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A Vintage Typewriter, Artfully Exploded | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 10 | Just really quickly take a look at what goes into the creation of a mechanical typewriter. took one apart and arranged the pieces as you see here ( for the larger version). I love the branch-looking bits that form the matrix for keydowns. It reminds me of the Engineer Guy’s look at the elegant . I love these old things — I just wish they were still practical. [via ] |
Verizon iPhone Teardown Reveals Only Minor Changes | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 10 |
No need to get excited — there are no CDMA unicorns or solid-gold Verizon logos hidden inside the new version of the iPhone 4. has revealed that the only real changes are an integration of the GPS with the main Broadcom chip (the original iPhone 4 had a discrete GPS chip) and a tweaking of the antenna design. I guess it wasn’t a user-side issue after all? Bill of costs hits $171, about $16 cheaper than the original version. That probably has to do with items like memory and other electronic commodities that will have simply gone down in price over the last seven or eight months. [image: ] |
Could Games Be The Next Proverbial "Water Cooler"? | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 10 |
Ubisoft’s Jade Raymond, who you are probably familiar with because she’s the good-looking one from the team, makes some interesting points in . As gaming moves more into the mainstream, there’s a tension building regarding the social component — that is to say, millions of people are playing games, but do we talk about them at work? Do we consider them a shared experience with our friends? Raymond hopes that “game life” will merge with “real life” and games will no longer be a parallel world, participated in but not discussed. Think about . It was a great movie, but not only that, it was something that you and many of your friends participated in together — not just in going to see it, but in how, like other good movies, it actually reached outside the theater to be a part of your day-to-day life. “You see yet?” was the phrase of the season, yet despite the popularity of major game franchises, you didn’t hear your workmates asking “You play yet?” Sure, you hear it from some, but Raymond hopes that games will move past this stage where gaming is something you only share with other gamers. In a way, I feel we’re already past that with games like Zelda and Mario, which are more or less common currency with my generation. Will games like and break that wall too? I suspect that won’t happen for a while; there are precious few games that can really be enjoyed by both you and the guys in marketing, and the secretary, and so on. Conversely, cinema and books have already done their time, and now something like can legitimately be enjoyed by everyone and made a part of our lives. I share Raymond’s hopes, but I’d say there are still quite a few years left before the office chatter is about . |
UN Secretary Rice On Facebook And Twitter: "Governments Are Increasingly Cognizant Of Their Power" [Video] | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 2 | 10 | American UN Ambassador gave an unprecedented townhall at Twitter HQ today, due to the at the time impending speech of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. The talk was replete with questions from Twitter users and had its own hashtag . Rice began the townhall praising Twitter for leading the charge and redefining the media landscape in these unique times. Rice went to address Twitter user concerns about the genocide in Sudan, the brutal actions of the Lord’s Resistance Army, the value of the UN, President Obama’s commitment to technology and entrepreneurship as well as the possibility of Hosni’s resignation ( ). While the entire video is fascinating to watch (Craigslist co-founder Craig Newmark makes a brief but hilarious appearance), the most intriguing part for me at least was when Rice was asked a question about how foreign governments viewed Facebook and Twitter. The outcome of today’s events in is still “to be continued,” and the scope of influence of Twitter and Facebook on the in Egypt, Tunisa, Yemen and now Syria is subject to endless debate. But Rice is right, there’s no denying that social media has a powerful effect on social movements, but as to its exact magnitude we can only begin to speculate, fittingly, hopefully, on Twitter.
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null | John Biggs | 2,011 | 2 | 17 | null |
iPhone Nano Rumors Resurface In Report | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 10 | We’ve been hearing “iPhone Nano” rumors for a long time. In , , , though strangely not 2010, we heard from suppliers, case makers, tipsters, sources, and so on that there’d be a new, smaller iPhone out there soon, but it has never materialized. So what makes this newest rumor, , any different? Nothing, really. We’re just passing on the word.
The idea is that it would be a cheaper, smaller version of the iPhone (it’s supposed to cost $200 unsubsidized) that would compete more directly with the mid-range Android handsets that are eating up the market. The source claims to have seen the device last year, but cautions that it may be delayed or canceled. Very convenient! I don’t buy it, for the same reason I didn’t buy it during the last few years. Apple has committed to this size as the size, and the form factor is too iconic for them to change it. Furthermore, shrinking it would likely make it more expensive, not less expensive. And if it were cheaper, it would likely be less powerful, something Apple doesn’t want to do. It has never put out a new iPhone that was less powerful than the last. Everything about it has always been improved with every iteration. And now after four years they’re going to say of the most recognizable gadget in the world “oh maybe people want a smaller one”? Apple knows their brand too well to dilute it with something like this. |
Podio, the connected work platform, secures $4m in Series A round | Steve O'Hear | 2,011 | 2 | 10 | , which describes itself as a connected work platform, has secured $4m in Series A funding. led the round and the investment is said be used to further develop Podio’s product and to hire “key employees”. A sort of collaborative social network for the Enterprise or ‘Facebook for the workplace’, Podio operates in the so-called Enterprise 2.0 space providing tools such as messaging, calendars, tasks, and contact management. However, it doesn’t stop there. Podio also gives users the ability to build their own ‘apps’ without any technical knowledge. Over 2,000 apps have already been built by users, which include CRM systems, meeting planners, process facilitation, recruiting, contract drafting and employee feedback. Naturally, there’s an accompanying app store too. Podio’s founder and CEO is also noteworthy. The Copenhagen, Demark-based startup is founded by Tommy Ahlers who ‘social phonebook’ ZYB to Vodafone in 2008 for €31 million. Ahlers says that 6,000 organizations are already using Podio, which is currently operating as an invite-only Beta, although users can apply for an invite. Obviously, Podio is operating in a crowded space, from the likes of BaseCamp, to and , along with something more traditional like Microsoft Sharepoint. Podio’s pitch, of course, is that it’s the only such service to let users “create their own tools and work environment”. And now with significant money in the bank, the startup has the runway to see if that vision will really take off. |
Inside The Psychobox: A Tour Of Dropbox's Bumping Office | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 2 | 10 | Make sure to watch til the very end for a surprise, twist ending. That I won’t be able to live down for quite a while. And in case you missed them before, make sure to check out our previous episodes: Credit to Ashley Pagán and John Murillo for the camera work, and to Mr. Murillo for the great editing. |
Hybrid Table-Lamp Is… Practical | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 10 |
is actually a pretty idea, though I can see two problems: a short or electrical problem, or dust and fluff caught back there, could actually set that sucker on fire. There’s a reason most lamps aren’t made of particle board. Second, I’m afraid pulling the toggle will wobble the table and spill your water all over the comic book you just put down. With an LED bulb and a little QA, though, both of these are avoidable. Onward, Tablamp! |
(Founder Stories) Fred Wilson On Frothy Valuations | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 2 | 10 | With out to Twitter for a reported $8 billion to $10 billion, is once again the topic of discussion. It’s a , and on this episode of venture capitalist Fred Wilson talks to Chris Dixon about the frothy valuations in Techland. Wilson is careful not to use the word “bubble,” but this is for him. He he has been about that he finds disturbing, such as investors and startups with little more than three founders in a garage getting bid up for no reason. In the video he specifically calls out and its instant valuation as troubling. Yet by the end of the clip he also concludes that Facebook is going to be worth a lot more than $50 billion. Wilson’s firm is an investor in Twitter (although this show was taped before the current deal talk rumors came out), as well as Zynga, Tumblr, Etsy, and Foursquare. So he’s seen a lot of the rising valuations first-hand, and is benefiting from his early investments in these companies. But it is getting harder and harder, and he is honest about the fact that sometimes he is getting outbid by other VC firms like Sequoia. Dixon, who in addition to running is a very active angel investor through argues that there isn’t a bubble at all because the fundamentals of Internet companies are so much stronger now and creating real revenues. Wilson lived through the last bubble in the 1990s and subsequent bust. In the video below, he talks about that experience and how his previous VC firm, Flatiron Partners, “essentially folded” after the market blew up. He says that put “a chip on my shoulder” to prove himself again with Union Square Ventures, which raised its first fund in the dark days of 2004 when many people were convinced the Internet was a “scam.” But he and his partners were investing in Web applications when nobody else would touch them. Dixon compares it to the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, when were being passed around, and how that is turning out to be the time when he made his best investments. Now things are much more competitive. : Watch Part II. |
To Celebrate The #Jan25 Revolution, Egyptian Names His Firstborn "Facebook" | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 2 | 19 |
Cultural relativity is an amazing thing. While American parents worry about their kids being on Facebook, Egyptian parents are naming their kids “Facebook” to commemorate the events surrounding the revolution. According to (one of the most popular newspapers in Egypt) a twenty-something Egyptian man has named his first born daughter “Facebook” in tribute to the role the social media service played in organizing the protests in Tahrir Square and beyond. Helmed by now-famous Googler , the Facebook page showed up within 5 days of Said’s death in June and served as a hub for dissidence against Egyptian police brutality as well as a way to disseminate logistical information about the escalating anti-government protests until Mubarak’s resignation. Other activist pages like one actually called cropped up shortly afterward. Translation: Man Names His Newborn Girl Facebook A young man in his twenties wanted to express his gratitude about the victories the youth of 25th of January have achieved and chose to express it in the form of naming his firstborn girl (his name.) The girl’s family, friends, and neighbors in the Ibrahimya region gathered around the new born to express their continuing support for the revolution that started on Facebook. “Facebook” received many gifts from the youth who were overjoyed by her arrival and the new name. A name [Facebook] that shocked the entire world. There are five million Facebook users in Egypt, more so than any other country in the Middle East/North Africa region. Facebook itself has an increase in Egyptian users in the past month, with 32,000 Facebook groups and 14,000 pages created in the two weeks after January 25th. While the baby girl could just have easily been called “YouTube,” “Twitter” “Google” or even “Cellphone Camera,” it seems like Facebook has become the umbrella symbol for how social media can spread the message of freedom. There are countless manefestation of this, the above graffiti in Cairo, protest sign, and Wael Ghonim himself his gratitude to Mark Zuckerberg on CNN. I’m hearing that the temporary military government has begun using Facebook to reach out to Egyptian youth, even creating a Facebook Fan Page page ( ). The Ministry of Interior, in attempt to repair the image of the state police, has set up multiple pages. And while my guess is that being a locus of political uprisings wasn’t the original intent of the American college campus-based social network, somewhere Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has got to be secretly proud. The Internet as a whole should win the Nobel Peace Prize this year for all it’s done for democracy in the MENA region, but let’s not let this naming kids after websites get out of hand. I’d hate for little “Facebook” to have to share a classroom with a little “AOL,” or worse a little “Yahoo.” Even though you have to admit, a girl named “Quora” would be kind of pretty. Jokes aside, for an excellent video of how young activists in Cairo documented the Egyptian protests despite the Internet blocks. |
FlyScreen lands on iPhone but not as we know it | Steve O'Hear | 2,011 | 2 | 10 | , the lock screen and Symbian phones from Israeli startup Cellogic, has . But not as we know it. That’s because Apple’s iOS is locked down as it were (see what I did there) and doesn’t allow third-party apps to take over the lock screen. This doesn’t mean that iPhone users of FlyScreen don’t get access to the app’s array of content widgets – they do – but this functionality is accessible like any other app. However, Cellogic has come up with a nice new twist for FlyScreen, something that the company is calling “Ambient Mode”, a more fun presentation of content for when the phone is docked. The idea is content streams in “passively”, using different skins or “themes” when the phone is docked. It’s a similar concept to HP/Palm’s webOS ‘Exhibition’ or reminiscent of something like . “So as an RSS reader app, we’re now covering both the active reading, and passive too”, says the company. There’s a monetization play here too. FlyScreen for iPhone offers a Premium upgrade using Apple’s in-app purchasing to support Social and Custom widgets or to purchase the first “Ambient theme pack”. It’ll set you back 99 cents for Premium (Twitter, Twitter Lists, Facebook, Google Reader, Custom RSS) or $1,99 for those extra themes, which do look quite fun. |
Group Dating Startup Ignighter Raises $3 Million | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 2 | 10 | , the group dating site that is part of the , has raised $3 million in Series A funding from a number of well-known investors. This brings the company’s total funding to . The round was led by with , GTI Capital Group, Hugo Enterprises, , , Dave Tisch, , , and other angels participating. Ignighter is an online dating site but with a slight twist. Ignighter allows groups of friends to collaborate on a group profile, where they can include photos and specify their interests. The site then presents a list of possible matches with other groups and helps them arrage get-togethers in the real world. The idea behind the site is to make romantic matches but in a group setting where awkward situations can be avoided. While it seems like an orthodox model for online dating, Ignighter says that it is growing by “hundreds of thousands” of new users each month and has a registered userbase in the millions. |
Come to Office Hours with TechCrunch Europe @TechHub | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 2 | 19 | Attention European startups based in or passing through London. I will be hosting regular “Office Hours” from now on so I can meet you and hear about your company. I’m initially trying an experiment by publishing my calendar availability on Tungle here . |
This Is Business, Not Personal. | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 2 | 19 | In Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 film , there’s a scene between Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) and Sonny Corleone (James Caan) that plays out like this: Tom: Your father wouldn’t want to hear this, Sonny. This is business not personal.
Sonny: They shoot my father and it’s business, my ass!
