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My Nokia end is near as I face the final handset | Monty Munford | 2,011 | 6 | 11 | Towards the end of the 1990s I was the best despatch-rider that ever lived. I sped around London occasionally breaking a leg or knee, fighting with car-drivers that regularly tried to kill me and and lived at 1,000 mph. As my despatch-riding days dwindled to an end after a decade of insanity and injuries, I landed the best job there was to be had; a retirement home for old bikers. Instead of sitting outside advertising companies on St Martins Lane waiting for my controller to give me a random job to a random place, I started delivering mobile phones. The company was called TNT, the office was in Vauxhall, very close to the M16 building and everybody in that office was doing cocaine, even some of the riders were doing cocaine. It was bonkers, but it was easy money; you could have made a movie about it. The company had an exclusive contract with Orange to deliver mobiles to anybody within the M25 who had lost or had a dysfunctional mobile. The cocaine-addled staff would put the phones into a plastic bag, dump them into a bucket and then us lucky riders would have four hours to deliver them. It was zoomy and dreamy. A hundred quid for a couple of hours work and no mania, just a nice ride around London. I didn’t even fall off the bike for at least a year. What was clear was that just about every single mobile I delivered was a Nokia. Whether it was N16, W6 or E13, I could change a SIM card faster than a decent footballer changed clubs and it would always be a Nokia. As a late adopter I didn’t even have a mobile, I just delivered them. Finally the ‘Future is Orange’ ads got me and I also bought a Nokia. There were other phones around but Nokia and mobile was like Adam and apple. Then I gave up motorbikes and became an IT journalist in Soho. I wrote about phones, I was given phones to review, I had lots of phones, I gave phones away to my mates, but Nokia was always the best phone. As the years rolled by I moved into mobile publishing and Nokia used to give me more phones. I wrote a newsletter about the mobile industry, Nokia sponsored it, Nokia gave me phones that hadn’t even passed the beta stage. I loved the Nokia interface and I loved Nokia. When my girlfriend accepted my marriage proposal and when my son was born I told everybody using my Nokia. Then I went to India for two years to live on the beach. Everybody in India had a Nokia, one particular handset sold millions, not because of access to the internet or a fantastic camera, but because it had a great torch and having a torch in crepuscular India is a very useful asset. Then I went travelling to Ethiopia and Somaliland and I left my Nokia charger behind in India. But whether it was Addis Ababa, Hargesia or a village in the Ethiopian Highlands, I always managed to charge up my Nokia because everybody had a Nokia. Then in September 2010 I came home. A lot had changed in two years. People who hadn’t worked for ten years had smartphones, women with those weird asymmetrical haircuts who probably couldn’t spell four-letter words had iPhones, I even overheard two fishermen in Hastings talking about mobile video and that Harry The Hamster video and their fucking iPhones. But nobody had a Nokia. I hadn’t noticed the change. I’d been to India and Africa where Nokia still ruled, but Nokia in Europe had been dying for years and I didn’t know it. I literally found it harder to find a Nokia charger in the UK than in Ethiopia. And that is probably what fucked Nokia. Not its ridiculous foray in trying to define itself as a software, and not a hardware, company. Not its dumb N-Gage and its daft Ovi, just the plain fact that nobody used them any more. Even old arguments between operators and Nokia about who owned the subscriber/customer/idiot-who-signed-a-two-year-contract became effete. An iPhone dangled in front of these potential customers was as powerful as Kaa’s eyes in The Jungle Book and Nokia didn’t have a chance.
But I still had my battered N95 that had been around the world, its sellotaped presence in my pocket as comforting as that mnemonic in the movie Inception, a reminder that I had actually lived in India for those two years.
But the end is near and I face the final Nokia handset. I just can’t do it any more. Whether it’s talk of fucking burning decks or Windows Mobile 7 or whatever current disaster is afflicting the company, it doesn’t matter. Other phones are better now.
So after what seems a lifetime and a company I have kept as close to me as a joey is to its kangaroo mother we are now bouncing across different territories. It’s been great, love you, man, best of luck in the future but I will be opening that ZTE handset that is sitting on my desk in about five minutes We are officially over and it really has been emotional. |
Player 1 Start: Will The Wii U And Playstation Vita Fly Or Die? (TCTV) | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 11 | and just announced the much-anticipated and the Playstation last week and, well, we were pretty impressed. The Wii U, Nintendo’s new console, is a real step up for the brand as it adds HD game play and a unique new controller that incorporates third-screen features with Nintendo’s own paradigm-shifting controller style. The Vita is a little less exciting to console gamers as it’s a handheld, but it is definitely an improvement over the old PSP and PSP Go and looks to be a step in the right direction for the ailing Sony. |
null | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 27 | null |
Player 1 Start: The Wii U Vs. The Playstation Vita (Fly Or Die) | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 11 | Nintendo and Sony just announced the much-anticipated and the Playstation last week and, well, we were pretty impressed. The Wii U, Nintendo’s new console, is a real step up for the brand as it adds HD game play and a unique new controller that incorporates third-screen features with Nintendo’s own paradigm-shifting controller style. The Vita is a little less exciting to console gamers as it’s a handheld, but it is definitely an improvement over the old PSP and PSP Go and looks to be a step in the right direction for the ailing Sony. After a bit of deliberation, Erick and I were agreed on what would fly and what would die and, more important, which consoles would soon grace our living rooms. Picking a winner this early is obviously a bit difficult, but it’s interesting to see the growth and improvement of these two platforms over the years and we’re both pretty excited for a Mario- and Metal Gear Solid-filled future. Check out or full coverage of the and the . |
Daily Crunch: Dome Edition | Bryce Durbin | 2,011 | 6 | 11 | |
TechCrunch Turns 6 | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 6 | 11 | TechCrunch turns 6 years old today. Back on June 11, 2005, Michael Arrington wrote his . Then he started having parties in the backyard of his old house in Atherton, one of the guys to one of them, there were lots more parties, and the rest is history. Michael’s come a long way from those backyard parties around a campfire, and so has TechCrunch. We now have millions of readers, dozens of employees, and our gatherings have gotten quite large (2,100 people at the in NYC). Oh, and we are now . We couldn’t have made it this far without all of you, our readers, coming back day in and day out (sometimes hourly). And we wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for all the startups, founders, and tech companies large and small who give us so much to write about. So we may a little bit bigger now, but we’ll never forget that the best things start small—sometimes around a campfire. |
Groupon: Still Getting Pwned In China | Contributor | 2,011 | 6 | 11 | Andrew Mason has been visiting Beijing and Groupon HQ has finally realized there are . On the website, Rebecca Fannin : CEO Andrew Mason just arrived in China and hasn’t wasted time shaking things up. Four expatriate executives at Groupon who were recruited from rival site Ftuan just a few months ago will be leaving Groupon China. : Groupon has contacted us and denies the original Forbes report. They say that no expatriate executives have been fired or left Groupon China recently. This seems to be a belated response to the very obvious problems at Groupon China that seasoned observers have been noting since the group buy website first opened up shop in Beijing and Shanghai: Groupon China was started and has been managed by a bunch of trendy-looking but ineffectual foreigners who can’t speak Chinese and are completely clueless about China. Firing four unnamed foreigners is not evidence that anything has changed. Meanwhile, Bloomberg report (which I’d wager a PR company helped put together) talking up Groupon’s Chinese partner Tencent: “Tencent’s scale and user base gives Groupon an advantage, and China’s group-buying market is still at an early stage and has a lot of upside,” said April Su, an analyst at iResearch in Beijing.… “We think we’ve found an excellent partner in Tencent and we’ve been very pleased with the progress we’ve made,” Mason told reporters in Beijing today, before leaving Ouyang to field queries on Gaopeng… Gaopeng is seeking an edge in China with “world-class brands,” like Apple Inc., Ouyang said today. “Our strategy is very strict selection of the merchant deals,” Ouyang said. “It’s not only about discount service but it’s also about being a city guide, a lifestyle.” A few problems:
If the Groupon model works in China, Tencent has nothing to gain by partnering with Groupon. Tencent has its own Groupon style offerings, and there is no need to make Groupon work for them to profit by the model. This is too rich: Gaopeng is seeking an edge in China with “world-class brands,” like Apple Inc., Ouyang said today. “Our strategy is very strict selection of the merchant deals,” Ouyang said. “It’s not only about discount service but it’s also about being a city guide, a lifestyle.” So, Apple is going to sell discounted iPads in China? Yeah right, why would Apple do this when there are already Chinese people willing to to get an iPad, or just to get hold of one. Apple and Groupon China? Simply ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is the “city guide / lifestyle” nonsense. I first worked on city guide / lifestyle print magazines in the late 1990s in China: There is a small amount of money to be made in city guides and lifestyle guide products in big Chinese cities. There is quite a bit more money to be made in Internet and media products that help position brands as desirable for the new rich and emerging middle classes (e.g. China magazine and China , possibly the and the ‘ magazine). There is also money to be made and a huge user demand for , which is like the Yelp of China that offers real, honest user reviews of restaurants. But, based on my personal experience since 1997, every foreign-funded company I have ever encountered in China talking about making money from local vendors based on a “lifestyle” proposition has about a year or so before bankrupting itself or being run out of town. A final note: I don’t know if Groupon is paying iResearch, but iResearch has a reputation in China for doing “research” for companies who pay them. Somehow, the companies always end up looking very good in their research reports. It’s all pre-IPO spin. Groupon China is simply a way to bleed cash. Apologies to anyone offended by the original title. It’s a reference to my . But since nobody got it, the headline has been changed.
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Joomla Quietly Crosses 23 Million Downloads, Now Powering Over 2,600 Government Sites | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 11 | , of the top million websites using (or CMSes), three systems own more than 75 percent of the total market share: , , and . (All of which are open source, by the way.) Many are likely most familiar with WordPress, which TechCrunch has (and uses to power most its sites, for full disclosure). WordPress is the most popular CMS on the Web, running 62 percent of the top million websites that use a CMS, according to BuiltWith, with Joomla now ranking second at 10 percent and closing. There are a ton of these content management systems out there, even though the top 3 claim most of the market share. And, as BuiltWith’s roster shows, microblogging and blog publishing services are often grouped in with CMSes — as some are able to be customized into a CMS — even though their scopes tend to be far more specialized. Services like and , to name two, are sometimes lumped in with CMSes and have attracted a lot of coverage in the press, some of which is for good reason. Because of this, services like Joomla seem to fly a bit under the radar. Or, at least so it seems with Joomla in particular, which has yet to be covered by TechCrunch. (Or has, at least, been covered minimally compared to 63 posts for WordPress.) So what is this “Joomla”, and why should you care about it? Joomla is a free, open source CMS, written in PHP that uses object-oriented programming, storing data in a MySQL database, and does page caching, RSS feeds, printable versions of pages, news flashes, blogs, polls, search — things that every CMS should do. And there are these impressive statistics: Joomla has now passed 23 million downloads, and currently stands at just over 23.5 million, to be precise. It owns 10.3 percent of the CMS market share, and BuiltWith shows it’s powering over 1.4 million websites. Joomla, for one, says that it’s impossible to know for sure, but estimates last year by between 1.5 and 2 million. Which admittedly seems small compared to the 23 million downloads. Pure statistics are fine and dandy, but what’s led Joomla to become the second largest CMS on the Interwebs? This is an especially interesting question considering that, as an open source system, there is no figurehead or CEO pulling the strings, or making product decisions. Joomla is updated and expanded on, like WordPress(.org) and Drupal, by its community of developers. But unlike Matt Mullenweg of WordPress (who, incidentally, was named one of the 50 most important people on the Web by PC Magazine) there is no “face” of Joomla; instead, it has been collectively run by the nearly 250K developers that use , the resource in which developers can build open source software projects, tools and extensions, for Joomla users. (And there are currently nearly 8K extensions available for the Joomla platform.) Unlike, say Mullenweg’s , Joomla is lead by three leadership teams, including , a non-profit entity that provides organizational, legal, and financial support to the Joomla community. A goal of these leadership teams are to maintain Joomla’s open source nature, assuring that Joomla is a project that acts autonomously, is socially responsible, and remains accountable to its community. According to Ryan Ozimek, president of Open Source Matters, the Joomla community has evolved significantly over the last 5 years, and in January of this year, Joomla’s Production Leadership Team initiated some changes to the project’s release cycle, that have already begun contributing to Joomla’s growth. Namely, the project has moved away from a feature-based lifecycle to a time-based lifecycle, which means that Joomla now releases a new version of its platform every 6 months. Instead of having the lead developers writing the code behind each sporadic release of new features, Joomla allows the community of developers to make patches, fix bugs, tinker with the framework or the design for the end-user. Then, at the end of the 6 months, the Production Leadership Team merges everything together into a finished release, which is then distributed to the public. Version 1.6, which was released in January, has been downloaded over 2.5 million times in the last 3.5 months, according to Ozimek, with 220 users now joining Joomla forums every single day. Compared to Drupal, Joomla has traditionally been focused on smaller companies, novices, and those who aren’t necessarily experienced developers, whereas the other has gone after enterprises and has a greater array of lumber and plumbing for heavier use cases. Drupal (and for full disclosure, I run a website using Drupal) also comes with a fairly steep learning curve. It’s not so easy to use right out of the box. Once you’ve created custom fields, content types — in other words, dug into and played around with it for awhile — Drupal begins to shine. So, Joomla’s strength in comparison is really that it’s ready to use; it requires no hardware investments or spending on software, and it works with a wide variety of SQL and noSQL databases. Again, for a CMS that has nearly 24 million downloads, 10 percent market share, and 500K registered users in its forums, Joomla is relatively unheard of in the U.S. Another reason for this (and another one of its strengths) is that, since its inception, the service has been geared towards an international audience. Joomla is currently being used in over 200 countries, according to Ozimek, with more than 2,500 international government agencies using the service to run those websites. (NASA, the US Air Force and US Army, included.) What’s more, Joomla has never taken in outside investment. Ozimek said that nearly 100 percent of the revenue for the non-profit has come from Google AdWords, or other advertising services, used across its network of websites — or from sponsorship. Both in its open source nature, bootstrapped financing, international focus, and use among “the little guys”, Ozimek said, chuckling, Joomla has taken on somewhat of a “hippie vibe”. And, speaking like a true long-hair-type, when asked how he compares Joomla’s progress to that of its nominal competitors, Ozimek said that the goal is not grabbing market share from other platforms, the goal is showcasing the capabilities of open source communities and software. “Our competition is proprietary software”, he said. “We want to work towards a time when we’re all open coding”. What a hippie. [youtube=”http://youtu.be/P8LRRuYwQ9k”] |
Whiteboard Wall Clock Is Minimal And Practical | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 29 |
The only way I could like this better is if there weren’t even any numbers on there. And maybe if there was a little more space to write on the top an bottom. Do they think nothing happens between 12 and 6? [via ] |
Walking Around In Circles: As Google+ Opens Up Will People Start Using It Correctly? | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 29 | Last night, I wrote up on + after using it for a day. Overall, I find it pretty compelling so far. While there is a bit of a learning curve, after about 15 minutes, I found myself at home using the service. And little things (namely notifications) kept bringing me back. But let’s be realistic, . The new car smell has yet to wear off. And I have also noticed a few other things that may spell trouble down the road. Right now, almost every single post I see on Google+ is shared with the Public. Perhaps this is to be expected since the initial roll-out yesterday was very small. People don’t have a lot of friend in their Circles yet, so they’re posting everything to the public in the hopes of seeing some interaction, I imagine. I have been doing this too. But tonight, for early users to spread around as they see fit. As far as I can tell, the service is seeing a massive influx of new users right now — a lot more than yesterday. And while Google’s servers appear to be handling the new load just fine, I do wonder what this will mean for the underlying principles of the site. Namely, will people start using Circles in the correct way? By “correct”, I don’t mean to suggest that there is a set way to use Google+. But it’s no secret that Circles are a huge part of what the service is supposed to be about. Google has spent a lot of time and energy working on what they believe to be the correct system for grouping people together for the purpose of sharing content online. But again, right now, most people seem to be sharing to “Public” and not actually using their Circles. That type of usage doesn’t seem tenable as Google+ gains users. Imagine the service having over a million users (which would be quite low for Google) — while you’ll still be in control of what posts you see, the comment sections will likely be too much. And people re-sharing other content will lead to too much noise. More importantly, that would make Google+ just another slightly different version of Twitter, Facebook, etc. Then it becomes a question of “why share here instead of there?” — and that’s not something I’m sure Google can win coming to the game so late. I think Google knows all of this. I don’t believe they’re setting out this time with the intention of trying to win that game. They did that with Buzz, . The emphasis with Google+ is on using Circles as a sort of natural filter. The hope is that you’ll share within Google+ the same way you do in the real world. You’ll send certain things to your close friends, other things to your co-workers, other things to your college buddies, etc. But as everyone has learned over the years, getting users to create and use groups is hard. Just ask Mark Zuckerberg. . With Google+, Google has created the most visually appealing and simple way to create groups yet (better than even ). But I’m still not entirely sold that people will do it. Or at least not to the extent that Google hopes. Google has smartly made it so that you have to add people to Circles in order to “follow” them. This is a slight barrier to entry in terms of digging in and using the service, but it does bolster the Circle idea. But instead of creating a bunch of Circles, I foresee people simply shoving everyone into the default “Friends” or “Following” Circles and going about their business. Who knows, maybe I’m just a Silicon Valley guy who has lost touch with reality. It’s entirely possible. But maybe, just maybe, the opposite is true. Maybe “regular” people have been allergic to using groups in the past because they simply don’t want to use groups. Maybe it’s one of those things that’s a good idea on paper or in a brain-storming session, but doesn’t translate onto the web. Maybe — gasp — the web isn’t meant to mimic the real world. Again, I’m not saying that’s for sure the case. I’m just very curious to see how Google+ usage plays out with a ton of people now using it. Will the current public sharing we’re seeing yield to the use of Circles? Or is the idea of public sharing becoming mainstream enough that it’s the new norm? That idea will certainly piss some people off. The old “I don’t want my boss or my mom seeing my drunken pictures” thing is the oft-cited rationale for why we need groups. But Twitter and now Facebook have slowly been changing that mentality in the public psyche. Increasingly, everything we do online is becoming public. You can say you hate it all you want, but it’s becoming more accepted each day. And this will only continue. When I look at my Google+ Circles right now, I think: what would I share with only these select people that I wouldn’t share with everyone? It’s hard to come up with an answer. People jump on me: “you don’t have kids!” That’s true, but I have a lot of friends with kids. The vast majority of them seem fine sharing those pictures with the public. Further, I’m just not sure that sharing pictures of your kids is a big enough use case to constitute an entire, massive social fabric. For certain smaller services, sure. For Google? No. This is the company that wants to organize all of the world’s data. In order to do that, don’t they need all of that data to be public? Doesn’t it seem like they should be pushing the fully public Twitter mentality more than private group sharing? It sure does. But again, they already lost that race. And the attempts to buy Twitter have been rebuffed. So instead they’re going for the market where there is an opening right now. And maybe that will work. Again, I like Google+ a lot so far. But I like it because it’s a well-made network with some interesting tools. I’m not sold on Circles yet. Maybe other features like Huddle (group mobile chat) will change that. Maybe they won’t. Google has said that this initial roll-out of Google+ is only a sliver of what’s to come. So we’ll have to wait and see. But whether they like it or not, the public vs. Circle trial is beginning right now. If everyone keeps sharing with the public, Google+ will be a public network. And that’s fine. I’m just not sure it’s what Google wants, because I’m not sure it’s something anyone needs another version of. Instead, the best hope for Google+ may be for Circles to take off and get people hooked on specialized sharing with smaller networks, and then for public sharing to come up later and take its place. You know, the Facebook doctrine. |
Teardown Shows Apple's Thunderbolt Cables Aren't Just Wires Wrapped In Rubber | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 29 |
There are plenty of cables out there that are essentially just long pieces of metal protected by a rubber sheath. Their job is to carry a voltage, and they do. Thunderbolt (and presumably other, non-branded versions like Sony’s) is a little different. It seems that not all the horsepower is in the port; some has to be offloaded onto the cable itself. shows it’s not just the Apple Tax that makes the cables expensive, though what exactly is going on in those little chips is still mostly unknown. |
Review: The HP Palm TouchPad | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 29 |
Like Duckie from , Palm has been the perennial third choice. Even in its late heyday, when the Treo still ruled the airwaves and the iPhone was a faint glimmer in Apple’s eye, they got the short end of it with consumers and critics. But there was – and is – a zealous minority who see Palm as the Third Way, a way out of Apple/Android/Microsoft hegemony and who see WebOS as a viable alternative. And they will be abundantly pleased by this device. Palm is back, albeit in a form that speaks more to HP’s cost-cutting measures than to the heavy duty devices you remember. WebOS and the Palm TouchPad are nearly perfect, an excellent amalgamation of everything that was ever right about Palm. But is even perfection, in this market, enough? Without a strong app base and some work on performance issues, the TouchPad may be the most beautiful dead end we have seen yet. But there is hope. : To be a fan has long been an exercise in frustration. First Palm was gone, . Then it was gone again, swallowed by a market giddy for Android and iPhone. Then and promised WebOS would appear , a neutering that would surely destroy the once-great company. Then, praise to the great god Quatzequatel, they , a device that would bring WebOS back into the game. And it has, with a few caveats. Let’s begin.
