title stringlengths 2 283 ⌀ | author stringlengths 4 41 ⌀ | year int64 2.01k 2.02k | month int64 1 12 | day int64 1 31 | content stringlengths 1 111k ⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Microsoft Takes A Few Minutes To Laud The New Surface | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 30 | It’s a bit of a random time for a video like this, seeing as the announcement was back at CES and we had a nice, thorough hands-on with the new SUR40 then, but hey. Maybe you missed it. If you don’t mind a little redundancy (and of course, the ever-present soft techno), this is a nice way to catch up on Microsoft’s Surface project. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WB7P4jVktU&w=640&h=390]
I won’t lie, I was hoping for a little more substantial information about the PixelSense sensor array, maybe what they’re doing with it (like maybe , hello), some cool stuff it does, etc. Oh well. Here’s our hands-on, by the way: |
LinkedIn Is Sending Us Far More Referral Traffic Than Twitter.com Now | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 30 | If I asked you which of the major social sites you thought sent us the most traffic, you might think it was Twitter. After all, has over 1.7 million followers. When you compare this to the (just under) 250,000 fans our has, it should be no contest, right? Wrong. The truth is that if this were October of last year, you would have been right in thinking that Twitter was our top referrer in terms of social websites. But since that time, Facebook has far surpassed Twitter in terms of traffic coming our way each month. In fact, Facebook.com is now sends nearly double the traffic that Twitter.com does. This is probably due to the fact that last November, , our excellent community manager, who curates and engages with people from our feed on Facebook. I also suspect it has to do with the rise of the Like button. Ever since it was released last year, Facebook has been steadily referring more readers our way. But this info, while interesting, isn’t all that surprising. After all, Facebook is by far the largest social network in the world. With over , it still dwarfs Twitter. The really surprising thing is that Twitter isn’t even our number two social referrer in terms of websites anymore. As of this month, that distinction goes to LinkedIn. And it’s not even close. Yes, LinkedIn, the professional social network which just went public is now by far our second biggest referrer of social traffic. That’s crazy when you consider that just last month, it was around half the size of Twitter (in terms of referrals), and trailed sites like Hacker News. And two months ago, it was roughly 1/8th the size of Twitter, trailing Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and others in terms of referral traffic to TechCrunch. But the biggest stat of all is that a year ago, traffic coming from LinkedIn was 1/50th what it is today on a monthly basis. So what changed? As far as we can tell, this is all about , the social news product the service back in March. It was around that time that was saw the first big bump in terms of traffic coming from LinkedIn. In March, it roughly doubled from February. Then April was pretty flat — it was still much higher than previously, but not growing. Then in May, traffic went up 5x. And in June, it more than doubled from that. The growth has been astounding. Of course what’s perhaps most interesting about that is that LinkedIn Today is by Twitter. Twitter shared links determine what shows up on LinkedIn Today, but the traffic does not go back through Twitter. Again, this is just traffic from LinkedIn to TechCrunch. And the truth is that with its cross between technology and business, LinkedIn may be the most perfect social network for regular TechCrunch readers. But talking with some other bloggers, they’ve been noticing the exact same thing. All of this is undoubtedly buoyed by the LinkedIn social that have been appearing all over the web as well. recently (and on TechCrunch recently). The bigger question in my mind is what this means for the future of Twitter’s website as a disseminator of news? While Twitter has attempted to help journalists and bloggers a bit with things like the recently-launched tutorials, they haven’t had much in the way of new features to better surface information. Referral traffic from Twitter had been steadily rising over the years, but it was only as we gained more Twitter followers incrementally. And in the last year, that traffic has flattened completely. And now in just a couple of months, LinkedIn has shot by it when a hot new product. Part of the explanations on Twitter’s side may be the , which likely scrubs referrer information in traffic sent. But Facebook and LinkedIn both have HTTPS options as well, and again, those numbers are rising fast, Twitter is not. Also a part of this is the use of Twitter mobile clients. But again, Facebook has hugely popular mobile clients too (though, admittedly, LinkedIn’s mobile clients don’t appear to be as popular, so most of their traffic will likely be from linkedin.com). If that trend is true on a larger scale, that’s not good news for Twitter. It’s substantial traffic that can’t be ignored, obviously, but the numbers point to it stalling out as others come along. In the same year timespan that Twitter referral traffic has flattened, Facebook referral traffic has gone up six-fold. Again, that doesn’t look good for Twitter. Digg was once the undisputed king of referrals as well. Last month, they were in 17th place in terms of referrals to TechCrunch. : Twitter says the lack of growth on twitter.com is due to the soaring of Twitter mobile usage and says they will share some stats soon which I’ll post here. Though that would also suggest that people are turning away from the website in order to use mobile, which would be interesting. Either way, I altered the title to better reflect that Twitter.com is mainly what’s being discussed here. : Twitter has pointed to numbers to share in terms of mobile growth. |
BiteHunter Launches "Kayak for Restaurants" iPhone App | Roi Carthy | 2,011 | 6 | 8 | It was a couple of months ago that beta-launched itself as an aggregator for dining deals. Easily described as a “Kayak for restaurants,” BiteHunter is designed to help users locate dining deals, a problem which has been been addressed quite well for verticals such as travel, but quite poorly for dining, at least on an aggregated basis. Today BiteHunter is announcing a new iPhone app ( ) that expands its dining deal search across the US, from the initial markets of New York, San Francisco and Chicago. The uniqueness of BiteHunter is the real-timeliness of the deal data it exposes. By this I mean, that BiteHunter scours real-time sources such as a restaurant’s Twitter, Foursquare and Facebook accounts, as well as Groupon, LivingSocial and newsletters, to bring users the freshest deal info. Compare this against, say Yelp, which restaurants seem to use more as a business card rather than a customer engagement medium. BiteHunter’s new iPhone app has nicely designed search and discoverability features built-in. Deals can be searched for, or discovered on a map. Filtering can be applied to cuisine, price, distance, and type of deal. Alongside the deal info, BiteHunter also provides restaurant information, related deals, reviews, photos and menus. Users can even reserve tables with the app. A feature I really like is that the app alternates tabs depending on the time of day. So the Lunch tab will become Happy Hours, and Dinner as the day progresses. There’s no question that BiteHunter brings value to users, however, the big challenge, as always for these types of services, is customer acquisition. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76I2UHtwm5o&w=640&h=390] |
Cupertino To Jobs: There's No Chance We're Saying No To The Apple Spaceship Campus | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 8 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FEwHk9Ap7I&w=630]
While he’s no Steve Jobs, Cupertino Mayor Gilbert Wong has his unique charm. In a press conference today responding to yesterday’s , Wong said emphatically, “Cupertino is ready for this” referring to the 150 acre “Mothership” Apple campus. Jobs hopes the fantastic building will be ready to house over 12K employees by 2015 (if everything goes as planned). “There is no chance that we’re saying no,” insisted Wong, who started his life with Apple IIs and Apple II +s, “The Mothership has landed in Cupertino.” In his statement Wong referred to the fact that his daughter attends the same middle school as Jobs did as a boy, but insisted that no preferential treatment was given to Apple in this decision, “Every time that we have a large company [which] has a large sales tax produced we are very accommodating to that company.” Wow, an unabashed “Yes,” and Jobs didn’t even have to include free Wifi! But seriously, how would you react? You can follow the project at |
Custom Clothier J. Hilburn Raises Another $5 Million And Adds Suits To Its Wardrobe | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 6 | 8 | Custom men’s clothing company is expanding its product line to today and raised a $5 million C round from Bridgescale Partners and existing investor Battery Ventures. That brings the total capital invested in the Dallas startup to $12 million. The funds will be used to accelerate its development of new products and as working capital for clothing inventory. J. Hilburn started out with men’s dress shirts, but soon expanded to pants, sweaters, and more casual wear. The company takes a unique hybrid approach to sales, employing a direct sales force of 1,000 “style advisers” who visit customers at their homes or offices for consultations and fittings. That sales army is growing fast. At the beginning of the year, there were only 625 style advisers. More recently, the company , which makes it easier to move that relationship can move from . The company acts as both manufacturer and retailer, cutting out middle layers of retail distribution and the related markups. J. Hilburn’s suits, for instance, will be manufactured in Portugal in the same factory where Armani and Zegna suits are made, with the same fabrics. But instead of paying $1,700 for a Zegna suit, a similar J. Hilburn suit will cost about $800. The company is growing at a nice clip. “We are running 20% ahead on plan,” says CEO Hil Davis. The plan was to hit $20 million in sales this year, up from $8 million last year. Now, Davis expects revenues to be between $20 million and $25 million. The average sales per customer is also going up. Davis expects the average to be between $500 and $600 per customer this year, up from $400 in 2010, $323 in 2009, and $212 in 2008. The company has an iPad app in the works designed as point-of-sale system for the style advisers to help them sell even more. As a special promotion, anyone who registers online today will get a $20 credit. |
An Unannounced Dell Tablet Breaks Both Cover And The Traditional Form Factor Mold | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 6 | 8 |
Dell is working on a new tablet. That alone isn’t news. Nearly every CE company right now is likely “working on a new tablet.” However, the crazy kids over at Engadget a round of photos showing off an unannounced Dell tablet slider. That’s news. What we’re looking at is a clear departure from the traditional tablet form factor. A sliding drawer hides a keyboard reminiscent of 3rd party virtual split ‘pads and a rear camera is embedded on the convex back. But that’s where the details stop. There’s no word on when this slider will hit, for how much, or what OS it’s running. (My money is on Android 3.1) I guess we’re going to have wait until the next round of leaks for that info. |
Coupons.com Raises $200 Million At A Whopping $1 Billion Valuation | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 8 | It looks like Coupons.com may have just become at billion dollar valuations. Today, , the largest provider of digital coupons, announced that it has received a $200 million investment from a group of institutional investors, including several mutual funds. (The company has thus far declined to disclose the names of the investors.) The sizable investment comes at a supposed $1 billion valuation, and sources close to Coupons.com (who declined to be named) said that the valuation is based on $100 million in expected revenues for 2011, roughly double those of the prior year. This is likely all a part of gearing up for a potential IPO sometime in 2012. The hefty infusion of institutional capital is aimed at furthering the company’s goal of bringing coupons online, as digital coupons currently represent the fastest growing segment of the coupon industry. According to the company, more than 332 billion coupons were distributed in 2010. As the print publishing industry continues to fall on hard times, the company is aiming at an industry- wide transformation as shoppers look for digital ways to save. To meet the growing demand in the coupon industry, and to presumably give Groupon a potential reason to look over its shoulder, Coupons.com plans to hire 100 employees in 2011, enabling the company to grow its staff by over 30 percent in just six months. Those new hires will primarily be focused in engineering, sales and client-marketing, the company said. The company also plans to use its new capital to make strategic acquisitions, building on its prior acquisitions of Free State Labs, the developers of Grocery IQ, an shopping list app for mobile. As of right now, Coupons.com claims to be the largest provider of digital coupons (and the 43rd largest website in the U.S.), its network spanning thousands of sites, including retailers, publishers, consumer electronics, shopping cards, and apps. Founded in 1998, Coupons.com is a survivor of the dotcom boom and bust, and with it’s announcement today, it looks like the company is figuratively back from the dead. Though it’s been tight-lipped over revealing its current full financials, we do know that Coupons.com had raised at least $46 million before today’s announcement, including a $20 million series E raise back in 2006 from , Spieker Trust, and a few others. This presumed series F raise comes on the heels of a banner year in 2010 for Coupons.com. , Coupons.com announced that it had surpassed $1 billion in printed coupon savings, a milestone both for the company and the digital coupons industry as a whole. This represented a 57 percent growth over the prior year’s $534 million in savings — more than 5 times the 11 percent growth rate of newspaper coupons during the same period. At the time, Coupons.com CEO attributed the enormous growth to the effect the recession was (and is) having on the average consumer: “Digital coupons continue to grow in popularity with consumers and brand marketers, driven by many factors including economic pressures felt by consumers and the increasing propensity for them to look across the digital domain — on the Web, in social media, mobile environments, etc. — for money-saving offers.” The 13-year-old coupon giant, which counts companies like A&P, Clorox, General Mills, Kelloggs, Walgreens, and Safeway as its clients, has become a resource for manufacturers looking to add coupons to digital media strategies, like Facebook fan pages, corporate websites, email campaigns, and more. The digital coupons industry has come to the fore in the last few years with the loud activity of Groupon and Livingsocial, and today Coupons.com is showing that it, too, plans to be a top player in this space for years to come. (Though I, personally, would love to see the company use some of its new money to redesign , but maybe that’s just me.) |
doxo Emerges From Private Beta, Brings Its Paperless Billing Service To The iPhone | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 8 | One of the easiest ways to “go green” is to start paying your bills online — to cut out that papery middle man. Of course, the paperless revolution seems to be taking longer than expected to sweep the world by storm. Partly, this seems to be due to habit and partly due to concerns over security, privacy, and ease of access. Thankfully, provides users with a cloud-based digital file cabinet that acts as a single unifying resource for all your transactional records, like bills, statements, and benefits, etc. and can notify you of bills via email or SMS. Today, the startup is introducing doxo Mobile, an app that enables users to safeguard their important financial, household, and personal documents, to travel paper-free, accessing the information anywhere, anytime. doxo’s mobile app lets consumers connect directly with providers to receive bills, and coming soon, to pay bills for multiple providers from a smartphone — from a single account, with a single password. On the flip side, for providers, doxo allows them multiple access points from which to communicate with their customers when they’re on the go, or at their desktop, enabling companies of all sizes to simplify customer interaction. Other cool features of doxo’s digital file cabinet? Daily deal vouchers can be stored from multiple sites all in one place, as well as travel portfolios, insurance policies, marriage licenses, and more. You can also store your passwords and important account numbers on the mobile app, too. And for business, doxo’s eFile cabinet allows companies to increase paperless adoption without having to rely on expensive software. doxo Mobile will initially be available only on the iPhone, but the company says that apps for Android and other platforms are to follow. To get the new doxo Mobile app, check it out . doxo raised a $10 million in a series B round in February, which was led by Sigma Partners, with previous investors Mohr Davidow and Bezos Expeditions participating — all while the service was invite-only. This round brought total funding to $15 million and allowed doxo to go live with its mobile service today. Once doxo adds its pay-from-anywhere mobile feature, this app will without a doubt come in handy. And hey, both the web service and the iPhone app are free. All because doxo saves businesses money on paper. (And the $15 million in funding doesn’t hurt either.) |
Sony Pictures Security Hole Hits 37,500 Users | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 8 | Blammo. Sony has just confirmed that 37,500 Sony Pictures visitors have had their passwords, emails, and other potentially identifying details stolen from the Sony Pictures website. There is little financial effect in this hack as it simply exposed logins and passwords although users should probably change their important passwords if they suspect they have been affected. Sony writes: We are continuing to investigate the details of this cyberattack; however, we believe that one or more unauthorized persons may have obtained some or all of the following information that you may have provided to us in connection with certain promotions or sweepstakes: name, address, email address, telephone number, gender, date of birth, and website password and user name.
Read on for more details on the breach.
On June 2, 2011, we learned we were the target of a cyberattack when a hacker claimed that he had recently broken into sonypictures.com. Upon learning of this cyberattack, our team retained outside experts to conduct an investigation and forensic analysis. In addition, we promptly took offline all potentially affected databases containing personally identifiable information and contacted the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. We are working with the FBI to assist in the identification of those responsible for this crime. We greatly appreciate your patience, understanding and goodwill as we work to resolve these issues quickly and efficiently. We are continuing to investigate the details of this cyberattack; however, we believe that one or more unauthorized persons may have obtained some or all of the following information that you may have provided to us in connection with certain promotions or sweepstakes: name, address, email address, telephone number, gender, date of birth, and website password and user name. For your security, we encourage you to be aware of email, telephone, and postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive information. Sony Pictures Entertainment will not contact you by email or otherwise to ask for your credit card number or social security number. If you are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony Pictures Entertainment is not the entity asking. When our website features are fully restored, we strongly recommend that you log on and change your password. If you use your Sony Pictures website user name or password for other unrelated services or accounts, we strongly recommend that you change them there, as well. If you have concerns about the effect of this cyberattack on information you may have provided to us, we have listed below additional information and resources for your consideration: U.S. residents are entitled under U.S. law to one free credit report annually from each of the three major credit bureaus. To order your free credit report, visit www.annualcreditreport.com or call toll-free (877) 322-8228.
At no charge, U.S. residents can have the three major U.S. credit bureaus place a “fraud alert” on your file that alerts creditors to take additional steps to verify your identity prior to granting credit in your name. This service can make it more difficult for someone to get credit in your name. Note, however, that because it tells creditors to follow certain procedures to protect you, it also may delay your ability to obtain credit while the agency verifies your identity. As soon as one credit bureau confirms your fraud alert, the others are notified to place fraud alerts on your file. Should you wish to place a fraud alert, or should you have any questions regarding your credit report, please contact any one of the agencies listed below.
Experian: 888-397-3742; www.experian.com; P.O. Box 9532, Allen, TX 75013
Equifax: 800-525-6285; www.equifax.com; P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
TransUnion: 800-680-7289; www.transunion.com; Fraud Victim Assistance Division, P.O. Box 6790,Fullerton, CA 92834-6790 You may wish to visit the web site of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission atwww.consumer.gov/idtheft or reach the FTC at 1-877-382-4357 or 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW,Washington, DC 20580 for further information about how to protect yourself from identity theft. Your state Attorney General may also have advice on preventing identity theft, and you should report instances of known or suspected identity theft to law enforcement, your State Attorney General, and the FTC. For North Carolina residents, the Attorney General can be contacted at 9001 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-9001; telephone (877) 566-7226; or www.ncdoj.gov.
We will provide you separately with information about a complimentary offering to assist you to the extent you may be interested in enrolling in identity theft protection services and/or similar programs.
