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Final Cut Pro X Or Really iMovie Pro? | Jon Orlin | 2,011 | 6 | 23 | Final Cut Pro X earlier this week with the tag line “Everything just changed in post.” I guess it depends on what you mean by the word ‘changed’. Apple said they showed the pre-release version to professional editors and their jaws dropped. One Academy Award-winning editor said he was “blown away” by the modern and fast software that let’s you focus on telling your story without worrying about the technical details. Now that it’s released, many critics and early Final Cut Pro X downloaders are telling a different story. Some are even suggesting they will jump ship from what many are calling iMovie Pro or much worse. Out of 742 customer ratings on the Apple Store right now, 45% are giving the software one star, the lowest rating possible. Comments include: There were also reviews were disappearing from the Mac App Store only for Final Cut Pro X. Was it an highly coincidental glitch or something more? The reviews are now back and make for interesting reading. In fairness, 27% of the customer reviews rate it 5 stars. The average now is 2 and a half, making it the lowest rated Apple software on the Apple store, along with the just released companion Compressor app. For some long-time Final Cut Pro fans, we may be at MobileMe levels of dissatisfaction. (See Steve Job’s comment, as , to the MobileMe’s team: “You’ve tarnished Apple’s reputation.”) Many complaints center around lost features. We used to be able to do this, and now we can’t. You can’t work with existing FCP Suite projects. This is one of those updates where you don’t want to overwrite the old app with the new one. Most editors will need to keep the older copy of the program on their hard drive and hope the two versions don’t cause a problem. Or else, you could spend the extra time and effort to install the new version on a disk partition. There’s no external video monitoring, no EDL imports (if you don’t know what that is, then it won’t be a problem for you), no backup application disk so good luck re-installing the software on the road without a good internet connection, and lots of unanswered questions about site licensing. There’s also no multicamera editing. Is this negative response just a very short-term response from editors who have gotten used to doing things the old way and don’t want to change? Clearly, there are some amazing new features in FCP X. The 64-bit architecture means much better performance. The new tools such as the magnetic timeline, clip connections, compound clips, and audition seem like intuitive, great features. The ability to work natively with DSLR formats will be very useful. Of course, this is version 10.0 of the software. It will only get better and new features will be added. Third-party plug-ins that don’t work now will likely work in future releases. As with most prior versions of Final Cut Pro, I’ve always waited until the .1 version to start using it on projects that really matter. But, editor : “I simply will not cut Apple some slack because it’s a 1.0 release. That’s complete BS. … The developers at Apple, who do NOT make a living as a video editor, decided that they would completely re-invent video editing based on their preconceived notion of what a video editor does. If it’s not right the first time, we’ll just develop more features, on our own timeline without telling anyone what we’re doing, until we get it right.” Biscardi continues, “for now, and it’s sad for me to say this, I’m done with the game. This was the product that completely built my company starting in 2000 / 2001 and now it’s time for me to say goodbye. As I tell everyone else, if the tool isn’t working for you, then find a tool that does.” On the other hand, “Great design, like great music, is almost always foreign at first, if not disturbingly strange. You have to spend time with it. But if it is great, and if you invest your attention, it will change the way you look at the world.” John Gruber, who on the backlash, predicts “a two-year transition where the previous Final Cut Pro suite remains available, whilst the new Final Cut Pro X suite regains lost features.” Robert Scoble “I don’t care what the pros say, I love Apple’s new Final Cut Pro… Great companies piss off users sometimes.” At TechCrunch TV, we use Final Cut to edit most of our content. We’ll be testing FCP X to see if it’s a good fit for our productions. My initial hunch is iMovie users will love it, but its going to be awhile before more professional editors start adopting it. |
D-Dalus Aircraft May Actually Be Revolutionary In Flight Technology | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 23 |
It’s not often that you see technologies that can legitimately be described as revolutionary, though seemingly every press release describes every gadget as such. But this D-Dalus flying vehicle, presented at the Paris Air Show, appears to be an actually revolutionary technology within aviation, as it uses a completely unique form of propulsion. So unique, in fact, that I’m having trouble picturing exactly what it . Here’s what has to say about it: The propulsion consists of 4 sets of contra-rotating disks, each set driven at the same rpm by a conventional aero-engine. The disks are surrounded by blades whose angle of attack can be altered by off-setting the axis of the rotating disks. As each blade can be given a different angle of attack, the resulting main thrust can be in any required direction in 360° around any axis. This allows the craft to launch vertically, remain in a fixed position in the air, travel in any direction, rotate in any direction, and thrust upwards thereby ‘gluing down’ on landing. So, engineering aside (because I can’t comprehend it, and much of it is patented and shrouded in mystery), the ability this thing has is to essentially push its thrust in any direction, and from four discrete places as well. So not only can it take off vertically or hold itself down by sending thrust upwards, but it can float effortlessly in even choppy air. Surveillance platform, anyone? Right now the prototype is about five feet long, runs on a 120bhp engine, and has a load limit of about 70kg. They’re looking at how to expand that, but I wonder if that is perhaps the limiting factor on this platform? Unlike an airplane, which can take a comparatively large load because of the aerodynamic principles involved, it seems like the D-Dalus must grow significantly in size and weight in order to push more air. Hopefully they’ll release a video soon and what makes this thing go will become more clear. [via ] |
TechCrunch Disrupt Winner Soluto Raises $10.2 Million In B Round | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 6 | 23 | has raised $10.2 million in Series B funding. Index Ventures led the round, with Saul Klein taking a board seat. Previous investors including Bessemer, Giza Venture Capital, and Proxima Ventures also participated. This brings the company’s total funding to Soluto helps from printing problems, annoying add-ons, apps that crash, resource hogs, and those frustrating applications that randomly cause your mouse to become useless for a few seconds at a time. As we’ve written in the past, the advantage to using Soluto (which is focused purely for the PC) is that the service records which applications were running at the time of the hiccup, and analyzes low-level events to track things users aren’t even aware of, like which applications are competing for memory. Once downloaded, Soluto analyzes your PC, suggests numerous fixes, including ‘like omitting certain applications from your bootup. It can show you your computer’s speed over time, mapping out when you installed a certain application — so you can see what led to the problem. The company an iteration of its software, which includes a browser product and application crashing product. Soluto, which is free, has had 2 million downloads since the company debuted its product to the public last year. What’s impressive is that growth is without any real marketing or advertising for the software. What makes the application so successful is that it is incredibly easy to use, even for those with limited technical knowledge. Next up, the company says it will be tackling other platforms (Mac OS, please?), including mobile and will be expanding product offerings. |
Hell Yes, Mayor Bloomberg. I'm With You. | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 6 | 15 | New York City Mayor Bloomberg : The Mayor proposed green cards for graduates with advanced degrees in essential fields; a new visa for entrepreneurs with investors ready to invest capital in their job-creating idea; more temporary and permanent visas for highly skilled workers…The Mayor also announced the results of a study conducted by the Partnership for a New American Economy – a bipartisan group of business leaders and mayors from across the country – that found more than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants and those companies employ more than 10 million people worldwide and have combined revenues of $4.2 trillion. and “We would not have become a global superpower without the contributions of immigrants who built the railroads and canals that opened up the west, who invented ground-breaking products that revolutionized global commerce, and who pioneered scientific, engineering, and medical advances that made America the most innovative country in the world.
“But make no mistake: we will not remain a global superpower if we continue to close our doors to people who want to come here to work hard, start businesses, and pursue the American dream. The American dream cannot survive if we keep telling the dreamers to go elsewhere. “It’s what I call national suicide – and that’s not hyperbole. Every day that we fail to fix our broken immigration laws is a day that we inflict a wound on our economy. Today, we may have turned away the next Albert Einstein or Sergey Brin. Tomorrow, we may turn away the next Levi Strauss or Jerry Yang. “And we certainly will be turning away many of the people who – like my grandparents, and no doubt many of yours – came to this country with almost nothing except one thing: a desire to work – and work and work and work – to build a better life for themselves and their families. In the last presidential election I on a variety of tech issues, including immigration. Most of the candidates punted because the issue is so politically charged. Everyone knows immigrants fuel Silicon Valley, but most politicians won’t fight for it. It’s exceptionally frustrating to see our government doing so many things that hurt growth in Silicon Valley. So frustrating that I that the best thing the government can do is just leave Silicon Valley alone. In that post I said The fact is that those immigrants create companies, create jobs, create wealth. The issue of illegal immigration over our Southern border must be separated from the issue of immigration of people who want to come here to build companies. I am so happy to see a politician take this stand. |
Yahoo Tries Its Hand At Mobile App Search | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 6 | 15 | If apps replace the mobile web, and along with it, traditional search, then the search engines need to figure out how to adapt. Yahoo is taking a tiny step towards embracing mobile apps with a few new products for searching apps. It is launching both iPhone and Android apps for app discovery, as well as desktop . The iPhone app is called , and I’ve been trying it out a little. AppSpot is about app discovery, much like , , or . It scans your apps so that it won;t show you apps you already have in results, and also takes into account what you own to show related apps. AppSpot gives you daily recommendations in various categories (music, games, news, social networking, travel, utilities) with the now-familiar slot-machine rolling UI. It also lets you search for apps by keyword, and returns results based on title, description, popularity, and other factors. The results aren’t horrible, but they aren’t spectacular either, from what I can tell. A search for “music” brings up Pandora Radio as the top pick (duh), followed by Shazam, Last.fm, Yahoo Music, and NPR Music. Well, at least it got the first one right. A search for “photo” apps beings up Shuuterfly for iPhone as the top result for me, followed by PhotoFunia, PhotoSync, and Photo Frames LITE. Wrong. To be fair, I have most of the usual suspect photo apps already on my iPhone (Instagram, PicPlz, Path, Color), but still there are so many like Hipstagram or With that I don’t have and didn’t even show up. Quite frankly, I’d be better off using . (Although, PhotoSync does sound worthwhile, until iCloud turns its wireless syncing into a feature of iPhoto). At least AppSpot is an improvement over the native app search in iTunes. It’s faster, and there are more ways to search. It doesn’t just give you the top 100 apps in each category when you are looking for recommendations. Given that the App Store now has more than 425,000 apps, that’s a good thing. I haven’tested out the Android app, but I suspect it works pretty much the same, except for Android apps. There are 200,000 of those. The Website delivers results along with a QR code that can be scanned by the apps so that you can basically transfer a search result over. Although if you have to open up your app to scan the 2-D barcode from your screen, you might as well just search on your phone. Yahoo is making a play here for the app discovery market, but the app discovery startups out there need not shake in their boots just yet. |
Apple's Back To School Promo: $100 Gift Card For Apps And Media | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 15 | I remember the days, young whippersnapper, when the back to school promotion was an actual iPod touch. Not some namby-pamby coupon for Twitters and Angry Birds Neo or whatever it is you kids are buying! But that was long ago. Apple has no need to seed its hardware via giveaways like that now; so just be happy with your good at any online Apple marketplace. |
YuMe Acquires UK Mobile Video Ad Company Appealing Media | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 6 | 15 | Video ad network has acquired fellow video advertising company and competitor, . YuMe, which declined to reveal financial terms of the deal, will open up its first office in Europe (in London) with the acquisition. Appealing Media offers one of the largest mobile video advertising platforms in Europe. Appealing Media helps advertisers and publishers implement video ad campaigns across native apps, touch web and mobile web properties. The company’s customers include ESPN, IPC Media, Bauer Media, and Universal McCann. YuMe’s technology places video ads dynamically in publisher videos across a variety of platforms. The company also develops monetization technologies for video publishers that allow them to build apps to support mobile video ads. YuMe has its own mobile ad offerings, but Appealing Media will help the company expand to European markets. YuMe new mobile products, releasing SDKs for iOS devices and two new mobile video ad units to help advertisers, web publishers, and app developers extend their reach to iOS devices. This is actually YuMe’s first acquisition since its launch in 2007. The company, which has raised and is profitable, has also hired a new CFO, Tim Laehy to help lead YuMe’s financial efforts. Laehy was previously EVP of Finance and Chief Financial Officer of Covad Communications, where helped take the company public. So is YuMe ready for an IPO? CEO Michael Mathieu says that an IPO could be in the horizon but they haven’t ruled out any options, including raising more money or an acquisition. In the end, Mathieu says that YuMe is focusing on providing advertisers and publishers with the platform to manage advertising campaigns across all screens – PC, mobile, connected TV. YuMe faces competition from Tremor Media. |
Sony S1 And S2 Tablets Get Release Date Clarified: "Fall" Is Now "September" | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 15 |
Amid the abundance of nearly indistinguishable Android tablets out there right now, we’re actually excited for Sony’s , which have interesting form factors and a Playstation pedigree. we heard they’d be getting a global release “this fall,” and that appears to be true, as that the tablets would be available for pre-orders in August and ship by late September, at least in Europe. A little late to the game, but that’s always been the Sony Style, hasn’t it? |
Attn Sports Fans, Journalists, And Parents Of Young Athletes: GameChanger Is On Line Two | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 15 | Now, you may have to bear with me, because this may initially sound obscure. And it is a little — but there are also some interesting macro implications herein you’ll want to see. For starters, baseball is one of the oldest, and most beloved games in the U.S. After all, it’s our national sport. (Though I still haven’t figured out exactly what that means, do we have to salute it?) And for almost as long as the game itself has been around, there have been scorekeepers — the people that remind us who won and who lost. You may have seen one of in the crowd at a game. In fact, it just so happens that youth baseball rules state that each team has to have a parent or other team authority keep score. For both teams. High school baseball doesn’t require each team to keep the score, as far as I know, that usually falls on the umpires or league officials. But, considering there are over 400K little league and high school baseball teams in the U.S., there’s a significant amount of scorekeeping goin’ on — to say the least. Yet, it’s a practice that, like the game itself, hasn’t changed much over the years: Traditionally, it’s all been paper and pencil. And, as a parent, player, or fan, it’s never been easy to keep track of local, amateur games. Professional games and teams? Yes. But not much else. Local media is getting better at keeping tabs on games and individual players, but there’s generally a lag, and the information is often spotty at best. , a startup founded in January 2009, is helping usher amateur sports into the digital age by offering a scorekeeping and stat-tracking app for mobile phones and tablets. Coaches or parents can keep score of baseball and softball games (GameChanger will soon be adding basketball and more) and track up to 150 different stats. The apps are intuitive to use, powerful, and with one swipe you move players around the field, showing hits, outs, steals, etc. The data lives on Gamechanger’s servers, so the apps don’t slow down your devices. This also enables GameChanger to serve live scoring and statistical information. Fans and interested parents who might not be able to get to the game can choose premium services, which will allow access to SMS, email, Facebook, and Twitter alerts, customizable for particular teams and players, so that you can keep tabs on your son or daughter as they play. Local media sites can also embed GameChanger widgets into their sites to give local readers realtime info on their high school’s team, for example. (For those getting impatient, fast-forward to the 10th paragraph.) And GameChanger is growing like gangbusters. The startup added 10K teams in 2010 and has gained another 14K active teams so far in 2011. What’s more, in the last 30 days alone, the service sent over 1 million live game alert emails. While GameChanger has been focused on building a robust service for baseball and softball, rather than quickly expanding to other sports, GameChanger Co-founder and CEO Ted Sullivan tells me that the team has spent a significant amount of energy on building a sport-agnostic stat engine, so that when they’re ready, adding new sports won’t require them to start from scratch. As to the technical explanation for what that means, Co-Founder and CTO Kiril Savino said that the startup has built Back in March, GameChanger inked a big partnership with CBS Interactive’s (CBS’ resource for all things high school sports), in which high school baseball and softball teams using GameChanger will be able to have their games and stats published immediately to MaxPreps. But, here’s what’s really interesting: A more recent partnership with under-the-radar, Battery Ventures-backed — a startup that transforms raw data into high-quality editorial content — is a deal that has real implications for an entire industry. (Journalists may soon be taking another body blow.) As Narrative Science takes raw, quantitative data and turns it into news articles, this means that, at the end of every baseball game scored on GameChanger, the coach can simply hit a button to instantly generate an AP-style article about the game that just wrapped. Check out an example . The article is by no means perfect, there are some grammatical inconsistencies and some repetition, but it’s by no means awful. GameChanger has posted over 105K of these auto-generated game recap stories since May 1st, written by Narrative Science, to its users. The partnership is still in beta, and there are some technical bugs the two startups still have to work out, but this is an early look at a real content mill. As Narrative Science’s technology continues to be refined, we could be looking at a scenario in the not-too-distant future where sportswriters (and beyond), especially those working at local media outlets, begin wrestling with obsolescence. It’s a valuable and intriguing service (the applications could be surprisingly broad) but there’s no doubt that the startup will certainly have to take a delicate approach to publicity. (I say with a touch of irony.) It’s also interesting to see the little ways in which GameChanger is bringing “modern” technology into niche markets and to a young audience. For example, Sullivan (who’s a former minor league player) said that high school booster clubs are using their club budgets to buy iPads for their school’s baseball and softball teams. And parents, too, are taking the bait. That being said, GameChanger does have some competition, especially from one company that already has a lion’s share of the sports market. ESPN has its own scorekeeping app with , so GameChanger hopes to parlay the media giant by offering a more robust suite of realtime statistics, by really attacking the amateur sports audience, especially between the ages of 10 to 18, and by forging partnerships with businesses with complementary audiences or services, like Narrative Science. GameChanger also recently partnered with Rawlings, one of the largest manufacturers of sports equipment, to create a customized and branded page for Rawlings to educate GameChanger users on a nationwide, sport-wide change to aluminum baseball stats. In the coming year, practically every high school baseball player in the country will be buying a new bat, and Rawlings wants a piece of the rapidly growing GameChanger audience. And that’s how the startup plans to make money: Through premium features and strategic partnerships with big brands. With 10 people on staff and over $2 million in funding raised from various angel investors, GameChanger is on its way, but it will need to continue its hockey-stick-type user acquisition if it hopes to fend off Goliaths like ESPN. So, for those parents of young athletes out there, check out GameChanger. It will make your life a lot easier. Journalists, get your torches and pitchforks. |
The Best-Dressed Nerds Are Wearing These Open-Source iCufflinks | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 15 | [vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/25108667 w=629&h=354] from on . The nerds at , our favorite open source hardware makers, have just released the , handsome, battery powered glowing cufflinks that pulse at the same speed as the Macbook’s “sleep” light. The circuitry inside is entirely open source (you can grab the source ) and the $128 links are made in North America. They used an oscilloscope to actually reverse engineer Apple’s pulse pattern, a calming sparkle that is actually timed to the respiration of the human body at rest. Sophisticated. Modern. Open Source. Gorgeously machined aluminum with a subtle pulsating LED.
Proudly made in North America (Canada and USA). With these, you are, most definitely, from the future.