The TouchPad is not a slim device. It is clad in bulbous black plastic that takes fingerprints like a crime scene and has a large, 9-inch touchscreen. There is one button at the bottom the screen and volume controls on the side. On the opposite side are two large speaker grills; audio playback is strong and loud and the TouchPad, when paired with a phone, makes a good speakerphone.
The TouchPad has the same screen pixel density as the iPad 2 but makes more of all of that real estate thanks to the clever WebOS interface. When docked in its TouchStone inductive charger, the TouchPad doubles as a clock, mail reader, and photo viewer. The dock is quite cool but if you place the TouchPad on it and the inductive connection is not solid the device will buzz slightly, which is disconcerting. The screen is covered in plastic and I noticed that when stuck into a tight laptop bag the outside screen would stick to the LCD, a problem that made it appear that the LCD had cracked. It had not. In all, the TouchPad is about the same size as almost any other major name tablet except the iPad 2. It is as thick as the and the original but the bulbous shape makes it feel a bit bigger. It isn’t very heavy – 1.6 pounds compared to 1.3 pounds for the iPad 2 and 1.6 for the Xoom – but it “feels” heavier and heftier. I would worry that a case, which it sorely needs out of the box, would make it even heavier, although I did actually see a TouchPad with a Smart Cover-esque folding case that looked quite promising. A word about the plastic: the unit I was testing is already scratched on its back from a bit of regular use. This will definitely disturb those who keep their devices in pristine condition and combined with the patina of smudges this device collects over time it will eventually make your TouchPad look like the counter at a turnpike diner. I wouldn’t harp on this if it weren’t true: almost immediately the TouchPad, like many Pre devices, begins looking greasy. A goofy little FCC ID tag pops out from the lower right side of the device. There is no SD card slot or SIM card slot. The device has a 1.3 megapixel front camera and no rear camera. There is no camera application (that I could find) although you can make video calls through Skype. Photography is clearly not a priority with this device. The TouchPad can be charged via micro USB or induction. It charges very slowly when connected to a PC – but it charges – and you can enable it as a storage device to drag over files, music, photos, and movies.
The TouchPad has 802.11b/g/n networking, Bluetooth, and a special Bluetooth variant that it uses to connect to Palm Pre devices. It does not support cellular networks (yet) and the only way to get online is to connect to a hotspot. A-GPS is available in mobile versions only and this device seems to grab location via the current hotspot. It definitely didn’t find my exact house but it did find Bay Ridge and point to a corner of the neighborhood where I might reside. The TouchPad interacts with the Palm Pre, specifically the Pre 3. Pre interaction is quite cool but quite limited. In the current case, you can place the phone close to the TouchPad and send the current website you’re browsing to the phone. A clever “water drop” animation shows you when the transfer has been made and then the website appears on the phone. Unfortunately, lots of other weird stuff happens on the TouchPad, with cards opening and closing wildly without explanation. The TouchPad also supports a Bluetooth keyboard with special WebOS buttons that allows for a far more comfortable typing experience for those accustomed to hard buttons. The onscreen keyboard to disappear when the Bluetooth keyboard is paired, which could cause some consternation.
Battery life was difficult to assess on this device during the time I had. I saw about 18 hours between charges with low use although the device would run down to nearly zero and stay there for a good five hours in standby, hanging onto its last electrons for dear life. Heavy use run-down is also variable depending on the number of apps you open, close and use and we saw it run down from 24% to 10% in a few minutes with plenty of slipping, sliding, and tapping. Video playback and reading brought battery life down to about six hours although there are settings to reduce screen brightness and autolocks that could increase that number with some tweaking. In short, battery life is on par if better than almost any tablet you can name although the variability I saw could put a damper on longer media playback. However, I saw nothing alarming or particularly notable when it came to battery life, at least in the limited testing I was able to do. If your battery is run down it is very difficult to charge it with the TouchStone charger. A direct USB charge is best in situations where the device has run down to red.
WebOS is the real star of this show. The OS offers true multi-tasking and uses a system of “cards” and “stacks” to display active applications. The OS also uses a system called Synergy to sync with services in the cloud and to save logins and accounts that can be moved from one device to another. When you activate an application, it moves onto a smaller “card” and then expands into fullscreen when completely loaded. Swiping up from the bottom of the screen (or pressing the home button) brings all of the cards back up and you can tap and hold a card to move to to another stack. For example, you can stack similar tasks together (“Emails to send today,” “Web pages to read,” “Images of cats to coo at”). You can also flick apps up and away, shutting them down or closing their windows. The second major metaphor is the “leaf.” This is draggable corner of many windows that exposes or hides more information. For example, you can open and close leaves in many applications including the Facebook app, adding layers of data to many apps. Finally, there is the notifications system. This system is far superior to any other I’ve seen. There are lock screen notifications that can be acted upon and mail notifications, for example, are actually stacked, allowing you to flick through recently received mails right from the notifications bar. This is an excellent solution and alone could be considered worth the price of admission. Synergy also allows a great deal of Facebook interaction. For example, in the Photo and Movies app (where your videos eventually end up, for some odd reason).
“Just Type” is a search function that searches the device, the Web, and then connects to any search APIs you have added during your search sessions. For example, TechCrunch supports this search API and you can search TechCrunch in addition to the other sources you’ve chosen. Just Type appears on almost every screen or is at least available with a single button press. The device plays back MPEG-4, H.263, and H.264 video and (this is straight from the product page) “DRM-free MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR, QCELP, and WAV.” Video playback is more than acceptable and a special desktop app allows for music syncing with iTunes libraries. Oddly, videos and photos appear in the same app, which makes things confusing. Synergy will also bring in your Facebook photo albums although these are often at sub par resolution. There are a few other native apps. Email and Calendar work as expected and the Email client has a unified inbox that brings in all of your new messages. IM and SMS support works well and the TouchPad will mirror SMSes received on your Pre. A YouTube app brings up the YouTube website, which was kind of a letdown.
The browser is quite capable and rendered almost every website without issues. It supports Flash 10.1 and can display complex animations but Flash games are a different story. The browser usually defaults to the full version
Here’s where things start the break down. The TouchPad App Catalog, as its called, is very limited. A service called Pivot – essentially an online magazine – allows developers to showcase their apps and stories related to various activities – gaming, entertainment, vacations – call out various apps available in the store. As it stands, however, there are very few native TouchPad apps and non-native apps appear half sized on the TouchPad’s ample screen with no opportunity to resize them. The Rosetta Stone of apps, , is available to those still enamored by these damn avian/porcine wars but once you get past that app it’s pretty slim pickings. There are no Instagram or Reddit apps but there are Facebook and Twitter apps, the former being one of the best I’ve seen. Generally, however, we’re talking about a relative wasteland. Will this change? Absolutely. I worry that i won’t change fast enough but that’s not for me to assess. I look forward to having a robust WebOS app store and I think developers will deign to develop for this platform with enough market penetration. Now, on to the bottom line:
WebOS is a capable third (or fourth) entrant into the mobile OS race. As with Duckie, however, I worry that the average Molly Ringwald will go with the popular Blaine rather than the loyal and arguably better school nerd. I don’t agree that but HP had to do with its intellectual property and there’s no reason they won’t support this going forward. I’m rooting for Duckie. I want him to win. Do I think it’s possible in the milieu in which we’re currently operating, with countless Android tablets flooding the market with product and a major player “flummoxing” all comers? I don’t know. I really don’t. I called the death of Palm as a standalone entity early when they announced the Pre and it was clear the mobile market couldn’t support an also-ran. I hope that HP’s might and Palm’s current experience will pull them through this renaissance and I think they’ve produced a strong tablet with a strong OS for a market that has drastically changed since they last failed.
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Video: PBS Reports On Bionic Limb Development | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 29 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWSbXoT1IvY&w=640&h=390]
It’s hard to keep up with all the developments in the bionics and cybernetics worlds: so many universities and private institutions are working on so many projects that by the time you report one, another has leapfrogged it. PBS News Hour has put together a nice little survey of the current tech, interviewing Dean Kamen and a number of other inventors and researchers in the field. Feeling out of date? Watch away. if you don’t feel like watching, though it’s really great to see some of this stuff in action. [via ] |
Rumor Puts MacBook Air Refresh In Mid-July | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 29 |
Impatient for those new MacBook Airs we ? It’ll be a couple more weeks, if are to be believed. The upcoming earnings call on the 19th corroborates this; Apple was rumored to be waiting until they could ship with Lion, and it may be that they’ll just have nailed down that date come mid-July… but not yet. |
Flickr Metadata Hints At Possible "Droid HD" In The Works | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 29 |
A picture on Flickr (which I can’t find and therefore can’t confirm) has apparently been with “motorola Droid HD” listed as the camera. Oh my god, it’s a new Droid with a 1280×720 screen, like that in the and other upcoming superphones! Or… someone has been messing with EXIF data, or (as the picture was taken near the Motorola campus in Illinois) it could be a test platform for new Droid-standard HD camera hardware. One data point isn’t much to go on. [via ] |
Cisco Brings AppHQ App Storefront To It's 7-Inch Cius Tablet | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 6 | 29 | A year ago today, that ’s enterprise-focused 7-inch Cius tablet would never ship. It was a reasonable prediction at the time, but it turns out we were wrong. In fact, the Cisco Cius tablet did ship in late March, barely making its promised release date of “Q1 2011.” Today, Cisco unveiled its latest product for Cius, the AppHQ application storefront, hoping to gain a little more traction with potential enterprise customers. Basically, AppHQ is a way of keeping the applications on an enterprise device safe and secure. The Cius itself is an tablet running 2.2 Froyo, so the Android Market is already in place. But the notion of employees downloading random apps to the same device that holds sensitive company data is likely to cause heart attacks in the IT department. With AppHQ, IT has total and complete power over what applications are available to the company’s users.
AppHQ is already loaded with plenty of Android apps, but Cisco tests those apps to make sure that they keep all the company’s information safe. On top of that, companies can develop applications specific to their own business, and create a “store-within-a-store,” if you will. So let’s say you work for , and you’ve created this, that and the other app for your employees’ Cius tablets. You can publish those apps to AppHQ, but then every other company using Cius has access to them. By upgrading to the store-within-a-store format, those Sony-specific apps are only available to your employees. Businesses also have the option to customize their storefront with logos, various color schemes, and icons to make the app store experience as company-specific as possible. As expected, store-within-a-store costs extra, but details on that weren’t available. Luckily, the Cius will grab Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) once it’s ready, and has 4G support “planned.” On July 31, the Cisco Cius will roll out globally, along with its new AppHQ storefront. The 7-inch tablet is priced at $750, but bulk orders may see a discount depending on size. |
BeenVerified Takes Background Checks Mobile With A New Android App And An iOS Rerelease | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 29 | Background checks are now fully mobile, thanks ‘s new and the . The Background Check App does exactly as you might expect: It pulls data from BeenVerified’s site and allows you to check up on the people you know through name queries or email addresses. Users can check up on their contacts with one click, allowing you to see how many times the person in the cubicle next to you has been arrested. Luckily, I have a spotless record, or else I wouldn’t be writing this. Right, BeenVerified? When the Background Check App first dropped in 2009, it was downloaded nearly a million times in less then a month. Thanks to this aggressive downloading (and some questions over privacy issues), Apple actually pulled the app from its app store after a few weeks. But, this month, after lengthy conversations with Apple, BeenVerified was able to assuage Apple’s concerns, and has now re-released the app with their blessing. In the first four days, the app was downloaded over 14K times. As Reputation.com’s , the issue of privacy is gearing up to be “the next big thing in the online economy”, and people are becoming are now more willing than ever to pay for online services that keep cookies at bay and protect their web-based reputations. As social media has become ubiquitous, and the Web proliferates, it’s no wonder that our perception of privacy is being categorically altered. Some, would say “threatened”, while others would argue it’s a natural part of our digital evolution. Regardless of where you come down on that question, a lot of the information on the Web is shady to say the least, and people still want to know that those they’re doing business with, or dating, or interacting with, are trustworthy and not out to do harm. The social web is moving forward at lightning speed, and with services like Airbnb, Match, Craiglist, and umpteen others, the gap between virtual and physical worlds is narrowing. As this is the case, the demand for 3rd party, objective public record information about those we meet on the web is increasing exponentially, especially in cases like, say, who we’re renting our apartments to on Airbnb, and we want this information accessible on-the-go. Thus, BeenVerified’s mission is to make background checks accessible — and more importantly, affordable — which is why the app is free to download and each user gets one free background check a month that includes criminal, age, and address history. Unfortunately, however, it’s not all free. If users want more than one report a month, additional checks can be purchased through in-app payments for $9.95 a pop. While BeenVerified has already served over 10 million free background checks and is providing unlimited free reverse phone lookups through its mobile and web app , there are certainly some questions over just how much access there is to personal information and how pervasive it is. Can I really just search for anyone in the U.S. and pull their background info? Not quite. BeenVerified Director of Communications Danny Canarick told me that most criminal records are stored and maintained at the county level, yet as one might imagine, not all 3,100+ counties in the U.S. have made digital versions of their records available yet. Which is why the company began a “Court Runner” service, which, for a small fee, directs a real-live court runner to go to the local courthouse to pull actual hardcopies of the records and to create a one-off digital version. While this service is currently only available through the BeenVerified site, Canarick says that the company plans to bring it to mobile in the very near future. Currently, the company’s apps have digital access to criminal convictions in 46 states, and arrest warrant data from portions of 35 states. This data comes directly from the administrative offices of courts, departments of public safety, departments of correction, etc. And, finally, for those TechCrunch readers out there looking to try this out and educate themselves on public record data, for the next seven days, all in-app background checks will be available for 99 cents. So, readers, check out the Background Check App and let us know what you think. For more, check out the video below: [vimeo=http://vimeo.com/25792637 width=”620″ height=”380″] |
Kickstarter: Triggertrap Universal Camera Trigger | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 29 |
While most of us are satisfied with pressing the shutter release button on our cameras in order to take a picture, creative use many methods to do it, from remotes to time-lapse rigs to tethered laptops. But many of these methods are complex, expensive, or both. aims to provide an affordable, hackable, and universal tool for telling your camera “now!”. They call it the Triggertrap, and it’s an Arduino-based system that comes with laser, sound, and interval-based exposure triggers built in. Then there’s a USB input that will let you devise your own methods (or download and apply those created by others). I don’t know about you, but I think this sounds like a great, portable tool that could make my photography better and more varied. The device would cost about $75, though that may go up later on. It would come in homebrew hackable and retail-friendly, water-resistant flavors. They’re about $4.6K towards the $25K goal with a full month to go, so show them some love. |
Luca Technologies Files To Go Public, Producing New Natural Gas From Old Wells | Lora Kolodny | 2,011 | 6 | 29 | A Colorado cleantech venture, Luca Technologies, filed an S-1 today revealing its intention to go public, and raise up to $125 million (though that number could vary with the receptivity of the market by the time they actually go public). The company stimulates microbes with a “proprietary formulation of nutrients,” in already-drilled natural gas wells, which enables the wells to produce more methane, the primary component of natural gas. Luca Technologies owns and operates wells and infrastructure, then sells natural gas into existing markets. Its end users include power utilities, and government entities that use natural gas for power production. Today, Luca’s chief executive Bob Cavnar (image, below) explained: “Our technology activates the microbial communities that are already native in substrata [of existing natural gas wells]. We restore those substrata with water that has nutrients in it— like yeast extracts, some acetates, and stuff you could put into processed food today— which is fully consumed by the microbes, and then as a result, they produce natural gas. This does not require new wells or ‘fracking.’ There are tens of thousands of wells in places like Wyoming and New Mexico, about half of which have been shut down because they were depleted… If we can restore those, recycle and not degrade the water there, but still produce natural gas, that’s sustainable. I think of it like farming natural gas. We’re definitely economic versus big shale gas wells that are drilled for millions of dollars. The more gas we can produce, the more independent we can become of Middle Eastern oil.” Cavnar is a serial energy entrepreneur. He survived a gas well pit fire in 1981, which he wrote about on and in his book Disaster On The Horizon. Why is Luca considering the IPO? Cavnar said: “We have a growth plan that involves acquisitions of wells. [Going public could] provide us a source of capital that can take us to that commercial trajectory where we can deploy our technology at scale…”
Today, owns 1,350 wells in Wyoming. The company intends to expand there, and is looking for wells to revitalize in Alabama, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Appalachia. The company’s venture backers include: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, One Equity Partners, Oxford Bioscience Partners, and BASF Venture Capital. |
Watch Twitter Explode: Google+ Invites Granted To Early Users | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 29 | If there’s been a question I’ve been asked more than “do you have any Google+ invites?”, I can’t remember it. ! Sadly, I haven’t had any invites to give out. Google has decided they’re going to roll out the network very slowly. Or that the plan. It now appears that early Google+ users (meaning the one ) now have the option to invite other people. And as far as I can tell, it’s unlimited. I realize that by posting this, I’m really asking for it. Gulp. One big caveat: I have no clue if these invites grant immediate access, or if they’re simply a way for you to add friends you’d like to get invites — then they’ll be added to the waitlist. : As Google’s Bradley Horowitz notes in the comments: “Google has decided they’re going to roll out the network very slowly. Or that was the plan.” Actually, that remains the plan. We launched Google+ in a Field Trial in order to test the product out and gather more feedback. As part of the Field Trial, we may open and close Google+ to new users at any time. We’re psyched so many people are interested in trying out a new approach to online sharing, but please consider: – At any instant, a given invitation may or may not grant access.
– There are rate limits that are subject to change.