We thank you for your patience as we complete our investigation of this cyberattack, and we regret any inconvenience. Our teams are working to restore as soon as possible any website features that have been disabled. Please contact our Toll Free Information Line at 1-855-401-2644, Monday-Friday, between 9 am and 5 pm Central, should you have any additional questions. Sincerely, Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. |
Video: Hands-on With The Hyperkin Supaboy | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 6 | 8 | The broke a few months ago. The somewhat large portable claimed to play SNES cartridges on both the embedded LCD screen but also out through the A/V out. Clever, right? Well, good news. It works and is just as wonderful as it sounds. Devin and I stopped by their E3 booth today and we got in on a little TMNT action. The device is large — think a thick Nomad — but the device sports a top-mounted SNES cartridge slot and a rechargeable battery around back. It’s pretty straight forward, really. No word on pricing, but it’s supposed to be out by the end of the year. (Just in time for your Christmas stocking!) |
15 Minutes Of Battlefield 3 Multiplayer Gameplay | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 8 |
I was lucky enough to be able to play a partial round of yesterday, but unfortunately DICE and EA were very insistent that no cameras would be allowed inside. That rule seems to have been laxified today, as there’s a pair of videos up showing off the very experience I got. Curious? Watch on. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpFZLX8Jmnk&w=640&h=390] [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66vY69l8RNA&w=640&h=390] I’d like to register here that I was by far the highest scoring in my group of players, with more than a 2:1 KDR. That said, it was pretty clear that the opposing team was letting us win, and if they were trying even a little bit, I’d probably be 0 and 20. My impressions? It’s hard to say based on just a few minutes without customizing my guy or learning the map (plus it’s “pre-alpha” code), but it felt good and the map we were on had a nice “real” feel to it, not like a manufactured multiplayer map or anything. I was too busy trying to survive to test the destruction and guns in a clinical manner, but it felt right. Biggest problem? Knifing somebody now takes forever. DICE is proud of their melee animations, but seriously, I’m liable to get sniped while trying to take a fool down that way. |
OnLive Shows Us Their Updated Client And Tablet Interface | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 8 |
ain’t new, but they’ve been updating their service and are showing off a few interesting new features here at E3. We spent some time at their booth, hearing about the service and the improvements they’re making. We saw a little footage of and heard about their cool tablet interface. Check out the video above… if you think you can handle it. |
The i3 Platform: A (Paid) Crunchbase For Green Startups? | Lora Kolodny | 2,011 | 6 | 8 | A research firm focused on clean energy and green innovation, the , launched its i3 Platform today— and it’s something like a paid , with a dash of and , for green tech ventures. The product became privately available to some of Cleantech Group’s clients in late May. Now, some of the i3 Platform is available for free public use via . Free users get basic search and brief— as in — company profiles. Paid subscribers to i3, however, get access to detailed company profiles, complete search results, market mapping tools (see: image below) regular Industry Insights and quarterly investment reports from the Cleantech Group. The product is meant to help the firm’s clients see how green tech players are connecting, and what relationships have led to the successful commercialization of energy, and environmental problem-solving technologies. The i3 Platform is populated with Cleantech Group’s new and archived research about: investments, acquisitions, companies and their inter-connectedness in the cleantech space. Cleantech Group invites entrepreneurs to submit to or update their company profiles within the i3 system. Any user-submitted content that it publishes via i3 will be verified and edited by Cleantech Group analysts, said the firm’s chief executive officer Sheeraz Haji. He calls this not user-generated, but “structured contributed content.” On its , i3 requires users to disclose whether or not they are seeking funding, currently. Could the i3 Platform become a kind of specialized AngelList? Haji said it’s not in the cards: “We have always connected fund seekers with prospective investors by providing good visibility, and information across the board. Our customers can log in and search for which companies in the system are raising capital, maybe in this state or that region, or in these sectors or subsectors of cleantech. We’re not building that to take a piece of equity or to get a transaction fee, though.”
[ : Crunchbase is TechCrunch’s open database of technology ventures, investors, products and deals. It includes user generated content, data and graphics, research from our staff and contributors, and aggregated news links from valid sources online. Any researchers and developers can use the to access our data, and use it in their systems. Cleantech Group is not doing so yet, but has expressed some interest.] |
null | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 6 | 30 | null |
Videos And Gallery: Nintendo’s Booth, Wii U, And New 3DS Games | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 8 |
My impressions? It’s surprisingly light, the movement is much more responsive than the Wii, and the screen looks nice. There weren’t any demonstrations of the touchscreen, though I asked about the resistive/capacitive thing and got a non-answer. It’s just too early for them to commit to any technical details, it seems.
|
OpenStudy Wants To Turn The World Into "One Big Study Group" | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 8 | Education-focused startup is a platform for “massively multi-player study groups.” What this means is that students who are studying the same subject like math or writing can ask and answer questions on OpenStudy, which uses Facebook Connect to let users interact and learn collaboratively through profiles and group chat. OpenStudy aims to make education fun by providing users with gamification (yeah I know how terrible using this word is, but I make an exception for things education-related) elements like medals and achievements for completing actions like answering a question quickly or answering more than ten questions. You can also fan people you’d like to follow, giving users incentive to engage and contribute. “We want OpenStudy profiles to become like LinkedIn for education,” says Marketing Manager Jon Birdsong, “An accurate and evolving representation of your academic persona. We want our students to become heroes to their peers – and we want to make sure everyone knows when they are.” Having just come out of beta in February OpenStudy now has 40,000 registered students in over 1,500 schools in 143 countries. There are 20,000 questions being asked monthly in the math group alone. And the institutions that have forked over cash to support OpenStudy are impressive: the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Georgia Research Alliance and the Gates foundation. Most recently the startup partnered up with MIT OpenCourseWare to let students work together on over 65 courses. Future plans for the startup include adding even more gamification features like referring questions to Facebook Friends, a groups function (“teams”) and the widgetization of OpenStudy profile credentials so users can add them to other sites. “We want our students to become heroes to their peers – and we want to make sure everyone knows when they are,” Birdsong explains. Here’s a video of CEO Chris Sprague demoing the platform, below. |
Videos And Gallery: Our Hands-Ons With The PS Vita | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 8 | First we checked out Hot Shots Golf, then cel-shaded adventure Gravity, the impressive Mod Nation Racers and Little Big Planet, and then Uncharted: Golden Abyss, perhaps the most anticipated title. You can skip ahead to the clip you want above or just watch it straight through because . And of course we had to take a few beauty shots, so here you are: (lovely, the gallery is broken. we’ll get around to this, sorry)
|
"It Just Works." | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 8 | Amid all the big announcements at this year’s WWDC keynote, there was an undercurrent that was subtle, but important. “It just works.” Steve Jobs kept saying this over and over again on stage. When Jobs does this, . It’s a message. And it’s a message that was underscored by another word. “Automatically.” Jobs must have said it a couple dozen times during the keynote. So what is the message? Though Apple stumbled out of the gate with MobileMe, and it never really took off (due to a steep $99 annual price point), Apple is now going all-in with their cloud strategy. But they’re not doing it by simply tacking on cloud storage to their existing arsenal of products. They’re attempting to redefine what the “cloud” is. At one point during the keynote, Jobs noted that some people think of the cloud as a hard disk in the sky where you put files in and then take them out. He even took a small shot at red-hot Dropbox. But as Apple sees it, the cloud is something much more. “The truth is on the cloud,” is how Jobs put it. John Gruber that iCloud is essentially the new iTunes. That is, it moves the digital hub from the desktop computer to the cloud. But Apple is aiming beyond even that. With iCloud, Apple is transforming the cloud from an almost tangible place that you visit to find your stuff, to a place that only exists in the background. It’s never seen. You never interact with it, your apps do — and you never realize it. It’s magic. Compare this to Google, the company perhaps most associated with the cloud. Google’s approach has been to make the cloud more accessible to existing PC users. They’re doing this by extending familiar concepts. Google Docs is Microsoft Office, but in the cloud. Your main point of interaction is a file system, but in the cloud. Gmail is Outlook, but in the cloud. Etc. Meanwhile, another company now largely associated with the cloud, Amazon, has essentially turned it into one giant server/hard drive that anyone can use for a fee. But it takes developers to build something on top of it to give users a product to use. Some are great. But many again just extend the idea of the cloud as a remote hard drive. While the fundamentals are the same, Apple’s approach to the concept of the cloud is the opposite of their competitors. Apple’s belief is clearly that users will not and should not care how the cloud actually works. When Jobs gave a brief glimpse of their new North Carolina datacenter that is the centerpiece of iCloud, he only noted that it was full of “stuff” — “expensive stuff,” he quipped. The diagrams Jobs showed on stage as to how iCloud works were as simplified as possible. Had it not been announced at a developers conference, I’m not sure Apple would have even done those. Instead, the focus would have been even more on the demos. You’re working on a document in Pages on your iPad, you move over to Pages on your Mac, and there it is. It even remembers where you were last editing. You download a song to your iPhone, you pick up your iPad, there it is. It all just works. And that speaks to the larger game here. Apple has been going out of their way to avoid using the word “syncing” with regard to iCloud. That implies that files exist in one place and need to be moved. But again, even that’s too technical for the story Apple is weaving. With iPad/iPhone and now OS X Lion, you don’t save documents anymore. They save automatically — but an easier way to think about it is that they just exist, as is, in realtime on all your devices. The truth is that they exist on your machine, then on iCloud — again, the “truth” — in a cycle. But you don’t need to know any of that. They just exist. Who cares as long as they’re right there on all your devices when you need them? Files are something Microsoft worries about. Files in the cloud are something Google and Amazon worry about. Apple’s iCloud is about opening an application and the thing you want to access being there. That also speaks to a key difference between Apple and their competitors. With MobileMe, Apple put a fairly heavy emphasis on the web component. They spent months working on and reworking beautiful web apps for the service. During the iCloud keynote, there was no mention of a web component. For what it’s worth, we’ve heard that the MobileMe apps on me.com will be altered to work with iCloud apps, but that may be a ways off. And that will certainly not be the primary emphasis. The primary emphasis will on the cross-device native apps with iCloud magic. That’s the opposite of Google’s approach — at least their Chrome/Chrome OS approach. That product is about the web. That’s where everything exists, and syncing also happens automatically thanks to that. In a weird twist, in that regard, Chrome OS is perhaps the closest thing to Apple’s iCloud vision. When you boot up a Chromebook and enter your password, everything appears. Again, like magic. With Chrome OS, everything is always there because everything exists in the cloud. But Google has been bending over backwards to tack on a file management system to Chrome OS. That weakens their cloud argument, in my view. But again, their aim is to ease the transition of current PC users to the cloud. But Google’s position is especially odd because they have Android as well. Yes, cloud syncing is a big component of that OS and has been for a while. But it’s the Google approach. It’s files, and uploading, and syncing. Some of it is automatic, some is not. It requires some thought. It sort of just works — as long as you know what you’re doing. And the truth is that this is the point where we may really start to see some truly fundamental differences between Google and Apple after the past few years going head-to-head with feature matching. Apple is going after consumers who have absolutely no idea what the cloud is, and don’t care. Apple is saying they shouldn’t care. It all just works. Google seems to be aiming more for users who understand current computing paradigms and want to transition that knowledge to the future of computing, the cloud. Power users, if you will. Many of the people reading this post are in this camp. But there are many more who are not. Apple has rethought and rewritten their apps — including their desktop apps — from the ground up to be woven with iCloud fabric that a user won’t see. Google wants the users to be able to see that fabric if they choose to, and in many ways, encourages it as sort of a safety net in the transition to the cloud. It is two different approaches to the same thing, the cloud. And Apple doesn’t believe that Google can match them even if they wanted to because they don’t have complete control of their ecosystem in the same way that Apple does. “They can never make this so it just works,” Jobs stated at one point. In Apple’s core vision, there are three types of products that must seamlessly work with one another: phones, tablets, and the recently “ ” PC. With Android, Google is currently only strong in phones. Tablets aren’t taking off for them yet. And there is no PC presence — well, beyond the web, which again runs into the Chrome OS bifurcation problem. With that in mind, it may end up being Apple that helps transition users to the cloud, instead of Google despite their emphasis on PC norms. “You know, if the hardware is the brain and the sinew of our products, the software in them is their soul,” Jobs said on Monday. Apple is now more clearly than ever betting that will not be web software, but native software backed invisibly by the web. Google’s position is decidedly less clear. With the existence of Chrome OS and Android, they’re currently betting on both. That dichotomy screams anything but “it just works.” |
Mad Catz And Tritton Say Their Warhead Is The Ultimate Wireless 360 Headset | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 8 |
Last night we got a live tour of the latest from Mad Catz, including this rather comprehensively-featured headset for the Xbox 360. The big “what’s new” on this one is that it’s “truly wireless,” with no cord to the controller — making it the only wireless Dolby 7.1 headset out there. That may be putting somewhat of a fine point on it (there are other “truly wireless” headsets, of course), but it’s true for now and the headset look pretty great. Check out our footage here or read on: They worked with Microsoft to develop these, and got access to some proprietary tech to make these as good as they can be. They’re using a 5.8GHz frequency and bypassing the controller audio processor altogether, which they say makes for better sound (which makes sense if the signal has to be recompressed for transmission to the controller), and of course untethers your head. It’s virtual surround sound in there, upconverting the signal to 5.1 or 7.1, and the sound itself comes from extra-large 50mm neodymium drivers. The power is handled by removable battery packs, and it comes with two so you can swap ’em out whenever you like. Unfortunately the headset we saw was a prototype and they wouldn’t let us play with it. Pricing is TBA but they’re making sure it’s under $300, which is a comfort… I guess? As for why you need a “truly wireless” headset – I refer you to Penny Arcade: |
A Look Back At Our Favorite Moments From This Year's Disrupt NYC Hackathon And Startup Alley | Elin Blesener | 2,011 | 6 | 8 | has wrapped and for our next Disrupt, which we are incredibly excited to be bringing back to San Francisco this September. However, before we start revealing what we have in store for this fall, we wanted to recap everything that went down in New York one last time. There were too many good things that happened, many of which we know some of you have missed since we keep getting questions about it. Therefore, we wanted to go over our favorite moments, some funny quotes, a few surprises, and a few more highlights for each day we were in New York City. For today, we wanted to recap our incredibly popular Hackathon and show you a couple videos you may have missed of Startup Alley. was packed with hundreds of brilliant individuals a couple weekends ago in New York City. They stayed up hours upon hours coding, hacking, and networking furiously. It was our biggest Hackathon to date. We had around 500 participants from around the world, getting by on determination, excitement, snacks, and Red Bull. As the Hackathon started, we had the chance to walk around and meet the participants. One of the earlier ones that stuck out in our mind was Jake Essman, an adorable , who was urged by his mom to join. Coding since he was ten, Jake said that coding is just a hobby and his career aspirations lie in the field of medicine. Even though Jake wants to be a doctor, we thought he made an incredibly inspirational hacker. After the Hackathon concluded, we had the chance to sit down with him and his team, Buyby, after their Hackathon presentation. Watch what Jake and his team had to say in the video below. Another highlight for us was when we ran into Steve Martocci, co-founder of Hackathon alumni . We got the chance to ask Steve about his thoughts on how to maximize the Hackathon experience. He said, “Don’t listen to me.. talk, go, and build something… Focus on what you’re good at, and solve a real world problem. Do as little work as you can – it gets stressful – use the tools that you have (like ) to make it happen.” And after the Hackathon? First, “Sleep.” Then, use the tickets to TechCrunch Disrupt, to “Walk the floor, show people what you did… [and] get decent exposure to investors.” Pretty solid advice from an alumni who has gone on to raise since their Hackathon debut last year. To catch more on what he said, check out the video below. As the hackers brainstormed and coded on whatever they could find, we were lucky enough to capture some of our favorite pictures. To start things off, we found a few hackers taking some time to release pent-up coding aggression by pitching toys against the wall… We saw many adult beverages being gulped down… Twitter was blowing up with funny Hackathon quotes…. We caught some hackers taking a break outside in the New York air… and we saw glimpses of code on whatever materials the hackers could find.. All in all, the Hackathon was an ultimate success. For a more in-depth look into the NYC Hackathon, make sure you check out our Flickr page for , live videos of the Hackathon plus the winning presentations , and the . After the Hackathon concluded, the Disrupt conference and Startup Alley began. Startup Alley lasted the whole three days during the Disrupt conference and we have some of our favorite footage of the enormous, captivating hall below. Startups from all over gathered at Pier 94 to show off their companies and products. Our very own Rip Empson took some time to walk around the alley and talk to the startups that caught his eye. For footage of what he found, check out the video below. We’re curious, which startup in Startup Alley was your favorite? John Biggs and Matt Burns from CrunchGear also got involved and interviewed some of their favorite startups. See if you can find the diamonds in the rough by watching the video below. There were many other moments in Startup Alley that we encourage you to check out when you can. To view all of the pictures, be sure to go to our and for more footage and interviews from all of the companies at Startup Alley, be sure to go to our video page and watch them . As always, a huge thank you goes out to our sponsors and partners for making all of this possible. Thank you to for giving $1,000 of Amazon Web Services to the company with Best Data Integration during the Hackathon, which went to Who Data. And to for giving a 16GB Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 for best use of the OpenTok API (the device will be released June 8) to Movie Wars. Thank you to Red Bull, for not only providing the never-ending caffeine, but for also previewing the hacks from their upcoming in NYC on July 10th. A special mention to the team at for making us look good in New York City. And to Giovanni Cabrese and Themendous for the original TechCrunch Disrupt sculpture, which you can see at top. If you would like to attend Disrupt SF this September, extra early bird tickets are . If you’d like to become a foundational part of the Disrupt experience and learn about sponsorship opportunities, please contact . |
Cloud Sherpas Buys Google Apps Deployment Startup Omnetic | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 6 | 1 | , a Google Apps reseller that also helps enterprises migrate to and manage the productivity suite, has acquired , a fellow Google Apps deployment service. The acquisition of San Francisco-based gives Cloud Sherpas the largest concentration of Google Apps Deployment Specialists of any company outside Google. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Omnetic helps business migrate to and deploy Google Apps. The Omnetic team led the first large enterprise implementation of Google Apps at Salesforce.com, and counts National Geographic, Dr. Martens, Design Within Reach, Mazda Raceway and the Schumacher Group as customers Cloud Sherpas, who says revenue grew over 600% last year, has migrated over 800,000 users to Google Apps over the past three years, while Omnetic has transitioned 100,000 users. While Omnetic has a smaller user base than Cloud Sherpas, the company brings talent, customers and a West Coast presence. As Google Apps continues to grow in usage, Cloud Sherpas seems to be building a business around the deployment of the application suite. The startup has raised in funding and is one of the most installed applications in the Google Apps Marketplace. |
Nokia CEO Elop: Nokia Tablet Isn't Out Of The Question | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 1 |
Speaking somewhat cryptically , Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop responded to a question about tablets thusly: I’m not going to announce a tablet here today. But as a high level point, there’s a connected digital experience will increasingly define what consumers are looking for. It’s important for us to play across that space. We have to address that whole space. What do you guys think? If Nokia weren’t getting into the tablet game, Elop would have said “right now we’re focused on the mobile sector” or “we’re waiting to see how the market evolves.” This is as good as confirmation — by internet rumor-mongering standards, at least. |
Former Threadless CTO Is Now Obama Campaign CTO | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 1 | The Obama 2012 campaign is about to get a lot hipper. Former CEO and apparent unabashed wacky person Harper Reed has just . Reed was at Threadless until 2009, then moved to Rackspace for a couple of months, after which he worked on personal projects and advised startups like and , while working on personal projects like and Supertrackr.com. If you’ve got any doubts about my hipness claims above, read Reed’s description in the Chicago Tribune. “Reed is hard to miss in a room. His hipster look includes an often-changing and often-wild hair style — from a mohawk to a flipped-up front like Jim Carrey’s in “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.” He wears thick, rectangular glasses and gauge earrings, which make the wearer’s lobes expand. On his blog, he declares himself “probably the coolest guy ever.” This hire makes complete sense. The ethos of the user designed, user submitted Threadless is sympatico to Obama’s super social media savvy style. Obama’s 2008 election was partly won by the online efforts of and up until now the re-election campaign has been heavily Facebook focused. the President recently made history by giving a townhall at the social network’s headquarters in Palo Alto. Looks like Obama’s experience as a community organizer is coming in handy during a time where communities are increasingly organized online. Also: I can’t help but think about a Threadless-integration for. 2012 campaign T-Shirt.