For those special occasions when you need to be dressed to iMpress:
Weddings, Tech events, Sci-Fi/Comic-Cons, IPOs and VC funding opportunities. You can order your pair now but if you’re a lady, don’t fret: the pulsing iNecklace is on its way this year. |
Uber Out-Maths Google on NYC ETAs | Sarah Lacy | 2,011 | 6 | 15 | Most of the big social media and app companies are pretty light on hard-core technology. Happy to stand on the shoulders of the tech giants that came before, many focus instead on features, design and UI. This enrages the kind of hardcore math nerds that used to rule the Valley. Well, they have a new geeky mascot: . Uber only scales and survives with hardcore mathematicians on staff. Among its braniac hires are a rocket scientist, a computational neuroscientist and a nuclear physicist. (That’s an actual staff photo to the left.) I have no idea what those disciplines have to do with predicting cabs arrivals and sorting cab inventory. But apparently, . A new shows that using Google’s ETAs for Manhattan cabs was leading to horrendous wait times for riders, about 3.6x off the estimates. That’s pretty much the worst possible user experience for a first time Uber user, particularly in a city where cabs are plentiful and users may never give it another try. Uber dropped the Google API like a hot potato and developed its own algorithm. It wasn’t particularly comfortable about this, because it didn’t have much historical data to go on. But as some graphs in the post show, it immediately did better. How much better? Their quants crunched some numbers for me and found that Uber is on average 186.3 seconds more accurate than Google. On average, Uber’s ETAs were 42.50% more accurate than Google’s. And with every ride, Uber gathers more data and the estimates get better. Do a few minutes make that much of a difference when you’re waiting on a cab? Well remember, this is the average. In some cases the differences between Google’s ETAs and Uber’s ETAs was 15 minutes or more. And if you’re standing in the rain waiting on a cab, hell yeah 186 seconds matter. Given that Seattle is one of the cities next on Uber’s launch list, this is a valuable algorithm to get right. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and I talked backstage at Disrupt about how his company lives and dies on its “Math Department,” as they call the team in house. The video is below. (We talk math at the four minute mark.) <div><div><script src=”http://www.crunchbase.com/javascripts/widget.js” type=”text/javascript”></script><div><a href=”http://www.crunchbase.com/”>CrunchBase Information</a></div></div><div><div><a href=”http://www.crunchbase.com/company/uber-2″>Uber</a></div><div><script src=”http://www.crunchbase.com/cbw/company/uber-2.js” type=”text/javascript”></script></div><div>Information provided by <a href=”http://www.crunchbase.com/”>CrunchBase</a></div></div></div> |
This Lark Has Flown 30,000 Miles (So Far) To Find Its Owner | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 15 |
No, it’s not an actual bird. The is a sleeping aid device meant for couples that at Disrupt and made just last month, and reader Graham decided to pick one up after hearing about it. And while normally a package might go from a warehouse to a regional center, and then onward to its destination, this particular one has traveled more than 30,000 miles and crossed the Pacific no less than three times on its tortuous way to Del Mar, California. After leaving Shenzhen (naturally) it has stopped by Hong Kong, Taiwan, Alaska, Kentucky, California (briefly), Australia, Hong Kong again, and then back to California, and should arrive in the next few days. Many gadgets undergo this global gauntlet, but it’s interesting to see it tracked like this. Many OEM devices are shipped to US-based companies for final packing and distribution, but this one has the circumference of the earth under its belt and then some, all on a UPS Saver delivery service. Talk about a global economy — it’s very impressive, but I shudder to think at the amount of fuel involved in this. A necessary consequence of putting manufacturing and demand on two sides of an ocean, I guess. If you want a Lark, you should probably just drop by the Apple Store. More direct. Seems pretty SkyMall-ish to me, but I’m not really the target market. |
Mr. Atari Wants To Bring The Video Arcade Into The Classroom (TCTV) | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 6 | 15 | Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari and Chuck E Cheese, wants to bring the video arcade into the classroom. His latest startup is called Speed To Learn, and is known about it. But he was just on a panel I moderated at the in New York City, where he revealed a little more of his game plan. I caught him on video after the panel (watch above). Essentially, Speed To Learn, which doesn’t even have a website yet, is a new education startup which wants to bring video games into the classroom. Like, real, arcade-style video games. “Think Dance Dance Revolution meets step aerobics” meets education software. On the panel he talked about treadmills with screens attached where kids learn in a very active way. I joked that he was trying to make up for creating a generation of kids who sat in front of the TV playing video games. |
China Convicts, Imprisons iPad Counterfeiters | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 15 | While China isn’t exactly the massive black market it is occasionally portrayed as, being the does make it home to some . And while it’s nominally illegal, it’s rare that you actually see a publicized crackdown. Today we hear that three distributors of a counterfeit to between 12 and 24 months in jail and fined quite a bit of money. The counterfeiter himself was based in Shenzhen, where he purchased the iPad 2 plans from two Foxconn workers for around $30,000. All three were convicted of violating commercial secrecy. Well, that’s it, I guess! No more for China. , after all. |
Project Spartan: Facebook's Hush-Hush Plan To Take On Apple On Their Own Turf: iOS | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 15 | Given the that has about Facebook, you’re probably thinking there is no way that anything else leaks out today. They’re probably on lockdown (real lockdown, not the crazed coding “lockdown”), right? Wrong. We’ve learned about the existence of yet another secret project within Facebook. And while it’s not quite as as the new Photos app, the ramifications of it are larger. Say hello to Project Spartan. As we understand it, Project Spartan is the codename for a new platform Facebook is on verge of launching. It’s entirely HTML5-based and the aim is to reach some 100 million users in a key place: mobile. More specifically, the initial target is both surprising and awesome: mobile Safari. Yes, Facebook is about to launch a mobile platform aimed squarely at working on the iPhone (and iPad). But it won’t be distributed through the App Store as a native application, it will be entirely HTML5-based and work in Safari. Why? Because it’s the one area of the device that Facebook will be able to control (or mostly control). Facebook will never admit this, but those familiar with the project believe the intention is very clear: to use Apple’s own devices against them to break the stranglehold they have on mobile app distribution. With nearly 700 million users, Facebook is certainly in the position to challenge the almighty App Store distribution mechanism. But they need to be able to do so on Apple’s devices which make up a key chunk of the market. As of right now, there are believed to be 80 or so outside developers working with Facebook on Project Spartan. These teams are working on apps for the platform that range from games to news-reading apps. Some of the names should be familiar: Zynga and Huffington Post (owned by our parent AOL), for example. The goal is to have these apps ready to roll in the next few weeks for a formal unveiling shortly thereafter. Work has been going on for at least a couple of months, with Facebook putting in a lot of work before that. So some of the apps may not be fully polished at launch. It may be more of a “look what we can do” type thing. Reached for comment on the matter, Facebook said they had “nothing to share”. But we don’t need their confirmation. Why? Because I’ve seen Project Spartan with my own eyes. Imagine loading up the mobile web version of Facebook and finding a drop-down for a new type of app. Clicking on one of the apps loads it (from whatever server it’s on depending on the app-maker), and immediately a Facebook wrapper is brought in to surround the app. This wrapper will give the app some basic Facebook functionality, as well as the ability to use key Facebook elements — like Credits. One thing the App Store has nailed is an easy payment system. Facebook has been attempting to build the same thing with Credits, but so far hasn’t done much in the mobile space. With Project Spartan, they intend to have Credits built-in to allow developers to sell apps and offer in-app purchases. This will be vital for a partner like Zynga, for example. Speaking of Zynga, it has been known for some time that Facebook was placing a huge on making it easier for game developers to build with HTML5 as opposed to Flash (like Zynga and others currently do). The culmination of this will be Project Spartan. And while the target may ultimately be Apple, in this regard, they’re somewhat helping Apple by killing off yet another huge piece of Flash reliance on the web: gaming. But again, the real goal is to get people using Facebook as the distribution model for games and other apps, not the App Store (or any other distribution hub). Much has been made recently about Apple’s . It’s widely believe that Facebook was once the preferred partner, but was snubbed — or did the snubbing, . Regardless, the implications are clear: Twitter will be the big single sign-on partner for iOS, not Facebook, even though that’s a key area of focus for them. So they’re taking the fight to the browser. Android will also clearly be a part of this new platform. But we’re told that the initial target is definitely mobile Safari on iOS devices. Things are about to get a lot more interesting in the mobile space. More to come. |
"How The Royal Wedding Was Shot" – No Really, It's Interesting | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 15 | I’m no fan of the whole royal wedding nonsense, but I can’t deny that it was a huge media event and one that demanded photography that was both creative and technically impeccable. has about the techniques used by Getty photographers to capture some of the images from the wedding, not technical (not technical enough, if you ask me) and very readable, whether you care about Prince Charming and Pretty Pretty Princess, or whatever their names are. [via ] |
Pinger's Textfree Surges On Android: User Growth Now Matches iPhone | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 6 | 15 | Textfree, the app that lets users send and receive free text messages and phone calls using real phone numbers, has a new best friend: the big green Android robot. We’ve been Textfree’s staggering growth for some time now — CEO Greg Woock says that Textfree users now exchange 1.5 messages and 45 million voice minutes each month, making it one of the top 10 carriers in the US. And that usage has led to some big opportunities for advertising: he says they’re closing in on 2 billion monthly ad impressions. Textfree rose to prominence on the iPhone, but the Pinger team released a version for Android as well in February. And now, just a few months later, Android users are signing up for Textfree at the same rate as iPhone users (this ignores users, who make up a big chunk of the user base, but it’s still very rapid growth). Android users are currently sending 5.5 million messages a day (and they also send 2 million messages via Facebook chat, which is integrated into the app). Growth is doubling month over month across key metrics like the number of users and messages sent. And the Android version only supports free texting — it doesn’t have the free that launched on the iPhone in December, which makes the feat all the more impressive. Woock also discussed how Pinger’s mobile phone number strategy has worked out for them. When you sign up for Textfree you’re given a unique, real cell phone number, which means you can send and receive text messages with anyone (i.e. they don’t need to have the app). And now that the app has been out for a while, there’s a trend emerging: teenagers who used Textfree on their iPod Touch as what is essentially a VoIP phone are now starting to transition over to ‘real’ Android phones, and they’re taking their Textfree number with them. Finally, Woock says that the company will have more news on the way very soon, including new support for international users (he didn’t get into how that will work — but he says it’s “totally unique and dead simple”). |
Investors Flock To Boston To See TechStars’ 12 Cool New Startups (Here’s A Peek) | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 15 | Today, seed fund and accelerator, , put on its “Demo Day” in Boston to debut 12 new companies to the world. Investors came in from far and wide to vet these young startups and to potentially take out their checkbooks. TechStars estimates that more than 350 VC and angel investors were on hand for what General Partner at Spark Capital the best class of Boston startups yet. In just five years, TechStars has grown significantly in both size and reputation, and though every startup accelerator will tell you that it offers valuable assistance to the startups it takes under its wing, TechStars now has some interesting data to back that up. According to the accelerator’s , seven of the first twenty companies to go through its program have been acquired by larger companies, and about 70 percent of its companies have raised follow-on funding or have since become profitable. So, without further ado, here is a sneak peek at the 12 startups from TechStars’ latest batch debuting today at Demo Day. Check ’em out! is a social donor intelligence platform for development offices of academic institutions and non-profits as well as a provider of location-based apps for alumni of those institutions. Development offices currently have data about their alumni that is largely incorrect and alumni do not have tools to easily connect with each other. With 18 schools already on the platform — including Brown, Cornell, and St. Paul — and a partnership with LinkedIn, Evertrue is well on the way to solving this problem. uses your mobile phone to understand and predict your health. Based on cutting edge algorithms and models that the founders developed at MIT, Ginger.io can detect whether you are stressed out, have a cold or the flu, and are working on conditions such as Crohns and IBD. Collaborating with major institutions such as Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Pfizer, the company plans to help individuals get the medical attention they need more efficiently than ever before. is the biggest web-based community of CAD (computer aided design) engineers and the 5th biggest mechanical engineering team in the world. Through its web platform, GrabCAD connects its worldwide network of 8500 highly skilled engineers to manufacturing companies in need of CAD solutions. The company has already raised $1.1 million in venture funding from Atlas Venture, Matrix Patners, and NextView Ventures. allows small and medium sized businesses to provide customer service with the personalized touch of email and the organizational structure of a helpdesk. The founding team has already signed up over 200 companies for the service, including Wine Library, the online wine store run by the well-known customer service advocate Gary Vaynerchuck. makes it easy for mobile app developers and designers to build and manage cloud backends. Developers model their backend needs and Kinvey auto-generates their backend for them with libraries that they can just drop into their app. Kinvey’s cloud platform scales as needed and will be have volume-based elastic pricing. is a social learning platform that helps people learn factual data 10x more quickly and continuing learning 10x longer than the average. Built by and based on the methodologies of the memory grand champion who trained bestselling author Josh Foer, Memrise is tackling language vocabulary as its initial product but will expand to all factual data from medical terminology to legal facts. changes the online real-estate advertising game by making it incredibly simple for brokers to get the most bang for their advertising buck. Brokers currently have to go through the hassle of posting the same information onto hundreds of sites without knowing which deliver the most ROI. Placester automates the placement of ads, creates landing pages, and tracks clicks and phone calls with a proprietary optimization engine that converts CPC and CPM advertising into pay-per-performance advertising that delivers real value to brokers. bridges the gap between web-based promotions run by brands and promotions run by their independent retailers. With a suite of tools that leverage the power of social media, Promoboxx lets brands offer exciting promotions to their retailer’s customers. Across 407 promotions running already, data shows that Promoboxx is 5x more effective than previous approaches. This boost in effectiveness is bringing big brands like Wolverine, Linus, Uvex, and others on board. provides enterprise professionals answers to difficult questions. By merely sending an email with the question to the Senexx engine, the engine routes the email to the people within the enterprise who have the expertise to be able to answer the question. Individuals no longer have to email everyone they know before finding that one person with the right knowledge. Given how much time and energy this saves, it comes as no surprise that Novartis and Xerox have already signed up for beta deployments. creates virtual communities for anonymous peer-to-peer support among college students. One in four college freshmen do not return to school for sophomore year due to psychological pressures that they have trouble sharing openly with others. The Spill platform helps these students get the support they need in a welcoming and secure environment so that they can overcomes their struggles and stay in school. Currently active in 10 colleges, Spill has already helped to avert seven potential suicides. has developed a portable stroke detection device that greatly improves triage and treatment times in the ER. Because it currently takes several hours for ER doctors to detect whether a patient has a stroke, only 5% of all stroke victims can receive tPA, the treatment proven to reduce the effects of a stroke. Using a patented technology built at Tufts Medical School, the Strohl device quickly scans brain waves to detect strokes, effectively serving as an EKG for potential stroke victims. is a social gaming studio developing multi-player mobile games based on real-world locations. Their first game, TapCity puts players in their home cities and allows them to buy and develop their favorite locations such as Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium. But other players can attack these locations to steal them away, so maintaining an empire requires constant vigilance. With over 5000 players averaging 25 minutes per day in the game, TapCity is set to take over the world. |
Want A USB Port On Your Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1? That Will Be $20, Sir | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 6 | 15 | Android 3.x natively supports USB hosts, which, as in the case of the Acer Iconia Tab allows users to plug in cameras, input devices and flash drives without any hassle. But a full size USB port isn’t including on the brand new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (or the Xoom, for that matter) Samsung instead went the Apple Dock Connector route and installed a proprietary 30-pin port. No worries, though. Samsung has to solve this little issue — . |
PopBooth: A *Real* Photo Booth For iPhone/iPad From The Postagram Guys | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 15 | When it comes to photo apps, some of the first to hit involved recreating old school photo booths. It was (and remains) an awesome, if not obvious, idea. The proliferation of front-facing cameras on smartphones only accelerated this trend. But those apps tend to come up short in one very important way: you don’t get the actual print-outs of the pictures you take! With , that’s exactly what you’ll get. PopBooth is the second app the team will be releasing soon (in a couple of weeks). You may recall Sincerely as the team behind , the that turns your best Instagram images into postcards on the go. PopBooth takes what they’ve already learned about printing out pictures and transfers it to this new concept. Here’s how it will work. You download the PopBooth app on your iPhone or iPad (2, obliviously, since it has a camera), it takes four pictures of you and your friends, you apply optional filters, and you can then send these images to Facebook, Twitter, email, etc. But the key is that you also have the option to send printed out strips to yourself, your family, or your friends. Yes, actual tangible photos strips — just like you’d get from a booth. Sure, it’s not quite the instantaneous experience an actual photo booth. But Sincerely figures the digital images (which are free) will hold you over until the real deal arrives three to five days later (in the U.S.). Co-founder declined to sharing the pricing details for the prints, but notes they’ll be a little higher than the $0.99 you pay for Postagram since the prints are much larger. Importantly, because PopBooth uses the same account system as Postagram, your addresses, billing info, etc, will travel with you to the new app. Again, look for the app in a couple of weeks. You can sign up on their website. |
EA Begins To Pull Steam Availability, Push Origin Exclusives | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 15 |
If you were hoping to pick up a copy of on Steam, you’re out of luck. The game is on Valve’s download service, though it was not (strictly speaking) pulled by EA. While EA has that the title is simply incompatible with “a set of business terms” “imposed” by Steam, the language and context suggest that it was action by inaction — they don’t want on Steam, and they’re all too happy to let it lapse. “Crytek has an agreement with another download service which violates the new rules from Steam and resulted in its expulsion of from Steam.” Since Steam is a very popular platform, it’s doubtful that EA or Crytek would let its terms be superseded by anything but an internal agreement. “Another download service” likely means EA’s new internal service Origin (on which is indeed available), and the agreement is probably exclusivity on DLC or special offers that won’t be reflected on other download sites. That likely violates several Steam rules, so out it goes. EA is understandably jealous of Steam’s success (as are the likes of Games for Windows Live and other platform-specific services), and I don’t blame them for trying to break free, though it’s unlikely that the winners table will include gamers. In this case it’s less places to buy the game, and more bother for the end user, who will now have to have Origin, Steam, and probably a few other services installed simultaneously. is on multiple sites, but will be Origin-only. Exclusivity isn’t an EA invention, of course; the Half-Life series among others is only available on Steam, so it may just be that these flagship titles will have complicated agreements for a while, until these chumps can get their act together. |
Myspace Stops Believin', Shutters Myspace Karaoke | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 6 | 15 | Sad news for some karaoke fans out there: MySpace Karaoke — a feature that in 2008 — is no more. A message now appears on the feature’s former that states, “Karaoke has been discontinued…If you have any questions, please contact us by clicking the “Contact Myspace” link on Myspace help at http://www.myspace.com/help”. A MySpace spokesperson further confirms the news and says that any remaining balances of the pre-paid service beyond June 15th will be refunded to users. The Karaoke feature revolved around a widget that would allow users to record (using their PC’s video camera and microphone) and then share their karaoke performances. There were also some audio editing features to tweak pitch and distortion settings — users were limited to ten recorded songs, but could upgrade to a premium subscription if they wanted more (the subscription added additional effects and features). It was mostly for fun and sharing with friends, but MySpace also marketed it as a way to potentially get noticed by professionals in the industry (it would occasionally MySpace Karaoke videos). The product was based on the technology of kSolo, a startup that MySpace parent company Fox Interactive Media back in 2006.