– PRO TIP: Bulk inviting will not be an effective strategy for getting your loved one access. I would recommend inviting those people you really want to share with… |
Sprint's HTC Evo 3D Caught Prepping For T-Mo's 4G Network? | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 6 | 29 | ’s line of phones have long been exclusives, and are arguably the number three carrier’s shining stars. Interestingly enough, Sprint’s most recent (and also most awesome) phone, the Evo 3D has been spotted passing through the FCC sporting ’s AWS bands. A trip to the FCC doesn’t necessarily mean that T-Mobile is for sure, without a doubt picking up the Evo 3D, but it does give a little hope to T-Mobile customers who aren’t keen on the pink carrier’s current front-runner, the Sensation 4G. Here’s a quick specs refresher on the HTC Evo 3D: It packs glasses-free 3D onto its 4.3-inch qHD display, touts a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, runs and comes with . It’s dual 5-megapixel rear-facing cameras capture 3D still images, and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera is on board, as well. The phone also has 4G support from Sprint’s WiMax network, and should it creep on over to T-Mo, the Evo 3D will pack T-Mobile’s HSPA+ 4G AWS bands, too. [via ] |
Oxygen Accelerator founder talks about new startup programme (TCTV) | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 6 | 29 | Startup accelerators are mushrooming all over Europe, but generally in capital cities. An exception to that rule is the new , a Birmingham, UK, based investment programme which . The 13-week programme will take applications from around the world and has attracted slightly bemused attention for offering an “evergreen soft loan” of £20,000 to start with, in return for a 6% equity stake. But teams don’t need to ‘pay back’ the loan until the startup raises more investment or the business can afford to repay it. After which that £20k is designed to re-circulate back into the programme and keep £200,000 fund, which covers 10 teams, re-circulating for the next year. Word on the streets say VCs are comfortable with the arrangement, so long as the programme creates dealflow. The move attracted some controversy, but it’s the brainchild of local entrepreneur Mark Hales, who is passionate about bringin startups to Central England. I caught up with up to chat about the thinking behind Oxygen. Applications for the programme close in the next few days. |
Hitachi Wants To Join Toshiba And Sony In LCD-Maker Mega-Merge | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 29 |
While the nuances of this enormous, enormous business deal are certainly lost on this poor tech blogger, I thought it worthwhile to mention that three major Japanese tech companies are considering , presumably to compete more effectively against major rivals like Samsung, Panasonic, Sharp, and big Chinese OEMs. What would the result be? . But the Japanese government would be investing a lot, so maybe that would add a bit of trustworthiness to the new company. Maybe. |
Former Yahoo Engineer Quits To Build A Flickr Killer On Kickstarter | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 29 | As , it can sometimes feel like certain photo-sharing websites have more of a hostage-taking approach to their business models than a “lets-please-the-customer” model. The photo-sharing experience then effectively becomes synonymous with platform lock-in — if you try to leave, you may not be able to take your images with you. Or, if you do, you’ll have to pay the price, Budnick. (But, wait, whose photos are they again? Oh, right.) It’s for this reason that Jaisen Mathai is building a service called OpenPhoto. At the end of May, Mathai quit his job at Yahoo (like so many before him), where he had served in various engineering roles since 2007. Because of the frustration of having to watch Yahoo let an awesome startup like Flickr fizzle, ( , he says) and having years of experience building applications — and even building — Mathai . Unfortunately for him, however, there are already more than there are humans on the planet, and photo apps (for how much we seem to write about them), was one of the demographics to receive the amount of . This is part of the reason why Mathai has taken to Kickstarter instead of chasing down VCs and angels. It’s also because, to use a tired phrase, Kickstarter is a site designed for the people, with funding by (and for) the people. And Mathai says, knowing it may sound trite, that he’s trying to do the same thing with OpenPhoto — not only that, but he’s trying to avoid the mistakes that Yahoo made with Flickr. The motive: Mathai says that he believes, plain and simply, that the photos one uploads and shares on the Web belong to that person and that person alone — and should, therefore, be portable. If one decides to switch to a different service, then they should be able to easily move all of their photos, tags, and comments to the other service. It’s a no hostage policy. (The U.N. is going to love it.) With OpenPhoto, Mathai is transparently attempting to put the user back in control of where their photos are stored, so the service will allow users to freely select which cloud storage and database services meet their needs, based on whichever selling point matters to them — price, security, and trust. If a new service comes along, users can take their photos to that service without losing a single photo, tag or comment. For example, OpenPhoto users can select Amazon S3, Rackspace Cloudfiles, Dropbox or any other service with a file storage API to store their photos. (This also applies to databases such as Amazon SimpleDb or MongoHQ for their tags and comments.) In turn, Mathai wants to build two versions of OpenPhoto — one installable, and one hosted — yet both are free and allow photos to be easily uploaded and shared via email, Facebook, Twitter and more. Mathai also said, via his “Kickstarter Deliverables” that he wants to “document the crap out of” the design and coding process so that others can take advantage of the API and build their own OpenPhoto apps. The open source, installable version will, of course, . Mathai also has some other features he’d like to see be part of the service, like mobile apps for iOS and Android and a marketplace for designers to create their own themes, but he has to get to the $25,000 goal first. And he’s got a long way to go. What’s more, if you’d like to see this crazy idealist in the fury of coding, you’re likely to find him at the , throwing darts at print outs of Instagram photos. [vimeo=http://www.vimeo.com/25756625 width=”620″ height=”380″] |
Google Now Lets Website Owners Measure The Power Of +1 (And Any Other Social Widget) | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 6 | 29 |
Back in March, Google officially started rolling out the in its search results, allowing users to vote up the pages they found most useful. Two months later, on June 1, it launched a widget that lets website owners integrate the button into their pages, just like they do with Facebook’s ‘Like’ and Twitter’s ‘Tweet’ buttons. But, err, it wasn’t really clear . People kept clicking the button, but the effect — better search results for our friends — isn’t really tangible. And it isn’t really clear to site owners how much of an impact the button’s having, either. Today, that changes: Google has just that +1 data will be displayed in Google’s Webmaster tools, allowing site owners to see exactly how much of an effect +1 is having. You’ll now be able to see how many +1 a page has in total, and what impact that has on Clickthrough Rates. And Google has another trick up its sleeves too — it’s going to also give you analytics on any other social widget you have installed, like Facebook’s Like Button. : This feature requires site admins to add an additional piece of code, see the Google post for instructions. Here’s how Google breaks down the new features for social widgets: The value of +1 for as opposed to site owners will likely come not just from improved search results, but also from integration in Google+, the social network that it yesterday. That’s assuming, of course, that people keep using it once it launches to everyone (I’m liking it so far).
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Larry Summers Joins Andreessen Horowitz as Special Advisor | Sarah Lacy | 2,011 | 6 | 29 | is announcing today that economist, former US Treasury Secretary and former President of Harvard Larry Summers is joining the firm as a special advisor. Beyond his well known academic and political credentials, Marc Andreessen was quick to point out that Summers has nerd cred too: He was admitted at MIT at the age of 16 to study physics. Summers will be part time, acting in an advisory role exclusive to the firm. Specifically, he’ll be helping startups think through economic and pricing models as they strive to disrupt large industries, not only in the United States but in the turbulent and ever-changing global economy. Although Andreessen Horowitz is one of the only big name Silicon Valley firms not investing in emerging markets directly, all of its companies are seeking to tap into them and many like , and are made possible by the flattened, global economy. The inspiration for the role comes from , a top economist who played a pivotal role in helping Google rethink the ad market, laying the foundation for several of the key algorithms that went into the paid search model, Andreessen says. Not surprisingly, the conduit for Summers and Andreessen’s relationship was Facebook COO , an early protege of Summers at Harvard who also worked with him at the World Bank and the Treasury. Andreessen is on Facebook’s board, and several months ago Sandberg insisted the two meet. As a side note, Sandberg is only the second person I’ve ever heard Andreessen describe as “a human router”– the first being, , Ron Conway. The big question is whether this is just one of those glitzy big name announcements venture firms like to make that we never hear about again– ala , , and — or whether Larry Summers will actually make a meaningful impact on Andreessen Horowitz’s portfolio companies. “I’m not sure what has gone well or not at other firms, but I know what we’re going to do and several of our entrepreneurs have already starting meeting with him,” Andreessen says. According to Summers, the firm isn’t being shy with requests. “I go to bed most nights with emails from Marc and wake up most mornings with more emails from Marc,” he says. “I’m not going to be solving the problems in their routing systems, but I’ll be a sounding board giving my insights on the global economy and the feasibility and attractiveness of different pricing schemes.” Of course I couldn’t let a world-famous economist entering the Silicon Valley investing fray off the phone without answering another question: Are we in a tech bubble? He noted that economists never give yes or no answers, and added that given the breadth of the Web, the scale of the market, and the revenues associated with the ruling tech startups rendered any comparisons to the late 1990s “too facile.” But as a good economist, he hedged all that saying one always had to be wary when euphoria is building. I asked if this was a period of euphoria now and he demurred, saying he was sticking to the intentionally vague answer above. In other words, I got a solid “not now but maybe later.” Let’s hope Mr. Summers has clearer answers for Andreessen Horowitz’s portfolio. If in The Social Network was remotely accurate (a big if considering the film in question) he’ll win points among many entrepreneurs. He was the voice of reason advising the Winklevoss twins to “come up with a new project” and telling them their whining wasn’t “worthy of Harvard.” Amen to that. |
Cutting The Cord: WildChords Brings Guitar Hero To Real Guitars On The iPad | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 16 | Learning to play an instrument is challenging; the progress in the early stages is slow, and the exercises that help you learn are boring and tedious. It’s largely for this reason that so many people give up on their chosen instrument before they reach vaunted rock star status. So, to combat this drop-out problem, , an early-stage startup from Finland has built a game for the iPad called that aims to provide a fun way for beginners to learn guitar so that they can get over those early humps and go on to musical glory. Essentially, WildChords takes the model and applies it to early-stage musical education. You simply download the game onto your iPad, and pick up your acoustic or electric guitar and start playing. The app uses high-tech audio technology to recognize the sound through your device’s microphone what chords you’re playing, turning your six-string into a game controller. The gameplay itself is based on the story, so the user finds his or herself among a menagerie of animals that have recently escaped from the zoo. Each animal likes a particular chord, so the object is to play all of the chords correctly, and save the animals — and the city — from madness. The game levels are short one-minute exercises that become successively more difficult as the players’ skills improve. While the game is intended for people of all ages, the animation and gameplay will likely be more appealing to a younger audience. Ovelin founders Mikko Kaipainen and Christoph Thür told TechCrunch that the game’s design is intended to differentiate itself from Guitar Hero, in that this is an app to teach the user to play guitar, not to necessarily to give you the impression that you’re a rockstar. Because, let’s be honest, most people are far from it. (Myself included.) The songs are also, generally speaking, simple, and though some of the melodies may sound familiar, you won’t find a lot of recognizable songs. This is because, as anyone who has tried to learn an instrument knows, the first thing you do is try to learn your favorite songs — whatever they may be. But, early on, this can be counterproductive and frustrating. While you may be able to finger the chords, what you play obviously never quite sounds like what you’re hearing. Instead, WildChords’s game levels are intended to be akin to brief — and enjoyable — homework assignments. The Ovelin founders said that the motivation for WildChords came from their own personal experience — they too are both instrument education drop-outs. The main reason that so many people drop out early in the process, they believe, is a matter of motivation. Although both are engineers, neither had music backgrounds, so they focused on building an app from the user’s perspective that minimizes the frustration and ups the addictiveness. Once they had a roadmap, they brought in a team of signal processing experts, music teachers, and game developers to round out the team. And so far, it’s worked out well, especially considering the startup is bootstrapped and running on a small grant it received from the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation. In fact, a week ago, Ovelin won the “Best Game” at the European Learning Game Competition. And, today, Ovelin will be presenting at the “Startup Sauna Demo Day” at (which I’m told is in essence the “Y Combinator of the Nordics and Baltics”), where the team will be courting investors. Though WildChords will be available only for guitar and the iPad, the startup plans to add a full suite of instruments to its roster and to go cross-platform with its mobile apps as it goes. Ovelin is also announcing a competition to submit the best voice-over for WildChord’s sound effects — particularly for the game’s monkey character. Whoever produces the best monkey sound wins a WildChord starter set. Check it out on the landing page . [youtube=http://youtu.be/MDkCb81Cfrg] I got wrapped up in talking about WildChords and forgot to mention a few other cool apps/games out there that teach you to play the guitar. There’s , a guitar game coming this fall, and , a realtime, interactive app that will help you tune your guitar and teach you to play. Available for iOS, requires a standard headset with built-in microphone or a basic line-in guitar adapter with both headphone jack and guitar cable input to connect. Allows you to play individual notes, for beginners and experts alike. Lots of cool features. Check ’em out. |
What Does The World Look Like Through 50 UV Filters? Blurry, Apparently | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 16 |
There’s some disagreement on UV filters in the world, but we can probably all agree that if you’re going to put one on your lens, it shouldn’t be some five dollar bargain bin filter. After all, you paid hundreds, or maybe thousands of dollars for that lens — why should you ruin all that beautiful glass with a sheisty frontispiece? has posted a fun little experiment where they stacked fully 50 UV filters one on top of the other, to show that A, they’re not just a transparent piece of glass, and B, some are better than others. Check out the results: It’s pretty amazing that even that much of the image gets through. I mean, fifty panes of glass! , and some other pictures demonstrating the difference between a good and a bad filter. [via and ] |
American Airlines Joins Alaska In Shift From Paper Charts To iPad | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 16 |
Back in February, we heard about a charter jet company that was . And since then I’ve seen a number of apps and providing this function. But hearing that is surprising. I figured they’d move to an electronic solution eventually, but using consumer hardware? Interestingly, the switch mainly saves money on weight. According to American, they’ll save $1.2 million in fuel costs — no mention of savings on printing, that sort of thing. The apps I’ve seen weren’t bargain prices, so probably the companies involved know they can still charge a bundle. Though interestingly, Alaska’s pilots will be using GoodReader (a solid app) to read PDF versions of charts. Baby steps, I guess. You as a passenger probably won’t notice one way or the other. And no, I don’t think this means you get to keep yours on during takeoff and landing. Apple, I’m sure, will be crowing about this soon, though. [via ] |
Finally, A Ford Dealership In Playstation Home | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 16 |
The strange, sterile type world of Playstation Home has been missing something. No, not a soul or anything like that. It’s been missing virtual car dealerships. And Ford decided it was time that particular problem was addressed. Yes, a Ford dealership is now open in the world of Playstation Home. The zero square foot facility will house electronic replicas of the Ford Edge and Ford Fiesta, two cars you are of course extremely unlikely to see on the street or at a real-life retailer. Strangely, despite there being almost literally infinite space available, only these two cars are available for examination. Look around your Home area and I’m sure you’ll find your way there sooner or later. You can win a Ford t-shirt if you have skillz. |
Chrome 13 Hits Beta, Google Touts "Print Preview" Feature. For Serious. | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 16 | Google Chrome first on September 1, 2008. The very next day, someone filed a “ ” report on the Chromium project page stating the following: There is no option for a print preview. I think that this is needed so that you can see what the page will look like before wasting paper and toner. Good news, — today is your lucky day! Yes, it may have taken almost 3 years and 13 versions, but Google has finally added “Print Preview” as a feature of Google Chrome! Google touts the new addition (which still doesn’t work on Macs yet) in their today on Chrome 13 entering beta: Second, we’re happy to announce that issue number 173 in our public bug database, which has collected more than 900 “stars” from users around the world since it was filed in 2008, has been implemented on Windows and Linux (the Mac version is coming soon). That’s right–we’ve finally added Print Preview! Print Preview uses Chrome’s built-in PDF viewer to display the page you want to print, and it updates automatically as you adjust your print settings. You can also choose to save any web page as a PDF file, using the “Print to PDF” option that’s automatically included in the printer list. Thanks for being patient with us on this one! More importantly, Chrome 13 brings the new feature Google unveiled earlier this week. And there’s a new Omnibox suggestion feature. Chrome 13 should be in beta for a few weeks and then it will go stable with the new features as well. Meanwhile, Chrome 14 just entered the dev channel. No word on if it will contain the “set as desktop wallpaper” , er, feature. |
Lenovo Waves Their New Tablet Around At Brazil Event | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 29 |
We’ve heard many things about Lenovo’s tablet plans, but they’re a bit hard to parse. After all, Lenovo is among the tablet faithful, and their convertible Windows machines have been selling steadily for years. We’ve heard they’ll be bringing a new Android tablet (the Ideapad) to the US, but whether it’s just a revamped , a resurrected -type device, or something more interesting, we can’t exactly be sure. It’s got to be coming soon, though, as Lenovo’s Jaison Patrocinio . Like so many coy directors of product, though, he kept it under wraps except for one quick peek. Any new info? Not really. We know it’s going to ship with Honeycomb and support pen input, and the hardware doesn’t seem to have changed. The translated article reads “the first tablet with capacitive screen stylus,” but mentioned a digitizer, so I’m guessing it’s the latter; it wouldn’t be the first (that would be the ) but it might do it better. I see a camera on the back, too… I . The tablet will initially be enterprise-oriented; as for the consumer version, Patrocinio said it was coming, but would only ship “when he is chubby. The only data they gave is that they would like him to be in stores until the time of birth.” Thanks, Google! I think it’s idiomatic Portuguese, meaning it’ll ship when it’s ready and they don’t want to put it out prematurely. |
Yes, Despite All The HTML5 Talk (And Action), Facebook Is Finally Doing An iPad App | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 16 | The leaking of Facebook continues. Following our stories yesterday about their new and “ ” (a new mobile app platform), Nick Bilton of The New York Times that Facebook will soon release an iPad app. . We had also heard in recent weeks that despite Facebook’s seemingly , such an app does exist internally, and has for some time. But we hadn’t been able to find anyone who had actually seen it. Well, until right now. We can now confirm the app’s existence with someone who has actually seen it. “It looks pretty slick. Photos are fullscreen & really nice UI,” says a person who has played with the app. I’ve long complained about Facebook’s lack of an iPad app. While their regular site works pretty well on the iPad, even Facebook CTO Bret Taylor the need for a UI more custom-tailored for big touch screens. More importantly, third-party Facebook apps have been since day one of the iPad (including a few that have into thinking they were official apps). Facebook needed to get on top of this situation, to ensure that they own their own brand on the device, not some third party. And now they are. We have not heard a specific date the app will be released, but NYT says that it will hit the App Store in the “coming weeks”. One interesting tidbit we did hear was that the app has been done for some time, but that Facebook may have been holding it back as a bit of leverage over Apple. Those two companies have been in the news a bunch recently following Apple’s inclusion of Twitter in iOS 5, despite talking about previously. And then there was our story yesterday about Project Spartan. We heard (and have seen) indications that Facebook was targeting mobile Safari with the mobile platform. HTML5-based apps as well as Facebook Credits are the key parts of the plan. Since our story, Facebook PR has gone on the offensive, trying to spin this to other journalists as not being a move against Apple, but rather a way to “complement” their devices (while at the same time declining to admit the project even exists — heh). That’s a bunch of horseshit, and they know it. But honestly, does anyone expect them to say anything else? It’s not like they’re going to declare war on Apple (or anyone else) publicly. You don’t announce to someone that you’re going to punch them in the face before you punch them in the face. That would be madness. (Madness?! [n]!) Again, developers actually on this new platform say it’s very clear that Project Spartan is step one in an attempt to gain control over the mobile space. That means getting on the devices currently controlled by Apple and Google, and doing so without fear of restrictions (hence, HTML5). And it means disrupting the current mobile distribution channels (App Store, Android Market, etc) which are controlled by the gatekeepers. Facebook has to do this because they do not have their own devices. At least . But now we’re getting too far into the weeds. I’m just happy Facebook is finally releasing an iPad app. Send pics if you got em! |
