olympus digital imaging products, the new LS-20M isthe first Olympus recorder that captures and edits 1080p HD video while recording 24 bit/96 hHz Linear PCM stereo sound. Combined with four different optional Magic Movie special effects features, the LS-20M enables users to create home movies that look and sound like professional productions in a device that’s so compact it fits in your pocket. “The potential number of uses for the Olympus LS-20M Linear PCM recorder are limitless,” said Amy Leslie, product manager, Olympus Imaging America Inc. “Anyone looking to capture and upload music performances, sporting events, weddings, meetings or just create their own fun videos, can use the LS-20M for their personal and professional audio and video needs.” Lights, Camera, Action
The new Olympus LS-20M takes handheld recording to a new dimension with HD video. By combining Olympus’ superior audio capabilities, cutting-edge design and the outstanding optical performance expected from Olympus, this all-in-one handheld offers the versatility and practicality you need. Olympus is creating more ways for consumers to share memories and express themselves through video. Users can capture full HD movies utilizing one of three video format settings up to 1080p for stunning HD video clarity.The camera lens and microphones are located on top of the unit – just point the device in the direction of the intended object and hit record. A crisp, 2.0-inch color LCD on the front of the device clearly displays the video as its being shot. Below the video LCD is a1.46-inch LCD data screen that displays time, audio levels and battery life. Want to record a live recital that looks and sounds like a professional ballet? The LS-20M can do that, just point and record. The HD video compression format makes it easy to upload videos to Facebook, YouTube, iTunes, Vimeo and other web-based content sharing sites, and the resolution offers remarkable detail on modern home theatre systems. The camera features a 4.1mm (16:9 at 49mm, 4:3 at 59mm) autofocus lens and 4x digital zoom delivering premium video no matter where you are shooting. The Olympus LS-20M allows users to record in low light for more dramatic footage and also offers close-up video shooting. The combination of video and audio excellence has an infinite number of possibilities. Record a close-up of a hummingbird in HD video and set it to your own sound track of better-than-CD quality audio. Studio-Grade Audio
Olympus has been on the cutting edge of audio recording technology since inventing the microcassette format in 1969. The fourth in the series, the LS-20M lives up to the company’s renowned history of Linear PCM recording capability, to capture the rich, dynamic sound quality of music performances; like a studio in your pocket. The device captures rich, dynamic sound with its two condenser mics, and the ability to record in Linear PCM (WAV files) and MP3 formats. Use internal or external microphones to record better-than-CD quality audio for movies that sound like they were made in a Hollywood studio. The recording features don’t stop at amazing sound quality. For your convenience, the Olympus LS-20M offers manual or auto-level recording. The “auto” level is perfect if you are recording from the crowd. Thanks to the manual level, musicians can capture optimal sound checks and live performances. Certain settings, like crowded press conferences or a live show at a packed club can provide unwanted background noise that can later be incredibly frustrating. Thankfully, the Olympus LS-20M features a switchable low-cut filter that enables users to eliminate low-frequency sounds and unwanted background noises, like coughing. Collaborating musicians who want to monitor the recording progress on the fly can do so with the built-in speaker. The Olympus LS-20M voice-activation feature automatically starts a recording when a certain level of sound is reached. The self-timer feature starts the recording process after a predetermined amount of time; both are ideal for recording a performance or video without having to operate the recorder. Movie Making Magic
Specially designed to expand the potential of your creativity, the new, simple to operate, Magic Movie special effects technology turns scenes of everyday life into extraordinary images that are distinctive and compelling. Using technology from Olympus’ cameras, Magic Movie allows users to create exciting videos, then upload and share them with the world on YouTube or Facebook. Unleash your creative side by incorporating linear PCM audio with your own artistic expression. The LS-20M Magic Movie special effects settings: * Rock–create your own rock video! Step on stage with the classic Rock Magic Movie setting, featuring saturated black images and bright, bold background colors;
* Sketch – the Sketch Magic Movie setting turns your video into a living and breathing pencil drawing, reminiscent of some popular 80’s videos. Sketch adds an artistic feel and poetic flavor to your recordings;
* Pinhole –the Pinhole Magic Movie setting allows users to record video with soft, darkened outside edges – enhancing the subject in the center of the video. Pinhole is great for setting a mood to tie in with the melody or focus of your recorded sound;
* Pop — The Pop Magic Movie setting super-saturates colors to create a brighter, more vivid video recording. Turn your world into a work of pop art! Powerful Punch in a Compact Package
The Olympus LS-20M features a lightweight, durable, black body with silver function buttons in a slim, pocket-size device that fits in your palm. At just 5.3inches long and 5.4 ounces, the LS-20M provides remarkable power in a convenient and portable size. The attractive Olympus LS-20M is eye-catching and designed with ease-of-use in mind, with the control panel located just below the video and data LCDs. As the previous LS-series models, the record button lights up when activated and the thumb panel enables easy adjustments to settings while recording. A switch on the right side panel allows for easy transition from audio/video to audio-only recording. Inputs at the base of the unit offer easy access to USB and HDMI connections. Plugging the device into a computer or tablet for fast video uploads couldn’t be easier. Accessories
The Olympus LS-20M is packaged with everything needed to make HD movies straight out of the box. It’s equipped with a 2GB SD card, one rechargeable Lithium ion battery, a USB cable and an AC adapter. The battery is easily charged by plugging in the LS-20M to a computer. For added memory, the LS-20M can handle SDHC cards up to 32GB for longhours of movie making. An optional RS-30W Wireless Remote empowers users to start and stop the recording of the Olympus LS-20M without touching the unit. This is ideal for live performances, as the device can be placed in an optimal recording position and activated at a distance. Pricing and Availability
The Olympus LS-20M provides excellent audio and HD video recording of premium movies at a highly competitive price: estimated street price of $299.99 (U.S.). It will be available in June 2011. ABOUT OLYMPUS IMAGING AMERICA INC.
Olympus Imaging America Inc. is a precision technology leader, designing and delivering award-winning products for consumer and professional markets. Olympus Imaging America Inc. works collaboratively with its customers and its ultimate parent company, Olympus Corporation, to develop breakthrough technologies with revolutionary product design and functionality that enhances people’s lives every day. These include: · Digital Cameras · Professional and Consumer Interchangeable Lens System Cameras · Related Underwater Products and Accessories · Digital and Micro-cassette Recorders · Digital Media · Binoculars Olympus Imaging America Inc. is responsible for sales in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. For more information, visit: www.getolympus.com. Specifications*: Recording Format Voice: PCM (WAV) and MP3 Movie: MOV Recording Media SD/SDHC card slot Recording Time(2GB SD card) PCM 96kHz 24bit: 55m 44.1kHz 16bit: 3h MP3 320kbps: 12h45m 256kbps: 16h Shooting Time (2GB SD card) 1920 x 1080 30fps 96kHz 24bit: 15m 44.1kHz 16bit: 17m 1280 x 720 30fps 96kHz 24bit: 20m 44.1kHz 16bit: 30m 640 x 480 30fps 320kbps 44.1kHz: 1h 256kbps 44.1kHz: 1h Image sensor 1/4 inch CMOS, 5.32 Mega Pixel Lens 4.1mm (16:9 at 49mm, 4:3 at 59mm) LCD 2.0 inch color USB Hi speed USB2.0 Frequency response PCM 96kHz/24bit: 20Hz-44kHz Maximum headphone output 3.0mW+3.0mW (at load of 16Ω) Speaker 16mm round dynamic speaker Maximum speakeroutput 270mW (8Ω load) Microphone Jack 3.5mm dia Earphone Jack 3.5mm dia Power Supply Lithium Ion Battery / AC adapter Compatible OS (USB connection) Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/7 Mac OS X 10.4.11-10.6 Size 5.3 x2.5 x 0.7 inch (134.7 x 62.8 x 18.2 mm) Weight 5.4 oz (154g), including batteries *Specifications and design are subject to change without any notice or obligation on the part of the manufacturer. All trademarks and registered trademarks listed herein are the property of their respective holders, in the US and/or other countries. © 2011 Olympus Imaging America Inc. |
New Nook Incoming? Barnes And Noble Sure Thinks So | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 4 | This is a bit odd: I don’t recall anyone leaking any new devices via SEC filings before. I’m know it’s happened in financial reports and so on. But is pretty clear: “In a meeting with investor analysts on May 4, 2011, Barnes & Noble, Inc. (the “Company”) indicated it expects to make an announcement on May 24, 2011 regarding the launch of a new eReader device.” What could it be? Honeycomb? A new E Ink device? Nook Technicolor? We’ll find out on the 24th. [via and ] |
Google Voice CEO Craig Walker Launches Firespotter, A Google Ventures Funded Incubator | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 5 | 4 | When Google Voice (previously GrandCentral) cofounder and CEO left Google last year, he didn’t go far. In fact, he just went to set up a desk at Google Ventures as an entrepreneur in residence. At the time he told me his goal was to start a new company. Now, he tells me, he wants to start lots of them. He and his (former Google Voice engineers Brian Peterson and John Rector, and Alex Cornell) are launching today, an incubator for new startups. The company has also taken an initial $3 million round of funding from Google Ventures (keepin it in the family!). joins Firespotter’s board of directors. Just another incubator? Maybe. But Walker has direct experience with the idea. Grand Central came out of a successful incubator, . He says he wants to take the parts of Minor Ventures that worked, and then tweak a few things. For example, he says, Minor Ventures tended to come up with ideas and then hire a team to build those ideas and carry the companies forward. Walker says that Firespotter Labs will build the initial products using its own permanent in house team. When and if an idea has legs, then they’ll hire a team and spin off the company to get outside funding. Boutique incubators are somewhat in vogue right now. Betaworks continues to do well, and , founded by Admob founder , is off to a great start with backing from Sequoia. So when will we see some actual operating startups coming out of Firespotter? Sometime soon, says Walker. That $3 million, he says, is enough to get 4-6 companies off the ground. |
New Smallest Camera In The World Is .01mm Smaller Than The Last One | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 4 | Less than a month ago, we posted that from Awaiba and Fraunhofer, which qualified as the smallest video camera in the world at just one cubic millimeter. Well, easy come, easy go! This new one from Medigus is ever so slightly smaller, at .99mm in diameter. It’s slightly lower-resolution (around 212×212) but when you’re putting cameras into blood vessels and such, every micrometer is important. Will you ever see one? Eh, let’s hope not. [via ] |
WickedLasers Proves It Has A Short Memory With The Double-Handed Sith Laser | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 4 | Remember when for using Star Wars imagery in their marketing language? Remember how they got a C&D? Well WickedLasers is doing it again with this wild, double-headed “Sith Lord” blue laser and I’m not sure George will be as understanding this time. The laser costs $599 and sticks two units together for extra laser fun. You can pull them apart to play with them individually or swing them around like a goofball and burn everyone’s retinas. Either way it’s a win-win. The unit maxes out at 2000mW and, as Wickedlasers notes, “2W of laser power aimed in polar opposite directions” is extremely dangerous. High powered handheld laser features a second beam of intense power.
Use individually to fire a laser that reaches beyond the stars or connect them for a bipolar beam.
Use separately or secure each 1W Spyder 3 together via the Spyder interconnector to operate as a double bladed laser.
