Scrybe, the online/offline calendar and organizer with the awesome YouTube demo video we wrote about earlier this month, has launched into beta tonight. We’ve kicked the tires and can report that the parts of the service available now do deliver as advertised (see video again below). Accounts are being opened slowly but hopefully Scrybe won’t leave too many disappointed in the short term. It’s impressive and we hope that the full functionality comes online soon. For some people this will be very important: it’s not Ajax or Java – it’s Flash. Flash continues its march towards world domination, if it’s not there already. The basic idea is that the application can be worked with in a browser offline and automatically syncs up whenever you get back online. You can copy and paste list items from Word and Excel documents into Scrybe. There’s a whole lot of smooth zooming in and out and many things can be moved by drag and drop. The UI is almost as smooth as the demo makes it appear, though it would be nice if things shifted or resized to fit the browser window. A number of features have not yet launched, most notably the bookmarks, the global times display and data export. (Correction: global times have in fact been implemented.) Just a few hours into launch, though, the company has proven that it can bring to market a very fluid, multi-feature product that bridges the online/offline gap very nicely. → Read More
Last week social software company SixApart launched Vox, its newest social networking and blogging service. The launch was high profile, the site is beautiful and many people (myself included) thought Vox was bringing something important to market. Not everyone agreed. In the following QandA I queried Andrew Anker, Executive VP of Corporate Development at SixApart, about some of the biggest criticisms of Vox at launch. Prior to working at SixApart, Anker was co-founder and CEO of Wired Digital and a general partner at August Capital. I think these questions and answers will be of general interest to startups and social social software practitioners in general. Anker told me that he thinks the social networking market is far from saturated and that there is a market in protecting privacy even if people don’t use it. He says that software can be both feature rich and accessible to non-technical users; that the world of online advertising is just beginning to move beyond “punch the monkey” style ads and has lots more room to develop as well. The following are Anker’s replies, I’ll let you judge for yourself whether they are convincing. Graphics below are from a few of the site’s more than 150 layout templates. → Read More
Ah yes, the wonderful world of handheld gaming. Though we’ve seen some pretty good handhelds come out in the past (Sega GameGear and Nintendo DS), for the most part they’ve just been extremely disappointing. Modojo’s top 10 list of handheld failures lets gamers reminisce on how much money they threw down the drain over “promising” portables. I myself took a blow when I purchased a Sony PSP. It wasn’t all bad though, I did have my fun with Burnout Revenge for a while, that was until I decided to give the Nintendo DS a chance. Sometimes, I still find myself wishing I had a Sega GameGear, maybe I should check out that Caleco portable sometime soon. → Read More
Marshall Kirkpatrick and I spoke with Reddit founders Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian just a few hours after the announcement of their acquisition by Condé Nast earlier today. A recording of the discussion is now up at TalkCrunch. Steve and Alexis wouldn’t disclose the acquisition price (even under pressure), but they did talk about current traffic (70k uniques & 700k page views per day), and previous funding ($100k total in seed funding, all in the summer of 2005). Listen to the podcast here. → Read More
The LightSnake USB Intelligent Microphone Cable is simply a cable that has an XLR connector on one side and a USB connector on the other side. The two connectors allow you to plug into a microphone on one end and plug into a computer on the other. The LightSnake Microphone Cable features embedded A/D chip technology, which boosts the audio signal so you don’t need a microphone preamp. The cable is a great tool for artists and engineers who don’t own a mixer, Mbox2 or are simply out of inputs. However, you’ll likely lose sound quality in the process. This isn’t such a big problem when you’re using a standard vocal microphone like a SM57 or SM58, but when you move onto condensers, cardioids, ribbons and other high end microphones, you won’t want to do anything directly into your computer because of the sound quality. LightSnake USB Intelligent Microphone Cable also features the “Live and lit” feature, which simply means that both ends of the cable will light up when the cable is plugged in correctly. You won’t need any drivers for the cable either. For home musicians using Logic Pro Audio 7, Garage Band, Cubase and/or Acid, the LightSnake may very well be a viable option over an expensive mixer or a 2-input Mbox2. SoundTech Announces LightSnake USB Intelligent Microphone Cable [product page] → Read More