Tom: Even shooting your father was business not personal, Sonny! Events the past few days in the tech ecosystem have reminded me of this scene. As we’ve all heard by now, yesterday, Twitter made what seemed to be a quick and drastic decision to of popular Twitter third-party clients, namely, UberTwitter and Twidroyd. Both of those, of course, are owned and operated by UberMedia, a company which is up a significant part of the Twitter ecosystem — presumably to figure out a way to monetize it. So Twitter’s move was an act of war, right? Well, yes. But it’s not as cut and dry as some are suggesting. Further, the only thing that’s actually surprising about any of this is that people are acting surprised. First of all, Twitter did not block these apps because they hate them. Both applications are a significant part of Twitter’s ecosystem and give them more of what they ultimately really value: data. But the fact of the matter is that UberMedia has gotten too close to the territory that Twitter must protect: monetization. They don’t hate UberMedia, it’s business. The stated official reasons for the suspension of the apps included “trademark infringement” and “changing the content of users’ Tweets in order to make money”. Both of those are directly related to Twitter’s business. And while UberMedia denied the latter charge, it doesn’t matter. The message is clear: Twitter is going to protect their business. Right or wrong, a shitstorm quickly followed. The larger web quickly descended upon Twitter and started taking shots at the company and . It looked as if the major problem was the timing of all of this, as the the UberMedia/TweetDeck (the largest third-party Twitter client) deal had just been reported a week prior ( ) and Twitter was also on the same day. And maybe it was time for Sonny Corleone to respond with, “ .” Why didn’t Twitter simply talk to UberMedia before taking such drastic action? Well, according to them, , months prior. But again, none of that really matters. What does matter is that people are once again pissed off because a beloved company seems to be taking action against their developer community. But again, why is anyone the least bit surprised by this? This has happened time and time and time and time again. And it will continue to happen until the end of time. Or at least the end of capitalism. A tweet by Joe Hewitt yesterday perfectly encapsulated the situation. “ ,” . While some quickly jumped to the conclusion that Hewitt was talking about his own employer, Facebook, he quickly clarified his statement. “ ,” he . Clearly, he was talking about Twitter in this instance. But Hewitt is right. This does happen all the time. And while Hewitt wasn’t talking about his employer here, it has happened with them too. How many actions has Facebook taken against their developer community in order to both protect and build their business? Dozens? More? Certainly, there will be many more to come. What about Apple? I mean, just this past week we’ve seen a huge explosion of rage from the development community over the whole subscription thing. Why is Apple doing this? It’s business, not personal. Google? I mean, why do you think they really decided to side with Verizon on their bogus net neutrality pact? Does Google truly believe in that BS? Nope. . The list goes on and on. And again, it will continue to go on and on. Certainly, there are some companies that handle this better than others. But as companies get large enough, or simply to the point where they have to think about making money, the same things happen over and over again. These moves start out small. The first thing you normally see is a company start to notify its ecosystem that they can’t use their name for third-party sites/apps. Is this because they hate those companies? No. In fact, they probably love them for helping them build up their ecosystem. But then lawyers start to get involved and the companies are advised that they have to protect their trademarks or they’ll risk losing them. This almost always pisses off the ecosystem. But it’s business, not personal. See a pattern here? The point is that while people like Hewitt and the others giving Twitter shit, range from sad to pissed off by what they perceive to be hostile actions, absolutely no one should be surprised. This is what happens. And this is what has to happen. The alternative is that these companies do nothing to protect their business and as a result, they go out of business themselves. And then everyone is screwed. Again, that’s not to say there aren’t better ways to handle all of this. And Twitter does have a fairly poor track record when it comes to these situations within their community. But sometimes things change quickly and companies believe there are actions that need to be taken. It’d be nice if these companies were a little more transparent about all of this. How refreshing would it be for one to just come out and say, “look, we love what you’ve done for us, but we really need to make money now or you’ll be screwed along with us, so we’re screwing you now.”? Even shooting your father is business. But in some cases, maybe the the facades are all a part of the plan. I mean, just imagine if a player in the ecosystem ended up coming dangerously close to the main company itself — think: Zynga and Facebook, and now UberMedia and Twitter. This reminds me of another Godfather quote. This time, it’s Michael Corleone in : “ ” |
Gillmor Gang 2.19.11 (TCTV) | Steve Gillmor | 2,011 | 2 | 19 | The Gillmor Gang conflated two major stories this week into one: Apple’s terms of service for app store approval, and Twitter’s actions regarding UberMedia. The noise regarding Apple being hauled in front of the DOJ illustrates just how powerful Apple’s strategy continues to be. As many point out, Android’s market share makes it virtually impossible to tar iOS with monopoly status. It’s almost as though Erick and Steve planned it that way, right down to Google following up with its 90% scenario as if to validate Apple’s 70% model. Stephen Elop also made that point with his decision to let Microsoft acquire Nokia, reminiscent of Yahoo’s failure to notice the ballgame was over when Ballmer pulled the trigger on them a few years ago. Then it was a seat at the search table; today it’s a seat at the mobile one. If Danny Sullivan was right that Google could have matched Microsoft’s offer, then the real question was why they didn’t. Perhaps because giving away 70% of the smartphone market licenses would underline how Google’s search monopoly revenue was being used to buy the way into mobile, a much more DOJ-ish infraction. That’s why the crocodile tears shed by publishers and the open except for Flash crowd fail to resonate. Google can afford to give away its store service for 10% because they don’t make money on free OS’s and apps. Microsoft needs to spend billions on Nokia to buy what Android has done. Let’s guess at what that ransom works out to in appstore dollars — maybe 20%. And Apple has invested enormously in squeezing the record cartel, the carriers, and now who? The publishers? I think not. If developers need to make a choice of investment, are they going to bolt iOS in favor of an ad model that may be under attack from Facebook? As Twitter fleshes out its platform in a very Apple-like way, developers are beginning to notice the stability that effective control of the realtime message stream offers. Facebook ROI is already double that of Twitter messages, harnessing the social edge that leads to authority and decision making velocity. This forces Google to expand its social search integration, which benefits Twitter given Facebook’s lack of two-way flow in the global conversation. At least President Obama understands why Twitter deserves to be at the dinner table. @dannysullivan @scobleizer @kevinmarks @jtaschek @stevegillmor |
(Founder Stories) Fred Wilson, The Full Interview | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 2 | 19 | What was the best business decision VC Fred Wilson ever made? What was the worst? What part of his job does he dislike the most? The answers might surprise you. In the video above, Wilson answers some rapid fire questions (delivered in a not-so-rapid fashion) from host Chris Dixon. The clip is an outtake from the interviews segments we ran a week ago, in which Wilson talks about , his , the relationship between VCs and startups, and the VC business in general. We cut up the interview into four separate clips, which you can find in the links above, but they were so popular I am putting the entire unedited 17-minute interview below, for those of you who missed it the first time around or want to watch it all the way through. |
Daily Crunch: Impossible Zombie Edition | Bryce Durbin | 2,011 | 2 | 19 | |
Memes Could Hit The Silver Screen In "The Chronicles of Rick Roll" | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 2 | 26 | Move over, Chronicles of Narnia, there’s a new dreamworld of magic in town. That’s right. Andrew Fischer, CEO of Colorado-based marketing company NURV, has recruited a stellar cast of Meme-lebrities, including Antoine Dodson of , Paul Vasquez, Brian Collins (the kid), and vocalist Gary Brolsma, for a feature-length film entitled “The Chronicles of Rick Roll”. The title, as you probably know, is derived from the meme to rule them all: the music video for Rick Astley’s , which became the source of a viral prank, called “Rick Rolling”. Thanks to Rick Rolling, never again will you be able to say to your friend, ” without being suspected of collusion with Rick Astley. Of course, with a title like this, it would only be fitting if the film itself were one large prank. However, it seems that Fischer is serious. Though he hasn’t yet secured distribution, there is , a script, and apparently the actors will be paid. According to a press release, Antoine Dodson has actually seen the script. His response: Will it be a Shakespearean tragedy? A coming of age tale? Will find redemption? Based on the trailer, it’s hard to imagine how the plot will play out, but it seems very unlikely that this will be a documentary in which the YouTube sensations all have frank discussions about they are famous. But, needless to say, I’m intrigued. Very intrigued. The Web has created a vibrant culture of memes, many of which have already migrated to other media, so it was only a matter of time before a “best of” hit the big screen. And, to be honest, I’m glad the gathering is taking place there rather than in a reality show format — or on the Island of Dr. Moreau. Regardless of how we feel about web celebrities, it’s important to remember that it’s only a matter of time before plays us all out. Check out the trailer below and let us know if you would see this movie. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBi7zwjp20E] |
The Separation of Church And Zynga: Wedding Chapels Stripped From CityVille | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 2 | 26 | Zynga made a small but fascinating change to its young-yet-ubiquitous game CityVille over the weekend. Players could previously buy “Wedding Chapels,” which looked like small country churches but without a cross or other religious symbols, to add to their city. But the virtual item has been removed and replaced with the more secular and nondescript “Wedding Hall.” With two gold ring things that somehow makes me think only of McDonalds. Err, ok. I asked Zynga if this was in response to complaints, or otherwise why they did this. No comment from them so far. They could, of course, simply add other icons for other religions, and let people choose. But perhaps even that would be too insensitive. Players who had previously purchased the Wedding Chapel still have it, but it’s also been renamed to “Wedding Hall.” Presumably friends visiting the city might get offended. I also asked Zynga if they plan to remove farm and pet animals from their various games to please P.E.T.A, or offer non-genetically modified and pesticide-free crops for Organic-loving FarmVille players. Again, no word back from them. I don’t know why this bothers me so much, since I’m not very religious myself. But it just seems so artificially politically correct. The company has come a long way since the , it seems. |
null | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 10 | null |
What’s The Real Deal With AngelList? | Mark Suster | 2,011 | 2 | 26 | There’s lots of discussion out there about a new and much-loved service called that connects entrepreneurs to angel investors. I was reluctant to write about AngelList because the debate on pros / cons is pretty nuanced. But with some heat flying I felt it worthwhile to give anybody on the sidelines a better understanding of the issues. Where do I stand on AngelList? I have no reason to delete my account. As Shervin said, it’s just email. I have now put a filter on my email so it is auto-filed in Gmail. I mostly don’t look. It has become too much noise, not enough signal. This is what I feared up front. If Nivi ever sent me a deal I’d meet the team without any question or pre-review. But AngelList is now a place where many people post deals. That’s less interesting for me as a VC. I’m still assuming these are all pretty high-quality intros but the top end of my funnel is already full of interesting dealflow. I’m pretty easy to get in touch with. I don’t do very well with unsolicited because my volume of email is too high. Still, I live in public and . AngelList is a great way to market your deal. Lots of people will see it. So as I said, for this I’m grateful to Nivi and Naval for having started the service. I cannot stress enough, though, that I believe getting access to the right investors in critical and spending time getting to know who these investors are is equally critical. Far from being a waste of time, the fund-raising process introduces you to a lot of experienced entrepreneurs and VCs who will offer opinions on your business and approach. It should be a continual process. “Filling out a round” with extra investors you don’t know well to take a round from $500k to $750k is fine as long as those additional investors don’t have significant rights and aren’t . Just don’t use AngelList as a short-cut for the hard work. But to be clear, used properly there is NO downside to AngelList for entrepreneurs. Where I think Robert’s comments are slightly wrong is that AngelList is a net positive for VCs. Most VCs fund companies with a degree of traction. If we have way more companies to observe who have money from angels to get to a point where they prove traction (or don’t) that’s a gift to the VC community. I don’t think AngelList hurts VCs at all. If anything it’s complementary. I don’t believe AngelList hurts seed investors either. I believe that AngelList will increase the total number of deals funded in the same way that YCombinator does. Great seed investors like Bryce Roberts / (and other great ones like , , or ) still get all the dealflow the need. If I were a founder I would personally start with these kinds of seed funds. They bring specific expertise (e.g. Floodgate / Information Arbitrage do “big data” amongst other things), or Founder Collective (consumer and ad-tech knowledge of people like Chris Dixon) or geography (Founder Collective is in Boston / NY, Rincon is the best early-stage in Southern California). I would consider supplementing with AngelList to see whether you can bring on additional value-added angels. That way you can have the best of a fund that has deeper pockets and angels so you can have more people helping. If you haven’t read my post on “ ” I describe it all here. Here is where I actually worry the most. There are many sophisticated angels and I suspect AngelList is a perfect tool for them to organize dealflow. Nivi and Naval are doing a great job of making it more useful by adding geographies and such. It will be a great way of organizing your dealflow as a sophisticated angel. But there are many angels who either don’t have enough money to allocate to this class of investment or don’t have the experience to drive real returns from angel investing. Let’s just say this: if you’ve invested through boom and bust cycles then you have a realistic perspective. If you’ve been in only boom cycle or have invested less than five years you’re in for some surprises. I wrote a series on angel investing in direct response to my fear that everybody was becoming an angel investor and I felt I had seen this movie before. I feel angels need: My biggest fear is that people confuse the “social proof” of other prominent investors on AngelList for real insight. Indeed, in a bubble people generally chase what other people are chasing leading to group think. The most innovative ideas are the ones that other people aren’t doing yet. How’s that for irony? Still, we’re . Prices are crazy, behavior is turning herd-like and deals are being evaluated too quickly and terms are skewing toward the inane. I decided to stop talking about this publicly because I realized that nobody likes to hear this. But privately here is what I say every week, “I was at the dot com cocktail party in 99-2000. We were all drunk and stupid. The hangover was sure painful for everybody involved. 2011 is one big cocktail party all over again. Different kind of party, but the margaritas are a flowing just the same. This time I’m sober. And after writing my previous post about the market being in a bubble, I learned this: Nobody drunk at a party likes to hear the sober guy telling them how silly they’re acting after five drinks. So I’ll keep my mouth shut for now. And in the morning when there’s a bad hangover, I’ll also try to not remind people how they acted. Still, if I can help a few people privately put down their next drink I think they’ll thank me one day.” That’s how I feel. Enough said on that topic – enjoy the party. And I worry that there are too many angels out there who have never felt the morning as angels. So they’re sprinkling their money. Let me turn once again to the wisdom and knowledge of Nivi and Naval in . Hear, hear. It was a thoughtful and legitimate contribution to the debate. Jason’s response was not only unnecessarily bullying but it was wrong. There is a transformation in startup land – it is cheaper to launch a company. But this doesn’t negate the benefit of having valuable investors with real experience. I have come to accept that combining higher-volume investors like Dave McClure with focused investors like Bryce or similar can be a smart strategy. But to his point that, “Today things like Angel List have boxed out VC–especially small ones like your firm–to the point at which you are not needed in the food chain” is inaccurate. To encourage people to run from skilled investors is bad advice. Ask anybody who has worked with a hand-on early stage investor (Fred Wilson, Josh Kopelman, Jon Callaghan) and they’ll tell you they wouldn’t do it any other way. |
Android v2.3 (Gingerbread) Coming To HTC Desire Z, Desire HD, Desire, and Incredible S In Q2 | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 2 | 26 | Do you carry an HTC Desire Z, Desire HD, Desire, or the brand-friggin’ new Incredible S? Are you wondering when you’ll get a bite of that sweet, sweet Gingerbread (or, in non-mega-geek-speak, when your handset will be updated to Android v2.3)? While HTC isn’t naming any specific dates (that just tends to make people rage when the unavoidable delays occur), they’ve confirmed to that the four aforementioned devices get Gingerbread, and they’ve offered up a pretty big window for when those updates will come: Q2. That means we won’t see any of them by March, but all of them should be floatin’ over the airwaves by the end of June. |
Android/iPhone Fan Boys: Meet Your New Desktop Wallpaper | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 2 | 26 | This one has something for everyone: Android. Apple. Appropriately colored lightsabers. Oh, and it’s friggin’ . Oh, and to pull a late-night host and totally steal a joke : Man, why they gotta make Apple ? Happy Saturday, folks.
Hurrah! Someone found . Be sure to give them some love. |
Fly Or Die (Tablet Edition): The Motorola Xoom And The Kno | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 2 | 26 | In this week’s episode of , CrunchGear editor John Biggs and I do a special tablet edition where we take on the new and the . (Watch the video above). The Xoom is the first tablet to come out with the Android operating system, which is optimized for tablets. So you can basically forget about all of those other Android tablets that came out in January at CES. Those run the Android OS built for phones. What you want is Honeycomb, and the Xoom is your first chance to get it. Still, with the iPad 2 set to be announced next week, you might want to wait to see if there is anything the Xoom will still have over the next-gen iPad. Check out John’s and the video below, which shows its speed and what it looks like in action. The second product we tackle is the Kno, a aimed at college students which is yet to be delivered. this week that Kno is looking to sell off its hardware business and concentrate on software instead. Shifting strategies would make a lot of sense. It’s just too challenging to make great software and go up against both the iPad and Android at the same time. College students are only going to buy one tablet, and chances are it is not going to be a general purpose tablet like the iPad or an Android tablet instead of one that only serves as a textbook reader. |
Gillmor Gang 2.26.11 (TCTV) | Steve Gillmor | 2,011 | 2 | 26 | Every Gillmor Gang begins with a mysterious blend of serendipity and confusion. This episode is no exception, as Robert Scoble attempts to discuss the Motorola VaVaVoom or somesuch. The only problem with that (or any other Android tablet) is that Gillmor himself could care less about anything other than waiting for next Wednesday’s rollout of the iPad II. John Taschek is an Android fanboy, and Kevin Marks used to work for Google and has not yet shaken the mindset off. I am trying to think of things to keep me occupied until Wednesday. In other news, we discuss pricing for the iPad I on launch day, which Scoble’s spies say is coming in [redacted.] The Gang runs the gamut of predictions, but unfortunately that tangent only lasted some 20 minutes or so. An attempt at Oscar picks crashed and burned. A multiple plug aggregator was offered as a solution for the iPod Touch’s missing USB/electric plug connector. My iPhone bumper is disintegrating, which like the groundhog’s shadow, indicates another 6 months until iPhone 5. Only five more days to go. I need help. @scobleizer @stevegillmor @kevinmarks @jtaschek |