Dual Smartswitch safety technology prevents unauthorized access. |
Fossil Adds A Screen And Bluetooth To Their Handsome Watches | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 4 |
The smart watch has never, ever succeeded, but that hasn’t stopped Fossil from trying. Remember the Palm watch? That was a great piece of technology. Anyway, these Meta Watches from Fossil have their own SDK and allow programmers to send data to the watch from a phone. These watches last about seven days on one charge and cost $200. They are, oddly enough, water resistant to 3 ATM and they run the MSP430TM low power processor and a Bluetooth controller to make the magic happen. Seriously: these will never take off, at least in the watch form factor, but god bless Fossil for trying. Richardson, TX, May 3, 2011 – Meta WatchTM is proud to announce a wearable development system that enables rapid development of ‘connected-watch’ applications. With Meta Watch, developers can quickly and easily extend the interfaces of devices and applications to the wrist. The Meta Watch platforms utilize embedded Bluetooth® technology to connect to smartphones, tablets and other electronics devices. The Meta Watch SDK/API makes it easy for the watch to display information from mobile applications or Internet services. For complete information, visit www.metawatch.org. Meta Watch platforms are available in analog digital or digital versions, and include: a 3 ATM water resistant stainless steel case; leather strap; mineral glass crystal; vibrating motor; three-axis accelerometer, and ambient light sensor. Optimized for low-power operation, both watch platforms are based on the MSP430TM ultra-low-power microcontroller and CC2560 Bluetooth host controller interface solution from Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI). “Meta Watch makes our everyday mobile experience much better by enabling us to view important mobile notifications at the right time with virtually no effort”, said Bill Geiser, Vice President Watch Technology, Fossil. “Of course, you can get this information today, but it requires many different steps. Meta Watch simply makes it more convenient and, in the process, it opens the door to new partnerships like we have with TI and a growing network of development partners.” “TI welcomes the opportunity to work with the Meta Watch team on creating a new channel for the community, and to helping developers push the watch’s capabilities to the next level,” said Eran Sandhaus, Director of marketing, wireless connectivity solutions, TI. “TI’s MSP430 ultra-low-power microcontroller and CC2560 Bluetooth host controller interface provide a solid foundation for the next- generation, connected devices based on the Meta Watch’s sleek form factor. We look forward to seeing the Meta Watch community flourish with ideas for wearable technology that will spark new consumer experiences for years to come.” |
Stovetop Espresso Goes To The Dark Side | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 4 | I was perusing and spotted here. I talked about this old-school method of making espresso (delicious and difficult), but in case you like your coffee your coffee-maker black, might be right up your alley. At €36.50 it’s rather more than its Bialetti equivalent, and replacement parts might be hard to come by, but as the Emperor might say, that’s the price you pay for power. What are you waiting for? Ajouter au panier! |
IAC's CityGrid Media Buys Social Media Monitoring And Analysis Platform BuzzLabs | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 5 | 4 | Social media monitoring platforms are undoubtedly one of the more desirable acquisition targets for both technology, e-commerce and media companies. Salesforce picked up Radian6 a few weeks ago for and Walmart as well. And today IAC-owned local media and advertising property is acquiring its own social media monitoring and sentiment analysis platform, Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Seattle-based BuzzLabs, which was co-founded in 2009 by former Microsoft employees Philip Lee and Dou Shen, allows publishers to leverage social content, keeps consumers better informed, and helps local businesses monitor their presence across the web. BuzzLabs’ dashboard for businesses dashboard aggregates social media activity into one location, allowing companies to track mentions, Tweets, reviews and more across the web. For content providers, BuzzLabs will help socialize data. For example, BuzzFeed’s opinion mining technology extracts and identifies key phrases from content to determine if it’s positive, neutral, or negative. The startup also creates tag clouds from content. The company has actually been a partner of CityGrid and has been using the local media platform’s API for the past year. So how does BuzzLabs’ technology help CityGrid? For background, IAC last year as a set of APIs which makes all of Citysearch’s local listings content and advertising available to other Websites and mobile apps. The company its Yelp-like local business content platform CitySearch as part of CityGrid Media. All of the local listings in Citysearch are available through CityGrid’s APIs so that anyone creating a mobile app or local Website can grab business listings, addresses, phone numbers, photos, reviews, and more and build their own apps around them. CityGrid also matches local advertisers with these local publishers. With the acquisition, CityGrid says it will have the ability to aggregate and analyze millions of pieces of content across its content and ad network, including reviews, articles, blog posts, check-ins, Likes and other real time streams of user generated content, producing additional data relating to business sentiment, consumer insight and trending data for its publishers and million-plus merchants. The acquisition will also offer a reputation management and social media monitoring platform to local merchant advertisers. And the BuzzLabs business dashboard will be integrated into the CityGrid Media Ad Center, allowing local merchants to access BuzzLabs’ social monitoring and analysis tools to better manage online reputations. Jay Herratti, CEO of CityGrid Media said this a statement:“With the explosion of local, user-generated content on the Web, it is imperative our network of publishers has real-time tools to acquire new content and make sense of it for users in a way that’s immediately valuable to them…By adding BuzzLabs to the CityGrid offering, we are able to provide our publishers with relevant, real-time content and new local data that consumers now rely on to make their decisions.” Herratti tells us that BuzzLabs technology will be integrated into the CityGrid platform over the next three to six months. |
Radiator Uses "Quantum Glass" To Heat Your Home | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 4 |
Those of us in cooler climates are familiar with the common hot-water radiator. It’s old-school, but it works. have decided they’re too good for wrought iron and steam (or rather their client has), and have instead put together this insane device, which uses a special coating (creating what they almost certainly mis-describe as “quantum glass”) to radiate infrared radiation whenever it’s given a current. That’s heat, my friend. Oh, the sticks? Those are to prevent you from kicking it by accident and spraying hot glass all over the place. [via and ] |
null | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 5 | 3 | null |
Hearst Publications Come To iTunes: $2 Per Month, $20 Per Year | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 4 | Now we’re getting somewhere. Just last week I posted how Conde Nast was from pushing its editions due to… well, an inability to sell them. I’ve always felt that these companies need to let go of big profits per consumer and focus on the high-volume, low-price angle. It looks like Hearst is doing that to some extent, having just agreed to . At $2/month or $20/year, the titles are comparable to yearly print subscription costs. , and will be the initial offerings, though more are surely in the works. This makes Hearst the first major publisher to go under the Apple subscription yoke, which many have already bucked at. But as people don’t seem to like having to purchase each issue separately, and volume is all-important for publishing, Hearst decided this was the right move. Will Hearst be the first of many? Will Conde Nast and others wait and see, or hasten to join for fear of losing potential readers? Find out next time on . |
Google Just Leaked Their +1 Chrome Extension On National Television | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 4 | If you haven’t seen Google’s new , I highly recommend you check it out. It’s brilliant. And watch closely. At various points in the video, the Chrome browser in use reveals an unreleased product: a Google +1 extension. For the best view of it, skip to the 0:51 mark. There it is, front and center, next to the Picasa button being clicked on. The funniest part of this is that Google is actually as part of their new Chrome marketing push. So Google just leaked their own new feature to millions of people. Well, those watching very closely, at least. So what does the extension do? Hard to say since they never actually click on it in the video. But one can assume that it’s a simple way to +1 any site you’re visiting. about a month ago as a way to socially share Google Search results with friends — and to help Google rank those results with social juice. I’m also wondering if the extension doesn’t have more social functionality — such as a way to share a link on Twitter and other networks alongside +1’ing it. You may recall that as they were developing +1, about it. One of those was a that was apparently a way to share with other social networks. Google has also said that a +1 button is coming for publisher websites. But we haven’t heard any more on that since the original announcement. Anyway, a +1 Chrome extension is clearly on the way. And Google let us know about it either by way of a brilliant subliminal marketing move, or a big mistake in front of the entire American public. Either way, great ad. +1, really. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4vkVHijdQk&w=620&h=349] |
E Ink Shows Off More Flexible, Crunchable Screens | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 4 |
It seems like everybody and their dog is trying to get a flexible display out there. , , , , and most recently are all going nuts trying to make this happen. E Ink is no exception, and although they’re to their Pearl screen this year, they aren’t standing still, either. managed to wangle a few demo videos of cutting-edge E Ink tech at an event a couple weeks ago. Here’s E Ink displays using cloth and Tyvek material as bases: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J17KgbjYMro&w=640&h=390]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tF2GddZqkg&w=640&h=390] Although E Ink is the market leader, it’s wide open to disruption. The companies mentioned above have their own projects, and . [via ] |
Klarna acquires Analyzd to tie social to finance and payments | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 5 | 4 | Many believe there is a big future in data driven finance and tying the social experience with payments. To that end roll-ups are happening. , a startup in the space for in-store credit and invoicing solutions for eCommerce, has acquired , a team of risk management and fraud prevention experts operating in multiple geographies (the US, some EU countries and Israel). Terms were undisclosed. Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski says the Analyzd team will join Klarna and founder Ohad Ohad Samet – a noted expert in payments and risk management – will take on the role of Chief Risk Officer (CRO) as part of Klarna’s management team. He will head a data driven risk management team distributed across several locations (Stockholm, Tel Aviv and San Francisco). Analyzd’s Tel Aviv office will be taping into the Israeli hi-tech talent pool. Klarna, which has investment from Sequoia Capital, has processed over 20 million payments in the last few years. It also has Mike Moritz on its board as well as Facebook and Skype investor Klaus Hommels. The idea is to become one of the major merchant services providers on a global scale. The company claims that during 2010 it increased revenue with more than 80 percent to 54 million USD. |
Cognitive Match lures Yahoo’s chief advertising platform architect | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 5 | 4 | is a startup applying artificial intelligence, learning mathematics, psychology and semantic technologies to match content (product, offers, or editorial) to realtime content. Last year it a Series B investment of $2.5m from Dawn Capital, taking its war-chest to around $3.5m. It’s now using that to bring in major talent. Dave Burgess, previously Yahoo!’s Chief Architect of Advertising Solutions, has joined the team and will be responsible for overall product strategy and software engineering for the company. Based at the company’s Palo Alto, California offices, Burgess joins after Cognitive Match has landed new customers including The Guardian, Yahoo!, Steve Madden and AOL. Cognitive Match Founder CEO Alex Kelleher said Burgess will now lead the product, software engineering, research and IT operations teams. Prior to Yahoo!, Burgess held the roles of Principal Architect at E2open, and Advisory Architect at IBM. |
TC Cribs: The Sights And Smells Of LikeALittle’s Ridiculous Hacker House | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 5 | 4 | Warning: if you are an obsessively clean person, you may want to skip this episode of TC Cribs. For those of you brave enough to tune in, here’s a bit of an explanation. Over the last few months we’ve seen some pretty blinged-out offices, featuring go-karts, gorgeous skyline views, and endless supplies of free snacks and beer. But the reality is that most startups don’t look anything like that. Instead, they often consist a handful of founders working (and sleeping) out of somebody’s apartment and eating ramen noodles twice a day with the occasional pizza splurge. (LAL) is a lot like that. For those that haven’t seen it, LAL is a college-focused service that’s like a more structured version of Craigslist’s missed connections, allowing students to post ‘flirts’ to other nearby users. The company just raised some seed money from a of investors. And the team consists of a dozen young guys sitting in one room in a house in Palo Alto. There’s stuff everywhere. Not necessarily stuff, but the floor was littered with dolls, photos of Ashton Kutcher, iPads, markers, venture capitalist business cards, and popcorn. In other words, it was a lot like my college dorm. And it’s awesome. Credit once again goes to Ashley Pagán and John Murillo for the camera work, and to Mr. Murillo for the great editing. Make sure to tune in to our past episodes of TC Cribs: |
100,000 Developers Strong, Mashery Nabs $11 Million To Push The Internet Beyond Websites | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 4 | “People used to sit at a desk to ‘Internet’. Then they would get up and stop Internetting. Now they Internet wherever, whenever — even when they don’t think they are doing it.” That’s CEO ‘ explanation for why his company is growing so quickly. The API management company has just hit 100,000 developers using their service, Michels says. Just about a year ago, that number stood at 35,000. And now they’ve just gotten a big new round of funding to help deal with and maintain that fast expansion. Mashery has just closed an $11 million Series D round led by . Also participating were previous investors , , , and . With the funding, , senior managing director and founder of OpenView, has taken a board seat. The new funding brings the total raised to just shy of $25 million. And while Michels declined to give the valuation, he does note that this round was at a “significant premium” over the last round ( in February of last year). So what has led to a tripling of developers using Mashery in the past year? Apps, says Michels. It has been mostly Android and iOS leading that charge, obviously. But Michels also notes that the videogame consoles are also driving quite a bit of growth recently. He also says that Mashery’s technology is now used in some 25,000 live apps out there. “A great app ‘grants a wish’ — so companies are going to need lots of apps to meet the needs of different groups of customers at different places, times, and use cases,” Michels says. “The only way to make that happen is to have secure, scalable, easy-to-use APIs — that can be the ingredients of the wishes,” he continues. Cute. And apparently good business. |
Seagate Teases "Perfect Companion" For Tablets | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 4 | Seagate is toying with us, saying they’re going to release this month the “perfect companion” for and other . Being that they’re a storage company and tablets lack serious storage space, I’m guessing it’s a tablet-oriented storage and backup solution, perhaps focusing on mobility and anywhere-accessibility. Perhaps via a browser client? Nobody knows, though is making a few guesses. We’ll keep our eyes open. |
