Now that we’ve seen the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3 in action, it’s time to take a look at what these consoles will actually offer owners on launch day. We know that in the future we’ll have Metal Gear Solid 4 for PlayStation 3, and that Nintendo Wii will have the new Metriod, but that doesn’t really help us when the consoles are 2 weeks away from launch and we can’t make a decision on which one to buy. For each console, there will be one big exclusive game available on launch day: PlayStation 3 will have Resistance: Fall of Man, Nintendo Wii will offer The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and Xbox 360 will get in the ring with Epic’s Gears of War. Since hundreds of dollars (and time) are on the line, we’ve put in-game footage for the consoles’ big titles side-by-side, so we can see what we’ll actually be able to play once these consoles release. → Read More
Just a quick plug this evening for our resident designer, Bryce, creator of Squid Vicious, Little Green Guy, and just about every graphic element on the site. If you’re in charge of UI, branding, or marketing, please drop Bryce a line. He’s not just a creator of squids – he also does desktop publishing/layout, logo creation, and video editing/animation. BryceDurbin.com → Read More
Nintendo of America has stated that it has chosen two retailers, GameStop and Toys ‘R’ Us, to host the launch of the Nintendo Wii. No big surprise here, we already know that GameStop and Toys “R” Us were the first two stores to offer preorders for the Nintendo Wii. Toys “R” Us and GameStop will have more Wii systems in stock than other retailers like Best and Circuit City, and the two stores may also offer more accessories than its competitors (something good to know if you’re planning on buying component cables for your Wii). To make the event fun for gamers camping outside the stores there will also be bands, entertainment and a countdown to midnight on the night of the 18 at participating GameStop and Toys “R” Us stores. There’s no word on which stores will have the big event, so call your local store to see if it will be a part of Nintendo’s big Wii launch event before you put your party shoes on. GameStop And Toys “R” Us Chosen For Wii Launch → Read More
Toys ‘R’ Us in Times Square, NYC, has set up kiosks with four PlayStation 3 units. So far only one of the four PS3s is playable, so if you’re in the area, you’re going to have to get in line with everyone else. Check it out if you’re in the area! So far, it seems there is only one playable game (Motorstorm), but I’m sure in the very near future we will see more playable games being demoed. Destructoid took a few pictures of the kiosks and the PlayStation 3 in action, hit the jump for the hotness. → Read More
For some weeks now I have been bemoaning the lack of entrepreneurial events occurring north of Marble Arch. Of course if I had looked harder I would have found the excellent Birmingham based Multipack and the Manchester based Geekup developer groups. Both of these groups have been running events for sometime now and both have events coming up shortly – please see details below. Well I am pleased to announce things are certainly starting to happen “up North” because there are two more new events launching this month. The first is tomorrow night called “First Friday” which is being organised by Ajaz Ahmed of FreeServe fame. The other event is called “North West Startup 2.0” which is run by Manoj Ranaweera (CEO of ebdex) in Manchester on 23rd November. I must declare that Manoj, Ivan Pope (CEO of Snipperoo) and I have been talking for a few weeks now about organising an entrepreneurs event and I am glad to announce this is now in place. The event will be free to attend but we ask that you register in advance for the event here on Upcoming.org The other speakers include Imran Ali the deputy to the Director of Orange‘s Technology Research team (based out of Leeds). The plan for the evening is to have a very short keynote speech, followed by an open to the floor Q&A session with the panel. Then when that has finished we will retire to the bar to socialise and network. List of events: 1. First Friday with Ajaz Ahmed founder of FreeServe When: Friday, November 3, 2006 starting at 12:00 PM Where: National Coal Mining Museum Caphouse Colliery, Overton Wakefield, West Yorkshire WF4 4RH (Yahoo! Maps, Google Maps) Category: Entrepreneur Social Description: First Friday is a monthly networking event for Wakefield-based businesses and organised by Wakefield First Development Agency. Homepage http://www.wakefieldfirst.com/ 2. Multipack November 2006 When Saturday, November 11, 2006 2:00 PM Where Lloyds No. 1 Regency Wharf, Broad Street Birmingham, West Midlands B1 2DS (Yahoo! Maps, Google Maps) Category Geek Social Description This is the penultimate meetup of the year for web developers, designers, programmers, and their mates from around the Midlands. Back to the central Midlands and second city Birmingham. Regulars should know this venue quite well by now, but we could easily move to many of the bars along Broad Street, by the canal or to the Mailbox. Homepage http://www.multipack.co.uk 3. → Read More