My Message To Google: Stop Cheating | Andrew Keen | 2,011 | 2 | 26 | In mid February, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt expressed pride in Google employee Wael Ghonim’s brave struggle against the autocratic Mubarak regime to establish political transparency in Egypt. “We are very, very proud of what Wael and that group was able to do in Egypt,” in Barcelona. But what Schmidt needs to do now is apply Ghonim’s views about political transparency to Google’s own search business. With its 70% control of the global online search market, Google’s power to make and break online businesses is unrivalled. So it’s not surprising that website owners want more transparency over the reasons why the often autocratic Google sometimes impose penalties on their businesses. But a issued last week by the newsnavigator OneNewsPage found a distinct lack of transparency in the search business with 88% of respondents saying that paid search advertising costs lacked transparency, while 24% said that they had experienced large, unexplained falls in site traffic as a consequence of changes in their search engine status. Nor is it surprising that the American Antitrust Institute published a a week ago calling for US regulators to do a thorough investigation of Google’s to acquire travel software provider ITA. This deal, the report worries, would enable the dominant search engine to dominate the online travel market, thus muddying the church-state distinction between Google as technology provider and Google as a distributor of content. Transparency in search is critical to maintain both innovation and fairness in the digital economy. Yes, Google improved the quality of its search engine by targeting content farms with last week’s to its algorithm. But this remains little more than a cosmetic change. Rather than , fairness is the key issue. Given Google’s dominance in search, the company has a responsibility to reveal the mechanics of its ranking algorithm—so that everyone understands why some links are ranked higher and more prominently than others. How can they do that in a way that doesn’t invite gaming and spam, so that companies won’t take advantage of the system? That is Google’s problem. They’ve cornered the global market in PhD’s. If the company can invent a then it can certainly figure out how to make its ranking algorithm more transparent without becoming an easy target for content farms like Demand Media. You see, just as we need our government to play by clear rules, so the same is true with search. Thus, a week ago, in a to the DOJ Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, John Conyers, the lead Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, encouraged the Department of Justice to “carefully” review the Google ITA deal in order “to ensure competition and transparency will be protected in the online travel industry.” Last week, 1plusV, the French developer of vertical search engines such as , filed a complaint with the European Union, Google of “pursuing a strategy of foreclosure against vertical search engines” and of illegally tying the Google search engine with AdSense. Bruno Guillard, 1plusV’s founder, said that it was technically impossible for his own vertical search engines to use AdSense, thus undermining his ability to build viable business models around these new services. Yes, online transparency—understanding how, exactly, its artificial algorithm works and what information or links gets prioritized for what reasons—matters, particularly given the centrality of Google search in the knowledge economy. In his important new book , University of Virginia media scholar claims that Google’s control of the Internet is comparable to that of Julius Caesar’s rule in 48 BC Rome. The all-controlling Google, Vaidhyanathan argues is “omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent” and thus needs to be controlled if we are to maintain a level playing field in today’s knowledge economy. Unfortunately, however, this is only half of it. Not only is Google’s control of today’s search engine market omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, but it also seems as if the Mountain View leviathan is abusing the very system over which it has such control. That’s at least the suspicion of the European Commission which last November, on behalf of the European Union, launched an antitrust investigation into allegations that Google “abused” its already dominant position in search by its “unfavorable” treatment of rival services and by its “preferential treatment” of its own services like YouTube, Google Maps and Blogger. Yes, as everyone from the European Commission to the American Antitrust Institute remind us, transparency matters. In simple terms, it seems, Google has muddied the already disturbingly murky lines between online content and commercial interests by promoting its own products in its supposedly objective search engine. So, for example, when I enter my own name into Google, the first video link that comes up is a I made at Google headquarters in June 2007—even though there are many more professional and popular videos of speeches that I’ve made since. Coincidence? No, I hardly think so. The truth is that Google’s manipulation of its secretive artificial algorithm isn’t just a reflection of the paranoia of its less powerful rivals in the search business or my own admittedly highly anecdotal adventures in self-googling. Last November, when the European Commission launched its investigation, the Harvard Business School professor, , published a entitled “Hard-Coding Bias in Google Algorithmic Search Results” which proves that Google has “hard-coded its own links to appear at the top of algorithmic search results.” Edelman’s scientific research is the real reason why . Taking each of the 2,642 terms listed on Google’s , the Harvard academic found that all 2,642 of these individual searches resulted in a link to Google Health appearing in the “absolute top of the page.” Edelman discovered the same unnatural biases with stock ticker searches on Google. Here, he found, that the links from any stock ticker search—“the large-type all-caps ticker symbol, the large price chart, and the left-most details link”—will always take you to Google Finance, even though Google’s in-house financial service is far from being a market leader in this sector. Google’s bias isn’t just limited to finance and health. In a January 2011 , “Measuring Bias in Organic Web Search,” written with Harvard Business School doctoral candidate Benjamin Lockwood, Edelman found that Google listed its own map service as the first result when a user queries “maps.” It’s hardly surprising, therefore, that Edelman and Lockwood discovered that 86% of map searches conducted on Google end up with the user clicking on Google Maps. So much, then, for the neutrality of Google search, the digital librarian on which we all-too-innocently trust to navigate our way around today’s knowledge economy. Earlier this month, in an with the UK newspaper, , Google’s former CEO and new Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, said that he hoped that the European Commission would “come up with a set of remedies” to the issue of biased search and promised that “Google would consider” implementing. Google, Schmidt told , would be “willing to change some of its algorithm methodology in search” if it led to the quick resolution of the EC enquiry. But Google doesn’t really need any commission, European or otherwise, to identity the remedies to Google’s manipulation of the search knowledge economy. Instead, as I’ve suggested, they should listen to Wael Ghonim’s observations about the lack of transparency in the Mubarak regime. My message to Mr. Schmidt and Google is very simple: stop cheating. Transform your search engine from a murky algorithm that sometimes benefits your own corporate interests into a transparently neutral guide that benefits both the consumers and the all the companies in our knowledge economy. The need for Google to establish transparency in its search engine and play by the rules is particularly acute today, both in Europe and America. You see, Google isn’t quite as omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent as Siva Vaidhyanathan claims. Indeed, for the first time in over a decade, Google has a genuine online rival challenging its hitherto Caesarian hegemony over the Internet. This emerging superpower in the online economy is Facebook which, with its 600 million members and over $50 billion valuation, is beginning to transform the web from a Google centric network of data to a social network of connected people. Google’s recognition of the growing power of the social web is behind both its failed for the social commerce business Groupon and its rumored in acquiring Twitter—Facebook’s main rival in the social networking business. And given Google’s much publicized vulnerability in social media, it’s particularly important that this multinational corporation makes its search engine honest so that it doesn’t become a disreputable tool in Google’s battle with Facebook to control the emerging social web. In his new book, , Columbia University law professor —the scholar who invented the term “network neutrality”—argues that the modern media and communications industry has a tendency toward monopoly. But, for the 2 billion Internet consumers like you and I reliant on fair and transparent search as their trusted vehicle for navigating the web, the only thing worse than a monopolist is a cheating monopolist. Google needs to clean up its artificial algorithm now and guarantee search neutrality. Otherwise it won’t only be the European Commission investigating the self-interested bias of the Google search engine. |
Daily Crunch: Knife Fight Edition | Bryce Durbin | 2,011 | 2 | 26 | |
HP To Sell TouchPad In April? | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 21 |
Digitimes, ever eavesdropping on the water cooler talk at big manufacturers, that HP’s webOS-powered may be launched as soon as April, two months earlier than the only extant . Volume is predicted at 4-5 million units, which is in line with other big names in the tablet field. The earlier the better, HP, but with the and (among ) in the running as well, it could be a tough debut. I get the feeling someone’s going to end up with a lot of units in warehouses. |
I Will Check My Phone At Dinner And You Will Deal With It | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 2 | 21 | The next time you go out to dinner, look around. Depending on the restaurant, there will be anywhere from a few people with their heads buried in their phones, to a of people in that position. If you don’t see any, keep watching, you will. This topic of discussion came up this past weekend when I took a trip outside of the Bay Area bubble to go visit my parents. My mother has the stance that I can only assume most mothers do: you shouldn’t check your phone at the dinner table. So naturally, to comply with her request, every few minutes I would check my phone the table. I’d pretend to read the menu or fix my napkin to just be slyly looking straight down at my device beneath her line of sight — you know the drill. And while I was doing that, I would look around. Sure enough, there were a half dozen other people at the tables around me doing the same thing. Love it or hate it, this is becoming the norm. And when it fully becomes the norm, there will no longer be the same stigma attached to checking your phone at a restaurant. Naturally, my mother refuses to believe this will happen, but it’s happening already. Go out to dinner with people in their 20s or 30s. Or worse, go out to dinner with teenagers. When I go out to dinner with my peers these days, it’s not considered weird at all to pull out your phone. In fact, the situation has sort of reversed itself: you feel awkward if everyone else is using their phones and you’re not. It happens. A lot. Obviously, at a fancy restaurant this behavior is less prevalent than at a bar. But it’s still increasingly happening all around you. And it has made going to dinner . I shouldn’t have to state the obvious, but I will: using your phone in this context does not mean on the phone. That is still very frowned upon in restaurants for a very good reason: it’s annoying. A person talking on their phone is making noise, a person using their phone (as in surfing the web, sending texts, using apps, etc) is often doing the exact opposite. Of course, the stigma around using the phone at the table stems from the same idea: it’s considered rude. But again, it’s not rude as in annoying, it’s rude as in you’re ignoring those around you. It challenges the social norm that when you go out to dinner with people, you’re supposed to have conversations with them. That itself is a bit odd since it’s also considered rude to talk and eat at the same time, but I digress… Here’s the thing: the common misconception that my parents and others have about using the phone during dinner is that it’s antisocial. But increasingly, it makes dinner even social. In the situations where I go out to dinner with my peers, use of the phone often augments the conversations being had. Don’t know who won game 3 of the 1995 World Series? Don’t know who directed that movie you all saw? It’s all right there in your pocket. But even more fascinating is when the topic of conversation now often revolves around the phones themselves — or more specifically, what is on them. , , , etc. These all now spark new conversations or tidbits of personal connection. And then there are the shared experiences of doing things like checking-in or Foodspotting. One person at a table doing it often trigger everyone else to as well. Forgive me, but it’s Dinner 2.0. And again, I’m having more fun at these dinners than I ever have. Is part of it antisocial? Sure. Can it lead to distractions if you read a work-related email that you need to respond to? Of course. But this is the way the world works now. We’re always connected and always on call. And some of us prefer it that way. What’s annoying to me isn’t someone using their phone at the table, it’s the people who really believe I shouldn’t be allowed to use my phone. Why? So I can repress the desire I have to check the phone while failing to engage in a conversation so I can be able to quickly excuse myself to go to the bathroom to check the phone? My mother’s answer: yes. Makes sense. It’s exactly why things are changing. Get with the program, or get out of the way. What’s more likely? In ten years, everyone goes to a restaurant and talks to one another without pulling out their phones at the table — or in ten years, the table is in a way to enable you to more easily use your phones? That’s an easy one. |
Another Alleged iPad 2 Case Caught On Camera | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 21 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4W2tr2eqKs&w=640&h=390]
It’s possible that the suppliers who gave this case are just plain lying that they know the specs, but if release really is imminent, it’s also possible that this is the real thing. Personally I’d guess this is a non-final “draft” based on preliminary or rumored specs, as Apple is likely to be extra-careful about who it sends the info to this time around. If we go with the assumption that it’s real, though, it’s looking mighty thin, as we it would be, though we’re no wiser regarding the mystery port at the top right. I really have no idea what it would be — not storage, since that would mess up Apple’s whole system. Not SIM. Not USB (they’ll likely just do an adapter). Not DisplayPort or MiniDVI (adapter again, and at any rate Apple wants you to watch things the device, not from it). It really is a mystery to me, especially considering how thin the sucker is. Any guesses out there? |
ScentScape On-Demand Odor Accessory To Hit This Year | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 21 |
While some things can really add to the immersion factor — dimming the lights, wearing headphones, dressing up as the main character (kidding) — I’m skeptical of how much would really be added by this smell generator. Yes, It’s called the , and it’s a USB accessory that uses pre-packaged blocks of scent to waft the appropriate odor over you during, say, a bombardment or a peaceful scene in a field. And it’s . There are 20 different scent elements, apparently able to be morphed into such complex evocations as “Indian Summer,” “Hot Toddy,” and “Blueberry Cobbler.” I’m not sure I even know what cobblers smell like! Crust mainly, right? It’s pretty weird. But at $70 it’s cheaper than a lot of other peripherals I review, and the cartridges are supposed to last for 200 hours. That’s a hell of a bargain, kind of. [via ] |
4SquareAnd7YearsAgo Knows Where You Checked-In Last Year | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 2 | 21 | From the folks that brought you now comes , a simple app that emails you with a reminder of where you checked in on Foursquare a year ago. All you need to do is sign into the app on FourSquare and the app will email you with last year’s checkins. That simple. And if you didn’t check-in on any given day the email skips. Built at Foursquare by Jonathan Wegener, and Matt Raoul the app has caught the attention of Foursquare as well as and industry notables. Says Wong, Indeed, plugging into the app and receiving the email is a delightful lesson in nostalgia, Don’t know how long it will endure, but for now it’s cool. Wong is also thinking of including milestones like the top story for the day, the weather on the day, as well as other milestones in the daily email. He is even considering a making physical (paper) calendar for checkins as well as a checkin browser, when you can search for places you have checked in in the past. But for right now though Wong is just reveling in the serendipity caused by the app, moments like and the where someone checked in an ungodly number of times (the app fought back) making the execution totally worthwhile. |
Review: Razer Anansi Gaming Keyboard | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 21 |
A good keyboard for macro and shortcut lovers, but lacks ports and originality, making it fall short of a recommendation.
: The premise of the Anansi is that it’s a keyboard designed to create the maximum number of macros possible. It does this by having not only a few dedicated macro keys on the far left, but by having a full seven keys below the space bar dedicated to imitating such combinations of modifier keys as “Shift+Alt,” “Alt-Control,” just plain “Control,” and so on. of these keys!
You can customize them just like every other key on the board — Razer’s robust configuration utility allows you to set the Y key to type a Q if you want, or to perform a 50-stroke macro. So in the end, these keys are really just extra keys of no particular merit. They are located conveniently under your thumb, though, which makes them a natural fit for modifiers. The keys are regular membrane switches, not mechanical like the or scissor-switch like the Lycosa. Personally, I prefer either of those to this feel, but that’s a personal preference. The keys on this (and similar) keyboards just feel mushy after using a mechanical keyboard, and unnecessarily deep after typing on scissor switches. Backlighting is easy to configure, and can be quite bright. You can also set it to rotate through the colors, which is cool for a minute but gets old fast. There are no USB or audio ports on the keyboard, which is disappointing. Gamers use lots of accessories and are generally power users; their keyboard should be a versatile tool. The Anansi is really a one-trick pony, although if you’re a macro guy and have lots of taunts, obscure moves, or what have you, the thumb modifiers could come in handy. Overall there’s just not much to recommend the Anansi over its numerous competitors, including those by Razer. For an all-purpose keyboard either the Lycosa or Black Widow work better, and for macro fiends the keyboards (and, as someone invariably mentions, the options from Roccat) are just as good an option. For a hundred bucks you can, and should, get more keyboard than this.
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New Sony TV Would Send Different Pictures To Different Parts Of The Room | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 21 |
The technology Sony is is something we’ve heard about before, and which really might be considered one of the holy grails of tech. The basic idea is that depending on where you are in the room, you see a different image. At the moment, they can only do two images, and people sitting on opposite sides of the couch could, in the demo, both play on the full screen without seeing what the other person sees. Very cool, but imagine if you could have two channels on at once, one facing the kitchen and one facing the couch? Or three or four, with wireless headphones sending just that image’s audio to each person? Of course, taking it too far obliterates the “cooperative” nature of watching TV shows, but I think it could still be really cool. Of course, prepping people for your demo by saying “this will hurt your eyes” probably isn’t the best way to sell it. I’m guessing it’s still got a ways to go, but this could be a feature that actually sets Sony TVs apart if they pull if off. |
Adobe: Flash Coming To Android Tablets "Within A Few Weeks" | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 2 | 21 | Earlier today there was quite a bit of commotion in the tech press over a that stated that Flash wouldn’t be making its way to Android tablets until Spring 2011. Which has the potential to be pretty far off (as late as June), especially given that the Motorola Xoom — the first tablet to run Android Honeycomb — will be coming out in a few days. Now Adobe has issued a clarifying just how long we’ll have to wait: they say it will be available “within a few weeks of Android 3 (Honeycomb) devices becoming available, the first of which is expected to be the Motorola Xoom”. Which sounds like it should be around mid-March, though Adobe has still left itself some wiggle room. At least it’s a lot better than June. Adobe used the remainder of the blog post to do a little chest puffing and explain why Flash is still important to mobile (which Apple ). We are excited about the progress we’ve made optimizing Flash for tablets, alongside partners including Motorola, and expect our momentum to continue. As we announced last week, over 20 million smartphones were shipped or upgraded with Flash Player in 2010 and over 150,000 consumers on the Android Market are rating it 4.5 out of 5 stars. We have raised our estimates for 2011 and expect to see Flash installed on over 132 million devices by the end of this year. Consumers are clearly asking for Flash support on tablet devices and the good news is that they won’t have to wait long. We are aware of over 50 tablets that will ship in 2011 supporting a full web experience (including Flash support) and Xoom users will be among the first to enjoy this benefit.