Talkatone Lets You Make Calls And SMS Over Wifi For Free, No Strings Attached | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 5 | 4 | Like , allows you to make phone calls using Wifi. Unlike Pinger, Talkatone uses Google Voice as a channel to let you make and receive phone calls to and from your phone contacts, for free. While Pinger, , gives you a certain amount of minutes free and then charges your iTunes account or asks you to complete tasks, Talkatone, after some jiggering of your Google Voice account, allows you to make unlimited calls without having to jump through any additional hoops. To set Talktone up log into your Gmail account and select the “Call Phone” option under Chat. Use the “Call Phone” option to make one call to a regular phone number. Then sign out from Google Chat and return to Talkatone. Make a phone call from its phone widget and you should be good to go there. In order to receive incoming calls, you have to upgrade your Google Voice account to get a phone number and select “Forward to Google Chat” on the Voice Settings page. You can then receive calls to your Google Voice number in Talkatone. (For more detailed instructions ) This latest Talkatone release also lets users in the US and Canada send and receive unlimited SMS messages via Wifi, using just their data plans. It includes an audio compression upgrade to improve voice quality over weaker networks. Talkatone is particularly useful for phone deadzones like TechCrunch offices, but might be a godsend for people who turn off their cell service on trips abroad and just use their data plans. Imagine being able to make calls from French hotel Wifi or even on a plane? You can try Talkatone for free |
Yahtzee Reviews Portal 2 | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 4 | If you’re like Devin and haven’t finished , don’t watch this review. There are no spoilers but I know you’ll scream at me if he ruins anything for you. |
HTC Flyer's Stylus Will Run You $80 | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 5 |
Oh dear, this isn’t good. HTC’s tablet, which we saw in Barcelona at MWC, has set itself apart with its unique (among today’s tablets) pen input. Of course, it’s not a resistive screen and the stylus isn’t just a pointer — it’s a separate piece of electronics, like those used on Wacom tablets, and , it’s going to run you $80. I know that’s the going rate, but still, it’s a fair bit of cash. Let’s hope the tablet (expected to cost $500 for a base configuration) comes with one of these things. And try not to lose it! : . It’s not in the Best Buy description but it’s in the box. [via ] |
LA Noire To Ship On Three Discs For 360, One For PS3 | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 5 | , one of the biggest games on the table this year, will be shipping for Microsoft’s system on , and while they assure us it’s “hassle-free,” it’s still three discs. The PS3 version will fit on one 25GB Blu-ray disc. Now, I’m not saying one version is going to be better than the other (or all I know, the PS3 version has higher load times or more compressed textures), but this is definitely a score for the PS3’s larger format. Maybe I’ll wait for the PC version, which will come on . |
More Hacks In Store For Sony? | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 5 |
I would take this report with a grain of salt, but it seems a little IRC lurker-bird that the same hackers who hit both and are going for a third strike this weekend. It’s not clear where these secret hacker talks are taking place other than on IRC somewhere, and no details were given aside from that a third attack was forthcoming. FUD? Fabrication? Or confidence? You be the judge. By the way, if you’re worried about your private info, Sony is generously offering complimentary enrollment in a identity theft protection program. |
Sony Knew About The Break-Ins For Six Days Before Coming Clean | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 4 |
As Joel at points out, Sony learned about the network break-ins on about April 20 and did nothing to alert customers until the 26th, a move that points to a great deal of hubris and foolhardy bravado on Sony’s part. Joel followed the trail from beginning to end, noting that learned that something was amiss when servers began rebooting without intervention on the 19th. After examining the machines for a full seven days, Sony finally alerted “regulatory authorities in New Jersey, Maryland, and New Hampshire.” What’s wrong with that picture? Well, on the 22nd Sony informed the world that nothing was amiss and then, once the true scope of the damage was made clear, waited four more days to warn users that their data had been compromised. While one can agree with the statement that Sony may have not known what was up until, say, the first few forensics teams began to make their assessments, this does not excuse the company from ignoring the obvious dangers and putting users at risk. Sony went through a lot headache here and it is not clear whether PSN users have suffered monetary losses yet from the hack. However, by sitting on the news for so long Sony management made it clear that saving face is more important than saving personal data. Six days is a long time. A little advance warning could have given all PSN members a moment to cancel their credit cards and to check their accounts for untoward activity. Instead, they had to wait, in the dark, until Sony saw fit to inform the world. Check out Joel’s post and Ross Miller’s great . |
Self-Publishing Site Helium Raises Another $10 Million | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 5 | 5 | Self-publishing content company has raised another 10 million in debt financing according to a . Listed on the the filing are President Mark Renalli, and board members Ann Bushell and John Paloian from RR Donnelly, Joseph Farrelly of Interpublic Group, Anne Kennedy of Beyond Ink, Steve Pogorzelski, David Weild IV and William Huff. There is no indication of who invested on the SEC form. Sort of like a proto-content farm, Helium writers get paid to write “How to” guides on subjects ranging from “ ” to (wow). Helium launched in 2006 and since then has amassed a community of hundreds of thousands of writers, at least. Since no one from Helium has returned my calls, I have no more accurate or up to date traffic or engagement numbers. But I do have your brief moment of zen from the last time we wrote about Helium raising money, in a post entitled “ .” While I have no idea if anyone got laid off this time, the severity of the above text, written in the middle of the 2008 financial crisis, is pretty jarring. In the era of Color’s and in light of Demand Media’s recent IPO (with released today) we often forget that not that long ago the collective startup mindset was one of a “bomb shelter mentality” … Times, they do change. |
Creative Releases The ZEN Style PMP | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 5 | is offering their new PMPs, the ZEN M300. Price at $40 to $90 these tiny MP3/Video players have Bluetooth support and a micro-SD slot and FM radio. They come in 4, 8, and 16GB sizes and they come in black, white, red or yellow. The M100 is exactly the same but without Bluetooth. Creative has been doing great stuff in the speaker world recently, especially with their unique Bluetooth docks. While not quite as mainstream as they once were, these deserve a second look. Stylish Music, Photo and Video Player Features microSD Card Slot and 1.45″ Screen with Touch Buttons Milpitas, CA (PRWEB) May 05, 2011 Creative Technology Ltd today announced the launch of the Creative ZEN Style M300 music, photo and video player with Bluetooth wireless audio playback. Just 55 x 44 x 12 mm in size, the Creative ZEN Style M300 is packed with features including a microSD card slot and 1.45″ TFT screen with Touch Buttons, and it is priced from only $39.99. Key Features of the Creative ZEN Style M300
Wireless Connectivity with Bluetooth 2.1 This allows users to enjoy music from the player wirelessly from all compatible stereo Bluetooth headphones such as the Creative WP-Series, which includes the ultra affordable Creative WP-250, and Bluetooth speakers such as the all new ZiiSound Dx Series and Creative D80, as well as Creative’s existing line-up of wireless speakers Additional Space for Music with microSD Card Slot
Users can add up to 32GB* of music on top of the player’s built-in memory Touch Buttons
The player’s touch sensitive control buttons let users navigate through the player’s menus easily and comfortably FM Radio
The built-in FM Radio lets users add up to 32 preset stations The Creative ZEN Style M100 was also launched today, offering the great design and features of the ZEN Style M series of players without Bluetooth connectivity and FM Radio. Both the Creative ZEN Style M300 and Creative ZEN Style M100 feature Audible support, giving users the option of enjoying a wide range of audio content that includes books of all genres. Both players also come pre-installed with a complete edition of Alyson Noël’s Evermore, the first book in her thrilling Immortals series. Creative ZEN Style M300 and Creative ZEN Style M100 are available in a choice of four colors: black, white, red or yellow. Technical Specifications of the Creative ZEN Style M Series of Players Creative ZEN Style M300 Portable Media Player
Display: 1.45″ TFT (262K colors)
Capacity: 4GB, 8GB, 16GB
Bluetooth: Bluetooth 2.1 wireless technology (supports A2DP & AVRCP)
FM Radio function with 32 preset stations
Battery Life: Up to 20 hours (based on128kpbs, 4mins/song, MP3 file)
Supported Audio Formats: MP3, WMA (DRM9),WAV (IMA-ADPCM), Audible Format 4, Audible AAX
Supported Picture Formats: JPEG
Supported Video Formats: Transcoded SMV (requires respective codec pre-installed on PC)
Built-in microphone for voice recording
Additional feature: Clock display Creative ZEN Style M100 Portable Media Player
Display: 1.45″ TFT (262K colors)
Capacity: 4GB, 8GB
Battery Life: Up to 20 hours (based on128kpbs, 4mins/song, MP3 file)
Supported Audio Formats: MP3, WMA (DRM9),WAV (IMA-ADPCM), Audible Format 4, Audible AAX
Supported Picture Formats: JPEG
Supported Video Formats: Transcoded SMV (requires respective codec pre-installed on PC)
Built-in microphone for voice recording
Additional feature: Clock display * 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes. Available capacity will be less. Reported capacity will vary. Pricing and Availability
The Creative ZEN Style M300 and Creative ZEN Style M100 portable media players will be available at the online store at http://www.creative.com/shop from June 2011 onwards at the following suggested retail prices: Creative ZEN Style M300 4GB $49.99
Creative ZEN Style M300 8GB $69.99
Creative ZEN Style M300 16GB$89.99
Creative ZEN Style M100 4GB $39.99
Creative ZEN Style M100 8GB $59.99 For in-store availability, please refer to local authorized dealers. For more information about the Creative ZEN Style M300 and Creative ZEN Style M100 portable media players, please visit http://www.creative.com/purewireless. About Creative
Creative is a worldwide leader in digital entertainment products. Famous for its Sound Blaster® sound cards and for launching the multimedia revolution, Creative is now driving digital entertainment on the PC platform with products like its highly acclaimed ZEN® MP3 and portable media players. Creative’s innovative hardware, proprietary technology, applications and services leverage the Internet, enabling consumers to experience high-quality digital entertainment – anytime, anywhere. This announcement relates to products launched in Europe. Availability is subject to change without notice and may differ elsewhere in the world according to local factors and requirements. ZEN and Sound Blaster are trademarks or registered trademarks of Creative Technology Ltd in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. |
Raspberry Pi: A $25 Bare-Bones PC That Fits On Your Keychain | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 5 |
There are a number of barebones/mass-market low-cost devices out there, many of them aimed at the huge developing world market, hoping to outfit people with basic PC functionality for as little cost as possible. The is among the most famous, but perhaps the most luxurious: with a cutting-edge screen, built-in keyboard and networking, and so on, it has perhaps aimed too high, resulting in (as we’ve seen) increasing price and limited uptake. comes to mind as well. David Braben, perhaps best known for developing the revolutionary , is now leading a foundation called to mass produce this ultra-minimal PC and distribute it where even an OLPC is too much. Their device is as bare-bones as it gets, and they’re hoping to sell it for $25. It’s about the size of a USB drive, and comprises a 700MHz ARM11 processor, 128MB of RAM, and ports for video, removable media, and USB 2.0. That’s all! There’s a “general-purpose” I/O slot that can be used to attach peripherals like a camera or wireless module, but that’s really all there is to it. And of course, that’s pretty much all you to run a modern computer OS. With a 16GB SD card, a USB hub connecting a mouse and keyboard, and any monitor that connects to composite or HDMI, you’ve got a fully functional PC that probably outperforms desktops from a few years back. It’ll run what you put on it, as long as it’s ARM-compatible — right now it’s shown running Ubuntu 9, but there are a number of options, all offering complete modern web browsing, office tools, printing, maps, and all the other usual suspects. I suspect this thing is much less junkware than many other low-cost devices, many of which are simply turning around cheap components for a low-margin product. This thing could be bought in bulk and easily distributed, powering internet cafes and schools in impoverished areas, and introducing them to the joys of Linux. Every kid could carry their entire computer around with them on an SD card. Doesn’t that sound right? Personally, I like it better than the OLPC approach, admirable as it is. The Raspberry Pi team still has to prove it can produce the device for the price they’ve quoted — a task that has choked bigger operations than theirs. But despite being a custom device and PCB, it doesn’t seem unlikely that these off-the-shelf components (plus perhaps a shell) could be gotten for under that. If you’d like to know more, head over to , or , where there is a video of Braben showing off the device and explaining his motivation for it. |
AOL Launches "Incredibly Easy" Video Chat Service Internally; We Launch It Externally | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 5 | Earlier today, AOL’s Head of AIM Products sent an email to the entire company urging people not to share its contents with people outside of the company. Even though we’re a part of AOL, we didn’t get that email. Well, that is until someone was kind enough to leak it to us. Hey, we are not outside of the company so that’s fair right? And since we didn’t technically get the email, I have no problem sharing it. Anyway. AOL is on the verge of launching a “shiny new video chat product dubbed ‘AV'”. And it actually looks pretty good. It’s video chat, but super-simple. You don’t need an account to use it. You don’t need anything (besides, sadly, Flash installed on your computer). You hit the homepage, start a chat, get a link, and send that to friends. Up to four people can chat at once. I’ve been playing around with it for a bit. It is super simple and well done. Aside from video chatting, you can text chat and it overlays on your stream in a nice way. You can also make your stream wider and freeze it. Still in beta for now, Shellen notes that it “represents a lot of hard work by the AIM team over the last few months.” He also says that it’s the first of “several” new AIM launches coming soon. All will be web-focused. The video chat play is a smart one. This is a space that is heating up really quickly. Apple has FaceTime across their devices, Chatroulette is supposedly , Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker are on Supyo (yes, Mike is an investor), and even Skype is back in the news about possible for their technology. Speaking of Google, we’ve been hearing for months that they’re to AV. And I suspect we’ll be hearing more about that shortly. The point of Shellen’s email today was to share AV internally with AOLers to test it out. But we’re gonna do him one better. We’re going to share the link here so all of you can help test it out! ! AOL is hosting a product summit at their west coast HQ in Palo Alto next week. I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about AV there. For now, enjoy. Below, Shellen’s email to the troops. Reached for comment, Shellen refused to and seemed annoyed. Hey, it was either us publishing this or , right? We’re brothers! People of AOL, AIM is proud to present you with a super secret internal launch (shhh!) of our shiny new video chat product dubbed “AV”. Still in beta, AV is a major step forward that represents a lot of hard work by the AIM team over the last few months. AV is incredibly easy to use: Visit the home page, start a chat, get a link to send out, and you and up to three other people are video chatting in no time. There’s no account or login required, so there’s very little barrier to entry. Plus… it’s FUN! As you may know, this is the first of several substantial new AIM launches and the first to represent our shift in focus to better web software. While you might have been one of our early testers of the entire new AIM effort, this is just the video portion and we’ll be in touch soon as the rest rolls out. What I’m asking of you is to: 1. Use the product by checking out the link below, only with fellow Aol team members.