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ThingLink takes the fight back to Stipple with rich media image tagging | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 6 | 15 | , which in allowing people to tag images with Twitter names, has some new competition on the block. which also lets you tag any image, is now launching Rich Media Tags, allowing anyone to interact with an image tag which might be embedded music, video, words, pictures and tags for people. Publishers simply connect their site, blog or Flickr account with the ThingLink platform and get an embeddable code to make all or individual images taggable. These tags have now been created for Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Spotify, Vimeo, Wikipedia, SoundCloud and Twitter. The application is obvious: you can add promotional flyers to a branded product, or anything, thus enabling some kind of engagement of transaction to take place without someone needed to leave a page or site. Ulla Engestrom, founder and CEO of ThingLink is of the opinion that Rich Media Tags increase the amount of time people spend interacting with an image, and thus on site and can lead to transactions. This makes sense. Canadian pop punk band, Simple Plan, is using it to reveal details of their new album via the album for instance. And Berlin’s Morning Post used it to explain the in May. It’s also being , a Finnish social shopping startup to create ecommerce tags inside images. Last month ThingLink partnered with SoundCloud to images used by musicians on the site. ThingLink claims to be currently serving thirty million image views monthly. |
If Something On Twitter Seems Too Bad To Be True, It Probably Is | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 12 | Anyone else seeing an influx of blog headlines that go “Updated: [Thing That We Just Wrote About] Is A Hoax”? While Internet hoaxes have been around since the (remember ?), we’ve had quite a few doozies this week, from the woman who got a of 152 of her Facebook friends on her arm, to the eHarmony user over her love of cats, to the kidnapped lesbian Syrian blogger to be a not kidnapped married guy in Scotland. Heh. People have always been gullible, and gullible people having access to methods of dissemination like Facebook and Twitter only turns their folly up to eleven. But aren’t we as reporters paid to be filters of news, in essence paid to know better? Then why the rampant media coverage of every single one of these hoaxes? The only answer I can come up with is that the demands of (or the recently dubbed of journalism) and the quest for advertising traffic are only increasing for bloggers as more and more readers spend more and more time and money online. This begs the question: How many of us uncritically posting on incredulous rumors and unverified viral stories are cynically calculating how even more traffic will inevitably come from our correction posts (“Update: This Was A Hoax, Again”)? Perhaps the more innocent among us are fooled by the fact that the Internet has also increased the amount of ridiculous but true news. Media frenzies like and Sarah Palin’s of Paul Revere’s ride remind us that there is plenty of bona fide news that people wish was fake, making the tech media landscape pretty much a crapshoot for bloggers focused on speed. Even we that Facebook Friends tattoo story as if it were serious news. And how I wished that that story were real, letting me transform it into some bloated pseudo-intellectual weekend think piece about the ephemerality of online friendships and the quest for permanence in a digital age. Instead you guys get . It was only after I discovered that the YouTube user account only had uploaded one video prior to and any kind of identifying details about the poster were nowhere to be found did I drop it as a viable source for reblogging, moving on (quickly as always) to the next source of news. But man, like everybody else, I wanted to believe that some idiot got this breathtakingly dumb tattoo. I mean it could happen, right? In 2011 a retweet can function as the online equivalent of gawking at a car crash, even when the story seems too good (or more likely, bad) to be true. Perhaps this is why the hashtag was a trending topic this morning, after a sign mandating African American McDonald’s patrons pay a $1.50 surcharge went viral. Even McDonald’s Twitter account quickly declared this a “hoax”, but the #SeriouslyMcDonalds hashtag continues to appear in around 20 tweets a second. Perhaps the most interesting hoax story to come out of an slow summer week otherwise filled with Apple news, was the tale of a David Voelkert, who was after his ex-wife lured him into revealing his plans to murder her, by posing as a teen admirer on Facebook. While the initial wave of stories were along the lines of the updates to the story provided a very interested interesting twist, as it turns out that Voelkert suspected that his wife was behind the fake profile and a notary in order to prove himself innocent before sending the otherwise incriminating messages. Voelkert did what we bloggers should be doing more of, taking what happens online with a grain of salt. Granted, he probably had way more time. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApOWWb7Mqdo&w=630] [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTTwcCVajAc&w=630] |
Social Network For Kids Everloop Lands $3.1 Million In New Funding | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 6 | 12 | , a social network for children under 13 years of age, has raised $3.1 million in funding from vFormation, Band of Angels, Envoi Ventures, Richard Chino, Wayne Goodrich, Deena Burnett-Bailey and additional investors. Everloop wants to be the Facebook for kids under the age of 13. The site offers a private social network where parents can actually monitor the day to day activities of their children on the network. Everloop combines music, social games, videos, photos, animation, user-generated content and other experiences. The startup prides itself on a high-level of security within the network, so parents can constantly monitor their child’s interactions on the site for foul language, bullying, inappropriate pictures and more. The company is also adding Disney exec Sandy Barger as Chief Marketing
Officer, AOL’s Tobin Trevarthen as EVP of Business Development and Alan Goodman as Creative Advisor. Everloop faces competition from , which was by Disney. |
The Little Red Dot. | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 12 | I see it right there, staring me in the face. It’s like a laser beam burning a hole in my retinas. I can’t help but click. That damn iOS notification red dot gets me every time. And things are about to get much worse. I’ve been addicted to Push Notifications since their inception with iOS 3 — and that’s in spite of the fact that they’ve more or less sucked for all but a handful of apps. But other apps like have . And now Apple is on the verge of fixing them system-wide with iOS 5. While we got a of how the new system will work during the WWDC keynote last week, there are no shortage of reports out there that outline the updated feature in great detail. (Apparently Apple’s developer NDA stands for “Not Doing Anything” — as in, it’s not stopping anyone from leaking and posting on new features.) And it looks very, very good. Yes, Apple copied/borrowed some of the best features of notifications on Android and webOS (they did who made them for webOS, after all). The truth is that they had to. Those guys were doing it right. Apple was doing it wrong. Now that it looks like they’ve nailed it, I’m scared to think of what it might result in. Currently, I turn off almost all pop-up Push Notifications except for a few (such as the Twitter app notification that pings you if a person you follow @replies you). Instead, I rely on app icon badging (the little red dot), and the aforementioned Boxcar. It’s a bit of a hacked-together system, but I’ve learned to make it work for me. But as I alluded to, I have a very serious problem with the red dots. When I see one, I have to click on it. I know in my head that the update is likely not important, but I just have to know for sure. Much of my day feels like a game of Whack-A-Mole as a result. Red dot appears, hit the app, clear it. Another one? Hit the app, clear it. Etc. But it’s manageable because those red dots only appear when I actually unlock my phone. With Apple’s revamped Push Notification system, I see myself going back to the full-on pop-up notifications (which are less pop-ups and more drop-downs). And that means seeing them even when my phone is locked. I foresee it being a mixture of heaven and hell for me. It will be great because I’ll actually be getting pushed relevant information that I can see in realtime. It will be a nightmare because I will never have any quiet time ever again. You might think I’m an extreme example, and you’re right. Right now. But going forward, realtime notifications are going to become a way of life for everyone across all kinds of devices. The mobile ones are obvious, and notifications will have the biggest impact there. A good notification system will become perhaps the key feature for any device you carry around in your pocket. And while you might think that’s an overstatement since notifications only come one way, consider that is built on top of their Push Notification platform. Two-way. Outside of mobile, apps like Growl have given us system-wide notifications for a long time. Boxcar is now in this game for moving web/app notifications . And Apple hinted during WWDC that Push Notifications would find their way to the Mac as well. And now notifications are transitioning into the browser too. Google has been with many different types of notification . They range from deadly and awesome, to necessary (in the new Chrome OS). Boxcar has been as well. Facebook too has been notifications. This is both on facebook.com and . Because they pump up engagement, solid notifications are a must for any serious app. You can probably expect Facebook to invest a lot more in this going forward. Then there are Quora notifications letting you know that you have a question you should respond to. And location-based notifications from Foursquare, Gowalla, and the like (Apple’s new iOS 5 Reminders app also has a location-based notification element) are becoming more prevalent. Twitter. Yammer. Calendars. iMessages. This is going to get ugly. But again, at the same time, it could be beautiful as well. As long as the notification management systems work, push alerts may actually streamline the way some people consume information in realtime. I’m both excited and scared. Okay, more scared. |
Game, Set, iMatch | Steve Gillmor | 2,011 | 6 | 12 | Usually Apple launches are all about new product, and the WWDC keynote by Steve Jobs and crew was no exception. IOS 5, OS/X Lion, and iCloud were the tech version of a triple play, mainlining the iPad into the Mac and virtualizing the two product lines via the Cloud. What this means for Apple’s competitors is being debated right now, particularly in Redmond and the GooglePlex. But The Company Formerly Known as Don’t Be Evil has its work cut out for it, with little room for error. Some thoughts on the realignment fostered by Apple iCloud: 1. iCloud Match is the strategy Google failed to adopt with Buzz. Instead of shoving it down our Gmail throats, Apple encourages us to move online with iTunes knowing that liner notes will quickly expand the music business into the publishing business. Although the 256k quality does not replace CDs, it does meet the same threshold some of us use to rip music off disk. Match implies an upgrade to better quality if Amazon or a Hulu-like Gang of Four emerges with a competitive offer. And what happens when Apple Matches the Android Marketplace for a yearly subscription? 2. Documents in the iCloud directly attacks Google Docs with everything but collaborative editing in a richer UI that feels more directly competitive with Office. Notice the heavy pounding on APIs at the event; developers will think twice about feeding productivity development to Google when the richest market (iPad and the AppStore) is ceded to iOS at the very moment OS/X is merging into the iPad OS. It’s a kind of reverse Microsoft strategy where you write to Windows and it cascades down through to Xbox and mobile. Build iOffice on the iPad and port it to what’s left of the desktop. 3. Notifications, iMessages, FaceTime, and AppleTV represent a formidable infrastructure play that could push out Skype and bleed the carriers dry of high margin SMS and voice services. Apple TV may seem like an outlier, but what happens when the only big hits like The Voice become online advertising and location-based auction vehicles for Twitter and notification-friendly interApps? Android will have to come off its phony open stance and interoperate, or be shut out of the new studio model that will emerge over a remarkably short period of time. 4. You may have noticed Twitter is now turbo-charging @mentions by sending an email notification when someone you follow @mentions. This tends to filter out those who are trying to game the social cloud, while establishing a corollary to the notifications router being released in iOS 5. The analytics around such messaging will produce more elaborate filters, and third parties will mine the data and resell it to marketers. Another reason why Google has to wrap its arms around the model rather than waste time pushing Flash out as a differentiator. 5. Notice how Facebook is missing from these and many other words we’re hearing these days. The iOS/iCloud/Twitter integration suggests why Apple and Facebook ran aground on Ping, but iMatch will really head Facebook off once it migrates from music to TV. It’s already working with apps, which means publishers like the New York Times who integrate video and AirPlay will have an interesting subscription-based hybrid magazine/record/broadcast model unencumbered by the cable and satellite crowd. Paging Netflix. 6. After all, who is to say that all iMatch is about is checksums on music files. If Apple can sell a subscription for 30 bucks a year to consolidate your music, it could also aggregate a best of cable news, sports, and events and outbid or partner with a Netflix to leapfrog Comcast. Use the Twitter @mention signals to define and sell direct to those high value customers, and turn around and buy the programming from the studios. And most importantly, create the programming themselves, as in launching the new record business to finance the new television and film business. 7. Isn’t that enough? Where is Microsoft in all this? Investors and customers are asking the same questions. The House That Bill Built may be in worst shape than even the Ballmer pushers suggest. If iOffice gets traction with the social crowd, it will put pressure on @SteveSinofsky just as he assumes control of a two screens and a hail Mary strategy. Developers hold the cards, and the AppStore beckons. Android blocks Windows Phone from accelerating, and iCloud keeps the media pinned down. Right now it looks like Game, Set, iMatch. Photo: @Trae Chancellor |
Why Japan’s GREE Overpaid For Mobile Social Gaming Startup OpenFeint | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 6 | 12 | Over the past year, there’s been an apparent trend taking place of Japanese gaming companies acquiring U.S. social game developers. DeNa bought social gaming company last October, adding to an acquisition of in September. A little over a month ago, Japanese mobile gaming company GREE on OpenFeint, a plug and play mobile social platform that allows developers to create social games on the iOS and Android platforms. As we’ve written in the past, OpenFeint’s platform includes online game services such as leaderboards, virtual currencies and achievements running in a cloud-based Web environment. The platform first launched on the iPhone and iPad and more recently adding Android game developers to its community. In fact, the company has been growing like gangbusters on the Android platform, adding 215 Android games in the past six months. But when you take a look at OpenFeint’s financials, the picture is not quite as rosy. In 2010, the startup in revenue and posted a loss of $6.6 million. So, GREE (which makes in revenue each year), essentially paid nearly 400 times (368 times to be exact) OpenFeint’s yearly revenue for the platform. It’s rare for a company to pay such a high premium for a startup. Of course, it’s important to note that the strength of the strength of the yen compared to the dollar makes it less expensive for the Japanese company. But still, even with the conversion rate factor, why did GREE overpay by so much for OpenFeint? We recently spoke with GREE CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka about the reasoning behind the acquisition, and he revealed exactly why the purchase made sense. When the announcement of the acquisition was made, GREE established an American entity, GREE International, which was the acquirer of OpenFeint in this transaction. At the time of the acquisition, it was unclear what this entity was for. But Tanaka tells us that GREE will be launching a number of mobile social games using OpenFeint’s technology, the first of which will be unveiled at some point this summer. He and OpenFeint CEO Jason Citron declined to give specifics about the games but said these games will be targeted towards English-speaking users in the U.S. In February, Tanaka existing and potential third-party developers in Japan on the future strategy and goals of the company. Two of those goals included reaching 100 miliion users and moving beyond the Japanese gaming market. Combined, the GREE and OpenFeint gaming ecosystem will reach 100 million users worldwide and Gree gets access to a piece of the American and European mobile social gaming market. And Tanaka confirms to us that the company was primarily interested in OpenFeint because of its strong foundation in the U.S. market. Gree is planning to load up on engineering talent for OpenFeint, and plans to hire as many as 30 engineers and designers. Tanaka has also said that ‘smartphones will be the most important platform for GREE’s social games in the future,’ and OpenFeint provides a built-in platform for GREE to create and build social games for iOS and Android. It’s also worth noting that GREE just partnered with DCM, Tencent and KDDI to to support early-stage Android entrepreneurs. And GREE is partnering with and Tencent. One of Gree’s biggest competitors in Japan, DeNa, already had a foothold in the U.S. Gree had to act quick after DeNa U.S. mobile gaming company Ngmoco for a whopping $400 million last October. DeNa and Ngmoco were quick to reveal that it had big plans in store to capture the U.S. gaming market, stating publicly at the time of the acquisition that the two companies would be expanding mobile social gaming platform Mobage to the U.S. with a number of new games. Fast forward six months or so, and DeNa’s Mobage launch outside of Japan to U.S. and European markets Considering that Mobage has tens of millions of users in Japan (and brings in billions), the expectation for Mobage’s reach and success outside of Japan are high. Clearly, DeNa/Ngmoco is a formidable competitor for GREE in its expansion plans for mobile social gaming and the company had to act quick so that it could churn out its own social gaming network for smartphones. On the financial front, GREE is keeping a close eye on OpenFeint. Tanaka tells us that the CFO of GREE will now be the CFO of OpenFeint. Reading between the lines, it seems that GREE is stepping in to see how they can turn the company around financially and help it begin to make some meaningful revenue and profits. In fact, Tanaka says that ten GREE execs and staffers will be joining the ranks of OpenFeint to “help execute and facilitate expertise.” We still don’t know how well Japanese players like GREE or DeNa will do in the U.S. and European gaming markets. And clearly the companies are wagering big bucks on the space. Hopefully these hefty investments pay off. |
(Founder Stories) How Mike McCue Came Up With Flipboard: "What If We Accidentally Deleted The Web" | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 6 | 12 | How did come up with the idea for , the iPad reader that’s seeing more than ? In these final two video clips from his interview with , McCue says that he had no intention of starting another company after selling TellMe to Microsoft (which he talks about in and of this interview). He was tired after ten years at TellMe. He just wanted to take some time off. But that was easier said than done. “The way I relax, if I am on a beach, the first thing I do is get a notebook and start sketching out ideas,” he tells Dixon. “I am kind of addicted to it.” McCue did a thought experiment. “What if we accidentally deleted the web and then you had to redo it from scratch?” McCue thought magazines were beautiful, but look at the same article on the web and it is “a shadow of itself.” And the ads are just as bad. Nobody clicks on them because they are ugly. His very first startup had been Paper Software, during the first wave of pen computing startups in the early 1990s, so when the iPad came along, he knew what he had to do. rethink the reading experience on the Web to look more like a digital magazine. Strip out all the extraneous junk, and you can even make the ads look good. McCue thinks the opportunity for advertising on the Web is “10X” what it is today, and a lot of that is going to be on tablets and HTML5 websites (which is why he recently raised for Flipboard). The the video below, McCue and Dixon continue their conversation. They dig into some of the strategies that traditional print publishers are taking on tablets, iPad subscriptions, and the promises (and dangers) of content atomization. “Once things are atomized,” warns Dixon, news publishers lose the cross-subsidization that supports things like “foreign policy journalism.” McCue thinks the key is to try to recreate the economics of print on tablets and the Web. One of the advantages to Flipboard is the speed with which it delivers new information from a variety of sources in a much more pleasing format. “It’s almost like an accelerated version of the web,” says McCue. “We strip out the stuff people don’t like about the web”—the blinking ads, the navigation toolbars—and replaces it with better typography and bigger photographs. There are many steps to go, but McCue is betting his company on that future. : |