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Engineers Recruit Engineers With Hackruiter | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 2 | 21 |
Previously video-hiring service , the founders behind -backed have taken the next logical step in being solving the problem of hiring good people, and have actually become recruiters themselves. While we’ve chronicled the Silicon Valley talent crunch in a , we’ve never covered a startup actually attempting to disrupt the process of engineering recruiting. Until now. Says founder Nicholas Bergson-Shilcock, What makes Hackruiter special is that founders Bergson-Shilcock and David Albert are actually the ones doing the recruiting(!). Having engineering backgrounds gives them a leg up on other recruiting services like Top Prospect and Pursuit because qualifications that sound arcane to non-technical recruiters actually mean something to them. They’re not just matching up words on a resume to words on a job description. Says Bergson-Shilcoc, The Hackruiters also is relatively transparent with their offerings. They’ll you that you can find a job on the jobs page, have an API for all their listings and don’t require applicant exclusivity. They ‘ll also increase your chances at finding a good fit, by offering relevant recommendations: If you want to work at Quora because you like Python and C++, there’s a good chance you’d be interested in which is also a Python and C++ shop. says Albert. Despite starting small, Hackruiter is selective about who they will work with and only work with good companies, who provide references for engineers (It’s usually the other way around). While not precluding eventually recruiting for a Google or a Twitter, they are starting with startups because those are the companies they know the best and the ones that most hackers never hear about. The Hackruiters are kicking off their offensive in March by travelling across the country through New York, Boston, San Francisco and Mountain View, meeting people who want to work at or just learn working at smaller startups. If you’re not near any of the three stops, you can ping them for a Skype chat |
YC-Funded HelloFax: Sign And Send Faxes From Your Browser, Without The Hassle | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 2 | 21 | In a perfect world, the fax machine would have taken the hint by now and made a graceful exit as it was supplanted by superior (and more environmentally friendly) technologies like email and e-signatures. Alas, faxes are still around, and some businesses insist on using them on a daily basis. Fortunately companies like have sprung up to serve as stand-ins for fax machines, and now there’s a new -funded startup that’s looking to make life even easier. Meet . Now, online fax services aren’t anything new. eFax and MyFax (which was just acquired by the former) both offer robust services to deal with faxes without having to actually own a machine. At least, that’s the promise. But HelloFax founders Joseph Walla and Neal O’Mara say that these services make it a pain to actually fill out forms and sign documents, which leads people to print them out, sign them, and then scan them into their computers to send them back (which sort of defeats the point). HelloFax wants to fix this. The service is quite straightforward: you upload your document and HelloFax will present it as an editable image, allowing you to add text and signatures from within your browser. Once you’ve filled out your forms and signed all the X’s, you enter an email address or phone number, and HelloFax will send it over. If you want to make your signature especially authentic you can write it on a piece of paper and upload a snapshot to HelloFax, or you can just use your mouse. eFax does actually offer software to sign documents on your computer without having to print them out, but it’s a downloadable client — HelloFax’s solution works directly from the browser, which Walla believes is an industry first. The service charges on a per-fax basis ($1.99 per fax) and it also offers subscriptions, which frequent users will want to opt for. Walla says the one-off pricing option differentiates HelloFax from eFax, which forces users to sign up for subscriptions. You’ll also get 20 faxes free if you sign up the service by Friday. At this point HelloFax can only faxes — you can’t receive them yet. Walla says this should be coming in the next month or so, and that you’ll be able to get your own HelloFax number for a premium charge. Another gripe is that the text editor really treats the whole document as an image, so you can’t jump between fields the way you could in, say, Acrobat. But even without that, I’d still rather use HelloFax over a desktop app to edit my faxes. And Walla says improvments to the editor are on the way. Note that there are even more alternatives to faxing, like EchoSign, which lets you sign documents via email. Unfortunately some businesses still demand that they receive a hard copy, which is where HelloFax comes in handy. |
Read The Fine Print: No Motorola Xoom Flash Support Until 'Spring 2011' | Nicholas Deleon | 2,011 | 2 | 21 | Bad news for those of you who were looking forward to the release of the , the world’s first Honeycomb-based tablet. It seems that the tablet , and that you’ll have to wait to sometime this spring to see proper Flash support. That’s a shame. The Xoom will be released this Thursday, and eyes keener than mine have spotted, in tiny print alongside the bottom of this ominous warning: “Adobe Flash expected Spring 2011.” Expected, eh? Let’s not forget that, technically, Spring 2011 can be anywhere from late March to late June. Wonderful, no? This, taken together with the fact that the Xoom will cost quite a bit more than the , would seem to be the kind of news that Android fans could do without. But that being said, how big of a loss is the lack of mobile Flash? It’s not like you can watch Hulu on anything but an approved browser, and YouTube and Netflix (and others) work just fine using non-Flash implementations on the iPad. Not to sound like an iPad fanboy—guess who came up with not to buy a tablet?—but I don’t see anything here that would knock it off its perch. |
Optimus 3D And Xperia Play On Pre-Order In UK For Over £500 | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 21 |
This is just one of those early, unsubsidized, let’s-not-freak-out-yet prices, but still. £520 works out to nearly 850 of our anemic US “dollars.” What does Sony-Ericsson think is, the ? And the Optimus 3D — it’s certainly a beast of a phone, but with the 3D effect not blowing us away and the market for that kind of thing rather limited, I’m not sure it’s going to move a lot of units without an 80% carrier subsidy. Hey, it happens. , and should be taken with a grain of salt. We’ll probably hear some soothing, corrective words from S-E and LG over the next week. [via ] |
Is The First Official Chrome OS Device A Monitor Or All-In-One PC? Nope. | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 2 | 21 | Earlier today we received a tip to check out the blog for the details on the first official Chrome OS device. Obviously intrigued, I clicked through. There, I read about not a notebook or netbook running the OS, but rather a monitor! Specifically, the report has Acer supposedly unveiling this “monitor”, or perhaps all-in-one PC, called the DX241H, as the first actual Chrome OS device. Several other along these lines followed. Weird, right? Well yes. Because from what we’re hearing, that’s just not true at all. |
The iASUS Stealth Bluetooth Throat Mic Instantly Makes You Hardcore | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 2 | 21 |
Live out your SOCOM fantasy with the Stealth throat mic from iASUS Concepts. It picks up sound directly from the throat thanks to properly-placed sensors just like the military models. This of course would be perfect for loud environments such as on a motorcycle or in a daycare. (1000 bonus points if you wear a throat mic in a daycare) It’s just a concept right now and may never come to the market apparently thanks to its high cost of development. Jokes aside, there’s probably a market for a Bluetooth throat mic with all the boys playing real-life CoD: Black Ops with Airsoft guns. [ via ] |
Kinect For Windows SDK Coming This Spring | Nicholas Deleon | 2,011 | 2 | 21 | Put on your coding hats! Microsoft will release for Windows this spring. It will be a non-commercial release, and is being developed for “academic research and enthusiast communities to create even richer experiences using technology.” No more having to hack together Kinect PC support for your various exploits. Microsoft says there will be a commercial version of the SDK, but they’ve given no details of that release as yet. The SDK will give developers access to “audio, system APIs, and direct control of the sensor.” I can see it now: a few months from now Microsoft will release a Kinect PC package, and you’ll be able control Windows Media Center (or other Windows media centers, like XMBC) with your flailing limbs. Should be interesting to see what the tinkers out there come up with here. |
Despite 861.5 Percent Growth, Android Market Revenues Remain Puny | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 2 | 21 | You read the headline , and you think, “Wow, Android is really on a tear.” But then you look at the fine print, and you realize that Android Market revenues are still barely registering, and that the only reason they grew so much in 2010 was because in 2009 they were nearly non-existent. According to a chart making the rounds from UK-based research firm , Android Market revenues in 2010 came in at an estimated $102 million, up from $11 million the year before. And how did that compare to revenues from Apple’s App Store? Apple App Store revenues came in at an estimated $1.7 billion in 2010, almost 20 times bigger than Android. And Apple App Store revenue grew at a not-too-shabby 131.9 percent rate. More importantly, Apple accounts for 83 percent of the total estimated app store revenues. It’s great that Android app store revenues are growing so fast, but whenever you see such sky-high numbers, be sure to look at what is the base they are growing from. Android will have to keep growing at astounding rates for a few more years simply to catch up to where Apple’s App Store is today. If you are an app developer trying to make money, you still really don’t have much of a choice about where to put your apps. No wonder Apple feels like it can any it , and an increasing percentage of their revenues. |
A Very Happy 25th Birthday To The Legend Of Zelda | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 21 |
We’re seeing a lot of 25th anniversaries of well-loved gaming franchises lately, and for good reason: the NES came out in 1986, so necessarily its launch titles and big sellers will be having birthdays around now. They’re like the baby boomer generation of games, all the same age, all sharing the same historical milestones. “Remember when we went 16-bit for the first time?” I sure do. At any rate, Zelda has to be among the top few game franchises of all time, not just in sales, but in mindshare. Personally, my favorite is still on SNES. Agree? Disagree? Let’s just take a minute to appreciate how awesome these games have been.
… There we go. Thanks for all the good times, Link (and link-alikes). And one last thing that may blow your mind if you didn’t know it already: Yeah, they’re all on the same map. |
Sequoia Leads $15 Million Round In Wireless Networking Company Meraki | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 2 | 7 | the cloud-based wireless networking company, has raised $15 million in Series C funding led by Sequoia Capital. This brings Meraki’s total funding to Previous investors include Google, DAG Ventures and Northgate Capital. Meraki provides hardware and software for building large scale wireless networks that are used by businesses, schools, and other organizations. Meraki has provided that covers about 4 square miles in San Francisco. And Meraki also powers WiFi for businesses and organizations, including Burger King, Albany State University, Stanford, Telmex, Epic Management and THQ. The company, which grew out of a research project at MIT in 2006, says that it ended 2010 with over 17,000 networks deployed worldwide and over 35 million client devices connected. The new funding will be used towards R&D in Meraki’s cloud networking technologies and to scale sales and marketing activities. |
Fujifilm Finally Makes The X100 Officially Official | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 7 |
Although I would have said that a camera is “official” when you announce it and make a whole microsite about it, Fujifilm is slightly less cavalier about their camera lineup, and only today are making the gorgeous and powerful X100 truly . We’ve talked about it , even played with it , but I’ll just put the final specs and info here for good measure. The X100 is a compact camera with a DSLR-grade APS-C sensor producing 12 megapixels. It has a 23mm (35mm equivalent) F/2 prime lens, a 480×320 LCD, and what they’re calling a “hybrid viewfinder,” which works both as an EVF and a regular optical rangefinder. This feature would be worth mentioning even if the rest of the camera didn’t look damned sexy. Fujifilm “married” the lens to the sensor, optimizing image quality for that focal length and glass. There are dedicated focus and aperture rings on the lens, allowing for full manual control. The sensor is supposedly high-sensitivity, going from 200-6400 ISO (expandable to 100-12800), but what really matters is that fast F/2 lens. It’ll do 720p video as well. The hybrid viewfinder works either as a high-res EVF (800×600) or as a traditional rangefinder that uses the LCD to display extra information. You can switch between the two modes quickly with a dedicated switch, and I can confirm that it works great. Its retro style is based on the rangefinder cameras of yore, and the body and dials are metal. The black part is “leather-like,” but we’ll forgive them. Probably there will be special editions with real leather and other materials. Now, let’s get the the hard part: this camera costs $1199.95. That’s twice as much as some very capable DSLRs, and more than similarly compact micro four-thirds cameras like the Olympus E-PL2 and Panasonic’s G-series. There’s only one way to find out whether it’s worth the money: read our review when the camera comes out in March. Here’s the full press release; you can read more at the X100 microsite. Captures Extraordinary, High Quality Images with a Combination of Modern Technology –
APS CMOS Sensor, Fixed Focal Length FUJINON Lens and Debuting the World’s First Hybrid Viewfinder – All Presented in a Classically Beautiful Design Valhalla, N.Y., February 8, 2011 – FUJIFILM North America Corporation today announced the U.S. debut of its FinePix X100 premium digital camera which will begin shipping in March. Inspired by the groundswell of requests by professional and advanced amateur photographers from around the world, Fujifilm has developed a digital camera that was specifically engineered to appeal to this group’s desire for capturing the highest quality images through a high-performance, beautifully crafted compact digital camera. The FinePix X100 is a high precision digital compact camera that combines modern technology with a traditional camera design to deliver the ultimate in image quality. Featuring an APS-C CMOS sensor (12.3 megapixel), a FUJINON 23mm Single Focal Length Fixed F2 lens, a 2.8” LCD 460K, and the world’s first Hybrid Viewfinder, the FinePix X100 captures exceptionally high quality images. “It has always been important for Fujifilm to introduce products that are in a class of their own and with the FinePix X100, we have achieved that level,” said Go Miyazaki, division president, Imaging and Electronic Imaging Divisions, FUJIFILM North America Corporation. “The combination of a hybrid viewfinder, large APS-C sensor and a precisely matched prime lens, make this camera unique to anything else in the market, and is presented within a rangefinder design that makes it an instant modern classic.” Quality Within – Custom 12.3 MP APS-C CMOS Sensor
The FinePix X100 features a custom 12.3 megapixel APS-C CMOS high-performance sensor, internally optimized and developed exclusively for this model. Optimization of the angle-of-incidence in conjunction with the specially developed lens maximizes light gathering efficiency extending to the perimeter of the sensor for a sharper image with exceptional clarity. When shooting HD movies, the combination of the large-sized sensor and the large aperture F2 lens, lets users create a soft out-of-focus image — a capability not available in conventional compact cameras. The ideal combination of a fixed focal length lens, high-sensitivity sensor (approximately 10 times the sensitivity of a conventional compact*) and a high-performance image processor captures extremely high quality images from low sensitivity to high sensitivity. In standard form, the planned ISO range is from 200 to 6400, but this can be expanded to include 100 and 12800. The newly developed EXR Processor takes EXR processing to new heights. Combined with the high-sensitivity sensor, the EXR Processor achieves the highest resolution, sensitivity and dynamic range ever produced by a FinePix digital camera for the ultimate in image quality. The high-speed CMOS sensor read-out and the EXR Processor’s enhanced focusing system contribute to the high-speed AF performance, while the combination of the optical viewfinder and extremely low shutter lag time enhance the image capture experience. A Quality All Its Own – High-performance 23mm F2 FUJINON Lens
The FinePix X100 comes with a new FUJINON non-collapsible lens structure that expands the realm of photographic expression with sharper resolution from the center to the corners. It has a 23mm (135 equivalent: 35mm) F2 lens, with eight elements in six groups. One aspherical glass molded lens. The adoption of the non-collapsible lens structure with minimized lens length not only contributes to the compact size, but also eliminates telescoping of the lens when the power is on. It’s ready to start taking photos the moment the user turns it on. In addition, the lens features not only the large F2 aperture value, but also an optical architecture that maintains a high degree of resolution even when closed by 1 to 2 stops. The adoption of a 9-blade aperture diaphragm combined with the large F2 aperture and high-quality optics lets users take photos with a beautiful circular soft out-of-focus (bokeh) effect. With macro shooting capability as close as four inches, users can explore the fun and fascination of close-up photography. The built-in ND filter (equivalent f-stop reduction of three) can be switched ON/OFF via simple in-camera settings.
Quality You Can See – World’s First Hybrid Viewfinder
The true enjoyment of photography begins with the thrill of seeing the world through a viewfinder. The new Hybrid Viewfinder has been developed to reintroduce users to this essential camera experience. It combines the window-type “bright frame” optical viewfinder found in rangefinder-type film cameras such as the classic 135-size or medium-format cameras, with the electronic viewfinder system incorporated in most compact or mirrorless digital cameras. By integrating a prism for the 1,440,000 dot LCD panel image on the viewing screen in the reverse-Galilean optical finder, the Hybrid Viewfinder can show both the shooting frame and a variety of electronic shooting data. It can also be used as a high-quality electronic viewfinder to compose or playback shots. With this ability to instantly switch between optical and electronic viewfinder modes using the simple “one touch” control, the new Hybrid Viewfinder offers users expanded freedom in the composition and enjoyment of photography in a wide range of challenging shooting conditions. The reverse Galilean optical finder with a 0.5X magnification features all-glass elements made from high-refractive index glass and demonstrates low chromatic aberration and distortion.
In optical viewfinder (OVF) mode, the brightness of both the “bright frame” and text data is automatically adjusted according to the brightness of scene area, ensuring that shooting information is always easily and clearly viewable. Also, the displayed shooting data is constantly updated according to changes in shutter speed, exposure, sensitivity and other settings, so that the user’s eye never has to leave the viewfinder. In electronic viewfinder (EVF) mode, the photographer can preview the picture or playback the result with the “through the sensor” image review and high-resolution 1,440,000-dot quality. With a flick of the one-touch lever, the user can switch to EVF to preview and confirm exposure settings, depth-of-field, and white balance – an especially useful capability when shooting macro shots and other scenes that are hard to confirm with only an optical viewfinder. Quality of Beauty – Stunning Retro Design
The FinePix X100 features a beautiful, high-quality design inspired by the classic look and feel of traditional film cameras. The top cover of the upper control deck and the bottom surface have been die-cast from magnesium alloy (semi-solid metal casting), contributing to a high-precision camera body. All dials and rings are precision milled from metal. The ergonomics of the design offer the perfect balance between compact convenience and user-friendly functionality. Traditional ‘manual’ dials lets the user confirm the position of the settings without turning on the power. The camera’s controls have been carefully thought out to give the photographer simple and speedy access to aperture, shutter speed, exposure compensation…etc, allowing maximum creative expression with minimum hassle and enabling the user to view settings – even when the power of the camera is turned off. Custom modes can also be accessed with a one-touch settings change. The chassis has been finished with high-quality leather-like accents and is both a delight to use and a pleasure to hold. RAW Quality – Image Enhancement Functions
Capturing the scene in RAW format is easy with just a press of the readily accessible RAW Button on the back of the camera. Photographers can use the built-in RAW Development function to process the RAW data in-camera using the camera’s image quality settings. In addition to Fujifilm’s original Film Simulation Modes that give photos the distinctive look of Velvia, PROVIA and ASTIA color reversal film emulsions, X100 expands the scope of photo expression with Monochrome Mode that can be fine-tuned with R/Ye/G filter settings. Separate adjustment of shadow tones and highlight tones lets users reproduce the rich tonality of high-contrast subjects. Added Quality – The FinePix X100 also offers these additional features:
EVF/OVF Focus Area: The FinePix X100 offers users the choice between the 49-point auto EVF focus area or the 25-point OVF auto focus area as well as the selection of 5 different focus area sizes in EVF mode. Depending on the needs of each scene, the FinePix X100 offers easy focusing by design.
HD Movie mode: Lets users capture the action in 720p high-definition detail. Just like taking still photos, users can capture movies with aperture-priority AE and enjoy a soft, defocused background effect. In addition, the built-in HDMI Mini connector allows users to easily and directly connect the FinePix X100 to high-definition TVs for showing stills and movies with plug-and-play ease.
Motion Panorama: With the built-in Motion Panorama function, it is easy to capture 180° and 120° panoramic photos. Later users can print the results as pin-sharp A3-size (11.7” X 16.5”) enlargements and share the enjoyment of high-quality panoramic photography.
Multi-Bracketing Functions: The FinePix X100 has four types of bracketing functions: AE, ISO, Dynamic Range and Film Simulation. One click of the shutter captures 3 bracketed images of the scene so the photographer knows he’s captured the moment.
Star Quality – Premium Accessory Lineup
The FinePix X100 has these additional elegant accessory options:
Luxury Case: To perfectly compliment the look and premium quality feel of the X100 camera body, a retro leather “quick shot” case with matching strap has been designed to fit the X100 like a glove. Made out of luxurious leather it has been designed with uncompromising attention to detail, ensuring the ultimate ease of use and practicality.
Lens Hood and Adapter Ring: Precision milled from metal, the lens hood and adapter ring will be available as a set. The adapter ring is also compatible with commercially sold 49mm filters.
