For the past year, I’ve spent time with numerous Casio digital cameras. The Exilim series has proven to be an excellent blend of both value and performance. A fantastic camera at a low price if you will. But camera after camera, Casio didn’t really do much to change the design of each model. At one point, the difference between a 10.1-megapixel camera and a 6-megapixel camera was virtually undetectable (well, except for the megapixel thing). But with the release of the EX-Z75, Casio has tried something new. The unit I received has a new design, a bright blue paint job, and a new UI to play with. Has Casio finally taken a step forward? Maybe. Read on to find out the entire story. → Read More
Apple just added a “groundbreaking” feature to its iTunes store called “Complete My Album” that lets music fans complete partially downloaded albums for a reduced price. Say you’ve already downloaded one song from an album but now want the rest of it without having to repurchase the one song you already have. (Certain longer length songs can only be had when purchasing an entire album, so this situation pops up more than you might think.) With “Complete My Album,” Apple credits your account for the already purchased song(s), leaving you to just pay the balance for the remaining songs. Very thoughtful of Apple, and now I get to complete my collection. iTunes Introduces Complete My Album [Apple] → Read More
Those who enjoy the simpler things in life will gladly welcome the Nokia 5070. This candybar-style phone has no radical design and is chock full of basic features! You’ll get the ability to SMS and MMS, stunning audio messaging, a built-in camera with a terrible resolution, FM radio to listen to NPR on, a stereo headset, and the choice between a red or blue paint job. Doesn’t get any more exciting than this, does it? Now if that isn’t exciting, I just don’t know what is anymore. It’ll retail for about $135 and will be available in Europe during Q2. A bit of an expensive phone for the lack of features, but it looks solid and is probably choice for someone who doesn’t enjoy thrills. Press Release [Nokia] → Read More
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-3400073860479433164&hl=en Corporate dudes, please don’t try to be funny. It never works and you just end up looking silly. Take this guy at CTIA. He’s going on and on about how much the iPhone will change human history like it’s the wheel. Then he mentions a bunch of no-good punk kids and how they wanted him to “pull some strings” so they could get one early. Very funny, sir. Methinks you should quit your overpaid job as an executive and hit the comedy circuit. Pryor’s got nothing on you. Video surfaces of iPhone at CTIA [Electronista] → Read More
One of the better accessory/case-makers, Proporta, needs some help picking a design for it’s Alu-Leather cases. There’s pouch-style where a device slides in and is held entirely or side grip-style where a device is held by two plastic nubs. By heading over to this URL, you can read all about it, cast your vote, and possibly win a prize. There’s five Proporta Gadget Bags with portable USB chargers to be given away, so get e-mailing! Voting Page [Proporta] → Read More
It didn’t take long for the 5700 XpressMusic rumors to become official. The newest 3G handset from Nokia has many of the traits of the 5300 XpressMusic, but it’s got a nice twist, literally. The rotating bottom isn’t just for show, either: each position serves as a different mode for the phone. The most obvious function for the 5700 is a music player, then a 2-megapixel camera, followed by video call and then smartphone. The 5700 features a MicroSD slot that can be upgraded to 2GB. Stream audio to your A2DP Bluetooth stereo headset if you don’t feel like being wired in with the 3.5mm plug earbuds or rock out with the built-in speakers. The music player also supports album art, playlists, and a 5-band equalizer with audio visualizations. The 5700 XpressMusic is expected to hit Europe next quarter with a €350 price tag and it’ll be available in Red and Black. Press Release → Read More
The Nokia 7088 just had its bah mitzvah and is now a man… well, is now no longer just a rumor. The cellphone will be part of Nokia’s L’amour (French for “tacky”) collection, the first CDMA phone to be granted this privilege. How Nokia expects to battle other “luxury” cellphones with what looks to be a basic slider is beyond me. There’s no crazy mirror effect, nor any fancy touchscreen here to speak of. The middle button is apparently jewel-like and the phone itself is wrapped in leather. Wow, it’s like you need to be royalty to use this phone. You’re also better off not living here in the U.S. if you want one quickly, since its Q2 release date only applies to Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. Product Page [Nokia via Ubergizmo] → Read More
::Yawn:: Welcome folks. Today we have some, ah, stunning 2-way radios / walkie talkies from Motorola that are dubbed MOTOTRBO. These industrial-grade radios sport both an analog and digital band and have the ability the send text messages to each other. The whole package comes with all the equipment and software you’ll need to communicate within your group and drive up your electricity bill. There’s even an API for…programmers. These incredibly exciting radios are available now and can be found at your local trucker store or logistics wholesaler I suppose. Press Release → Read More