|
Huawei Teases Small Form-Factor "MediaPad" | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 1 |
Huawei will be showing off a new tablet at Communicasia later this month, and they sent along a couple pics just to make us curious. There’s not much to say other than that it looks a bit like an iPad squashed down to a… what is that, a 7″ screen? It’s hard to say. The watch looks small but that’s one big cup of tea. showing the side view, with camera bump. They’re planning a webcast on the 20th with more details; we’ll let you know then, if not before. |
Multiplayer Facebook Game Trash Tycoon Trains You To Be Green (But In A Fun Way) | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 8 | , a social game maker, debuted a cool new Facebook game at Disrupt NYC that is adding a new spin to green games. What’s more, from what I can tell, is the first game to hit the Facebook platform. But what is this “upcycling”, you ask? Upcycling is the process of converting waste materials into new products of better quality and higher environmental value, so when gamers play Trash Tycoon, they take on the role of recycling entrepreneurs responsible for doing just that. Gamers become the stewards of their city, a la Sim City, fighting litter and trash wherever it rears its ugly head. Players earn game money and points by collecting trash and upcycling it to create new products out of trash, just like its sponsor does in the real, green world. Guerillapps, which recently received a $500K in seed funding from , will be keeping Trash Tycoon in private beta until later this month, but TechCrunch readers can get an early taste of the game . One of the many cool parts about Trash Tycoon is that it’s trying to separate its game from the traditional Facebook social game model by adding synchronous play, offering realtime multiplayer, so that users can communicate and collaborate in realtime during play, banding together with friends to attack their city’s trash heaps. Trash Tycoon is also putting an interesting spin on its revenue model, offering seamless inclusion for green brands right in the gameplay. This may sound slightly off-putting, after all, who wants to play a game with brand logos stamped on every object? But Trash Tycoon’s brand integration isn’t offensive: The energy items players need to collect may be branded products, as will the factories players build to recycle waste. But these brand tie-ins have real world justification. The piece of gum you collect might be Wrigley’s, and so on. said Guerillapps Co-founder and CEO Raviv Turner. And the great thing about Trash Tycoon’s brand integration is that it’s enabled by TerraCycle’s business model. Just as TerraCycle works with major partners to run packaging reclamation programs, which pay schools and other community groups to collect the sponsors’ packaging to later be upcycled into items that bear the sponsor’s brand, this process is mirrored in Trash Tycoon. The company is also able to leverage the existing user bases of its partners, like the 24 million at TerraCycle, which significantly helps write off user acquisition cost. It’s a ready-made user base. For Guerillapps, it’s not just about offering a game-ified product or game-ified approach to green behavior and upcycling, it’s about creating a playable social game that incorporates reality into the virtual world. how to use its interactive recycling kiosks last year, but the game still hasn’t taken off (only 6,400 montly active users), and Guerillapps hopes that by incorporating brands and real world concepts like recycling and upcycling organically into the game, as opposed to a game-ified, education-entertainment gameplay experience, the player will learn but do so with greater enjoyment. To build a more playable game, Guerillapps brought on two veteran game designers and Naomi Clark (who has consulted and developed concepts for clients and publishers including PBS, Disney, Fisher Price, Wizards of the Coast, Electronic Arts, Nintendo, Major League Baseball), who are both responsible for Trash Tycoon’s addictive design and gameplay. The veteran designers goes towards alleviating any concern that this is just another Facebook game ported from another medium or whipped off in 24 hours. Trash Tycoon has partnered with Treehugger.com and also donates 10 percent of revenues from its virtual currency to CarbonFund.org and plans to later introduce a “Play to Offset” icon, so that if you, say, order an Amtrak train ticket, or buy a flight ticket online, CarbonFund partners will present the “Play to Offset” icon so users can go play Trash Tycoon and offset their carbon footprint, instead of just paying with a credit card. Turner says that that Guerillapps next steps involve taking the Trash Tycoon model to other verticals, like energy, health care, parenting, and more. The company isn’t looking to be the next CityVille, he says, the team wants to design games around affinity groups, which offer a more active and social (and socially active) community of users looking to learn and have fun while doing it. The startup is also currently in the process of raising its second round. |
Windows 8 Brings Entirely New Look And Feel, Unifies Touch And PC Interfaces | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 1 |
has just given a demonstration of what they’re calling Windows 8. It appears to be a complete revamp of the Windows interface, designed around a tile system like that of Windows Phone 7, and focused on being equally accessible via touchscreen interface or mouse and keyboard. Windows president Steven Sinofsky says that Microsoft has “colored outside the lines” on this release, and while they’re retaining support for all the major applications and enterprise features, the new interface is meant to be fresh, fast, and accessible. There are multiple influences based on the interfaces we’ve seen, pulling from many of Microsoft’s newer projects. Zune and Metro show through prominently, as well as Live web interfaces and Media Center. Perhaps as a truly user-facing OS layer, these rich interfaces will prove more popular than they have as disparate apps and semi-isolated ecosystems. Sinofsky suggested that even the iconic Start button would be left behind, though during the demo, launching Excel bounced the interface back into a more traditional Windows desktop environment, Start button and all. He most likely means that in the new interface, the Start-style UI metaphor is no longer necessary. However, the Explorer and file browsers appear to have been totally revamped to be far less “folder within a folder,” which has been the storage style for going on three decades now. Applications will be of two types: traditional Windows apps built using existing APIs, and new apps built on Javascript and HTML5. APIs and guidelines for these will be released a little further down the line. There is a big focus on making applications friendly to both touch and mouse/keyboard. Not an easy task, but when you have only a single OS that must go on tablets, notebooks, and desktops, it’s an essential one. Microsoft’s Julie Larson-Green insisted that it wasn’t “two shelves” but one single OS, when questioned about similarities to touch overlays like TouchSmart. There’s also a new multitasking interface that’s more or less pane-based, allowing you to swipe in live apps from the side of the screen. It looks useful, though how the panes might interact (i.e. dragging a picture from the file browser to an image editor) wasn’t demonstrated. System requirements weren’t discussed in specific, but Sinofsky said that “hundreds of millions” of PCs would run Windows 8, and that it wouldn’t require any more “oomph” than Windows 7. I assume that with ARM compatibility (and reduced power and clock speeds) comes a responsibility to slim down the OS, not relying on the huge computing overhead available in modern PCs. Hopefully this full-on Windows environment will be neither too stripped-down for power users, nor too clunky for people expecting a simple tablet interface. (they’ve disabled embeds). Release date is undetermined; Sinofsky said that traditionally OS releases are every two to three years, but it wouldn’t be coming out this fall (i.e. two years after Windows 7 was released). That says to me “Spring 2012” for actually getting it into the hands of consumers. A more complete demonstration and rundown of features will be forthcoming, and they’re showing off devices and the OS at Computex later today, including ARM-based ones (presumably tablets), so there will be plenty more news breaking over the next few hours and days. For a complete live blog of the announcement and Q&A session, head over to ( ). Microsoft has a and , as well. : Microsoft has also held a showing off ARM and x86 hardware from Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Texas Instruments, though there didn’t appear to be anything new demonstrated. The devices are new (or prototypes) but nothing groundbreaking; it’s too early for and using next-generation hardware to show off a system that ostensibly has low requirements would be cheating. : Nope, I was wrong, it’s Kal-El. has a hands-on with Nvidia’s tablet development platform. |
Aluratek's Mini Surge USB/Outlet Adapter Would Be Handy To Have Around | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 1 | This thing from Aluratek would be a nice little doodad to have by your nightstand, in case you need to charge two phones, plug in an alarm clock, or put in an extra lamp — but don’t want to have to move your bed every time you need to make a change. Pop this guy onto the end of an extension cord and you’ve got a sweet dual-USB, multi-outlet one-stop power shop. . Why not get one for Dad? Good for on-the-go bloggers, too, if you know any. |
Informative Video On Star Photography | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 1 | [vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/16833554 w=620&h=465]
Our own Dave Freeman wrote up a nice little a while back, but some of you may prefer your learning in video form, and this one, by photographer Ben Canales, is a good place to start. I wasn’t aware of the “rule of 600” thing, where you divide your lens’s focal length into 600 to determine the maximum exposure length. Good to know! It helps to have a high-ISO capable camera as well, but it’s not necessary — I’ve gotten perfectly clear stars with my old Rebel XSi. I’ll be heading up into the country in a month or so, and will definitely put some of these tips into practice. If you’ve got a tripod and can spend an hour or two outside where you are, you should try it as well. [via and ] |
German ISPs Surrendering 300,000 Pirating Suspects' Details Every Month | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 1 | As ridiculous as the copyright battles are here in the states, it’s a bit surreal when you see them exceeded elsewhere by an order of magnitude or two. , ISPs in that country are giving up their subscribers to rightsholders at the mind-boggling rate of around 300,000 per month. To put that in perspective, you remember that big kerfluffle about pirates? Total people served: just under After names and addresses are given to the rightsholders, legal departments send out a letter demanding a sum of money up to ~$1700. The industry calls this “deep intervention.” Whether it’s a breach of privacy depends partially on Germany’s laws, what the people in question did, and how they did it, but it’s still scary as hell to think about. They claim it has reduced piracy by 20%, a number I don’t trust for a second. Their piracy data only seems to carry them through the end of 2009 anyway, which means it’s not current with their excessive tactics. They also don’t mention how often people pay, take them to court over it, or simply ignore the cash demands. . [via ] |
'ONE' iPhone App Allows You To Call Your Senators To Instigate Change | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 1 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXSHJ45IpTI&w=630] If you’re like me you’re probably too preoccupied to get political on a daily basis, even though you are passionate about social activism and causes like education reform. But what if an app made it easier for you to get informed and take political action on the issues you care about? Would you get involved then? Launching in the app store today is an iPhone app that attempts to modernize political call to action, by making it easy to stay up to date on issues and take actions that actually might cause actual social change from within the app itself. The app basically gives you information about various advocacy movements like funding childhood vaccines for kids that can’t afford them and then lets you call a senator, sign a petition or join up with a real life rally for causes in order to raise awareness. On the tech side, the app uses your zip code to find out which local policy makers could influence decisions in against extreme poverty and preventable diseases.The app also offers a way to track how ONE is affecting change through its blog, the ability to communicate with other ONE members in the field and offers a friend recruiting feature as well. ONE was created in a partnership with and the Bono-backed , which goes by the admirable slogan of “We’re not asking for your money, just your voice.” Making an “app for that” is a logical step for a company that mobilizes its over 2 million users to raise public awareness on issues they care about like education, development assistance and maternal and child health by campaigning instead of asking for a donation. While there’s no telling just how much an app for activism will catch on, just making it easier to be involved in your community and beyond makes the the world a slightly better place. |
Google Places Now Borrowing Yelp Reviews Without Attribution In iPhone App | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 6 | 1 | Google Places is at it again, brazenly borrowing reviews from Yelp. But this time it’s in their iPhone app and they are not even bothering to link back to Yelp or attribute where they are getting the reviews. Yelp and Google have a love-hate relationship. Yelp loves when its listings and reviews show up in natural search results, but they hate it when Google to populate its own local listings in Google Places. This tension between the two has been playing out for a long time with various and . It’s become a . But Google appears to be pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable once again with its mobile app. Here is what appears to be going on based on a handful of spot checks in the Google Places iPhone app. For many places such as restaurants, Google Places offers “Reviews from around the Web” in its iPhone app just like it does online. The difference is that the reviews from Yelp are no longer identified as such and there are no links either. For example, if you look up restaurant in New York City, the top “Reviews from around the Web” are two Yelp reviews properly identified with links In the mobile app, there is no attribution or links (see screenshot at right). Yet there are links and attribution for reviews from other sites such as Citysearch. Try the same search with “Hayes Market” in San Francisco, and you see the same thing. The two top reviews come Every time I go there is a strong weed smell coming from the back and a bunch of guys hanging around the front door and sometimes playing cards or dominos inside. . . . The staff here are really nice, I have never brought home anything expired (unlike “Whole Foods” in the Lower Haight), and they take food stamps! These do not appear to be isolated incidents. Does Google Places really need to stoop to that level? Here are two more screenshots that show the pilfering. And note that reviews from other sources in the iPhone app link back to those sites, whether it’s Citysearch, Opentable, or Zagat. What’s so special about Yelp that they get treated differently? : Apparently the issue is also happening with other sources of reviews and local data such as TripAdvisor. Google says it is a mistake and it is fixing it. A Google spokesperson provided the following statement: “We’re aware of a technical issue in which the link to the domain of the review page is sometimes not appearing in results for Google Places when accessed via the iPhone app. Our team is working to resolve the matter to ensure that users can identify the source of the result.”
|
YouTube Now Lets You License Videos Under Creative Commons (Remixers, Rejoice) | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 6 | 1 | If you’ve ever yearned to mash up your cat video with some C-SPAN footage but couldn’t figure out how, today’s your lucky day. Because starting now, YouTube is giving users a choice over how they want to license their content. There’s still the standard YouTube license, which is fairly restrictive, and now there’s a new option: Creative Commons (with attribution). In short, you can now give other people permission to use your footage however they’d like, provided to include a link back to the source. Licenses are a tricky business (there are different Creative Common licenses) but YouTube is hoping to reduce confusion by limiting users to one option, which requires attribution and does allow for content to be used for commercial purposes. So, what does this mean for users? You’ll now be able to use YouTube’s to splice your own video with content that has been uploaded by other users under Creative Commons, and they’ll be able to use your videos if you let them. Which means if your video could really use a shot of a waving flag, or a cat riding a Roomba, you’ll probably be able to add one in just a few clicks. To start things off, YouTube has worked with content partners like C-SPAN and Al Jazeera to offer an initial batch of 10,000 videos under the CC license. That library will rapidly increase as more people switch their content over to Creative Commons, and there’s even a tool that will let you swap the license for a bunch of videos at once. Whenever you watch a video on YouTube that includes CC content that was created by another user, an attribution link will automatically be placed beneath the video. This attribution is currently only shown if you hit the ‘more’ button on the video’s description, but YouTube says it will consider giving attribution links more placement if few people click them. |
NZXT Gets Into The CPU Cooling Business With The Havik 140 | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 1 | I spent quite a while deciding on the fan for my new system, and although I’m happy with the one I got, It would have been nice to have this new from in the running as well. Mainly because I know it’ll be solid quality and it’s “universally compatible with Intel and AMD processors” — meaning I don’t have to drill down to comments and see whether this or that cooler works with my LGA1155 or whether it has some trifling build difference that breaks compatibility. The fan design is funky, but I like it. My Cooler Master Hyper 212 is a full 10dB quieter according to the specs, though, so if you’re designing a silent system you might want to keep looking. |
null | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 6 | 8 | null |
Next Performance raises €16m for its online ad retargeting | Steve O'Hear | 2,011 | 6 | 1 | , the online ad company that specialises in “dynamic retargeting”, has raised €16m from UK-based growth equity firm . The new funds will be used by Next Performance to continue its European expansion, while Michael Elias, Managing Director at Kennet, and Hillel Zidel, Director at Kennet, will join the the Paris, France-based company’s Board of Directors. Next Performance offers retargeting and audience targeting services to brands and large retailers via its proprietary optimization technology, which includes “dynamic personalized banners” and local targeting on a CPA, CPC and CPM basis. Founded in 2008, the company claims over 500 customers as May this year, working with ad exchanges, networks and publishers across Europe, including France, UK, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. |
DARPA Video Shows The Evolution Of The Hummingbot Nano UAV | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 1 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuD1WKHsggs&w=640&h=390]
We’ve been following DARPA’s program since 2009, and it’s really remarkable how it’s gone from to to in just a year and a half. DARPA thinks so too, so they put together a little video tribute to the thing. There isn’t much in the way of new footage in this, but it’s nice to have everything in one place. Worried/excited about the increasingly powerful and versatile robot army we’re creating? You’re not alone. Spend some time perusing the tag and you’ll be more interested/terrified than ever. [via ] |
Twitter Blindsided Ecosystem Leader Twitpic With Photo Product | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 1 | Yesterday, leading up to capabilities, hearing that Twitter had approached some ecosystem players months ago about their potential move into the arena. One player not consulted? A massive one: . “We never heard from Twitter that they were building a photo feature,” Twitpic founder Noah Everett tells us. That’s interesting since yFrog and Plixi (formerly Tweetphoto) were approached, we’ve heard. Also clearly approached, Photobucket, which ended up scoring a deal to host the images for Twitter. Twitpic, the , understandably, is annoyed by this. “We understand that Twitter owns and controls the platform, but a clearer roadmap from them and better communication would have been appreciated by us and all the developers,” Everett says. “We’ve always had Twitter’s best interest in mind with building and running Twitpic, we would have hoped the same from Twitter, at least in the form of better communication,” he continues. Ouch. This is the same complaint that many ecosystem players have had over the past year with Twitter as they continue to “fill holes” in their product. Many have spoken about being blind-sided as Twitter moved to essentially crush their businesses — businesses built on top of Twitter, mind you. But it seemed that Twitter had finally learned their lesson here given the talks with yFrog and others well ahead of a launch. Apparently not. Those may have been more about deals for the product (or more), it turns out. Twitter is clearly free to do as it pleases, and absolutely has a duty to do what they think is in their best interest business-wise and product-wise. But the continual pissing off of the ecosystem partners creates an atmosphere of bad blood. , but for the players like Twitpic, it must seem like both at times. “Twitpic will continue to run just as we always have. The brand we’ve built is strong,” Everett concludes. All I know for sure is that they appear to be another tale that will cause third-party developers to sleep with both eyes open. : To be fair, last year at their Chirp conference, Twitter did (sort of) warn that they get into this the photo space. Below, that he took at the time: Q: Is Twitter going to host rich media (images/video/etc)?