Auto Flash (TTL – Through The Lens): EF-20 (Guide Number:20) and EF-42 (Guide Number:42) will be newly added to the TTL flash lineup. Pricing and Availability
The FinePix X100 digital camera will be available in March 2011, and will be priced at $1,199.95. *Compared with other FinePix compact camera models. |
Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky: Sarah Lacy's New Book Is All That. But… | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 2 | 7 | TechCrunch Editor Sarah Lacy’s new book has been out for a couple of weeks now. I had an early copy and read it, but held off on a review until an independent ones came in. In the meantime, I read it again. Because I realized that Sarah kind of has it all wrong. Or at least didn’t draw the final conclusion that I did based on all her work. Not to knock the book. It’s an excellent piece of journalism, taken from nearly a year of traveling around the world to meet with entrepreneurs in Asia, Africa, Israel and South America. To try to understand how entrepreneurs are reshaping their worlds in those places, and how America is sometimes being left behind. There are some truly amazing stories. A Brazilian named Marco Gomes who grew up in the slums of Rio before eventually starting his own company, getting featured on TechCrunch, raising venture capital and running forward from there. A slew of fearless Chinese entrepreneurs who are creating some of the most trafficked websites on the Internet. And, even, an entrepreneur in Rwanda who made his first entrepreneurial strides by producing…toilet paper. Lacy is right that entrepreneurship is spreading around the world in ways that it never did before. And she’s right that Americans need to, and in many cases are, taking note and making investments in these non-U.S. entrepreneurs. And she’s right that we are not holding on to enough immigrants, which are a crucial part of many of Silicon Valley’s most successful startups. “One quarter of successful Silicon Valley companies were started by immigrants,” Lacy says, mentioning Intel, PayPal, Google and Yahoo. But Sarah seems to be arguing that there’s something to fear in the spread of entrepreneurism, that the more of it that happens outside of Silicon Valley, the more we should be worried. I don’t think that’s the case. I agree, strongly, that we should do more to spur entrepreneurism here. Mostly by . But here’s what I think people, particularly governments, should really be taking from the book: Shame on you. Shame on you that in Rwanda Jean de Dieu Kagabo chose to make toilet paper instead of starting the next multi-billion dollar tech company. Or that a brilliant kid in Brazil needs to worry about getting shot by drug dealers. Or that Indian entrepreneurs need to worry about electricity and water. Or that Chinese entrepreneurs live in nearly perfect economic freedom but ignore the elephant in the room – an oppressive government that occasionally shuts down businesses on a political whim. Yes, people like Jean de Dieu Kagabo and Marco Gomes and all the rest will always find a way to make their lives better through entrepreneurship. War, poverty, hunger and oppression won’t keep them down. But it sure does stifle them. Far better for the world to make life more bearable for people, and see where entrepreneurs lead them. Then, maybe, Silicon Valley can start to get its butt kicked. Which maybe will get our politicians to ease up on milking that cow. Which will spur more international competition. And human progress will move forward at an accelerated pace. Sarah’s book opened my eyes. But not to the risk that Silicon Valley can be toppled. Rather, she opened my eyes to the untenable constraints that people around the world have to work with. And damnit, that needs to change. Silicon Valley isn’t a place. It’s an idea. And whether you’re making toilet paper in Rwanda or building gaming companies in Asia, you’re part of it. So buy this book. And read it. You may not agree with me, but you’ll better understand the world, and our community. And maybe help future entrepreneurs channel their energy into even more amazing things. |
Drobo Takes Aim At Small Businesses With New 12-Bay Version | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 7 |
Over the years we’ve seen expand its portfolio of devices from a strictly consumer-oriented lineup to a broader and more business-friendly one. October’s made a beeline for small businesses by mashing up its networking-centric FS series with the 8-drive Pro series. And now they’re taking that a step further with the 12-bay version of the same. There’s a naming convention change, too, with numbers and everything, something I never thought I’d see Drobo do. The new B1200i denotes the 12 bays it has and the iSCSI interface. What was wrong with “DroboDozen”? Naming aside, the new Drobo actually does have some new tricks. It’s got three iSCSI ports on the back and a new priority on actual fileserver duty and virtualization. It’s got support for thin provisioning too, and of course all that off-site backup jazz and data optimization magic that makes Drobo Drobo. It’ll be shipping in Q2; you can get one kitted out with 12 2TB drives (24TB total) for under ten thousand, it seems, which definitely isn’t home user territory. Unless you’re rich and addicted to high-definition —entertainment. The 8-drive Drobos have also gotten a facelift, literally with the new design, but also in the form of new names and capabilities. The 8-drive versions come in the B800i and B800FS varieties, sporting iSCSI and traditional Ethernet ports respectively. Here’s the full press release, which goes into a little more detail, but if you’re really thinking about using one or two of these for your business, it’s probably best to get specifics from IT before setting your heart on them. New Drobo Business Line Delivers “Big Storage in a Small Box” –
Unprecedented Combination of Technical Sophistication, Ease of Use and
Affordability for Small and Medium Businesses SANTA CLARA, Calif. – February 8, 2011 – Drobo
, makers of the award-winning data storage products for businesses and
professionals, today introduced a new line of sophisticated yet
easy-to-use and affordable storage solutions for small and medium
businesses (SMBs). Designed specifically for customers who need
critical business storage capacity without the complexity and price of
legacy storage solutions, the new Drobo business systems are optimal
as primary and secondary storage for Microsoft Exchange®, Sharepoint®,
and similar business applications, departmental file-sharing or
offsite backup, and server virtualization deployments including those
using VMware solutions. “VMware recognizes the importance of affordable storage alternatives
for firms implementing virtualization as they continue on the path
toward IT as a service,” explained Parag Patel, vice president, global
strategic alliances, VMware. “Like larger organizations, SMBs are
looking for ways to improve productivity and lower IT costs. Drobo
streamlines VMware-virtualized storage for SMBs by delivering storage
that is simple, scalable, and automated – all with an affordable price
tag.” With over 150,000 customers worldwide, Drobo has already been embraced
by individual professionals and small businesses globally; the new
Drobo business systems up the ante with improved system performance
and redundancy, a new business-oriented dashboard and control panel
and upgraded business support options – all while maintaining Drobo’s
breakthrough ease-of-use and the BeyondRAID™ data protection
capabilities that define the Drobo brand. “A complex quote, full of techno-babble and corporate speak, wouldn’t
represent Drobo fairly,” said Mark Peters, senior analyst at
Enterprise Strategy Group. “Now available for small-to-medium
businesses, Drobo is what it has always been – surprisingly advanced
and scalable storage, packaged and priced for people who don’t need to
have doctorates or second mortgages to have easy, functional,
sophisticated capabilities at their fingertips.” “Our customers aren’t shy; they have tried Drobo for themselves and
are now demanding more Drobos for the rest of their business,” said
Tom Buiocchi, CEO at Drobo. “Our new Drobos for business storage
continue to meld even more ‘big technology’ and ‘Drobo ease-of-use’
for the best storage experience ever.” Today’s announcement covers a new Drobo family of products designed
with business in mind. These products include: · 8-bay file sharing Drobo with remote backup (Available now) · 8-bay SAN (iSCSI-attached) Drobo (Available now) · 12-bay SAN (iSCSI-attached) Drobo with expanded redundancy
features, support for thin provisioning and deprovisioning and new
data-aware tiering technology (Reserve now, shipping Q2-11) Drobo’s new business line also includes performance enhancements, new
management software and extended business support and services, in
addition to the existing ease of use, affordable capacity and storage
features that set Drobo apart from any other storage product on the
market. The systems are based on the patented BeyondRAID
™ technology and are
certified for VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Exchange and Symantec backup. Prices start just above $2K. The new line of business products is
available for purchase at http://www.Drobo.com
. Drobo also announced its new Business Premier partner program and
customer milestone of 150,000 sold. Both press releases can be
accessed online at http://www.drobo.com/news/press_releases
. About Drobo
Drobo makes award-winning data storage products for Small and Medium
Businesses and Individual professionals that provide an unprecedented
combination of sophisticated data protection and management features,
affordable capacity, and ease-of-use. Based on the patented and proven
BeyondRAID™ technology, Drobo’s ability to deliver “Big Storage in a
Small Box” creates the best storage experience ever for small and
medium businesses and hundreds of thousands of individual
professionals worldwide, who use it to support their file backup and
media archiving, server virtualization, and email application needs.
To learn more, visit http://www.drobo.com or follow us on Twitter
@drobo. ### Data Robotics, Drobo, DroboPro, DroboElite and BeyondRAID are
trademarks of Data Robotics, Inc., that may be registered in some
jurisdictions. VMware is a registered trademark and/or trademark of
VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All
other trademarks used are owned by their respective owners. |
Nokia heading to Silicon Valley? And the 'Standing on a burning platform' memo | Steve O'Hear | 2,011 | 2 | 7 | With Nokia expected to unveil a shift in its long term strategy at the company’s annual Capital Markets Day this Friday, it should be no surprise that rumor and conjecture are rife. Much of that has focused on whether or not the Finnish mobile giant will be adopting a third-party platform with talk of Windows Phone 7 given previous connection with Redmond. A rumor that our well-placed sources would appear to confirm – see below. But we’re also hearing that Nokia is planning to lay down stronger roots in Silicon Valley too – like so many a European tech outfit – something that The Register’s Andrew Orlowski . And in what looks like preparing the troops for a major change of direction, an internal Nokia memo titled ‘Standing on a burning platform’ has been doing the rounds. The widely distributed circular penned by Elop himself is a description of Nokia’s somewhat precarious position – and I say that as someone who has been fairly bullish . Specifically, our sources say that the memo paints a picture of a smartphone market in which Apple owns the high end, Android is winning in the mid-range, and Chinese competitors – MediaTek is singled out – are likely to snatch the low end. In other words, Nokia is being attacked on all fronts. Symbian and MeeGo are cited as simply not being competitive enough. Instead, the choices facing the company, as hinted at by Elop in Nokia’s recent earnings call, are to “build, catalyse or join” – the implication, says one source, is that to build is a reference to Symbian or Meego, catalyse refers to Windows Phone 7 and join would mean Android. Of course, becoming yet-another-Android offering would be a massive change of direction for Nokia which has (in my opinion, rightly) always had a home grown platform strategy. ‘ ‘, if you will. The move to support Windows Phone 7, a burgeoning although financially well backed mobile OS, would also be a major sea change. One well-placed source says to expect this to indeed happen, though perhaps not till 2012, as Nokia tries again to find greater success in North America. Another source close to the company says that in the longer term Windows Phone will in fact become the company’s primary platform. I’d find that staggering. Which brings us back to Nokia “moving” to Silicon Valley. The Register talks of the company considering setting up a virtual HQ in the U.S., rather than actually relocating its major operations away from Finland and London. We understand this to mean that the CEO’s office (strategy, marketing) could move to Silicon Valley and probably MeeGo’s development too. We’re not sure where this would leave Symbian although one source who claims to be privy to the company’s plans suggests that the N8 “generation” of devices will be end of line for the platform. MeeGo is also described by our source as on life support. Lastly, we’re told that the memo ends with the metaphor of a man jumping off the platform into the unknown to avoid certain death – hence its title. More should become clear on Friday, of course, although how much of Nokia’s hard and fast plans will be stated depends on “how much drama” Elop wants to make, says one source. The internal memo is designed to set the context – the why – while Friday should officially reveal the what. As always, watch this space. |
NoSQL Companies CouchOne And Membase Merge To Form Couchbase | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 2 | 7 | NoSQL companies unite! (f ) and have decided to merge to form , which will provide a comprehensive family of NoSQL (which focuses on adding horizontal scalability to databases) database products for enterprise companies. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. CouchOne, which has raised in venture funding, provides database products powered by CouchDB, a free open source indexable document database server which uses Javascript as a query language. CouchDB is designed for the reporting and storage of large amounts of semi-structured, document oriented data. Membase’s data management technology, which in 2009, is designed for web-based companies, particularly startups that deal with large amounts of transactional data. For example, social gaming giant Zynga and AOL use Membase’s database technology. Membase’s elastic data infrastructure software promises to cache frequently used data while also offering performance and scalability. In fact, Membase, which has raised in funding, says that its core technology powers 18 of the top 20 largest websites. As part of the deal, Membase’s CEO, Bob Wiederhold, will become CEO of the combined company, with CouchOne CEO Damien Katz serving as Couchbase CTO. However, the merger not only results in the joining of two companies, but also combines CouchDB, memcached and Membase technologies. Together, the new company, Couchbase, will offer an end-to-end database solution that can be stored on a single server or spread across hundreds of servers. Both Membase and CouchOne’s founders say the merger makes the end product a more comprehensive offering. For example, now Couchbase’s offerings are optimized for the data center, desktop and mobile devices. Products will include Elastic Couchbase (formerly Membase Server, Couchbase (for smaller Couchbase production deployments), mobile Couchbase (for iOS apps), and Hosted Couchbase. |
Groundcrew Offers a Platform to Help You Mobilize Your Team of Do-Gooders | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 2 | 7 | Last week, , angel investor ’s new seed fund aimed at supporting for-profit startups with a social mission. Specifically, Collaborative Fund is investing in companies that apply emerging technologies to peer-to-peer collaboration—like sharing, bartering, trading, and organizing—in order to benefit the greater good. Joining Shapiro in his quest is a formidable group of talent, including YouTube founder , Kiva co-founder , and founder and chairman of Media Labs . One of the Collaborative Fund’s recent investments is , a company that utilizes geo-location and messaging to help average Joes and businesses coordinate mobile teams. Unlike the hyper-focus of an app like , Groundcrew has broader, more community-conscious goals in mind than helping a dude get laid. Reflecting Collaborative Fund’s effort to promote social enterprises responding to broken or outdated models, Groundcrew CEO told me that the inspiration for the platform grew out of his experience as a relief worker in post-Katrina New Orleans. The appallingly slow coordination and mobilization of relief in the wake of Katrina was a well-documented nightmare and made the public’s (and government’s) need for a better model for geo-coordination frighteningly clear. Groundcrew aims to capitalize on the beginnings of a geo-coordination revolution by offering web and mobile software that allows individuals, businesses, and teams to rally community members around a particular issue, gather them in real life, mobilize those teams in real-time, and reuse, manage, and share resources during and after those events. The uses of this service are potentially endless; think of it as a way to organize and coordinate everything from house parties and oil rig evacuations to medical care and traffic flow. Traditionally, only large organizations with multi-million dollar budgets have had access to realtime planning and mobilization software, but today we’re seeing a host of small companies entering the market with the goal of coordinating real-world activity from car-sharing and dating to carpools—like , , , and to name a few. These companies have begun to disrupt the traditional model, offering location information, mobile messaging, opportunity detection, and integration with social media — all great features. However, on the back-end, for developers looking to create apps or scale their clients’ services using these features, they’re often forced to create a mobile client for each mobile platform, bridges to social media APIs, an SMS infrastructure, in order to achieve these goals. This can be time-consuming and impractical. Groundcrew offers these functions, along with the ability to see which of your team members are available and contact them via SMS, IM, Twitter, or email, but it hopes to set itself apart by seeing the broad picture and doing the hard work for both businesses and developers. To make their jobs easier, for example, Groundcrew provides access to its mobile clients’ open-source libraries as well as its own web-based interface, scripting language, and API, allowing developers to create branded apps without the fuss and the muss. Edelman says that the current mindset of the geo-coordination space is to “treat coordination as a kind of special sauce. This is comparable to the state of websites before the rise of WordPress, Drupal, wikis, and Google Sites. What we’re going to do to this market is make it easy for even complete amateurs…” In order to make it a one-stop shop platform for all your coordination needs, the Groundcrew team, which includes co-founder and former Interaction Designer at Google and Head of Communications , wrote its own scripting language, called (Coordinated Event Markup Language). The team claims that CEML is the “first system for scripting group dynamics and organizational logistics,” which allows developers to write actions that could, “say, rapidly divide a stadium worth of people into six-person teams with different roles and assignments.” You can check it out on their API page . While similar enterprises like Uber may have more visibility and user adoption, Groundcrew has already raised $700,000 of funding from Collaborative Fund and investors like Dave McClure and Jason Calcanis, and a few Bay Area organizations have begun testing Groundcrew pilots, including the Red Cross, San Francisco-based game developer, Situate, and eldercare group called Avenidas. So, are you looking to organize and coordinate a crowd of groupies for your Hall & Oates coverband’s big show, or plan a surprise birthday party for your cat? Groundcrew thinks that making their software available to ordinary people, communities, and businesses like yours has big potential. |
null | Jay Donovan | 2,011 | 2 | 21 | null |
Malcolm Gladwell Book Generator, Because Really, How Hard Could It Be? | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 2 | 7 | Looks like the Malcolm Gladwell has reached its tipping point. (YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE?). Inspired by such weighty titles as and Cory Bortnicker and Brett Molé have built a of 25 Gladwellian book covers like the above , Y , and (my personal favorite) . What did Gladwell do to warrant such opprobrium? He the power of the Internet. Gasp! Gladwell is, get this, not interested in the tools of new media, let’s make fun of him. Malcolm Gladwell, you’re old/not tech savvy! Okay okay, so maybe I live for the day where I get paid to write shallow Gladwell-esque non-fiction about whatever pseudo-intellectual lark strikes my fancy (not). I really want to add a smiley at the end of that sentence. In any case, Gladwell might actually be writing I think it could really take off. /via |
After Failing To Get Hacked Last Year, Google Paying For Chrome To Be In Pwn2Own 2011 | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 2 | 7 | Last year, after two full days of hacking, only one web browser emerged from Pwn2Own unscathed: Google Chrome. IE8, Safari 4, Firefox 3, and even Safari on iOS actually all fell after just one day, but no one could seem to penetrate Chrome. In fact, despite a $10,000 bounty to crack their “sandbox”, , likely figuring it was futile. And so this year, Pwn2Own wasn’t even going to invite Chrome back. Then Google stepped in with wads of cash. While the lineup for Pwn2Own 2011 was announced a , Google took the time today to give about their role in the event. Of note, they write: “ .” In other words: bring it, hackers. Specifically, Google worked with the conference to come up with rules for hacking the code found in Chromium (the open source browser on which Chrome is based). On day one, if anyone is able get nail a working exploit of Chrome (again, cracking the sandbox), Google will pay them $20,000. On day two and three, the same $20,000 will be paid out for “bugs in the kernel, device drivers, system libraries, etc,” but Google and the conference will split the cost of that reward (since Google says it cares more about the first variety). It says a lot that Chrome was the one browser not hacked last year. It says even more than this year they’re sponsoring their own participation and doubling the reward. But it’s now for Google to dish out cash rewards for people who find issues with their browser. And it’s a really smart idea. One thing Google does note is that Chrome OS, which is built with Chrome, is not a part of this competition. Because it’s still “beta” software, Google apparently doesn’t feel confident enough in it yet for it to stand up to the hackers. |