2. Give us feedback and bug reports through the “Feedback” link in the product.
3. DO NOT SHARE THIS WITH ANYONE OUTSIDE AOL!
4. Sorry, my “caps lock” key got stuck on during number 3. But seriously, don’t do it. Enjoy: http://aim.com/av Sincerely, JASON SHELLEN
Head of AIM Products
P: XXX.XXX.XXXX AIM: XXXXXXXX
Palo Alto | NYC | Dulles PS: To the ACG team for whom this email will seem oddly familiar, thank you for your help in providing feedback on our alpha version over the past few weeks. Please give us another spin now that we’ve worked out the kinks and keep giving us feedback so we can continue to improve. |
Qwerly shutters profile pages in favour of lucrative 'DNS for people' API | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 5 | 5 | , which originally pitched itself as a “DNS for people”, used to have profile pages along the lines of About.me. But no more. As of today the startup is pivoting (my apologies) and shutting profiles in favour of doubling down on its growing API business. In an email to users today, CEO and founder Max Niederhofer told users that over the last few months demand for integrating Qwerly data into CRM suites, customer support systems, email clients and address books “has far outstripped interest in the Qwerly.com site.” Formerly, Qwerly was doing people search for the social web and consolidating public identity data to profiles algorithmically. Niederhofer says about 50,000 people accessed the site in April – but over 30 million queries were conducted via the API, many of these from customer sites that pay for the API. Right now there is a free, 1,000 calls per month, on the API if developers want to play around with it. The database of personal information inputted by users (who could edit their profile pages) will now be deleted and widgets will 404. Qwerly is suggesting users migrate to alternative social media splash page such as or . Niederhofer told me that while personal splash pages can garner good traffic, “What do you sell to people looking for people?” He says too many people search engines often upsell users Spokeo or Intelius to find out whether someone has a criminal record or how much their house is worth. “For me, that’s a so-so business,” he said. “We found that companies and developers care a lot about consolidated identities of public web data, which remains the Qwerly core offering. They use it to populate CRM suites, customer support systems, address books, application tracking systems, email lists. They like knowing what their customers do on the web so they can personalize their communications to them.” It’s interesting that Qwerly has made this move and one wonders if they wil have more competitors snapping at their heals soon for this lucrative business. |
Erasing And Recovering Hard Drives: An Increasingly Complicated Affair | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 5 |
The buzzword of the year is “cloud,” and it carries with it an implication that your data is somewhere magical and safe, and in a way, it is. But there’s no getting around the fact that our appetite for storage is increasing by leaps and bounds, whether it’s stored locally or remotely. There’s always the possibility of catastrophic failure, and of course the flip side of that is that there is always the need to instantly and permanently delete our data. I’ve always found both necessities, and the methods for achieving them, interesting topics. And with densities increasing and SSDs on the rise, the recovery and security scene is getting more complex by the day. I spoke with Chris Bross, a data recovery expert at , in order to get a feel for what the recovery practices are out there today. The hard disk drive market today, says Bross, is vastly different from what it was like 20 years ago. Manufacturers have consumed one another until there are essentially only two majors today: Western Digital and Seagate. All told over 650 million hard drives are sold every year, and as the price per gig is still far better for HDDs, that number isn’t likely to go down any time soon. Enterprise and cloud storage are still exploding. Naturally, as these numbers go up, the failure numbers go up as well. Just the failure rates resulting from natural manufacturing tolerances and such produce millions of failed drives per year (remember that many drives stay in service for years, making the total number of active HDDs in the world somewhat difficult to estimate), and in addition to that, there are huge amounts of catastrophic-type failures like dropped drives, water damage, and crush damage. In fact, DriveSavers has been offering its recovery services for free to people affected by the tsunami in Japan. Water damage is a common and well-understood failure — unlike, say, irradiation or a corrupted driver. Chris mentioned that they have a sort of symbiotic relationship with drive manufacturers: Drivesavers gets access to special tools for recovering data, and the manufacturers get access to a ton of failure data ( ). That relationship is important, since the huge volume means manufacturers can’t address every issue, and the increasing density and precision of hard drives makes recovery more difficult every year. But as long as the platters are reasonably intact, it’s just a matter of careful dissection and re-mounting the drives. SSDs are a different story. Bross pointed out that the situation out there is more like a couple decades ago in HDDs, when there were a dozen or more drive manufacturers. By DriveSavers’ count, there are over manufacturers of flash and SSD storage, and quite a few companies putting together drivers, interfaces, and other management software. It’s a jungle out there. Interestingly, the first generation of SSDs, which relied on single-layer cell technology, was far more reliable than the current multi-layer cell devices; reliability per cell was much higher — but the drive controllers were primitive. Major advances in write patterns, wear control, and so on are rolling out constantly, and it’s difficult to stay abreast of all the different kinds of failures possible out there. Failure rates on SSDs are still relatively high (though data is hard to come by and harder to interpret), so consider yourself warned. A failure on an SSD can happen in a number of ways, and unlike HDDs, it seems that they are more likely to fail irrecoverably than in a way you can reverse. This is partially due to the way data is written on the drives — the new MLC flash necessitates an almost random pattern of writes in order to control cell wear, and if this pattern can’t be derived from the driver or encryption, the drive is essentially filled with garbage data. This same “problem” is in fact a powerful security feature. One of the services DriveSavers offers, though you can of course do it yourself, is “drive sanitation.” It’s when you want to be absolutely sure that data isn’t recoverable, and SSDs make that an easy job. On normal HDDs, zeroing out the drive can take quite a long time, and with the right tools there’s no guarantee formatting or zeroing is enough. There are more industrial-strength techniques for killing a drive (DriveSavers degausses the drive and then puts it in a “crush box” for total destruction), but as it turns out, the most practical thing is to use a . If you’re concerned about security, this is a must. They cost a bit more and you’ll have to manage the encryption via software, but by “losing” the encryption key, the data is instantaneously rendered unrecoverable. SSDs are naturally encrypted, since it’s built into the drive controller. Again, by losing the key or destroying the encryption device, the data is instantly rendered garbage, even to professionals. Technically the data is still there, though, so the ultra-paranoid data sanitation expert will actually grind down the SSD to dust. Short of nuking from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure. My final question was regarding that situation we all fear may come one day: you look out the window some day and lo, there are black helicopters descending. They’re here for you — and your precious data. You have 30 seconds before they break down the door. How do you make sure they can’t get a single byte off those drives? It turns out that no amount of sledgehammering or thermite can do as thorough a job as a 256-bit encryption process can do by throwing away the key. Plus, sledgehammering your drives looks kind of suspicious. Just sit calmly down, go to your disk encryption manager, and hit the appropriate button. Then turn off your computer, sit down on the couch and look innocent. The world of drive recovery is always growing more sophisticated, but the take-home message is that . If your data is worth sending to someone to be recovered, it’s worth paying for an extra drive and some backup software, or even better, an off-site service. It’s also nice to know that these days, your data is exactly as secure as you make it — that is, if it’s within reach. [header image credit: Seagate] |
'FarmVille' With Live Animals. No, Really | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 5 | 5 |
— Richard Morris, farmer Because it’s week here at TC (and pretty much every week in ) I’m just going to throw this one out there: Some actual farmers in the UK have decided to into a real life As of yesterday people who participate in the MyFarm project can buy virtual access to Wimple Estate, National Trust farm in Cambridgeshire, England. After paying 30 £ (or $48 dollars) up to 10,000 participants will vote on day to day farm minutae like what kinds of real wheat to buy and what types of real cows to raise, with their decisions being informed by blogs and videos about farm life provided by MyFarm. One “big” vote will be made monthly and the decisions with the most votes will actually get implemented on the farm. Despite cell signal on the farm being “very patchy,” MyFarm is working on a smartphone app to keep Wimple Estate manager Richard Morris abreast of online developments. Morris has been judged by backseat farmers before, While FarmVille was part of the inspiration behind the year long project, the real goal is to forge a greater connection between people and the point of origin of what they eat, said National Trust Director Fiona Reynolds. FarmVille is Facebook’s second most popular game at around 47 million monthly users. Farming has almost seven billion users, worldwide. |
Smithsonian Announces Art Of Video Games Exhibition Winners | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 5 |
Now here’s an exhibit I would be tempted to spend some time on. The Smithsonian has been working on putting together a collection of games for an , exploring “the 40-year evolution of video games as an artistic medium” — and believe it or not, it’s actually respectful and comprehensive. What, video games being treated seriously as a cultural and artistic force? I won’t believe it! I can’t! But it’s true. I imagine this is partly because the results are based on voting by the gaming public. You can read the whole list (pdf). It starts with Atari and ends with PS3, leaving out only true outsiders like 3DO and handhelds (a notable but understandable exclusion). My impressions? There are a few omissions and suspect choices, but for the most part this is a damned good list. They’ve got everything from Combat to Portal on here. And their categories (action, adventure, target, and combat/strategy) are remarkably well-chosen. I would have gone with action, adventure, sim, and shooter, personally, but these are decent. Let’s see, though, this wouldn’t be a blog post without a little carping. What’s the deal with: And one pervasive issue is the inclusion as a “definitive” game on a system a game that was on multiple platforms. Why does N64 get Worms: Armageddon and Saturn get Simcity 2000 when both were really PC games? But other than these minor issues, this is a fantastic list and I’m sure they’ll put together a hell of an exhibit. If you’re in the area, you should definitely stop by the museum next year between March and September. Don’t worry, we’ll remind you. [via , which just got ] |
SEC Watch: Palantir Technologies Raises $50 Million In New Funding | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 5 | 5 | After raising a whopping last year, appears to be raising another big round. According to an , the company has just raised $50 million in new funding. This would bring Palantir’s total funding to The company declined to comment on the filing. Founded in 2004 by former PayPal employees and Stanford computer scientists, Palantir offers a high-powered analysis platform. Palantir Government and Palantir Finance both integrate, visualize, and analyze information in these sectors. The company analyzes a variety of data including structured, unstructured, relational, temporal, and geospatial content. The virtue of of Palantir is that it accepts huge databases and allows users to slice and dice this information. Palantir told us last year that revenues have at least doubled every year for the last three years. And in the company’s last round, its valuation was pegged at $735 million; so it should be interesting to see if the company will hit a $1 billion valuation in the new round. Of course, this could be part of a larger round, so the company could be raising more than $50 million. |
Finch Robot Introduces Kiddies To The Joy Of Programming | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 5 |
There may be some truth to the idea that some people get turned off coding because it’s often restricted to simple input-output stuff at first, tied to a screen filled with text. Carnegie Mellon, a hotbed of , has decided to make introductory programming (with an eye to to robots) a little more accessible. They’ve put together a little robot that’s easy to code for and can be used to bring hacking and coding to the real world right off the bat. , and it costs a hundred bucks — for that price you get this little foot-long guy, equipped with wheels, a variety of sensors (temperature, light, etc), accelerometers, a pen mount on its tail, and a few other things. It’s a plug-and-play USB device, and is programmable with Java and Python (other languages will be made available soon). They’ve also put up a bunch of resources at the site for setting up lesson plans, working at home, and such. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Imq5lo3HuE&w=640&h=390] My main issue is that it’s both USB-powered (no battery) and offloads its computation to the computer. How will people learn to code for a limited microcontroller with miniscule amounts of RAM and only a couple megs of internal storage? True, remote processing is totally legit (this great quadrocopter does it) but it seems like starting that way is a little backwards. But what do I know? Seems like a cool idea to get coding off the screen and into the real world — and it also serves as an early recruiting tool for . [image credit: ] |
An Atari 810 Disk Drive For MicroSD – Built To Scale | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 5 |
This is the twee-est disk drive I’ve ever seen! Those of you who are old enough will remember the Atari 400 and 800 systems, with their separate disk drive, the 810. This Rossum character has put together a working replica of the 810 that takes MicroSD cards – . Yes, it’s not a novelty card reader, it’s a working Atari disk drive. The enclosure was made using fabrication service Shapeways, though unfortunately it was necessary to emulate the hardware, as shrinking it wasn’t an option. So there’s a microcontroller that mounts the file system and checks for disk files, and then “mounts” them, sending the appropriate information to the Atari. Add a little paint and the look is complete. Rossum will be putting the source, 3D model, and everything up on Github soon, so if you want to replicate it, it’s just a little elbow grease standing between you and a tiny drive. [via ] |
null | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 4 | null |
GoPro Announces New Funding, Best Buy Availability Of The Wearable HD Action Camera | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 5 | 5 |
Residents of Half Moon Bay California, there’s no need to be worried. That large roar you hear is likely the collective cheers coming from GoPro’s HQ. The Californian company just announced a new round of funding that Best Buy is now selling most of its product line based around the popular HD Hero camcorder. The founding comes from Riverwood Capital, Steamboat Ventures, Sageview Capital, Walden International and U.S. Venture Partners. The amount wasn’t disclosed, but GoPro’s Rick Loughery indicated to me in an email that “it’s a lot” and the company is growing rapidly and now employes over 80 people rather than the 14 this time last year. The funding will also be used to take the wearable camcorder to international markets. The HD Hero is already without question one of US’ favorite action camera and GoPro’s other announcement regarding Best Buy will further expand its popularity here in the states. Best Buy Stores both the $299 GoPro HD Helmet Hero (1080p@60, 3D-compatible in pairs) and the $179 HD Hero (960p@30) along with a full range of accessories including mounts, adapters, batteries, the LCD BackPac and the , which also for two 1080p HD Heros to record 3D video. Alongside the financial investment comes new personal for the GoPro board with Michael Marks, former chairman and CEO Flextronics and founding partner of Riverwood Capital; Ned Gihuly, a Sageview Capital founding partner; and managing director of Steamboat Ventures, Beau Laskey. We looked at the back when it was announced and use two HD Heros cameras in our AutoTech car videos — well, until recently when one meet the underside of an Infiniti tire. The picture quality is above average, but the wide-angle lens and versatile mounts make them incredible handy. |
TechCrunch Interview: Marissa Mayer Reveals The Two Pillars Of Google's Local Strategy | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 5 | 5 |
Today during her keynote talk at , Google VP of Location and Local Services Marissa Mayer outlined some of the core goals driving Google’s local and location strategies, and how social will tie into that. The gist: Google wants to create serendipitous experiences, and to present you with contextually relevant information before you even search for it. But there are still plenty of questions — and we got a chance to ask her about some of them. Soon after her talk, we sat down with Mayer for a ten-minute interview, where we discussed a range of topics including the scalability of , the problems facing Google Latitude, and how Google Places is going to differentiate itself from Yelp in the future. Some interesting points from the video: Mayer also explained how Google’s location strategy is supported by two pillars: Places and Maps. Instead of launching numerous new location-focused products, it sounds like Google will keep integrating them into these two apps. We also get to the bottom of the infamous Hotpot name. Tune in for all of the details. |
Sony-Ericsson's Xperia Mini And Mini Pro Are Officially Small | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 5 |
There are a lot of being released these days, but what about those of us who like a more diminutive form factor? Sony-Ericsson has our back, it looks like, and is releasing a pair of Android 2.3 handsets that number among the smallest out there.