Ev Williams: The honest answer is we haven’t made a decision. We love that we don’t have to host media. But we also think there are user experience issues with it. Photos are a fundamental way people share information. They fit in twitter very well. Lots of people have provided that functionality. We think it’s great, we’re looking at how to make it easier.
Ryan Sarver: We’ve been working on a spec that would allow any media provider to send through an API.
Ev Williams: We’re going to make it easier to both share and view pics in our interface. We can’t guarantee that we won’t host media if it’s needed. Not in immediate plans this quarter. |
No AMOLED Panels For The iPad 3, Unfortunately | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 6 | 1 | There has been some speculation as of late that might upgrade to panels for the iPad 3, rumors that were effectively squashed by industry sources claiming that the current rate of AMOLED panel production won’t be able to meet iPad 3 demand, according to . In other words, should Apple choose to go the AMOLED route, we’d be waiting much longer for the iPad 3 then we, or Apple, would like. , Apple’s display provider (and current ), just recently started production in its , and two months ahead of schedule no less. Still, iPad 3 demand is bound to far out-weigh the production rate at Samsung’s new facility. Even if we set aside capacity issues, AMOLED panels have yet to appear on a tablet. In fact, the only Samsung devices to sport AMOLED panels are its line of Galaxy S II smartphones. It would be very uncharacteristic of Apple to put unproven technology on one of its most sought-after products. Hopefully, AMOLED technology will have undergone a bit more testing by the time that Apple starts designing the fourth-gen . |
Bids For Social.com Domain Start At $5 Million. You Could Have Bought It For $50,000 In 1997 | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 6 | 1 | How much is the domain worth? We are about to find out. The domain will be off on June 8 at DOMAINfest Barcelona with an opening bid of $5 million, according to Moniker. and will be jointly on behalf of , the original owner who first registered the domain back in January, 1995. Back then, he had to pay $100 a year to Network Solutions and all the paperwork had to go through the mail. Depending on how high the bidding goes, Social.com could very well end up being one of the most expensive domain sales of all time. The current record-holder is Sex.com, which sold for in April. Bidding for Sex.com started at . And Social.com is arguably sexier right now. But Social.com was not always such a hot commodity. Back in 1995, Carter wanted it for a dating site. “It was my intention at the time to build a dating web site to compete with Match.com,” he tells me, “but the effort never got underway. Social.com wasn’t my first choice, but I thought the name was okay.” He ended up using it for a discussion forum called The Social Cafe, which was named a “Cool Site Of The Day on June 22, 1995. Carter put the domain up for sale in 1997 for $50,000, but had no takers for two years. He tried using the site to promote different businesses, including a social networking directory from 2007 to 2009 and most recently his Twitter tool BigTweet. “I never did quite come up with the right way to develop Social.com,” he says, and so now he is putting it up for auction. Any takers? At $5 million? I think that’s crazy, but what do I know. How much do you think Social.com is really worth? Leave your guesstimates in comments below. |
HP CEO: We'd License WebOS To Handset Makers, Appliance Makers, Whoever | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 1 | Speaking at All Things D’s D9 conference today, HP CEO Leo Apotheker answered some audience questions and cleared up some concerns over whether would simply be HP’s exclusive in-house OS, or whether they would be spreading it around. When asked about the licensing situation, Apotheker responded that “It’s a great OS — why wouldn’t we want to offer it to other companies?” Appliance makers, small businesses, and even someone like HTC. When asked what HP would do if the Taiwanese handset giant came to them wanting to make a webOS phone, Apotheker said “We’d certainly have that conversation.” Very open-minded, Leo! But with so much development going into webOS for printers, , and other HP specialties, how much longer can it remain a viable mobile OS while Apple and Google continue their arms race? |
Sony Officially Announces Playstation Vita Handheld (With AT&T Partnership) UPDATE: Pricing! | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 6 |
The Next-Generation Portable we’ve been hearing about for a good five months now has finally been owned up to by Sony. It is, as rumors had it, called the Playstation Vita, and the many features we’ve heard about (dual touchscreens, cameras, Near, and so on) are all official. All the specs and stuff were , but we’re just now seeing the actual branding and some of the launch games. They’re showing off a new Uncharted as I write this, and it looks . We’ll have a nice hands-on with lots of pictures after the press conference. : Pricing and availability! The WiFi model will be $249 with the 3G model costing $299 when the both hit this holiday season. Your move, Nintendo. |
Phaser Attachment For Playstation Move: It Doesn't Get Much Nerdier | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 6 |
There’s really not much to add, here. The game they showed was “pre-alpha” so don’t expect this thing for like a year. Or rather, expect it breathlessly. But really, whether the game’s good or bad, you’re going to want to buy this to go along with it. |
What @RepWeiner Can Teach Us About Online Life | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 6 | If you talked to anyone over the age of 50 after Twitter announced its photo-sharing service last week, there was most likely one on their lips and it wasn’t the of pics.twitter.com. Since his mass-publicized that he actually did send an explicit Direct Message to a college coed today, we are perhaps the last online news organization to cover the tale of one fateful failed DM and New York Congressional Representative . I mean, even Twitter employees were themselves about it earlier. Techies are fascinated by the #Weiner story because it is the latest train wreck (and cautionary tale) of online communication. Sure most of you aren’t going around sending pictures of your crotches to people, but you’ve probably sent at least one DM or Facebook message or email or text or whatever today that you’d prefer the world didn’t see, because private communication is by definition meant to be private. Unfortunately this is increasingly not the case. With their unintuitive “d” syntax, Twitter Direct Messages are slippery — Especially for the less tech savvy. And there are countless before this one. Perhaps you’ve even failed at DMing someone yourself and quickly deleted it, hoping no one would notice. And maybe they didn’t notice that time, but, as those who leave their party events on Facebook will discover, what happens online can be magnified a millionfold. Weiner functions as some sort of a modern day Bill Clinton. “”I know for a fact that my account was hacked” is the new “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” Except nowadays you don’t need a Linda Tripp covertly recording your intern to get caught, all you need is a slip of the keyboard and an innocent “d” turns into the scandalous “@” taking down your reputation down with it. Or someone forwards one of your , and so on and so forth. There’s a certain naivety bubble in taking photos you don’t want the world to see and posting them to Yfrog, or putting something on YouTube or setting an update to public and then being surprised when your life turns into a meme or a media frenzy. Gennette Cordoba, the woman who Weiner accidently sent the DM to, describes her experience : “This is the reality of sharing information online in the 21st century. Things that I never imagined people would care about are now being plastered all over blog sites, including pictures of me from when I was 17 and tweets that have been taken completely out of context.” Social media giveth and social media taketh away. What does technology change exactly? Well first of all technology makes it easier to connect people, dredging up the six (!) women Weiner had inappropriate relationships with via Facebook or Twitter. But it also changes the margin for error among communication distribution. What happened to Gennette could easily happen to you if your name started with a G and you made the mistake of following @RepWeiner on Twitter (the DM was actually meant for someone named Ginger). The more we communicate online, the greater the chances are someone will see something not so flattering about us, because we all make mistakes. And if someone compiled all your private communications with others in an effort to embarrass you it would surely embarrass you, even if you weren’t going around sharing crotch shots. Giving that this is the case, perhaps Eric Schmidt’s unsettling , “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place” is proving to be the golden rule of online discourse in the 21 century? Or at least until Twitter foolproofs DMs? |
Sony Announces New 3D Monitor And Glasses In $500 PS3 Gaming Bundle | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 6 |
Sony has just announced a brand new 24-inch 3D HD display designed by them specifically for gaming. It uses active shutter glasses to produce 3D, and I’m guessing from the size and terminology that it’s 720p. It comes with one pair of glasses, a 6-foot HDMI cable, and one of the major 3D games that’s launching this year (Resistance 3 is pictured). The whole package is $499.99, and additional pairs of glasses are $70. They also with Resistance 3 and the Sharpshooter Move accessory for $150, and more or less dated the Ico and God of War remasters. They’ll be out in September ( ). |
Sony: "30% Of Netflix Traffic Comes From Playstation" | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 6 |
According a Jack Tretton, CEO of SCEA, 30% of Netflix’s video traffic comes from Sony devices, primarily PS3s. The news came at Sony’s E3 press conference where they also apologized for the . As you probably recall, Netflix uses the most Internet , providing 29.7 percent of peak downstream traffic. |
SCEA's Jack Tretton Talks About PSN Outage: "I Apologize" | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 6 | SCEA’s CEO Jack Tretton took to the stage today to talk about the outage that has effected the gaming platform’s online play for the past weeks. Tretton thanked the PS3 supporters and reported that network activity was at 90% and that the company is “committed” to the PSN experience. He described the PS3 and new NGP platforms as dedicated to network play. He gave no timeline for as to when the PSN would be back up to full capacity but apologized for the “anxiety” Sony has caused some players. |
We're Live At Sony's Massive E3 2011 Press Conference! | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 6 | 6 | Talk about buzz. This whole crowd is just sitting here, wondering if Sony, the almighty Sony, will actually acknowledge the massive data breach. No one is talking about the NGP, PS3, of course not the Move. Nope, it seems to be all about the hacking — and the tasty food Sony’s providing served up by some trendy L.A. food trucks. Will Sony admit responsibility, out the people responsible, or even hand out NGPs as a sort of media payoff. No one knows! But we’ll find out in just moments as Sony’s 2011 E3 presser is set to start shortly. Oh, and thanks for the VIP table, Sony. We love you too. |
Angry Birds On A Nook – No, Not A Nook Color, A Nook | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 6 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k22BB8VPI5o&w=640&h=390]
The new (colloquially called the Nook Touch) runs Android underneath that crunchy black and white book interface, so Nook hacker decided to root it and see if something like Angry Birds will run. Lo and behold, it does. Very, very poorly. But it’s still awesome, in a really shabby way. [via and ] |
About The Nuance No-Show At Apple's WWDC Keynote | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 6 | With regard to today’s WWDC keynote, we were right about a lot of things. . Revamped . (though they didn’t call them “widgets” on stage, the weather and stock areas in the notifications pull-down are widgets). iOS Messages (okay, this was that somehow came true). for . . . . But we weren’t right about everything. Namely, where the hell and/or Siri ? We’re still looking into this, but here’s the latest we’re hearing. At least three of our original sources on this were “very surprised” not to hear anything during the keynote today. One noted that leading up to the last minute, they were sure new, elaborate voice features in iOS 5 were going to be announced on stage. It didn’t happen. Apple has been known to pull things at the last second. But this may go deeper. Another source wonders if our stories on the negotiations between Apple and Nuance didn’t throw a wrench in things? Nuance is known to be just as hard of a negotiator as Apple is. And if the rumored features are coming to iOS, they know that Apple absolutely needs them. But none of this changes the fact that Nuance technology has already been (OS X Lion, to be exact). And multiple source claim Nuance software is already running at Apple’s new datacenter in North Carolina. Still, the finalized deals may simply not be in place just yet, so Apple couldn’t say anything on stage. If that’s true, the thought is that Nuance technology will still be a part of iOS 5, it would just be included closer to the actual launch in the fall. This may make sense as we noted from the beginning that it’s entirely possible that at first, Nuance (and Siri) technology will only be used for apps created by Apple. They would then presumably be opened to third-party developers at a later time. If that’s the case, Apple did not need to show off the technology today to get developers ready. And they can add it when they like. Or it could be that Apple scrapped plans entirely for one reason or another. But again, we don’t believe that to be the case at this time. More likely than that is that the implementation just may not be done yet. And the fact that the was at WWDC is very interesting to say the least. Even more interesting is something else we had heard, but haven’t been able to confirm — he may be about to start working at Apple. (He has not returned our request for comment.) Also interesting is that Roger Rosner, Apple’s VP of Productivity Applications who is believed to be in charge of the Siri/Nuance stuff at Apple, was on stage today. But instead of voice features, he demoed Documents in the Cloud and a few other new things. That may have been tweaked at the last second. Now that iOS 5 is out there in developers hands, we can probably expect some code digging shortly, and we wouldn’t be surprised if they find more references to Nuance in the code. Apple did tout hundreds of new features/tools in iOS 5 today, and only gave stage time to a handful. More to come. : In a comment below, Robert Scoble (who yes, the deep Twitter/iOS integration stuff after our initial post on the matter), says the same source told him that the Siri integration just wasn’t done in time for today. He speculates that it still could be a part of the iPhone 5/iOS 5 launch in the fall, thinking that they will need something cool and new to show off. That could very well be the case. |
The Roundabout Tapes – Musicmetric is strapping an analytics rocket to the music industry | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 6 | 6 | Late last year , the startup behind the Musicmetric analytics service, secured a “significant round” of funding led by (terms were undisclosed) but that gave the company a good “two-year runway” to expand its data collection infrastructure and applications and grow the team. It’s now powering Musicweek’s weekly Artist Buzz Chart, and rolling out its measurement and analytical tools, especially aimed at the music industry, monitoring consumer activity on social networks, P2P file-sharing networks, alongside reviews, comments you name it. In addition, they are forming part of the substantial group of music-based companies in the ‘Silicon Roundabout’ tech cluster area of East London which includes Last.fm, Soundcloud, Songkick, Fizzback and Mixcloud among others. We spoke to them as part of our “ ‘ series of interviews. |
Nyko Shows Off Its Kinect And 3DS Accessories For E3 | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 6 |
Want to experience the joy of , but happen to have a small living room? Nyko wants to help you out. They also want to help you out if you are in any way unhappy with your . Well, no, it can’t actually make the 3D “sweet spot” bigger, but their new accessories do help in other ways. The Kinect add-on they’ve created (top) is called the Zoom, and it reduces the minimum distance necessary to use the Kinect by (they say) about 40%. That means you’ll only need three or four feet of clear space in front of it, though your mileage may vary. In our review, we found that at least seven or eight were necessary with a stock Kinect. If you find yourself having to move furniture too often, in any case, then this might be a help. Hopefully there are no adverse effects from distortion or whatnot. For the 3DS, they’ve got a couple little extras: The Shock n’ Rock is a case for your system that adds a ton of battery life, gives you improved sound via four larger speakers, and even boosts the vibration function. If all you need is more battery or a better grip, they’ve got the Game Boost and Power Grip for those. Then there’s the Play Clock, which turns your expensive 3D gaming machine into an alarm system. Practical! No pricing or availability yet on these, but we’ll ask when we drop by their booth tomorrow. LOS ANGELES – June 6, 2011 – Leading gaming peripherals manufacturer Nyko Technologies® today announced their upcoming product line-up to be showcased at the 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), taking place June 7-9 in Los Angeles. The line-up includes Zoom for Kinect, a bold new peripheral that allows Microsoft’s motion-sensing camera to function in smaller environments. Nyko is also introducing a variety of innovative new accessories for the Nintendo 3DS, including new products for charging up, rocking out, and even waking up! Also new this year is a revamped controller dock for PlayStation 3. With a focus on offering real gaming solutions, Nyko continues their tradition of innovation and affordable, high quality design. “Nyko has been showing off new products at E3 for a dozen years straight, and we can’t wait for players to see the 2011 lineup,” said Chris Arbogast, director of marketing at Nyko Technologies. “With 3D and gesture-gaming, this year is all about finding new ways to enjoy video games. We’ve developed new accessories that bring the fun of gaming to even more players, regardless of long plane trips and cramped living rooms.” Nyko’s E3 2011 product line-up includes: • Zoom for Kinect – Specially-designed lenses in a simple clip-on accessory allows Kinect gaming in smaller living rooms and apartments by reducing the distance required for the Kinect to function properly by up to 40%. The Zoom requires no additional power or batteries and is compatible with any Kinect game for both single and multiplayer use.
• Shock n’ Rock for 3DS – The ultimate 3DS add-on offers 3x the battery life and 4 powered speakers providing crisp, loud surround sound for any environment. Added vibration feedback gives each and every 3DS game an extra level of immersion while the ergonomic design provides comfort for extended gameplay sessions.
• Game Boost for 3DS – A snap-on backup battery that is lightweight and can be installed quickly, it provides up to an extra 1 – 2 hours worth of juice through the existing battery contacts.
• Play Clock for 3DS – Wake up with your 3DS fully charged every morning with this combination charging dock, alarm clock and powered speaker system. Ideal for storing and charging your 3DS. The built in line-in port allows you to easily hook up any MP3 player or audio device.
• Power Grip for 3DS – This external battery with ergonomic grip offers up to 3x the battery life. The Power Grip does not require players to remove the existing battery while also providing a ergonomic grip for added comfort and stability.