Paul Carr, Naked In A Hotel Corridor, Embarrasses TechCrunch Yet Again | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 2 | 7 | , our on again, off again, sometimes full time employee, often irregular contributor, reminds me of a certain ex girlfriend. It’s a dramatic relationship, always interesting, but you just know it’s going to end up a mess. Still, I love his . And don’t get me wrong, We encourage our writers and editors to build their personal brand. been on Charlie Rose, which pleased his mother to no end. Most of our writers are occasionally talking heads on various cable news shows. has published two books on entrepreneurship (h ). CrunchGear Editor a book about Marie Antoinette’s watch, the “iPhone of its day,” for as long as I’ve known him. Paul Carr, though. He’s got (and it’s good). And the next one, about his life living in hotels (he only lives in hotels, all the time), is on . So the logical next step in building his personal brand? A multi-page feature article in the UK’s Loaded magazine. Talking about how hard he parties in hotels. And featuring pictures of barely dressed women in said hotels. . Images from the print version on Paul’s blog . Here’s what we learn about Paul. Three years, close to 300 hotels and about a million anecdotes later, Paul symbolises a freedom man would sell his own sister to achieve – living like James Bond in a different hotel each night for next to nothing, whether it’s a penthouse in Vegas, studio in the Spanish mountains or his most regular haunt: a three-room suite in San Francisco, successfully wangled for a mere $40 a night. and “I woke up drunk, stark fucking naked in a hotel corridor, no idea how I got there. I was sitting outside my room, I didn’t have any clothes so obviously I didn’t have my key. “This hotel was a boutique with few windows, so I couldn’t tell if it was noon or 3am. Having to go down to the hotel lobby, awkwardly covering myself up and begging this massive Russian night porter to let me back into my room while he stood as far away from me as he possibly could in the lift… it was one of those moments where I thought: ‘This is not a way for a grown man to live.’” Thanks Paul. We couldn’t be prouder. |
iPhone App Fragmentation FUD Is Looming | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 2 | 7 | ZDNet ran a story this afternoon with a very provocative headline: ? Oh no! Android was supposed to be the platform with the fragmentation problem, not the iPhone! The end must be near, right? Nah. Author James Kendrick notes that Telenav has just unveiled a version of their turn-by-turn navigation app that will work on the Verizon iPhone. More to the point, Kendrick says that Telenav told him that the app had to be reworked to work on the new device. Leaving aside that the original app was called the “AT&T Navigator”, so clearly they had to rework the name, Kendrick notes, “ So what kind of modifications? Well, Telenav wouldn’t explicitly say. “ ” Kendrick writes. Hmm. Okay. But wait, I’ve been using the Verizon iPhone for about two weeks now as . I’ve used dozens of apps on the new hardware and haven’t once found an app that would not work. This includes several location apps which make use of the phone’s GPS chip. They all work, unmodified. Further, when I spoke with Apple about apps running on the Verizon iPhone versus the AT&T variety, they assured me that all my apps would run the same just as they always have. They did note that Verizon may launch some of their own apps just as AT&T has, which obviously would not run on the other hardware. But that seems to be more up to the carriers, and tying into their own services, and less about technical hurdles. And wait, let’s look at the AT&T Navigator. Why is the AT&T name even in the title? Oh, because it is billed directly to your AT&T statement. That, while not mentioned, would definitely be something that would prevent it from working on the Verizon iPhone. There are clearly some internal changes to the Verizon iPhone — the CDMA chip and a revamped antenna design, chief among them — but I’m failing to see how those will lead to apps that have to be reworked and thus, lead to a fragmentation of the App Store. Maybe there’s something special about turn-by-turn apps (I don’t use any). But beyond carrier billing, I’m just not sure what that is. It definitely doesn’t seem to be the GPS chip that is causing an issue, or Foursquare, Gowalla, and the like would have issues too. They don’t. The point is that while “fragmentation looming” sounds scary and makes for a sexy headline, it’s complete nonsense from my perspective. That is, the perspective of someone who has used all of his apps — again, unmodified — on the Verizon iPhone. : ZDNet has correcting their earlier one. They key part of Telenav’s update to them: The only differences in the development of the application from our perspective are related to backend items not related to the hardware including 1.) billing changes due to the Verizon version being billed to the iTunes account and AT&T Navigator being billed on the AT&T bill 2.) Branding differences in the app design due to this being a TeleNav branded application and 3.) The feature sets of TeleNav GPS and AT&T Navigator are different and the app needed to be re-designed for this as well. So, like we was likely the case above, what needed to be changed was mainly the billing and branding information. |
Kindle Update Brings "Real" Page Numbering And More | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 7 |
If you’re one of the users who is inconsistent page numbering between editions, this update should come as a pleasant surprise. Amazon is adding page numbers that correspond to the printed versions of books, so you can use the old citing style or just tell your friend reading the paperback that it’s “on page 215.” They’re also adding a new “Public Notes” feature that lets you make your annotations public, allowing anyone to read your extensive notes on . This could be really nice for, say, English classes, where you could easily write up a note for the end of every chapter and share it with your teacher. You turn this feature on and off at the book level, so your fanfic scribbled in the virtual margins of will remain private, with luck for all time. There’s also a new layout for newspapers and magazines, but you’ll have to install it yourself to find out what like. Probably not wildly different. It’s officially just a preview at the moment, so you have to install manually, but it’ll go out over the air when it’s fully baked. No word on when that’ll be. More details at the . |
By The Time US Gaming Giants Figure Out Tencent's Playbook It May Be Too Late | Sarah Lacy | 2,011 | 2 | 7 | If you blinked you might have missed last Friday’s that Chinese Web giant Tencent is buying LA-based Riot Games. And that’s just fine by Tencent. Tencent and its founder Pony Ma (seen in a sea of winking penguins to your left) are incredibly press-shy, as everything about the way the deal “leaked” demonstrates. It came late on a Friday before the Superbowl, it was positioned as Tencent buying an undisclosed “majority share” and not an acquisition – even the subsequent analysis was that it was just more proof of how hot the US gaming market is. Even Chinese companies were buying into it! In fact, this deal represents way more than that – and anyone in the game industry should be paying attention. Not only is this one of the biggest gaming acquisitions of late and one of the biggest purchases of an American company by a Chinese company, but it shows who really understands where gaming is going at a big company level. This isn’t about China suddenly wanting a piece of the hot US gaming market– China and Korea are light years ahead of many gaming startups when it comes to in-browser games and virtual goods. According to Mitch Lasky, a Benchmark partner and investor in Riot, the deal was hotly contested and almost every suitor was from China or Korea. American gaming companies who get on conference calls to talk about how badly they want to expand in this market were nowhere to be found. “American companies don’t get the future they are facing,” Lasky says. “It’s remarkable how short-sighted they are being.” Put a more macro way: This new generation of in-browser gaming and virtual goods could well be the first Internet category where America simply doesn’t dominate. And Tencent is the most formidable of the next generation gaming titans. The company has been methodically building relationships in the Valley for years, very quietly acquiring stakes in dozens of companies and some small companies outright. , the company is not merely the largest Web company in China, it’s the third largest publicly traded Internet company . Like , it’s been loathe to make acquisitions in China– in part because of it doesn’t want to dilute its culture– and in the US– in part because it doesn’t want the potential American backlash. The fact that this deal was slipped so under the radar, with no outcry no doubt will embolden Tencent and others to make more US purchases. And, for the entrepreneurs involved, that’s a good thing. There are certain strengths that Chinese Internet companies have that American Internet companies don’t, mostly around monetization execution and micro-payments. Just as a wave of Chinese entrepreneurs learned from working at Valley-based multinationals, so too do gaming entrepreneurs have a lot to learn from Chinese and Korean gaming companies. That’s the big leagues when it comes to high-volume computer-based gaming, not anything happening over here. What Tencent could teach an entrepreneur about scaling and thwarting thousands of hacks per second could rival the most seasoned Valley geek. Like most things Tencent does, the deal was methodical and a long time coming. The company was an investor in Riot, and has positioned this as a buyout of other shareholders, rather than a straight acquisition. That’s technically true, but it’s not just a DST-like secondary deal. All of the other investors and shareholders– save a group of management Tencent wanted to still have skin in the game– got cashed out. And my understanding from people close to the deal was it was cash, with very little earn-out on the back end. It’s an interesting way to structure an acquisition. Tencent has clearly learned from what most Valley companies have done badly in China and doesn’t intend to micromanage Riot from half-a-continent away. It intends for Riot to stay independent, and even has said it would support an eventual Riot IPO. If the deal becomes a success, this could be the new model for acquisitions not only for Tencent– but for Chinese Web companies in general.
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Mark Your Calendars: Our Mobile Event Coverage For February Is Jam-Packed | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 2 | 7 | February is a strange month. It’s a month wherein college-trained weathermen around the country are temporarily supplanted by a rodent. It’s a month wherein we show our love for one another by giving each other . It’s also the month wherein the mobile industry opens its floodgates, releasing a mega-blast of new hardware at a rate that goes unmatched for the rest of the year. Just about every major player in the mobile industry announces this month (except for Apple, though shaky rumors indicate even they might do something), and most of’em tend to announce at least somethings. Don’t want to miss a thing? Have your calendar at the ready and take a peek behind the jump for an overview of all the Mobile events we’ll be covering/live blogging this month.
( ) : Sprint’s with David Blaine. (Event over. They announced the . Miss the liveblog? Catch up on it .) : (Event over. It was much less mobile-focused than we were promised, with the only somewhat mobile thing being a 10″ Windows 7 Tablet mockup that they showed for 30 seconds. ) : HP/Palm’s (Event over. They announced the , the , and the . They also announced a new head of . Liveblog is .) : Our coverage of Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona begins
: Samsung’s MWC Press Conference
: Sony Ericsson’s MWC Press Conference : LG’s MWC Press Conference
: Microsoft’s MWC Keynote with Steve Ballmer
: Samsung US’ MWC Press Gathering-thing ( We’ve just been informed of a schedule change. This is no longer a press conference — just a cocktail hour of sorts. Not sure why that changed, but we no longer expect any new devices to be announced at this event. Thus, no liveblog.) : HTC’s MWC Press Conference We’ll be at each one of these events, bringing back the news at a breakneck pace. Tune in for all the news! |
Pentax Releases Silver K-5 And Limited Edition Lenses | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 7 |
Despite having only ever used one for a few minutes, I’m a fan of the . It’s a solid-feeling camera, and it’s got a lens selection going back decades. And with , if you don’t like the look of the camera, wait a few months and they’ll put out one with a new paint job. This month, it’s silver! The camera itself is the same, and the price is the same at $1700 for body-only. It really is just a paint job. The lenses are the same, too. Now you can get the… in silver. Does your next project involve werewolves? This might be a good investment, even if it’s just paint. The werewolves don’t want to take the risk, really. |
This CD Player Is A Late Addition To The Steampunk Movement | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 2 | 7 |
This is either a CD player or an evil pneumatic crab. I’m hoping the latter of the two. Can’t you just picture a horde of the little guys angrily chasing after protagonist in a steampunk mashup? . |
BBC's New iPlayer App Gets A Hands-On | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 9 |
We heard about the BBC’s service yesterday (Android users, be patient, it’s coming), but the player itself escaped description. Today brings , who pronounce the app very strong, though the lack of offline viewing, they say, is troublesome.
The programs are, of course, only for UK residents, who already pay handsomely to have BBC access, but a pay service is in the works along with an Android version, so let’s hope it’s just a matter of time. After all, if you pay for BBC on your cable subscription or through another service, shouldn’t you get the same benefits as those in the UK? Many more screenshots and impressions . |
Game & Watch Replica Available To Nintendo Devotees | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 9 |
If you’re a part of the Nintendo Club, a rewards system they have for registering products and filling out surveys, there’s a sweet new prize you can take aim at. is “a faithful reproduction of Nintendo’s first handheld gaming system, originally released in 1980.” Pretty awesome. Too bad it’s also the most expensive item in the store, at a whopping 1200 coins. You’ll have to buy like 5 Wiis and a few dozen games to save it up. Or you could buy one on eBay for an exorbitant price in a month or two. Pick your poison. By the way, there are almost certainly going to be other replica games coming out, so if “Ball” isn’t your cup of tea, just hang on and keep filling out surveys. [via ] |
Google's Boutiques.com Adds Fashion Trends Data, Designer Analytics | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 2 | 9 |
As New York Fashion Week ramps up, Google’s fashion-forward designer search engine is a few new features today. last November, Boutiques.com is both a search engine for all things fashion and is a personalized storefront of boutiques curated by celebrites, stylists, and designers. Powered by Like.com’s technology, the site allows users to create their own boutiques and receive personalized clothes and accessory recommendations based on preferences and actions. Google says that since the site’s launch, it has been collecting data on which products are popular and “trendy” and has mined this data for designers on the site. Designer Analytics is a tool that gives retailers and designers insight into how their products are searched and shopped. Specifically, the tool will be able to show which colors and styles are most liked or hated. Designers can also see how their stats compare to similar brands. It’s similar in some ways to an that virtual styling site launched recently. Shoppers can also now checkout a public version of the data, called Trend Analytics, which shows what products are most popular in terms of searches and likes on the site and in Google Search. Other enhancements include a slew of new designer boutiques and the ability for users to upload video to their own boutiques and feature a photo gallery of styles. Boutiques.com is a radically different products than Google’s other search properties in terms of both features and its sleek, photo-centric interface; so it should be interesting to see how it performs among consumers and designers. It’s still yet to be seen if Boutiques.com can be a thriving success. The blog post states that usage of Boutiques has soared since launch but I’m curious to see the data on visits.
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The Many Brilliant Layers Of Vic Gundotra's Nokia-Exposing, Microsoft-Bashing Tweet | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 2 | 9 | You have to love Twitter and you have to love . This morning, the Google Vice President decided he was going to have some fun on Twitter. “ ,” . To anyone outside of the tech space, that sounds like gibberish. Hell, even to many of those the tech space, that seems like a completely random thing to say. Except it wasn’t random. It was cool and calculated. The February 11 date that Gundotra references is clearly meant to signify Nokia’s annual Capital Markets Day, which takes place this Friday, the 11th, in London. There, new CEO (and former Microsoft president) is expected to announce radical changes to the company’s plan and vision. For weeks, rumors have swirled that Nokia may ally with either Microsoft or Google going forward in the smartphone business. Gundotra’s tweet this morning made it very clear who Nokia is going with. The other guys. How cool is that? A pretty well-known figurehead for Google just dropped a tweet bomb on both Microsoft and Nokia, subtly exposing their news early. And he did it by blatantly insulting both companies. Oh, and by the way, he used to work for Microsoft! For 15 years! Could it be that Gundotra was just taking a stab in the dark with his quip on Twitter? No way. Gundotra, while now the social stuff Google is , is also very familiar with Android. He’s been the guy on stage at Google I/O evangelizing the mobile platform to no end. He’s so good at it, that he could almost sell Android to an iPhone user. . If something as significant as Nokia/Android talks were going down, Gundotra would know about it. On the flip side, he would also know who else the Nokia guys were talking to. You can be sure that he wouldn’t tweet about anything unless he knew something and knew it was a done deal. And you can be damn sure that he wouldn’t tweet calling anyone a “turkey” until he was sure it wasn’t going Google’s way. A more, um, nuanced report tonight confirms that Nokia will partner with Microsoft to put Windows Phone 7 on their smartphones. It’s something we actually hearing earlier this week. And it’s something , after we heard about Elop’s cordial exit from Redmond. The writing has been on the wall. That said, Google did have a shot at this partnership. We know that Elop was a few month ago as Nokia’s MeeGo group was in turmoil. And in recent months, you can bet the discussions between the two sides intensified as Elop considered what was best for his new company. But going with Android, while perhaps smart, would have been the equivalent of Elop punching Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in the face. It wasn’t going to happen. Instead, the company which still has an absolutely massive mobile reach (Nokia) will partner with the company with endless pockets (Microsoft) that has actually managed to develop . The problem is that it hit the scene at least a year too late, and perhaps two years too late. A Nokia partnership is exactly what Microsoft needs to have a chance to get back into the game. And it’s what Nokia needs to enter the smartphone game (and maybe even the American market) in a meaningful way. And that’s why Gundotra’s tweet, while awesome, is perhaps ill-advised. Two turkeys may not make an eagle, but they might look pretty tasty to some new customers hungry for smartphones. This deal makes some sense. But wait, the tweet actually goes even deeper. It’s actually even more of a mind game. As , there’s quite the history behind the statement “two turkeys don’t make an eagle.” Specifically, former Nokia VP Anssi Vanjoki in reference to rival BenQ buying Siemens’s handset business. And you may recall that Vanjoki is the guy who earlier this year compared people using Android devices to Finnish boys who pee in their pants for warmth during a cold winter. . And we know for a fact that Google didn’t like that too much. So yes, there are many layers in such a short tweet. One layer of malice, one layer of intrigue, one layer of humor, one layer of irony, and at least four layers of awesome. |
Twitter Finds Itself Between A Facebook And A Google | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 2 | 9 | In a post deceptively titled the drops a lot of of information about the micro-messaging service, namely that Twitter is talking to both Facebook and Google about a possible acquisition according to those pesky who can’t seem to keep their mouths shut. So what did the people familiar with the matter blab about this time? Even though it made $45 million in revenue (Promoted Trends has been selling out!), Twitter lost money this year, due to hiring and buying datacenters. Despite not being profitable, Twitter still values itself in the neighborhood of $8 billion to $10 billion, which at the high end is a little over 222 times its 2010 revenue and 100x its projected revenue ($100 million to $150 million) for next year. But screw prices says the tech bubble (and the article). The brings in a VC to explain why Facebook is now worth $50 billion, Groupon is now worth $15 billion, The Huffington Post is now worth $315 million and Twitter is now apparently worth $10 billion, I guess the “market” is what people are calling Google and Facebook these days. And Google is clearly the front runner here. Acquiring Twitter would not fit at all with Facebook’s , which has up until now mostly focused on talent collection versus product, and is geared toward mobile and location. Twitter has 350 employees which is about 35 times larger than your average Facebook acqui-hire. Not to mention that at the $10 billion valuation Facebook would be putting up 20% of the value of its own company. Google on the other hand has to spend and is rumored to be bulking up its full force. Twitter would be a smart buy on multiple levels (but especially ) as it gears up to compete with Facebook. In fact many Twitter employees have already worked at Google including CEO Dick Costolo and co-founder Evan Williams. The rest of the article attempts to downplay the signifigance of the talks between the three companies, calling the inquiries and referring to discussions as having Most likely this is because Twitter prefers to solidly remain in the niche between a Facebook and a Google without having to make either choice, especially as its valuation and user numbers .