Yawn: How Did Big Tech Companies Turn into Big Boring Banks? | Sarah Lacy | 2,011 | 6 | 13 | If you are reading TechCrunch you probably already realize this fact: Flavor-of-the-month consumer Internet companies have a way of hogging the spotlight. If you didn’t, we conveniently published of it yesterday. But that reality predates us by at least a decade. In 1999 when the world talked about Silicon Valley, they usually meant sexy dot coms. The fascinating new reality of being able to do anything from buying groceries to downloading music instantly online was phenomenal (if ephemeral), and everyday consumers tended to miss the far larger, equally disruptive and frequently more sustainable businesses being built in enterprise software and telecom. But Wall Street didn’t: Larry Ellison of Oracle eclipsed Bill Gates for a short time as the richest man in the world, Sun Microsystems and Cisco Systems were two of techs biggest out-performers of the era and the billions invested in telecommunications made the dot com cash look like chump change. Venture capitalists didn’t miss it either: Substantially more money was put into telecom companies in the run up to the dot com bust, lulled by a sense of false assurance that at least these overvalued companies had “real assets” that could be liquidated if need be. In 2005 when people were writing headlines about “the return of Silicon Valley,” a lot of people working in technology were justifiably irritated. After all, tech behemoths like eBay, Yahoo, Oracle, Intel, Hewlett-Packard never exactly . Silicon Valley and the tech industry in aggregate was several orders of magnitude bigger than it was pre-Internet bust, even with all the lost jobs and delisted companies. Veterans griped about sites like TechCrunch and ValleyWag making sweeping statements about the Valley, but really only reporting on a comparatively small-money resurgence in the then tiny consumer Internet space. That focus on the sexy, social, consumer Web over everything else has only gotten more pronounced as those many of those one-time flavors of the month like Facebook, Zynga, Twitter and Groupon have become bonafide giants. The difference is that now the divergence in attention actually makes sense. But it’s not necessarily between consumer and enterprise; it’s between old and new tech. It just looks like it’s all about consumer, because we just haven’t seen that many big new enterprise companies yet. (Plenty are building steam, and just keeping it quiet. Others just take time to get traction because traction is represented by paying customers, not just eyeballs.) I’ve been thinking about this a lot the last few months. Once was during a conversation with Jon Swartz, the veteran tech reporter at USA Today. We were swapping war stories about having to report on big personalities like Scott McNealy and Larry Ellison and Tom Siebel back in the day. And he asked, “What ever happened to those huge personalities?” Sure Ellison is still around, but he rarely does press and, sadly, his antics are even rarer. And the prickly-but-genius Steve Jobs has morphed into a comparatively boring do-no-wrong deity in popular Valley consciousness. There are few others left to even inspire. The biggest tech companies in the world used to be lead by outrageous visionaries. Now they’re mostly lead by boring businessmen so media trained they couldn’t say anything interesting if their life (or stock prices) depended on it. It hit me again a few months later when I was talking to Peter Thiel about the state of publicly traded tech companies. We talked about embattled companies like Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Yahoo and Cisco that can’t seem to do anything right except hang onto core cash cow businesses. These companies have all either had recent CEO changes or investors are calling for them. In the case of Yahoo, both are happening. I asked Thiel if anyone could really change these companies’ fortunes or if they were just destined to be value stocks, their best days behind them. He said, “The problem is these big tech companies are just like banks now; all they do is print money. And that’s boring. What would you do as CEO? You could just massively fire people who pretend to be innovating and maximize that cash. Think about it– 90% of Google’s projects don’t make any sense. But [these companies] have [all] identified themselves as technology companies. It’s a big part of their self image.” He continued, “(Running these companies) is just not fun. People are too unfair on Carol Bartz. Yahoo is arguably in a tougher position than old media” And it hit home again a few weeks ago during the All Things D conference during Marc Andreessen’s talk where he outlined many reasons why there isn’t a bubble in tech. More substantial than his rationale of the fact that everyone is freaking out about a bubble means we’re not en masse buying into one was his point about price-to-earnings ratios of the large tech companies. At the time, he noted that Google’s was 13.7, Apple’s was 12, Microsoft’s was 7 and Cisco’s was 7. Some of those are up since his talk, but they still hover between 9 and 15. “That’s what steel mills trade at when they are going out of business,” he said. “Essentially Android is being valued at zero. The public market hates tech.” I agree that the P/Es of Apple and Google are somewhat puzzling. Let’s set them aside. For the rest of big tech, the market reaction isn’t necessarily without reason. Big tech–the publicly-traded companies that still control so much of our digital lives and the returns of venture capitalists via endless acquisitions–haven’t been giving the markets much to get excited about for years and it’s getting worse, not better. Worse: They’re not giving employees and customers anything to get excited about either. This was also pronounced during the entire All Things D conference. I don’t in any way mean what I’m about to say as a knock on a competitor. All Things D is a phenomenal event and the only conference I cover these days other than our own. And while I think no one beats TechCrunch at giving startups a place to debut and assembling the biggest names in the venture-backed ecosystem, All Things D’s annual event rules when it comes to bringing together the big names in big tech. This is a conference, after all, that gets Jobs to appear on stage with Bill Gates. And, yet, most of the big tech names trotted out this year — while worthy of the slot by resume– were just utterly boring to listen to. Nearly everyone I talked to in the hallways remarked on the vast difference in energy and content between the new guys on stage represented by Twitter’s Dick Costolo, Groupon’s Andrew Mason, Square’s Jack Dorsey and Andreessen and, well, nearly everyone else who spoke. Each of the old-tech guard sat on stage, made semi-amusing jokes, and justifications for why they are still relevant and why they’ll get better. Eric Schmidt’s that explored all the areas the still comparatively mighty Google has stumbled turned out to be the perfect table setter. Few of the others were as candid, but the same sorry-we-sucked-for-a-while-but-we-swear-we’re-getting-better justifications were there. Steven Sinofsky of Microsoft talked about how the new version of Office is more Apple-y…if only all the silos in the company can agree to get behind it. Leo Apotheker of HP explained why HP would still win in tablets and why consumerization of the enterprise would benefit HP, not say, a company great at building consumer experiences. Shantanu Nayaren of Adobe said the whole war over Flash with Apple was overstated, but fortunately other vendors would eventually beat Apple anyway so it didn’t matter. Stephen Elop of Nokia talked about how Microsoft’s operating system would suddenly make Nokia a smart phone powerhouse. And finally, the conference fittingly closed with AT&T CEO Ralph De La Vega answering every angry volley from Walt and Kara about its loathsome network with justifications for why if we only give them the T-Mobile acquisition, all will be fixed. It wasn’t the problem of the conference’s appeal. As a competitor, I’d love if that were the case. But realistically who in big tech would have been more riveting? You can’t have Steve Jobs every year. Meanwhile, there were plenty of people in the audience I would have rather heard from, including senior executives of surging companies like Facebook, One King’s Lane, and Yelp. Is it any wonder there was such a frenzy around LinkedIn’s IPO? At least it’s a new script. It’s like when you used to be bored in class and a bird flew in the window and everyone went nuts. A bird probably wouldn’t be that exciting if you were outside playing frisbee. It didn’t used to be that way. Big technology companies used to do interesting things and if not, many had cowboy personalities to make boring businesses interesting. But who wants to be head of a Nokia or a Microsoft or a Cisco or a Yahoo now? All of these companies have powerful entrenched user bases that aren’t going anywhere, and they’ll all make that justification anytime an analyst complains about their growth. Great. But their businesses are irrevocably declining if not in actual users, in terms of market influence and ability to recruit anyone talented. They can’t do wildly innovative things because stabs at innovation have failed so many times. They are in a total duck-and-cover mode. Who wants to be in duck-and-cover when a world of lucrative startups are exploding into the public markets? In the last boom era, the publicly traded technology companies were also surging. Cisco’s John Chambers was nicknamed the Pied Piper of Wall Street. Today he is fighting for his job, along with Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer. In fact, their biggest selling point may be that so few great leaders their jobs, and there’s no natural successors in the wings. Those people have all left for other opportunities. (There goes another one with always-the-bridesmaid-never-the-bride Ann Livermore’s .) Then there’s Yahoo: The company so siloed and dysfunctional it’s made Terry Semel, Jerry Yang, and Carol Bartz– three respected leaders with totally different skill sets– each look incompetent. These companies have all essentially become Novell. Out of the entire tech universe, three legacy companies have stayed as relevant as any startup: Apple, Amazon and Netflix. All three are testaments to visionary founders with a strong will who aren’t afraid to utterly disrupt their companies and cannibalize their own businesses. The only other legacy tech public company I’d put near that camp is Oracle. And the reason that Larry Ellison outmaneuvered his entire industry? By predicting what is happening now: That the IT revolution was over. That tech was no longer a differentiator for his customers. It was merely table stakes to being in business, like having desks, power and phone lines. He argued the answer for growth was a sheer land-grab of already installed customers who would pay ongoing maintenance and upgrade fees until seemingly the end of time. Back then everyone said Ellison was wrong. Top business schools wrote new case studies on why tech still mattered, software-as-a-service startups argued they could still unseat Oracle in big deals, and truckloads of experts said that hostile takeovers in the software world would never work because the integrations would be too messy and those companies’ real assets– programmers– would all leave. But Ellison was right. (Although I’d argue at some point a new generation of software will unseat Oracle and its acquired parts. It’ll just take a lot more than the first wave of software as a service companies had to offer.) In previous decades of Silicon Valley companies were building a new industry, so almost all tech companies had growth potential. Now there’s a stark line between mature technology and technology that is still growing in aggregate. They are simply different industries. Arguing this is still one industry; that all of the companies who make technology are investing in change is like saying any company with a Web site is an Internet company. As this discrepancy widens between 1990s era tech and today, I was reminded of an interview Thiel did several years ago with CNBC where he was asked what large cap tech names he was bullish on. He answered that other than Google there were no large cap tech names, because companies like Intel and Microsoft are inherently anti-technology companies. Their success, he said, is rooted in the status quo. The best of all possible worlds for them would be the global technology user base never adopting anything new. CNBC’s anchors looked confused at this concept. But Thiel was right. Too many of the companies that built out the IT revolution and Silicon Valley are “technology” companies in name only now. They aren’t disrupting anything, they are doing the opposite. They are desperately clinging to the status quo. They still have massive amounts of cash, massive installed user bases that won’t be switching loyalties anytime soon and those are really the only two reasons they still matter. To fuse Thiel and Ellison’s arguments: They are banks whose job is to print money paid by people who are slow to change their digital habits. Even our parent company AOL is funding its radical turn-around largely off of people who don’t know they no longer have to pay us every month for a subscription to the World Wide Web. (I’ll at least give Tim Armstrong credit for being on stage.) But it’s even more true now that huge, lucrative opportunities have sucked anyone remotely talented out of those companies. At least people were wary of working at a startup back then. Now it seems risky to be at a startup. LinkedIn and Facebook alone have proved social media wasn’t a fad. These companies, along with Twitter, Zynga, Groupon and others, are legitimately the most interesting stories in the American business world today, as they play central roles in global political uprisings and represent some of the most anticipated stock market debuts of the last decade. We can point out Groupon’s and every day: The stock will still be in high-demand when it debuts. Because the reality is there are only a handful of companies actually inventing new technology and businesses among the biggest public traded tech names today. The sooner we realize this is no longer one industry, the sooner we can stop the silly bubble comparisons to 1999 and get a handle on why these issues will keep popping. We all want something that’s actually growing and disrupting and inspiring. Silicon Valley and the start up world has gotten to enjoy a lot of it over the last ten years, and Wall Street is sick of just watching. |
And Now For Some Unexpectedly Good News | Jon Evans | 2,011 | 6 | 13 | Don’t look now, but sub-Saharan Africa is . its growth has been , and, to quote none other than , “today the rate of return on foreign investment in Africa is higher than in any other developing region.” There are several reasons: commodity prices, Chinese investment, diaspora remittances… and, I would argue, the GSM revolution that has swept the entire continent, in some places famously taking communications straight from talking drums to cell phones, leapfrogging land lines entirely. It’s a glorious wave of change, sweeping across a continent that had stagnated for decades. I’ve spent nearly a year of my life traveling south of the Sahara, starting thirteen years ago, and this is the first time I’ve been here without being depressed about the region’s prospects. It’s still mostly very poor, and it faces serious challenges – for instance, rising and oil prices – but at the same time it feels a lot like China in 1990, or India in 2000 … and . For the first time in, well, ever, it is possible to seriously consider Africa as an emerging economic power. Of course I’m hardly the first to notice this. A few months ago I that startups start targeting the developing world as a market. I now want to amend that advice; it may already be too late. China got here first. Chinese companies and entrepeneurs are in African mines, farms, infrastructure – and technology. The new wired and wireless networks here are . In the two weeks I’ve been wandering around Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti I’ve already bumped into heaps of traveling Chinese businesspeople. Local newspapers don’t complain about the special treatment that white people get any more; now they complain about special treatment for “whites and Chinese.” Which is progress, I suppose, of a sort. Most of the Ethiopian Internet cafes I saw used client software from China Telecom. Chinese feature phones are increasingly popular, mostly because they’re cheaper than Nokias. You can buy a US$100 Android phone here in Kenya (see picture) but Android , and it’s surely only a matter of time before phones running or another Chinese Android fork start competing in the smartphone market. More power to these Chinese companies, of course: their tech investments here benefit both themselves and the African nations in question. (The mines, roads, and farms are more controversial – a recent Guardian piece on the subject has the Sinophobic title “ .”) It does make me wonder, though, if it will be Chinese tech companies, rather than American or European ones, who will reap the lion’s share of profits from the surging economies of the developing world in the decades to come. They certainly seem to be better positioned right now. |
Review: Kobo eReader Touch Edition | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 13 |
: Superficially similar to the new , but the Kobo is perhaps even simpler, and the form factor is slightly more book-like. If you don’t need 3G or the other perks of the Kindle ecosystem, and just want a straightforward e-book reading device, this Kobo could be a good match.
: : : : It’s easier to show the functions of the Kobo than describe them, so watch this brief video of a few normal uses of the device to get a feel for how it responds to touch. In addition to what’s shown in the video, there’s unofficial support for some image and archive files, and somehow I managed not to show the Library — but it’s what you expect. The question here isn’t really what does the Kobo do, but what does the Kobo do differently? In many ways it is , at least to the end user. Same screen, same speed, same page caching, etc. It has fewer buttons (just the one home button and a sleep/wake switch) and of course accesses a different store, but the actual e-reading experience will be mostly the same. The UI is similar to the previous Kobo, which is to say clean and unassuming. Navigating by touch improves it, I think, and the Pearl screen does what it does, equally as well as the other devices that have it. Navigation is now achieved by touching the page numbers at the bottom of books or PDFs, which then brings up your scrub bar, font options, and so on. You have access to the Kobo e-book store, which has plenty of titles — most of the big bestsellers and tons of free books. You can also drag and drop your own ePub, text, or PDF files onto the MicroSD card and it’ll find them, including if they’re organized in folders. PDFs are easy to zoom in on and scroll around, though their scanned text doesn’t fare so well on e-paper screens.
The device itself is light and comfortable to hold, the lovely Kobo trademark quilted back being soft and inviting as always. It really has been reduced to just a screen and a button, there’s very little to say but that it’s nice. Personally I like how it looks better than the Nook and the Kindle both. It also comes in several finishes, though the black is probably the most tasteful. It’s a close race, but if you’re just going to be using this device for plain old reading, the Kobo is in my opinion the best bet right now. If you’re interested in social recommendations, 3G, apps, or any of the other bonus features found on the Nook and Kindle, it’s best to go with one of those, obviously, but the totally uncluttered and ultra-simple operation of the Kobo eReader Touch Edition makes it a perfectly good choice for an e-reading novice or purist.
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null | Sarah Lacy | 2,011 | 6 | 15 | null |
Microsoft Fighting To Ensure Google Does Not Gain Patent Leverage, Deterrence | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 13 | A week and a half ago, a report said that while the U.S. Department of Justice was over the Nortel wirelesspatents, they were unlikely to object to Google winning the rights to them. But a new opponent to Google’s bid has arisen. And it’s a familiar foe: Microsoft. Specifically, Microsoft is objecting to Google being able to purchase the over 6,000 patents recognizing Microsoft’s existing licensing agreements on the patents, . a week and a half ago, these licensing agreements were precisely why Microsoft was the one obvious bidder competing for the patents — they didn’t think they had to. But the current terms for the winner of the auction doesn’t back up that argument. As of right now, the company that wins the bidding would be able to terminate existing agreements. Microsoft says that’s unfair. And while they don’t specifically mention Google, it seems pretty clear who they’re thinking about when that a termination of existing licensing agreements “would result in considerable disruption in the development and enhancement of various existing technologies and give the prospective purchaser an unfair competitive advantage”. In other words, “we don’t want the company that we have under our patent thumb to be able to turn the tables”. And to be fair, Microsoft does have a bit of a point. in using their 17,000+ patents to go after competition— often Google or their partners — Google buying patents that Microsoft has been fairly licensing and using for years could potentially be a huge problem for products both new and old. But one reason the DoJ is not believed to have a problem with Google’s purchasing the patents is because Google has not shown a desire to aggressively go on the offensive with the patents they do have. (Of course, with under 1,000 patents, they’re hardly in the position to do so.) But with 6,000 more in their pocket, you can bet they would at least be used as a nuclear deterrent, of sorts. As in, “if you come after us (or our partners) Microsoft, just remember that we can now retaliate”. And that security is exactly why Google is willing to spend billions bidding on the patents in the first place. Microsoft would undoubtedly also not be pleased if Apple bid and won the patents. But that seems less likely to happen at this point because the DoJ is concerned that Apple may be too aggressive in protecting those patents if awarded them. (As in, they’d use them less for deterrence and more for first-strike capabilities.) Apple is said to be talking to the DoJ to assuage these fears. We’ll see. HP and Nokia are also said to be opposed to the terms of the auction that would terminate current licensing agreements. |
Signs Of What Could Have Been: iOS Hooked Up With Facebook Before Marrying Twitter | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 13 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gSqtubjTis#t=1m03s &w=630] It’s easy to take Twitter’s deep integration on iOS 5 and go nuts with speculation surrounding its symbolism; whatever that means! Well as this video of a test build of iOS 4 from this April brings to light, perhaps the choice wasn’t necessarily Apple’s … If you watch the above video closely, at minute 1:03 you can see clear signs of Facebook integration in the leaked iPhone’s native apps Setting screen, with Twitter nowhere to be found. What’s interesting to note is that in this build of iOS 4 Facebook sits squarely where Twitter is now in the iOS 5 settings menu, without the added icon for iCloud (see left versus right, below). Yes it’s absolutely not news that iOS at some point. One developer build included code that would allow you to to Facebook through Photos. Apple had at some point gone to the lengths of a contact sync technology that allowed you to directly Friend people on Facebook through your iPhone contacts. And Business Insider in May 2010 that Apple was considering integrating Facebook Connect directly into the SDK, so app developers could add Facebook features to their apps — which while vague, similar to what the Twitter iOS 5 integration entails today. But many of us have forgotten these pieces of the puzzle as we move forward on this story. It’s widely known that Facebook integration was planned for Ping and less widely known that it was planned for OS X Lion, both integrations were pulled shortly after Ping’s launch in the fall. Jobs said that it was Facebook’s that broke down the Facebook/Apple partnership, despite the fact that Jobs was seen with Zuckerberg shortly after Ping’s (failed) launch. Sure, Apple really doesn’t get social networking and Facebook doesn’t really get gadgets. But going beyond the myriads of strategic reasons you can pull out of the woodwork for why Apple “chose” Twitter over Facebook, it might be wise to mull over the possibility that Facebook could have been Apple’s first choice. Especially considering the evidence. |
Smarterer Raises $1.25M To Prove You're Good At Anything In 60 Seconds Or Less | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 6 | 13 | Ever wished you had an easy way to tell the world (and potential future employers) just how great you are at using Microsoft Office, Salesforce, and.. err.. Facebook? Your chance is coming. Today a new company called has raised $1.25 million from True Ventures and Google Ventures, with participation from angels including Mark Gerson, Shikhar Ghosh, Scott Kurnit, Peter Lehrman, Thomas Lehrman, and Dharmesh Shah, among others. And tonight the service is opening in an invite-only private beta (more on that in a moment). Smarterer’s product revolves around a fairly straightforward theory: it doesn’t take a lot of time to gauge if someone is competent in a given subject. In fact, Smarterer thinks it can determine your proficiency in just about anything in 60 seconds and 10 multiple choice questions. The experience is slightly nerve-wracking. After starting a test you’ll be given a practice question that doesn’t count, so that you can familiarize yourself with the system, but then it’s on to the real quiz. A question appears at the top of the screen with a handful of multiple choice answers below it, and a bar representing the amount of time you have left trickling rapidly downward (remember, you’re only supposed to be spending a few seconds on each question). Pick your answer, and you’ll immediately be told whether or not you were correct. Click a button and you’re onto the next question. After ten or so questions, you’ll get a score, which goes into your user profile. You can also generate embeddable badges that you can put on your personal website. The beta system is actually taking advantage of the badges — in order to gain access for now, you need to find someone with a badge, and click on it to request that they send you a beta invite. The system seems pretty simple, but there’s more to it than meets the eye. Smarterer users your performance on the first few questions to get a sense of how much you know, then uses that information to determine which questions to ask next (i.e. if you miss the first two questions, you’ll be presented with easy questions for the remainder of the session, and you’ll probably get a fairly low rank). Now, the idea behind Smarterer isn’t entirely novel. , which TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco last year, also lets people demonstrate and display their skillset using a variety of tests. But that site is geared primarily to the tech industry, whereas Smarterer seems to have a broader focus. Smarterer is planning to hit a large number of topics with its tests by using a crowd-sourcing system. After completing a test in a topic, you can opt to submit additional questions, and if they’re good, you’ll earn more points (the system can figure out a good question based on how many people get it right — the best questions will be difficult). Users can flag questions that they think are incorrect. The company plans to eventually monetize by working with recruiters and companies looking to hire. They say that eventually they hope this will replace the ‘Skills’ section in a standard resume. So does it work? I took several tests (most of them seem to be tech-oriented at this point, so I did tests about Gmail, Facebook, and Google Search). My results: I’m apparently awesome at Facebook, pretty good at Gmail, and not-so-great at Google Search. I don’t really agree with that assessment (my Google-foo is pretty strong, thanks), but over time the questions will improve, and I can always take more tests to try to prove my real worth. Overall, I could see this working well at gauging experience for many topics, but there’s a risk that some of them will become tests of trivia as opposed to skill. The company was funded and conceived by BzzAgent CEO Dave Balter, and Jennifer Fremont-Smith is Smarterer’s CEO. The Boston-based team currently has four employees.