Let’s start your Thursday off with something a little action-packed, shall we? No? Ok then. Apple has released Boot Camp 1.2 and with it comes long-awaited support for Windows Vista. Now you can turn your purebred Macbook into a mutt by installing the Vis’ on it while still getting your Mac OS X fix. Other updates that come with Boot Camp 1.2 include updated drivers, support for the Apple Remote in Windows, a “Windows system tray icon”, Apple Software Update, and updated documentation. There are a few other things which one might want to glance over, but nothing important or exciting. Hit it up and download it today to get Vista going on your Mac. Product Page [Apple] → Read More
If your house is anything like the CrunchGear Mansion, it’s filled to the brim with gadgetry and electronica. And with all this newfangled convenience comes an equal dose of frustration. Like when your cell phone clock goes dead the second the A train pops underground. It’s almost enough to make you strap on your old Mickey Mouse wristwatch. So this got us to thinking — what are some common problems that ruin our gadget-loving experience, and how can we fix them? If any companies are interested in the following ideas, I’ll be standing by. → Read More
britepic_id = “297898″ britepic_src=”http://farm1.static.flickr.com/53/144942552_81a96c87cb_o.jpg”; britepic_keywords=”Laguna, dog, pets, cute, perfect”; britepic_show_ads=”1″; britepic_caption=”Laguna: Attack Dog”; britepic_width=”560″; The basic format for embedding images into a web page using the <img> tag has been around almost as long at HTML itself, since the first graphical web browser. It works, and it is used constantly. But can it be better? Advertising network AdBrite, which is always looking for new ways to think about things, says it can. This morning, AdBrite launches BritePic to help people add a lot of new functionality around embedded images. Just by changing the embed code, web publishers can add a caption, watermark, zoom, share, resize and other features. And an advertisement, if they choose to. The end product is shown above. Instead of embedding an image using a standard tag like: <img src=”http://farm1.static.flickr.com/53/144942552_81a96c87cb_o.jpg/”> BritePic simply uses a javascript code (non-javascript version is also available for myspace, blogger, etc.) and a very lightweight Flash 7 player to show the image with lots of additional features. BritePic has a code generator tool (see image at bottom of post), although all of the parameters are in the code itself, so power users can just quickly write it out. Here’s the code for the above image: <script> britepic_id = “297898″ britepic_src=”http://farm1.static.flickr.com/53/144942552_81a96c87cb_o.jpg”; britepic_keywords=”Laguna, dog, pets, cute, perfect”; britepic_show_ads=”1″; britepic_caption=”Laguna: Attack Dog”; britepic_width=”560″; </script> Any of the parameters can be changed above. When you register with BritePic you add a watermark and payment information if you choose to include advertisements in pictures. The id in the code above tells it what watermark to add. BritePic doesn’t host image files, so the src field tells it where to pull the image from. Keywords can be added (future functionality will show related pictures), adds shown or not, a caption added, and the width reset. There are also a number of features in the pull up menu at the bottom left of the image above. Zoom is my favorite. Zoom in on a picture and see a larger version of that area. If you are using a large image and resizing, there will be less pixelation. But even for non-resized images the zoom feature could come in handy. On this blog, where we are limited in the horizontal space allowed for images, it will allow us to upload larger images and allow people to zoom in, or simply click to see the larger image on a new page. The → Read More
Microsoft has garnered a lot of press this week with the announcement of its Xbox 360 Elite. The updated console features HDMI inputs and an expanded 120GB hard drive. Its announcement, while not a surprise to anyone, warrants one obvious question, “What now Sony?” The above FCC filing from earlier this month might hold some indication as to how Sony plans to respond to the 360 Elite. Michael Mowhertor at Kotaku believes that the letter could be indicative of an augmented PlayStation 3. While it only states the presence of a larger 80GB hard drive, the new PS3 model (CECHE01) could have more under the hood than a larger hard drive. I’m not sure how plausible it is, but this constitutes as some of that food for thought everyone always seems to be hungry for. And, of course, we’ll keep our eyes open for any new info to surface. Sony Working On PS3 “Elite” Model? [Kotaku] → Read More
Condom Dispenser for Geeks Who Get Some Calming Lamp for the Crazy and Cantakerous Fish-Cleaning Fish-Fryer Mario vs Sonic – Finally BlueAnt: SuperToof → Read More