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RIM's Playbook To Hit Office Depot In April For $500? | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 9 |
We heard that RIM was aiming at undercutting the by putting the upcoming at less than $500. If is true, it looks like they decided price parity was acceptable. The version shown is the 16GB wi-fi only version, meaning it would likely have price tiering similar to the iPad’s, starting at $500 and working upwards at ~$100 increments. I’m skeptical of the average consumer’s ability to pay the same price for something smaller and less familiar than “Brand X” (in this case the iPad), but the Playbook certainly has Brand X beaten on specs and built-in capabilities. It of course lacks apps, but as we’ve seen in various videos of it, it’s compelling and useful in many other ways. Hopefully having a heavy presence in the retail space will show that off. The price is, of course, unconfirmed for now, and this could just be an placeholder estimate by an Office Depot manager. [via ] |
Former Apple and Lucasfilm Exec Joins HP To Help Bolster The webOS App Catalog | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 2 | 9 | After HP unveiled the , , and at their , we figured they were pretty much done with news for the day. Turns out, they had at least one more tid-bit to share. We’re at their post-announcement webOS developer gathering, where they’ve just announced a new hire: Richard Kerris, joining as VP of Worldwide Developer Relations. Prior to jumping on board with HP, Kerris spent 3 years as the CTO of Lucasfilm. And prior to that? He was an Apple Exec.
Kerris previously filled a venerable bevy of positions at Apple. At one point, he helped lead projects like Final Cut Pro, Logic, and iLife; for the majority of his stint there, however, he was the Senior Director for Apple’s Worldwide Developer Relations group. His duty in that role? Convince folks who were working on other platforms to build their apps for OS X, and assist them in getting it done. Sounds like just what webOS needs right now, doesn’t it? Palm had a pretty great platform with webOS, and with HP now steering the ship (and one or two duds in their past to learn from) it certainly seems like they’re finally figuring out this whole hardware thing. Now they just need apps. Lots, and lots of apps. Plus, snagging Apple alum — especially when your goal is to take them down a notch — is never bad for your cred. |
Activision Discontinues Guitar Hero And True Crime Franchises | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 9 |
Sad news today. Looks like the music genre doesn’t have room for two (or is it three? four?) overpriced DLC machines. To be sure, has sold a lot of copies, but you’re not going to get a lot of return business when people have already spent three times the normal amount on your game. Plus, it’s a copyright nightmare, and probably very expensive to produce. Whatever the case, there won’t be a , or , or whatever was coming next. Activision is , perhaps just in time, perhaps a little too late, but at least before they ran it into the ground with or some such. The music genre will probably see a revamp in a few years, but it needs to rest for a while. The aging series is also getting a pink slip. I don’t have anything against it, but it was never particularly compelling in the way or the more open-ended games like are. Off it goes to the great retailer in the sky. No hard feelings, little guy. What’s next? Could favorite franchise be in line for the guillotine? Studies relate franchise cancellations to murder sprees and weight gain! How will this affect your children? |
How the rot set in for Meego over a pint of Guinness | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 2 | 9 | On Friday Nokia has its Capital Markets Day where it is rumoured to be making a big announcement about its future direction (Update: ). Or it could happen at Mobile World Congress, starting Sunday. At any rate. The will now go down in history as a momentous event. Nokia has been forced, by the stupendous growth of Apple iOS and Android, to consider dumping Symbian, going with Windows Phone or trying to make Meego work. But it would appear that Meego is now dead in the water, with Nokia’s own CEO that only one device will come out this year. It is an appalling situation to be in. But the rot seems to have set in late last year. Then, during a cold November’s conference in Dublin, Nokia assembled several hundred developers to chew over the Meego platform, for the first . During keynote speeches, developer meetings and talks, the delegates poured over the only N900 Meego device and networked in the evening. Indeed, they did a lot of networking: football, drinking in bars and… a lot more drinking. In fact, Nokia threw a blank cheque at the conference, and as one blogger “Holy hell, Nokia and Intel have a lot of money to throw at us.” The brand new Aviva Stadium was rented out for three days. The entire Guinness Storehouse, a swanky venue, was also taken for a night, featuring multiple bands and food. A football game was laid on, and open bars for three nights straight. Every delegate was given a touchscreen tablet-netbooks, a Lenovo IdeaPad S10 S3, running an early version of Meego. Intel VP Doug Fisher spoke of a vision where a browsing capable machine would be in your car, kitchen, living room, pocket and bathroom. Android was portrayed as being “as fragmented as the Balkans”. The stage should have been set for a boom in Meego apps. But gradually the reality dawned. Developer advocate Ronan Maclaverty sweated on stage as devs asked questions he couldn’t answer. There was talk of how devs “are going to be able to make a living”. There were precious little answers. And despite all this spending and drinking – and even as a Bono impersonator (it was in Ireland) embarrased Irish attendees – few delegates ‘bought in’ to Meego. Despite all the constantly repeated talk of Meego being more open than iOS and Android. Despite everyone being handed a free tablet loaded with Meego 1.1, delegates even had to cobble together a (after a few hours) a basic onscreen keyboard and an office suite, none of which came standard. Only Nokia or Intel personnel seemed to advocate the platform. And that was that. The writing was on the wall. |
Video Of Today's Entire webOS Announcement Now Online | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 2 | 9 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnjwG7Z8AM8&w=640&h=390] Bummed because you didn’t manage to sneak into the HP/Palm webOS announcement today? Was our not enough for you? Don’t be down, Charlie Brown. Palm just posted the presentation in its entirety for your enjoyment. : After the devices get announced, things taper off pretty quickly into really, really long partner talks. You won’t be missing too much if you skip to the end at that point. |
Instapaper Releases A Full API — With A Brilliant, Unique Twi$t | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 2 | 9 | I love . Blah blah blah — you all know that by now. But today developer has released something significant that could alter the way the service is used: a full API. And perhaps even more interesting is he’s released it. In on the matter, Arment dives into his tough decision making process when it comes to the API. The main problem is that unlike a lot of startups, Instapaper has taken no funding so they have to be profitable each month or they’ll go out of business. That makes an API hard because the core idea behind it is usually to allow people to use your service (including your servers) without actually visiting your ad-driven site and/or paying for your app. So Arment had to come up with a solution. The obvious choice would have been to either limit the API or charge for it. But neither of those are very appealing options to Arment. Limiting the API leads to half-baked, “fragile” apps, as he calls them. Charging developers for API access or taking a cut of their app sales is tricky from a financial perspective, he notes. Instead, Arment came up with a smart third way of doing things. Thanks to the Instapaper launched in October of last year, Arment has a way to get paid for API usage — sort of. You see, the only way users of any service can get access to the Instapaper API is if they’re paying the $1-a-month subscription fee. In other words, Arment has just ensured that he gets directly paid for people hitting his API. And he has just given plenty of users a reason to subscribe. Smart. Arment also uses his post to introduce the first app using the full Instapaper API: . It’s a Windows Phone Instapaper client created by a third-party developer. Again, this shows why this idea is so brilliant. This will allow for all the different mobile platforms to now have their own Instapaper apps (officialy, it’s still iOS-only) — but all those users will have to be Instapaper subscribers in order to use them. You can find Instapaper’s API documentation . |
null | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 7 | null |
A Sneak Peek At Paygr, A Marketplace For Buying And Selling Your Talents Locally | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 2 | 9 | Are you looking to hire a trainer or sell your own expertise as, say, a web designer? Well look no further than , a marketplace that allows you to make money doing what you love to do. The startup, which is set to launch in 6 to 8 weeks, aims to take the best parts of PayPal, eBay, and craigslist and mash them up into something that’s useful for the average consumer looking to safely pay for goods and services offered by members of their community. Here’s how it will work: First, you’ll go to Paygr’s homepage and sign up. If you’re a buyer, you’ll enter your query and Paygr will serve up a list of matching sellers, each of which will have reviews left by other members (Paygr’s system will pull in your social graph, allowing you to see reviews that have been left on your friends). Sellers gradually build reputations on the site, helping create a trust model. Founders Brad Damphousse and Andrew Ballester worked previously on , an online fundraising site, and say that their experience with GoFundMe showed them that they were “barely scratching the surface” of what was possible and that there was a big opportunity in local services. So, in September 2010, they began work on Paygr, working closely with PayPal on their API to gain insight into the backend and the best methods to offer a secure way to send and receive payments online. Building on this payment mechanism, Paygr took the basic idea behind craigslist’s “Services” and “For Sale” features and is attempting to make local transactions less anonymous and more secure. is currently boot-strapped and courting potential investors, with the hope that a viable revenue stream will come from taking a small percentage of each transaction. Damphousse said that he expects that percentage to be — like GoFundMe — somewhere in the ballpark of 5 percent. Of course, some of this may sound familiar. You may remember RedBeacon, in 2009 and applied the “OpenTable model of online transactions to a broader spectrum of services.” (Sites like , , , and are also vying for a similar market.) To set itself apart from these companies, and the likes of eBay and craigslist, Paygr has their work cut out for them. Yet, seeing as the startup hopes to focus not on small business transactions or those limited to the $5 to $10 range, but transactions happening between you and, say, your neighbor at any price — so that you can get someone you can trust to feed your goldfish while you’re away on vacation — they might yet be able to distinguish Paygr from the rest of the pack. Building on the success of GoFundMe, too, will be imperative. You can go to and request an account starting today. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akc_ykcNqL4&w=640&h=390]
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I'll Have A Hit Of Whatever You're Smoking HP | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 2 | 9 | Earlier today HP a new line of products based on the newly acquired Palm WebOS, including its iPad clone, the TouchPad. Capping off a segment of the presentation where he presented press accolades, former Palm CEO Jon Rubenstein presented the above slide from Laptop Magazine’s boasting, According to Laptop Magazine, Palm WebOS beat Windows Phone 7 in the “Which is best?” category by 590 votes. Now I am by no means a gadget person, but I can smell a bowl of BS when I see it, or more specifically poll . From what we hear these polls are some of the highest trafficking content on Laptop Magazine, but far from an accurate assessment of what consumers actually want. As Kevin Marks The image above is sort of like the opposite of the Steve Jobs , where the person onstage is the only one convinced. It’s no surprise that Rubenstein’s has now gone mysteriously missing from the YouTube of the “Think Beyond” event. The blog has made its own version of the now infamous slide, below. Now that’s a little more like it. Thanks: |
New Droid Details Emerge As MWC Approaches | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 9 |
The new quarter (and Mobile World Congress) brings many updates. The Droid line appears to be in the form of new Droid and Droid Incredible handsets, which my be joined by a LTE Samsung handset known now as the Stealth.
The new Droid is supposed to have a 4″ screen, at 960×540 like the Bionic’s, but little else is known. Is the plain Droid Moto’s new RAZR? Its simpler cousin, the Incredible, is , however, with white and chrome accents and a beveled back. Not only that, but it’s rumored to be a world phone on the strength of the new Qualcomm chipset. Samsung will also make an appearance on the Verizon Q2 slate with the 4g/LTE handset being called the Stealth. Timing isn’t clear, but I’m guessing these devices will all be announced at MWC, and released over the next three months. Verizon isn’t the best at keeping their secrets, either, so even if they waffle at MWC we’ll probably get dates in a few weeks. [via and ] |
3D-Print Yourself This Incredible "Atomic Sun" Lamp | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 9 |
Do you have a 3D printer you’re just not getting enough use out of? And 20 spare bulbs lying around, just waiting to be incorporated into a project? You’re in luck. and you can DIY yourself one of these fabulous lamps. I’m guessing you need low-wattage bulbs, though; 20 of them might make for a slight . [via ] |
Is Nokia's first MeeGo device DOA? Here's what we know | Steve O'Hear | 2,011 | 2 | 9 | Reuters is that Nokia’s first device running MeeGo, its ‘next generation’ mobile operating system developed as a joint-venture with Intel, is dead on arrival. Or, specifically, it’s been canceled before actually being formerly announced. And yet, in the same report, analysts are cited as saying that the device could be revealed at the company’s Capital Markets Day this Friday or at Mobile World Congress on Sunday. Confused? Here’s what we know and what we’re hearing from our own well-placed sources. First, it’s worth remembering that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop’s widely circulated internal memo titled ‘Standing on a burning platform’, the contents of which we earlier this week, alluded to major delays with Nokia’s first MeeGo handset. Elop says in that memo:
We thought MeeGo would be a platform for winning high-end smartphones. However, at this rate, by the end of 2011, we might have only one MeeGo product in the market. That in itself would suggest that the first Nokia smartphone powered by MeeGo – thought to be the N9-00 – is far behind schedule. Originally, the Finnish handset maker was expected to release or at least formerly announce the N9 by the end of 2010. But in fact, we heard from a source with knowledge of MeeGo’s development late last year that realistically this wasn’t going to happen, and indeed it didn’t. Now the CEO himself says that the first MeeGo device could be the Nokia MeeGo device to reach the market in the whole of 2011. Commenting on Elop’s memo and in context of Nokia’s anticipated support for Windows Phone 7, another well-placed source describes MeeGo as on “life support”. The implication being that MeeGo will be killed but softly in part to stop an exodus of engineers and also to save face with Intel. Or perhaps to give it just enough oxygen to remain as Nokia’s plan B. |
R.E.M. Stands For R.E.M.I.X. (The SoundCloud Singles) | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 2 | 8 | R.E.M.’s upcoming album is coming in March, but the band is already getting the buzz going with a little crowdsourcing experiment. A couple days ago, the album’s producer released some tracks from the song “It Happened Today” in files that can easily be imported into Garageband, the music mixing software that comes on new Macs. Fans are invited to remix the song and upload their new versions under Creative Commons license to . The individual tracks were also released under Creative Commons license so that anyone can download and remix them as long as it is not for commercial use. Producer Jacknife Lee We ended up with over a hundred tracks with all the percussion, brass, three pianos, celeste, glockenspiels, vibraphone, eight acoustic guitars, two drum kits, bass synths, banjo, mandolin, dulcimer, electric guitars, bass and all the voices. So far there are already 41 tracks. This is the best so far, IMHO, and this plays the vocals backwards How long before a band lets fans remix an entire album? |
Nikon Makes New Coolpix Line Official | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 8 |
Hmm, these look familiar. Oh yes, . Most of the info you want (prices, megapixels, lenses) is there, but there’s a bit of new info here as well. Most of the new cameras have 640×480 LCDs, which is great; low-resolution LCDs have always bothered me, especially on perfectly good cameras. The L24 and S3100 don’t have ’em, I’m afraid. The P300 is revealed to have a back-illuminated sensor, which helps with low light. Combined with the F/1.8 lens, this could be a pretty decent performer in low light. The “nice” cameras (P500, P300, S9100, S6100) are coming out in March, the rest should be available later this month. If you want more info, head over to Nikon’s press site. There are , , press releases for you to read! Ah ah ah! |
Bloodhound Rocket Car May Actually Launch Soon | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 8 |
We first heard about the Bloodhound rocket-powered “car” — I never really thought it’d see the light of day, but it turns out this thing may actually get built after all. Not that I’m going to get excited about what amounts to a low-altitude jet (cool as it is). As Matt said back in ’08, wake me up when the wheels are moving the car, not vice versa. . |
If content is the new king, is Getty signing Crane.tv the new deal? | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 2 | 8 | With all this recent talk of and content , it’s clear that content is coming back. Dare I even say… Content is King? (Shudder… no, let’s not go there). Suffice it to say that content production is turning into a big deal with the likes of Demand Media commanding in their IPO. Meanwhile, the old content companies are producing video, but not nearly at the rate of knots of the young upstarts. And a case in point today is , a premium online video magazine for contemporary culture, which has figured out how to produce lots of video aimed at a high-end audience. Today it has signed a deal to provide content to Getty Images video entertainment library. Getty Images, a leading creator and distributor of still imagery, footage and multi-media, works in over 100 countries. Now normally Crane.tv produces the kind of thing you might see on a site. The trouble is high-end luxury Conde Naste titles are languishing with a month, while Crane.tv punches them out at a fast pace every week. Crane.tv is producing high end content aimed at international globe-trotting style slaves who want all this design, fashion, lifestyle and travel content, but let’s not hold that against them. Crane.tv founder Constantin has an ad-funded and branded entertainment model and is gunning for that very top slot in premium advertising. It’s syndicatiing it content to the (now AOL-owned) Huffington Post, New York Times Style Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar UK and International Herald Tribune. A Crane.tv app for Nokia contains video City Guides and has 100,000 users to date. An iPad app is on the way. Here’s an interview I did with Bjerke recently: |
What is this? | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 2 | 8 | What’s behind that blurry veil? It is, for the time being, a mystery. While it’s something I’ve been pretty excited to check out for a few weeks now, I’ve unfortunately been asked to keep mum about it until 12 o’clock PST tomorrow. Come back then to check it out — in the meantime, take your best guess down in the comments. Oh, and by the way (but not necessarily related at all): tomorrow is also HP/Palm’s big webOS announcement, where they’re expected to finally reveal the long-awaited webOS tablet and one or two new phones. The event starts at 10 A.M. PST
(1 P.M. Eastern), and we’ll begin liveblogging at about 9:30 a.m. Be there, or be square. And uninformed. And sad that you missed it. But mostly square. |
Begun, The EVIL Lens-Mount Wars Have | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 8 |
The latest trend in hobbyist-level photography is the EVIL format, basically a mirrorless design that allows for interchangeable lenses. The Olympus and Panasonic are two of the more prominent cameras using the “micro four-thirds” design, but Sony is developing a competitor it calls , and has . Will lens makers choose one over the other in a sort of niche market format war? I’m not sure it’ll have a big effect on consumers one way or the other. Most consumers aren’t going to choose one brand of lens over another, but choose their camera based on its looks and features and get whatever lens seems economical. Sure, it’d be nice to have Zeiss and Sigma options for every mount, but in the end, what matters is whether you can get the shot. That has more to do with the camera and the photographer at this point. The companies backing E-mount are currently Zeiss (which just announced its M4/3 allegiance ), Tamron, Sigma, and Cosina. [via ] |