Slovakian startup Geesee launched its cross site chat service this week and I think it has a lot of potential. It’s an embedded chat service that lets users communicate across any number of web sites in common chat rooms organized by tags. In other words, you can use Geesee to chat about Web 2.0 or any other topic while you are on TechCrunch with people who are on other sites. You can chat in multiple rooms organized by tabs. It’s a potentially powerful connector for thematic conversations all around the web. A Geesee chat box on your site lets your readers chat in real time with visitors to related sites elsewhere. It’s just launched and has it’s kinks, but I really like it. Geesee offers a very different experience from services like Meebo Me and 3Bubbles. In fact, you can’t really even compare them. The eight person company was co-founded by Milan Zigmond and Roman Pohancenik. They say they have raised $50,000 in funding. We profiled Geesee prelaunch in September and I wrote that if the company could pull off what it aims to do, it could change the web chat world. Now that the site has gone live, most everything but scalability looks solid. I’ve embedded a Geesee chat window below this post so we can get some idea of the service’s scalability. (Jump on in, there’s an active conversation going on in the TechCrunch room right after I posted this. To see how you can enter one conversation from multiple sites, try coming in through Marshallk.com Update: The conversation may have devolved as the hour grew later, our apologies if that’s the case when you try it out.) Multiple rooms can be chatted in at once, side by side as tabs inside the interface. Audio notification of new messages in any chat can be turned on or off individually by tab. That’s very important if I’m going to keep using slow Geesee chats while doing something else. Audio notification is a little thing that makes a big impact on usefulness and the ability to turn off audio for individual chats is smart. As you can see from the embedded example below, AdSense at the bottom of the chat window changes every 30 seconds. Geesee says the ads are contextual to the chat room’s tags and the last 4 lines of chat. They are having some problems with the → Read More
Crunchgear caught an AdAge story today about YouTube founder Chad Hurley telling attendees at the OgivlyOne Digital Media Summit in New York that YouTube hopes to be able to deliver user generated short video clips to mobile devices by the end of 2007. Hurley said figuring out a monetization model on mobiles was a big part of the challenge, he said he hadn’t seen mobile advertising work yet. I have a hard time believing that Google won’t roll out a mobile YouTube product in far less than 14 months. Particularly given this morning’s launch of Gmail for Mobile and the market imperative, the end of next year seems like too long a wait. The mobile and Web 2.0 spaces are changing fast enough that some one is liable to grab the mobile “user generated content” space right out from under Google if launch takes that long. So it’s possible that those could just be the words of a cautious executive setting goals he knows he can meet. There’s plenty of video being delivered to phones now so it’s probably not a technical problem. In related news, YouTube competitor Revver said today that it became the first video sharing service to be nominated for an Emmy. Revver is a nominee in the category “Outstanding Innovation and Achievement in Advanced Media Technology for the Best Use of On Demand Technology Over the Public (open) Internet.” Revver’s video player shows short films in Flash then calls back to the Revver server to fetch a current still frame post-roll advertisement. Send Revver to phones and there will be all the more reason for high quality publishers to make the switch. CrunchBase Information YouTube Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Microsoft’s new new bundled personal media player/service Zune goes on sale on Tuesday November 14. The official Zune website went live this morning at zune.net. The device will retail for $249. The full specs are below, but the Zune has a 320×240 pixel 3 inch screen (a little bigger than the 2.5 inch screen on the current iPod Video), 4/14 hour battery life for video/music, and 802.11 b/g connectivity. We will have a lot of coverage of the Zune device and service in the next ten days or so here on TechCrunch, as well as our gadget blog CrunchGear. Our previous Zune coverage is here. → Read More
While users can already upload videos to YouTube using mobile phones, there currently is no way to watch videos from YouTube by phone. That could all change within the next year, however. At the OgilvyOne Verge Digital Summit yesterday, YouTube founder Chad Hurley stated that by the end of 2007, YouTube would likely “have something on a mobile device.” With the recent Google buyout of YouTube and Google becoming increasingly mobile, I daresay, we’ll start seeing YouTube on mobile devices sooner than year’s end 2007. At any rate, we’ll keep you posted as more information develops. YouTube to Go Mobile [Adage via ArsTechnica] → Read More