Silicon Valley/Colorado based photo and video sharing site Photobucket has 36 million registered users and adds another 85,000 per day. If the growth rate continues, they’ll have 60 million users by the end of the year. More users visit Photobucket each month – 17 million, than Facebook. 56% of those users are under 35, and 52% are female. 300,000 unique websites link back to Photobucket. They move a lot of data. Fortune wrote a long article on the company yesterday – the first time mainstream press has noticed this already large startup. Photobucket generates revenue through premium accounts, and advertising on the site. The rumor is that they are nearing break even, and aren’t spending much of the $15 million they’ve raised in venture capital ($8 million or so is left in the bank). Basically, Photobucket is kicking butt. So the question is, how much are they worth? Lehman Brothers, the investment bank they’ve hired to explore a sale of the company, is saying $300 – $400 million or more in private talks with potential buyers. Included in the documents distributed to buyers is a revenue breakdown of the company by year. In 2005, Photobucket revenue was $4.35 million, growing to $9.34 million in 2006 and on pace to hit over $32 million this year. Last year, advertising accounted for 68% of revenue. This year, they estimate it will grow to 79%. See full revenue breakdown in the image below. Photobucket wouldn’t comment on this article, but our sources indicate that a number of acquirors are very interested in the company at this price. Given revenue growth and another deal in this space, this might be cheap. It also looks like Photobucket will be sporting a new home page design soon. Screen shot is below. → Read More
Music community site MOG launched a 2.0 version of their site today. We previously covered MOG in our roundup of social music services, and when they launched an embeddable music player. The core MOG service is a client application called Mog-o-matic that monitors what music you listen on a variety of media players. That’s paired with personal music profile pages where you can blog about the music you like and find recommendations for new songs from users like yourself. Recommendations are either based on the bands you manually add to your collection of artists you listen to or gleaned from Mog-o-matic. MOG’s core functionality is still there, but they’ve reorganized and added some new features to make the site appealing to non-members. The new design has brought order to chaos that used to rule the main page by categorizing posts by type and content along with a new personalization tool called the “Magic Button”. To make it easier for non-Moggers to surf the site, posts are now tagged as music reviews or news and segmented based on whether the post includes audio, video, or just plain text. The new “Magic Button” lets you apply a personalized filter to any content on the site based on your Mog-o-matic music profile. The video section also includes a really cool YouTube hack called MOG TV (competitor iLike has a similar feature). MOG TV consists of all the YouTube music videos for a given artist. It reminds me of MTV back when they used to actually play music videos. You can filter which of the 400K of indexed YouTube videos play based on artist, the music preferences listed on your profile, friends preferences, or the Magic Button. MOG is most similar to Last.fm, with it’s journal feature where listeners can make blog posts about any band. However, MOG has made user generated posts the focus of the site, with music recommendation secondary. Last.fm focuses on their music recommendation software, with user generated content secondary. iLike, recently hit over 500K users. → Read More
StreetAdvisor is a new entry in the plethora of rating services popping up all over the internet. Some ask us to rate what we buy, the places we go, and even each other. This Australian startup applies ratings to your neighborhood. StreetAdvisor is a search engine for neighborhood reviews. Reviews are broken down by street and composed of narrative, video, and ratings based on 22 factors of appeal (reminds me of eHarmony). The factors are mashed into an overall score and also broken into five star ratings across 5 categories: vibe, wired (communications connectivity), health (environmental quality), value, and essentials (utilities and services). You can search for neighborhood ratings by search box, or browsing a Google map with push pins marking the different reviews. Browsing the map lets you choose which of the 22 factors are most important to you by slider bar, with more relevant reviews having larger pin heads. The site also incorporates some community features for added stickiness: a “guidebook” and “streetboard”. The guidebook serves as a place to write generic posts that didn’t fit into the 22 factor review. The streetboard is a communal board that serves as a place to converse with your neighbors through topic threads or general “shouts” to the crowd. The two features are a start, but not near the depth of community discussion you can get from an Outside.in or Smalltown. I can understand the need for these neighborhood ratings, startups like Zillow and Trulia have done a good job of monetizing the quality of a neighborhood, but are relatively poor at capturing the intangibles. However, I don’t understand how they will motivate enough users to participate and make the service really useful. Neighborhood ratings don’t strike me as something a broad audience is particularly passionate about and rely on only a small pool of contributors for each review. Qualified neighborhood reviewers don’t reside all over the city like Yelp’s army of restaurateurs, but are instead a small group of people that live on the street in question. Reaching at least one person on each street across the 26 countries they cover and motivating them to review their block is a daunting task indeed. → Read More