The and (yes, they insist on lowercasing it) sport 1GHz processors, twee little 3″ 320×480 screens, and a 5-megapixel camera on the back that does HD video. Not that the HD is going to be much better than non-HD with , but hey. The two phones are, spec-wise, more or less the same (the battery in the pro is ever-so-slightly smaller), the main difference being, of course, the slide-out keyboard on the pro. You better have some tiny fingers to operate that thing! But it’s nice to have the option. We’ll let you know how it feels when we get our hands on it. Android 2.3 (huzzah!) is customized (nayyy!) with a skin that lets you tuck apps into corners — I actually like the idea, if it works. Again, we’ll see about that later. The phones are set to launch in August, but there are no carriers signed up just yet. The launch event was in London, as well, so it could be a while before they take up residence on this side of the pond. |
Videos: Brainwave-Controlled Cat Ears "Necomimi" | Serkan Toto | 2,011 | 5 | 5 | We covered from Japan before, so why not brainwave-controlled cat ears, dubbed Necomimi? The wearer concentrates or sees something interesting and the ears stand up. And when you relax, your decreasing brain activity makes the ears fall down. No, I am not making this up. In the words of the maker of the ears, Tokyo-based : We created new human’s organs that use brain wave sensor. 「necomimi」is the new communication tool
that augments human’s body and ability. This cat’s ear shaped machine utilizes brain waves
and express your condition before you start talking. Just watch the following promo video: neurowear says their ears are just the first in an upcoming line of similar fashion items and gadgets. This video shows regular people trying on the cat ears: Via |
Demand Media's Q1 Revenue Beats The Street; Up 48 Percent To $79.5 Million | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 5 | 5 | Content platform reported its first quarter 2011 results today, reporting revenue of , an increase of 48% compared to $53.6 million in Q1 2010, beating analyst expectations of $69.49 million in Q1 revenue. The company reported a net loss of $5.6 million compared to a net loss of $4.1 million in Q1 2010. Net loss per share was $0.13 compared to $0.94 in Q110. In a statement, CEO Richard Rosenblatt said: “We reported better-than-expected results in Q1 2011, driven primarily by continued momentum from our owned and operated sites…We also continued to invest in Demand Media’s long-term success, enhancing our consumer offerings through new partnerships with Rachael Ray, Tyra Banks and Getty Images. We believe our publishing platform is the most comprehensive and effective of any online publisher and our focus on delivering relevant, valuable content that makes consumers’ lives better will continue to drive our success.” Other stats from the earnings release: • Content & Media Revenue was $51.9 million, up 72% compared to $30.2 million in Q110.
• Traffic acquisition costs (TAC), which represent the portion of Content & Media revenue shared with Demand Media partners, was $3.2 million,
or 6.2% of Content & Media revenue, compared to $2.7 million, or 8.9% of Content & Media revenue in Q110.
• Content & Media Revenue ex-TAC was $48.7 million, up 77% compared to $27.5 million in Q110.
• Registrar Revenue was $27.7 million, up 18% compared to $23.4 million in Q110.
• Investment in Intangible Assets was $14.2 million, up 40% compared to $10.2 million in Q110. All eyes are on Demand’s revenue this quarter after Google issued its update to search results, which aimed to weed out low-quality content sites from search.This could affect Demand content’s rank in search results and take a chunk our of the company’s top line. Demand a a few months ago, raising $151.3 million in its offering. CFO Charles Hilliard said that “Outperformance in Q1 was driven by ongoing revenue growth from our content library, combined with strong direct brand advertising sales.” The company also that it is taking measures to clean up its content, and will be improving the quality of content posted on its platform going forward. For example, one of the company’s largest properties, eHow, has removed a number of low-quality, user-generated articles from the site. On the earnings call Demand Media said that it looking to improve the quality of its content. The company confirmed that the changes in Google’s algorithm affected eHow’s traffic, with visits to the platform down in the past quarter. “Google is a very important partner for us and we consider ourselves as white hat,” says Rosenblatt, referring to SEO advertising traffic. |
And The Winner Of The 1.5 Ghz Qualcomm Android Developer Device Is… | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 5 | 5 | To say that was a success would be… a bit of an understatement. Most of our giveaways pull in a few hundred entries, or maybe a bit over a thousand. Between comments here on MobileCrunch, Facebook passphrase hunters, and those who took the time to dig up all of the eggs we hid around the site, our giveaway of the insanely awesome 1.5 Ghz Android Developer Device from Qualcomm managed to pull in many, many times that. Unfortunately, amongst the many thousands of entries we received, there can only be one winner. After hours of churnin’ away after the contest closed last night, our handy-dandy contest robots (which may or may not just be Greg with a bunch of PHP scripts and and a massive pot of coffee) have drawn a winner. And the winner is… Of Connecticut! (Note: The winning Paul M. has already been contacted; if you also happen to be a Paul M. from Connecticut but weren’t contacted, we still love you, but you’re not a winner this time.) Huge thanks to everyone who entered (we hope you all had fun!) and a mega-huge thanks to Qualcomm and for providing the device. |
Nico Pitney To Replace Jai Singh As AOL HuffPo's Managing Editor | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 2 | Earlier tonight, Yahoo announced that they one from our side to be the new Editor in Chief of their Yahoo Media Network: Jai Singh. Singh had been the Executive Editor at Huffington Post (and more recently, AOL HuffPo) for the past two years, where he helped shaped the company into the news and information juggernaut that it has become. Now we know who his replacement will be: . Pitney was previously the Executive Editor of The Huffington Post, having risen through the ranks after serving as the Politics Editor during the 2008 Presidential campaign (and eventually becoming the National Editor and Washington Bureau Chief). Below, find brief memo on the move (meeting place and time redacted in case of weirdos lurking around the NYT office): I’m delighted to announce that Nico will become the Managing Editor of The Huffington Post Media Group. Jai and I have been talking for some time about his desire to return home to California and his family. We are very grateful to him for his great work and wish him all the best in his next adventure. So please join me at XXXXX today in the XXXXXX to raise a glass to Nico and say farewell to Jai. Arianna In the release announcing the Singh hire, Yahoo made an even bigger deal about “its largest traffic numbers for a single event”. No, it wasn’t the Bin Laden death — it was the royal wedding. Says Yahoo: Preliminary internal data shows that Yahoo! sites serving Royal Wedding content drove 400 million page views on Friday, slightly higher than the traffic levels experienced following the Japan earthquake. Seems like that news and the major new hire should have had their own separate releases, no? |
Social App Maker NoiseToys Raises $1.2M | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 5 | 2 | and creator has raised $1.2 million in seed funding this week, to continue to focus on apps that bring together social sharing and game mechanics. Noise Toys launched at last year. Investors in the round included DCM, former Playdom Chairman Rick Thompson, Guitar Hero founder Charles Huang, Coveroo CEO Karl Jacob, NEA general partner Kittu Kolluri, Triple Point Ventures president Ben Narasin, Imeem co-founder Jan Jannink, Ty Danco, Akash Garg, Aren Sandersen, Marco Magnocavallo, Alex Fries and Andie Simon. NoiseToys co-founder tells me that the funding rigmarole was not with out its hiccups. The power actually went out on Sand Hill Road right before the company’s final meeting with DCM and hilarity ensued, NoiseToys will be using the funding to create the same level of app development in both iOS and Android, as well as to expand its business and consumer efforts. Looks like the ‘pitch dark’ pitch worked out. Pics, below. |
Bow Before The Crovel: Combination Shovel, Crowbar, Hammer, Machete | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 2 |
Sweet baby Grylls. This “Crovel” tool is absolutely monstrous. Its patent-pending hardened steel shape is alternately sharp, grippy, heavy, and jagged. The rope grip even detaches to form… you know, . [via and ] |
Sony Confirms: Personal Information From SOE Was Stolen | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 2 | It looks like the same that resulted in millions of PSN users’ personal details being stolen extended to Sony Online Entertainment, as today indicated. . The gist? Your name, address, email, phone number, among other things are indeed at risk. On the bright side, credit card information was not accessed, and passwords were hashed. Still, keep an eye on all your accounts and stay vigilant. |
Exclusive: The story of the OTHER Twitterer of the #OBL raid | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 5 | 2 | While the world concentrates on ( on Twitter), the lone Twitter user in Abbottabad when US forces landed to take out Osama Bin Laden, there was one other Twitterer not far away trying to work out what was going on in his home town and fearing for his relatives’ safety. Mohcin Shah, 26, lives in Rawalpindi in Pakistan, 110 km from Abbottabad. Tweeting as , he was the only other Twitter user in the locale both online and covering the OBL raid at the time. Speaking exclusively to TechCrunch, Shah told how, as a telecom engineer, he has been following startups for some time, hence his interest in Twitter and social media. It was his tweets who, along with those by @reallyvirtual, that helped to verify what was going on on the ground last night in Abbottabad. This was certainly the case for me as I was writing . Shah continued: “I was going through my twitter as usual… I saw some breaking news of a heli crash in Abbottabad (Abbottabad is my home town and I have family and friends living there). So I dug the news more through #Abbottabad and found @ReallyVirtual to be the only guy with a couple of tweets suggesting he was in Abbottabad. I engaged him and also started calling my family in Abbottabad. After multiple attempts one of my Aunts picked her phone and I tweeted what she said. After some time I called again and this time her husband picked the phone, I got some more info .”
Shah told me his family lives near the place where the attack happened and he was “particularly concerned” about their safety. He says all of the events around the raid started at around 0130 hrs local time. This matches with the time @ReallyVirtual started tweeting about helicopters . Meanwhile, he is “a regular reader of TechCruch” and has even tried to build a startup of his own but “left things in the middle due to alternate opportunities,” he told me via email. He is currently unemployed but expecting confirmation of a job in a couple of weeks. Personally, I think he should definitely get that that job now… |
Video: Camera Shake With Hand Versus Tripod | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 2 | [vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/22878525 w=619&h=351]
The guys on stuck a laser pointer on the top of a and took this video, showing just how much the camera moves when you’re holding it or taking a picture. Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of jitter just from the tiny micromotions made by our hands. Not exactly scientific, but it’s worth watching. Think about this the next time you’re about to take a shot. Can you set the camera down and/or operate the shutter remotely? It depends on your exposure settings, but it seems pretty undeniable that you’ll get the best sharpness if you’re not holding the thing. Of course, it’s not a solution when you’re doing action shots and such, but for landscapes and still scenes, it’s probably worth the one-time investment for a trigger and tripod. [via and ] |
No Improved Displays This Year, Says E Ink | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 2 | One of the main features of the was its new . It offered better contrast, faster response, and so on. And since we’ve gotten so used to new stuff being given to us every year, I guess we all just kind of expected there would be another new E Ink screen this year, along with a new wave of using it. Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be the case. , E Ink’s Sri Peruvemba said that the company is actually more on a two-year cycle, and 2011 wouldn’t bring any advances from them, in the monochrome sector at least. Presumably, they’ll be focusing on testing the next-gen screen and perhaps marketing and pushing the color screens. It leaves them open to attack, perhaps from something like , which are flexible, color, and can be written on. The implication for market leader Amazon is clear: a new Kindle this year must differentiate by different means than being thinner and the first with a new screen. We’ve suggested a touchscreen in the past, but it’s possible that it would be too much of a compromise on the sluggish (compared to LCDs and more advanced passive display tech) Pearl technology. There’s also the possibility of an LCD Kindle, but considering how vehemently Amazon has (the comparison above is from ), I don’t see them doing an about face. It would also open them up to “me too” chiding from Barnes & Noble, whose popular Nook Color tablet has a lead on that market. Not to mention there are already about fifteen million “LCD Kindles” out there in the form of existing tablets, nearly all of which are supported by Amazon. If I had to guess, I would say Amazon will buy or license a technology that supercharges the Pearl display (allowing for quicker response time and animation) and then put out a “complementary” device with an 8″-9″ touchable screen. That would hold consumers over until the new generation of passive displays are ready for market, and allow them to develop and refine the inevitable touch interface. |
Yep, Google Just Pushed Chrome Canary For Mac Out Of The Nest | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 5 | 2 | This morning, that Google was getting ready to release an OS X version of the Chrome Canary build. Sure enough, just hours later, . Canary is the pre-Dev build of Chrome meant for users who enjoy testing new things early and often and don’t mind some bugs and hiccups along the way. It’s meant to be run alongside the more stable builds of Chrome, so you can have the best of both worlds. Writes Google today on : Because we expect it to be unstable and, at times, unusable, you can run it concurrently with a Dev, Beta, or Stable version of Google Chrome. Your Canary data remains separate, but if you set up Sync in each version of Chrome that you use, you can automatically continue using the same set of bookmarks, extensions, themes, and more. Google notes that since trying out the Canary concept for Windows last year, “hundreds of thousands” of Windows users have helped the company make Chrome even better. So now they’re extending that idea to Mac users as well (and one can only assume Linux users in the future as well). While the stable version of Chrome just hit version 11, and the beta and dev builds are on version 12, Chrome Canary is already on version 13. But don’t expect a ton of obvious new user-facing features, Google iterates Chrome early and often, so many times the changes are under-the-hood things or even just experiments to make the browser better. Oh, and it has a nifty yellow icon — though oddly the About menu area has the regular Chrome icon. |
Sony Reportedly Suffers Second Attack, Credit Cards Accessed | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 2 |
Japanese newspaper the Nikkei is (subscription required) that Sony has suffered a second , this time to the Sony Online Entertainment servers in Japan. Up to 12,700 credit cards have supposedly been taken. Sony has offered a limited statement (pictured above) and promises more information today. [via and ] |
Study: Kindles Aren't Quite All That With The Kids On Campus | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 2 | Researchers at the University of Washington have found that, while useful, Kindles (specifically that larger Kindles DX) aren’t all that popular with students – yet. Their issues, arguably, are UI problems including the need for a “skimmable” abstract of content and better note-taking systems. However, to be fair, Amazon and B&N could fix those problems in a heartbeat. “Most e-readers were designed for leisure reading – think romance novels on the beach,” said co-author Charlotte Lee, a UW assistant professor of Human Centered Design and Engineering. “We found that reading is just a small part of what students are doing. And when we realize how dynamic and complicated a process this is, it kind of redefines what it means to design an e-reader.” The backs up what I, personally, found while doing a massive research project recently. The issue is this: leisure reading is a lean back activity while research reading is a lean forward activity. An ereader with touch interface and note-taking capabilities that interface seamlessly with the screen would be ideal – think an iPad app for note-taking – and heuristic abstraction programs could help with the skimming problem. However, there are still a number of cognitive cuing issues to deal with in reading on an ereader vs. reading on the page. They also found the following interesting problems with reading on e-readers: Students did most of the reading in fixed locations: 47 percent of reading was at home, 25 percent at school, 17 percent on a bus and 11 percent in a coffee shop or office.