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RescueTime Launches Introductions, A Carfax Report For Top Job Candidates | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 13 | Y Combinator-backed is a web-based time management tool that lets users monitor the time they spend on the Web, like what applications and websites they’re visiting most frequently, all in an effort to help heavy web users cut down on inefficient uses of their time. (Maybe those three hours in Chrome Angry Birds weren’t adding to your overall productivity, friend.) The service can be used on an individual basis or by businesses — priced by number of users per month — to help keep their employees on track and focused. RescueTime’s awesome user-friendly service inspired a $900K investment from True Ventures, Chris Sacca, Tim Ferris and some other notable angels back in 2008. The company broke even in 2010, and has since been focused on building hockeystick-type growth. Today, RescueTime is cleverly expanding its service into complementary territory with a new feature called , which offers a way for top talent to find jobs at top companies — and may very well excite that next round of funding. Back in 2006, RescueTime Co-founders Tony Wright and Brian Fioca to Jobster. Unlike Indeed, Jobs.com, etc., Jobby offered a cool new approach to the hiring process by taking information directly from job seekers in an effort to help recruiters filter through job qualifications by offering a fast tagging and tag filtering approach. Wright and Fioca brought key members of the team with them to RescueTime (and even recently added Jason Grimes, who worked with Fioca at Jobster, as VP of Product Marketing) — and with RescueTime Introductions, the team is integrating its experience with the recruiting process into its web-based time management service. In today’s digital world, competition for highly skilled engineers is extremely high, and the companies that can find talent quickly have the best chance at recruiting that top talent before it’s snatched up by the competition. RescueTime is aiming to help those companies streamline the recruiting process, find talent that wouldn’t have thought to apply or might be (unhappily) working at another company, and remove inefficiencies that would turn away or turn off top people. Fioca told me said that the idea for Introductions came about because many of their friends at Y Combinator companies and local startups were continually asking them if they could recommend good programmers for their companies. It occurred to Fioca that the same methods RescueTime was using to screen its own hires during the interview process could be used on a large-scale, using the profiles of RescueTime’s 350,000 users. Thus, RescueTime Introductions aims to be the “ report for candidates”. Instead of promising recruiters that it can find a candidate that is 100 percent perfect for a job, RescueTime Introductions narrows candidates down based on the right “cultural fit” and vouches for a candidate’s skill set, but of course, your company will still have to interview them. So, how does RescueTime it work? The service uses machine learning and pattern matching techniques to find matches between companies and employees based on “archetypes”; in other words, people are matched to companies based on the ratio of, say, time spent in productive categories, tools used, industry websites visited, research done, and so on. Fioca cited an interesting example, saying that it turns out using is a good indicator that someone is likely to be a great programmer. RescueTime Introductions downplays the importance of things like efficiency scores, downtime, distracted time, and so on, although Fioca did say that patterns in these areas can sometimes indicate that a person is bored in their current job and is looking for a new challenge. The startup currently has partner companies running RescueTime on their own teams to develop internal profiles of what working in particular positions within the company entails, so that Introductions will then be able to find matches based on those profiles, rather than having to post jobs or write confusing job posts on craigslist, for example. Fioca also said that privacy is the team’s primary concern. In doing some due diligence with current RescueTime users, 98 percent of them were favorable to the idea as long as they could control with information is shared with what people. Fioca said that RescueTime has been careful not to build a lead generation service for recruiters that they can then use to spam potential candidates without RescueTime intervention. Fioca said, . What’s more, none of the user’s usage data is shared with recruiters. Huzzah. RescueTime isn’t changing its model to be a recruiting company or selling recruiting software, it’s building a market where top talent can be introduced to top companies — if they choose to do so. And the best part? Fioca says that the team will only consider working with companies that they would want to work for themselves, which is why Dropbox, Twitter, Justin.tv, posterous, and eBay are among those they’re offering at the start. For a brief handshake with RescueTime Introductions, check out the video below, or visit the website in its office . [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDSBH09zzzA] |
Rebecca Black's 'Friday' For Rent On YouTube!? Well Not At The Moment | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 13 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0#cdpframe=x5EqJKNvNw0QRHsU48QSUddvjjk&w=630] So I’ve been sitting here for the past 30 minutes writing a blog opus about how Rebecca Black’s is now a , heralding a new era for YouTube’s content monetization strategy and the idea of a meme as premium content … but guess what? It’s no longer a rental! There are three possible explanations for why it appeared to be for rent earlier: While I don’t know for sure, I’m going to go with “accident” and/or “glitch.” At least one user reported not being able to actually rent the video when clicking on the “Rent For $2.99” function, while it was still available. All YouTube partners have had the ability to charge a rental fee for their content for about a year, but paying around $1 a minute to hear Black drone on about the front seat and the back seat seems like a major major rip off, which is probably why the story made headline news in the first place. What’s amazing is how many people actually cared about the video’s availability, even if the concern , much like the bulk of its 165,271,223 views. YouTube itself declined to comment officially, holding that it doesn’t comment on the status of individual videos.
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Video: A Massive OLED Globe Fit For, Well, A Museum | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 6 | 13 |
The next time you’re in Toyko’s Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, it’s going to be hard to miss the updated Geo-Cosmos. This 20 foot globe was recently revamped and and thousands of LCD panels were ditched in favor of 10,362 OLED panels, which feature a resolution 10x greater than the older screens. The Mitsubishi Electric-made sphere is the largest such of its kind in the world. There are even interactive touchscreen panels dubbed Geo-Scope around the room that allow visitors to interact with a similar, although, flat representation of the globe including weather data and a simulation of Japan’s recent tsunami. Click through for the mesmerizing video.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwIvYwJXObc&w=640&h=390] [ via ] |
Panasonic Goes Light And Basic With The New GF3 | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 13 |
Panasonic’s compact micro four-thirds GF series has received an update, and yes, it’s . The GF3 is lighter, smaller, and simpler than its predecessor. It also forgoes a hot shoe in favor of a pop-up flash, something which may anger serious photographers but makes sense given the direction in which they’ve taken the camera line. The new camera is ~16% smaller and lighter than the GF2, but should take pictures of the same quality; it actually uses the same sensor and image processor. There’s a 3″, 320×480 touchscreen on the back that you can tap to magnify and focus, or of course change settings. It’s 12 megapixels and will do 1080i video (like the GF2 before it).
It’s getting a stepped release depending on which lens you want; pick the 14mm F/2.5 and you can have it in July for $600, but if you wait till August you can get a 14-42mm F/3.5-5.6 with it, for a total of $600. Not sure what the 35mm equivalents are on those. Seems like it doesn’t so much obsolete the GF2 as offer an alternate body. The functionality is largely the same and with the same lenses and settings, it should take identical pictures. If you like hot shoes or just don’t care about that 16% difference in weight, you’ll probably save some money if you go with the old model. |
Swype 3.0 Beta To Launch Today, Now Tablet-friendly | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 6 | 13 | Swype. It’s just one of those things where you know if you love it or hate it within about 30 seconds of your first touch. Some people just can’t wrap their heads around dragging their finger from letter to letter rather than poking around; others pick it up immediately, and then can’t imagine typing on a phone without it. If you’re part of the “love it” camp, you’ve got a reason to be excited: later today, Swype will be releasing the first Beta build of Swype 3.0. Swype says the download should be going live “around 2 pm Pacific” — which, by our clocks, is about 15 minutes ago. Look for it to roll out . [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dj-vyx9hAM&w=560&h=349] |
iOS 5's Fancy New Camera Trick? Microsoft Has A Patent On It | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 6 | 13 | At Apple’s last week, we finally got a sneak peek into . Amongst other things, Apple revealed that its would be getting quite the makeover. Pretty much immediately after the new camera tricks were demonstrated, people began noting similarities between iOS 5’s new focal features and some of those found in Windows Phone 7. Even Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore touched on the matter, tweeting, “Feeling flattered today. Lots of WP ideas headed to iOS.” As it turns out, may have to cough up some cash (or possibly already is) for at least one of those cool new capabilities; has held on the mimicked feature since February of 2010. The suspiciously similar feature in question: the ability to swipe back into your camera roll while taking a picture, no button pressing necessary. Seem trivial? Sure — but those are the woes of a software-patent-friendly world. While Windows phone owners probably feel a little perturbed by the fact that Apple hijacked their WP7 exclusive, Microsoft may not even mind as long as it can squeeze some cash out of Apple . Of course, patent wars are merely part of the game for these guys; at this point, most of the big names have enough patents in their arsenal to turn any infringement claims around on whoever is brave enough to come pecking for cash, so they generally avoid going head-to-head. |
AMA: A Peek Into The Future Of Google Docs | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 6 | 13 | Earlier today, a handful of members of the Google Docs team announced that they were doing something fairly unusual for employees at a large company: they’re giving members of the popular link-sharing site a chance to ask them anything (you can find the thread ). The team has now responded to plenty of questions, offering some insight into where Google’s free online productivity suite is headed over the coming months. Sure, they’re being a little vague with some of their answers, but they still hint at plenty of nifty upcoming features. Here are some of the highlights so far: Regarding an offline version of Google Docs: “You’re going to see offline start to roll out later this summer. We used to have offline with Google Gears, but it became pretty clear that plugins weren’t the right approach. We’ve been reimplementing offline using HTML5 standards like AppCache, File API, and IndexDB. We’re some of the first webapps that are really putting those standards to the test, so it’s taken a while to iron out the kinks.” … Well, we will launch in whatever incremental pieces make sense. But the long term direction is if you access a Doc URL while offline, it should open the local copy of the doc and let you edit. When you go online all your edits get synced in the background. You should also be able to see a list of your docs while offline. We’ll need to work through all the tricky problems with how to merge conflicting edits. It’s fun stuff. Regarding how data stored in Google Docs is kept safe: Document data is stored in a storage system built on top of Bigtable. Storage is distributed across many machines and geographic locations, and all access to the underlying storage is tightly controlled and audited in compliance with SAS70. For more details, I’ll refer you to this set of . Cloud print will be coming to more devices (right now it’s only on mobile and Chromebooks). The most topic so far appears to be ‘mobile;. The general theme of the answers is that there’s a lot of work being done in this area to make the experience better. Among them: it sounds like the Android Google Docs app will be getting a native editor (right now it kicks you off to a web editor, which is clunky). It sounds like offline editing will also be possible using the native app. Another smaller (but important) feature: the team plans to improve the flow of naming new documents. Right now it’s pretty easy to wind up with dozens of files called ‘Untitled document’ — the team is currently figuring out the best way to solve this. |
U.S. Cellular To Pick Up The HTC Wildfire S, Desire S? | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 6 | 13 | U.S. Cellular picks up another pair of slightly obscure phones — or, at least, it looks like they’re about to. After picking up the and the (months after Sprint launched it as the “Arrive”), two more handsets have just been spotted lurking in U.S. Cellular’s inventory: the HTC Desire S and Wildfire S — two Android phones which , but then saw surprisingly little traction in the US. Careful, U.S. Cellular: everyone loves having more phones to choose from, but you don’t want to get a reputation as the Island Of Misfit Phones. [via ] |
Meet The Most Dangerous Device In The Air: Your iPad | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 6 | 13 | I’ll be honest, I’m probably the first one on a flight to ignore the flight attendant’s announcement that “all portable electronic devices must now be switched to the ‘off’ position.” My reason? I simply don’t believe that one phone could cause an issue, especially since mine has been on during almost every flight I’ve taken. I know I’m not the only one to break the rules, either, and it seems like we doubters are winning the debate, with a number of different services available that offer in-flight phone calls. However, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) claims that our gadgets may be posing a greater risk than we thought, outlining 75 instances where flight crews believed “electronic interference” with flight systems was caused by electronic portable devices. The reported incidents were based on 125 airlines’ responses submitted between 2003 and 2009, noting that flight controls, autopilot, auto-thrust equipment, landing gear, and the communications kit were all allegedly affected by electronics use. Of course, not one of the seventy-five incidents were verified to be caused by electronic devices. Instead, the IATA reports that crew-members and pilots believed that electronics were the culprits in those cases. In one instance, with two laptops being used nearby, the plane’s clock spun backwards and GPS readings began going off. In another example, altitude details were jumbled until the pilot asked passengers to turn off their gizmos. A Boeing advisor, Dave Carson, believes that the signals radiating from portable electronics can mess with sensors hidden in the passenger areas of a plane, and that those signals are far stronger than what Boeing considers acceptable during a flight. Interestingly enough, the most dangerous device was the , followed closely by the and smartphones. New planes with the proper sheathing shouldn’t experience many problems, but Carson claims that phones are a genuine safety hazard on older model air crafts. Whether these incidents were caused by electronics or not, 75 problems over six years isn’t exactly a staggering stat. [via ] |
The Opena iPhone 4 Case Hides/Showcases Your Drinking Habit | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 6 | 13 |
Cool kids carry bottle openers on their key chain. But who has a key chain anymore? Furthermore, why do they need to drink and drive. Enter Opena, the Kickstarter funded bottle opener iPhone 4 case. Yep, jump on the bandwagon now, save $10 off the retail cost in the process and reserve your spot as a cool kid from the future. There really isn’t any magic here. The Opena case simply has a slide-out bottle opener embedded in the backside. Put your little thumb in the round cutout, slide it down, and just like that, a stainless steel bottle opener appears under the dock connector. Of course this adds a bit of bulk to the case, so think of this as your party iPhone 4 case. You can always slap on a more work appropriate one Monday morning.
The device has 24 days to get nearly $7,500 in Kickstarter funding. A pledge of $30 will net you an Opena once, or if, production starts while $50 gets you two. The founders state that the Opena will run $40 when it hits so you may as well drop your cash down now, save some cash and help make this thing a reality. |
At 5 Million Users, It's Hard Not To View Instagram Through A Rose-Colored Filter | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 13 | When we first , most of the initial comments predicted it would be dead on arrival. To say those people were wrong is a vast understatement. And now has five million ways to prove it. Yes, Instagram now has five million users. That’s 625,000 users for every month they’ve been in existence — with the growth accelerating. Just this past weekend they added 100,000 new users, for example. Even more amazing, there are now 1.25 million users of Instagram. I got a chance to catch up with Instagram co-founder this morning to talk about the milestone and the bigger picture for the service. Beyond the five million user mark (which they actually hit yesterday), Instagram is about to hit another huge milestone: 100 million photos. They’re at 95 million right now, and they’re adding roughly 860,000 a day. In other words, by the end of this week, the total number of pictures should cross 100 million. For comparisons sake, it took Flickr two years 100 million photos. Again, Instagram, just eight months. If you still had any doubts that , there you go. As for the burgeoning Instagram ecosystem, Systrom says that there are now 2,500 unique apps out there accessing their APIs. Remarkably, they are also seeing some 350,000 connections across their API, meaning that some of the apps connected are massively popular. Which are the most popular? and Flipboard were the top two the last time he looked, Systrom says. There are also now applications pushing photos into Instagram — not through the API, but through . The emergence of Webstagram, which is a web-based viewer for Instagram photos, leads to the question of when Instagram might finally release their own web app? Systrom declined to comment on that, but did confirm that work continues in that area. As for the all-important Android question, same deal — nothing to share yet, but work continues. Systrom will say that the top priorities right now are to scale the service, scale the team, and improve the core parts of the existing iPhone app. One of the most remarkable things about Instagram is that they’ve achieved such success while only being on one platform: iOS. There is no way to sign up on the web. No way to sign up on Android. They’re currently a mainstay in the top social networking apps list in the App Store. And that’s big because they’re not spending anything on marketing, and Apple has only promoted them a few times. In other words, the growth and traction has been largely organic. Instagram has with partners to help promote the app. But in terms of bringing in revenue, “We’re much more interested at growing the ecosystem right now,” Systrom says. And they have from nice funding round this past February to continue growing for some time. He also says that they have a lot more work to do on the current iPhone app. “Lots of very cool new stuff coming soon,” is all he’ll vaguely say. Though I did get him to admit that yes, more filters, are in the works. He also says there will be some “fundamental shifts in the underlying technology,” coming soon. “We want to give people the tools to tell the story of their lives in a visual way — we’re working hard on making those tools top-notch,” Systrom says. Giving their size and the rate at which they’re growing, Instagram clearly has a lot of competitors gunning for them. So far, most have failed to gain any meaningful traction. But Twitter just recently put themselves in the photo-sharing game in . Given that Twitter is such an important social discovery mechanism for Instagram, does this worry Systrom? “I’m excited to see how a more first-class experience of photos on Twitter will allow people to have a better Instagram experience within Twitter,” he says. In other words, he think the rising tide will boost all boats, including his. There are also a number of apps popping up that are attempting to be the “Instagram of video”. That’s interesting since Instagram does not currently support the sharing of videos — might they move in that direction? “I still think it’s early — mobile video will always be slower to download and consume than photos,” Systrom notes. “Instagram is about fast, beautiful experiences. Short snippets of friends’ lives,” he continues. At the same time, “video is something that I think fits naturally into our roadmap — just not at the moment,” Systrom says. Earlier, I alluded to the fact (with math!) that despite their size, Instagram still has only . That’s insane. “Hiring great people is a top priority for me right now,” Systrom says. “We clearly have something special, and we want to make sure to have the best of the best to help us to the opportunity,” he continues. But they’re not going to rush. “The thing we don’t want to do is to hire just because we’re big. Building a company is about building a product, but it’s also about building a team. They’re both very important to us,” he says. Given that Instagram is still iOS-only, surely they must have some thoughts about the just-announced iOS 5. “iOS5 provides some really awesome new tools for Instagram users. Twitter integration makes it easier than ever for users to share their photos with their followers,” Systrom says. Since they have no need for DM access, Instagram should be one of the key apps helped by the . When I pointed out that I saw Instagram make a few appearances on stage during the keynote (in the background in demo images), this clearly made Systrom happy. “It was awesome to see Instagram on stage behind Steve during the keynote. It’s humbling to think that we only started 8 mos ago and Instagram is now part of the de-facto set of apps that people use on the iPhone.” It’s pretty well known as this point that Apple executive Phil Schiller is a . But we’ve heard other Apple executives are hooked on the service too — though more under the radar. “It’s not surprising that notification demos featured Instagram — we send over 10 million Push Notifications per day,” Systrom says. “And I think having a home for all those pushes to be out of the way and usefully grouped makes total sense,” he says of the new notifications system in iOS 5. As for Apple’s new Photostream feature (which shares pictures you take on your devices automatically with your other devices over iCloud), “Photostream is really awesome. I think there was a big focus on unity between your Apple devices this year. So it totally makes sense for photos to sync between devices,” Systrom says. “I’d imagine photos you take with Instagram will get sync’d as well, but I’m unaware of exactly how it works,” he continues. Assuming that Instagram’s huge growth keeps up, they could very well hit 6 million users before the end of June. And 10 million before the end of the year looks like a shoo-in. And none of that is taking into account the possibility of an Android app before the end of the year. Let’s just hope Instagram finds a fifth employee before then. |
Blinklearning secures €350k of R&D funding to personalise education | Steve O'Hear | 2,011 | 6 | 13 | , the e-tutoring platform, has raised €350k of public money from the Spanish CDTI NEOTEC program for further R&D into how Artificial Intelligence can be leveraged to offer a more personalised education for learners. Based on the premise that education must be adapted to the needs of each individual student who may learn at a different pace to their peers, the Spain and UK-based startup currently gives teachers better tools to create learning content along with technology to “track the individual performance of every student and subsequently provide those students with tailor-made content and exercises.” The new funding will enable Blinklearning to conduct R&D into new product developments with the goal to help teachers to reduce underachievement and the failure of school for many students. The company is also in the process signing agreements with additional publishers and international expansion in markets like Colombia, Peru and Chile. NEOTEC is a launched by Centre for Industrial Technological Development and aims to support the “creation and consolidation of new technology-based firms”. This includes soft loans, professional training and coaching, and business plan development. ( ) |
Samsung To End Nokia's 15-Year Market Reign? | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 6 | 13 | It looks as though ’s 15-year reign is coming to a close: according to Nomura Research Institute, is expected to usurp the world’s largest phone maker this quarter. And if losing the top spot isn’t tough enough, Nokia likely won’t even take the second place position this quarter either; Nomura sees sliding past Finland’s finest, as well. Nokia has had a tough year, losing market share to Apple’s and other -powered smartphones. Even its low-end phones have taken a hit, thanks to some strong competition coming out of Asia. Perhaps the shift to will breathe new life into the lungs of Nokia, but with Apple’s feature-packed iOS 5 set to launch this fall and Android’s expected continued growth, there’s no telling whether or not Nokia will have what it takes to reclaim its crown. [via ] |
U.S. Cellular Nabs The HTC 7 Pro As Their First Windows Phone 7 Handset | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 6 | 13 | If you’re one of U.S. Cellular’s 6.1 million customers and you’ve been just for a Windows Phone handset, your only option so far has been… erm… deal with it. Deal no longer! This morning, U.S. Cellular added their first WP7 handset, the HTC 7 Pro, to their arsenal.