Nintendo Bigwigs: 25th Anniversary Zelda Collection Wouldn't Be Nintendo-Like | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 16 |
At this , we were treated to a nice little dose of Zelda music, and told there would be a sweet 25th anniversary soundtrack, as well as some traveling concerts and a free DSiWare game. All very good, but I couldn’t help but be disappointed at the lack of a collected edition like that issued for last year’s . And according to Nintendo’s CEO Satoru Iwata, that’s not going to happen. (translated in part by ), Iwata said that he felt doing two such collector’s editions two years in a row wouldn’t be Nintendo-like (translator’s words). I guess I can see that, but really, a quarter century is a serious thing, and a collection of the early games (perhaps with commentary or extras, something the Mario release ) seems to be a perfect way to celebrate that. Gamers would love it. It would sell like hotcakes. And it could be a standard thing for the core franchises. But no! Not Nintendo-like. Ah well. [via ] |
Swing-Blade Sharpener For The Ritualistic Pencil-Lover In Your Life | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 16 |
There aren’t too many of us now who need to sharpen a pencil in the first place, much less do it in a poetically inefficient manner. But that shouldn’t stop you from appreciating , which takes off little shavings the way you might peel a pointy potato. If I were the kind of guy who designed pencil sharpeners, I’d definitely use this to sharpen my pencils. [via ] |
Wifi Xoom Going For $500 At Costco | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 16 |
I’m not sure I can recommend the Xoom over any of the other tablets out there right now (especially that sexy little Galtab 10.1), but don’t remember ever hearing people complain about price drops. (with a free case), $100 less than its original price. That makes it a bit more credible in the market, but I still don’t think it’s going to crack a million units sold any time soon. This may be part of a larger trend in lower pricing for these things, but I wouldn’t hold out hope on that. Oh, if you bought one from Costco recently, drop by the store and check if you can get the difference paid back to you. They’re good about that. [via ] |
X-Men Director, Stan Lee, And Other Notables Use Crowdsourcing Startup To Mine For Talent | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 16 | Whether it’s an altruistic push to give back to and interact with their fans or to just drum up publicity for their brands, it seems that a number of well-known musicians, artists, and creatives are turning to to get inspiration for their projects from everyday web users like you and me. These crowdsourced projects tend to range across the board: (I had no idea they were still touring, either) used Talenthouse to search for a photographer to take their glamor shots as they traveled around the world, Comic book guru Stan Lee asked his fans to help him create a new superhero, and rapper is asking his fans to help him write a verse for a new track — and more. Talenthouse, which went live at the end of 2009, is a startup that specializes in getting big names to find not-so-famous, but equally-as-talented collaborators through global social media competitions. Essentially, you can think of these projects as speedy, micro online versions of American Idol or X Factor, except the winner actually collaborates with the talent. So, in practice, the startups posts these trumped-up, multimedia craigslist listings, or invitations, that are announced through the company’s website and Facebook page. If the contest (or invitation) is to write a verse, for instance, you then drop your hot rhymes into Talenthouse’s digital form and submit. Once the submission period is over, users vote on their favorite ideas, and the winner gets to collaborate with the stars. This voting takes place through Facebook (different from Facebook likes), Twitter, and Talenthouse’s distributed cloud architecture — all of which is proprietary technology developed by the startup itself. As another illustration, X-Men and Rush Hour film director Brett Ratner, today launched his own series of crowdsourcing projects, in which he’s casting for an assistant director, a walk-on part for an upcoming production, somebody to design his company’s animated logo, as well as an assistant on a magazine photo shoot. And because Talenthouse runs a distributed platform approach built for reach and engagement, projects like Ratner’s can live on talenthouse.com as well as on host pages, media partner pages, Facebook fan pages and blogs. On a quick TechCrunch-related note, as you may remember, TC’s own Erick Schonfeld was memorialized in a meme following TechCrunch Disrupt SF last year, when he rocked out on stage with none other than MC Hammer. (You can see the results to the left.) And it’s now come to light that this is not the first time. So this would be the perfect place to introduce the early-nineties version of dancingerick, who it seems made his professional dancing debut in a Brett Ratner music video. R&B and Dick Clark are both involved. . Awesome. For more on Talenthouse collaborations, watch Ratner’s video below: [vimeo=http://vimeo.com/25036843 width=”620″ height=”360″] |
Payments Service Dwolla Hits $1M A Week In Transactions | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 16 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W89wEc59g9U&w=630] Payment platform is celebrating an important milestone this week; Hitting almost 1 million a week in payments on the service. This is rapid growth, as six months ago the startup was completing $50K in transactions a week. Only three months ago, it hit the $1 million transactions a month mark. Co-founder Ben Milne says that this is notable because it was only a little over a year and a half ago that billion dollar startup Square crossed the exact same milestone. With 20K users currently, Dwolla provides a free web based software platform which allows users to exchange funds with any other Dwolla user. Users who receive funds are charged 25 cents, versus PayPal’s 30 cents. The company recently released their FiSync feature, and has thus far hooked up with 11 banks to provide the service to another potential 600K users. In addition Dwolla recently launched GRID, allowing third party platforms like Google Wallet and Mint to potentially access its API as well as Spots, a payments feature based on location checkins. Co-founder Ben Milne writes, ” I can say this with a straight smile on my face, ‘ Since the announcement of the Google Wallet, we’ve seen outstanding interest and excitement in our cash-based network from merchants wanting to adopt our low-cost mobile payment platform. ” The payments space is definitely heating up. |
Mad Magazine Announces Their Own "Official" "Blog" | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 16 | , now WordPress? Mad Magazine just announced an update to their official blog, now called , following such greats as the and into the cesspool that is Internet media. In honor of the launch, ran a gallery of some of Mad’s greatest contributors including William Gaines, Nick Meglin, and The Beard, wandering the world, wearing each other’s pants, and generally looking like the travelling cast of The Pete Best of Mad, , also appears. Mad has gotten considerably racier in the years since I last read it but there are still plenty of innocuous sight gags and some great parodic writing. I, personally, wanted to become a writer after I met Bill Gaines at Mad’s offices when I was about thirteen. It was all downhill from there. Here’s hoping Mad is around another few decades and I think a new, energized website is probably the way to go. |
null | Serkan Toto | 2,011 | 6 | 29 | null |
Education Incubator Imagine K12 Picks Ten Startups For Its First Class | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 6 | 16 | In March we wrote about of , a new startup incubator modeled on Y Combinator that is focused on the education space. It was founded by startup veterans , and . The company sorted through some 200 applications, interviewed 36 startups and made offers to ten startups for the first class this summer. All accepted, took an average of $20,000 in funding for an average of 6% of their equity, and moved to Silicon Valley. Those startups are now hard at work to launch by the first Imagine K12 demo day in September. They’re also getting lots of attention and mentoring via a weekly dinner and office hours. The largest team is four people, say Ralston. There are a total of 24 founders among the ten startups. New applications for the next class are being accepted starting July 1. |
Heavy Metal Hits Blu-Ray | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 16 | The cult animated movie based on the cult sci-fi magazine based on the cult sci-fi magazine is finally hitting Blu-ray. Amazon calls it “an aimless, juvenile amalgam of disjointed stories and clashing visual styles,” which is . I’m not sure exactly how many people were waiting for this, but I like seeing these , personally — and is a classic, juvenile or not. [via ] |
Cleaner Flight: Virgin America's Efficient Engines, UOP Biofuels Go Transatlantic | Lora Kolodny | 2,011 | 6 | 16 | Virgin America— a company that’s been reporting on its own greenhouse gas emissions since 2009— ordered $1.4 billion worth of new, super fuel-efficient engines from CFM International the companies announced on Wednesday. The move should help keep energy costs down, and reduce the negative environmental impacts of air travel by Virgin America as the company triples the size of its fleets, as promised back in January. According to a joint press statement from the companies, CFM’s LEAP Engine will power 30, brand new Airbus A320 aircraft slated for delivery to Virgin America in 2016, and CFM’s 56-5B engines will power 30 of Virgin America’s current-edition Airbus A320-line aircraft. Promoting the deal, CFM Engine and its parent companies GE and Snecma, agreed to purchase carbon offsets via Carbonfund.org for the first 5,000 flights booked on Virgin America online, following the announcement. Virgin America also threw a one-day fare sale. Virgin America claims that in pairing the A320neo and the LEAP engine, it will deliver 15 percent better fuel efficiency and 50 percent greater reductions in NOx emissions, over levels that environmental regulators require today. The company also forecasts that it will save $1.9 million per aircraft per year in fuel costs at current fuel prices. It’s worth noting that while the airline bets on efficiency technology, it has also invested in biofuels. The company tested its first flights using at least some biofuel in 2008 (as reported then). Sir Richard Branson, famed founder of the Virgin group of companies, also backed a biofuels company that went public back in February. Virgin plans to use at least ten percent drop-in biofuels, or plant-based fuels that work with existing engines, by 2020. Jet biofuels made by from a non-food crop, camelina plants, will power a Boeing 747-8 freighter en route to the Paris Air Show on June 20th. The companies announced their plans today, while members of the were pushing to and the U.S. Department of Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack was campaigning to save the subsidies which bring money to farms large and small. The Boeing plane will use not corn ethanol, of course, but a blend of 15 percent camelina-based biofuel, mixed with 85 percent kerosene jet fuel, which is the traditional jet fuel (a.k.a. Jet A). Boeing Captains Keith Otsuka and Rick Braun, along with Cargolux Captain Sten Rossby will pilot the historic 5,000-mile flight. It’s kind of funny how Boeing is backing the use of plant-based fuels, here. The company is still struggling to get its new line of efficient 787 Dreamliner planes (image, above) to market. These aircraft are supposed to burn 20 percent less fuel than other passenger planes of their size, and are lighter with more cargo space. As Katie Johnston Chase at the recently reported: “The 787 is in the process of being certified by the Federal Aviation Administration and is expected to be delivered to its first airline, All Nippon Airways Co., in August or September. A total of 56 airlines, including United Airlines and Delta Air Lines, have placed orders for the 787.” Image 2: Camelia plant, via (CC)
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String launches with 'fast, powerful' augmented reality platform for iOS | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 6 | 16 | A new augmented reality startup launches today. claims to be a fast and powerful augmented reality technology for iOS. String claims to be capable of live two-way broadcast AR capabilities using Kinect, something they developed with Norwegian company Labrat. An application for this might be watching a live concert projected into your living room, in full 3D augmented reality. CEO and founder Alan Maxwell says the company is releasing an SDK for developers today (a developer licence is £79). Examples include 3D real-life motion capture AR, developed in partnership with Brighton-based . It will be interesting to see how this app performs against Layar, seen by some as the market leader in the platform AR space. Developed by privately held String Labs, the company has already released an from on . |
Kone 2: Non-Electric Roastaroo | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 16 |
All right, so the headline is . Let’s just say mistakes were made, and move on, yeah? You might have heard about the , a metal replacement for paper coffee filters. It’s been making waves over the last year or so, but no product is perfect (even a perforated metal cone), and to the hardware that I’m pretty excited about. I’d heard that you have to be careful with your grind, since it was designed to work with a rather specific kind, and people complained about overly chewy coffee and some sludge at the bottom. Kone hears your prayers. They re-engineered the perforation pattern to be a bit finer, and now this should be less of a problem. Some also received cuts from the top of the Kone, which is indeed very thin metal — so thin, in fact, that it also occasionally dented when the grounds were tapped out. So Coava got a more robust material to make the thing out of, and added a little removable silicone ring you can put on that dangerous top part. Price is still $50 — a lot for a filter, but for coffee lovers partial to the pourover method, it’s an investment, and a better investment than it was last week. I think I may actually check one of these things out now. [via ] |
Zynga v. Vostu: Vostu Uses The "I Know You Are But What Am I" Defense | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 6 | 16 | The TechCrunch office pool predicted Vostu would respond to the alleging that Vostu’s entire business is basically to copy every single thing Zynga does in one of two ways. They’d either use the “I know you are but what am I defense,” or just a more straightforward “It wasn’t me” approach. It turns out they just did both. Vostu’s statement: Zynga has been accused of copying so many games [Editor note: the “I know you are but what am I” defense”] that they’ve sadly lost the ability to recognize games like ours that are chock full of original content and have been independently created [Editor Note: the “It Wasn’t Me” defense]. Vostu has 500 brilliant employees working night and day making hand drawings and writing proprietary code for online games that our 35 million users worldwide enjoy. Zynga’s anti-competitive effort to bully us with a frivolous lawsuit — especially when we have some of the same key investors — is pathetic. While Zynga plays games with the legal process we will continue focusing on using our substantial resources to create games that entertain our customers.” Attribution to company spokesman Davidson Goldin As i mentioned in our , Zynga’s biggest weakness here is that they’ve “borrowed” game ideas from others, and have had to settle lawsuits because of it. But Zynga, which has done some in the past, has never had the chutzpah to not only copy a game idea, but copy every aspect of the game design and mechanics as well. Take a gander at the side by side screenshots in the lawsuit complaint attached to our . There just isn’t a whole lot left to say. My take: Vostu can’t win this lawsuit. I mean, they even copied the bugs in Zynga’s games. |
Lackluster Forecasts, Declining Revenue, And Imminent Layoffs: A Rough Quarter For RIM | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 16 | Just because things are expected, doesn’t mean they don’t hurt. This is the case for Research In Motion (RIM), which has been steadily over sales and earnings for the first quarter, today. And it doesn’t look good. Net income for the first quarter was a low $695 million, or $1.33 per diluted share, compared with net income of $934 million, $1.78 per diluted share in the fourth quarter of last year — down 26 percent. Revenues came in at $4.9 billion, down from $5.6 billion in the fourth quarter, or a 12.5 percent drop. As to smartphone and tablet shipments, during the first quarter, the company says that it shipped approximately 13.2 million BlackBerry handheld devices and approximately 500,000 BlackBerry Playbook tablets. However, these numbers only include products that have been shipped, not products that have been sold. What’s more, it looks like shipments of 4G versions of RIM’s PlayBook have been delayed until the fall. These ongoing product delays are affecting the company’s overall growth, so we’ll have to wait and see whether PlayBook and product sales increase over the coming quarters, but clearly RIM is no longer remaining optimistic over sales — or overall forecasts. As a result of its declining financials, RIM said that it will begin a series of layoffs beginning this quarter. This so-called “realignment” will be focused on “taking out redundancies” and a “reallocation of resources” to focus on high growth areas. Beyond the corporate jargon, this is obviously bad news for the 17K+ RIM employees. What’s more, RIM has downgraded its expectations for the second quarter of this year, estimating that revenues will be in the $4.2 billion to $4.8 billion range, with earnings per share dropping to between $0.75 and $1.05 diluted. This also comes on the heels of the Wall Street Journal that the Canadian Company’s COO, Don Morrison, will be leaving the company for medical reasons. Obviously, speculation is swirling considering the timing of his departure, but the plummeting revenues and the COO’s departure do seem unrelated. The problem is that, as BI reported, the company’s executive ranks are already thin at best, so RIM is bringing in former executive, Larry Conlee, as a special advisor. RIM has lost nearly a third of its market value since April, but the company is trying to maintain some semblance of optimism, even in spite of lackluster international sales and a gloomy forecast. At the company’s headquarters today Co-CEO Jim Balsillie said of RIM’s disappointing start to the year: Fiscal 2012 has gotten off to a challenging start. The slowdown we saw in the first quarter is continuing into Q2, and delays in new product introductions into the very late part of August is leading to a lower than expected outlook in the second quarter. The one bright spot? The co-CEO made mention of a “strong balance sheet” with almost $3 billion in cash and he believes that new products scheduled for launch this year (if they’re not continually delayed) will help the company realign its cost structure and see some growth in the latter part of the year. But that’s a big “if”. |
Accel, Khosla, and Andreessen Horowitz Pour Another $30 Million Into Social Browser RockMelt | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 6 | 28 | Is there a future for social browser startup ? Despite attracting only a few hundred thousand active users since its much-hyped launch, the company filled with ex-Netscape rockstars and backed by former Netscape founder Marc Andreessen just managed to raise another $30 million in a B round led by Accel Partners and Khosla Ventures, with Andreessen Horowitz, Ron Conway, Bill Campbell and Josh Kopelman also participating. Jim Breyer of Accel and Vinod Khosla will be joining the board as observers. That’s some pretty serious money. What do these investors see in RockMelt that ? Could it have anything to do with the towards the social browser? After all, both Marc Andreessen and Jim Breyer are now board members of both RockMelt and Facebook. Seems like an interesting coincidence. There are a few possibilities here. One is that Facebook will end up buying RockMelt if it feels it needs to . But if that was the case, why not just buy them right now before this round, when RockMelt was still cheap? Maybe Facebook is ambivalent about having its own browser. In the meantime, it is helping RockMelt with engineering resources. But that is not enough. And that brings us to the second possibility. RockMelt needs to start getting users, lost of them, millions. It needs to prove that it is not just another . And that millions of people want a social browser with Facebook chat and sharing built in everywhere they go across the Web (no wonder Mark Zuckerberg likes it). But getting millions of users costs money. You either have built-in distribution like Google, Microsoft, and Apple or you have to pay money in online marketing and distribution deals to acquire new users. That’s where the $30 million comes in. During an interview with CEO Eric Vishria this spring, I asked him why RockMelt had so few users. “Our focus has been engagement,” he told me. “In the next couple of months we will shift to grow the number of users in a serious way.” I think we are going to see that now. How many users will $30 million get RockMelt? Up until now, RockMelt has depended on viral distribution. But Vishria broke down those numbers for me as well, and they don’t look that good. While about half of all people who have tried RockMelt invite an average of 4.8 friends to also try it, only 18 percent of those actually converts, or one out of those five. So what you end up with is that each user recruits one new user, on average. That translates into slow and steady growth, but not the hockey-stick curves RockMelt needs to be taken seriously. And even if RockMelt can become an independent player in the browser market—which means taking share from Firefox, IE, Chrome, and Safari—its a tough market to be in. All the other browsers are essentially subsidized by bigger companies (even Firefox is dependent on Google search dollars). So not only does RockMelt have to figure out a way to get a lot more users, it also has to figure out how to make money from them. Or else just get big enough that Facebook has to buy them. |
Square Closes That $100 Million Round, Mary Meeker Joins Board | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 6 | 28 | It’s official. Jack Dorsey’s Square has joined the . The mobile payments startup closed a $100 million series C led by Kleiner Perkins, a a few weeks ago. The new round values Square above $1 billion. Tiger Management is also an investor. And Mary Meeker, the former Morgan Stanley Internet analyst who is now a partner at Kleiner, will get a board seat. She will join other new board members and . Square is bringing credit card payments to a new class of merchants and, eventually consumers. It’s shipped more than , is processing more than a million transactions per month, and more than a day. It recently launched an and Square devices are now . |