Here’s a video of the Nintendo Wii interface done by Matt from IGN. Though all the features work, everything is done with a dev-kit Wii, so there may be a few subtle changes made before the actual console ships. Matt goes through all the features including customization of the interface, nickname options, choosing what games to play and all that fun stuff that you’ll waste about 20 minutes doing when you first get your console. I was against the disc drive (I don’t particularly like slot loading) of the Wii at first, but after seeing it in action, I can’t complain. There’s a little annoying sound that happens every time you click something, hopefully there will be a way to disable that or at least make it quieter. The video is around 10 minutes long, so sit back, relax and enjoy the show. Nintendo Wii Interface Video [oh gizmo] → Read More
In the spirit of Halloween (and national diversity), I’d like to take a minute to break from our regularly scheduled programming for this video intermission. Enjoy. → Read More
As we mentioned yesterday, a much anticipated update for the Xbox 360 was scheduled to drop today. And as promised, users were able to log in this morning and download the fall update. The new version adds: New Features HD 1080p video mode support over VGA and component cables. Xbox 360 HD DVD Player support. Stream WMV video from a Windows PC running Windows Media Player 11, Zune software, or Windows Media Connect. Play video from storage devices such as USB flash drives, Xbox 360 Memory Units, etc. Play video from CD or DVD data discs. Xbox 360 Wireless Headset support, including battery level indicator in the Xbox Guide. Video support for 50 Hz HDTV modes (DVD and HD DVD only). Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel support. Set up automatic downloads of newly released Xbox Live Arcade trial games. Support for upcoming release of XNA Game Studio Express (separate download and subscription required.) Stream music, pictures and video from a Zune device. → Read More
Why is this man smiling? Because Verizon today announced it will be selling a service from Plaxo that allows its wireless customers to automagically sync up their contacts between their computers and mobile devices, over the air. The Java BREW application is compatible with most current Verizon handsets and costs $4.49 a month. While we’d rather see this as a one-time fee-for-service charge, Verizon and Plaxo seem to think that its customers update their phonebooks a lot, when really, short of getting a new handset, users don’t. But if you’re a new customer or getting an upgraded phone, using the service for one month might not be a bad idea, though it can usually do it at any of its retail stores for a small fee. It still can’t stop you from drunk dialing you-know-who. Verizon to Offer Mobile Phone Contact Updates [Reuters] → Read More
Why is this man smiling? Because Verizon today announced it will be selling a service from Plaxo that allows its wireless customers to automagically sync up their contacts between their computers and mobile devices, over the air. The Java BREW application is compatible with most current Verizon handsets and costs $4.49 a month. While we’d rather see this as a one-time fee-for-service charge, Verizon and Plaxo seem to think that its customers update their phonebooks a lot, when really, short of getting a new handset, users don’t. But if you’re a new customer or getting an upgraded phone, using the service for one month might not be a bad idea, though it can usually do it at any of its retail stores for a small fee. It still can’t stop you from drunk dialing you-know-who. Verizon to Offer Mobile Phone Contact Updates [Reuters] → Read More
Microsoft has made a number of announcements in the last 24 hours that show it is not going to let the oncoming Google Office steal its thunder without a fight. It looks to me like the transformation of Microsoft into a Web 2.0 company is underway at this moment and is happening faster than many people expected. Redmond has announced that it is partnering with PHP commercialization firm Zend, it has released a free, lightweight accounting application integrated with online activities and it will be bringing the first version of Office Live out of beta in two weeks. A new cross vendor ad management service will allow customers to buy AdSense as well as Microsoft ads and there will be a new hosted CRM service. These are huge changes. The company announced this morning a multi-year relationship with Israeli PHP company Zend Technologies. The collaboration will focus on making it easier for PHP developers to program against Windows Server 2003 and in the future Longhorn. This is important because it’s a clear signal of recognition that the company can’t use its market share to force developers to use its .NET platform. The partnership with Zend looks like a great