As one of the first WP7 handsets that Microsoft ever showed (and as the handset that Sprint launched as the “Arrive” back in February), this thing’s not exactly — but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. Not that anyone who can afford a $200 phone is really a “beggar”. but still. Speaking of which, the HTC 7 Pro will set you back $200 after contract and $100 mail-in rebate. |
Could Efficiency 2.0 Eclipse Solar? CEO Tom Scarmellino Thinks So (TCTV) | Lora Kolodny | 2,011 | 6 | 14 | The founder of Efficiency 2.0, Tom Scarmellino, sat down with this week to talk about how his company motivates consumers to curb their power-hogging behavior at home, and what kind of impact that makes from an environmental perspective. A New York City cleantech company, runs loyalty rewards programs on behalf of its clients, big electric companies that are legally required to convince customers to use energy more efficiently. The Efficiency 2.0 platform crunches massive amounts of data— like homeowners’ demographic information, weather forecasts and more— to tailor power-saving tips, and reward offers for consumers that will matter enough, hopefully, to persuade them to make energy-related changes around the house. Unlike (perhaps the best-known brand in this space today) Efficiency 2.0 delivers its power saving suggestions mostly online, and is more about setting a personal best, than it is about outpacing your neighbors on energy efficiency. Doing anything from installing a smart meter, to simply switching off the coffee maker the second the brew is done, can help get customers points and save money on their electricity bills. The points are redeemable for rewards like a $10 discount at Staples, or a gift card for Omaha Steaks. Efficiency 2.0 sets up some of the merchant partnerships, but also works with another NYC cleantech company, , to make the incentives possible. Scarmellino confessed in the TCTV green room that one his worst indulgences, environmentally speaking, was eating too many steaks. That’s a lot of saved kilowatts, though. The CEO believes that with a majority of 120 million homes in the U.S. not yet participating in an energy efficiency program, Efficiency 2.0 could make an impact that’s “bigger than the entire solar industry to date,” in terms of mitigating pollution and more. |
Crytek Developer: New Xbox Coming At E3 2012 | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 14 | Despite industry sources and commentators suggesting that , would be the timing for a new generation of consoles, one insider claims Microsoft is planning on revealing it in the next 12 months, also known as “in the next year.” The anonymous source at Crytek told that the company is already developing a new game ( of all things) for the next system, using DirectX 11 and prototype hardware ( , though it was denied). Personally I’m not convinced. With the Kinect selling strong and a ton of big games in the pipes for the next year (including Halo 4 and tons of ), it doesn’t seem likely that Microsoft and partners would be doing active development on a brand new system and launch titles. [via ] |
Must-Have For Minecraft Fans: Grass Block Mousepad | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 14 | If you’re deeply into , as I know many of you are, you might find fulfilling (there’s a one as well). Etsy seller has a ton more of iconic game graphics, if blocks and building aren’t your thing. That is all. [via ] |
Meet The Robostir, A Robotic Soup Stirrer | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 14 | You like soup, but you don’t want to stir it? What to do? Buy a robostirrer, of course! The Robostir robot stirrer is a stirrer that is a robot. It costs $11 and runs on 4 AA batteries and stirs your soup or polenta or whatever like a freaking champ. Soup? Check. Minestrone? Damn right. Italian Wedding Soup? Umm, yeah? It’s a soup, right? Get with the program. Pea soup? Hello? Are you paying attention? Oatmeal? Yes! For the thousandth time! You can apparently buy it and your soup will thank you.
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Engineer Has Been Helping Paraplegic Gamers Play Using Modified Controllers For 30 Years | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 14 |
Here’s a story to warm the cockles of your hearts, dear readers. Since 1981, Ken Yankelevitz has been designing modified controllers for gaming systems that allow people with no use of their arms or legs to play games. Using variations on the sip/puff mechanic, operating buttons with the nose or lips, and other tools of the trade, he’s made gear for everything from Ataris to Xbox 360s. Let’s just take a second to acknowledge how awesome that is. It reminds me of the story from last year in which The loss of vision, hearing, or the use of one’s limbs can be devastating to a hobby like gaming, but with a little help from your friends, anything is possible. Check out the modified and ; more information is available throughout the . We salute you, Ken! Keep up the good work. [via ] |
Discovr Launches Awesome Tool To Find New Apps For iOS (Think Interactive Graphs) | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 14 | At , Apple announced that there are now more than 400K apps in its app store (and that more than 500K have been approved). The Android Marketplace has around 300K apps and is growing fast. The point is: There are a lot apps out there already, and more hit app stores every day. They’re going like hotcakes. But finding and discovering new apps that you actually care about? Eh, not so easy. Of course, it’s not for lack of trying. There are some awesome tools out there already trying to direct the fire hose and filter the noise. , for example, is trying to become the Google search for apps. , , and are all bringing social to app discovery, while is busy trying to kill game discovery. Today, Discovr adds a dy-no-mite app discovery tool to the crowd, going after the user experience problem in an awesome, though somewhat mathematical way: Interactive graphs. Back in January, launched a cool new app for the iPad that displayed an interactive map of the music world that displays, among other things, connections between bands and artists. It also allows the user, with a few quick taps, to view musicians’ videos on YouTube and more. In fact, the sounded appealing enough that it attracted . Holy tamale. Today, Discovr is applying its music discovery and visualization model for iOS to apps, and it’s just as good, if not better. Granted, I’m a sucker for creative design and spatial data-aggregation tools. Nerdy as charged. is an interactive map of the 400K+ apps on the App Store. How does it work? Search for your favorite app, or choose one from Discovr’s featured apps, and bing-bang-boom, the app will show your app of choice in an interconnected network of apps that are linked based on their similarities. The similarities, like so many other recommendation services today, is a combo of machine algorithms and human curation. The networks can be expanded on as you go, and if the page were large enough, you could probably create a massive, mind-melting map of all the apps on the app store. Obviously, in offering an interactive map as a method of app discovery, user experience is critical. If the interface sucks, the app is worthless. Discovr CEO Dave McKinney assures me that UX has been top priority for the startup since day 1. And from my quick demo, the interface is awesome: Smooth and seamless. McKinney said that part of their secret to offering a good UX, especially if you’re going for a graphical presentation of data, is having a deep understanding of graphical interfaces and graph theory. Their solution? Bring in a guy with a PhD in graph theory. Tamas Nepusz is a doctor of graph theory that used to work at Last.fm as a research engineer, and he works exclusively on the graph code. It seems to be working. So, when you find an app you like, you can read app descriptions, check out screenshots and ratings, or buy the app directly from the app store — or you can share your favorite apps and maps with your friends via Twitter, Facebook, or email. In addition to Discovr’s human+machine approach, the startup wants people from all over the world to contribute to the data set and plans to add data-tuning from the crowd to make its recommendations even better. Oh, and an Android app is not on the way. It looks like Discovr Apps is purely iOS. Sorry, Google. For more, check out the video at the below. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu2uVo3sxCg] |
Troubled Startup Color Loses Cofounder Peter Pham | Michael Arrington | 2,011 | 6 | 14 | , the president and a cofounder of mobile social startup , is no longer with the company, we’ve heard from multiple sources. The company less than three months ago. Color has been controversial because it raised so much venture capital – – and had such a launch reception. The service creates proximity based social networks based on who’s around you, a . But one that Color has so far failed to execute on. In late April I for making misstep after misstep and asked This is another black mark for Color. We’ve heard mixed messages as to why Pham is leaving, but it’s never a good sign when a cofounder and executive leaves a startup just a few months after it launches. So far, the company won’t comment about this story. And Pham hasn’t answered my phone calls. |
This Can't Possibly Work: "Hoverbike"-Style Dual-Rotor Flying Machine | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 14 |
I can’t be the only one who has doubts about the safety of . The creator, an Australian (naturally) by the name of Chris Malloy, claims it’ll be able to fly at 173 MPH at 3000 feet. Yeah, I can see that — if you can get to that height without flipping over or falling off the thing after hitting a pocket of turbulent air. Right now its testing seems to be largely theoretical, which is a nice way of saying he hasn’t let it out of his back yard or local parking lot yet. But based on its weight and power, he thinks it’ll go for an hour at 92 MPH. What about the possibility of accidental ejection? He’s hoping to add in parachutes and do something about those pesky exposed rotors. Yeah, I wouldn’t take that thing to 3000 feet for a million bucks. But I look forward to hearing more about it. There’s a distinct lack of hoverbikes in my life. [via ] |
Another 2048×1536 Asset Suggests Upcoming Retina Display On iPad | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 14 | Back before the iPad 2 was announced, there was some speculation that it at a doubled (horizontal and vertical) resolution of 2048×1536, based on some extra-large assets found deep in the OS. That turned out not to be the case, but I still strongly believe it’s in the future for Apple’s tablet, and now a mega-sized Twitter image from lends further credence to the rumor. The image (sent by to ), backgrounds from within the Twitter .framework, are indeed 2048×1536, and exist alongside the existing 1024×768 assets. But they are the only ones found so far, suggesting that iOS 5 isn’t going to be the one that ships with this mythical display. It’s also entirely possible that it’s a desktop asset, but Apple’s 16:9 displays aren’t right for it. The fact that it’s a semi-transparent PNG means it’s an overlay, probably for a centered notification. It could also be a mistake or fabrication, but with a precedent set in the iBooks asset, it seems more like an oversight. We’ll check around ourselves and see what we come up with. |
Zaarly Crosses $1M In Jobs Posted, In Just Under A Month | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 14 | In less than a month after its on May 14th, peer to peer marketplace has crossed $1 million in posted transactions, and commemorated them with a colorful infographic depicting the break down of the early days of Zaarly. Zaarly, which has raised more than $1 million in seed funding, boasts an impressive list of investors including , , , Gmail creator , movie star and Angelist founder . TechCrunch founder also invested in the company recently. In same collaborative consumption space as startups like and , Zaarly is a peer to peer marketplace where people who need to get a task done in a given locale to post it via iPhone to Zaarly. People who are interested in completing a task can also browse for available tasks on Zaarly via mobile. Zaarly is available across the US, with active communities in eight cities. According to the above infographic, which breaks down the first $500K of Zaarly postings, Seattle has the most active buyers whereas Chicago has the most active sellers and the most completed transactions of all the top ten locations on the service. The variety of Zaarly transactions ranges from someone in Lancaster wanting a delivery of fertile goose eggs ($8) to a request in San Francisco for “Find a 100 [business] loyalty cards” ($160). Founder assures me that none of the listings are scraped, “All 100% legit” So far the most offers on a single Zaarly post have been 16 and the most Zaarly-ied product has been the iPad. It’s also pretty shocking that nearly 7% of all tasks on Zaarly involve an Apple product, like “I’ll pay $350 for a first gen iPad in the next day” or “I’ll pay $1000 for an iPad 2 in the next ____.” Never underestimate the power of Apple fanboys. TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington invested in Zaarly. See paragraph two above. |
First Silicon Valley Consumer Internet Company Joins The Wall Street Single Letter Club | Jon Orlin | 2,011 | 6 | 14 | As we , will start trading tomorrow on the New York Stock Exchange under the single letter symbol “P”. By doing so, it becomes the first Silicon Valley consumer Internet company to join the exclusive one-letter stock ticker symbol club. That club was once reserved for the big blue-chip industrial companies: Chrysler (C), Ford (F), Sears (S), U.S. Steel (X), and Woolworth (Z). Of that list, only Ford and U.S. Steel remain. Chrysler was acquired by Daimler and lost the C to Citibank. Sears lost the S to Sprint Nextel. Woolworth went out of business. Of course, there are already several tech companies in the single letter club. Agilent Technologies (A), NetSuite (N), Sprint Nextel (S), and AT&T (T). But none are pure consumer-based Internet companies. , the real-estate website, applied for the NASDAQ ticker symbol Z in a filing last month. But, it hasn’t started trading yet. Pandora has beaten them in the race. In the past, the NYSE has said it was holding M for Microsoft (MSFT) and I for Intel (INTC). M is Macy’s but I is open. There are no signs Microsoft or Intel are planning a change. There was also talk at one time that Yahoo (YHOO) might take the Y spot, which is now at Alleghany. Go figure. Perhaps because it ends in Y. What about possible stock symbols for Facebook, Twitter, or Groupon. F is already Ford, T is AT&T, and G is Genpact. In , they wrote they expect to apply for the symbol GRPN. Symbols don’t usually change unless there is an acquisition, or the company goes bust, so those companies would need to pick something else. At one time, stock symbols were printed on the ticker tape and handwritten on transaction slips. So, shorter was faster. Today stock symbols have less importance, but the single letter companies can still say they are part of a very exclusive club. My grandfather used to try to fool people with a joke saying of the thousands and thousands of companies traded on the stock market, how many have a single letter as a ticker symbol? He always enjoyed when someone not thinking clearly might say 50 or 100. He would proudly tell them there can only be 26. With Pandora getting added tomorrow, there will . |
Sindelantal gets a €1m boost for online food delivery | marinando | 2,011 | 6 | 14 |
(meaning: without an apron), which launched a year and a half ago to tackle online restaurant take out and delivery in Spain, is announcing a €1m round from Michael Kleindl, VitaminaK and earlier investors. It follows initial funding of €300k in 2010 from well known angels Alberto Knapp, Iñaki Arrola, Rafael Garrido, Ramón Blanco, Luis Ongil and Alvaro Ortiz, among others, while the new funds will be used to boost growth locally and to start rolling out in Latin America in 2012. Sindelantal, founded by Evaristo Babé and Diego Ballesteros, two guys who’ve been around the block where Internet startups are concerned here in Spain, operates in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville and Zaragoza and other smaller towns. To date they’ve signed up 350 restaurants and processed 2,500 orders. Its biggest competitor is , which currently operates in 13 European markets, including Spain where it boasts 250 restaurants and over 10,000 orders processed. That said, both companies will have to work hard at getting local Spanish restaurants to warm up to the idea of taking orders online and the respective business model. As for Sindelantal’s new investors, this would seem to be a big vote of confidence. If you haven’t heard of Michael Kleindl, he’s been involved either as an investor or a leading board member of companies such as , , , , and . is a new fund led by Iñaki Arrola and Rafael Garrido. |
null | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 13 | null |
Airbus Shows Off Concepts For 2050 Air Travel | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 14 |
What do you think planes will be like in 2050? You’re probably wrong. I’d definitely be wrong. And Airbus is probably wrong too, but they’re in the business, so they might be a little closer to the mark. At the very least it’s a sneak peek at what the aviation giant is thinking about for its next generation of airliners. To begin with, the plane itself will be fashioned from a material that mimics bird bones: light yet rigid (and described as “bionic” , which I think is not accurate). Parts of the material would also be able to switch between transparent and opaque, something that exists already to some extent. The cabin would feature form-fitting seats and built-in high-speed internet connections. Notice they don’t mention price! Then there are several zones: “vitalising,” with vitamin air and acupressure therapy; “interactive,” with games and shopping; and “smart tech,” which I think had to remain somewhat vague, as no one knows what “tech” will look like in 40 years. It’s all very silly, since the next few decades will likely bring changes we have no precedent or expectations for, but it’s fun to think about anyway — just as it was fun to think about the year 2000 back in the 40s and 50s. (Those future visions and also the decadent air of the period were brilliantly satired in which I highly recommend). |
"$35" "Indian" Tablet To Ship This Month (For $50) | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 14 | While neither the cost nor the design origin of the talked up by Indian officials is exactly as advertised, the device may in fact be getting a release this month at the price advertised, despite earlier this year. The low-cost tablet, rather an made possible by globalized creation tools than an country-specific device (the same could be said for the iPhone, of course), The official price would actually 2200 rupees, or around $50. The Indian government, however, is planning on offering a 50% subsidy on purchases, bringing the price below the original $35 estimate. 10,000 would be sent out to Rajasthan this month and 90,000 more to other areas over the summer. The aim of the project is presumably similar to that of the , though with an added aspect of positive nationalism to it. Like China, which is to rival Intel and ARM, India would like to reduce its reliance on foreign IP. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, though much of this ostensibly Indian project is demonstrably foreign in origin. Small steps, though. [via ] |
This Robot Can Beat Ms. Pac-Man Faster Than You Can | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 14 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyjnB0NDA24&w=640&h=510] Three students at the University of Essex, Philipp Rohlfshagen, David Robles, and Simon Lucas, built an AI that can play Ms. Pac-Man like a champeen, hitting 70,000 points in a few minutes thanks to forward-thinking algortithms. It’s actually quite fascinating to watch the AI in action as it hovers over various dots and decides whether or not to take certain tunnels.