The Kindle DX was more likely to replace students’ paper-based reading than their computer-based reading.
Of the students who continued to use the device, some read near a computer so they could look up references or do other tasks that were easier to do on a computer. Others tucked a sheet of paper into the case so they could write notes.
With paper, three quarters of students marked up texts as they read. This included highlighting key passages, underlining, drawing pictures and writing notes in margins.
A drawback of the Kindle DX was the difficulty of switching between reading techniques, such as skimming an article’s illustrations or references just before reading the complete text. Students frequently made such switches as they read course material.
The digital text also disrupted a technique called cognitive mapping, in which readers used physical cues such as the location on the page and the position in the book to go back and find a section of text or even to help retain and recall the information they had read. |
null | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 5 | null |
Videolicious For The iPhone Helps You Edit Quality Videos, Fast | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 5 | 2 | for the iPhone and iPad is a designed for those of us who aren’t professional video editors but still want to have our important moments preserved in quality video. By walking people through the step by step combining of video footage, photos and music, Videolicious lets users create their own documentary style clips and share them to Twitter, Facebook and email. Users who want to create a video simply choose the already existing shots or footage they want to include, in the order they want them to appear. Then the app records the user telling the story behind the photos or video, then asking them to select accompanying music from either within the app itself or iPhone playlists. Once all elements are selected, the Videolicious technology analyzes and fits together the components, taking less than a minute to process. The quality of the finished product is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. While the format definitely doesn’t have the versatility of customizing and editing something with Final Cut Pro and can get cookie cutter after awhile, the system is meant to provide discrete units of video for users who want to create something good, quickly. Founder Matt Singer tells me that the app is designed specifically for those that want to On launch Videolicious has partnered up with Martha Stewart, SELF magazine, Lucky Magazine and ReadyMade who are using the app to further engage with readers by letting them upload custom Videolicious video content. Stewart, for example, will be asking viewers a question every month and culling some of the best Videolicious responses for . says Singer We shot a Videolicious video in the TechCrunch offices (below), and head of TechCrunch TV Jon Orlin was into it. he said. The Videolicious app is an outgrowth of , a company that built custom automatic video editing systems for Fortune 500 retailers and media companies. Talk Market has $2 million in seed funding from former Bloomingdales CEO Marvin Traub and Amazon. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSHJFcuXVBc&w=630] |
Samsung Revels In High Galaxy S II Pre-Order Numbers | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 2 | Although the powerful new is just one among Samsung’s scores of handsets, it’s an important one, and the company is happy to report that it’s blowing up. in Korea, Samsung’s home market, and will likely pile up a couple million sales there before its day in the sun is over. And although US release information isn’t available yet, I’ve seen a good amount of chatter on mobile sites from excited users. We could tell from that it was indeed a contender, though of course Apple . |
NOUS System Allows Disabled Users To Perform Simple Tasks… With Their Brains! | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 2 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydX_rtUjfh8&w=640&h=390] So this is what those zombies need our brains for: to turn on the lights! This prototype system allows the severely disabled to perform simple tasks like making a phone call and turn on the lights simply by thinking about commands. This is a proof of concept and uses the Emotiv EPOC headset to control a set of telekinetic applications that can perform various tasks.
Why is this better than, say, a suck-blow straw interface or an eye-tracking system? Well, for one it’s much cheaper than any of those well-established technologies and most of the processing is performed on the computer, thereby making the actual electronics a bit less complex. There is a much longer and deeper interview over at but this project seems to be progressing impressively and could soon give the severely disabled a second chance at controlling their physical environment. |
TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon BCC Fail. We Apologize #TCLeakers | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 5 | 2 | A couple of years ago RockYou couldn’t seem to send an email to partners without screwing up and cc’ing everyone. We pointed each screwup out, with . I knew that someday, somehow, we’d probably do the same thing. And I knew we’d have to take extra criticism for it because we’ve called out others. Today’s payback day. We sent a mass email and we . It’s Amateur Hour at TechCrunch, and we deserve derision. Consider us rolling over on our backs and showing you our submissive belly. We apologize, sincerely. We sent out a simple email to all applicants of the upcoming in New York. There are a lot of them – 452, I believe, which is than any of our previous hackathons, and we still have a month to go. It’s going to be a very fun event. Anyhow, we sent out the email thanking people for applying and letting them know more information would be coming. Everyone was in the To: field. Yes, there have been many humorous responses. Yes, people are annoyed. Yes, there is a hash tag, , where people can pile on even more. Yes, there is nothing you can say to make us feel worse. And, yes, we can never make fun of anyone doing this again without pointing back to this post. |
Pandora Is Now 10 Billion Thumbs Strong | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 5 | 2 | Personalized radio service Pandora has reached a major milestone: last week it recorded its 10 billionth thumb (and it was a thumbs up). Avid fans of the popular service already know what that means — for the rest of you, Pandora lets users mark the song that’s currently playing with a Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down. The effect is pretty straightforward: hit a thumbs up and Pandora will try to play more music that sounds like the song you’re listening to, thumbs down and Pandora will immediately jump to the next song and send a minor electric shock to CTO Tom Conrad. In other words, these thumbs are explicit signals that users are sending to Pandora to help fine-tune their radio stations, and it shows that plenty of people actually try to take advantage of the personalization features as opposed to just letting the radio play in the background all day. In a blog post announcing the news, founder Tim Westergren : Of the many milestones we’ve hit over the past 6 years, this is perhaps the one that makes us most proud. We created Pandora to bring personalization to radio, to allow each individual to determine the sound of their stations, and to make it as simple and intuitive as possible. There is no greater evidence for us of meeting that objective than the ongoing engagement you have all shown in your use of the thumbs. |
Want Facebook To Be Better? So Did 'YoZuck!' Creator Youssef Sarhan | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 5 | 2 |
With nearly spending a good percentage of time on the service, its seems like everyone has their own Facebook features wishlist, or complaints list. I would personally like to click through Event locations to Google Maps on the Facebook iPhone app, in order to get directions faster. I’m sure your gripe is probably different but just as granular, depending on what you use the social network for. As the service has sort of tacked on features as it has grown, its designers are faced with the challenge of having all moving parts interact harmoniously with each other, to scale. As one impartial designer described it, Well Irish web designer thought otherwise, and implored Facebook to rise to the UI challenge by creating the gif-fueled blog in early April, gathering ideas for how Facebook can improve its UI and UX, including but not limited to a site wide online status, nested video comments, video chat and an events map. Facebook reached out to Sarhan shortly after his site started garnering attention. We too contacted Sarhan for an in-depth interview about how he thought Facebook could do better, and fortunately he obliged. Here’s the interview broken into Q&A format below. All images via At present I am a designer at an enterprise-level CMS Firm, working on User Interface, UX and Brand design. The inspiration for YoZuck! formed organically while using Facebook. Naturally, where a design fails is usually quite apparent, so it’s easy to spot the marks. The bigger challenge is to see past where Facebook has failed, but instead where Facebook has failed to go; the uncharted territory. Honestly, I’d like to go into space; aside from that I’m not making any predictions just yet. A couple of people have been in touch and think what I’m doing is pretty cool, which is encouraging. Quite simply nobody has 100, 200 or 300 friends, you have about 10 or 20 if you’re lucky. There are sociological reasons for this and that’s not going to change anytime soon. While I think it’s important to stay in touch with people you meet it’s not necessarily relevant to know what all these people are doing every time you login. I understand Facebook has made some efforts to streamline your news feed to those you interact with most but I still believe there is huge progress to be made in this area. I’m currently working on a solution to this problem. Simply, it involves an option to temporarily focus your news feed to deliver content which only relates to a predefined circle of friends. The idea being, you login, and straight away you can find out what’s up with the people you care about most. You don’t always want to spend half an hour floating through the noise of 200 other friends to find out what your closest friends are doing. The idea I want to see is the idea I haven’t thought about yet; but going by what I’ve done so far I’d love to see nested video comments ( ). At the moment users have two options, leave a nested comment as a plain HTML link or post a separate video on your friends wall in response. Neither really work as they detach the users from the sharing experience, the conversation becomes fragmented. There are many versions of Facebook mobile, depending of course on your device and platform. However you’re correct, Facebook Events are lagging, but this is not restricted to mobile, it’s quite a surprise that for a feature so strongly powered by time and dates there is no option to view these events on a calendar. In general though, Facebook are making great progress with their mobile effort, I’ve noticed a lot of subtle iterations over the last few months. There is a strong consistency to the Facebook brand and interface interactions, people recognize Facebook and know how to use it without having to think too much. It’s also very likable product, no pun intended. That alone is a massive design success. There are two ways to look at that question: 1) What everyday features can be added/dropped to refine the product? 2) What overall direction should the product be taking? When you think about the premise of Facebook and what it stands for, the uncharted territory is exactly everything Facebook isn’t doing. From the smallest UI iteration to the 5.6 billion people yet to signup. I talked about a Facebook browser, when you consider Google already has Chrome, it doesn’t seem all that strange that Facebook could have one too; of course this would come with a litany of privacy concerns, but that’s a conversation and a genuine concern for another day. The purpose of Facebook is to capture the personality and lives of the individual, well for millions that means watching films, listening to music and reading books.. among other things. What about Amazon on Facebook? Sounds crazy? Might just work. It’s not like the Amazon interface is a pleasure to use, and maybe you’d trust the recommendations of a friend more than you would a stranger. Discounts for referrals? Facebook groups model could be used for online book clubs? Students could recommend books with attached notes to fellow classmates? I’m making these up as I go along. Deals with iTunes. Integration with Netflix: What about a way to simultaneously watch a film with a friend or partner in another country? Think long distance relationships. I could see lot of people using this. These are reckless ideas of course, but it’s these ideas that trigger better things to happen. Of course, I need to stress you can’t implement each and every feature you think of; it needs to be smart, useful and clear otherwise the product will become bloated. At the moment when FB ships a new feature they are generally looking for a 100% uptake, but therein lies the problem. It results in a feature that satisfies the lowest common denominator of user needs. Yes developers can create apps, but the most successful apps are games, not useful tools. I think Facebook should be focusing on the needs of groups of individuals not just the generic needs of all individuals, that is the fundamentally uncharted territory. I honestly have no way of knowing exactly, somewhere between 20K–50K I’d imagine. [vimeo http://vimeo.com/21777844 w=620] |
How I Learned To Be Okay With Minor Lens Flaws | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 2 | Canon Rumors has posted by Roger Cicala from LensRentals.com, where he injects a little reason into the discussion of flaws in lenses. It’s good reading for anyone who enjoys and lens talk, but the gist is this: major flaws are worth complaining about, but minor flaws such as slightly uneven sharpness, tiny focus issues, and so on, are in such a complicated component. Learn to love your lens and accept its flaws as ! If you want a perfect lens, you’re free to drop $30,000 on a Master Prime. It’s a miracle that you can get a sub-F/2 lens for under a thousand bucks in the first place! |
Cobalt Technologies Raises $20 Million To Make Plant-Based Jet Fuel And Paint | Lora Kolodny | 2,011 | 5 | 2 | , a cleantech startup in Mountain View that develops and makes biobutanol, closed a $20 million series D funding round, the company revealed today. The investment arm of Parsons & Whittemore (the Whittemore Collection) led the round, joined by all of Cobalt’s earlier venture backers: Pinnacle Ventures, Malaysian Life Sciences Capital Fund, VantagePoint Capital Partners, Life Sciences Partners (LSP), @Ventures, Harris & Harris and Burrill and Company. Primarily, Cobalt Technologies turns non-food crops into “n-butanol,” which is used to make a variety of paints and coatings, as well as renewable chemicals used to make jet fuel. The U.S. Department of Energy as: “…an alcohol that can be produced through processing of domestically grown crops, such as corn and sugar beets, and other biomass, such as fast-growing grasses and agricultural waste products.” Biobutanol generally has greater energy density than ethanol. According to its own press statement, Cobalt will use its $20 million series D capital to build a 470,000 gallon-per-year demonstration plant in Alpena, Michigan. The company’s , explained further, in an interview by phone on Monday: “Our Alpena facility will start up around April 2012. We located this facility by a factory called DPI. What they do is make decorative panels from wood. They bring in wood chips and shavings, and cook it so it sticks together. From that process, you end up with sugars, not the kind you’d necessarily want to eat. We ferment and use a non-genetically modified organism to convert that to butanol. We could use corn or sugar, but that’s $300 to $500 a ton. Wood chips are $60 to $80 a ton.”