move towards increased participation in the larger development ecosystem. Yesterday Microsoft released a free downloadable accounting program called Office Accounting Express 2007. That software focuses on integrating with online sites like eBay, PayPal and Office Live. See for comparison Google’s partnership with Intuit. Today it was announced that the first version of Office Live will come out of beta on the 14th of November. Office Live is a free service with premium services for small businesses. It includes online storage, webmail and calendaring. The highest level of premium service will cost a mere $40 per month for up to 50 users. According to InfoWorld’s coverage, when Office Live comes out of beta, two new services will become available in beta stage: Office Live adManager and Office Live Business Contact Manager. AdManager will let customers purchase and manage ad campaigns on any ad platform including Google, Yahoo! and Ask as well as Microsoft’s own platform. The Business Contact Manager will be a hosted CRM service. Got all that? Microsoft is partnering with an open source facilitator, releasing free rich internet applications, online storage, web mail, calendaring, hosted CRM and a non-walled garden ad campaign manager. The fight between Microsoft and Google is → Read More
We got word of these presentation photos of what appears to be Motorola’s new RAZR PDA. That’s right, a smartphone in the RAZR form factor, because the world needs another RAZR like it needs touchscreen voting machines. Details are sketchy at best, as all we have are blurry, gadget rumortastic camphone photos, but they’re good enough that we can clearly see moderately thicker RAZR with a slightly enlarged outer display. We know that Moto has a Linux-based ROKR ready to go that’s already cleared the FCC labyrinth of regulation, so it’s likely that the RAZR in this shot will sport some Linuxy goodness. Also on the page, which is from an isreali gadget blog we can’t read, are photos of a “glowing PEBL”, and uglyized version of the popular T-Mobile PEBL. We’re not exactly sure what “glowing” refers to, but this PEBL does have what appears to be dual outer displays, and it looks like one’s color and one’s monochrome, which is confusing as hell. We’re going to comb through the FCC database now and see if we can find anything on these guys, but for now we’re calling it a Halloween mystery. Motorola Spy Pics [Gadgetim] → Read More
See this two-tone red-and-white clamshell? It’s Virgin Mobile USA’s latest handset, the Cyclops made by Kyocera Wireless. It’s not new new, but it was officially announced today, so talking about it doesn’t make us feel as dirty. The big deal is it’s the first phone from the carrier to benefit from a licensing deal with Warner Music Group to use with VM’s TXT Tones service. It’s also the first handset to have Virgin Mobile Audio Messaging, or VAM, which is IM but with voice instead of words. The music-based TXT Tones is basically a ringtone for text messages. So if you thought hearing someone’s ringer over and over again when they received a phone call was irritating, wait till you’re next to someone carrying on a text conversation. Each TXT Tone will run you $1.50 and if you want to take advantage of the WMG deal you better get to downloading ASAP; The catalog is only available from November 2 through November 14, 2006. The VAM service is a bit like push-to-talk as it lets you set up a buddy list, record a message for someone on the list and hit send. If they’re available, they hear the message, if they’re not it sits until they are back. So it’s like a phone call and voice mail wrapped into one. The best part is, your conversations can be saved, so you can totally screw people over by getting them to say something and then playing it back for others. The Cyclops will be available on Virgin Mobile’s site November 2 as well as in Best Buy stores for $99. It’s currently available from Best Buy’s Web site, though. Virgin Mobile Cyclops at Best Buy [product page] → Read More
Motorola announced today the availability of its Portable Bluetooth Car Kit T305. The T305 clips to the visor and allows drivers to communicate without removing their hands from the wheel. It features enhanced echo and noise reduction to provide superior clarity through the mic. And the 1-watt speaker is said to be amply sufficient. The T305 utilizes a multifunction button that allows users to activate speech commands and has a talk time of 14 hours. The Bluetooth Car Kit is available now for $79.99 from RadioShack, Best Buy and Sprint. Product Page → Read More