Is Google Asking The Wrong Question With Social? | Semil Shah | 2,011 | 6 | 28 | Today’s soft-launch of Google’s new social galaxy, , raises one interesting question: Can Google, a massive, multinational, cash-rich, consumer technology company with multiple successful productivity applications and services, take its dough out of the oven and bake a social network into their bread? Over the past year, Google has undergone some big changes. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt stepped down. Co-founder Larry Page in, reshuffling the deck and tying employee bonuses to creating a successful social experience. The result seems to be a slick-looking yet potentially confusing constellation of social “circles,” “huddles,” “hangouts,” and “sparks” that could, theoretically, lay the foundation for new, more nuanced social networks to form. In the middle of all the to today’s release, I believe it’s important to step back and ponder whether Google is focusing its efforts on the wrong problem, and in doing so, to investigate a potentially better fit that coincides with the company’s own DNA. What made Google “Google” was its groundbreaking technology that allowed us to search the web more efficiently. Powered by a mandate to organize the world’s information online, Google trained all of us over more than a decade to tune our online search behavior to entering in keywords and symbols. As obvious as that seems today, this is not how humans as a species are wired to search for new information. Before the Internet, most “search” was conducted through offline directories and by the time-honored evolutionary tradition of asking questions. “ ” “ ” “ ” Google has elegantly stripped down these queries and trained us to, instead, enter the following text in a search box: “Hawaii + hotel deal” or “Hawaii + restaurant + popular dish.” Now, that might be how some geeks actually ask questions in real life, but this is not how we are wired to search. We are most accustomed to asking questions as an extension of our own curiosities. And while Google keyword search is incredibly efficient, the content it points us to is unfortunately declining in quality. There’s been enough debate about the proliferation of run-of-the-mill and high-end content farms, so I won’t beat that drum. The bottom line is that although it’s never been easier to search online, it’s getting harder and harder to find exactly what we’re looking for because there are perverse incentives to not only create, but also promote, keyword-optimized content. The alternatives, however, don’t provide a clear path yet either. The idea of shifting search back to questions isn’t new. tried it, as did . More recently, companies like (acquired by Google), (acquired by Twitter), , , and are picking up where the 1.0 versions left off, each taking a slightly different tack and growing in slightly different ways. On Formspring and AnyAsq, users can invite the audience to ask them direct questions, provide answers to the ones they want to, and then remain searchable for others to peruse. On Quora, users can pose questions within topics or, if the question has already been asked, to search within the site for the answer, assuming someone has provided one. No doubt, Google and Twitter were thinking about capturing questions when they acquired the Aardvark and Fluther teams, respectively. I wanted to lay all of this out to demonstrate that it’s the questions posed by people—not the people themselves—that are most central to Google’s DNA. In spite of this, the company has trained all of us to ask questions in unnatural ways. The flurry of new companies trying to get back to questions demonstrates just how powerful that force can be. With the threat is posing to the company, Google’s search strategy has been two-pronged: (1) to crop-dust the emerging mobile handset landscape with and, thereby, to have a huge footprint on mobile search; and (2) to “bake” social retroactively into its overall makeup, the digital equivalent of genetically modified food. On #1, Google’s acquisition of Android will prove to be one of its most important moves, though there remains much work to be done to provide some controls on the platform. On #2, however, I believe that while social isn’t perfect (can it ever be, online?), that war has already been won. The fear for Google is that as more people , people will search less by keyword and conduct more searches by discovering things through their friends online. We may chose our next vacation based on seeing where our friends have been, but we’re still going to ask them questions about the trip. This type of search, or social discovery, will become important, but it won’t dominate search—it’s just one channel, and different social networks exist for different parts of our lives. Google still holds tremendous mindshare and user-intent for search. While in a perfect world it would have been helpful to require every user to create a account when they signed up (Whoops!), Instead of building another social network, I’d like to see Google focus on helping us search through all the user-generated signals and content and to help us with our search, much of which is done offline through social questions, not keyword-speak. (Although, the threaded comments approach Google+ is using in the main stream it presents to users does lend itself to friends asking each other questions and answering them). This approach would let Google focus on what it excels at, helping us find information online, especially information created by our friends and friends of friends, perhaps even in an instant. Now, that would be a huge plus. |
While We Await The Native App, The Google+ iPhone Mobile Web App Is Pretty Solid | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 28 | After , some of those lucky enough to get a Google+ invite were still left out in the cold a bit: iPhone users. You see, while the was there ready to go on day one, the iPhone app remains in review with Apple. But fear not iPhone users, there is a little hidden gem you may not know about: a mobile web version of Google+ that works great in Safari. If you simply point your iOS Safari browser to , you’ll find a solid web app written in HTML5. You can’t do quite everything you’ll be able to with the native app, such as Huddle (group chat). But it the main parts of the Google+ functionality are there. Stream, Photos, Circles, Profile, and Notifications appear in the main menu. And there are actually some other unique features, such as the ability to check-in to a venue and see Google+ message from users nearby to your current location. The app is solid enough that it might be acceptable as a native app replacement if it did actual notifications. Alas, that’s not possible. And that will be a big part of the Google+ iPhone app, especially with the revamped notifications coming in iOS 5. There are mobile web notifications that are pretty nifty (a red box in the upper right corner), but you have to have the app open to see them, obviously. Below, find some pictures. |
Did RIM Cancel The Planned 10-inch Playbook? | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 6 | 28 |
It seems that RIM might have gotten the memo that consumers aren’t exactly flocking to . The same site that broke specs about the 10-incher a few weeks ago is now that it’s been axed. Like killed dead. Apparently development resources are needed for RIM’s next big project: A QNX BlackBerry superphone. Said phone doesn’t have a release date code name or any details just yet. Chances are , this so-called superphone might be their last chance to at glory. Either way, it’s probably best for RIM to stop developing another product that will likely meet the same fate as its predecessor. The Playbook hasn’t found many fans although the company keeps rolling updates. But as HP is soon going to find out with the TouchPad, producing a good product is only part of the equation anymore. You need a robust development community, dedicated fans and a well-made product. |
HomeAway Prices IPO At $27 Per Share With A Market Cap Of $2 Billion | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 6 | 28 | Vacation home rental service has which is set to begin trading tomorrow morning at $27 per share, giving the company a valuation of $2 billion. The company aims to raise as much as $248 million in the offering. Last week, HomeAway priced the range of its offering so this final pricing is at the high end of the range. The company’s shares will begin trading tomorrow morning on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol “AWAY.” The company’s IPO is being underwritten by Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan. HomeAway, which in March, currently offers home rentals through 31 websites in 11 languages and provides listings for vacation rentals located in over 145 countries. In 2010, its sites averaged over 9.5 million unique monthly visitors. In the offering, HomeAway is offering 5,931,335 shares and 2,068,665 shares are being offered by selling stockholders. In addition, the selling stockholders have granted the underwriters an option to purchase up to an additional 1,200,000 shares of common stock. Unlike some of its predecessors in the tech IPO market, HomeAway is actually brining in both revenue and profit. HomeAway saw $167.9 million in 2010 revenue, which is up 39.6% from 2009. In 2010, 37.9% of the company’s revenue came from outside the United States, including 36.6% from Europe and 1.3% from Latin America. In 2010, rental listings contributed 91.1% of HomeAway’s revenue. Net Income for 2010 came in at $16.9 million, up from $7.6 million in 2009. And the company says there is plenty of room for growth—the vacation rental market is valued at $85 billion in 2010 in the United States and Europe. HomeAway has raised close to a in venture funding, and in its most recent investment round was valued at . So $2 billion isn’t too far off from this estimate nine months ago. It’s important to note that company isn’t raising its IPO range significantly, as others have in the past. How that will impact the opening price is unclear. For example, LinkedIn priced at (at the high end of its set range) but per share. Pandora, on the other hand, priced at (well above its range of $10 to $12 per share) and opened at . We’ll see how the markets respons to HomeAway tomorrow. |
"Light Scythe" Is A Monster LED Strip For Long Exposure Art | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 28 |
You’ve probably seen a few little gadgets and apps where you can wave it around and it spells something out on a long exposure, or draws a little picture. Pretty cool, but they’ve all been somewhat small — mainly good for painting stripes or single lines of text. The Mechatronics Guy’s is a two-meter bar covered in LEDs, and can be used to make man-sized graphics by moving it around in a long exposure. It’s powered by Arduino/Seeduino hardware: you put together the graphics on a laptop, the signal gets sent to the separately-driven LED stick, and it displays it at whatever rate is necessary to make the image appear correctly during, say, a 10-foot walk and 8-second exposure. Pretty cool little project. and links to where you can buy the pieces can be found at the Mechatronics Guy’s site, and more pictures are in . [via ] |
Only 6000 Xbox 360 Units Sold In Japan In May | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 28 | This isn’t a knock on the 360, but it really demonstrates the differences between the US and Japanese markets, and shows how you can’t please all the people, all the time. Only Xbox 360s were moved in all of Japan in May, for a total of around 1.47 million. Compare that to over five million PS3s sold and over ten million Wiis. Yet here in the states, the 360 is selling like hotcakes. Well, what can you do? |
Meet The Newest Startup Brood From i/o Ventures | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 28 | The Demo Day starts in a little under a half an hour, and I am about to head over to Valencia Street to watch the startups present. i/o Ventures is the SF-based incubator that offers five or six startups a 4-6 month long spot in its 7,000 square foor loft/coffee shop space as well as $25,000 in seed money, in exchange for around 8% of the company. We’ve covered some of the companies before, put I am publishing a preliminary list here (to be updated as I watch their presentations). ( ) – A platform for interviewing and testing programmers, CodeEval lets companies automate the process of filtering job candidates through giving them a coding challenge. CodeEval co-founder Jimmy John estimates that there are 13.5 million developers in the US alone, with a $10.6 billion global market. ” We want to make this the de-facto standard of hiring across the board,” John says. ( ) — Pieceable, which just released Pieceable Viewer, is a platform that attempts to make mobile development easier by offering customers ready-made components for iOS apps and an interactive app Q&A platform on a web browser. — A mobile loyalty program that offers customers prepaid store credit, allowing them to save up to 10-20% on purchases. For example merchants can sell $100 lunch credit to frequent customers for $120, or buy back unwanted store credit. ( ) — A sharing platform and browser extension that allows you to rapidly share web content like videos, images and links via its menu. Cortex is the fastest growing app in the Chrome web store, and is currently seeing 1 share a second with around 87K shares a day. — “Pokemon meets Tamagotchi,” a mobile game that lets you raise and fight whimsical creatures called Mobbles with the added benefit of geolocation. “We’re not inventing a new concept, we’re just mixing together already successful content,” said co-founder Alexandre Curtelin bringing up that Pokemon has already brought in 30 billion in revenue. i/o Ventures co-founder Paul Bragiel tells me that the over-arching theme in this spring’s class is consumer internet gaming and mobile, and that the incubator prefers startups with at least one technical co-founder. When asked about the relatively small size of the class, he said, “We are not interested in being a factory and we are super selective.” i/o picked five out of a pool of 500 applicants for this spring’s group. When asked what it took to be an i/o Ventures company, he replied, “At the end of the day we ask ourselves ‘would we have started a company with these guys when we were younger.'” Rad. Out of the six companies in the last batch of i/o startups, two were acquired and the rest all raised financing of between $500,000 – $1 million to execute on their ideas. See you at the meetup. You can read more about the last i/o Ventures demo day and watch a video of Bragiel describing the program, below. |
Rigor Launches Unified Platform for Web and Mobile Performance Management | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 28 | In the spirit of Google’s code campaign, there has been a ton of renewed interest around making web and mobile apps faster and more reliable. Really, this is for the simple reason that improved performance of applications means , higher search rankings, and . As a result, a growing number of app developers and site owners are spending time and money on performance and speed. Luckily, , a young startup launching today, has come to the rescue to make managing performance even easier. Founded in 2010 by , a serial entrepreneur and enterprise performance engineer, Rigor aims to give companies (from enterprise to early-stage startups) a way to make their web and mobile apps faster and more reliable. The startup does so by offering a suite of performance testing, automated monitoring, and diagnostic features. Obviously, the use cases are many. One notable example, however, can be seen in the fact that eCommerce companies tend to keep a watchful eye on the performance of their revenue-generating checkout processes. So, thanks to Rigor, if a code change of, say, a feature addition unexpectedly wreaks havoc on their shopping cart, the site is immediately sent an alert that includes deep diagnostic information to help them quickly find and fix the issue. This quick notification system helps developers and administrators swing into action before customer experience is affected, revenues are lost, ad dollars wasted, and hours are spent hunting for the root cause. SaaS companies can also keep an eye on (and be notified about changes to) their critical features in the same way. Thus, Rigor provides a unified platform to easily manage web, mobile web, web service APIs, and SaaS platforms. So far, the startup has added clients ranging from Fortune 100 companies to startups, and is on the hunt for some seed funding to keep the client-acquisition humming. Rigor is currently being priced at $250-a-month for groups, which includes 10 checks per minute, 200 SMS messages a month, 30-day archiving, 5K API requests a month, free training, and unlimited users. The price grade offers professional, enterprise, and ultimate levels, which scale up in price and features, accordingly. You can check out pricing . Rigor is offering a 45-day free trial, which TechCrunch readers can access by clicking on . |
Sean Parker On Why Myspace Lost To Facebook | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 28 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RScptpB5v_s&w=630]
With of social network Myspace about to sell for ~$30 million, the tech world eagerly awaits the HBS study for why the service, which was bought in 2006 by Newscorp for $580 million and was at some point valued at $1.5 billion (a in a Business Week article referred to it as “one of the best acquisitions ever”) ultimately failed. For those that can’t wait for the inevitable GSB white papers, former Facebook President and Napster co-founder Sean Parker explained why Myspace succumbed to Facebook in an interview with Jimmy Fallon at the in New York. While the entire interview is a delight to watch, the highlight is when Fallon starts asking Parker about whether Facebook is “it,” (“Is Facebook the end game?”) bringing up the failed Myspace for comparison. Parker answers, “It’s never the end game. Facebook is now a platform upon which all kinds of applications are being built it’s definitely not it. It would be incredibly presumptuous and self-serving of me to believe that Facebook was the end of history. The only way it could possibly be the end of history is if it becomes some sort of artificial super intelligence that takes over the world.” Able to put being the possibility that it was victim of some artificial super intelligence aside, at minute 20:54 Fallon asks Parker, “Where did Myspace go wrong?” “The failure to execute product development,” Parker replies. “They weren’t successful in treating and evolving the product enough, it was basically this junk heap of bad design that persisted for many many years. They were giant, the network effects, the scale effects were enormous.” Parker goes on to credit the ingenious move of targeting college kids for Facebook’s eventually market dominance, “Facebook entered the market through college and the reason we went in through college was that college kids were generally not Myspace users. College kids were generally not Friendster users …” Taking an almost Machiavellian tone, Parker also alludes to the latter social network’s displacement being deliberate, “It was this completely open market and it was a real longshot. Nobody actually believed, outside of us three or four people in Palo Alto, that you could enter the market through this niche market and then gradually through this carefully calculated war against all the social networks become the one social network to rule them all.” “Carefully calculated war against all social networks” is a very interesting word choice by Parker especially when coupled with the extremely self-aware statement that “if they had just copied Facebook rapidly, they would have been Facebook,” a line which seems like it came of . Well now is as good as a time as any to mark the end of that war; Myspace is selling for comparative peanuts while Facebook is valued at $70 billion. To the victor go , at least for the moment. |
null | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 6 | 16 | null |
Soundfreaq Goes White With The SFQ-01W Ghost Speaker Bluetooth Speakerdock | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 6 | 28 | Soundfreaq hit the speaker dock scene late last year with the sexy SFQ-01. The firm is back and just released a white model cleverly named called the Ghost. Besides the color change, it’s the same speaker dock with a Dock Connector port, Bluetooth A2DP streaming, 3.5mm input and the oh-so-delicious design. Pricing is the same with an MSRP of $179 with immediate shipping . |
LeapFrog Unveils Kid-Friendly LeapPad Tablet Priced At $100 | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 6 | 28 | If you have a kid, requires no introduction, but since lots of us haven’t spawned quite yet, I’ll go ahead and say that LeapFrog makes educational toys, books, and games for children. And now with the announcement of its LeapPad tablet, the company has entered itself into the tablet arena, albeit with a kid-friendly spin. That’s right, all of you tablet-owning parents will soon have something to hand over to the kids when they try to put their dirty mitts all over your precious . As far as specs are concerned, the LeapPad has 2GB of memory under its 5-inch 480×272 touchscreen. It comes with a camera, video recorder, microphone and stylus, and has a motion sensor for certain games and learning activities. Parents who already have LeapFrogs Leapster Explorer game cartridges and apps will be happy to know that everything is cross compatible with the LeapPad. By the end of the year, more than 100 new learning game cartridges, books, apps and videos will be made available for the LeapPad, too. What’s cool about this tablet is that it is intuitive enough to know when the user is being challenged. For example, within every book on the LeapPad, there are three different versions of the text. If little Bobby or Susie is flying through the basic version of a story with relative ease, LeapPad can auto-adjust to a harder reading level while staying true to the original story. The same is true of the various games and educational apps available for the device. Younger kids will be able to get a foundation in phonics, math, and spelling through the various LeapPad activities, and eventually move on to geography, world languages, music, science, and even life skills like brushing teeth. Since it comes with a stylus, children can even get help with their writing skills. Pre-loaded apps include art, story, animation and photo studios. Within each, kids can create their own stories or artwork, and even learn to animate familiar characters like Cinderella. When they’re finished with their own original work, proud parents can share their kids’ stories or pictures with relatives and friends through email or . The LeapPad will be available in both pink and green with a price tag of $99.99. It won’t hit shelves until August 15, but if you or your kid are super antsy, pre-sale begins in the U.S. and Canada tomorrow, July 29. |
WakeMate 2.0: Helping You Kiss Those Groggy Mornings Goodbye. For Real, This Time. | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 6 | 28 | The story of could be viewed as a warning to all tech-savvy entrepreneurs out there: building a hardware device is much more difficult than most web applications. The promise of WakeMate is compelling — it sells a $60 wristband that tracks your movements during the night, syncs to your smartphone, and wakes you up in the morning when you’re in the lightest stage of sleep, thereby reducing grogginess (hopefully). But the going hasn’t been easy. The company trudged through a year of , , and upset customers before it finally started shipping in December, only to run into another issue: customers who had WakeMate units were having issues with the accompanying smartphone applications, which weren’t properly syncing. Which led to more negative reviews and frustration. But now things are starting to look up for WakeMate. In April it released a point update for its mobile application that fixed many of the issues, and today it’s releasing the 2.0 update for iOS, bringing with it a revamped UI, new features, and yet more bug fixes. And because these improvements are all being made to the mobile applications, users don’t need new devices. You can grab the iPhone update . The biggest upgrades are in reliability. WakeMate uses a Bluetooth connection to transfer data between the motion-sensing wristband and your smartphone, but leaving the connection on over night would be a major battery drain. So WakeMate intelligently turns it off, then reactivates the connection when it’s approaching your wakeup time. The only problem: sometimes the connection wouldn’t be reestablished, causing the alarm to always go off at the ‘fail-safe’ time and negating the anti-grogginess factor entirely. That’s now fixed, and the WakeMate team says the alarm now works reliably. Other improvements include better accuracy for the device’s battery meter, deeper analytics, and tagging (you can remind yourself what the conditions were for a given night’s sleep). Another recent addition: you can now purchase a larger version of the WakeMate wristband, should you find the original size too tight. WakeMate isn’t sharing any sales numbers, but they say that since the update in April their reviews have generally improved. And those reviews are contributing to more sales — in the last three months (since the first mobile app was released), they’ve seen 50% growth in sales month over month. And now that the app actually works, people are using it more — nightly uploads 83% since last month.