For those of you who wanted to make use of the Nike+iPod Sport Kit, but don’t feel like using Nike shoes, there is now a product that shows some sympathy to your plight. The RunAway AnyShoe from SwitchEasy is a small housing for the Nike+iPod transmitter. Simply place the transmitter inside the housing and clip it to your shoe for Nike-free Nike+iPod action. The product is available for an affordable $7.99, so have at it. Product Page [iLounge via Gizmodo] → Read More
While users can already upload videos to YouTube using mobile phones, there currently is no way to watch videos from YouTube by phone. That could all change within the next year, however. At the OgilvyOne Verge Digital Summit yesterday, YouTube founder Chad Hurley stated that by the end of 2007, YouTube would likely “have something on a mobile device.” With the recent Google buyout of YouTube and Google becoming increasingly mobile, I daresay, we’ll start seeing YouTube on mobile devices sooner than year’s end 2007. At any rate, we’ll keep you posted as more information develops. YouTube to Go Mobile [Adage via ArsTechnica] → Read More
This is one of those things that look cool, but really isn’t. The D’Vinci Forgiato Radurra wheels are made from 2-inch thick polycarbonate and come in 20, 22 and 24-inch sizes. They’ll be available for about $2,000. Now, as far as I’m concerned, the thing that makes these wheels not nearly as cool as they seem is the obvious dirt factor. To perform as desired, you’d basically have to have a wheel-Sherpa that got out and cleaned your wheels whenever the car stopped. Plus, even if you somehow magically manage to keep that polycarbonate clean, well then it’s just providing a view of your grimey ass brakes. Yea, no thanks. Clear wheels showcased at SEMA [Mobile Magazine via Engadget] → Read More
Jeez, I really can’t wait for Apple to release a touch-screen/touch-sensitive something, because I really can’t take this rumor crap much more. This time around it’s a supposed secret slip up someone discovered in an Apple Computer iPod developer document. The original document had a single note that stated “All other Notes feature capabilities described in this document are supported for iPod models with display screens, beginning with the touch-screen models.” But as you can see in the image above, Apple’s already stepped in and clarified the note, changing it to “touch wheel.” Of course, you should feel free to continue the speculation. Apple reference stirs touch-screen iPod frenzy [Apple Insider] → Read More
ConnectMeAnywhere has launched a new, free, service they dub V-mail, which, when you dial a number, sends an MP3 sound recording to a chosen email address. In an email interview with TechCrunch UK CEO Ryan Gallagher, said “Essentially the service allows you to assign an email address to a local number. When you call that number you are prompted to record a message which is then packaged as an MP3 file and transmitted via email to the specified contact.” His pitch is that it allows a user to send an email from any phone to someone while they are mobile (like driving, illegal in the UK by the way) without the need to navigate the mobile phone keyboard or have Net access. In the UK the local number is 0207183 XXXX but they have numbers around the US, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, France and Singapore. This is assigned when you add the contact. So when you register on ConnectMeAnywhere you get a pool of numbers to allocate either international numbers, or email addresses to. Although ConnectMeAnywhere does not charge anything for the service, users still have to pay their mobile contract/minutes. ConnectMeAnywhere will also soon introduce the ability to choose any of a user’s uploaded contacts from the phone. Gallagher also gives the following example for using V-Mail: “To call my dad who lives in Vietnam costs me 1.50 per minute from my mobile phone. With our service I can call him for just under 20 pence per minute (using my bundled minutes-32p outside of my minutes) or if I am not in the mood for a lengthy conversation I can just V-mail him at a fraction of the cost. For travellers this is a great way to keep in touch with family back home when on the move.” Or perhaps you want to send an email instead of calling someone but cannot get to a PC. Until there is ubiquitous WiFi, that’s a useful option to have. Gallagher says that so far ConnectMeAnywhere users are using it for a variety of things from basic email to recording sound bites and memos and sending the V-mail to themselves. Although quite why they wouldn’t just use the very common sound recording facility available on a lot of mobiles these days to do the same thing is a bit of a mystery to TechCrunch UK. However, a better application might be this: ConnectMeAnywhere → Read More