• Charge Base 3 for PS3 – Rapidly charge two PlayStation 3 controllers with this stylish new vertical design of a best-selling item. Nyko’s unique, magnetic charging adaptors allow for easy charging, with no ports or cables required. |
Wanna Use Twitter's Photo Service Right Now? Become An iPhone Developer, It's In iOS 5 | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 6 | Last week, we broke the news that . At the time, we also noted that the timing of the launch of Twitter’s new Photo service was calculated. The feature was launching because Apple needed it in place for iOS 5. Today proves that. Apple has begun seeding the first builds of iOS 5 to developers today. And thousands are already trying it out. Given Twitter’s deep integration in the new OS, not surprisingly, many of them are testing the new tweet capabilities. Sure enough, iOS 5 uses , hosted by Photobucket. You can see some examples — note the source as “via iOS” and the pic.twitter.com URL. So while Twitter Photos is currently only officially live for employees right now, if you want to try it out, you can go become an Apple developer. That will cost you $99 a year, but you’ll get early access to iOS 5. (Though we don’t recommend you actually do that since this is the very first build of the software, and is likely buggy.) This “shortcut” will allow you to cut in line of everyone else, who will get access to Twitter Photos through twitter.com (it will take a few weeks for the feature to fully roll out to everyone). integrated Twitter features will look inside of iOS 5. |
Post-Apple Palate Cleanser: More Swiss Army Axes! | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 6 |
Remember those sweet we saw a while back? The quantity was so limited that they sold out only an hour or so after I posted them. But , so you’ve got one more chance to get an extremely tasteful wood-splitting tool. I bought one last time around, and I can tell you they’re great, though due to a slightly shorter handle, more for chopping smaller logs than heavy axe work. Only $50, or $39 for a hatchet. In case you needed a break from “the Cloud,” which of course cannot be chopped. |
null | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 1 | null |
The Star Wars: The Old Republic E3 Opening Cinematics | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 6 | 6 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPQHiVecHZs&w=640&h=390] Star Wars Kinect isn’t the only featured game at E3 that’s set in a galaxy far, far away. Nope. EA just released the opening scene for Biowar’s upcoming Star Wars saga, Star Wars: The Old Republic. It’s time for the Sith to rise again! Also, is that supposed to be Han Solo’s great-grandpa? |
Battlefield 3 Hits Stores On October 25 | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 6 | 6 |
EA’s been teasing Battlefield 3 for the last few months with demos and gameplay clips and it’s finally launching. The latest incarnation of EA’s long-standing shooter franchise is hitting this fall — October 25th, to be exact. Select fans will be able to get a taste of Battlefield 3 bit early when the multi-platform beta drops this coming September. Click through for an unofficial video that premiered during EA’s E3 presser. Oh, and MW3, what? [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKz-pOr3-ZA&w=640&h=390] |
Exclusive: Patent Lawsuit Filed Against Skype Same Day Microsoft Deal Was Announced | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 6 | 6 | Skype is no stranger to patent litigation. One time, even its founders against it. But this is a new lawsuit, not yet reported as far as I can tell. What’s more it was filed in the U.S. on May 10, 2011—the same day that Microsoft announced its acquisition of Skype. The case is (embedded below) and was filed in the Eastern District of Virginia. Via Vadis is a Luxembourg-based company with a license to the patents in question: U.S. : “Data access management system as well as a method for data access and data” and U.S. Reissue Patent of the same name. (The inventor of both is Thomas Binzinger, and the assignee is AC Technologies). Both patents describe data management systems which break up files for redundancy and distribute them across different “storage units.” The lawsuit claims the patents cover the same technology Skype uses for its “supernodes”—which function as fallback peers in Skype’s peer-to-peer technology. The first patent was issued on March 8, 2011, and the application goes back to July 23, 2005. But here’s the thing. Skype was founded in 2003, and acquired by eBay in 2005, well after its peer-to-peer system was functioning. Whether or not that counts as “prior art” will be for a jury to decide, if this ever gets that far. Skype has patent claims successfully in the past. Via Vadis also filed a lawsuit in Germany against Skype on January 21, 2011 for the corresponding European patent and even got a court order to obtain Skype’s source code, which Skype has appealed and refuses to turn over. If they get the source code, that could be problematic for Skype. Regardless of the merits of the case, Microsoft should have found out about the German lawsuit at least during its due diligence. I’ve asked Microsoft for a comment. [scribd id=57240919 key=key-xwyqhmwco6rsjkd145k mode=list] |
Experian Acquired Child Safety Startup SafetyWeb | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 6 | 6 | Nearly a month ago credit behemoth acquired child identity and safety startup . Experian actually announced it on May 18 as part of its statement around its quarterly financials, although it is buried in the notes on page 39 of that . The acquisition price was not disclosed, although we’ve heard unconfirmed reports from sources that it was in the $20 million – $30 million range. SafetyWeb had raised a total of in venture capital from and . SafetyWeb in 2009 to provide parents with a way to monitor their children’s online activities. Earlier this year they a number of acquisitions and expanded their product offerings into mobile and personal identity protection for adults as well via . It’s a good outcome for SafetyWeb, its investors and co founder . This is Arone’s third startup. He cofounded ( earlier this year) and ( in 2010). Disclosure: I was in investor in DanceJam.
|
Android Malware Rears Its Ugly Head… Yet Again | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 6 | 6 | It’s been about a week since the last malware attack, DroidDreamLight, and yet another malicious program has infiltrated Google’s platform. According to the , the malware is being dubbed “DroidKungFu,” and has yet to be detected by mobile anti-virus software programs. |
Apple Has Finally Stuck A Dagger Into SMS. I Love It. | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 6 | Now that the is over and I’ve had a little bit of time to reflect, I’ve been thinking about what excited me the most from today’s announcements. The list is long, no doubt. But I think I’m going to have to go with something that surprised me — while at the same time making me look smarter than perhaps I really am. (Again, just perhaps.) iMessages. As one of the core new features highlighted today in iOS 5, iMessages has one purpose: to kill SMS. That is, traditional carrier-controlled text messages. iMessages will do this by replacing SMS with a service that Apple is in control of across all of their iOS devices. And here’s the real death blow: iMessages will be completely free. Sure, you can argue that iMessages is limited due to the iOS requirement. But as Apple announced today, there are now. That’s a lot. Like Blackberry Messenger before it, Apple now has the strength to create their own device-to-device messaging application. And that’s exactly what they’ve done. And considering what a colossal rip-off SMS is, I can’t help but love this move. It’s exactly what I’ve been waiting for. Five days ago, on my personal blog, to a post wondering if Apple had all the tools in place to build their own Twitter. (As we’ve seen today, they’ve chosen to partner with them instead.) That was an interesting idea, but more interesting to me was the higher level concept of Apple creating their own messaging platform — again, like RIM did . “There’s a reason why BBM took off. Apple could make it work device-to-device as well. I’m thinking we need a FaceTime without the ‘Face’,” I wrote noting that while there are no shortage of third-party attempting to do this, it may take a true Apple integrated solution to fully take off. And that’s exactly what iMessages is. But SMS, with its billion percent margins (roughly), is a huge profit center for carriers. So why would they let Apple do this? (After all, this isn’t just a WiFi feature, it will work over 3G as well.) That’s easy. What choice do they have? Are Verizon and AT&T (or international carriers) going to boot Apple at this point for destroying their precious SMS services? No. And Apple will probably argue that SMS remains a great medium for cross-device message pollination (which is true). But it’s not just that iMessages kills SMS because it’s free. It kills it because . While the sending of photos, videos, and text matches SMS (and MMS), it’s better with iMessage because it’s streamlined and simplified. Plus you can now send contacts and locations. And you can see in real time when someone is typing, responding to your message. And there are delivery receipts. And optional read receipts (so you know if someone has actually read your message). There’s group messaging. Encryption. Etc. It’s sort of like SMS 2.0. And again, free. And my favorite part of all of this is that Apple is baking it into the same Messages app that SMS goes into. People will use this. A lot. And again, while this may be iOS-only, guess who else is going to have to match this feature now? Android. SMS is about to become a cross-platform messaging platform only. As a person who has paid hundreds if not thousands of dollars in bullshit SMS fees in my life, I happily say to the carriers: eat it. |
Zynga Turns Hangman Into A Social iOS Game With The Debut Of 'Hanging With Friends' | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 6 | 6 | Zynga’s game development studios are on a roll of late, recently revealing and Settlers Of Catan-like social combat game Empires & Allies. And today, Zynga Mobile is adding one more title to the mix with the of ‘Hanging With Friends,’ Zynga’s take on classic popular game Hangman within an iOS app. The game is very similar to the ‘Words With Friends’ mobile games, which was developed by mobile game developer Newtoy. Zynga last December. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Words With Friends (which has over 10 million users on iOS devices), it’s similar to playing a Scrabble-like word game against one of your friends. Hanging With Friends is very similar to playing Hangman, but with a mobile and social twist. In fact, the games comes with many more bells and whistles than if you played the game on a piece of paper (which I used to do as a child). You can sign on with Twitter and Facebook to see which of your friends are playing the app, and you can then challenge players to take turns creating and guessing words. Players choose their avatar and then choose friends to compete against to see who can hang on the longest. If you guess the word correctly, you can survive to play another round. If you miss a word, you may fall. In Hanging With Friends players can play up to 20 simultaneous games. Push notifications alert players when it’s their turn and in-game chat messaging allows users to communicate outside of the game. If a player is left hanging from their friends, the game will find a random opponent as a new challenger. Players can also use lifelines that offer hints at words and watch instant replays that provide a glimpse into their opponent’s tactics. As you get words correct, you’ll earn coins that can be used for further lifelines, such as the ability to reverse a turn and get more chances to guess letters. Users can also use an ‘extinguish’ lifeline to add four words to a more complicated word. Users can also purchase these coins as a virtual currency. For now, Zynga is offering both a free and paid version of the app, which costs $0.99 in the App Store. The free version includes ads within the app, and the paid version is ad-free. Zynga’s general manager of the game, Paul Bettner says that there are no immediate plans to add the game to the Android platform. But Zynga so perhaps the gaming giant will expand to other mobile devices with the new title. Words With Friends was a hit, so perhaps Zynga will see some success with the Hangman version. Bettner says that the UI is more interactive and creative than its Words With Friends cousin, and the game adds a layer of strategy as well. We know mobile is a significant strategic area for Zynga, so it should be interesting to see which title the gaming giant released next for the iOS or Android platforms.
|
Weekend Giveaway: A Kobo eReader Touch (And Some Gift Cards) | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 24 |
: It’s over! Congrats to all the winners – emails have been sent. Thanks for entering, everyone, your bookcases are all very interesting. If you’re curious about the new generation of touchable , now’s your chance to pick one up just for being a CrunchGear reader. Kobo has been generous enough to donate one of their new for us to give away, and a few gift cards as well. I like the device: it’s a simple, responsive e-reader that would tempt me if I weren’t a scurrilous, paper-loving Luddite. So how do you win?
We want to send this out to someone who’s a book-lover and who really needs it, so Like the one below. No, we won’t use it for anything! On Monday I’ll pick a winner semi-randomly from the entries. Three runners-up will get $25 gift cards to the Kobo bookstore. You must be at least 13 and live in the continental US to win, sorry rest of the world! No special formatting or anything is necessary, but don’t fake it. If your bookcase is on Google Image Search, I’ll be disappointed. |
Sweet DIY Book Light | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 24 |
Here’s a fun little project, a little too advanced for me but worth looking into if you’re okay with a little soldering and such. Basically you’re just replacing the innards of a book with a frame (or you could cut out the pages, which would look cooler) and putting an LED strip and some opaque acrylic in there. Makes a nice diffuse light that turns off when you shut the book. [via and ] |
Inspired By Wikipedia, Quora Aims For Relevancy With Topic Groups And Reorganized Topic Pages | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 24 |
has just announced of its Topic Pages and the introduction of Topic Groups, aiming to make information discovery and navigation on the site a little bit easier. The motivation behind these changes is a thrust towards ease of search and content relevancy on Quora, as there is currently a ton of content on the site that people need to figure out how to navigate. Now, instead of a chronological stream on Topics Pages (which you can get to via the tags in questions), users will see Best Questions, Open Questions as well as Featured Questions and Frequently Asked Questions depending on the topic. A Topic Page can also correspond to a Topic Group which will be focused on all the activity on the Topic Page and can roll up multiple topics into one, giving users a way to self-organize and share info. For example this corresponds to this . Quora co-founder likens the difference between and Topic Page and a Topic Group to the difference between a Wikipedia article and a Wikipedia Talk page, where the Talk page features the activity of a group behind the page that is committed to the topic, moderates questions and features content. The page is just an outpost of the total sum of the group’s knowledge. “If you’re someone who doesn’t know about a topic, now you can get a general overview of what the topic is about on a Topic Page,” D’Angelo tells me, saying that the Topic Groups will be the space for people who want to delve deeper. Some Topic Groups will be official (you can see a list ) i.e. moderated by a group of admins with topical expertise, while others will simply consist of all incoming activity to a Topic Page. D’Angelo writes, “We’ve had a lot of activity on Quora recently with screenwriters and other people in Hollywood. Now there’s a well-defined space for them to focus on movies without being distracted or interrupted with everything else that they’re interested in on Quora. In general, this structure will let us have deeper communities and topic areas.” Says power Quora user Semil Shah, “[On Wikipedia] you have topics and you move from page to page, like nodes. Here, in Quora, the topics are organized in a way one can eventually drill down and explore, investigate. It’s genius.” Despite having no user numbers to announce, D’Angelo tells me that the design and organizational changes were the result of having to look closely at what worked and what didn’t after Quora grew faster than expected . The service’s eventual goal is to get more knowledge on to the Internet, get more questions and get more answers, D’Angelo said. Also in the information discovery and relevancy vein but on the opposite end of the spectrum is the delightful newly launched Quora , which lets users view random content on Quora a la You can find the unassuming Shuffle button at the bottom of each Quora page. Baby steps. |
I Found Out About This Gay Marriage Thing On Foursquare | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 24 | Well actually it was of a Foursquare check-in, posted to Twitter … So I actually haven’t been following news at all today, and when I say news I mean actual news, not tech news which I keep up with like an addiction. And I so had no idea that a bill to legalize gay marriage the New York State Senate at the very moment I was writing about the Quora redesign. I was actually pretty surprised when TechCrunch Managing Editor Skyped me with “Look at your Twitter feed.” In a quick game of Internet catch up, I scrolled through my feed. Yes, my Twitter feed confirmed that New York, as soon as Governor Andrew Cuomo signs off, will join Connecticut, Massachusetts, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia in permitting same sex marriage. So what heralded the news that the bill had passed 33-29? Well actually the above check-in to something called the . While a lot of my stream is still filled with the noise of people making the requisite clever quips (see below), there are other, more poignant digital artifacts of the historic moment: the hashtag is trending, of a rainbow colored Empire State Building has and (perhaps the best part) NYC Mayor Bloomberg into the Marriage Equalitocalyspe, the very same Foursquare check-in that was my gateway to the milestone. The Wikipedia entry for “Same Sex Marriage” was seemingly in a matter of minutes, of course. And so I’ll say it again, simply: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Foursquare and [insert social media platform of choice] are amazing. There was something so isolating as a kid when my family turned on the TV to absorb world news on a Friday night, and the only reactions I could see to current events would be that of the people in the room, and those of the people on the screen. I feel exactly the opposite of isolated when I’m sitting in the office finishing up work for the weekend, and one quick glance at Twitter allows me a glimpse into the opinions of my co-workers across town, or how people are celebrating the approval at the in NYC. I can even tap into the sentiment of strangers half way across the world if I so please. The future, to borrow an apropos phrase, it got better. http://twitter.com/#!/MikeBloomberg/status/84458150689898498 http://twitter.com/#!/alexblagg/status/84459494876254208 http://twitter.com/#!/mat/status/84458427711102976 http://twitter.com/#!/Megan/status/84458915345084417 http://twitter.com/#!/jasonkincaid/status/84465987704987648 http://twitter.com/#!/Mike_FTW/status/84452907017183232 http://twitter.com/#!/AntDeRosa/status/84445991205470208 http://twitter.com/#!/techsoc/status/84456863273463808 http://twitter.com/#!/naveen/status/84473530800021504 http://twitter.com/#!/rachelsterne/status/84490052658397184 http://twitter.com/#!/jonkauffman/status/84499759733280770 |
Obama Announces National Robotics Initiative | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 24 |
As part of a $500 million package aimed at funding homegrown innovation and high-tech jobs, the is $70 million intended for “the development and use of robots in the United States that work beside, or cooperatively with, people.” Sounds good to me! We’ve already got enough . President Obama announced the initiative and the rest of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership at CMU’s National Robotics Engineering Center. We see a lot of coming out of Carnegie Mellon, so it’s no surprise the announcement would take place there. and the President hanging out with roboticists. The stated goal of the NRI: The purpose of this program is the development of this next generation of robotics, to advance the capability and usability of such systems and artifacts, and to encourage existing and new communities to focus on innovative application areas. It will address the entire life cycle from fundamental research and development to industry manufacturing and deployment. Methods for the establishment and infusion of robotics in educational curricula and research to gain a better understanding of the long term social, behavioral and economic implications of co-robots across all areas of human activity are important parts of this initiative. Hopefully they won’t be developing robotic bloggers any time soon. [via ; image credit: Gene J. Puskar / AP] |
Classic Mac FPS Marathon Open Sourced, Coming To iPad | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 24 |
was the Mac answer to , and when I was younger I preferred it infinitely (in my innocence), lauding its creative level design, intense multiplayer, and insanely . When it gave way to I pretty much stopped caring about Bungie, but now they’ve gotten my attention again. As part of Bungie’s big 20th anniversary celebrations, they’ve finally the complete to the development community, which actually isn’t that big of a deal, since they’ve had most of it for some time now. But as of today the whole series is officially free and open source. What’s more, a “fan developer,” Daniel Blezek, is nearing completion of his . I’m not sure whether the on-screen controls are going to do it for me, but luckily, (like ) was simpler to control than games these days and doesn’t rely so much on the Z axis. Now where’s my ?! |
Manufacturer: HP TouchPad To Get 7-Inch Counterpart In August | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 6 | 24 | It looks like a 9.7-inch WiFi-only TouchPad and a 3G/Wi-Fi TouchPad aren’t quite enough for , as rumors suggest that the company may be building a 7-inch model of the TouchPad to be released in August. This should come as pretty good news to those of you who, like myself, prefer a smaller, more portable tablet. The news came straight out of Taiwan’s own , which reported that an employee claims that HP ordered somewhere between 400,000 and 450,000 tablets per month from Inventec. The source says that within that order is a 7-inch TouchPad, which the Taiwanese newspaper believes will launch in August. We’d hope that since a Wi-Fi-only model and 3G/Wi-Fi model have already been covered by HP, this yet-to-be-announced slate will pack 4G capabilities. Of course, if August is in fact the 7-incher’s birthday then that very well may be too soon to pack in 4G capabilities. [via ] |