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Whiteboard In Microsoft Video Hints At WP7's Future? | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 28 |
There’s not a lot of real data to pull out of this unless you’re privy to a lot of internal Microsoft stuff, but it’s fun anyway. has a whiteboard in the background that seems to have some Windows Phone 7 improvements scribbled on it. Nice eye on the viewer who spotted this! That’s Dr Victor Bahl, director of the mobile bit of Microsoft Research. The text on the board reads: TIPC/S – Mango
Localization – Apollo
Inspiration Engine – Apollo
One handed input and next gen soft keyboard – Apollo
Voice Typing
Context Engine – Beyond Apollo Interesting! Voice typing and a new keyboard? Context and inspiration engines? Sounds like Microsoft has a few surprises in store for Apollo, which is apparently the next major release of WP7. That or Microsoft Research has a team or project called Apollo, and these are the goals or sub-projects. [via ; image from commenter rsgx] |
Google Gets All Designy With Updated Homepage, Search Results And Free Fonts | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 28 | Oh, so you thought Google was done after it rolled out ? No, no, no. Google will be done when that’s Google-brand oxygen you’re breathing. This afternoon, the search giant’s rollout announcements have continued, as the official Google blog (relatively speaking) that the Google Search page (and products across the Google empire) will be getting “a bit of a makeover” over the next few months. And there are new web fonts, too. OMGoogle! Basically, these updates will focus on adding enhanced usability, cleaner design, and an improved UX to Google products. While these changes will roll out across all Google products, it looks like the focus will be on cleaning up Google Search, Maps, and Gmail. According to its blog, the intention behind this iterating is to succeed in “bringing forward the stuff that matters to you and getting all the other clutter out of the way”. But what does that mean? More specifically, Google will be adding bolder colors for actionable buttons, hiding those that aren’t essential until they’re actually needed, etc. And, as you can see below, the results page will also be getting a bit of a new look. Users will find a new gray bar and a blue search button to highlight the search box at the top of the page. Oh, and how about a black nav bar? Other updates to search and results include an updated design for the left-hand panel of tools, in which Google has muted the color of the tools and reserved the use of bolder colors to highlight key action buttons, tools and filters. The URL will also be relocated directly beneath the headline for each search result, and links on the homepage moved to the top and bottom edges of the browser, all in the name of cleaning up the search experience. These updates also are a sign of the enormous array of gadgets and devices on the market today, and frankly, of Google’s ubiquity across these platforms and devices. Google is essentially rolling out more featherweight design that will be optimized for use across mobile, high-res monitors, TV, and so on. Consistency in the face of fragmentation is everything. Oh, and Google also mentioned that, as part of this new look, there will also be some new technologies put to use, like HTML5 and WebGL, to name two familiar faces. Google is also adding to its collection of free, open-source fonts — . So, now you can search or browse hundreds of font families, then add them to your , view them in a sample layout, and then grab the Google-served code to add them to your website. Just like that. Google Web Fonts are available via the Google Web Fonts API, which you can learn more about . But ‘will there be Comic Sans 2?’, you ask. I’m not at liberty to say. |
Dropbox Grabs Another Googler, Ramsey Homsany, For Exec Role | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 6 | 28 | Storage startup has hired as it’s General Counsel. Homsany is a long time Google lawyer. He joined the company in 2003 and was most recently the deputy general counsel of the commercial group. The 100 or so internal lawyers that reported to him dealt with Google’s various commercial and partnership relationships. That experience is what Dropbox needs right now, CEO told me today. The company is inking , for example. And huge growth is on the way. “Hundreds of millions of people will be moving their hard drives to Dropbox in the coming years,” says Houston, “and we’ll be pioneering a new legal and policy frontier.” Hyperbole? Maybe. But Dropbox is growing like crazy. They’ve more than doubled their staff since the beginning of this year to . They already have more than , and they’ll be in the as soon as they decide to raise a new round of financing. This isn’t the first exec the company has stolen from Google. Head of product , a former Google product manager, joined the company late last year. |
Mouse Up And Roll Out With This Transformers-Themed Razer Gear | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 28 |
The latest Transformers game hasn’t been getting very good reviews, but that doesn’t mean you can’t represent your Cybertron love with some Transformers gaming swag. with Autobot and Decepticon logos and colors, along with a Prime-emblazoned Vespula mousepad and some serious-looking laptop sleeves. Personally I’m not a big fan of the Transformers relaunch (the 1986 movie has yet to be surpassed), but these tie-ins seem tasteful enough. |
Let The Games Begin, TechCrunch Disrupt SF Startup Battlefield Applications Are Now Open! | Elin Blesener | 2,011 | 6 | 28 | Now that we’ve finally caught our breath from , it’s time to to bring Disrupt back home to San Francisco. (We like to keep things moving around here). To get things rolling, we are accepting applications for startups to launch at the Disrupt Startup Battlefield in San Francisco, September 12-14, 2011. So what are you waiting for? Applications for the Startup Battlefield can be starting today. Do you think your startup can be the next , , or —and make it through the judges gauntlet to claim the top prize of $50,000, the “Disrupt Cup” and accolades of the crowd? Sure it can. But you’ll never know unless you . Disrupt is the premiere startup launch competition where the most promising founders and entrepreneurs vie to launch their companies on technology’s biggest stage in front of all-star judges. We will have some of the most influential innovators, angels, and VCs judging in front of an audience of 2,000 investors, technologists, and press. . So don’t wait. Get your application in now. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, so it’s to your advantage to submit your application as soon as you are ready. Because of such strong demand, we cannot review applications more than once, so please do not submit a draft application before you are ready for final consideration. A video will be required as part of the application process. We will not accept any videos longer than 5 minutes and they should not exceed 50MB. In the video be sure to show us the product, its key features, and what makes it different. If selected, we may use segments of submitted videos during the Startup Battlefield competition at Disrupt SF. Applicants are also expected to attach a file with up to 5 power point slides summarizing and reinforcing the application. Don’t worry—all submissions are confidential. In order to compete in the Startup Battlefield, preference will be given to stealth startups that will be launching for the first time to the public and press at Disrupt SF. All startups must be live for fewer than three months at the time of application submission. The competition will be taking place in San Francisco, but companies from all around the world are welcome to enter and we highly encourage them to do so. Companies that have already presented at other public launch evens are not eligible. Be sure to read through all of the . will be on September 12th – 14th, preceded by our hugely popular on September 10th – 11th. If you are an early stage company and do not want to enter the Startup Battlefield competition, or do not qualify, you can still launch and demo your startup or a new product in Startup Alley. If you choose to do so, you have the opportunity to win “Audience Choice” on the first or second day of Disrupt, which also gives you the chance to present on the Disrupt stage in front of our all-star judges. Startups who register for the Startup Alley must be less than two years old and have no more than $2 million in funding raised. You can check out some of our favorite moments from Startup Alley , and view one of the Startup Alley’s audience choice winner . Make sure you . If you would like to attend Disrupt SF, early bird tickets are on sale now. The best prices are available for a very limited time, so be sure to get your tickets as soon as possible . |
Talking The Talk: Verbally Lets The Speech Disabled Communicate Using The iPad (For Free) | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 17 | Intuary, a mobile app startup, recently launched its first app, called , which is designed to bring speech to those without. Verbally is an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) solution built for the more than six million people in the U.S. suffering from speech disabilities — caused by Lou Gherig’s Disease, stroke, brain injury, Parkinson’s, cerebral palsy, autism, and more. The app allows users to tap the words they wish to communicate onto the app’s keyboard, or choose from pre-prepared words or phrases, which are then in turn transmitted into audio phrases. The app’s founders, Anil, Gautam Godhwani, along with their cousin Ajay, lost their mother (and aunt) to Lou Gehrig’s Disease in February of this year. She had been a music teacher and singer for 40 years, but in late 2009, her voice began to fail. Seeing the tremendous impact the lack of communication had her, they began investigating solutions on the market. While there are a number of solutions currently available, the touchscreen solutions from large corporations, like Dynavox-Mayer Johnson, cost a minimum of $8K and require at least one month of waiting. Obviously, for those suffering from aggressive illnesses, that wait time is unacceptable. While iPad apps like that made by , for example, offer full feature sets and are more reasonably priced at $190, Verbally hopes to offer a user experience that will appeal to literate adults with high cognition — as well as to those without, and thus reach a larger audience. ( that the speech-disabled can use on the iPhone, which is definitely worth checking out.) As such, the app offers a full keyboard in which to type the speech the user wishes to communicate, as well as a “Core Words Grid”, which offers over 50 essential words, designed to save users with less mobility 50 percent of the taps required to input sentences. There’s also a “Core Phrases Grid, smart text prediction, customizable keyboard layouts, and choices of various male and female voices — all designed to minimize keystrokes and maximize ease, speed, and choice. Ajay Godhwani, Intuary’s CEO, was previously part of the Senior Management Team at Tallan, a professional services firm, where he was responsible for technology projects of clients like
Walt Disney Company and Best Buy. Gennady Borkhovich, Co-Founder and CTO, has worked at
Lockheed Martin and McGraw-Hill, and Anil and Gautam Godhwani are board members, active advisors, and investors in Intuary. The brothers, along with Peter Weck, launched Simply Hired, a venture-backed job search site. Verbally has been downloaded 20K+ times since its iTunes launch in March. It’s a great cause, and it’s nice to see entrepreneurs innovating and trying to bring cheap, easy-to-use technology to the disabled. |
Keen On… Michael Fertik: Why People Will Pay for Privacy (TCTV) | Andrew Keen | 2,011 | 6 | 28 | Will people pay for online privacy? Yes, they will – at least according to the founder and CEO of one of the early leaders in the new online privacy ecosystem. Indeed, Fertik believes that privacy is the next big thing in the online economy – a necessary antidote to Reid Hoffman’s economy of pervasive personal data. As Fertik told me when he came into San Francisco’s TechCrunchTV studio earlier this week, companies like Reputation.com give control back to the consumer in our Web 3.0 world. With products like the $75 a year and services, Reputation.com offers consumers a relatively affordable way to both block cookies and protect their online reputations in our increasingly public social media world. Fertik may well be right. Reputation.com has already raised $25 million in three rounds of financing from a number of blue chip VCs including Kleiner and Bessemer. And while Fertik hasn’t received a lot of attention in the technology press, he is a frequent commentator on privacy issues in mainstream media and even recently starred as a in ABC’s new reality show about ruined online reputations. This is the first of a two part interview with Fertik. Tomorrow he explains why data is the new oil and why consumers are the only people not benefitting from this avalanche of personal information.
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U.S. Trade Commission Gives The Green Light To Microsoft's $8.5 Billion Cash Takeover Of Skype | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 17 | The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said today that it has approved Microsoft’s $8.5 billion cash takeover of voice and video-over-IP provider Skype. Microsoft officially announced its intent to and, since then, users Microsoft for Skype’s intermittent service. The criticism, at least in that sense, has been a bit preemptive. At least, it seems, until today. Now, with that there has been antitrust approval of the deal, users shall soon be able to turn to Microsoft when asking questions of Skype’s sometimes-spotty service. According to what , Microsoft outbid Skype’s next competitor by almost two-to-one — and may even have been . Regardless, the tech giant is placing a serious bet on the European VOIP provider and clearly has its sights set on competing with Google in this area. That notion seemed to be telegraphed when Microsoft paid $8.5 knowing that it’s second closest competitor was Google. What’s more, this is Microsoft’s biggest acquisition to date — and certainly one of the largest (at least in publicity) in the tech industry in recent years. Now, as for full disclosure, I can’t go a day without using Skype, and I know there are a lot out there who share my addiction. But Skype has never been a particularly profitable business, so the real question for Microsoft is going to be how to make real money off the service. Clearly, a big part of the deal is that Microsoft is paying for as part of a push to get more users to Windows and Office. Microsoft has said that it is going to integrate Skype across the board — Xbox, Outlook, you name it, though the business itself will remain in a separate division under the Microsoft umbrella. In practice, though, it’s a big win for Windows users. Though I have to say, it will be strange saying “Microsoft Skype”. If I say it at all. Just to clarify, as there’s been some confusion, , but both the FTC and the Justice Department have to approve the deal. , both have now done so, with the announcement being made through the FTC’s website. In related news, or are leaving the company ahead of the deal. |
Weekend Giveaway: Man Cave Gear For Pops | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 17 | Poor dad. He’s always getting shafted when it comes to Father’s Day. Usually he gets a tie or a chess set or a fancy prize-winning goat (it was a weird year that year at the Biggs house, let me tell you). But does he ever get a full home gaming/3D video/Blu-Ray playing All-In-One gaming center? With speakers? And fancy lights? Well now you can send Dad what he really wants. I’m going to run this contest until next Wednesday since it’s a pretty nice price so if you win you can pretend that you meant to send pops his present all along and you can just say you weren’t sure if you could afford it or whatever and then, suddenly, you were like “I love my dad. Dammit: he gets this gear.” Here’s how to win: Comment below to enter, describing your favorite moment with dear old dad. Comment only once. Include your email in the Disqus form (NOT IN THE COMMENT PROPER) or login using Facebook or whatever. If I can’t contact you, you can’t win. I will pick a winner at noon next Wednesday, June 22. I will pick one commenter at random. Here’s what pops can win:
23.6″
1920 x 1080 resolution
120Hz 3D Panel
OS Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit
Touch Screen Multi Touch
CPU + Chipset Intel® Core™ i7 -740QM
Intel® HM55 Chipset
Memory DDR3 1333 MHz 2GB SO-DIMM x 4 slot, 8GB max.
HDD 1TB SATA II 7200rpm 3.5″
Optical Drive Tray-in Blue-ray reader
Graphics NVIDIA GTX460M 1.5G(3D) Desktop speaker system creates the ultimate personal theater experience & features 3Dsst™ technology
· Anodized aluminum satellites reduce vibration and minimize distortion, resulting in clear mid and sparkling high-range sound
· Active subwoofer with passive radiator technology, delivers an expansive range of bass comparable to larger footprint subwoofers
· 3D-tuned drivers to deliver audio optimized for soundscience’s 3Dsst technology
· Dual-mode operation: 3D mode for enveloping games and movies sounds, and music mode for faithful stereo music playback
· Optical input for playback of digital audio from game consoles (Xbox 360, PS3) and other, similarly equipped devices
· Remote control pod for volume adjustment, 3D/music mode selection, muting and digital/analog input option soundscience halo 6 LED bias lighting kit™ Subtle white backlight optimizes picture quality and eliminates eye strain to enhance viewing comfort
Remedies eye fatigue by reducing the range of motion in the iris muscles when viewing images in a dark environment
Color and brightness are carefully calibrated to achieve the optimal viewing experience and increase your monitor’s perceived contrast ratio
Eliminating eye strain increases vision endurance and comfort during long viewing sessions
· Fits LCD monitors up to 24” placed against a light colored wall; available USB port or powered USB hub Thanks to Asus and Soundscience for hooking us up. Update – Chrissty won the kit. Thanks for playing. |
Earbits Snags $605K From Y Combinator, Charles River Ventures And Others | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 17 | Online radio startup (YC Winter 2011) is announcing a seed round of funding today, having snatched up $605K from , , Start Fund and former CEO . Earbits is unique in that its closest competitor is the newly IPOd Pandora from the listener’s side but from the musician’s side the model is completely different. Founder Joey Flores likens the site to 2.0. Come July Earbits plans on taking bids from musicians in order to offer streaming time (a practice that is illegal on normal radio, as well as opportunities to market themselves through the site. Also unlike Pandora Earbits will not offer ads, instead banking on the fact that bands will pay for a a platform to promote themselves. Right now Earbits is working with 140 record labels and Grammy award winning artists across 80 channels, with 1700 artists total. Traffic has been up 185% in May with record listener engagement according to Flores, who plans on using the new cash for hiring, ” Our audience is starting to grow but we’re just looking to accelerate the pace of how we acquire more content and more listeners,” he said. |
"Rotary Mechanical" Cell Phone Concept Isn't Practical, But It Looks Great | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 17 |
Now, I’m as tired of steampunk as the next guy (unless the next guy works at BoingBoing), but that doesn’t mean I’m going to pretend something like this concept isn’t cool. Steampunk got cool because of , not people gluing brass fittings onto their top hats.
It is of course just a concept, but the idea is a modular, metal-and-wood object with interchangeable plates for different tasks. Not sure when the rotary dial will really be helpful, but hey, it’ll be nice to spin something. I’m not sure it’ll fly with that weak old Symbian OS, though. Put Android on there with a custom skin, maybe, and have a cool copper trackball or something. I don’t know. At any rate, it’s a beautiful little (theoretical) object. |
Surveillant Society | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 17 | One aspect of the Egyptian uprising (among the others, most ongoing) that was overpowered by the wild acclamation of social media is something that has been quietly but powerfully changing societal norms over the last decade. It is simply the inclusion, on almost every mobile phone sold, of a digital camera. When 90% of the active population can, at any time, record an event they are witness to, and transmit it to the rest of the world instantly, many rules begin to change. It’s not new, of course: “citizen journalism” has a long history before mobiles were prevalent, and the growing trend of “you report”-style news and things like Twitter streams in live reporting are as plain as the lens on your phone. And while I regularly deride the quality of camera phones, the truth is that improvements have been made that are now promoting phone-cams from joke cameras to true documentary devices. What happens, exactly, when every individual is not only a node connected to a worldwide network, but is also able to take anything they see and cause it to be made public and (efforts are made in this direction) unable to be taken down? The consequences are complex and far-reaching, and we would do well to start thinking about them now. |
AOL Makes Fun Of Yahoo. And It's Actually Hilarious. | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 17 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mPM1d2d1tg&w=630] This is amazing. Earlier today Yahoo Android music app that happened to have the exact same name as the Android music app by AOL four months ago, “Play.” Yes, Yahoo and AOL now both have music apps with the same name. And instead of laughing it off internally, AOL responded to the launch with this “Yapoo!” parody video. In a rare moment of badassery AOL is basically calling out the Yahoo Mobile Team for not being very creative. Yeah, I know, “pot calling the kettle black” you say … But the most surprising part about this video is that it will make you laugh genuinely at its spot on depiction of copy/paste innovation, multiple times. My favorite “we’re phoning it in” line: “What we need to do is find an app that we like and just reskin it, just put some purple in it. Boom.” I’m beginning to think that AOL Senior Director of Mobile Projects , who made this video and also came up with the ‘ , is the single funniest person in our parent company. |
PlayStation Boss: No PS4 Anytime Soon, We're Advanced Enough | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 6 | 17 | With ’s announcement of the at E3, and rumors of a potential machine headed our way in 2013, you’d think that the folks over at would be working long hours to make the next-gen top-dog amongst competitors. Unfortunately, that’s not the case, according to comments made by PlayStation US boss Jack Tretton in a . New products from competitors haven’t exactly spurred action out of the PlayStation team, and Tretton didn’t seem intimidated by his rivals in the least. He seemed specifically unimpressed with Nintendo’s Wii U. “I think there’s ground to be carved out for everybody, but I didn’t see anything about Nintendo’s announcement that said, ‘Oh, we’d better get working on rolling out a new PlayStation here pretty soon,’” said Tretton. “Our attitude is kind of ‘welcome to the party.’ If you’re looking at being a multimedia entertainment device, if you’re looking at high def gaming, that was 2006 for us.” Tretton said that Sony will be focusing mostly on the PlayStation 3 and for right now, adding that he believes the company’s current products are still on the cutting edge. “What we’ve seen from competition is trying to add features that already exist in PlayStation 3,” said Tretton. “We invested heavily in that, we rolled a very heavy rock up a steep hill, through the launch period. But now I think that all pays off, and we’ve got a long run way behind it. So, I wouldn’t look for any discussion of a next generation PlayStation for quite some time.” Maybe even never, or at least not one that’s any better than the PlayStation 3. “PlayStation 3 is really just hitting its stride,” said Tretton. “And technologically, I don’t think it’s possible to provide any advancement beyond what we have.” [via ] |
Red Karaoke now lets you groove on Facebook | marinando | 2,011 | 6 | 17 | has been around for 4 years now, when based out of Spain, two brothers Miguel Angel y Richard Díez Ferreira first opened it’s online Karaoke doors. They probably had no idea that they were onto something. The service took very quickly and grew not only for the Spanish speaking public, but English and Japanese. Today, with 2 million monthly unique visitors and 1.5 million recordings made, Red Karaoke releases their , to socialize their singing experience even more. The service is currently available in Spanish, English and Japanese and unlike some of their counterparts ( ), on a growing curve. Their main competitor, has a library of 8,000 titles, whereas Red Karaoke boasts 50,000, high quality mp3 titles. In 2008, the company received 2 million euros from venture capital, in order to grow their team and invest further into product development. That said, the web could really use a makeover, unless they’re trying to reinforce the karaoke look.