Amazon.com’s subsidiary A9.com has built a new pay-per-click (PPC) advertising network called Clickriver. Clickriver will allow advertisers to display text ads alongside Amazon.com’s product pages and search results. This service will compete with the likes of Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and many others — although Clickriver at launch will only serve ads to Amazon.com-owned websites. Being listed as a “related item” on a popular page can be a huge boon for sales – and with this move Amazon is effectively turning that advantage into a commodity. There’s something cannibalistic about that, but it could generate a lot of revenue. I think it’s fascinating. The service is currently accepting applications for its closed beta. Update: Amazon contacted me to clarify that advertised products must be complementary, sold off-site and not in competition with what Amazon is selling. I apologize for getting it wrong. In time, some third party services will also sell ads on Amazon pages, the Clickriver site says. Amazon’s A9 recently shelved some of its most high profile features, like street level photos integrated with map search. This should be a far more profitable direction for the A9 team to pursue. Steve Poland assisted with this write up but thinks Clickriver is a waste of resources that a partnership could have precluded. → Read More
I know most of you have filled out our advertising survey, so I apologize for flogging this thing so strongly. Nevertheless, for the few of you out there just tuning in, or those who haven’t gotten around to it yet, please follow the link and fill it out. It’ll take just a few minutes and will help us to improve the site all around. Thanks for your time! Survey! → Read More
Rogers Wireless announced today that it would be bringing HSDPA service to Canada. It is currently available in parts of Toronto and it is expected to spread its grasp across Canada throughout 2007. Currently, the only product available through Rogers with HSDPA is the Sierra Wireless AirCard 860. It will be available starting November 24 for $49.99 with a three year contract or $349.99 for the one year term (prices Canadian). With mobile broadband speeds up to 3.6Mbps, I’m itching to try out HSDPA. If anyone of you have had a chance to check out HSDPA, I’d like to hear about it. Rogers Wireless Announces the Debut of HSDPA in Canada [Cell Phones Etc.] → Read More
So the verdict’s officially in on Intel’s new quad-core processors: Four cores is better than two. On the surface that might not seem like a big shocker, but as I’m sure you all know not all new technologies live up to their promises. There’s more than a smattering of coverage coursing through the Internets’ pipes today, but ComputerShopper.com popped out a full review of the $999 Core 2 Extreme QX6700 along with three detailed desktop reviews. The reviewer says the QX6700 “is the season’s must-have upgrade for video-editing enthusiasts.” In our tests, the QX6700 blew away the X6800 on multithreaded applications that can take advantage of multiple cores. Rendering DVD video using multiple filters in Sony Vegas 7.0 took 2 minutes and 56 seconds, compared with 4 minutes and 59 seconds for the X6800. Many Photoshop CS2 tasks, such as converting images to RGB or CMYK format, were nearly twice as fast on the QX6700. And results on Futuremark’s 3DMark06 CPU tests were 60 percent faster than with the dual-core X6800. The only real hiccup is that the processor only truly shines while cranking on multiple, multithreaded apps, which are few and far between. However, the wide availability of quad-core CPUs will undoubtedly result in the development of software and games that’ll take full advantage of the power. It looks like Intel’s got a winner on its hands though, which is good for all of us in the end. Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700: Four Cores to the Floor [Computer Shopper] Other coverage: Intel’s Quad-Core CPU (codenamed Kentsfield) Arrives…and Delivers [pc mag] Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 [cnet] → Read More
Greetings all, I just wanted to take a minute to remind you that we’re currently in the midst of our Smartphones Now 2006 feature set. We’re covering a wide array of smartphone topics and anyone who owns, or might someday own, a smartphone should gives the features a read. The topics included thus far are: Smartphones Now: Windows Mobile 5 Smartphones Now: Opera Mini 2 Opens Up Real Mobile Web Browsing Smartphones Now: Symbian Smartphones Now: The Blackberry Pearl Smartphones Now: The T-Mobile Dash So give them a read and let us know what you think. Also be on the lookout for our holiday features and roundups, starting next week. → Read More
ASAP, the Samsung SYNC, or SGH-a707, gets all launched today. The skinny clamshell phone, exclusive to Cingular, is optimize for high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) for “instant access” to the new music services via a one-touch Cingular Music key. It has external touch-sensitive multimedia buttons as well and a microSD slot for your storage needs. Oh and it supports stereo music over Bluetooth 2.0 and has a built-in 2-megapixel camera with flash to take pictures while you listen to your jams. All of this for $49.99 with a two-year service contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate. Full Cingular press release for today’s announcements → Read More
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San Francisco, CA