The company will generate some revenue from the biobutanol it produces in Alpena. It will use that revenue and the remainder of its series D round to begin development of its first commercial facilities; and continue developing bio jet fuel(s) for use by the U.S. Navy, which struck a partnership deal with Cobalt in late 2010. In January 2010, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Department of Agriculture set up several goals, including that for ships, aircraft, tanks, vehicles and shore installations would come from alternative sources, including biofuels. Unlike other sector players such as * — a company that uses algae to make biofuels and chemicals, and supplies these to the U.S. Navy as well — or , which uses non-edible jatropha seeds, Cobalt’s process draws on feedstocks that are often a byproduct of food and paper makers. |
Twitter To Buy TweetDeck For $40 Million – $50 Million | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 5 | 2 | has acquired , we’ve heard from a source with knowledge of the deal, and the transaction will be announced in the next few days. The $40 million – $50 million purchase price includes both cash and Twitter stock, says our source. In February we reported that an acquisition of TweetDeck by Bill Gross’ UberMedia , in the $25 – $30 million range. And that deal was in fact all but done. But Twitter quickly provided an unsolicited , and TweetDeck was in play again. TechCrunch EU has on how that played out. This deal is defensive for Twitter, say all the sources we’ve spoken with over the last couple of months. They simply couldn’t allow UberMedia to have so much market share in this space. The company has acquired , and a number of Twitter-related startups. Adding TweetDeck to the UberMedia stable of products would give them too much leverage over Twitter, say our sources, and so Twitter made a strong defensive bid to disrupt the deal. Which succeeded nicely, apparently. |
Nintendo DS AR Card Tattoo (Possibly Sharpie) Indicates Extreme Fanboy Levels | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 2 |
There’s no way to tell for sure that this is a tattoo of the regular and not the sharpie variety, but it’s a crazy idea either way. As we’ve seen, you can scribble your own AR card with magic markers, so this guy thought (naturally) “maybe I’ll just get it tattooed on my arm!” . Or didn’t. Either way, it works, and it’s Nintendo fanboyism of the highest degree. Except he can’t play using it, because you kind of need your hands for that. [via and ] |
This is How Sacca Spends His Friday Nights: Wearing A Space Helmet On Turntable.fm | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 5 | 20 | Ever wonder how super angel and man-about-town spends his Friday nights? Well, right now you can find him at , a stealthy, you-can-only-get-in-if-you-know-someone online DJ party. I just stumbled onto it by accident. You can only gain entry if you are Facebook friends with someone already inside. As it happens, I knew some people. Turntable.fm is a project of and Billy Chasen, the two guys who . You enter and there are different DJ rooms to choose from. There are probably 25 people there right now (this is still in private alpha). But in one room called “Let’s rock old-ish hip-hop,” there was Sacca, Goldstein, YouTube’s , and of CODE Advisors. Sacca was playing “Push It” by Salt-n-Pepa, up on the DJ platform (he gets to wear the space helmet because he has a lot of points, which are awarded to him by other people in the room who like what he plays). Everyone in a room has an avatar and can chat with each other. You can create your own playliist and get up on the DJ table to battle it out. People tend to talk a lot of smack. But it’s fun, and addictive enough that I didn’t leave after 20 seconds. Turntable.fm needs a lot of fine-tuning (in fact a lot of the chat was about features it coud use, such as better animations for the avatars or different ways to award points. In the end, Turntable.fm is really about hanging out with people and discovering music. If a DJ is playing a song you like, you can add it to your playlist, buy it on iTunes, findi it on Last.fm, or launch Spotify. |
RadiumOne About To Corner The Market On Social Data Before Competitors Even Know What's Happening | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 5 | 20 | is emerging as a leader in a new breed of advertising networks, with enhanced targeting based on social data. The company is positioning itself to lock in data sources before competitors even get rolling. RadiumOne’s CEO tells me. And he should know, this is his third advertising network. The last one, , sold to Yahoo in 2007 for . The key is to know what ad to show to a person, and when. That can turn low value remnant inventory to premium ad space, no matter what site or service that ad is being served on. When a user visits a site the ad networks determine in real time, often through an auction, what ad to show you based on the profile that’s been built for you. RadiumOne builds a different profile for you than it’s competitors, though, and may grab ads that others leave untouched (or just pay more). The reason? They’ve built your profile based on what your friends like, too. These ads appear to work. One retailer who was achieving $8 per dollar spent on advertising increased that to $14/dollar spent with RadiumOne, says the company. A credit card company decreased cost per acquisition from $200 to $75. This also makes intuitive sense, of course. The problem is really how to get the right data. Previously only Facebook has a high level view of hundreds of millions of Internet users and are able to build an interest graph based on what those users’ friends like. It explains why Google is so interested in being Facebook – it’s all about the ad dollars. How does RadiumOne build the interest graph at scale? Via data deals with all those sharing widgets you see on websites from companies like , and . Users of those services spread links on social networks. Through a combination of unique URL shorteners and cookies they are able to create a profile for people clicking on the links, as well as the implied social connection. RadiumOne has deals with many of these widget providers, covering hundreds of millions of Internet users. They combine the data from the partners to extract more useful information about relationships and interests, and then target ads based on that. So if you’re using those widgets, or clicking on links from friends that use the widgets, there’s a good chance you’re seeing RadiumOne served ads around the web. Here’s where things get really interesting. RadiumOne is using the from their just-announced funding to begin to buy the widget guys outright, ensuring that no one else down the road can get the data. And anyone they don’t buy should watch out. RadiumOne says eventually they’ll probably pay sites to include their widget to get more distribution and data, possibly edging out anyone they haven’t bought. If they pull this off, and there’s no reason to think they won’t, Everyone is going to want to own this company. Chahal, who dropped out of high school to start his first company at 16, may have his third ad network liquidity event on his hands in the near future. I can’t wait to see what his fourth looks like. |
Twitter sued for 'breaking' UK super injunction. Oh yes. | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 5 | 20 | We’ve been watching the British legal system turn itself into knots for the last couple of weeks, largely due to the ability of Twitter users to break just about any legal ‘super injunction’ a ‘celebrity’ (usually footballers) has on the reporting of their private life (usually affairs). So far so normal for Twitter. What’s a super injunction? It’s when someone rich (these things are very expensive) takes out an injunction on the press that not only stops them reporting something but also stops them reporting that the injunction even exists. That makes it ‘super’, which of course it is anything but. But today the story took a new turn when it emerged that Twitter Inc. itself is being sued. Oh yes. They are going there. The person bringing the action is as “CTB”. In addition a list of Twitter users are also being sued, though its not known who yet as the court documents are confidential. The latter are called “persons unknown responsible for the publication of information” on Twitter. CTB happens to be the initials used by the courts in another, separate lawsuit involving an athlete. In that case, the athlete won an order banning the media from publishing stories about his alleged affair with a reality TV star and a block on identifying him. There is a particular Twitter account (which for legal reasons we can’t refer to or link to alas) which on May 8 posted a series of tweets which looked plausibly like a list of the super injunctions brought largely by celebrities which have got the press in a fever. As far as we know Twitter has yet to respond, but we’re reaching out to them for comment. Grab the popcorn people! |
Source Confirms Camera On Wii 2 Controller | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 20 | Back in April, when rumors about next system were flying fast, At the time I thought it ridiculous, but I also thought the 6″ touchscreen was ridiculous, and that seems to be accepted as fact now. So I guess it’s no surprise that a second source has confirmed that the controller will have a camera on it. While it sounds like a gimmick at first, there’s a lot you can do with something like that, especially if it were to have, say, an IR component so it could detect you or your hand in the dark, that sort of thing. |
Sigma SD1 DSLR Gets Priced At Nearly Ten Grand | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 20 |
: a Foveon-based DSLR with 45 megapixels, as they define them, though the “megapixel” rating is difficult to compare when you have different sensor patterns going on. They’re confident enough to price this thing above even Canon and Nikon’s pro level cameras. . That’s $2000 more than a 1D mk III and $4000 more than a D3X or S. Sigma is hoping that it’ll be picked up not as a superior pro camera but as a cheap alternative to medium-format brands like Hasselblad and Leaf. But there are a few problems there: Unfortunately for Sigma, I just don’t think the camera will be a hit at that price. It has a lot going for it, but when you’re putting it up against cameras four times the price while at the same time missing features available on cameras half the price, you’re not going to make a lot of friends. |
Comcast Pulls Funding To Filmmakers After Tweet | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 20 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8WW5q7SR7c&w=640&h=390] Comcast donated $18,000 to a non-profit filmmaker’s group, the , dedicated to giving young girls a voice and more confidence through film-making. One of the members expressed concern over the upcoming NBC/Comcast merger on Twitter, stating her disbelief that the FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker after approving the merger. Almost immediately one of Comcast’s media relations people, Steve Kipp, pulled the funding: Given the fact that Comcast has been a major supporter of Reel Grrls for several years now, I am frankly shocked that your organization is slamming us on Twitter. I cannot in good conscience continue to provide you with funding — especially when there are so many other deserving nonprofits in town.”