Is There A European Tech Incubator Bubble? | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 6 | 24 | Something is happening in Europe. The tectonic plates in the startup ecosystem are moving and, like penguins on ice-flows, we all are slithering around trying to get a handle on how things will play out over the next couple of years. We’re having exits (such as Tweetdeck to Twitter for $40million), large funding rounds (such as Wooga ) and higher valuations ( ). Events have ramped up considerably. in London was a blast this year, as was , and the 1,000-strong . And we still have and to go. At the same time the incubator and accelerator scene is booming. named as the top European accelerator with looking like a pretty strong second. And this week the brand new in the UK it would literally give away £75,000 ($84,000 Euro / $120,000) with no equity tie as a prize to the ‘most improved startup on its programme’ (applications close June 30th, ). This goes to show just how white hot the incubator and accelerator market in Europe is right now. But despite I really feel that, amidst the birth pangs of a genuine pan-European tech startup scene, it is far too early to be ranking incubators and accelerators. There remains a huge amount of chaos in the market, and what appears to be a scramble for positions across territories and cities. So I asked some key players in Europe of their opinion of this incubators / accelerator scene, and what they had to say is enlightening. Investor of believes incubators are “good for the ecosystem” and “promote entrepreneurship” especially since “young people need role models / teachers / facilitators who can show them the possibilities one has in entrepreneurship.” Bill Liao, a former co-founder of XING and now an angel investor who bases himself between Ireland and Switzerland says he has “seen the growth in smaller deals and value investing and the growth of accelerators and I am convinced that the more lean startup and accelerators there are the absolute better especially those that focus companies on getting customers and have a baptism of fire as well as great mentors.” But he makes a distinction about incubators: “Anything raised in too comfortable an environment will likely fail when it hits the real world. The incubators must get tougher on having shorter programs and be ruthless in ridding themselves of Zombie startups that pivot too often and never break out. We have not yet fully explored the models that will rock the world for making startups more effective and better value creators so a proliferation is a good thing and we will see who is right and wrong in about three years from now when the exits happen, or not…” Max Niederhofer, CEO of and a former VC with Atlas Ventures is much more hesitant about the growth in accelerators: “I am very wary of this trend in general. Some people in this industry are vultures… they don’t create, they just want to participate in the (small) wealth creation that is going on. But Europe kind of needs what it can get at this point… so anyone with an actual entrepreneurial background doing an incubator should be welcomed.” He goes on: “There are some folks (Seedcamp, Startupbootcamp, Springboard, others on the list in the latest study) that have great advisers, some money, a good process, decent connections. So for an entrepreneur new to the scene, they can be very helpful. Just best to do due diligence on them before you commit.” Wise words. Stefan Glaenzer of and says they now have 11 teams with founders from 6 different nationalities. “We need even more options with ambition in Europe for talented entrepreneurs and coders if we want to create global competing companies (finally).” Eileen Burbidge, also of White Bear Yard and Passion Capital believes “accelerator programs are valued by VCs more for the connection to the venture community and educational value to entrepreneurs than for deal flow”. But for her, “accelerators are absolutely a benefit to the startup ecosystem. Anything which encourages, supports or motivates entrepreneurs to set up new teams, initiatives and “startups” is great for the ecosystem. We need more people who are trying more things, experimenting, iterating, testing, and generally thinking about different and new ways of doing things — from which great companies and value flow.” Charles Grimsdale of believes “Some of these incubators are doing a great job of helping to build the start-up support network… [and] are helping to drive the culture of start-ups…” Unfortunately, he sounds an alarm bell about the longevity of the incubator/accelerator model : “However they generally can’t invest enough cash to be in any way meaningful. When they start to take too much equity for what they offer they may quickly turn people off, and will damage the ecosystem they are trying to help foster.” This themes was picked up by , a serial entrepreneur, Angel and former VC who also works with Octopius Ventures. He had this to say: “In the VC world you get a percentage of upside on exits and a management fee based on the size of your fund. But with early stage funds the fund is not large enough to live off, which is why VCs tend to move to larger funds as they go up. So Seedcamp should be encouraged as it’s harder at the lower end of the market. ” But he points out a drawback to Seedcamp’s model, in that they “don’t have huge resources to look after the companies once they have won the competitions” but that they really help with marketing and taking their startups around, such as on showcase trips. “They don’t have the infrastructure to do what a VC would do with ongoing help. And ideally over time their investors will give them more money to support the companies in the long run. It’s important not to knock them but they do have challenges in their business model.” For her part, Reshma Sohoni, CEO of Seedcamp itself admits that (although she might be biased) “There are probably too many incubators and accelerators already in the hub locations. There aren’t enough in smaller geographies that could be tied-in to hub locations.” She says that “In 3-5 years…there will likely be way too many more. They aren’t differentiated enough as they copy existing models too much. Ultimately it all comes down to the people who run them and the network they are a part of and can tap into to be active. It also depends on companies that succeed out of the accelerators. That will continue to separate the best from others.” But the “accelerators are definitely adding value to the ecosystem” and “status quo of say 5 years ago would just be depressing for growth of tech businesses in Europe and beyond.” Amen to that – if nothing had changed in five years I would certainly not be bothering writing TechCrunch myself! Whatever shakes out in the next couple of years, it would appear the 40 entities identified by the recent Kauffman-sponsored , will be just the tip of the ice-burg in a year’s time. The tech bubble is incentivising anyone with money to create a programme, cobble together a list of ‘mentors’ and try their luck. So to answer our question: Is There A European Tech Incubator Bubble? I think the answer is that although we may see one forming, it might actually be a nice problem to have. For too long Europe has barely had any kind of support like this for startups. More competition in the market for entrepreneurs can only be a good thing – so long as it all works out when it comes down to terms sheets – a theme I will be returning to soon. For now, entrepreneurs would do well to work out exactly what each one is offering before making the leap into one of these programmes. |
Aquaskipper Hydrofoil: Human Powered, For Your Pleasure | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 24 | So you’re walking along the beach, daydreaming, and you think to yourself “How much more fun would it be if I could get up on some weird contraption and fly around at 17 miles an hour just below the surface of the water while children, families, and the elderly scatter in front of me like vanquished enemies?” Well you’re in luck because this wild-looking vehicle will offer you that privilege for a mere $500. As you see from the video below, the vehicle offers a graceful and tactful way to skip across a pond like a huge freak, bouncing around on a flimsy-looking hydrofoil thinger that will inevitably cause you to flip over and spill your beer. The best thing? You can never stop jumping: If you stop jumping, eventually, you will end up in the water. Not so bad on a hot, sunny day! In order to keep the AquaSkipper up out of the water, the rider needs to either be jumping on the platform or riding a wave. A rider can glide for small amounts of time, but then needs to start jumping again. Summer fun, indeed. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZITueUW9Rk&w=640&h=390] |
Sony To Drop PS3 Price In August? | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 24 | While hasn’t given a yea or nay on this rumor, industry people are making noise about a . Developers and merchants say software sales are down and it’s up to one of the big guys to start the price wars up again. Will it be Sony? Microsoft is still riding the Kinect wave, and may wait to see what tack Sony takes before doing any bundles or promotions. Add that to the apparent Sony is producing and it’s looking more and more likely that we’ll see a new price point and slightly different hardware. Oh, . Of course, a fall promotion like this means less bargaining power come the holidays, but Sony may be relying on the Vita for its fourth-quarter sales. Too bad it’s Now, this rumor is based in the UK, so there’s no guarantee any price cuts (which may really end up giving them price parity with the US and Japan) would carry over to this side of the pond. It would probably be announced at the huge Gamescom convention in Cologne. |
Skullcandy Uncovers Vintage-Style iPhone Speaker Dock For $179.99 | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 6 | 24 | Sometimes I miss old-school technology, but only on a surface level. I get all giddy every time I see an stand that looks like a vintage TV set or an old-school Game Boy case. Brand new technology hidden under old-fashioned designs truly pulls at my heart strings, which is why I was so excited to see Skullcandy’s new Vandal iPhone speaker dock. If you aren’t already familiar with Skullcandy, they make really cool skater-chic headphones for people who think of themselves as skater-chic. This time, however, Skullcandy has unveiled a retro-looking iPhone speaker dock, which conjures up images of an old guitar amp. It has three nice little knobs on the top, and a 3.5mm headphone jack, so you can basically plug just about anything in there. Don’t let that traditional design fool you, though. The Vandal iPhone speaker dock offers more than enough audio power to keep you dancing. Under the hood you’ll find 80mm woofers and 19mm tweets, and a total output of 21 watts. Now all you have to do is scrape together $179.99, and you’re good to go. [via ] |
Google Health Creator Adam Bosworth On Why It Failed: "It's Not Social" | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 6 | 24 | After several years languishing in the backwoods of Google’s server farms, Google Health got its . Why did the ambitious project to record your health record online and help you research your every ailment fail? I asked this to Adam Bosworth, the former Googler who originally created Google Health, a few weeks ago when he was in the TCTV studio to talk about his . In a sentence, he said, “It’s not social.” In the video clip above, we talk about why Google Health never seemed to go anywhere. Bosworth says the problem was that “Google didn’t push to see what could they do that people would want. They basically offered a place to store date, but people don’t want a place to store data.” Bosworth has learned that you have to to motivate people. Even healthcare. “If it’s not fun, it’s not social, why would they do that?” he asks. “Yes, they want to be healthy, but they want more than that. They want the encouragement and even the pressure of friends.” |
Dropbox Breach: Fewer Than 100 Accounts Affected, But One Person Actively Exploited Security Hole | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 6 | 24 | It’s been an incredibly rough week for Dropbox. On Monday, that a bug in the service’s authentication software effectively made passwords optional for around four hours over the weekend — meaning that you could log into anyone’s account simply by entering their user name. Given what Dropbox is used for — namely, syncing your most important files between computers — that’s a huge deal. Especially since the service has promoted its security features as one of its selling points. At the time Dropbox said that “much less than 1 percent” of users could have potentially been affected. Now we’ve obtained an email that Dropbox sent out this afternoon to users who were affected by the breach and it’s much more specific. First, the good news: the scale of the attack affected “fewer than a hundred accounts” out of Dropbox’s 25 million total users. But according to the letter, those accounts were all accessed by a single individual. In other words, these weren’t accidental logins due to typos — someone discovered the hole and actively used it to access files that were not theirs. That’s obviously very alarming. Dropbox isn’t commenting on the breach, so it’s unclear whose accounts this individual was targeting, or if the attack was targeted at all. Here is one version of the letter that’s apparently being sent to users whose accounts were accessed, but did not have files viewed or downloaded — a second version indicates if files were in fact accessed. Note that the letter was written by Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, who offers to speak on the phone to anyone whose account was breached. Subject: Important Dropbox Security Notice – Please Read xxxx, Earlier this week, we wrote to tell you about a security lapse at Dropbox. Today I am writing to tell you something I never expected to tell a customer. During our forensic analysis, we discovered that an extremely small number of accounts, including yours, were subject to some suspicious activity. Our investigation revealed that at around xx:xx on x/xx/xxxx someone logged into your account. It is likely that your account was compromised by a third party. According to our records, neither your account settings nor files were modified. Information such as file and folder names would have been viewable, but our records do not indicate that any files were viewed or downloaded. Nevertheless, as a precaution we recommend that you take the following steps: * If you had sensitive, personal, or financial information in your Dropbox or in the names of the files in your Dropbox account (for example, credit card numbers, bank account information, social security numbers) you should monitor your credit for any suspicious activity. You can learn more about identity theft at the FTC’s Identity Theft Site http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/idtheft/ . * We have made arrangements for you to have free access to a credit monitoring service. Please email us at support@dropbox.com if you would like to use this program. You may also want to consider canceling any credit cards whose information was located in the folders listed above. * If you stored passwords in your Dropbox, please make sure to change those passwords as soon as possible. * Again, we urge you to review your account for any unauthorized activity and inform us immediately about your concerns. As we mentioned earlier, the security lapse occurred during a code update that introduced a bug affecting our authentication mechanism. We will continue our investigations, but as best as we can tell right now, a single individual took advantage of the lapse to access fewer than a hundred accounts. Our team has been working around the clock to understand what happened and to make sure that it never happens again. I cannot express how deeply sorry I am. Dropbox is my life, and I know that we are only as good as the trust we have built with our customers. This should not have happened, and I am hopeful that you will give us the chance to make this right and regain your trust. I am here and ready to answer your questions and do whatever I can to help. Please do not hesitate to call me at +x-xxx-xxx-xxxx. Or if you’d like me to call you just reply with your phone number and I’ll give you a call. Drew —
Drew Houston
CEO, Dropbox |
null | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 6 | 6 | null |
Moshi Monsters valued at $200m after Spark Ventures sells half its stake | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 6 | 24 | has sold half of its stake in Mind Candy, creators of the online children’s game, , for $4.9m, generating a 15x return. The move means that Mind Candy / Moshi Monsters is now valued at $200m. Spark originally invested in 2004. That means that Mind Candy is now one of the most valuable players in the London startup scene around , after the sale of TweetDeck to Twitter for $40m recently. Moshi Monsters – used by seven to 14 year olds to create their own pet monsters – has 50m users globally and generates millions in revenue from in-game payments, offline merchandising such as toys, books and trading cards. The “Facebook for kids” now has one in three British children as a player and it has significant traction in the US. Headquartered in London with around 70 staff, Mind Candy was launched 2003 by Michael Acton Smith, a co-founder of Web 1.0 online retailer Firebox.com. The tale is a typical startup one, in that its first game, Perplex City, bombed, but investors including Spark Ventures, Index Ventures and Accel Partners put $7m in 2006 to allow Minday Candy to launch Moshi Monsters in 2007. |
Rumor: Droid 3 To Hit Best Buy In Mid-July? | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 6 | 24 | Alright, fair denizens of the Interwebs: put on your skeptics hat and polish up that ol’ grain-of-salt, because this one’s kinda shaky. Android fan site nabbed the above shot of what looks to be Best Buy’s internal inventory listing for the Motorola Droid 3. According to the listing, the in-stock date (which in many cases means the day the products arrive, generally one day before it’s put on the shelves) is set for July 13th. If everything comes together, that means the Droid 3 could very well be on sale by July 14th or 15th. So what’s shaky about this? First, this is the first we’re hearing of Droid Attic; we won’t hold that against’em, but we can’t vouch for their accuracy. Second, these inventory dates aren’t exactly set in stone — especially not 2+ weeks out. In many cases, the dates put in when the listing is created are placeholders, often only getting swapped out for the actual date a day or two before the products hit the delivery trucks. In the end, it’s entirely feasible that the Droid 3 will hit the shelves in Mid-July… just don’t get your heart set on it yet. |
Foursquare Closes $50M at a $600M Valuation | Sarah Lacy | 2,011 | 6 | 24 | Foursquare has just closed one of the most secretive rounds of venture capital TechCrunch has seen. The company is raising $50 million, and all of it will go towards building out the company, no secondary sales here. The valuation had been rumored to be as high as $1 billion, but our sources say it settled out at $550 million pre-money, $600 million post. Part of that is because the round was mostly done by insiders. Leading it was , still the only major Valley firm invested in the company. did the deal and is remaining a board observer only. , also reupped in this round and came in as a new investor, but not the lead. is joining as a board observer as well. The money will be used to build out the merchant platform, the San Francisco office and fuel international expansion, said founder in an interview. Foursquare’s ten million users are impressive for a mobile app, but small compared to numbers other major social networks. Its revenues are scant. Some firms said they shied away from the deal, because they felt monetization was only more unclear now. With the local space on fire, Foursquare’s target advertisers are already beset with sales people from Yelp, Living Social, Groupon, Google and others calling on them. There’s going to be a level of retailer fatigue, and business-wise Foursquare is late to the party. Crowley emphasized that Foursquare has a very different value proposition from competitors and is focused on not only rewarding loyal patrons but tracking how their referrals snake through the social graph offering different kinds of rewards to new customers, repeat customers, referred customers and of course the mayors in a way that only Foursquare can. The company is still working on the merchant platform and will get aggressive on selling through direct sales and once they feel it’s perfect, Crowley said. “We know what it’s going to be, we just haven’t flipped the switch on it yet,” he said. A $600 million valuation is a big but not unreasonable step-up from Foursquare’s last round which was priced at $120 million. That’s still rich, but that’s the market. Plus, from the venture firm’s perspective, a heady valuation only matters so much. Only slightly more than $20 million has been invested so far in the company, and any investor will have a liquidation preference, meaning they get paid first in the event of an acquisition. So a $50 million deal at any price wouldn’t money unless Foursquare winds up being worth less than $70 million. One of the most remarkable things about this round was how deadly quiet Foursquare was able to keep the news. A few of the big Valley firms like Kleiner Perkins and Benchmark weren’t in the bidding for competitive reasons and very few others were invited to take a look at it. Few of Foursquare’s angel investors were even briefed about it. “Loose Tweets sink companies,” Crowley said. “The series B played out very publicly and it was hard for the company, so we came up with a better process this time.” We have heard the company might be working on an additional round to cash out some early investors, to be closed at a later date. Crowley didn’t have a comment on that, other than to emphasize all of this round is going towards building the company and the door is open to future secondary deals if it’s the right thing for investors and the company. |
Angry Yahoo Shareholder Confronts Bartz And Asks For Her Head (Audio Clip) | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 6 | 24 | Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz got an earful yesterday at the tail end of the company’s annual shareholder meeting. An angry shareholder, who identified himself as Steve Landry—an advisor to institutional investors with “millions of Yahoo shares”—stood up at the end of what was up until then a surprisingly feel-good affair, given the total underperformance of the stock for the past three years, and asked for her head. We’ve uploaded the audio clip below. He goes through a list of issue and concerns, calling Yahoo a “debacle” and a “circus.” He starts out by addressing “the elephant in the room”: the search for Bartz’ successor. “It came out earlier this week in a blog that the board is secretly talking to other CEO candidates,” he said. “I have heard similar details. I believe it is true. The last thing Yahoo needs right now is a lame duck CEO. The buyout talks over your contract need to start today.” Hmm, I wonder he’s talking about Landry also brings up the Hulu acquisition rumor ( ) and suggests Jason Kilar could be a good CEO candidate for Yahoo. But he thinks buying Hulu would be a bad idea. He finishes by calling on the board to break up or sell the company. “The status quo is no longer working,” he says. To all of which, Bartz responds: “You’re welcome, and thanks for your opinion, the bloggers’ opinions and the rumors. What else? Wonderful. That was certainly a downer.” Listen to Landry’s entire diatribe below. [soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/17790309″] Photo credit: |
A Simple Look At The Simple Nissan Leaf iOS App | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 6 | 24 | I’m a few days into . It’s a fun car; I can say that much so far. My plan later today is to test the range by driving in increasingly smaller circles around my house until the battery is nearly depleted. A full review is coming next week, but until then, here’s a quick look at the simple Leaf iOS owner’s app. Nissan launched the iOS app launched alongside the Leaf electric vehicle and features several critical functions and abilities to enhance the driver’s experience. This app allows the owner to schedule a charge, remotely turn on the heat or AC, and, most importantly, see the available range. It’s currently only available on iOS but I was told by a Nissan rep that an Android flavor is in the works and should be available soon. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4OySxPe2T8&w=640&h=390] Automakers are cautiously embracing smartphones, slowing poking and prodding the devices to see what happens. The thought here is that since these cars are connected to the Internet, why not leverage that connectivity in the name of consumer friendliness. GM debuted its line of smartphone apps with the Chevy Volt and is systemically bringing it to other brands and models. The MyFord Mobile app was introduced at CES 2011 where it helped earn the 2012 Focus The Official Car of CES. These sort of apps will likely become standard as older vehicles systems retire and new, connected powertrains are introduced. It will be slow process as automakers are not going to dump tons of R&D into adding the functions to existing platforms when new, more evolved systems are in the pipeline anyway. Eventually though, even your grandparent will be able to start up their Toyota from afar. |
Google Shuts Down Medical Records And Health Data Platform | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 6 | 24 | Google is , which enables you to store and manage all your health information in one place on the Web. Google says the platform simply wasn’t having the ‘broad impact’ necessary to sustain the product. From Google’s blog post: Google says that it will continue to operate Google Health until January 1, 2012, will allow people to export their health data for an additional year beyond that. Any data that remains in Google Health after that point (January 2013) will be permanently deleted. Google Health in 2008 as a central repository for all of your health information, including prescriptions, medical history, medical records, and more. One of the key contributors to the of Google Health were partnerships with insurance companies, hospitals and other medical institutions to make data more available to consumers. As last year, Google Health still needed to sign up hundreds of insurers in the U.S. Google announced some key deals (i.e. a to import prescription data into the platform), but couldn’t gain traction elsewhere. Google also started Health into an overall wellness platform, allowing users integrate data from FitBit and CardioTrainer, but clearly this didn’t get enough traction amongst users. Microsoft’s competing product HealthVault |