With the Facebook app, Red Karaoke aims to be the first to bring the full singing experience to Facebook, as well as to grow their multi-platform experience. They’re currently available for web, LG smart TVs, iOS, and coming soon to mobile and tablet. Because all of the applications running in the cloud, a user can recover his recording made in the web version in the Facebook app, or vice versa. The Facebook app allow users to record with their webcam, using the company’s Virtua Sing service. You design a 3D avatar that dances on a virtual stage. The 3D character dances and sings with the users voice. The app also allows users to change the karaoke tone and adjust sound effects. Red Karaoke works on a freemium to subscription model. The free version gives you 20 karaokes to get started with. After that you can upgrade to either monthly or yearly membership, or get yourself a 24h VIP pass, which specifically has a lot of appeal for sporadic events and get togethers. The Facebook app is a smart move for karaoke, it’s already a very social phenomenon and now they can bank on the social virtual gaming buzz. |
11 Great Last Minute Geeky Father's Day Gifts | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 6 | 17 | I’m a dad and have no problem stating that Father’s Day is farce. It’s a waste of money, mainly. I believe the same goes for Mother’s Day, but I clearly don’t have the same sort of authority to state as much. That said, I don’t mind receiving a little something for my hard work. Everyone likes gifts, but there’s no reason to spend a good deal of time or money on us dads. Most national brick and mortar retailers sell great items that clearly fit within the Father’s Day gift parameters. Don’t stress over paying huge shipping fees from online retailers because you waited until the last minute. Toys-R-Us, Barnes & Noble and outdoorsy shops all sell gadgets and items your sort of nerdy Dad will love. — $10 and up at most department and toy stores There isn’t a dad alive that would turn down a Nerf Gun. Sure, the kids might eventually claim ownership of Dad’s gift, but since it’s his, he can always confiscate it when he sees fit. Super Soakers however take the right dad/kid combo. While Dad might be able to use his Nerf gun at work for cubicle warfare, a Super Soaker is mainly a around the house sort of item. Buy one for Junior as well so ol’ Dad has someone to shoot. Did you know the new Super Soakers are battery powered? You don’t even need to pump them. They’re awesome. — Airsoft guns take BB guns to a whole new level. Airsoft guns often look almost exactly like a real gun, which is why us dads love them so much. You should be able to sneak out under $60 by buying a handgun model and a tub of BBs. Assault rifles start around $100, sniper rifles run $150, and machine guns run $350 and up. You could go crazy. – $20 and up at department stores and toy stores LEGOs are awesome especially to us dads. Here are some tips: Buy the Star Wars sets regarding the classic trilogy, not the prequels. Mindstorms sets are sweet but expensive and the Architecture and TECHNIC kits are a sure win. The LEGO games are kind of dumb, though. — There are a billion uses for these little guys. Use them in the workshop, kitchen, office, really anywhere something needs to be propped up and held in place. They’re a mainstay of Rockler’s own product lines, but and both sell a knockoff if . BTW, a Rockler gift card is also a great gift. — This is a fun book that features a bunch of geek projects dads (or moms) can do with their kids. I have a copy on my nightstand right now. It has instructions on how to make the best slip-n-slide ever, a phonebook swing, a working LEGO lamp and a bunch more. Or you could get , which is also sold at . — This little radio is an easy winner for the right dad. It uses a digital tuner to pull AM and FM stations and runs on a single AAA battery. It’s simple, but your dad might like that. — $10 and up at hobby stores You’re never too old to launch rockets. Dads love this sort of thing. Estes is the popular retail brand and most hobby and toy stores sell both pre-made and model rocket sets. Just make sure you also buy the launch pad and the appropriate rockets engines. (not expensive) Pro tip: You need an area about the size of two football fields to launch these sort of rockets. — $20 and up Buying someone else a phone case can be a tricky task, but it can be done. Chances are the owner has grown attached to his current case, and might hate to see it go. Try to buy one that’s similar to the current one, but better. But moreover, if dad doesn’t have a case on his phone, don’t buy him one. There’s a reason he doesn’t have a case on there. — Sometimes a full blown GPS unit is an overkill. That’s where the Bushnell Backtrack comes in. It simple points you in the right direction. Dad could mark the location of his tree stand or fallen deer and the little arrow will always point in the right direction. Think if it as a GPS sans the turn-by-turn part. — Dad always complain there’s nothing on TV? Give him a Roku. This streamer has over 100 streaming stations available including Netflix, Amazon, and Pandora. Plus the middle tier models are now sold within Walmart and Best Buy, making buying one a non-issue. Us dads are always forced to go to the fancy-pants places for Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, and such so why not take us somewhere fun for our little day? Get hot wings, curly fries, a crazy two-patty burger or something. Oh yeah, and dear wife? Be a doll and let him have some fun; you’re the DD for this trip. Dads young and old always need a tie. Why? Because our ties either get stained or become outdated. Most ties run $20 to $40 and you don’t have to worry about sizes as ties are a one size fit all sort of thing. Just buy one that’s not too flashy and you’ll be fine. |
As The 2012 Campaign Heats Up, President Obama To Start Tweeting From @BarackObama | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 6 | 17 | You’re about to see whole lot more Tweets from the President. President Obama’s Twitter account, has been around for sometime, accumulated 8.6 million followers but he was rarely -his staff did. Today, the President’s campaign notifying the public that his 2012 presidential campaign staff (Obama for America) will start managing his Twitter and accounts (which were previously managed by the DNC). And Obama will be Tweeting regularly from @BarackObama, with the signature
“-BO.” Apparently both Facebook and twitter accounts will be posting daily updates from the campaign trail, from Washington, and more. Now that the campaign has taken over the Twitter account, staff sent out this message in a Tweet a few minutes ago: Welcome to a new @BarackObama. In the past few years, the President’s Twitter account has posted about one update per day on average, so I’m assuming we’re about to see way more Tweets and activity coming from the account. In the post on BarackObama.com, a staff member writes this of the reasoning behind the change in social media strategy: As the President said when he launched this campaign a few months ago, he’s focused on doing the job we elected him to do — so he’s counting on all of us to lead this organization from the grassroots up, helping to shape it as it grows. One way we’re putting that idea into practice is by taking the reins of these Facebook and Twitter accounts. This change will give us new opportunities to make the most of these channels, using them not only to report what the President is doing every day but to connect to the millions of supporters who will be driving this campaign. If the 2008 election , the 2012 election may also centralize around Twitter, which has more mass appeal than four years ago. Obama and his campaign are wise to start engaging constituents and citizens personally. In fact, Republican candidates to throw punches and jabs over Twitter. The fact that Obama will now be actually Tweeting from the account will add a ton of value to his stream. |
Ever Wonder What In-Lens Image Stabilization Actually Looks Like? | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 17 | [vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/25219345 w=620&h=349]
Not content with Canon’s claims that it is simply unicorn tears that makes their in-lens stabilization work, decided to take apart an 18-55mm IS and record just what was going on in there. Aren’t you curious too? As it turns out… not too exciting, since the real magic is in the detection of movement and calculation of counter-movement. The little springs and servos hidden in the lens are just the last step in the process. [via ] |
null | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 6 | 28 | null |
The Hacks Continue: Sega Pass Breached | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 17 | The latest victim in this rash of cyberattacks is Sega, whose own gaming network and marketplace Sega Pass has been compromised. The site says it’s “going through some improvements” but reveals that they’re locking it down until the situation is back under control. What was leaked? Fortunately just emails, DOBs, and encrypted passwords. Nothing you don’t give out every day for free, then, but to be safe, change your password elsewhere if you’ve been affected by this hack. Probably a good idea to change your password right now anyway just in case what with half the sites on the net getting hacked. [via ] |
Another Look At The Ulysse Nardin Chairman | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 17 | Sorry that I’ve so many of these videos but this offered a tighter and closer look at the and, considering this is probably the wildest phone I’ve seen in years, it’s worth a second look. Enjoy this quick run through of some of the basic features and a bit of time spent on the counterweight. |
Sequoia Capital To Double Down On Evernote With Big New Investment | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 6 | 17 | is as any startup in Silicon Valley, even if they don’t get quite as much press. Last year they raised from Sequoia Capital, on top of the $25 million they’d already raised. The company is profitable with 70 employees, and has revenue of more than $1 million per month. Profitable enough, in fact, that it’s rumored they haven’t spent a penny of that $20 million venture round. Even so, they’re close to raising a new round, we’ve heard from multiple sources. It’ll likely be in the $50 million range, and Sequoia Capital will once again lead. Our guess (and this is only a guess) is that at least some of this new round will be secondary, allowing the founders to take money off the table. One source pegged the valuation at a billion dollars or more, which would put Evernote in the . But a different source said it would be “substantially lower” than $1 billion. Either way, things are looking good for Evernote. The company declined to comment on this post. |
Square to Investors: $1 Billion Valuation? That's So Last Week. Make It $2 Billion. | Sarah Lacy | 2,011 | 6 | 17 | Square is still working on raising its $50 million-or-so , and we’ve heard from several sources why it’s taking so long. It seems Square is no longer content to be in the $1 billion valuation club, which is admittedly getting . I mean, once they’ve let Spotify in, they’ll let any hot app in, right? Square is now angling for a whopping $2 billion valuation. That’s caused some well-heeled investors to balk, while others are still listening. Momentum aside, Square is trying to do something that’s incredibly hard and expensive. Everyone agrees that payments need to be disrupted again (except maybe eBay and the credit card companies), and given the general antipathy towards to financial sector, the time is right. And Square seems to have the best shot of anyone out there. In addition to a sexy device and UI, Square CEO/Twitter founder Jack Dorsey has a major edge in promoting a brand, because he’s reached that rarified level of status where he could be interviewed by Charlie Rose, Oprah or Howard Stern on any given week. That’s important because Square needs mass market promotion, and that can get expensive if you have to pay for it. But Square is still a long way from pulling off the necessary network effects for the business model to work. And Dorsey also represents one thing that worries potential investors: A CEO who is splitting his time between two companies, in Dorsey’s case Twitter and Square. |
Surveillant Society | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 17 |
One aspect of the Egyptian uprising (among the others, most ongoing) that was overpowered by the wild acclamation of social media is something that has been quietly but powerfully changing societal norms over the last decade. It is simply the inclusion, on almost every mobile phone sold, of a digital camera. When 90% of the active population can, at any time, record an event they are witness to, and transmit it to the rest of the world instantly, many rules begin to change. It’s not new, of course: “citizen journalism” has a long history before mobiles were prevalent, and the growing trend of “you report”-style news and things like Twitter streams in live reporting are as plain as the lens on your phone. And while I regularly deride the quality of camera phones, the truth is that improvements have been made that are now promoting phone-cams from joke cameras to true documentary devices. The reason I bring this up today is because of a I watched a few weeks back that documented some aggressive behavior by a few NYPD officers. You may have seen it — it’s up to around 400,000 views now. Not that this particular incident is of particular import (compared to the countless enormities being perpetrated every day around the world), but its trajectory (essentially viral) is signal. And, importantly, the quality of the video is good enough to prove identities in court, and arguably too difficult to fake. A few years ago this level of definition would only be available on a thousand-dollar camcorder. Today it’s on phones that are literally being given away. Malcom Gladwell may be out of vogue presently, but nevertheless this has all the appearances of one of those tipping points. What happens, exactly, when every individual is not only a node connected to a worldwide network, but is also able to take anything they see and cause it to be made public and (efforts are made in this direction) unable to be taken down? The consequences are, in an institutional way, the same loss of deniability that has affected citizens in cities like London, where CCTV cameras have squelched crime on the street, and around the world, where the loss of privileged privacy is now affecting everyone tagged in an embarrassing photo on Facebook. The assumption that one is not being recorded in any real way, a standard in civilization for more or less all of history, is being overturned. (I’ll be writing more about this in a longer series of posts on privacy, but the societal effect of widespread documentary devices is distinct enough to consider on its own.) Places where this effect is already visible include some parts of government: official Congressional discussions, for instance, are frequently broadcast and have been recorded in their entirety for decades. You can’t take back something you say on the Senate floor. CEOs of major companies, too, have felt the sting of the ever-vigilant ears and eyes of the internet. Steve Jobs’ infamous response to a user regarding the iPhone 4 antenna issue is a good example, but similar things happen every day, and now that there’s no plausible deniability (since as head of the company almost all their public speech is on the record), CEOs have become slaves to the PR department in a bizarre inversion of internal corporate checks and balances. And there is, of course, the more obvious example of things like police brutality. Rodney King was an early indicator of the directions things will take. But imagine if catching police when they acted illegally were to be the rather than the exception. That’s what the NYPD cops who hassled that passerby are finding out, and I suspect many more in positions where abuse of authority is a risk will find out soon as well. Too late for them to save themselves, but just in time for victims (not just of police brutality, but of any kind of unexpected or undocumentable trauma or danger – a hit and run, for example), who for centuries have lacked a way to strike back, for want of evidence. “Your word against mine” can be a serious and drawn-out dispute, subject to all kinds of subjective judgments, loyalties, rights, and arguments; “Your word against my high-definition video” gives citizens and the vulnerable a bit more leverage. Things aren’t so simple, though. As anyone who has worked in visual media can tell you, deception and fakery are not only incredibly easy, but very common as well. Hoaxes, fakes, set-ups, staged scenarios, creative editing, post-production, photoshopping, and every other tool of the trade, all show something other than the raw, original product. I’m not familiar with forensic digital media evaluation tools in use today, but I get the feeling that if they’re not inadequate now, they will be so in a few years. It matters because as “citizen journalism” becomes more commonplace, distinguishing between verified and unverified media will become a serious problem (and, I would hazard, a serious business). Indeed, where unverified reports are the rule and anecdote prevails over skepticism (cryptozoology, UFOs, faith healing, etc.), fakes are demonstrably much more common than in, say, day-to-day news reporting. As the volume of self-reported news (and implicit trust thereof) increases, the tools to vet it become that much more important. And where better to search for proof of authenticity than in a courtroom? I think that we will find that, as we produce more and more images and video, less and less of it will be considered “admissible” (since “publishable” and the like are valueless now), a standard for which we will need to come to some kind of agreement about the definition of a “digital original.” Imaging companies have attempted to do this, but as I posted a short while ago, their method is inadequate. The ability to determine whether something has been digitally tampered with may be a new and frustrating mire of red tape and legislative dysfunction, but it’s essential to a society that is capable of producing and tampering with documentary evidence. Timestamp incorrect? Inadmissible. Cropped? Inadmissible. EXIF blank? Inadmissible. Restrictions like these, and more sophisticated things like investigating sub-pixel metadata and so on, will be tools of legal protection the way, say, a public notary has been for paper documents. Worth noting separately is the difference between what I am describing and the more familiar “surveillance society,” which is not related to decentralized documentational powers but centralized monitoring powers. I borrowed the idiom, and in some places these ideas overlap, but for the most part they are distinct (and it is upon the distinctions that I am focused). A change that will need to occur along with this huge increase in citizen surveillance (because really, that’s what having cameras in the hand of every person amounts to) is finding out what is acceptable behavior on camera. This is, again, a topic I’ll discuss in later articles covering different aspects of privacy, but the relevant portions here are two in number: first, that what is acceptable for, say, an employer to see in your Facebook profile will change, and second, that control over your own data will be a sticking point one way or another. These days it’s not uncommon for someone to lose a job or not be hired because of something seen and deemed irresponsible on their Facebook or Flickr page. I get the feeling that as a generation accustomed to the social net grows up and ascends the ranks, this kind of judgment will decrease in intensity, while at the same time such social checks will become more common. A more troublesome point is the fact that if you show everything, you’re likely to show something you should have hidden, and if you hide everything, everyone will assume you did so for a reason. Employers might require you to be Facebook friends with them so they can monitor you. Make no mistake, this is certainly a breach of privacy, but it’s going to happen (in all likelihood is happening already – do you do this?). Refusal to, or having pictures hidden, untagged, and so on, may for a time be considered withholding information. It’s going to be rough for a while. But the end result is a society that is more at home with itself in public, and less concerned about what may or may not make it into the hands of our parents or employers — not necessarily because we have more control, but because the threat is known. Yet the question of control is problematic as well. If a friend takes a picture of you, uploads a cropped version to Flickr and Facebook, and “keeps” the original in a folder somewhere, what is the rights situation with that picture? You’ve surrendered some of your claim by putting it on Facebook, where it is immediately catalogued, resized, copied, and so on. What if retain the “original”? What if it’s your camera, or you took the picture, and they uploaded it? If the servers are in Iceland, the company is in the US, and the user is in Germany, what then? The issue of ownership is being muddied by the same process that has upended media industries – the transition of recordable data from physical to virtual property, infinitely copyable but still subject to many of the necessities of more traditionally-held items. Who owns what, who is legally bound to act in which way, which licenses supercede others? A team of lawyers and scholars might spend months putting together a cohesive argument for any number of possibilities. What chance does an end user have to figure out whether or not they have the right to print, distribute, delete, and so on? Ownership of the data we create is a complicated and subtle thing, and right now the content is piling up, but understanding of how that data is stored, licensed, accessed, and so on is no better than it was. We’ll need to take charge of our own data, but do we even have the tools to do so? Have we already given up our rights to EULAs and obscure default settings? I doubt I could delete myself from the net without breaking a dozen “contracts” and as many loosely-interpreted laws. But these are all bridges that are better crossed when we reach them. It’s fun to play pretend in a future of gigapixel phone cams and Blade Runner-style “enhance,” but there are changes other than technical and legal ones that are perhaps better worth our considering. (Why I didn’t put them at the beginning of this article, the better to get my point across, is, as usual, a mystery. But hopefully your eye was drawn here, dear reader, by the bold text above.) I’m speaking of our responsibilities as a society to use these new tools judiciously and responsibly. A few days ago, I was at a local coffee shop, writing as usual. A girl sat her things down on the table in front of me, then went outside to smoke. When she got back a few minutes later, her bag was gone. Someone had stolen it, in front of my eyes (and, in my defense, the eyes of the baristas and everyone else). There were, by a conservative estimate, some 40 cameras in the place, counting webcams, phone cams, and point and shoots, though unfortunately no security cameras. All of those cameras were either in pockets or pointing at nothing. Does anyone else sense a missed opportunity here? Don’t you think it’s our responsibility as members of society to back each other up however we can? The guys on that balcony in New York knew the biker being cited, so they recorded it, and happened to catch questionable behavior on the part of the cops. Would they have recorded it if they hadn’t known the guy? Perhaps only if they saw the other man being hassled? What if they were recording, and nothing of serious consequence occurred — did they violate anyone’s privacy? Maybe, maybe not. But I think that increasingly, the answers to these questions are tending towards the “record first” mentality. In a situation of medium importance (we’ll call it) like that one, the constant presence of cameras and smartphones is, at the very least, welcome. But consider a situation like the ongoing revolutions in the middle east, where cameras have also become pervasive. No government is vigilant enough (though some are brutal enough) to prevent a hundred thousand massed citizens from taking pictures of the force suppressing them, or of the crowd itself, or of atrocities finished in seconds that would otherwise have only been hinted at in second-hand reports in newspapers. Again: the camera, combined with the will and means to use it and spread the resultant images, gives the underdog leverage, as with the lesser case of police aggression in New York, and makes quaint the traditional obfuscatory tactics of oppressive regimes. The policy of shutting down cellular networks and internet is a desperate move and will only be effective as long as we don’t have the means of circumventing it. Ad-hoc networks will emerge as a serious force to be reckoned with, and represent a true democratization of data distribution. Not that we should all be constantly suspicious of each other at all times and in all places (though I admit I at least should have been vigilant enough to notice such a brazen theft as that in the coffee shop), but it seems a little strange to me, that a crime should be suffered to be committed in the presence of some three dozen cameras. The logical next step, after assuming one is being recorded at all times when in public ( true) is one is being recorded at all times when in public. Theoretically, you won’t act any differently, since you’re already operating under that assumption. Yes, I’m suggesting that, when it’s technically feasible, our cameras should be recording at all times, unless instructed otherwise. Our personal imaging devices have become more and more accessible over the years, and this is really the vanishing point for that trend, which we may approach asymptotically (or Zenoistically, if you will) Many cameras do this on command, especially high-speed models made to catch events too brief for the camera operator to react. The limitations are technical only — and philosophical, of course. If your phone recorded the voice of an attacker, or the gunshot of a policeman preceding a warning rather than following it, would you regret that functionality? If you could be sure that this information could not be obtained except by your requesting it, however idealistic that notion is, would you submit to it? And how long before it’s considered negligent to have recorded an accident or criminal act? The notion of privacy in public is being demolished anyway. Every inch of your city has been mapped by Google; you cross the paths of dozens of cameras every day. In cities like New York and LA, where filming on the street is common, you can sign away your appearance rights by walking past a “recording in progress” sign. A large number of people voluntarily (or unknowingly, but that’s another story) let themselves be tracked by their phones or cameras. Your home address, place of work, and general likeness are public information. Your shopping habits, brand preferences, and shoe size are on record and being sold to the highest bidder. Forensic audio analysts in London tracked the location of sounds in the city based on variations detected in the power grid. You have no privacy in public, haven’t had any for a long time, and what little you have you tend to give away. But the sword is double-edged; shouldn’t we benefit from that as well as suffer? A surveillance society is watched. A surveillant society is watching. It’s not an idea that’s easy to get used to, but neither was the idea of widespread instantaneous photography in the late 19th century. The fact is it’s happening, and to pretend otherwise only retards progress. In 10 years, the idea that you’re not being recorded at all times when outside your home (in any populated area, anyway) will be as quaint as the idea now that you can maintain any kind of meaningful anonymity while availing yourself of modern banking, social internet, and mobile phones. A world where fear of persecution, accident, and injustice are unfounded is a fine dream, but that’s not the world we live in, nor the world we’re approaching. Our society be a surveillant society; it’s up to us to make that a virtue, and not just another fear. |
Charting Twilio's Growth Over The Last Year (And The Price Drops That Helped) | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 6 | 17 |