Openfloodgate, like Scribd, lets content creators publish their works to the web, but with decidedly more control. The site is the project of Tina Seelig, Executive Director of Stanford Technology Venture Partners and Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship. Recently released from beta about two weeks ago, OpenFloodgate currently features a variety of stories, poems, lyrics, photos, recipes, etc, uploaded by the site’s users. Once uploaded, each work can then be rated, downloaded as a pdf, and commented on by other users. OpenFloodgate provides more control than other publishing sites. First, the site allows publishers to limit who can see their work to a group or just yourself. Also, unlike other document sharing sites, OpenFloodgate publishes every work as series of image files or PDFs, making it harder to plagiarize the author’s content. This puts OpenFloodgate, and sites like it, in a better position to handle the copyright woes that come along with user generated content and also eventually charge for the content down the road. → Read More
http://www.jibjab.com/watch/583911 JibJab, the creators of the famous 2004 U.S. presidential election parody cartoon “This Land” have a new original video out called “The News,” embedded above. The new video premiered tonight at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner. All of their original videos can be viewed here. JibJab is slowly expanding from pure content creation to becoming a hub for humor-related video and other media. In October we mentioned their Great Sketch Experiment. In my opinion, “The News” isn’t as good as previous content from JibJab, although things really pick up at the 1:20 mark. The company was founded by brothers Gregg and Evan Spiridellis and is currently headquartered in Santa Monica, CA. JibJab raised a Series A round of funding from Jon Flint at Polaris Ventures in June. → Read More
TripSync, a distributed booking system aimed at trip planning for small to medium sized businesses, quietly launched last week. We recently reported on some other distributed booking systems as well. TripSync is a web based application that lets your business book and manage the three major details of any business trip: flight, rental car, and hotel. You use a search wizards to find and make bookings in each of these categories. After specifying all the details, you can pay for all the arrangements by credit card, or hold off on payment and reserve the listing for 24 hours (most travel sites don’t have this option). When the booking is finalized, an itinerary with accompanying maps is saved to your online account and emailed back to you. That would be all well and good for a one man show, but TripSync also has an administration level making it possible to plan trips for other members of your organization. Each user can make the administrator’s job a bit easier by setting their preferences for the types of flights, cars, and hotels they want. Armed with this info, the admin can then make and manage trips for every employee and post them to their TripSync account. Each trip can be managed on site, or through an easy to use Outlook plugin that automatically posts your trip itineraries to your calendar (Google and Yahoo calendar coming). The Outlook plugin makes it easy to rebook your plans by simply dragging and dropping the appointment to a new spot on your calendar. If the slot is available it will rebook. They have a great demo of the whole process here. TripSync has larger plans than being a destination site for trip planning. They are currently integrating their technology with various partners in tied to booking services such as conferences, expense reporting programs, and CRM applications. They also plan to lower the affiliate margins travel services have to pay. Currently the site’s search engine uses Sabre Holding’s database of travel information for flights, cars, and hotels (Travelocity also uses them). Sabre charges monthly fees for storing this information as well as a for each booking made on through the service. These fees are somewhere around $9-$12 per booking for flights (depending on complexity) and cut into airline’s profit margins. South West has decided not to play this game and decided to never participate in these large globally → Read More
http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/607757611 I had eye surgery yesterday, so I guess my attention span is a bit shot. Perhaps that’s why I’ve been engulfed in videos today. Anyway, the Pogue posted this video a bit earlier. It demonstrates a pretty incredible touchscreen that can interpolate multiple points of contact. Take a look and drool uncontrollably. The Multi-Touch Screen [Pogue's Posts] → Read More