MongoHQ Raises $417K From Y Combinator, Lerer And SV Angel | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 24 | Data hosting platform has raised $417K in financing in order to expand their hosting configuration service for developers who use MongoDB for data storage. Paul Graham’s , , and took part in the funding. First on the MongoDB database hosting scene, MongoHQ is in the same space as and differentiates itself by adding enterprise level functionalities, aiming to provide users with the maximum amount of uptime with its new replica set feature, which gives developers the option to create databases across three EC2 boxes in three different availability zones. Currently MongoHQ boasts over 7K users, with over 12K databases hosting around 20 Terabytes of data. Founded in 2009, the company is already profitable, and already has a significant international presence According to co-founder , the company plans on using the funding to invest in infrastructure and hire additional engineers. They also plan on listening to user feedback and expanding into dedicated boxes and data optimization this summer. “Our goal is to become the data layer for applications,” McCay tells me. |
In-Stream Ads Are Coming To Twitter, Will A User Revolt Follow? | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 23 | After nine months of in-stream Promoted Tweets on third party client Hootsuite, reports have that Twitter’s head of monetization has been pushing a new in-timeline Promoted Tweets product during this week’s advertiser-heavy awards. To the two of you that this comes to as a shock, one word: Inevitable. Twitter has made of the fact that in-stream Promoted Tweets have been an eventual business model goal since April of 2010, when co-founder a plan to launch them first on search on Twitter.com, later in 3rd party search and eventually in the user timeline. “We’ve been talking about Promoted Tweets in the timeline since we launched Promoted Tweets …” Twitter’s Sean Garret tells me. “We have and will continue to take a measured and thoughtful approach to how we may display them.” So while there should be little doubt that in-stream Twitter advertisements are imminently on the horizon, the question is whether users will take to them, or whether they’ll revolt , the controversial overlay to Twitter mobile that displayed Promoted Trends and eventually ended up being removed after much backlash. A brief I conducted on, of course, Twitter revealed that despite the initial resistance many users were willing to support the in-stream ad model as long as Twitter gave them the opportunity to pay to get rid of it. Apparently people like having options. Then again, actual user reaction will depend on the execution, look and feel of the final in-stream as product, which we know very little about. If the Promoted Tweets blink and take up your entire screen and look like crap then sure, users will be angry. However the guiding hand of an even partially returned leads me to believe that this will probably not be the case. Twitter has also that again that the Promoted Tweets will only be for brands that you follow or that are “relevant” to you based on whom you follow, but I really can’t see that philosophy being very profitable or holding up for very long, especially since I don’t really follow any brands and don’t know any one else who does. The dilemma of Twitter advertising is a case of too much demand and not enough supply, which is why the prices on these things keep going up (Promoted Trends are t $120K). From what I’m hearing advertisers are clamoring for Twitter to give them something to buy and the company has an ambitious and eager salesforce, tasked with selling the promise of one day being able to monetize most of its 300 million users. But is charging brands $100K to have their tweets show up higher in the Twitter streams of consumers who are already their loyal followers the best solution? Well Twitter’s got to start somewhere, and expand from there. As the points out, Twitter is expecting a modest $100 million in revenue this year compared to Facebook’s awe inspiring $3.5 billion in projected display ad revenue. “They are going to get much more commercial,” one agency executive told the which also reports that the company is dabbling in Groupon-type deals, the of monetization for many. And will this inevitable thrust toward commercialization interfere with user experience to the point where users will be turned off from Twitter? Said one person familiar with the matter, “Users already have such a high tolerance for bugs, errors and latency on Twitter.com, they’re going to live with Promoted Tweets too.” http://twitter.com/alex/status/84021476075909120 No, not at all. I want to be able to pay for analytics and no ads. — Andrew Brackin (@brackin) I don't expect to notice them: with all the activity in my timeline I miss out on most tweets anyway :) — Leonieke Aalders (@leonieke) http://twitter.com/#!/MShafarenko/status/84021952448184320 http://twitter.com/#!/LeoWid/status/84022005619376128 http://twitter.com/#!/atul/status/84022549276663809 RT : Regarding promoted tweets? There's no free lunch, I would say. We'll get REAL good at visually filtering those out, very soon. — Jim Lyons (@jflyons) I'd be ok w/ that as long as it's 1 or so an hour? — Mountain Runner (@mtn_runr) http://twitter.com/#!/ryanlowdermilk/status/84021654325444608 http://twitter.com/alex/status/84021476075909120 http://twitter.com/#!/woesong/status/84022061370056704 http://twitter.com/#!/abrahamvegh/status/84021455884521472 http://twitter.com/#!/damata/status/84026086853324800 http://twitter.com/#!/hillank/status/84026539062202368 http://twitter.com/#!/nunomaia/status/84026075566452736 http://twitter.com/#!/gniting/status/84051084846432256 |
Quick Review: Dungeon Siege III (PC) | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 23 |
I can’t write a full review of this game because I have no intention of finishing it. I am a huge fan of and its sequel, and of the hack ‘n slash genre in general, but I felt it to be my duty to warn you guys away from right now, in case you were thinking about picking it up. I’ve played a little over two hours of the PC version of the game, which version (or port rather), it should be mentioned, was clearly an afterthought. I’m just going to list the things I jotted down during those first two hours.
So yeah. I realize there may be somewhat more to this game than this, but I’m not really interested in playing. What I’ve played so far makes me want to return it. It’s awkward to control, it clearly was never intended for the PC, and it doesn’t seem to bring anything new to the table. Or if it does, I got bored while they were bringing it. The game might fare better on consoles, but it’s an affront to PC gaming and there are far better experiences available for the discerning hack ‘n slasher on consoles. It shouldn’t have been released like this and in my opinion, the compromises made for console controls just spoil the game; they’ve turned it into a sort of flimsy action RPG with Dungeon Siege flavoring added. It doesn’t stand up to the competition, and it doesn’t stand up to its own kin. If you’re looking for a good action-RPG with loot galore, I highly recommend , , and . The original and are also still quite entertaining. You can skip this one. |
With Pottermore, J.K. Rowling Gives Harry Potter The (Very Lucrative) Elixir of Life | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 6 | 23 | Around 4 AM PDT this morning, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling unveiled the latest addition to the massively successful series: a website called , which will feature, among other things, Harry Potter eBooks (which have never been legally available to date) and thousands of words of new content describing the characters and world of Harry Potter. But while the site now features a handful of screenshots, Rowling and the accompanying press material were still pretty vague about what exactly Pottermore . Fortunately, as a long-time fan myself, I have a few guesses. So let’s try to cast some light on what this all means. – err, ! First, the biggest immediate news: this will mark the first time Harry Potter novels will be available in eBook formats. Rowling has indicated that the books will be DRM-free and will be available for all eBook devices including the Kindle and iPad, though it’s a little unclear how exactly this is going to work. Obviously this is a big deal (the books have sold more than 400 million print copies worldwide). I doubt people are going to rebuy the books the way some of them have with Apple’s of The Beatles on iTunes, but going forward the electronic editions will undoubtedly prove immensely popular. But today’s announcement was about more than eBooks. It’s about the future of the Harry Potter brand, which just got a new home. It’s a little weird to think about, but up until now there’s never been any officially sanctioned home base for Harry Potter fans. Fan sites like and have given aficionados a place to get daily news updates and interact on forums. But HarryPotter.com just redirects to a Warner Brothers site about the upcoming film. That comes out in less than a month so it’s going to be stale soon, and even if Warner transforms it into a central hub about all of the films, it’s still going to leave fans wanting — especially since many of them care more about the books than the films. Which brings us to Pottermore. As soon as the midnight showing of ends, millions of fans are going to walk out of the theatre with the uneasy feeling that they don’t have anything Harry Potter-related to look forward to — ending a streak that’s gone on for a decade now. Pottermore is the answer to this. Here’s how the site is being described in the press release: For this groundbreaking collaborative project, J.K. Rowling has written extensive new material about the characters, places and objects in the much-loved stories, which will inform, inspire and entertain readers as they journey through the storylines of the books. Pottermore will later incorporate an online shop where people can purchase exclusively the long-awaited Harry Potter eBooks, in partnership with J.K. Rowling’s publishers worldwide, and is ultimately intended to become an online reading experience, extending the relevance of Harry Potter to new generations of readers, while still appealing to existing fans. As the Pottermore Shop develops, it is intended that it should include further products designed specifically for Harry Potter fans, offering a potential outlet for Sony products and services related to Pottermore. (Yes, that bit about keeping the series relevant to new readers is a little depressing — since when do fantastic books require an online supplement? But I digress…) Looking at the screenshots, I’m reminded of J.K. Rowling’s , which she launched while the books were still being written. Through the site Rowling sporadically revealed clues about the upcoming books using basic puzzles (in 2004, for example, she unveiled the title of Book Six). The site is also littered with tidbits of trivia about the characters, as well as FAQs and debunked rumors. Pottermore sounds like it will share some of the same characteristics. Like Rowling’s official site, Pottermore appears to mix a combination of hand-drawn illustrations and occasional animation, as opposed to a flashy interface. And, like Rowling’s official site, there will be a wealth of new content for fans to discover. The site is launching to private beta testers on July 31 (which coincides with Potter’s birthday in the books), and will be broadly available in October. Over the ensuing months and years, Rowling will be gradually adding more content to the site, fleshing out back stories and adding additional interactive features. Some of this will be contributed by users — the press release notes that users can submit “comments, drawings and other content in a safe and family environment.” And the screenshots also depict some social features, like seeing where in each book each of your friends is. Also note the inbox, which is an owl with a number badge pinned to it. And.. err.. none of that sounds that thrilling to me. Granted, I’m hardly the target demographic, but even the 12-year old version of me (which is when I started reading the books) probably would have shrugged his shoulders at this. New content? Great — definitely enough to keep me coming back once a month or so to look for new tidbits. Being able to follow along with my friends? Bleh. But I’m guessing the real meat of the site will come through the partnership with Sony. Sony is describing this as “a pioneering partnership that will help shape the future of story-telling” and will span years. No, a Harry Potter MMO was not announced today, but the demand is there, and Sony certainly has experience with massively multiplayer games — it created Everquest (which was the most popular predecessor to ). : Wired UK that Warner Brothers owns the rights to Harry Potter video games. And while the press release says that Warner will be a collaborator as the project moves forward, it doesn’t indicate just how deeply involved they’ll be. In other words, that MMO may be less of a given — there may be deals that need to get worked out, or perhaps Warner would do a game independent of Pottermore. There will undoubtedly be other products as well. Some will bomb, just as some Star Wars products have bombed. But there’s still going to be a huge demand for new Harry Potter games and media, and they now have a launchpad that fans will be checking in on regularly for years to come. And some of those products will rake in boatloads of money. Or maybe it really is just a Harry Potter-themed pseudo social network. In which case, pass the firewhiskey.
|
Monster Announces Washable iSport And True-To-The-Music Gratitude Headphones | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 6 | 23 | Whether you’re an athlete or a musician, we’ve got two new sets of in-ear headphones coming from Monster, and if you don’t like one, chances are you’ll like the other. The iSport Immersion in-ear headphones were developed specifically for athletes who use music to keep them “in the zone,” while the Gratitude in-ear headphones were developed in collaboration with Earth, Wind, and Fire, and are more geared toward true music lovers. What’s cool about the iSport headphones is that they are completely washable, and also sweat-proof. In both black and blue models, the iSport headphones come with the Immersion in-ear clip design that keeps the headphones in place (even if you’re jogging through the neighborhood wearing glasses and a helmet). They also feature an adjustable ear pipe located right on the headphone housing. Not all ears are made equal, and I’m sure the folks at Monster wanted to make sure that the iSport headphones could stay in place on anyone, even Spock. The iSport headphones also feature Monster’s ControlTalk technology, which lets you control audio and video playback from the headphones themselves. ControlTalk works with the Apple iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, and features a microphone and answer button for hands-free chit-chat. Monster’s Gratitude in-ear buds are totally different. Created with the help of Earth, Wind, and Fire, the Gratitude headphones are engineered to keep the true harmonics of live music and the details of each note and instrument right on par with the real thing. And they’re easy on the eyes, too. They come in a rose-gold finish with a sharp design, and a special little case is included to keep them safe. Just like with the iSport earbuds, Gratitude headphones also feature Monster’s ControlTalk system, meaning you can chat it up on your smartphone, or control playback on your iPad or iPod. “You hear incredible articulation and detail with these headphones. It’s impressive!” said EFW lead singer Philip Bailey. “There’s amazing separation, [and] you can really hear the difference between my voice and Maurice’s. I clearly hear details in the music that I don’t with other headphones, especially the bottom end.” The Monster iSport Immersion in-ear headphones are slated to arrive in July for $179, while the Gratitude in-ear headphones should become available in September. Unfortunately, no word on pricing yet for Gratitude. |
Study: VCs Still Addicted To IPOs | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 23 | It seems that Venture investors are none-too-happy with current IPO activity. According to a study sponsored by and the , over 80 percent of venture capitalists from around the globe believe “that current IPO activity levels in their home countries are too low”. Low enough, in fact, that it has investors worrying over whether or not it can sustain the venture capital industry. While it seems that investors and VCs tend not to agree on anything (ever?) and it’s thus a bit surprising to see 87 percent of U.S. investors agreeing that IPO activity is too low, it’s also important to keep in mind that this survey was given to investors in the spring. This was before Pandora and LinkedIn went public and bubbletalk was on the tip of everyone’s tongue; in fact, 2011 seems to be a pretty good year for IPOs and investors are encouraging startups to raise. (Before a potential bubble burst, of course.) So then, perhaps VCs should consider IPO rehab for their addictions? What do you think? That being said, the study overwhelmingly found that the health of venture capital industries within each of these countries are suffering thanks to paltry IPO activity, and that the low level of activity is just not producing enough returns to provide growth capital for developing portfolio companies — nor are they meeting the expectations of limited partners. While 91 percent of investors think that the U.S. domestic IPO market is critical to the health of venture capital, only 36 percent of U.S. VCs feel the same way about the rest of the world. That being said, maybe there’s some promise for the global market, as more than half (57 percent) of the 347 VCs surveyed are making plans to increase investments being made outside of their home countries over the course of the next five years. As to what’s currently at the top of investors minds in regard to turning this trend around? Of the investors polled, 83 percent cited investor appetite as the most important factor for a strong IPO market, compared to the need for less cumbersome reporting for newly public companies (33 percent). The mention of fickle appetites as the top concern over regulation and reporting is very interesting, especially considering the of what a venture capitalist is, as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which was passed last year. Though the details of the regulations will be announced next week, it looks like the government’s definition of venture capital will remain much the same, meaning the SEC will likely exempt VCs from most of the new reporting requirements that will be asked of hedge funds and other investors with more than $150 million in assets as part of this legislation. In terms of areas that investors are currently most excited about, it seems that the cloud is on top, with 69 percent of VCs saying that they continue to be excited about cloud computing, whereas 65 percent are planning to increase investment in social and new media — with clean tech coming in next at 62 percent. Interestingly, 54 percent of those polled said they would be putting additional funding into healthcare services, which is great to see. There seems to be renewed interest in healthcare IT and medical services, especially considering the government continues to push for reform in the healthcare industry. Nice to see healthcare avoiding becoming one of the sectors least appealing to investors, like semiconductors which came in at 13 percent and telecom at 15 percent. With there being a lot of coverage swirling around the topic of whether or not there’s a bubble, multi-billion dollar valuations, and a struggling IPO market, quite a few have weighed in on the matter. . One of the charts in Suster’s post shows that VC-backed IPOs jumped in 2010, and though it doesn’t include numbers for 2011, there’s a chance we may even get to a 10-year hight. Thankfully, I’m not a betting man. And, for good measure, because you need your VC vitamins, you should also check out . |
PayPal Seeing $10M In Mobile Payments Per Day; Will Hit $3B Total In 2011 | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 6 | 23 | PayPal is its estimates of the amount of mobile payments transactions using the technology this year; doubling the estimate to $3 billion in mobile total payments volume (TPV) in 2011. PayPal says that the rate at which people are using the payments technology to buy items via their mobile phones is growing rapidly and this is actually the third time the company has had to update its numbers. At years end in 2010, PayPal predicted $1.5 billion in mobile payments and in February, the company revised this to $2 billion. Last year, mobile payments from the previous year, so PayPal could exceed the growth rate from 2010. PayPal is also seeing up to $10 million in mobile TPV a day, which is up from $6 million PayPal reported in March. The company currently has eight million customers who are regularly making purchases on their mobile phones, up from a previously reported six million users. Of course, PayPal is probably feeling heat from the competition. Notably, Google just unveiled its mobile payments system, . Square has been , and is tackling local, an area where PayPal has in. Who knows, Facebook its hat in the ring. But the fact remains that PayPal’s payments business is still widespread and growing. The mobile payments race will certainly be entertaining. |
Apple Attempting To Patent In-Camera Perspective Correction | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 23 |
More from , adding to the rumors that the iPhone 5 will have a significantly upgraded camera. Today’s patent, filed on December 22nd, 2009 (and not yet granted), is about making automatic corrections to an image based on distance and orientation measurements taken within the device. There are plenty of filters and tools for this purpose in image editing programs, but I don’t recall ever seeing on-device correction. The process is fairly straightforward, and interestingly, relies primarily on hardware to determine correction, rather than processor-intensive image analysis. Orientation data would be taken from accelerometers or an additional device attached to the image sensor. Distance could be determined ultrasonically, though I’m not sure I believe that Apple would go that far in support hardware. The effect would be to straighten your picture or re-distort the perspective to create a more even image. Again, standard stuff in Photoshop and Lightroom, but in-camera, not so much. One problem: these are destructive changes, not metadata, as the workflows they describe seem to come before the encode/write operation. Some people might think this will lead to lazy photography, but the fact is on such a small and light device as an iPhone, and with its natural tendency to lag a bit before exposure, it’s not always easy to get alignment just right. And it’s just something you’d correct in post anyway. Whether (and how) this will actually be implemented is unclear, though, as it implies some fairly serious hardware changes. We’ll be on the lookout for more info. [via ] |
Flattery alone will only get you so far – SoundCloud users can now get paid via Flattr | Steve O'Hear | 2,011 | 6 | 23 | , the social micropayment startup , has added to make it easy to add the Flattr button (and start receiving payments) to any player, including those embedded anywhere across the web. Interestingly, SoundCloud already has an with Flattr competitor BuySimple. Flattr’s support for SoundCloud follows a similar recently announced tie-in to Twitter, which makes it easy to tip somebody’s Twitter account with real money, although who on earth would pay for , I’m not so sure. But it does bring into focus the company’s strategy to become a sort of ‘Like’ button but with real money, even if post-launch Flattr has slowly and perhaps stealthily begun to deviate from its more altruistic and slightly idiosyncratic payment model into something more mainstream. In January, the service directly rather than relying solely on the albeit innovate model of simply divvying up a pre-allocated monthly pool of cash (starting from €2), no matter how thinly that’s spread if a user chooses to “Flattr” a high number of sites. More recently, Flattr dropped another one if its oddities, no longer requiring new users to add credit to their accounts in order to run the Flattr button on their own sites and start receiving payments. A move that paves the way for Flattr to migrate further towards the holy grail of peer-to-peer payments (think: mobile phone as wallet) in which handing over cash digitally becomes as easy, if not easier than it is physically. With regards to Twitter and now SoundCloud that may already be case. |
Usabilla raises $1 million from Dutch/US investors to expand site usability testing tool | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 6 | 23 | , which creates site usability tools, has raised $1 million in a round led by Dutch venture fund Boralis and five undisclosed investors in Europe and the U.S. Customers include Disney, Levi’s and Electronic Arts> The funding will be used to expand customers and to test new platforms like mobile, tablets and TV. Usabilla is a web-based usability testing tool that allows marketers, analysts, designers and usability experts to collect visual, quantitative user feedback on their website in, they claim “a fun, quick and easy way”: Groups of participants answer questions about attitude and user experience with points and notes on top of a webpage, mockup, or sketch. The collected webpage feedback and results of a survey are then analyzed and presented visually with charts and heat maps. Usabilla’s customers involve their users to create user inspired design, and use these visual insights to improve user experience and optimize their website – all without slowing down website development cycles.