Last week , the startup that makes it easy for developers to integrate SMS and telephony features into their own applications, made a significant pricing change: they dropped the price of each outbound SMS message to one cent (it used to be two cents per message). That may not sound like much, but given that some companies being built on the technology handle a huge volume of texts — including some of the group texting apps — it adds up. I was curious how much of an impact the pricing change could have on the service (after all, there may be some great ideas out there for which Twilio wasn’t previously a viable option), so I got in touch with the company. CEO Jeff Lawson says that Twilio isn’t sharing absolute numbers around the number of text message and voice minutes it’s dealing with, but he did provide the graph above the shows how each of the service’s previous price drops have spurred growth. Overall, each drop looks like it contributed to a marked increase, though there is one apparent outlier (it looks like usage went in late November). As it turns out, the bump in November is from applications built during the 2010 midterm election. Lawson says that campaigns on both sides of the fence used Twilio to build applications, and that the Democratic National Committee did especially well using it, with “order of magnitude cost savings” on an app that was built in a day (you can see the case study ). Obviously these apps were only seeing heavy usage for a limited amount of time, which is why usage peaked and then dropped a bit. I also asked about the major inflection point you see around January 2011. Lawson says this is due to “boring stuff” — growth in new customers, and growth seen by existing customers. Though given how steep the change is, I’m guessing at least one of the customers really started to take off. Lawson also provided some other stats: he says that despite the fact that SMS shortcodes have been around for a decade, there are only around 2,000 of them currently active. In contrast, he says that 10,000 developers are currently using Twilio SMS (which launched a year ago). So what exactly allows Twilio to drop the prices in the first place? The company says that it can work out better deals as it handles more volume, and that it passes along those reduced prices to customers. |
Apple Extends List Of Copycat Devices In Samsung Patent Battle | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 6 | 17 | Here’s something totally baffling: in what way does ’s Sidekick 4G violate design patents? Have you ever seen anything close to a Sidekick with an Apple on it? In any case, the plot has thickened between these two phone makers, with Apple now claiming that 12 different Samsung devices infringe upon Apple’s design and trade dress, including the aforementioned Sidekick 4G. , Apple’s filing only covered five devices, including the Samsung , the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and the Infuse 4G. With the original devices, we could at least see the reasoning, even though the suit may be a bit of a stretch. There are similarities, yes, but nothing to the point where I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between an iPhone 4 and the Infuse 4G. With these new devices, however, we are pretty much stumped. Apple’s updated filing includes the Droid Charge, Exhibit 4G, Galaxy Ace, Galaxy Prevail, Galaxy S, Gravity Smart, Infuse 4G, Nexus S 4G, Replenish, Sidekick 4G, Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Galaxy S II. To start, the Sidekick 4G, Replenish, and Gravity Smart all sport physical QWERTY keyboards, which is something we have never, nor do I expect we will ever, see on an Apple product. Furthermore, a large part of Apple’s issue has to do with Samsung’s TouchWiz UI, which isn’t even on the Replenish. Along with tossing some extra devices into the mix, Apple has also decided to add a few extra patents to the case, accusing Samsung of even further infringement. With the addition of the three new patents, Apple is officially filing a complaint against Samsung for infringement on a total of eight utility patents. Two new design patents have also been added, bringing the total to five. Samsung still has an upcoming due date for those original devices to be , including the Droid Charge, Galaxy S II, Galaxy Tab 8.9, Galaxy Tab 10.1, and the Infuse 4G. We’re also still waiting for a judge to decide whether or not with its future devices, but that situation is a bit different, since Samsung asked for the and the instead of products already on the market. [via ] |
Contest Asks People To "Draw The Internet" | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 10 | Can you draw the Internet? No seriously can you? , , digital ad agency The NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment and The NYC Department of Education partnered up this Internet Week in a gallery exhibition of , a contest that asks people to “capture the spirit of the Internet’s billions of pages in a single image.” Hmm … sounds like a Google job interview. But more so. In “Can You Draw The Internet,” digital artists like Douglass Rushkoff and Josh Harris joined schoolchildren in attempts to visualize what a networks of networks based on the IP protocol looks like. While the creative and digital artists received nothing but glory, the best student artist submissions received $100 gift certificates for art supplies. All submissions are being sold through , the proceeds going to benefit NY public schools. Defining let alone drawing something as complicated and ubiquitous as the Internet is a Herculean task, so props to anyone who entered this thing. I mean at this point 1/3 of humanity is online, so there are a lot more ways to win then to start sketching out individual data packets (I’m a huge fan of that USB brain piercing entry below). So yeah “drawing the Internet” is hard, even for the most tech savvy. But if you’re in a pinch, just draw on the best definition of the Internet I’ve heard so far, “It’s like all the world is in an room and the Internet is the air between them.” My favorite entries, below. |
Free Wi-Fi Coming To New York Parks | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 10 | Are you, like me, headed out this weekend to the park in your handsomest raincoat/shoes/socks ensemble? Or maybe you’re looking for the invisible sheep that live in Astoria park’s many verdant trees? Or maybe you want to chase squirrels away from your pot o’ gold in Brooklyn? Well now you don’t have to worry about screaming wildly into space to get Internet connectivity because AT&T is giving it to you for free. The hotspots, labelled “attwifi,” will appear in Battery Park, Joyce Kilmer Park, and Thomas Jefferson park right now. Then AT&T will launch in other locations including good old Central, Astoria, the High Line, and Fort Greene. You can look for coverage maps but your best bet is just to hit your park and check it out. Sadly, all of this park wi-fi won’t drown out the endless caterwauls of the damned that howl from the Reservoir as I pound along the jogging path wearing a mumu, viking helmet, and Crocs. I will be able to get my email sent straight to my fillings, though. pic via . |
EPIC Draft FTC Complaint Vilifies Facebook's Facial Recognition | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 6 | 10 | Earlier this week Facebook drew significant backlash over a feature that uses facial recognition to help users tag their friends in photos shared on the site. The feature isn’t new, but Facebook recently activated it by default for many users, drawing a wave of criticism including a from European Union privacy regulators (though Facebook later that there isn’t a formal investigation under way). I’ve already shared : the EU complaints seem to have little to do with facial recognition and a lot to do with longstanding Facebook policies — and the feature in question is benign. But plenty of people don’t share my stance, and now it looks like Facebook may be up against a challenge in the United States as well. We’ve obtained a draft copy of a complaint to the FTC penned by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), and we hear that they’re trying to drum up support from other privacy organizations before they file the document. We’ve contacted EPIC to clarify their intentions and will update if we hear back from them. But for now, we can still examine the complaint. : EPIC has written a post about the complaint . Parts of the document, particularly one section called ‘The Significance of Facial Recognition”, seem over the top. In it, EPIC discusses the use of facial recognition by various governments to keep tabs on people in public places, including a reference to China’s “All-Seeing Eye”. In other words, it points out that the technology can be used in scary ways, regardless of how Facebook actually intends to use it. Likewise, some of the passages are seemingly intended to spook: There is every reason to believe that unless the Commission acts promptly, Facebook will routinely automate facial identification and eliminate any pretence of user control over the use of their own images for online identification. And: 42. Facebook’s facial recognition technology works by generating a biometric signature for users who are tagged in photos on Facebook, i.e. using “summary data” from “photo comparisons.” “Biometric signature” sounds pretty scary. But it apparently isn’t all that accurate — Facebook says that its technology couldn’t be used to identify any of its hundreds of millions of users simply by analyzing their faces. Instead, it’s powerful enough to look at your twenty best friends on the site (typically the people you interact with most) and guess if one of them is in a given photo, which requires far less computational power and less sophisticated software. Another portion of the document that isn’t particularly convincing involves the Facebook API. The document says that Facebook”fails to establish that application developers, the government, and other third parties will not be able to access “Photo Comparison Data”‘, and seems to imply that developers can access the data using the Graph API. Facebook says that this data is not available through the API at all, though it might be a good idea for them to put that in writing. But while parts of the document seem overly alarmist, there are a couple of legitimate points. For instance, Facebook’s help section that details how to delete a user’s ‘Photo Comparison Data’ (in other words, your facial profile) is apparently incorrect because there’s no such button in the settings menu. Facebook explains that the data is in fact deleted when a user disables the tag suggestion feature, but it seems that the help file and the control panel don’t match. Another valid point: Sam Odio, who is the product manager for Facebook Photos, was previously quoted as saying: “This isn’t face recognition… Picasa and iPhoto — they’ll detect a face and say, “This is Sam,” and they’ll suggest that it’s Sam. We’re not doing that. We’re not linking any faces to profiles automatically. Right now, we want to stay away from that because it’s a very touchy subject.” Obviously Facebook has since decided to implement the technology. And given the fact that they were aware of just how touchy a subject this is, it’s surprising that they didn’t do more to explain what was going on to users as the feature rolled out. But Odio didn’t say they weren’t doing it because they were fundamentally opposed to the idea, they just knew they’d face a backlash (and were right). Overall, while the complaint has some legitimate concerns (Facebook should be brutally transparent about what data it stores, and when it will share it with various governments), treating Facebook’s tag suggestions as a battleground over the future of facial recognition seems like a mistake. I’m no more worried that Facebook is going to build a database of biometric facial profiles with the intention of distributing them than I am about Google building a database of all my search queries and selling those. The reality is that facial recognition is already here, and it’s not going away — so the debate at this point should be a matter of figuring out the technology should be used rather than if it can be created in the first place (Tim O’Reilly does a good job discussing this in ). And, as features go, suggested photo tagging just doesn’t bother me. I’m far more concerned about the companies I’ve never heard whose whole businesses revolve around building and selling these biometric profiles, without users ever knowing about it.
[scribd id=57562982 key=key-bm76h9vvn2dxnm38ny0 mode=list] |
Tumblr's New Messaging System: Another Way To Avoid My Evil Email Inbox | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 10 | I hate email. Hate hate hate hate hate hate hate email. There’s just too much of it. It’s always flowing in. It never stops. And it’s getting worse. As time goes on, even if inbox overload isn’t a problem for you right now, it will be. And I’m increasingly convinced that there is no actual solution. A ton of people are out there working on the problem — companies both big and small. Some of the “solutions” are nice and smart. But they’re all either masks or temporary fixes. No one wants to admit the truth: only real way to solve the email problem is to blow email up and start over again. But that will obviously be a massive undertaking that will likely take years to get everyone on the same page, using the same service/protocol — if it works at all. So for now, might I suggest you do what I do and use a bunch of smaller solutions to ease the email pressure? And a new one appeared today: . Of course, Tumblr is not billing as an email-replacement. But it does somewhat fulfill that purpose. You see, since I run on Tumblr, a lot of people use the Ask feature to write to me. The problem has been that up until now the only way to respond to these messages has been publicly. Yes, it was essentially , but where every answer had to be . There would often be questions that I would want to answer, but did not want them posted to my site (either for clutter reasons, or because the person asking was revealing information they probably didn’t want me to publish). But the new “Private Answers” feature unveiled today by Tumblr allows you to message other users without posting anything. Tumblr also added a unified inbox that resides in the top toolbar of the Dashboard which alerts you when you have a new message (and submissions if you have those enabled). And clicking into this area will show you the messages coming in from all of your Tumblr sites (if you have more than one, obviously). And there’s new option to delete all messages as well. Yes, all of this stuff is rudimentary for a messaging system. But again, it does offer a small email relief in that it’s a new system with a slightly higher barrier to entry (you need to have a Tumblr account, unless you choose to allow anonymous messages). Mixed with Facebook Messages, Twitter, Twitter DMs, group messaging apps (Beluga, GroupMe, etc), and , I have a bunch of small work-arounds to avoid the nightmare that is my email inbox. And yes, I know this sounds insane. But that’s how much I hate email. Tumblr’s new messages are the first of “a whole bunch” of new features they’re getting ready to launch alongside their newly updated (and slick) Dashboard. |
Japanese Robo-Drone Will Interrogate Your Leia | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 10 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7dPgzMgf0&w=640&h=390] This odd robot, made of spare parts, has more in common with the than anything of this world. It can float around for 8 minutes on one charge and goes 40 miles an hour. Plus it’s a unique form factor for this sort of RC drone, making it a real one of a kind. Add some spinning blades and an arc blaster and you’ve got a party. |
Weekend Giveaway: A B&N Nook | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 10 |
The folks at , eager as beavers to get their products into your hands, want to send you a new . Why? They’re in love with you and you won’t accept their love, so they’re in the friend zone and you refuse to pay attention to their attempts to win your heart. It’s like only with start-ups. Anyway, here’s how to win. Follow the steps below. You can JUST enter by commenting below, or get extra entries by joining using the PunchTab giveaway widget. People seemed to enjoy it last time so I guess we’ll give it another go. We’ll close the contest June 12th, 2011 at midnight PST. Good luck! UPDATE – Congrats to our winner, Tara. |
DIY Geodesic Dome On Kickstarter | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 10 | Need a place to hide out when the apocalypse comes? Why not try a DIY geodesic dome! This project offers a $99 10-foot geodesics kit or a 14-foot model for $189. This isn’t really about shelter as much as it is about fun. I’ll let the folks at explain: We want to make it easier for everyone (both kids and adults) to visualize, play with, and create their own geodesic structures. Although a dome might not make the best shelter, building one is educational, social, and fun. Domeraisings require folks to collaborate effectively. Because the structure is wobbly until the final piece is added, you’ll need help putting it up. The more people helping, the faster it goes, and it’s easy to get folks involved. |
Clothing Designer Tory Burch Wins $164M In Lawsuit Against Online Counterfeiters | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 6 | 10 | Women’s clothing designer has been in damages from online counterfeiters that have been selling copies of her shoes, bags and clothing on the web. According to , this is the largest amount of money awarded to a fashion designer for damages from online counterfeiters. For background, in 2008, eBay was forced to pay Louis Vuitton over the sale of counterfeit bags and accessories on the auction marketplace. Tory Burch filed lawsuit in December 2010, alleging trademark counterfeiting and cybersquatting by a group of counterfeiters (believed to be based in China) that had set up hundreds of websites selling fake Tory Burch goods. In addition to monetary damages, the court ordered that 232 domain names that were being to used to sell counterfeit Tory Burch products be permanently disabled and turned over to Tory Burch. The financial accounts used to sell the counterfeit goods were restrained as well. And the court has also allowed for Tory Burch to disable additional rogue websites that the counterfeiters set up in the future without needing a new lawsuit. Tory Burch Chief Legal Officer Robert Isen tells WWD’s Alexandra Steigrad that the inspiration for the case was a judgement in favor of Polo Ralph Lauren and The North Face against a ring of 130 Chinese cybersquatters. The two brands were awarded $78 million as well as the ability to collect money from payment services that were used on the sites, like PayPal. Isen says that so far, Tory Burch has collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from PayPal, which many of the online counterfeiters used to collect funds for goods from customers. What’s interesting about the ruling is how the massive amount in damages will affect future rulings against online counterfeiters. And that online payements companies like PayPal are also held accountable. Clearly, the precedent is set and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see similar lawsuits (and judgements) in the future. |
The +1 Button Is Like A Button You Push For A Treat — Without The Treat | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 10 | You people confuse me. Ten days ago we put Google’s +1 Button on TechCrunch — because why not? We try basically all these new buttons/counters/commenting systems much to the dismay of our precious page load speed (we know, we know, it sucks — fix coming). Some of these buttons are great and make a lot of sense. The Tweet Button, the Like Button, even . But I just don’t get the +1 Button. At all. Well, let me rephrase that slightly. I understand the behind the +1 Button — . You get people to click it and it improves the page’s search ranking for logged-in Google users with social connections (and eventually maybe all results). At least I think that’s how it works. But I have a hard time believing that all of you actually clicking on the button really get why you’re doing it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that you’re clicking on it! I am too on some of our stories. But I can’t help but get the feeling that it’s a bit like a cruel experiment we’re running. We put up a button, you click on it because it’s there, expecting you’ll get a treat. But there is no treat. If the +1 Button is serving me up better results, I’m just not seeing it. And yes, I know the button push also populates your Google profile with a feed of our shared stories. But let’s be honest, no one is looking at those. We’re definitely not seeing any noticeable bump in pageviews coming from Google as a result of the button. Maybe that will slowly change over time, but I’m not convinced. The rate at which people are clicking on the button appears to be dropping each day. And soon it may be just like the *gulp* . Google needs to figure this out quickly. When you push a button, you need to get a treat. People will click for a while out of pure novelty and curiousness. But that only lasts so long. Without anything noticeable happening (like a share on Twitter, or a comment on Facebook), people will just ignore the button altogether. All over the web. I will give this to Google, the +1 Button definitely follows the Internet Self-Reference Law. That is, the stories that get the most +1s are the ones about Google — just like the stories that get the most diggs are about Digg, the stories that get the most retweets are about Twitter, the stories that get the most Likes are about Facebook, and any story you write about Techmeme always gets on Techmeme. And while we’re on the subject, it occurs to me that the +1 name doesn’t even really make sense. “+1” to me implies that you’re agreeing with something someone else said or did. But that’s not what the +1 Button is. Instead, it’s like you’re the person initially saying/doing something. Or you’re +1ing the initial person who +1’d something — but who are they +1ing? +1 is hard to say, hard to write, and hard to understand. But hey, don’t let me stop you from clicking that button, Desmond. |
OcuSpec Raises $1.3M From Andreessen And Others To Build ‘Affordable Kinect’ | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 10 | Stealth motion control startup has just raised a $1.3 million seed round from , , and angels Brian McClendon, Bill Warner and others. Short and sweet in his emails, founder Michael Buckwald isn’t telling me very much about OcuSpec does, other than the fact that the startup is developing motion controlled technology that is “radically more powerful and affordable than anything currently available.” From what I’ve gathered it will be sort of like a poor man’s Kinect, except that it will work across any platform. Lest you think this is a pipe dream, the startup currently has functional demo units that can track movement from a user’s hands and body, allowing 3D motion control to be embedded in anything from a laptop to a TV. Cool. Says Buckwald, “Obviously our technology has big ramifications for gaming but we’re particularly excited about the implications that ubiquitous motion control has for the broader computing experience and content creation. ” Not to mention the exercise video industry. Buckwald and his former NASA engineer co-founder David Holtz will be using the newfound cash to hire more people and expand their “already extensive” patent portfolio. Sounds promising. |
Review: The Fretlight FG-421 Guitar | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 10 | Years ago I thought I could be in a rock band (right around the same time I thought I could make money writing poetry) but I eventually resigned myself to the fact that I’d never be a great guitarist. I didn’t have the drive to practice and the act of soloing confounded me completely. How did you play along with the Zep and the Beatles? How do you get great? How do you meet groupies? As time passed, I gave up and my guitars lay fallow in the corner, the groupies forgotten. However, I think Fretlight may have given me a new lease on life. Fretlight makes guitars with LEDs embedded in the neck. You connect these guitars to a computer, run a MIDI player, and then follow along with the lights as the music plays. You can slow things down or speed them up and loop parts of the song over and over to practice certain riffs. The Fretlight will literally show you how to play all of your favorite songs. Generally, the $429 Fretlight is a one-trick pony although the guitar is obviously quite exciting as a teaching tool and – more important – a long distance training system. A teacher in a central location could teach multiple students at once, running them through chords, riffs, and scales by flashing the LEDs on the neck. This, according to Fretlight, is in the works and is one of the most interesting parts of the system. In short, the only difference between a “regular” guitar and this one is the lighting, and I think the lighting makes a huge difference. Some dudes just want to know how to play a cool riff. Why not make it easy for them? Would Slash be caught dead with this around his neck? Now, probably not but as a young riffster trying to learn D’yer Maker? Maybe. In terms of playability I found the guitar itself to quite nice with excellent action and a great sound. The guitar has three pickups, two single and one humbucker. My buddy, Rick, shown above playing the Fretlight with great gusto, found the strings a bit tight on the out-of-the-box model but Marc of , an accomplished guitarist, found the entire kit to be well-made and on par with a mid- to entry-level Strat. Fretlight, in fact, makes their guitars overseas in the same factory as another major player in the guitar industry, so you’re not too far off from industry standard. The guitar uses a few pieces of software, including a free MIDI player as well as , a piece of training software already popular with guitarists. It works on Macs and PCs, and there is a separate break-out box/foot-pedal that lets you pause your playing or perform other simple actions. Is the Fretlight a good guitar? Yes. Is it a good training tool? Yes. Is it for everyone? I don’t know. In some ways I can see what concerns critics would have. For example, would Clapton have become great if he had a “crutch” like the Fretlight? Would Jimi have been a better guitarist if he didn’t have to sit by his radio and listen obsessively to every note of every song he ever loved? I don’t know. I honestly don’t. This is a tool. It’s a teaching tool and a method for training guitarists. While I know that very few Jimis will appear regardless of the tools at their disposal. Talent is rare and beautiful. But it takes a while to get good and maybe this will give a young kid the leg up he or she needs to do a better job than I did at becoming a rock star. The only thing the Fretlight can’t do is show you how to get those groupies and, as I’ve gotten older, that quest has gotten considerably less interesting anyway. Now I’m just happy to play Smoke On The Water. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gv6tP271w4&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnLFmDgTyM0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3]
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Tribesports Raises $400K To Create An All-In-One Digital Resource For Sports Nuts | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 10 | It’s tough to embark on ambitious fitness plans or to learn a new sport without the help of friends or likeminded people to help coach you through the process. Trying to go from lite jogger to marathon runner or from casual golfer to shooting par: The challenges are invigorating, sure, but vim and vigor won’t necessarily carry you all the way to Olympic glory. This is one of the main issues being tackled by , an early-stage, U.K.-based startup, which wants to help motivate and encourage sports enthusiasts online to improve in their sport of choice — and be active offline. Tribesports has essentially built a social network for sports, but there are a few bells and whistles that keep its site from being a Facebook-port for sports. The startup uses a recommendation engine, based on data collected on user interests and community interactions, to serve content relevant to their interests and chosen sport. The platform also integrates game mechanics, a la Foursquare, providing leaderboards, badges, and opportunities to “encourage” (which is an actual button) friends and fellow sports fans in their offline pursuits. The startup, which is run by 3 former execs from (a site that offers furniture and interior design tools and ideas), has also announced that it has raised $400K in seed funding led by a group of international angel investors to launch its public beta and develop mobile apps. said Tribesports CEO Steve Reid. Whether a user is slowly training for their first 10 mile run and enjoys the odd game of tennis or is a seasoned decathlete and captain of their basketball team, Tribesports allows users of all skill levels to build complete profiles of their sports life, like one can on Facebook. Users can join (like Facebook Groups) based on their favorite sports, location, playing position, and ability level. And the best part is that users can seek advice and guidance from more seasoned athletes or connect with people on their level. You can also take in personal fitness (100 crunches a day, for example) or organized events in just about every sport one can think of. Other users can also donate to your challenges by using integration and can then track your progress as you go, making sure you’re not spending the money on beer or snacks. And because most athletes have their own tools of the trade, users can search from more than 1 million products (across more than 1K sports), adding equipment to their personal profiles, which they can then review and have other users comment on, or just add a piece of equipment to their wish list. This is also where the startup’s revenue model comes into play. Tribesports will take a commission of all products sold through its website. It will then supplement commerce commissions by offering companies targeted sponsorship and advertising packages that reach a particular group of athletes or sports fans. The site’s registration and interface are both straightforward and easy to navigate, and offer the familiar status update and the ability to post images, video, and links to relevant content. Users can also connect with Facebook and sign in through a mobile-friendly webpage when they’re on the go. Mobile apps, the company said, are on the way. For more on Tribesports, check out the video below: [vimeo http://vimeo.com/22886815 w=620&h=380] |
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