This is a rather “cool” idea (HAHA!) from Antec as a way to keep the hottest parts of your computer from going nuclear. Do-it-yourself computer modding is getting more and more insane as processors get higher clockspeeds and thus hit higher temperatures. The threat of burning out your proc or system board is very real, and geeks have taken to the problem with ingenuity, with everything from water cooling to liquid Nitrogen. Antec has a less-extreme but just as clever way to compliment your cooling with its Spot Cool fans. These little 3-speed suckers plug into your standard fan port on the computer’s motherboard, but between the interface and the fan itself is a bendable arm, allowing you to target the “hot spot” that’s causing you grief. This allows for decent heat dissipation without breaking the bank. You should be able to find them soon at your American computer gear store for about $20 a pop, which is a decent price considering their usefulness. Spot Cool Fans [Far East Gizmos] → Read More
We got word of these presentation photos of what appears to be Motorola’s new RAZR PDA. That’s right, a smartphone in the RAZR form factor, because the world needs another RAZR like it needs touchscreen voting machines. Details are sketchy at best, as all we have are blurry, gadget rumortastic camphone photos, but they’re good enough that we can clearly see moderately thicker RAZR with a slightly enlarged outer display. We know that Moto has a Linux-based ROKR ready to go that’s already cleared the FCC labyrinth of regulation, so it’s likely that the RAZR in this shot will sport some Linuxy goodness. Also on the page, which is from an isreali gadget blog we can’t read, are photos of a “glowing PEBL”, and uglyized version of the popular T-Mobile PEBL. We’re not exactly sure what “glowing” refers to, but this PEBL does have what appears to be dual outer displays, and it looks like one’s color and one’s monochrome, which is confusing as hell. We’re going to comb through the FCC database now and see if we can find anything on these guys, but for now we’re calling it a Halloween mystery. Motorola Spy Pics [Gadgetim] → Read More
The boys over at bit-tech.net got their hands on an Extreme 64 power notebook from Rock. In honor of Halloween, the case was modded to feature skulls on a rock-looking background. It came out looking surprisingly cool, but the final product added another 2-pounds to a system that already weighs over 10. Crazy. Anyway, you can follow the link below for a full gallery. Scorched Earth [bit-tech.net] → Read More
Kanguru has released a new flash drive that includes biometrics. The Bio Slider II comes in capacities ranging from 256MB up to 4GB and features fingerprint recognition. To activate, simply plug in the drive and and slide your finger across the sensor on the drive. The fingerprint recognition software is stored on the drive and does not install anything on the computer. It utilizes USB 2.0 and is compatible with Windows 98 – XP. It’s available now for $99.95 – $299.95. Product Page → Read More
There are two brands serious graphics artists will probably never abandon: Apple and Wacom. Anyone who does any real digital designing knows that a Wacom tablet is as necessary to them as paint brushes are to a traditional artist. The problem facing many of them now is that Apple (and other computer manufacturers) are tending toward widescreen (closer to, if not, a 16:9 aspect ratio) displays instead of the traditional displays (4:3 aspect ratio). Wacom’s tablets mirrored the traditional 4:3 aspect ratio, so it seemed only natural that it would introduce 16:9 tablets, which it has with its Intruos3 line. With a usable surface of up to 12×19-inches, the new tablets can be mapped pixel-to-pixel for the entire screen, or can even be used to express movement over dual monitors. The tablets also feature Wacom’s standard ExpressKeys, programmable shortcut buttons on the left-hand side. Also shipping with the popular Grip Pen stylus and five-button wireless mouse, it’s everything you need in one package. The smaller version, at 4×6-inches, is even portable for us laptop users. Slick. Intuos3 Wide Format Tablets [Product Page] → Read More
There’s some fun stuff coming out of the 2006 Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) trade show today, but this UVIA M100 mobile infotainment device from Unwired Vehicles is one of the sweetest. The box uses EV-DO mobile broadband from Verizon or Sprint to deliver rear-seat passengers in your vehicle a selection of entertainment apps along with broadband Internet access so you can check your e-mail, IM, check your fantasy teams and stream music and video. And speaking of video, the company says it works with SlingMedia’s SlingBoxes, letting you control and watch your home TV in your ride. It’s an aftermarket install, but it’s modeled after other current entertainment systems. The UVIA M100 utilizes vehicle optimized hardware with Unwired Vehicles’ own infotainment control software pre-installed. High quality displays are installed in either the headliner or seat headrests. A 3G wireless broadband antenna is mounted externally to increase reception quality and bandwidth throughput. The UVIA M100 will be available in Arizona, California and Nevada in December 2006 and will be available nationally in early 2007 for $3,499. (Well, we didn’t say it was gonna be cheap.) Unwired Vehicles UVIA M100 [press release] → Read More
San Francisco, CA