Fox News Suggests Bulletstorm Is "Worst Video Game In The World" | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 8 |
The ever-incisive has decided today to try to squeeze a little more blood from the “violence in games” stone. The issue is, predictably, the horrifically M-rated and its sexually suggestive achievements (“topless” for cutting a dude in half, for instance). Deftly bypassing the fact that this game was made for adults and is illegal to sell to minors, the article bemoans the dangers of children playing these games and quotes a quack psychologist as saying “the increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games.” Really. This article (like most on the topic) isn’t worth comment, but I thought I’d point it out to our readers in case they need that occasional reminder that mainstream media is still pushing this nonsense. [via ] |
i/o Ventures Is Now Taking Applications For Its March 2011 Program | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 2 | 8 | a workspace incubator that just over a year ago, is accepting applications for the start of its March 2011 program. The deadline for is February 21st and the program starts on March 15th. The five or six startups who pass muster can take a 4-6 month long spot in the i/o Ventures 7,000 square foor loft/coffee shop as well as $25,000 in seed money. Each of the companies in each class gives up around 8% of the company for the package deal. The six companies in the last batch have all benefited greatly from being a part of the incubator, with two acquisitions and 4 financings between them: was acquired by Fanbridge, was a acquired by an undisclosed suitor, raised around 700K from angels like Alfred Lin, has raised a 500K round it will soon disclose more details about, has raised 400K from and other LA angels and is in the middle of financing a round. Co-founder says that one of the benefits, aside from the space, of being an i/o Ventures-backed company is the repeated exposure to other entrepreneurs and investors, Former Lefora and Meetro co-founder Bragiel joins partners like former Myspace BitTorrent co-founder and Yahoo corporate development exec , HotOrNot co-founder at the accelerator’s helm. You can read more about the first i/o Ventures demo day,
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WSJ Says iPad 2 Will Be Faster, But Have Same Resolution | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 8 | The has cited (or made up) “people familiar with the matter” who say that the new is in production ( ), has dual cameras ( ), will have a new processor and more RAM ( ) and a resolution “similar” to the first iPad ( ). That is all. Return to your daily business! |
null | John Biggs | 2,011 | 2 | 9 | null |
The Great Valentine’s Day Nook Color Case Gift Guide | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 2 | 8 | You know the drill: Valentine’s Day is next week so here’s come Nook Color cases that would make great gifts. Herp derp. We so it only makes sense to look at the B&N counterpart. Not surprisingly, there’s a much smaller accessory market for Nook Color cases and that’s reflected in this gift guide. There simply aren’t that many to choose from and Barnes & Noble seem to understand this. The bookseller just put for the upcoming holiday. Check ’em out. The official B&N cases are by far the best quality ones I tested. Full-grain leather on the outside and faux suede on the inside. There’s no pockets or card holders or general nonsense; just a quality case for the Nook Color. Little plastic tabs hold the device in place, which results in a clean look. Like other case secured with an elastic band, I’m worried that it will wear out before the rest of the case, but you’re not exactly invested all that much. Think of this case a monstrous trifold wallet. It’s a lot like that with little pockets and sleeves on every flap — good for some but could certainly be unnecessary bulk for others. The case uses the same sort of plastic tabs as the Montgomery Cover above, which seem to suspend the Nook Color in the middle of the case. The leather is soft, the design is clever. I’m a big fan and it’s not a bad price either . The Editor Book Case from JAVOedge is about as simple as cases come. The Nook Color slides into a tight sleeve and there’s room on the other flap from various notes. There’s even a little elastic band on the spine that wants nothing more than to hold a pen. The build quality and material aren’t stellar, but it’s . We looked at the Moleskine e-Reader Cover for the Kindle 2 and determined that the Kindle 3 just doesn’t fit right. But the Nook Color fits perfectly. In fact, this case is one of the best made out of the bunch and a fantastic deal . It’s a tad bit thicker if a Moleskine Volant Notebook is on the other flap, but the added functionality counters the bulk. The Book Case from JAVOedge opens up like a reporter-style notepad. This design along with the little rear-mounted kickstand lets the Nook Color stand up. The interior flap features the same pockets as the other case from JAVOedge, but it doesn’t really make sense as the pockets face down when opened. Strange. . M-Edge’s cases were some of the best in our Kindle case round-up and that continues over to the Nook Color. The Exective Jacket features padded leather on the outside, a leather strap and a microsuede interior. Too bad yet. |
Stealth Startup Bubbli Raises Funding, Wants To Create A New Kind Of Photograph | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 2 | 8 | Smartphones with built-in cameras have sparked a wave of hot startups focused on photos, including Path, picplz, and Instagram. But , a new startup that’s currently in stealth, has some plans that sound even more ambitious: it wants to use camera phones to create a new kind of photograph. The startup has just closed around $2 million in funding in a round led by August Capital, and it plans to soft launch at TED in the beginning of March (they’ll be presenting on stage). So what exactly does Bubbli mean when they say they want to reinvent photos? You’ve got me — the startup says it wants to “bring the real world to the flat web”, by capturing places instead of just a rectangular image. It sounds like it could be a sort of panoramic photo, possibly with an augmented reality layer on top, but at this point the company isn’t talking. Bubbli does have experience with augmented reality — while an intern at Yelp, cofounder Ben Newhouse built the ‘Monocle’ feature that was part of Yelp’s iPhone app, making it the first AR-enabled application to hit the App Store (you point your phone down the street, and Yelp will overlay each venue’s star rating). That feature led to quite a bit of as it was snuck past Apple’s approval process as an Easter Egg, but Apple eventually approved it. The company’s second cofounder, Terrence McArdle, is a designer from NYC. |
The Optimism Of The Gadget Maker | John Biggs | 2,011 | 2 | 8 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BPFODsob1I&w=640&h=390] We are at a strange point in whatever economic upturn we’re experiencing in the world economy. Things aren’t quite “right” yet, many are still out of work, and the general sense is that business spending has flatlined. However, things are looking up. How can you tell? Gadget makers are advertising again. During the dot-com bust, and more recently during the housing crisis, gadget spending tanked and, as a result, gadgets on the aggregate were boring retreads of the same old stuff – laptops, monitors, tower PCs, and phones. Cast your memory back to 2008 when things were just getting rough. What were the the most popular devices? Netbooks: me-too machines made for the price-conscious consumer. There is nothing aspirational about a $500 6-inch PC.
That’s all changing, however. The sense that gadget makers are looking at better balance sheets came during CES 2011. While the , you had a renewed sense of optimism that radiated from the booths lining the hall. All of them were packed and the events we attended were well-staffed and full of quasi-new merchandise. Things are changing for the better. I believe, however, that we’re entering a new, optimistic era in gadget manufacturing. The first inkling that things were changing was Apple’s cancellation of the “I’m a Mac” ads. The ads, at their core, were mean-spirited: you use a PC so you are a dork. Microsoft followed quickly with the Laptop Hunter ads, cleaving to the current trend in public discourse of dismissing alternative ideas outright. The general gist was that this stuff wasn’t earth-shattering so the only way to differentiate was on some nebulous concept of quality and a sense of . Now, as evidenced by the video above, manufacturers feel we are entering a new era. They see an era of profit based on service sales (witness HTC’s investments in ) and every product they create is life-changing. The phone, for example, with its odd laptop dock and powerful processor, is an idea that would have never taken off at a product meeting a few years ago. I’ve also noted that the was the product of a diseased mind, a device that has no reason to exist in a company once dedicated to Bluetooth headsets. In short, manufacturers are taking risks. They’re taking a risk on the tablet by selling it for $800. RIM is taking a risk on the . Apple is moving aspects of iOS into OSX, changing what could be perceived as an entrenched technology in a drastic way. This isn’t an entirely new thing, but any company that would equate a new tablet with a break from conformity is clearly marketing to a new audience. The nerds of yesteryear are gone, swallowed up by Firewire cable, and their love of speeds and feeds is diminishing. Today even Elton John is . These are strange times to be a geek, mostly because almost everyone you meet is even geekier than you. How long will this new optimism last? Well, as long as people are buying – or thinking about buying – manufacturers will provide. Not much has changed in the technology, but the words we’re using to describe it (“revolutionary,” “magical”) are changing and that means manufacturers are finally getting their groove back. |
PSA: Covering The iPhone In 4 Feet Of Concrete May Affect Signal Strength | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 2 | 8 | Remember “ “? Oh wait, you don’t? Well let me remind you: it was pretty much the biggest deal ever… for a whole two weeks. Actually, let me rephrase that: it was pretty much the biggest deal ever for some of us in the tech media who were able to write dozens upon dozens of stories about an issue that absolutely no regular person was likely to care about. Don’t believe me? Maybe you’ll want to ask any of the that bought an iPhone last quarter. Or maybe any of the that bought one the quarter before that. The antenna issue was apparently such a big deal that not only did the chart record sales each quarter for Apple, but the reports of customers being upset with the product and returning it were basically unheard of. Damn, that pesky antenna — it nearly ruined Apple! Facetiousness aside, you would have thought that those behind the rally cries for Antennagate would have calmed down over what ended up being a total non-issue. But nope! . They’re back today with “Antennagate 2” (trademark pending)! But this time it’s arguably even better. Not only is there a “death grip” problem with the Verizon iPhone, but now there’s a “death hug” problem as well. Now hear this: if you are able to wrap your entire hands around and iPhone and squeeze as hard as possible, you may lose some WiFi signal! Related: if you lock the iPhone in a room with no signal, you may also lose some signal. Beyond the fact that no one is ever going to hold their iPhone in the manner that they do in the iLounge video, and beyond the obvious link-bait (which we’re graciously submitting to), I’m just going to throw this out there: if Antennagate 1 was a 10 out of 100 on the problem scale, this is a 0. Or maybe a negative 1. While I’ve always that the iPhone 4 (the AT&T version, that is) antenna issue was very real, it wasn’t a really big deal, I see this as no deal. First of all, I cannot replicate the death grip issue on the Verizon iPhone. I could (and still can) on the AT&T version. I can’t here. It’s already known that Apple changed the antenna design with this new model, so it seems fairly hard to believe that they would have changed something without correcting that problem. Secondly, that said, the antenna still is on the outside of the phone. As as we were all made well aware this past summer, the human body doesn’t help boost its signal at all. In fact, it hurts it. I’m sure there are some acrobatic manuevers you can still do with your hands to get the signal on the Verizon iPhone to drop. Like a “death hug”, for example. Third, covering the iPhone in four feet of concrete will also likely affect signal strength. We’re still waiting on the video proof of this, but consider yourselves warned. |
Death Grip Reborn On Verizon iPhone? | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 8 |
I’m not going to comment on . But don’t pay for a case yet. I like how holding it like that has become “standard death grip position.” |
Watch Out Austin! Dogpatch Labs Is Opening A Makeshift SXSW Office | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 2 | 8 | If the above is what your SXSW workspace usually looks like, you’re in luck: For the first time, will be opening up a temporary s office in Austin during this year’ so entrepreneurs who need a place to work or just hang out can find a safe haven away from all the Interactive craziness. The Austin branch of will be located at Treehouse Pub, at 501 East 6th Street and will have all the amenities of Dogpatch New York, Cambridge and San Francisco: Free food, desks, WIFI, space, and (yes) foosball. Those wishing to avoid ill-chosen roomies, drunk co-workers or just mingle with like-minded people can sign up . Polaris Ventures partner Peter Flint tells me they are trying to sign up as many entrepreneurs as possible so don’t be shy. Along with offering a workspace, VCs , , and will be holding office hours in Dogpatch Labs Austin and are obviously very interested in meeting with budding companies. You can grab a time slot here before everyone else does Here’s the full Dogpatch Austin schedule: 9am-11pm DPL open for entrepreneurs.
3pm-6pm Polaris Office Hours: http://ohours.org/PolarisVentures
5pm-6pm Informal Open office hours with Partners
8pm-11pm DPL SXSW Party (private invitation) Monday:
9a-11pm DPL re-opens for entrepreneurs.
3p-6p Polaris Office Hours http://ohours.org/PolarisVentures
8pm-10pm Partners vs entrepreneurs foosball tournament (private invitation) Image:
|
Valley VC Dave McClure to keynote @GeeknRolla, March 30, London | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 2 | 8 | Good news for European startups who like investors who shoot from the hip, tell it like it is and throw in a few good for good measure. , venture capitalist and founding general partner at , an internet seed fund and startup accelerator program in Mountain View, CA, is to speak at , the European startup conference in London on March 30. Dave has been working in Silicon Valley for over twenty years, and in his time has worked with PayPal, Mint, Founders Fund, Facebook, LinkedIn, SlideShare, Twilio, Simply Hired, O’Reilly Media, Intel, and Microsoft, to name just a few. In addition to this he has has been an investor in over 100 startup companies including: Mint, SlideShare, SendGrid, Credit Karma, Wildfire Interactive, Bit.ly, CrowdFlower, KissMetrics, TeachStreet, MyGengo, Mashery, and… well the list goes on. 500 Startups has also become active in Europe, startup in London – an unusual move for a Silicon Valley based fund. We interviewed him back in . And if you’re curious about his investment thesis, here it is in . And as well as his profile as a Silicon Valley player, many of us in Europe know him from the tour he did a couple of years ago. So in short, Dave is really going to rock GeeknRolla with his views on startups, so go before they’ve all gone. Oh, and don’t forget to there. Need more information? . |
Nikon's New Coolpix Lineup Leaked | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 2 | 8 |
It seems that a certain website decided to go live with some new cameras before the news was fully baked. They’ve since taken the post down, but managed to snag most of the content. So what’s Nikon got in store for us this season?
Let’s go in order from most expensive to least expensive. Most of these cameras (not the S3100 or the L24) have 640×480 3″ LCDs. : Official! A little more info at the , and I’ve added better pictures. The ($400) is your DSLR-lookalike megazoom. It has a 36x optical zoom, takes 12.1 megapixel shots, and can do 1080p. It’s got vibration reduction and image stabilization, two different things I guess, both of which you’ll need if you’re planning on taking pictures at 36x zoom. The ($330) is the luxury point and shoot: F/1.8 4.2x zoom lens, manual settings, 1080p, improved ISO performance (3200), and a nice understated body. I’d buy this one if I had the money. Nice lens. Back-illuminated sensor for better low light. An alternative to the P300, the (also $330) is similar but a little more zoomy. It has an 18x zoom, at the cost of maximum aperture. Another megazoom, the ($280), has a significantly shorter zoom (21x) but takes slightly larger pictures (14.1 megapixels). And its ISO goes to 11. Wait, sorry, misread that. ISO goes to 6400. The ($200) is the nicest mid-budget “normal” camera. It’s got 16 megapixels, 7x zoom, a touchscreen display, and… a pet portrait mode. Better not to ask. The ($180) is a sort of lower-end version of the S6100. $20 less means less megapixels (14) and less zoom (5x) but the same nice touchscreen on the back. The ($140) is like the S4100 but with a smaller (2.7″) non-touchable LCD. And then there’s the . We’ll update and put up a new post when the official info comes in, which should clear up some of features and of course bring better pictures. |
Adyen chosen to power Spil Games' online payments | Steve O'Hear | 2,011 | 2 | 8 | In the coming together of two Dutch startups, , the Internet payment solutions provider, has been selected by casual gaming portal to power its online payments. Adyen’s pitch is that its technology enables payment via a single page and single click by making nifty use of AJAX and, the company claims, is shown to boost conversion rates and reduce costs by as much as 50%. Additionally, Adyen’s system offers tools to measure and optimize online conversions, and merchants can control the look and feel of the payment page. It’s already been used to power Barclaycard’s new SmartPay payment service and has also been implemented by Vodafone and Groupon, amongst others. With regards to Spil, gamers can purchase virtual items and credits for various games – you know the sort of thing. Similar to, for example, Farmville on Facebook, players of Spil’s Happy Harvest and other titles can buy credits using Adyen. Spil Games, which recently , claims 130 million unique visitors per-month and its flagship sites include (for families), (for teens), and (for girls). In total the company offers 47 localized online gaming destinations in 19 languages. While in August last year, Spil Games . |
Finland's Applifier Grabs $2 Million In Funding | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 2 | 1 | If you’re an independent game developer on Facebook it’s hard to compete with Zynga, particularly because Zynga does such a good job of cross promoting its various games. A lot of game developers are simply hoping they get bought by Zynga at this point. But a brave few are trying to compete. , a Finnish startup, helps those developers compete by creating a network of independent games, and then cross promoting them. It works a little bit like did back in the 90s. You allow other apps to be promoted around your game, and you get the favor returned. See from last year for a good overview of the service. It’s had unusual success in a somewhat crowded space, boasting 55 million monthly users of the games in its network. And now they’ve raised their first round of financing, we’ve heard from a source. Some $2 million in a round led by . We’ve reached out to the company for details and confirmation. |
GraphEffect Raises $2 Million To Increase Brand "Likes" On Facebook | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 2 | 1 | Facebook marketing platform has raised $2 million in financing from LowerMyBills founder and x+1 president as well as VC firms Thrive Capital, CrossCut Ventures, Rincon Venture Partners, Founder Collective, Lerer Ventures and Baroda Ventures. GraphEffect helps brands and agencies leverage Facebook for advertising and lead generation purposes. The company, formerly called Focused Labs, relies on social performance algorithms to target Facebook ad campaigns, increase user engagement with Facebook fan pages and increase downstream conversions through the Facebook feed. With the cost of advertising to convert a user into a fan on a brand’s Facebook page being at $1.07 a fan, GraphEffect is in a lucrative business. The company is also participating in the Facebook Advertising API Beta, getting a first mover advantage in the Facebook ad management department. The LA-based GraphEffect was co-founded by and and reached profitability in 2010. It will be using the new cash to bulk up their sales and technology divisions as well as expand the platform. Said Borow about the new financing, |
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