The project was part of an and pitted game player AIs with enemy ghost AIs written by other participants. You can download game code below. |
Rez Creator Mizuguchi: Bring On The 3D And Crazy Control Methods | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 14 |
At , while checking out both the and the , I was struck by the creative possibilities these novel control methods provided. Developers can be immensely creative people, and with the right one, something like a rear touch surface can become a truly powerful gameplay device. Tetsuya Mizuguchi, creator of Rez and Lumines, is especially excited about these new technologies, and I for one am excited to see what he and his team will do with them. , Mizuguchi described his interest in these new technologies: Before Child of Eden we tried, and we had the chemistry, but the not the technology. Now, with new technology like high definition, 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound, and even 3D, there are many opportunities for this kind of game to realise its full potential. …The more paintbrushes we have, the more we can do. It is simple. He also waxed philosophical on the possibilities of synaesthetic gameplay like that hinted at in Rez and perhaps better wrought in Child of Eden. And although he also compared game design to writing a poem (“Keeping things small, using very few words, you can still make the reader feel”), he suggested that technology has been driving creation since the 8-bit era. |
Pandora Prices IPO At $16 Per Share, Now Valued At $2.6 Billion | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 6 | 14 | Music streaming service has priced its IPO at e, valuing the company at $2.6 billion. The company originally set the range of its IPO at $7 to $9 per share, at a market cap of $1.3 billion; but upped the range last week to $10 to $12 per share, giving the company a valuation of $1.9 billion. Pandora’s stock will begin trading tomorrow morning on The New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “P.” The company expects to raise as much as million in the offerring and will offer 6,000,682 shares of its common stock with the selling stockholders offering 8,683,318 shares of common stock in the IPO. Pandora initially in February. A few weeks ago, the company its most recent revenue numbers, which reflected an increase in both sales and usage for the internet radio service. For example, Pandora is adding a new registered user every second and now has 94 million users. In Pandora’s fiscal year ended January 31, 2011, Pandora streamed 3.8 billion hours of radio listening. In the three months ending April 30, 2011 Pandora posted revenues of $51 million, up from $29.6 million during the same period in 2010. Pandora follows in the footsteps of Fusion-io, LinkedIn and Yandex, which all increased their pricing significantly prior to going public. And the opening trading price for these companies’ stocks all rose as well. We’ll see where Pandora opens tomorrow. : And here’s their official release on the pricing/offering set for tomorrow: OAKLAND, Calif., June 14, 2011 – Pandora Media, Inc. (NYSE: P), the leader in internet radio in the United States, today announced the pricing of its initial public offering of approximately 14.7 million shares of common stock at a price to the public of $16.00 per share. A total of approximately 6.0 million shares are being offered by Pandora, and a total of approximately 8.7 million shares are being offered by selling stockholders. In addition, Pandora has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to approximately an additional 2.2 million shares to cover over-allotments, if any. Pandora will not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares by the selling stockholders. The bookrunning managers of the offering are Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC. Co-lead manager of the offering is Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. and co-managers are William Blair and Company, L.L.C., Stifel Nicolaus Weisel and Wells Fargo Securities, LLC. Pandora common stock will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “P.” |
Thunderbolt Gear And Final Cut Pro X To Arrive Next Week? | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 14 | Back at NAB in April, Apple took over the Final Cut Pro to announce the . Powerful new functionality was demoed, as well as some (to me) disturbing concessions to iMovie, but the $299 price impressed. June was the target for release, and if you’ll check your calendar, you’ll find that is . claims to have heard that next week will be the week for the new app, as well as some Thunderbolt video accessories, like the and the . We’ll find out soon. [via ] |
Despite Expanded AmEx Deal, Foursquare Is Still A Revenue-Free Zone | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 6 | 22 | Foursquare is its relationship with American Express to provide local deals to people who sync their cards to their Foursquare accounts. AmEx did a , and that went well enough that it is rolling out the deals more broadly. The discounts, such as $20 off a $50 purchase at Sports Authority, are automatically applied to your AmEx account when you check in via Foursquare to a participating merchant before a purchase. Everyone in local commerce is trying to figure out how to close the loop between deals and payments. Google thinks NFC chips in Android phones will be the answer in the form of a . Whereas Groupon is trying out instant mobile deals with . By tying its specials to a credit card, Foursquare is closing the payment loop with something everyone already carries around in their wallets. Once companies can tie mobile ads or deals to payments, they will be able to measure directly the sales generated by these mobile promotions. And one day that could potentially be a huge new business. But for now, it’s making absolutely zilch for Foursquare, which remains a revenue-free zone. As the : Foursquare will not be receiving any revenue from the American Express deal Foursquare wants to make sure it gets the product experience right for both merchants and users before turning on revenue, but it can’t wait too long, especially if it wants to justify that in its next round of funding. The race is on to create as many great local deals as possible to present to mobile consumers. And its biggest competitor is Groupon Now. While Groupon is already the largest daily deal company in the world, it wants to move from deals people sign up for in advance through massive email marketing campaigns to instant deals they find on their mobile phones. The company is testing its own mobile app called in a few cities like Chicago and New York. Groupon Now deals are different than regular Groupon deals in that consumers don’t have to wait a day to redeem them. They are available instantly and you can find them on your mobile phone when you are nearby a merchant offering one of these deals. A Groupon Now deal is directly equivalent to a Foursquare special powered by AmEx in that it is instantly redeemable and the payment can be linked to the offer. Closing this loop is the Holy Grail of digital local commerce. But closing that loop is not enough. The winner of this race will be the one who can bring enough high-quality deals to mobile consumers, and vice versa. You need both incredible deal density and a huge number of users looking for those deals and redeeming them, all pretty much in realtime. Even Groupon doesn’t have enough deals in place yet or people using its app to make Groupon Now compelling. Neither does Foursquare, which up until now has allowed merchants to put up whatever specials they want. Foursquare simply doesn’t have the salesforce to craft the same kind of deals that Groupon can. Groupon’s deals tend to be more alluring with deeper discounts. AmEx is helping Foursquare here by sourcing many of these deals itself through its own salesforce and existing relationships with local and national merchants, but it also gets to keep all the revenue. At least for now. Foursquare is bringing the users (and some of the deals), and is betting that eventually that will be worth something. It’s all about who can create a market of users and deals faster. Foursquare’s approach is to build up its users first—now it’s got —and then hope the deals trickle up organically or through partnerships. Groupon is almost taking the opposite approach, trying to build up an inventory of great mobile deals first and then hoping that the consumers will come. The thing is that it takes both sides to make a market. |
Sources: PopCap In Late Stage Acquisition Discussions With EA For $1 Billion+ | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 6 | 22 | Following up on our story earlier this evening that PopCap Games is in late stage for a sum of over $1 billion — we’ve now heard from two sources that the buyer is Electronic Arts. The high price of the deal ($1+ billion) means that this would be a huge bet for EA — we’re talking over 13% of the company’s . But we’re hearing that this is a Hail Mary pass from EA to break into mobile and social gaming — areas where the company hasn’t done nearly as well as it has in the console arena. Possible logic behind the deal: Electronic Arts has some successful franchises that cater to casual users (including The Sims), but many of its successful properties appeal to the hardcore crowd. This is problematic on mobile, where iOS’s top grossing apps are dominated by Angry Birds, Zynga, Pocket Gems, and other casual games. PopCap could help with that — their arsenal of games includes Bejeweled and Plants vs Zombies, each of which is a powerhouse in mobile and casual gaming. We’ll continue to provide updates to the story as we hear more. |
Vita To Ship December 31st? | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 22 | Some -pre-ordering mofos are getting word from Amazon that their shiny new handheld will not, in fact, be arriving “this holiday season” (which implies November and early December), but may rather be shipping on the last day of the year, and . I know, first world problems, right? But it does mean that Sony will miss out on a huge sales opportunity, and a lot of kids are going to be unwrapping (potential eye damage notwithstanding) instead of Vitas. Nobody likes finding an I.O.U. under the tree. No confirmation from Sony yet, though, so let’s not all freak out. |
Pentax Q Compact Interchangeable Lens Camera Leaked | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 22 | It seems someone hit the “go” button a little early over at , as for a few brief minutes , with pictures and specs. It’s an interchangeable lens system with a rather small sensor (1/2.3″, which is what’s in many point and shoots), though unfortunately no information on the new lens mount (called Q as well) other than the one on the camera in the picture, an 8.5mm F/1.9. The price is supposedly $800, though it’s not clear whether that’s with a kit lens or no. I’ve got to say, that off-white color is pretty nasty. Give me good old black/silver any day. I’d expect an official announcement shortly. |
Peruse Nearby Groupons In Your Pulse Reader | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 6 | 22 | Pulse is not just for news feeds and Facebook links. Now you can also get nearby daily deals. With the latest update to both the iPhone and Android apps, when you enable location sharing, Pulse will pull . Pulse lets you subscribe to different deals by city. You can see them as a stream in your Pulse reader, along with deals from nearby cities. If you click through to purchase one, Pulse will get an affiliate fee. It’s certainly a better way to peruse the deals than the daily email. You can also save a deal for later purchase. These are regular Groupon deals, not the instant Groupon Now deals that , but as Groupon Now expands to more cities, Pulse may add those in the future. |
Happy 15th Birthday, Quake | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 22 | On June 22nd, 1996, id Software released , the true successor to the franchise and among the first games (certainly the most well-known) to be presented entirely in 3D. That is, with polygons. Those of us old enough to do so will remember the first set of levels (that is to say, the demo) with perfect clarity, and recall the classic grunts, moans, and clangs that accompanied that fantastic atmosphere and ambitious level design. It’s still a hell of a lot of fun. and there are tons of mods and level packs at . Graaaa! |
Hands On With The Creative Tactic 3D Omega | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 22 | This console headset, announced at CES this year, is finally available for purchase. It offers 3D sound in a pair of high-end headphones along with a wireless dongle that sits behind the console and is nearly invisible. We had a few seconds with the headset today and they looked pretty solid, an important consideration when you’re talking about something that will eventually end up under the couch in a fit of pique. The headphones are available now for $199. With the unique integration of Creative’s wireless technology into the headset itself, the Creative Sound Blaster® Tactic3D™ Omega wireless gaming headset does not require any extra attachments to function with gaming consoles wirelessly. The headset has volume, mute and connection controls fully integrated into the headset itself, eliminating the need for any additional connectivity components. Creative’s robust wireless technology is designed to eliminate static interference, which affects other headsets, and delivers game audio with ultra-low latency, a critical feature for competitive game play.
The Creative Sound Blaster Tactic3D Omega wireless gaming headset delivers phenomenal audio quality by teaming Creative’s immersive audio technology and powerful FullSpectrum™ 50mm drivers for a superb audio experience, giving the user a complete 3D experience when playing the new generation of 3D games. This superior headset is engineered to provide crystal-clear voice communications on the PS3, Xbox 360, Mac and PC with its detachable noise-cancelling microphone. |
Robotic Hug-Jacket Is Somewhere Between Depressing And Therapeutic | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 22 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdwLplAl93I&w=640&h=390]
Now, I’m going to be honest here, the way this thing is pitched (“Sense-Roid provides you a passionate tactile communication with ‘YOURSELF'”) isn’t really the right way to go about it. People don’t hug themselves, not because they can’t (you can, kind of), but because it isn’t emotionally fulfilling. Hugging someone else is… well, I don’t need to explain why hugs are nice. At least not to you guys, but maybe I should send an email to the Sense-Roid inventors. The technical achievement is interesting, but I’m guessing this is something the teledildonics community (yes) has already investigated pretty thoroughly (the creators of the Sense-Roid have also put out kiss and tickle transmission devices). On the other hand, a vest like this connected with one some distance away could actually be very therapeutic to someone who is stuck in a hospital or away for work. I’m being serious, here. People in hospitals and jail and such get emotionally isolated, and part of that is the lack of contact with their loved ones. I get the feeling that a remotely operated hug-jacket like this could actually be really beneficial in therapy. But as you probably noted in the video, that possibility is largely unexplored in favor of self-love. I… don’t know what else I can say. More information at . [via ] |
GameAnalytics.com: The Name Says It All | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 6 | 22 | It’s no secret that game companies like Zynga have many of their mechanics — be it the initial walkthrough or payment process — down to a science. But for the so-called “long tail” of developers, finding or building the requisite tools is far from trivial. is a startup that’s looking to level the playing field, by giving all developers game-specific analytics tools similar to those being used by the big dogs. The startup is currently in private beta, with plans to launch publicly in the next five months or so. For the time being you can request an invite from their homepage. Game Analytics won’t be alone in this space — we’ve , a real-time analytics company that can track any sort of data in realtime, and is already being used by some large game developers, including Slide. is another service with powerful stat-tracking features. So what makes Game Analytics different? CEO and cofounder Morten Wulff says that because the company is focused exclusively on games, it will be able to offer some features that more general solutions don’t, like preset settings depending on the game engine (like Unity 3D) or genre a developer is working on. The service will also offer QA testing features, like automated crash reports that identify when and where a game is failing. Other features already available or in the works: the ability to A/B test different layouts and real-time updates on key metrics. We’ll follow up once the company is ready for its public launch. |
Quick Bike Hack: Put A Seatbelt Inside Your Tires To Resist Punctures | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 22 |
If you ride a bike in the city, you’ve probably had a few flats in your time. Here’s a quick homebrew method to strengthen your tire against the occasional glass shard or rusty nail. (obtainable at a junkyard or online) rolled inside your tire before the tube. It won’t protect against gunshots, but hey. [via and ] |
Tests Put iPad 2 Display Quality Above Xoom, Transformer | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 22 | The most important hardware aspect of a tablet is arguably the screen, which is the main object you interact with, and the item through which you receive most of the tablet’s content. Therefore, the quality of that hardware is paramount. And it seems Apple has made sure that its screen is of the highest quality. Motorola? Not so much. on the brightness, reflectance, color gamut, and so on, and found that the screen (like the old iPad, and the iPhone) is superior to the competition. In the case of the , I’m disappointed, since it should really be a premium device. The Asus , on the other hand, performs fairly well for its price. They’ll be adding the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Acer Iconia A500 to the mix next. I’m more interested in pixel density, myself, and I’m waiting for that 2048×1536 iPad we keep hearing about. [via ] |
Hands-On With The Creative ZEN Style M300 | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 22 |
The ZEN Style M300 is a tiny MP3 player with a few tricks up its sleeve. Starting at a mere $40, these tiny, colored devices feature Bluetooth connectivity, a MicroSD slot, and a small color screen. A different device the M100, has all the features of the M300 except the FM radio. The 4GB 300M costs $49 while the 100M costs $40. At a fraction of the cost of any similar iPod, these little guys seem to be on the right track for the more frugal among us. Creative ZEN Style M300 Portable Media Player
• Display: 1.45″ TFT (262K colors)
• Capacity: 4GB, 8GB, 16GB
• Bluetooth: Bluetooth 2.1 wireless technology (supports A2DP & AVRCP)
• FM Radio function with 32 preset stations
• Battery Life: Up to 20 hours (based on128kpbs, 4mins/song, MP3 file)
• Supported Audio Formats: MP3, WMA (DRM9),WAV (IMA-ADPCM),
Audible Format 4, Audible AAX
• Supported Picture Formats: JPEG
• Supported Video Formats: Transcoded SMV (requires respective codec pre-installed on PC)
• Built-in microphone for voice recording
• Additional feature: Clock display
|
Valve Warms Toward Nintendo With Wii U | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 22 | Don’t expect Episode 3 to come to your New Controller any time soon, but Valve’s Gabe Newell has made some noises about Nintendo What he means is that there was no way they were downsizing a game to fit on the Wii, but the might have the chops to make it worth porting games to. For a long time Nintendo has been the whipping boy for AAA developers, who have either designed crippled versions of their franchises or skipped the Wii altogether. But as we saw at E3, many are changing their minds. Nice to be able to add Valve to the list. |
A New Mobile Social Games King In The U.S.? Former Facebookers Take Storm8 To 210 Million Downloads | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 6 | 22 | On the heels of comes some interesting news from the social games front: Game developer is today announcing a few impressive stats. Among other things, the company is claiming that it has become the “largest mobile social games developer in the U.S.”, boasting over 210 million downloads across iOS and Android. While those numbers are certainly impressive, with Angry Birds raking in over 200 million downloads, I think Rovio, Zynga, PopCap, Outfit7 and quite a few others might have a thing or two to say about that, each of which has fairly sizable user bases in the U.S. Then again, Rovio is in fact Helsinki-based and Outfit7 is international as well so Storm8’s claim to American soil likely stands — at least in relation to the Angry Birds and Talking Tom Cat makers, respectively. Co-founded in 2009 by Chak Ming Li, Perry Tam, and William Siu, all former Facebook engineers, Storm8 is most well known for being the creator of addicting role playing games on the iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices — as well as for being the parent company of top mobile social game developer, . According to Tam, who is also Storm8’s CEO, each game released by the Storm8-TeamLava group has reached the Top 10 on the App store free app category. Not too shabby. The team’s suite of games, which includes titles like iMobsters, World War, Vampires Live, Pets Live, Bakery Story, Restaurant Story, and Fashion Story, is currently averaging over 4 million daily active users, Tam tells me. What’s more, earlier this month during a promotional event, Storm8 reached a unique achievement: It had its first “million dollar day”, which of course is another way of saying that the company raked in $1 million in a single day thanks to in-app purchases made utilizing its freemium model. Taking advantage of the skyrocketing popularity of social games on mobile platforms, Storm8 has managed to hit these milestones without taking any outside investment. Tam wasn’t willing to divulge what the company’s revenues look like at this point, but with a million dollar day already in its pocket, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that Storm8 has cleared profitability and will continue to see escalating revenues as it embarks on its mission to bring its game catalog to an international market. Frictionless payment methods and easy-to-find and utilize virtual rewards, Tam said, are the key to success in taking advantage of the mobile revolution catching on across the globe. Not only that, but the CEO has high hopes for the Android market: We believe Android’s time in social gaming has arrived and feel our new titles will flourish thanks to innovations we’ve made in gameplay and the overall improvement of Android infrastructure. While 210 million+ downloads across 58 million devices and a user base that has grown 300 percent this year are certainly impressive stats (as are those in the graphic above), I’m still hesitant to give Storm8 the “largest mobile social games maker” crown, but this does seem evidence enough to prove that there is some serious competition for our hearts and minds in social games on our mobile devices. Storm8 will no doubt continue to play a big role in mobile social games in the foreseeable future. So check ’em out. |
Want a 90% drop in your site visitors? Yes folks, you too can implement EU cookie law! | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 6 | 22 | Fancy a 90% drop in enthusiasm from your site visitors? This amazing offer could be yours thanks to a wonderful new law about cookies from EU regulators. Yes folks, the people who brought you regulations about the bend in a banana are back! The new law applies to all EU websites and requires website owners to get a user’s consent before cookies are saved onto a device. Guess what that means? It means putting something like this on your site: This is exactly what the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office has done on its own site. Thus over 90% of site visitors have declined to accept a Google Analytics cookie, thereby disappearing from their analytics, writes marketing site . Awesome! Of course this is bound to impact site traffic, massively. Prior to this, site owners just had to provide users with information about how the cookies were used and explain how to ‘opt-out’ if they objected, usually in Terms and Conditions. Under the new rules, cookies can only be stored on devices where the user has given their consent. The UK’s Information Commissioner has actually recommended this be incorporated into UK law. The web industry in the EU has a year to work out what how to implement this law. The graphs obtained by leading web analytics expert, ( ), under a Freedom of Information (FOI) request. |
null | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 14 | null |
Zero Punctuation On Duke Nukem Forever | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 6 | 22 |
You probably know what to expect out of this one. Since the critics have been almost uniform in their judgement of this storied and unfortunate title, and was likely to be even one step further. Actually, he has some sympathy for the game, and while it’s not a good game, its failures are comprehensible in a way some modern games errors aren’t. I’m glad it got released, and I can’t say I ever expected it to be good in the first place. It’s like if they made a , or anything from that period — it just doesn’t really work. |
The Pioneer AppRadio Gets Official Video Demos, $399 Retail MSRP | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 6 | 22 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pufes02UlYw&w=640&h=390] A month after , Pioneer finally found it fit to release a pair of official demo videos of the . However, both are clearly meant for marketing purposes rather than actually showing what it does. Check out the second after the jump. The radio is also now available for purchase $399 at the usual suspects of , , and . Pioneer previously stated that it would retail for less than $500 so they clearly made good on their promise. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg2t5k7ug34&w=640&h=390] Also, why is that labeled on as an exclusive when it’s on Pioneer’s official YouTube channel? |