Bang. There you go. Step on the dragon’s tail and you get the horns, right? Let that be a lesson to brave young women everywhere: be quiet or you won’t get the money. Luckily, according to the , someone higher up at and, explaining that Steve was wrong, said: “We are in the process of reaching out to ReelGrrls in Seattle and let them know the funding the organization has received from Comcast is not in jeopardy and we sincerely apologize for the unauthorized action of our employee,” Fitzmaurice said. “This is not the way Comcast behaves toward its nonprofit partners.” All’s well that end’s well, it seems. However, this sort of ridiculous reactivity by a corporate sponsor, especially one as execrable as Comcast, is ridiculous and the back-pedaling shows just how poisonous most media conglomeration really is. |
The man who wants your ID – Myid.is launches beta to 1.2m people | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 5 | 20 | I first met Charles Nouÿrit at Le Web in 2007. Surrounded by ‘boothe babes’ in tight white T-shirts, he was handing out cards about something called . Was this the standard French startup pitch at Le Web? It probably was back in 2007. And it was a little hard to take the pitch, such as it was, seriously. But Identity? “ID”? Yes, it was a hot topic even then – and still is. Since then 600 million users have signed up to Facebook, close to 100 million on LinkedIn. Sure, many of those won’t be fully kosher online identities. But isn’t the issue of a verified online identity slowly being solved? The answer of course is no. Real identity, and more importantly the verification of someone’s ID by a trusted third party is nowhere near being solved online, outside of the banking system. But this is going to be a key battleground online going forward, especially where ecommerce and the ability to ‘sign’ for things enters a new phase. And – since 2007 – Charles has stuck to his guns on his startup and aimed high.And today Myid.is is emerging as a potentially powerful play. A giant trial with the French Post office (La Poste) with a service branded as will soon launch, claiming to be a world first in the Identity space. Identic is a brand owned by La Poste but run behind the scenes by MyID.is and allows digital identity to be verified by the La Poste organisation. The trial will last for 6 months, and will allow the 1.2 million citizens of the Essonne region in France to register on Identic in order to certify their Digital Identity. Al going well, Identic will roll out nationaly and MyID.is will have bagged its first nationwide client for its ID verification platform. What does this mean? Well, for starters, an Identic Digital Identity, powered by MyID.is, will let its holder display the fact that his or her real identity has been verified by La Poste. Ant they will be able to do so on third party site which accepts the Identic standard. So, here’s a possible future example: Without me needing to get a “verified by Twitter” badge on my account, Twitter could simply pull the data from Identic where I’d already had my identify verified by a trusted third party partner. As you can imagine there are all sorts of future applications. One might be to strengthen confidence linked to any social profile or to authenticate access to a site using their Identic/MyID.is username and password. Furthermore, there is a useful role for Identic: that is, separating my personal social content (Twitter status updates etc) from my verified identify. That means it can be a lot more portable – say, for job applications. Of course, it’s going to be hard to scale. The actual verification has to happen face to face between a postman and the person. That means this is either going to be the stuff of state governments or similarly large enterprises. Possibly slow moving stuff. But still pretty big. In the above trial, the certification process is divided into three stages: You buy your Identity on Identic for €6 and get immediately refunded with a random amount between 1 cents and €1. This refund is a random amount verification code linked to a validated bank account. Finally, the user receives a registered letter containing an activation code, delivered face-to-face / in person by a postman. MyID.is won the contract with Las poste in June 2009, but it’s taken this long to get the first trial running. MyID.is Certified and the laboratory CEREGE won the Identic’s project, put out to tender by the Ministry of Economy and Finance (DGCIS) via the Secretariat to Innovation and Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet. MyID.is hopes to rollout out their version of ID to many sites. The first in France will be Trèfle, classifieds ads website, (www.trefle.com) which is the first partner to join the trial. And as you can imagine the security on the MyID.is platform is military grade. It’s a long way from Lew Web in 2007, but it looks like MyID.is is on its way to proving itself. Perhaps Charles will be able to grab bigger presence at Le Web next year. |
Google's WebP Image Format Takes On JPEGs With Sharper Pictures | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 5 | 20 | Google is on a mission to make the Web faster. One thing that slows down pageload times are fat image files. Even JPEG and PNG files can get pretty big. So Google is developing a called (which is a sister format to its for videos). The key to making image files on the Web smaller without losing sharpness is better compression of the original file. Today, Google announced via the that the compression algorithms for WebP just got better and that they can even handle different parts of an image separately so that parts of it can be displayed without waiting for the entire image to be compressed and decompressed. The images above, for instance, are from this comparing JPEG to WebP. The WebP images are significantly smaller, but look just as sharp. Can you tell the difference? Unfortunately, WebP is only supported in Chrome and Opera browsers. Google products such as Gmail, Picassa Web albums, and Google Instant Previews also support WebP. But other than Opera, it’s pretty much an all-Google affair. Websites aren’t going to start using WebP images just for Google Chrome visitors. But if it does speed things up without reducing the quality of images, other browsers will start supporting it as well or else be left behind. |
Superplayers Take Arcade Gaming To New Heights | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 5 | 20 | If you saw them on the street, you’d keep walking. If you saw them in an arcade, your jaw would drop. They’re called superplayers, and they make our idea of hardcore gaming look like child’s play. Instead of sitting on the couch, covered in yesterday’s food, these gamers take to the arcades and not only break records, but put on one hell of a show. I’ve chosen a couple of my favorite videos from the past few years to share with you guys, and I would suggest searching a few more because if anyone deserves YouTube celebrity status, it’s superplayers: Talk about passionate:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=866L828hgoE&w=640&h=390] No look:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOz754qWBns&w=640&h=390] Tetris unlike you’ve ever seen it:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_tmFUWu9bI&w=640&h=390] [via ] |
Frequent Fliers: Superfly Emerges From Beta To Help You Organize Your Travel Rewards | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 5 | 20 | If you’ve seen George Clooney and Jason Reitman’s , you know that George Clooney’s character in the film is the epitome of a savvy, frequent flier. His life’s ambition is to accumulate miles, and he knows exactly what his rewards packages entail. Most of us, though we may similarly heavy travel schedules, are by no means masters of miles or travel rewards. If you’re anything like me, you can’t even remember which mileage programs you’ve enrolled in. Thus, , an Israeli startup emerging from beta today, wants to help you become more like George Clooney’s character in Up In The Air — and less like me. (Always a good thing.) Armed with a new domain, new design, and fresh funding, Superfly’s goal is to not only help users organize travel rewards (be they frequent flier miles or hotel rewards), but actually educate users on how to use them to maximize their value. According to Superfly, there are currently between 17 and 22 trillion unused miles and points floating around travel accounts today, and these points are valued at between $500 and 600 billion. Clearly, while users are spending a great deal of time traveling and accumulating miles, they’re not making use of them. This is largely due to the fact that airlines craftily make it difficult to understand and appreciate the value of the rewards, where and how to redeem them, etc. Superfly is mainly targeting under-40 business travelers that carry multiple reward cards, aiming to make their lives easier by tracking their reward balances, rate of accrual, while managing the various terms of airline policies, to put concrete dollar values on their rewards. The startup does this by aggregates a user’s travel information and running a comprehensive analysis of users’ travel habits, plotting their behavior patterns against available rewards programs. Superfly offers a simple interface that displays miles earned over time, as well as spending patterns, that make it easy to see how close one is to achieving various rewards. The startup’s platform then serves you suggestions as to airlines, accommodations, flight times, and more that will help maximize miles and rewards earned. The startup plans to monetize by charging credit card companies and airlines for referral when a user takes their suggestions. Founders Jonathan Meiri and Zviki Cohen estimate material revenue per user at about $29, even through the service is completely free. Superfly recently closed a seed round from a number of high profile angels, including the founders of Israeli tech companies like NESS, and 888.com CEO Gigi Levy. The startup has brought in $600K to date, and CEO Jonathan Meiri said that the startup plans to have 100 million-plus miles under management from launch. |
Firefox Updates Mobile Browser For Android With 'Do Not Track' Privacy Feature | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 5 | 20 | Firefox beta for Android has been with the ability for users to turn on the “Do Not Track” privacy feature, making it one of the first mobile browsers to offer the privacy option. Mozilla’s Do Not Track allows users to have more control over how their browsing behavior is tracked and used online. When the feature is enabled, Firefox will tell advertising networks and other websites and applications that you want to opt-out of third-party tracking for purposes like behavioral advertising. Basically, Mozilla implements an HTTP header that Firefox users can elect to send that tells ad networks they don’t want to be tracked. To turn Do Not Track on in Firefox for Android, you tap on Browser Tools within the app. From the Preferences pane, you tap on the box next to “Tell sites not to track me” to turn this option on or off, where you can also choose to save passwords and allow cookies. The same feature for Firefox’s web browser in February. This week the FTC to be added to mobile browsers, as more consumers use their smartphone’s browser to surf the web. Now that Firefox has added this feature to its mobile browser, it’s expected that others will follow suit. |
Weekend Giveaway: A REAL FREAKING THOR HAMMER | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 20 | Cast out from the ice halls of his father Othin, doomed to carry the world serpent in his teeth as he wings his justice across the face of the dead earth, great world-eater Thor is here to mete justice on us, his iron eyes hard over a blazing red beard. Woe betide he who looks upon his lover Járnsaxa with avarice for Thor mess not with that sort of thing and will totally flatten you. Why do I bring these legends to your offering chest, brave reader? For I have for you a genuine (reproduction) of Thor’s mighty hammer, a device so dread and powerful that Thor’s craven enemies call it by only one name – Myron. Doth you wish this hammer to hang by your protruding bits at the next Comic-Con? Read on!
Young warrior, if you dare take up this quest, comment below with your best horrible comic-book pseudo-Shakespearean preamble to galactic war. Comment only once and I will pick one winner at random on the Moons Day when the sun is high over the isle of Manhattoes. Thanks to for supplying the freaking hammer. UPDATE – Congrats to Javier |
Neuromancer Movie In Pre-Production | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 20 | I’m not going to get my hopes up – they’ve been promising a movie for years and, I fear, no one will be able to the book justice – but , director of Splice and Cube, says he is in pre-production on William Gibson’s seminal cyberpunk novel and they will soon begin filming in Canada, Istanbul, Tokyo, and London.
In an interview with Natali last year, asked him about the obvious issues with adapting the book into a movie: I actually really started to break down the book, now that this is looking like it might happen, and I actually don’t think you need to stray too far from the book. I think you have to add some connective tissue, and I think that the ending needs to be finessed. I had a conversation with William Gibson about a week and a half ago, and he kind of agreed. You have to retool the ending a little bit. But basically I think the structure is there. And I actually see my version, if it were to be made, as having a little bit more of a literary kind of a structure. There would be a little bit of trickery with the timeline, and we would delve into characters’ pasts and then come back into the present. I think that’s the way to approach it. And that really excites me, because as somebody who watches a lot of movies and a lot of science fiction films, I’m really getting tired of the same old tropes, the same old kind of structures. If you’re going to experiment with narrative structures, this is the movie to do it with. All I know is that if Natali screws this up I will personally come down to his house and make him watch and in 3D over and over again until he goes mad. Nobody messes with Molly and Case. Also, did you know that ? I didn’t until a few years ago. |
Twitter's First CTO Greg Pass Steps Down | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 5 | 20 | We’re hearing rumors that Twitter CTO has as of today left his post at Twitter, according to a source familiar with the company. Prior to becoming CTO, Pass held the VP of Engineering position at Twitter, after being CTO and co-founder at Summize, which was acquired by Twitter in July 2008 and was eventually turned into Twitter Search. Prior to Summize, Pass was Systems Architect at AOL. As VP of Engineering, Pass was responsible for taking the Twitter development team from a dozen engineers to around 10 times that number and played a seminal role in . I’ve contacted Twitter PR for more information and have yet to hear back. I’ve also heard no word on who will be replacing Pass or what Pass’ future plans are. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has confirmed that Pass will be leaving, with the below tweet. PR Representative Sean Garrett says that Twitter is not looking for a replacement and that Greg Pass currently has no future plans set in stone. https://twitter.com/#!/biz/status/71682145730572288 |
null | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 5 | 2 | null |
Video: Space Invaders in Real Life | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 5 | 20 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=614yeqWclVk&w=640&h=390] I see this not as a recreation of the classic Space Invaders but rather a prediction of what will happen tomorrow, May 21st, during the predicted Rapture. Are you ready to defend Spaceship Earth? |
An Explosion At Foxconn Chengdu Engulfs Building, 16 Hurt, 2 Killed | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 20 | UPDATED – What appears to be a fire or explosion engulfed one of the buildings at the Factory in Chengdu, China. Foxconn is reporting two casualties and 16 hurt and the damage does look severe and quite thorough. reported that “10 fire engines, ambulances and 10 police cars” arrived on the scene. Reports state that a few floors in Building A5 (apparently part of the iPad 2 production line) were affected and that the explosion was caused by light dust igniting in one of the manufacturing rooms.
What could have happened? Well, as we learned from the , any aerated, flammable substance can potentially explode given the right mix of heat and propellant. The resulting explosions, especially in a factory that is probably producing clouds of aluminium and plastic dust on a daily basis, could be quite dangerous. As of 21:00 Chengdu time, six men and one woman were sent to the Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital. There were two fatalities and injuries to 16 others. Foxconn released an official statement on the accident: We can confirm that at approximately 7 pm on May 20, there was an explosion at our Chengdu campus. At this point, we can also confirm that there were two fatalities with injuries to 16 other employees. We are working with medical officials to provide treatment to the injured employees and we are working with government and law enforcement officials to contact the families of all employees affected by this tragedy. The situation has been brought under control by the fire department and the cause of this explosion is being investigated by local police officials. Foxconn is cooperating fully with that investigation. Production has been suspended at the site of the explosion until the completion of the investigation. The safety of our employees is our highest priority and we will do whatever is required to determine and address the cause of this tragic accident. |
Infograph Fun: Flatscreen Prices Are Gloriously Low Right Now | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 5 | 20 |
This is sort of silly but still worthwhile. Of course prices of developing technologies drop over time, but is still fun if for nothing else than a bit of nostalgic reminiscing. I can recall the first two plasmas we got while I worked at Circuit City: a Panasonic for $10k and a Pioneer for $12k. Of course that was back in the wild and crazy times of 2002 when credit was available to anyone with a pulse and a social security number. |
Paraplegic Walks After Three Days Of Epidural Stimulation | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 5 | 20 | After a hit-and-run in 2006, Rob Summers lost the use of his hips, legs, feet, and toes. Five years later, Mr. Summers took a step with the help an electrical stimulator connected to his spine. A team of researchers in Louisville led by Susan Harkema (and in collaboration with UCLA and California Institute of Technology) have been working to create a way to mimic the signals the brain sends to the spine, commanding a certain action. Apparently, their work has been a great success, and in the words of Summers, “It was unbelievable.” Scientists believe that this type of technology could theoretically help those in wheel chairs walk again, with the help of the electrical stimulator and intensive physical therapy. What they didn’t expect was that the process could be so quick. After just three days with the electrical stimulator, Summers could stand. For a little perspective, Summers’ last form of therapy yielded virtually no progress after 170 sessions. Doctors stipulate that this is only the beginning of our exploration of epidural stimulation, and the its benefits for spinal cord injury victims. Eventually, they hope to use the same type of technology could not only let the lame walk, but help correct secondary conditions like sexual response and impaired bladder control. Here’s what Summers had to say: This procedure has completely changed my life. For someone who for four years was unable to even move a toe, to have the freedom and ability to stand on my own is the most amazing feeling. To be able to pick up my foot and step down again was unbelievable, but beyond all of that my sense of well-being has changed. My physique and muscle tone has improved greatly–so much that most people don’t even believe I am paralyzed. I believe that epidural stimulation will get me out of this chair. [ via ] |
Apple Is #5 In PC Sales In Europe | John Biggs | 2,011 | 5 | 20 |
found that Apple is number five in European PC sales, just below , , and . They sold 966,000 units in 1Q11, 292,000 less than the fourth place winner. But wait… there’s more! The most interesting point of the study is that gained 10% over the past year in Western Europe overall while the rest of the PC manufacturers lost up to 29% of market share. Again, these are numbers for Western Europe overall and you see the same thing in separate countries including a 15% increase in the UK. However, Apple doesn’t rate in the top five in France and Germany, the latter where Samsung seems to be taking off. Apple has traditionally been wildly expensive in Europe and perceived as almost impossible to find and buy in average retail environments. However, that’s clearly changing and with the roll out of improved retail operations and more support from the independents sales folks in each country makes things considerably easier. In fact, anecdotally, it seems that Europeans coming over here are barely looking at picking anything up here in America anymore because the prices are almost on parity. Is that the case where you are? |
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