from on . The Dutch-based Usabilla’s competitors include UserTesting, Kampyle, Feedback Army and Loop 11. |
The State Of iFund: 3 Years, 25 Companies, 2 Exits, Over 300 Million Downloads This Year | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 23 | Today at their offices in Menlo Park, venture capital firm is celebrating the third anniversary of the iFund. Technically, the fund alongside the first iPhone SDK, when the firm announced that it would be investing $100 million in iPhone applications made by third-party developers. That initial fund went so well that just two years later, they decided to double-down, as the iPad was just about to launch. So where does the fund stand now? Three years in, Kleiner Perkins has whittled down the 5,000 business plans they’ve received to 25 companies they’ve actually funded. Of those, seven are still in stealth mode, and two have had exits: and . The apps in the fund saw some 100 million downloads in 2010, and they anticipate seeing over 300 million downloads by the end of this year. More importantly, the apps will generate over $250 million in mobile revenue this year, Kleiner says. And they’ll have more than 150 million active monthly users. The firm is also announcing one new addition to the iFund today: . The company focuses on fitness technology, attempting to make working out fun. They have a group of apps available right now which have seen over six million downloads already. And interestingly enough, all of the apps are Android-only for now. Yes, the iFund features some companies decided more “aFund”-esque as well. Kleiner is the lead investor in their seed round. The iFund has been such a success for Kleiner that they also decided to last year to capitalize on the rise of social applications (though some would say too late). Kleiner will be holding an sFund Gamification event next week in San Francisco. |
Every city is a Shadow City as iPhone ARG launches in 13 European countries | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 6 | 23 | , a Finnish smartphone games developer, has now launched its alternative reality game across thirteen additional European countries, after its North American launch last month. The game can be downloaded for free in the local Apple iTunes App stores in Italy, France, Germany, UK, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark and Norway ( ). The startup recently in Series A funding from , and . The location-based MMORPG that turns the place you live into a full-fledged game scene. Launched first in Finland late last year 2010, the game uses iPhone to turns real city streets into a virtual battle zone for players, who battle to take over streets and neighborhoods by casting spells and undertaking various missions. The game is free to play with additional in-app purchasing possibilities. |
Shazam CEO Talks Android vs. iPhone And How They're Listening Their Way To Success | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 6 | 23 | Yesterday , the company that lets users identify recorded music simply by holding their phones up toward a speaker, announced that it had raised a whopping . The company’s goal: to apply the powerful technology it’s developed over the last decade to television shows and commercials. So how will they do that? I had a chance to sit down with Shazam CEO , who discussed in detail how this leap to television will work. And we also touched on quite a few other topics, including the fact that Shazam is now ten years old (it actually powered the song recognition features that were offered by mobile phone carriers before the rise of the iPhone and Android). You can watch the whole interview in the video above. I also took the opportunity to ask if Fisher has seen any trends emerge on each mobile platform — after all, Shazam has a universal appeal (just about everyone likes music and wants to figure out what they’re listening to). Fisher shared some interesting data points, including the fact that “iTunes is the dominant platform in terms of user propensity to purchase…”. In other words, iPhone users are far more likely to purchase songs than users on Android and other platforms. That’s not a huge surprise, but it further supports the claims that iOS users are more accustomed to buying content on their phones. For more, be sure to tune into the interview.
|
LulzSec Releases Arizona Law Enforcement Data, Claims Retaliation For Immigration Law | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 23 | Hacker collective of the moment has just released a torrent of data it claims to belong to Arizona law enforcement, in what it calls “Operation Chinga La Migra” (or “Fuck the border patrol”). They claim that the information, widely available via BitTorrent, includes hundreds of classified documents including personal emails, names and phone numbers. I’ve confirmed by phone that at least one of the addresses posted in the initial release belongs to someone who works in the Arizona police department. The hacker group says that the Arizona Department of Public Safety was targeted specifically because of the controversial , which is one of the measures in the US (the policies in , and are also contenders for this dubious distinction) and requires Arizona immigrants to carry registration documents at all times. From the LulzSec : We are releasing hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, personal email correspondence, names, phone numbers, addresses and passwords belonging to Arizona law enforcement. We are targeting AZDPS specifically because we are against SB1070 and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona. The documents classified as “law enforcement sensitive”, “not for public distribution”, and “for official use only” are primarily related to border patrol and counter-terrorism operations and describe the use of informants to infiltrate various gangs, cartels, motorcycle clubs, Nazi groups, and protest movements. Every week we plan on releasing more classified documents and embarassing [sic] personal details of military and law enforcement in an effort not just to reveal their racist and corrupt nature but to purposefully sabotage their efforts to terrorize communities fighting an unjust “war on drugs”. Hackers of the world are uniting and taking direct action against our common oppressors – the government, corporations, police, and militaries of the world. See you again real soon! ;D This adamantly anti-SB 1070 political agenda seems like somewhat of a pivot for the hacker group, which up until now has been adamant about being motivated primarily by “lulz.” It is also probably the grandest actualization yet of its Operation Anti-Security, which it as a war against all governments. In any case, taking a stance against racial profiling by “doxing” or dumping personal data like this is a decidedly more serious endeavor than hacking into online gaming communities or even briefly taking down the websites of the Senate and the CIA. |
Audyssey Lower East Side Speakers Attempt To Mimic The LES In All Its Shabby Glory | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 23 |
These speakers from Audyssey purport to be “inspired by the sights and sounds of New York’s Lower East Side neighborhood,” though I don’t see a lot of the LES in them myself. Not enough sandwiches, for one thing. But they’re more than a New York shout-out: they claim these speakers are powerful, well-balanced, and more than sufficient for your music and movies. No subwoofer required. Only one way to find out! , shipping later this year. |
null | Elin Blesener | 2,011 | 6 | 24 | null |
Nevada Preps For The Future With Driverless Car Legislation | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 6 | 23 |
History has shown time and time again that progress cannot be stopped. Nevada legislators clearly knew that as they authorizing driverless cars. Assembly Bill No. 511 gives the Nevada Department of Transportation the authority to develop rules and regulations of driverless cars. “shall adopt regulations authorizing the operation of autonomous vehicles on highways within the State of Nevada.” is the exact wording and is a big door to the future. It’s just not Google with autonomous cars. BMW has a clever race track-only trainer and a near production-ready system, dubbed temporary auto pilot, which scans the road ahead so the driver can sit back and enjoy the ride. This is done through lane detection, speed monitoring and works up to 120 kph. Minority Report, here we come. |
Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread, Updated Motoblur UI Headed To Motorola Atrix 4G Next Month | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 6 | 23 | For those of you who own the , you know that it does all kinds of cool things. For one, it turns into a little laptop when you clip it into its corresponding laptop dock. It’s also the first dual-core smartphone to launch in the U.S., so it was the trend-setter of snappiness, if you will. One thing the Atrix 4G doesn’t do, however, is run , at least not until next month. That’s right Atrix owners, you’re in for a real Gingerbread treat. will release the latest version of the Motoblur UI alongside the OTA update, which should fix some of the kinks in the interface. Sometimes heavy skins like the Motoblur UI ruin the fun of an OS update because you can’t really see the underlying changes. The good news is that Motorola has used some cool features from Gingerbread throughout the new version of Motoblur, such as the over-scroll glowing effect that comes on stock Android 2.3.3. The new Motoblur will also include enhanced camera software, a revamped keyboard, and a few adjustments to apps and icons. [via ] |
Oblong Has Built The Future Of Computing. I've Seen It. Used It. It's Beautiful. | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 23 | “This is the next Macintosh-level of disruption.” Over the past several years, I’ve followed pretty much every new thing in the technology space, and written about many of them. But it’s hard not to get cynical when so much of what’s out there is not only not revolutionary, it’s often not even evolutionary. Instead, much of what I see is simply and quite frankly, boring. But every once in a while something crops up that is truly game-changing. And it restores my faith in technology. That’s the best way to describe what I saw when I met with this week. The technologies that Oblong is working on are anything but derivative or boring — they are absolutely revolutionary. And they will shape the future of computing. I understand that such statements sound like absolute hyperbole — especially from a guy who has written about the a . But I would encourage you to skip to the bottom of this post and check out the videos. I’m going to attempt to explain what I saw and talked with Oblong CEO Kwindla Hultman Kramer and Chief Scientist about. But the only way to truly do the technology justice (beyond using it) is to see it in action. If you recognize Underkoffler’s name, it’s perhaps because you saw last year. He wowed the audience by showing off the g-speak SOE (spatial operating environment) technology that Oblong has built. And if that looked familiar, it’s because Underkoffler was also the guy who advised the filmmakers behind Steve Spielberg’s 2002 film . Yes, all of those kickass gesture computing scenes are his work. And over the past decade or so, he’s been working to bring that technology to the real world with Oblong. And they’re getting close. Really close. Following the TED talk last year, that I had seen a brief demonstration in 2008 in Spain that I wasn’t allowed to talk about. The demonstration was of Oblong’s technology. And it was awesome. But it was just a video demonstration. Two days ago, I got to actually see and use the first system Oblong has built. The product is called Mezzanine, and it’s what Kramer calls “Oblong’s first shrink-wrapped turn-key system”. “It’s the first slice through the technology stack we’ve been developing over the years,” he says. So what is it? Mezzanine is a spatial operating environment meant to be used in conference rooms and other large meeting areas. The peripherals vary, but the system I used consisted of three large screens front and center, two vertically-aligned screen on a wall to the right, a whiteboard to the wall on the left, and two cameras (one in front pointing at you, and one to the side pointing at the whiteboard). The main points of interaction are two “wands”, which I’ll explain more about in a bit. And the system works in concert with any device — meaning laptop, iPhone, iPad, etc — that is in the room and connected to the network as well. The idea for Mezzanine is to get people in a room together in order to synthesize information in the most collaborative way imaginable. “We want to get everyone’s pixels in a shared workspace, where they collide,” Kramer says. “The key is to give everyone control over what’s happening,” he continues. And that means interacting with the data on the three main screens from your laptop, iPhone, iPad, directly on the screen with the wands, or even remotely via a device with a web browser. Using these controls, anyone can rearrange data, push new data into the flow, highlight specific things, and queue stuff up to talk about later. Perhaps the best way to think about it is as a symphony of information that everyone in the room can conduct. Again, it’s a bit hard to describe, but when you see it, it just makes sense. And , to borrow from the Apple-esque way of thinking about products. I picked up one of the wands and within two minutes I knew exactly what I was doing. I could transfer data around the screens. I could zoom in to certain data. I could crop and manipulate other data. I could zoom out for a full view of all the information available. It’s unbelievable how natural it all feels. The next time I have to use PowerPoint for a presentation, I’m going to want to shoot myself. Speaking of the wand accessory, the best way to think about it is to think of a Nintendo Wiimote on steroids. It’s a bit like a Wiimote that is much more accurate and insanely more functional. It has three sides that, depending on which is facing upwards in your hand, does different things. You move it around in your hand, switching the sides, to do different things. One side allows you to grab data for example, while another allows you to take control of the data. For example, maybe you have Photoshop open on a computer attached to the Mezzanine system — you can use the wands to directly manipulate it right on the big screens in front of you. And the wand is a fully spatial device. You can point it upwards and use it as a push/pull lever of sorts. It’s really cool. But why use a wand and not your hands, a-la ? Because we’re not quite there yet, Underkoffler explains. Well, let me rephrase that. The is there, but it’s still too expensive to implement on a large scale. And it still requires gloves to ensure pinpoint accuracy. Yes, the Microsoft Kinect does some of this, but that’s fairly rudimentary compared to what Oblong is aiming for. “As a company, philosophically, we’re absolutely commited to high fidelity and high-end experience. The commoditized stuff isn’t there yet,” Kramer says. Still, both Kramer and Ubderkoffler agree that consumer technologies like the Wii and the Kinect are perfect in helping to transition people over to these future concepts of computing. Kramer also singles out the multi-touch first used in the iPhone and now on display in the iPad. “We really do think the mouse goes away over the next few years,” he says. . “Remember, the applications built for the mouse took a while to be perfected,” Kramer says. “The mouse wasn’t really pixel-perfect until the end of the 1980s. And even then, the consumer class were not there,” he continues, noting that just as the mouse evolved into the tool it is today, touch and gestures will be next. “You have to solve a bunch of new UI problems when you commit to this type of thing. Our goal in general is to change the way everyone in the world uses computers,” Kramer says. “This is the next Macintosh-level of disruption,” he continues (to bring my quote used up top back into context). But first, Oblong knows they need to be able to bring relatively affordable products to market. And again, that’s what Mezzanine is all about. “Our goal here is to change how people work together,” Kramer explains in a slightly (but only slightly) less ambitious statement. With Mezzanine, they set out to create something that’s both a “lean forward” and “lean back” experience — meaning you can watch and interact. “Corporate IT departments are leery about installing new things on laptops,” Kramer notes, explaining why they created a web control interface for computers connected to Mezzanine. For devices like the iPhone and iPad, they have native applications to interact with Mezzanine. And the flip-side of this is comfort levels, Kramer says. “You want to be able to walk in a room and use the system whatever you have with you device-wise,” he says. Or if you have nothing with you, that’s where the wands come into play as well. Talking to Kramer and Underkoffler, you really get a sense of just how much thought was put into this system. For example, Underkoffler brings up the “John Malkovitch problem” (referring to the film which has a scene in which everyone in the world is John Malkovitch). You don’t want to capture a part of the screen being presented and end up re-presenting a piece of the presentation. Again, all of these kinds of things had to be solved on the backend and UI levels. Underkoffler says they’ve solved almost everything, but there’s still work to do perfecting this future of computing. “We build the software infrastructure to take advantage of where this stuff is going to be,” Kramer says. “The single adjective we care most about is ‘capable’. With our software, we want to provide an enormous way of proving how capable things are,” he continues, comparing what they’ve built to a piano. “Anyone can sort of play a piano. We’re building the UI to emit a virtuosic performance,” he adds. The third big part of Mezzanine is the app server. Essentially, Oblong will allows developers to write their own Mezzanine apps, and they have an SDK for it. This is something they’re really excited about — to see what others come up with. Along those lines, the plan right now is to release the entire g-speak platform (which again, powers Mezzanine as well as the -stuff you’ve seen) for non-commercial use this fall. Mezzanine itself is already being used by a handful of big early partners (Boeing, for example), but the plan is to formally launch it this fall as well. Kramer declined to give pricing specifics, stating that they’re still fine-tuning them. But Mezzanine is something you’ll buy in full from Oblong, and if you need support, they’ll provide that. Again, the target market is broadly “meeting rooms” — but drilled down, they expect Mezzanine to be used in everything from board room meetings to engineering meetings to creative meetings to sales meetings. With just the partnerships they have in place, Oblong is already cash-flow positive (and have been since last year). They haven’t raised money since the in 2007. Okay, Mezzanine is spectacular, but when are we going to see this stuff in our homes? “We believe the same experience we enable in the work place should be available in your living rooms,” Kramer says. “All of us who read TechCrunch have a reasonably large amount of screens we use, so we need to get there,” he continues. At the same time, “we’re not nearly finished,” Underkoffler adds. “It’s fair to say it will be about three years until this is fully into consumer electronics devices,” he continues, noting that the biggest inhibitor is simply cost and bringing it down to a reasonable level for consumers. The video below will show you Mezzanine in action as I saw it. Note the little things, such as the manipulation of the car on the big screen with the wand and how that moves the car on the laptops in realtime. Again, it all just works. Also watch for a quick demo of a wand-less gesture-based system that Oblong hopes to release soon for retail signage and other breakout-room type situations. Below that, find the g-speak demo video that many people have already seen. [vimeo 2229299 w=630] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.