Songkick hits 100,000 downloads of its iPhone app inside two weeks | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 6 | 22 | So, one normally judges high growth in consumer apps by traction early on. Instagram, which is it lately, had 100,000 downloads in one week. has the same . Adding to this roster is , which is telling us they’ve had 100,000 downloads of their new iPhone app – which lets you find gigs around you – in the first 2 weeks of the app two weeks ago [ ]. The growth is being driven by word of mouth amongst music fans, and is so far fluctuating between a 5 star and a 4.5 star rating on the app store. It probably didn’t hurt that Apple made it app of the week in the UK store. Songkick competes with LiveNation/Ticketmaster which has put a lot of resources into their app, but Songkick is able to aggregate gigs from them and a wide variety of providers. Crucial to music fans is hearing about gigs first, and the app delivers on this with push notifications. The simple personalisation based on your iTunes library is also helping. Now for the Android version, I daresay. Although the strongest growth has been in the US, one feature they’ve seen spike is the ability to browse listings in other cities e.g. when people are on vacation. The only downside to the app it seams is its effect on people’s wallets: Meanwhile, Songkick has a new hire in tow – Mike Harkey joins as US General Manager from Imageshack/Yfrog the popular mobile photo sharing service, where he was GM, and prior to that ran music at eBay. |
The Verizon iPhone Halted Android's Surge. The iPhone 5 Could Reverse It. | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 22 | Nearly a year ago, I wrote a post titled “ “. Not surprisingly, it fired people up. About 1,000 comments later, there was a full-on fanboy war between the Apple and Google sides. But the point was actually something we can look back on. Was Android surging ahead of the iPhone in the United States because Apple only had a deal with AT&T? Let’s revisit, shall we? At the point that post was written, the Verizon iPhone was just a rumor. It was an oft-cited rumor, but still just a rumor. Apple had a deal with one carrier in the U.S., AT&T. Meanwhile, there were Android devices on all four major U.S. carriers. And by all accounts, the ones being sold by Verizon were doing the best in terms of sales. 20+ phones on four carriers (including the nation’s largest) were outselling one phone on one carrier. . It wasn’t until four months after the post that Verizon officially announced they were getting the iPhone. At it was a full five months later that it actually went on sale. That was roughly one quarter ago, so the data has started to trickle in and take shape. And guess what? It sure looks like the iPhone on a second carrier, Verizon, halted Android’s march. In April, when had the iPhone market share push a bit forward while Android saw a small decline, it was perhaps a bit too early to read into it. But a month later, that Android share was indeed flattening, and most credited the Verizon sold in the two months of its existence on the carrier as the reason. A few days ago, using IDC data suggested that Android’s market share peaked in March, and was now on the decline as Apple’s share was rising again. This was the first quarterly share decline that Android had ever seen. Why? It seems obvious, doesn’t it? Earlier today, showing that in both AT&T and Verizon stores across the country, the iPhone is now the top selling device in most stores. Four months ago, the iPhone did not exist in Verizon stores. Now it’s easily outselling any Android device in the majority of stores. To be fair, as before, the sheer number of different Android devices out there means they’re undoubtedly still outselling the iPhone when combined together. But the market share numbers suggest that even this discrepancy has collapsed. That’s pretty amazing. And let’s keep something in mind — by most accounts, the Verizon iPhone launch was not the massive blow-out many were predicting. Why? It’s likely that a sizable chunk of would-be Verizon iPhone buyers believed a newer model would launch in the summertime, just a few months away, just like it always had in the past. That turned out not to be the case, and it now looks like the iPhone 5 will launch this fall. But Apple gave no guidance on that either way. So a lot of customers have been left waiting. (Though the white iPhone helped a bit.) And guess what happens when the iPhone 5 does launch in the fall on both Verizon and AT&T? It’s going to be . So massive that I wouldn’t be surprised if the one device does actually reverse the Android’s march forward. At the very least, it will do so in the short term. Yes, device on carriers could well outsell dozens of devices on four carriers. And if and when the government approves the AT&T/T-Mobile deal (which is BS, but will happen), we’ll see the iPhone on the top two of three carriers in the U.S. Apple doesn’t really need Sprint anymore, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the iPhone on the carrier next year. So in that regard, the Android vs. iPhone argument is becoming a more fair one in the U.S. market. Apple is never going to make dozens of devices to match Android in “choice”, but the carrier part of the equation is being negated. In other words, at least in part, Android is no longer surging because Apple is no longer letting it. |
Fly Or Die: How Color Became The Ishtar Of iPhone Apps | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 6 | 25 | Ever since launched its photo sharing app, the startup has been having a rough time. John Biggs and I reviewed it on back in March, when CEO Bill Nguyen joined us to defend the app ( you can watch that episode below, we both gave it a “die”). The company continues to struggle, so we decided to revisit our assessment in the new episode above. Things don’t seem to be getting much better for the company. . Co-founder , or was fired, according to CEO Bill Nguyen, who also told the New York Times that the company is going back to the drawing board. It might scrap its photo app altogether in favor of, well, something big and vague. According to the Mr. Nguyen outlined an ambitious plan to compete with Apple, Google and Facebook by tying together group messaging, recommendations and local search, all while making money through advertising. Okay. Good luck with that. Their first idea didn’t work. It happens. At least they still have a lot of money left to try something else. We’ve by now. But Can they overcome such a spectacularly bad launch? Or is Color doomed to become the of iPhone apps? Watch more episodes of . |
After Seven Years, The Winklevosses Drop Battle With Facebook [Update: They’re Back] | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 6 | 22 | After seven years of lawsuits! … After reaching a $65 million dollar settlement with Facebook in 2008 which they then tried to rescind on the argument that Facebook gave them misleading information! … After vowing that they would challenge an April 2011 ruling by the 9th Circuit Court and take their case all the way to the Supreme Court, (!) the Winklevosses have just on their fight against Facebook. In a statement made to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco today, the twins and friend Divya Narendra said that they have the legal appeal of the most recent court ruling (in favor of Facebook) after “careful consideration.” Meaning they will take the original settlement, which is in stock now worth considerably more than $65 million. The Harvard students filed their original suit against the social network in 2004 accusing Facebook CEO and fellow student Mark Zuckerberg of ripping off their CONNECTU idea, and subsequently creating Facebook. The best part about the entire fight, which has seen the twins through their young adulthood? Facebook’s reaction to the news, “We’ve considered this case closed for a long time, and we’re pleased to see the other party now agrees.” Fin. Actually, it not over, exactly. According to the the brothers have filed a request on Thursday to have a Boston federal court that Facebook hide evidence during the original case. Winklevosses, we just can’t quit you. |
After 50 Days Of Attacks, Hacker Group LulzSec Calls It Quits | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 6 | 25 | Hacker group has announced that after of hacking companies and organizations, it is . Check out the message from LulzSec below, which was Check out the video as well (embedded below). LulzSec released a torrent of data from Arizona law enforcement which included hundreds of classified documents including personal emails, names and phone numbers. The group was also on Sony, attacks on PBS, the US Senate, the CIA, and a slew of gaming sites popular with 4Chan users including EVE Online, Minecraft and League of Legends. LulzSec was thought to have been the source of hacks against Scotland Yards and the UK Census, but the group As the post, says the group of six hackers has been “disrupting and exposing corporations, governments, often the general population itself, and quite possibly everything in between, just because we could.” Friends around the globe, We are Lulz Security, and this is our final release, as today marks something meaningful to us. 50 days ago, we set sail with our humble ship on an uneasy and brutal ocean: the Internet. The hate machine, the love machine, the machine powered by many machines. We are all part of it, helping it grow, and helping it grow on us. For the past 50 days we’ve been disrupting and exposing corporations, governments, often the general population itself, and quite possibly everything in between, just because we could. All to selflessly entertain others – vanity, fame, recognition, all of these things are shadowed by our desire for that which we all love. The raw, uninterrupted, chaotic thrill of entertainment and anarchy. It’s what we all crave, even the seemingly lifeless politicians and emotionless, middle-aged self-titled failures. You are not failures. You have not blown away. You can get what you want and you are worth having it, believe in yourself. While we are responsible for everything that The Lulz Boat is, we are not tied to this identity permanently. Behind this jolly visage of rainbows and top hats, we are people. People with a preference for music, a preference for food; we have varying taste in clothes and television, we are just like you. Even Hitler and Osama Bin Laden had these unique variations and style, and isn’t that interesting to know? The mediocre painter turned supervillain liked cats more than we did. Again, behind the mask, behind the insanity and mayhem, we truly believe in the AntiSec movement. We believe in it so strongly that we brought it back, much to the dismay of those looking for more anarchic lulz. We hope, wish, even beg, that the movement manifests itself into a revolution that can continue on without us. The support we’ve gathered for it in such a short space of time is truly overwhelming, and not to mention humbling. Please don’t stop. Together, united, we can stomp down our common oppressors and imbue ourselves with the power and freedom we deserve. So with those last thoughts, it’s time to say bon voyage. Our planned 50 day cruise has expired, and we must now sail into the distance, leaving behind – we hope – inspiration, fear, denial, happiness, approval, disapproval, mockery, embarrassment, thoughtfulness, jealousy, hate, even love. If anything, we hope we had a microscopic impact on someone, somewhere. Anywhere. Thank you for sailing with us. The breeze is fresh and the sun is setting, so now we head for the horizon. Lulz Security – our crew of six wishes you a happy 2011, and a shout-out to all of our battlefleet members and supporters across the globe Let it flow… [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oikkf_RzPjo&w=425&h=349] |
Card Designer: The Inspiration For Zuckerberg's "I'm CEO, Bitch"? Steve Jobs. | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 6 | 25 | “I’m CEO, Bitch.” While the story of this title appearing on Mark Zuckerberg’s early Facebook business cards has been around outside the company since at least 2009, when Ben Mezrich’s was released, it really exploded into legendary status last year. That’s when the Acadmey Award-winning film, (based on Mezrich’s book), launched the phrase into pop culture by having Justin Timberlake’s Sean Parker utter it as the exclamation point at the end of a key speech meant to inspire Jesse Einsenberg’s Zuckerberg. “This time you’re gonna hand them a business card that says, ‘I’m CEO, bitch!’ — that’s what I want for you,” Parker says. Later in the film, Zuckerberg opens a box of business cards that have the title on them. Of course, that’s Hollywood. That’s not what really happened. But the phrase, and the business cards were very real. David Kirkpatrick’s book , the existence of the business cards last year. The key excerpt: As the Facebook boys started dealing increasingly with real business professionals, a reputation for rambunctiousness spread throughout the valley. “It’s Lord of the Flies over there,” one executive told an executive recruiter. Zuckerberg had to be careful which business card he handed out at meetings. He had two sets. One simply identified him as “CEO.” The other: “I’m CEO…bitch!” Early Facebooker Andrew Bosworth (“Boz”) later confirmed this even further when he answered a question about the card last summer. But Bosworth downplayed the card: I believe it was intended as a joke for his friends and speaks to how unclear it was even in his own mind at the time that he would someday become such an important (and scrutinized) leader in our industry. But yesterday, Bryan Veloso, a Facebook Designer from 2005 to 2006, gave a more more interesting and enlightening answer . And he should know — he designed the actual card. According to Veloso, the idea for the “I’m CEO, Bitch” card stems from the fact that Zuckerberg actually used to utter the phrase. And as Veloso tells is, he did so to be more “aggressive” and to emulate the style of one man: Steve Jobs. The key part: As for Mark’s, it’s no secret that Mark looked up to Steve Jobs at the time. When Aaron Sittig and I were the only designers in late 2005, he would hold his design meetings with us in that classic “aggressive” Steve Jobs-style. It was during one of those meetings where I remember him first uttering the phrase, “I’m CEO, bitch…” Veloso goes on to note that the cards was in many ways a “happy accident” in that he felt comfortable making thanks to his relationship with Zuckerberg at the time. He also says that eventually the cards were pulled towards the end of his tenure at Facebook. “In this designer’s view, these retired cards were an excellent representation of the company culture at the time. Their replacement reflected the changes a young Facebook needed to go through in order to be where it is today,” he writes. Indeed. So, no, the card was not inspired by a drunken nightclub party with Victoria Secret models. But it was very real. And you can thank Steve Jobs for that. : And as on Twitter, the actual phrase itself sure seems like it may have been derived from comedian Dave Chappelle’s portrayal of on Chappelle’s Show. The phrase, “ ” was pretty hard to avoid in the early-to-mid 2000s. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC5wVJrhzl0&w=630&h=349] |
Facebook's Ban Bot Leaves Some Developers Baffled (And Angry) | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 6 | 25 | Over the last few days the TechCrunch tips box has seen a surge in complaints from Facebook developers who have had their applications disabled without warning. Facebook’s developer is filled with as developers cry foul, saying that Facebook is killing their businesses without warning or just cause. And developers in a on Hacker News are reporting similar problems. So what’s going on? The sudden bans are the result of an automated Facebook bot, which automatically shuts down applications that it deems to be spammy. Obviously neither users nor Facebook want spammy applications on the platform, but there’s one problem: Facebook recently tweaked this bot to be much more aggressive, and it didn’t give developers any warning before it set it loose. Facebook declined to share any data on how many applications have been affected — it would only give us the same statement that it gave to , which reported on the issue last night: “Over the past year, we’ve worked hard to improve our automated systems that catch spam and malicious behavior on the platform. These systems allowed us to cut spam on the platform by 95 percent in 2010, greatly increasing user satisfaction and trust with apps on Facebook. Recently, we started getting a lot of user feedback, spiking significantly over the past week, on the amount of application spam people are seeing in their feeds and on their walls. As a result, we turned on a new enforcement system yesterday that took user feedback much more heavily into account. This resulted in a number of applications with high negative user feedback being disabled or having certain features disabled. We’ve posted a link for developers where they can appeal if they feel they’ve been disabled in error. Also, we’re working on new analytics to help developers better monitor negative user feedback to prevent a spike like this in the future.” To be clear, many of the applications that Facebook shut down probably are spammy. But others, like , are perfectly legitimate. Facebook now seems to be actively reinstating applications that were wrongfully blocked — GoodReads was fixed last night, and we’ve received reports from another developer that their applications were recently reactivated without any additional explanation. But it’s not as if Facebook can just wave its hand and suddenly put things back the way they were. Some of these developers are having to deal with an influx of user complaints. And some devs are losing faith in the platform entirely, as they fear having their business pulled out from under them without warning. As one developer, whose application was blocked and then reactivated upon appeal, put it: “I will no longer be content to view Facebook as an environment to handle user traffic. They will be a mechanism for user acquisition alone.” |
Now You Can Download My Head! | John Biggs | 2,011 | 6 | 25 | Good news, everybody! My head, scanned at Industries by artist with a high-resolution laser scanner, is now a Thing, available for everyone to own, covet, and place into terrible places. That’s right: I’m now 3D-printable. This is all you need to download and print my head on your own rapid prototyping machine. Why not add rabbit ears or a longer nose? Why not give me pustules or place me on the hood of your old Ford Fairmont. Why not use me in a puppet play that is a weird and obtuse commentary on the banality of human existence. Why not use me as a sex toy? I’m game. I’m not sure how I feel right now about this, but it’s a fascinating exercise. To think that my profile can eventually be printed in life size and/or an android mask can be made in my visage is humbling and a little scary. Why me? Why now? Why am I so puffy? I can’t answer these questions, friends. But the future is here. |
Gillmor Gang 6.25.11 | Steve Gillmor | 2,011 | 6 | 25 | The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Phil Windley, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — celebrated the news that apps are moving past web sites as the default architecture of the planet. I say celebrate because I think the trend is one that will continue, and even accelerate, as iOS notifications make interoperation between apps more useful. In the process, as @windley notes, notifications and the processes that are triggered, become the focal point of what used to be known as the operating system. What that means for Windows is cloudy at the moment, pun intended. Though many analysts suggest Windows Phone 7 will gain significant penetration alongside iOS and Android, it will only be possible should important apps drive that adoption. @scobleizer is dubious, and @kevinmarks suggests the locus of power in notification has moved away from OS to Facebook and Twitter. @stevegillmor has his money on @mentions, where social and Web meet in a native wrapper too tasty to ignore. |
Stop The Hate: Daily Deals Aren't All Bad, And Here's Why | guest posts | 2,011 | 6 | 25 | There’s a lot of out there these days from the press when it comes to the daily deals industry. I’m , TechCrunch. Sure, Groupon has become the whale in this industry, but that doesn’t mean Groupon constitutes the entire industry. Sure, while Groupon may sometimes structure lousy deals for merchants, it doesn’t mean the entire daily deal business model isn’t sustainable or beneficial for small businesses. When done right, the daily deal can actually be very lucrative for everyone involved: Merchants, customers and the daily deal sites themselves. So why should you take my word for it? It’s true, I’ve got my biases. But so many people have quickly elevated themselves to “ ” on this space that it’s hard to filter truth from the noise. My company, , started in May 2010. We are now a top player in our markets, generating eight figures of profitable revenues. So, when I talk about the daily deal space, I do so with direct experience. I talk to merchants and customers every day. I have numbers to back my claims. I’m a player in this game, not a self-proclaimed expert who sits on the sidelines. Let’s start by clearing up some common misconceptions: Most merchants participating in daily deals do not have much deal experience. This leaves them at a disadvantage to the daily deal sites when it comes to negotiating the terms of running a daily deal, and can lead to stories like (also on TechCrunch). Interestingly, I find that most of the daily deal horror stories come from merchants that a) negotiate terrible deal structure/terms b) do not accurately track redemption or customer spend and c) do not clearly understand the true economics of running a daily deal. This particular post references a story about a coffee shop that signed a 50/50 deal to sell $13 value vouchers (an atrocious 2.5-times their average ticket) for $6 and claimed to have lost $10,000 after selling 890 vouchers. But, let’s take a look at the real economics: Total Voucher Value = (890 vouchers) X $13 = $11,570.00
Total Food Cost = $11,570 X (85% redemption rate) X (30% food cost) = $2,950.35
Income From Groupon = (890 vouchers) X ($6 voucher price) X (50% split) = $2,670.00
Cost of Deal After Food Cost = ($2,950.35 food cost) – ($2,670.00 income) = $280.35 Even if we factor in additional variable costs (such as labor, etc.) and amortize fixed costs, a $10,000 seems unrealistically high. Unfortunately, it appears that the poor deal terms and lack of preparation crippled the merchant’s ability to convert new customers into regulars, leaving a bad taste towards the quality of the daily deal model—and daily deal users. Sadly, at times this manifests into merchants and their staff treating daily deal customers like 2nd class citizens. Then they wonder why they don’t come back. Let’s take a moment to analyze a properly-structured restaurant deal: A restaurant sells 1,000 vouchers that are $20 for $40 worth of food with a 70/30 revenue split. If reservations are required (per deal terms) and proper sales limits are set, the restaurant merchant can fulfill the vouchers with minimal increases in variable costs. The economics further improve for other merchants in different market segments (rock climbing, golf, laser hair removal, and so on—i.e. merchants with lower costs of goods). In the example above, even if the restaurant merchant simply breaks even on the economic side, a minimum of 600 new customers will be walking through their doors at no cost. What other advertising options could possibly beat that? Groupon may be the figurehead of the daily deal, but they are not a true reflection of the market as a whole. It is critical for daily deal sites to understand that a positive merchant experience is extremely important, and that more sites should work towards avoiding deals that will result in a negative experience for merchants. It’s not so difficult to reset priorities with this goal in mind and, if we do, we are likely to find that the majority of merchants will continue to reward our industry with repeat business. It’s worked for Crowd Cut. Now, you may still be asking yourself, is it really possible to make money averaging 30% revenue splits, paying merchants within 5 days, covering credit card processing fees, and providing higher levels of customer service? Yes! For all you haters out there, remember: Hate the player, not the game. The daily deal is here to stay. |
Tonchidot CEO Talks 3M Downloads, Augmented Reality, And New App | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 12 | 3 | When I was in Japan earlier this week, I ran into CEO Takahito Iguchi at the TechCrunch Tokyo conference and dragged him back to my makeshift studio for an impromptu interview about the state of augmented reality and mobile apps. Tonchidot launched its app at TechCrunch50 in 2008 before anyone really believed that augmented reality apps were possible. They were the . In the video above Iguchi tells me that Sekai Camera has been downloaded 3 million times (mostly in Japan), and the AR app can add data from any partner as an overlay through its . With Sekai camera, you look through your phone’s camera, and floating icons indicate place information, deals, photos, among other things. It is also an AR . Iguchi thinks he can improve the experience with better data and image-matching technology. One way he plans on collecting better data in the form of user-uploaded photos is a new photo-sharing app he is working on codenamed Peek-and-Poke. He showed it to me backstage. It is a cross between Batch and the original Color in that it makes it easy to create and share photo albums with other people at the same event or location. But Iguchi is more interested in how he can use those photos to augment his augmented-reality app. |
A List Of Startups Goldman Sachs Thinks Will Most Likely IPO | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 12 | 3 | Very very quietly (there is almost ), investment bank and securities firm held its ” this week in Las Vegas. During the two-day conference, which lasted from November 29-30th, a gaggle of companies presented their business models to an elite audience composed of bankers, investors and peers. Attendees listened to talks given by ‘s and (who gave the keynote on Tuesday night). was also there, being himself. All in all the experience was very, very fun I heard. Makes sense. So why hold a conference for early stage companies if you’re an IPO underwriter? Well, the event basically functions as an extremely foresighted form of lead generation. According to multiple people I spoke to, these are the 30 or so startups Goldman has designated as potential IPO candidates. And it wants to make a relationship as early on as possible, in case some of them actually do and need Goldman’s services in the process. So who are these white-hot startups then? Well here you go! (I might be missing one or two, so if you’re on this list or know of someone who should be on this list, please and I will put you/them on if your story checks out.) In alphabetical order: Each startup presented for 30 min to an audience of about 60-80, except for the four or so smaller ones like , who presented to all 500 people for 15 minutes. Goldman did a great job of curating the overall list, even though I would have added to the mix. But that’s just me. Screencaps of the full agenda, below. Rumor has that Dropbox was held to be the most likely IPO candidate, by a consensus of conference chatter. And making the list for the Dropbox/IVP party on Tuesday night was a big deal, I’m hearing. |
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