I’m always scared of lawyers. We live in litigious times, and lawyers are the “new priesthood, baby!” They’re involved in everything. When I got my first “cease and desist” from Apple, we had a party. I’m not sure what that says about me or Apple, but it makes a point: when threatened, we rattle our sabers in the form of calling our lawyers. What’s really frightening, however, is when crackpots bring suits that bear fruits. Take, for example, the case of Baily v. Lewis Farm, wherein a dude buys a truck on Criagslist, the truck causes an accident, and everyone who ever previously owned the truck is sued and might be liable for damages. And you just wanted to unload a finicky iPod, didn’t you? → Read More
Technology is becoming more and more a part of mainstream life. But the journalists who have access to the 2008 presidential candidates usually aren’t prepared to talk tech, and so the candidates’ positions on digital issues are often left unexplored. We want to change that, and have been reaching out to the presidential candidates to talk one-on-one with us about the issues that are important to our readers. Governor Mitt Romney (see his PoliticalBase profile here), a Republican candidate for president, was the first to respond, and we will be recording a podcast discussion with him in the next week. What we talk about on that podcast is largely up to TechCrunch readers. We’re finalizing the high level questions we’ll be asking Governor Romney (and other candidates in the future). Please let us know in the comments what tech-related issues are important to you; what would you ask if you had the chance? Issues to think about: the role of technology in education – what role should government and technology companies have the growing digital divide in the U.S. and around the world immigration and visa issues the role of government in protecting personal privacy online Mobile spectrum allocations and ground rules How should the U.S. engage with China: technology, human rights and censorship issues the role of free markets; helping U.S. technology companies compete worldwide Net neutrality Intellectual property issues – copyright, patent and trademark policies Please let us know which of these issues, or which other issues, are most important to you in the comments below. Please keep the political debates to a minimum – save it for the comments to the podcast itself. And any ad hominem attacks will be moderated. Things can get ugly on the political blogs, and I want to keep the level of discourse around these podcasts at a high level. We’ll also be unofficially dedicating these podcasts to the DonorsChoose challenge. Education will be a big part of these discussions – do your part to help education by donating now (and we’re matching all donations). One last note – we’re reaching out to candidates from all political parties in a nonpartisan manner. We want to hear from both sides of the aisle on these issues. We’ll be putting together a formal election policy in the near future with more details. → Read More
Yikes, remind me not to ask BusinessWeek’s Cliff Edwards to the Bloggers Prom. For starters, I’m not a guy who likes guys and secondly, he’d probably complain the whole night even though I had my mom iron my suit and borrowed some money from my dad so’s I could pony up for a limo. Oh and thirdly, he downloaded a Jennifer Lopez song and I just can’t get on board with her as an actress or as a musician. → Read More
A new UK startup launches on Monday called BlinkBox. Users take pre-created clips from movies and television shows (the clips can be shortened by the user) and add a personalized message at the beginning. The clips can then be shared via a link, embed or mobile device. Here’s an example of (a very funny) one that was created for me. There’s a pretty deep catalog of movies and TV shows to view. The company’s business model is to pitch buying or renting the movie or tv show after viewing the clip. They’ve built their own (heavily DRM’d) platform for delivering this content to buyers, although it only works on Windows machines at this time. The concept is similar to Slingbox’s Clip+Sling, which allows Slingbox users to create short content clips and share it with friends. The site is not working 100% for me – embeds don’t work and most of the clips can’t be selected when creating a blink. This may be pre-launch jitters, or licensing issues restricting me because I’m U.S. based (it’s launching only in the UK for now). We have more on this at TechCrunch UK. → Read More
EXCLUSIVE: Tape It Off The Internet (Tioti.com), the aggregator of social media around TV, will announce on Monday that it has secured a “a seven-figure” Series A funding round from Europe’s largest early-stage technology venture capital fund, Pond Venture Partners. Tioti had previously secured angel investors, including partners from Alegro Capital. The move comes three weeks after the site opened its doors to new users and after almost a year in closed, invite-only beta. Tioti, based in Seattle and London, was founded in 2005 by Paul Cleghorn, a well-known figure in London technology circles, and Marc Colando in the US. Although the precise funding figure has not been released, it is believed to be in the low million dollar range. Tioti will use the cash to invest in the site and extend the service to other platforms, including IPTV and TV download services from household-name broadcasters. Dr Mike Gera, general partner at Pond Ventures said Tioti will have a “big impact in the rapidly evolving world of TV on the Internet… which nicely complements the recent launches of IPTV and TV download services from various household names.” In other words, far from being a wild-west download site like Pirate Bay, Tioti is likely to work hand in glove with broadcasters and channel owners to use social media to increase viewing numbers online and build advertising revenues. How does it do this? Tioti essentially pulls together information about TV shows from all over the web, connects that with download sources and filters the results through a social network while making recommendations. You can’t download TV shows direct from Tioti – it just points to the relevant sources (so far at least). But following the Police raid and arrests made on operators of the UK’s TV-Links volunteer web site last week, I asked Cleghorn what Tioti’s position would be on linking to content sources. This is what he emailed to me: “At TIOTI we have made the decision not to link to websites that don’t have a DMCA or similar request and removal process. We also have our own DMCA request and removal policy that we take very seriously. Our website automatically indexes content on third party sites in the same way that a traditional search engine does. Like a search engine, we can’t independently verify every file that we index, but we do act quickly to take down links identified by → Read More
AT&T have announced that their wireless customers will soon be able to download songs from Napster Mobile. Starting mid-November, the service will allow AT&T customers to browse 5 million songs, preview samples of each song and purchase and download music from their mobile phones. Unlike a previous deal where some AT&T customers had free access to Napster, under this deal users will pay $7.49 a month for 5 songs or $1.99 per single, double the going rate on iTunes. The deal is good news for the struggling Napster, who will gain exposure to AT&T’s 63 million customers at a time they are looking to sell the company. AT&T also announced two new music applications: MobiVJ, a streaming video service, and VIP Access, a “mobile fan club and discovery service.” The MobiVJ music video channels cover eight genres and provide streamed video to AT&T customers for $6.99 a month. VIP Access allows customers to search artist biographies and discographies, sample new music, participate in polls and receive breaking alerts via text messaging services for only $2.99 a month. → Read More
If hype was the only indicator of marketshare in social networking, Facebook would be the winner by a mile, and yet for all the talk of Facebook’s greatness, MySpace remains the most popular social networking destination. The social networking market so far has seen something that defies conventional economic thinking. Instead of users choosing one service or the other they often choose both. Until now. New figures released by HitWise show that in Australia at least, MySpace is now losing market share as the Facebook juggernaut continues. Traffic to MySpace in Australia has dropped 5% as Facebook has tripled its traffic in the 10 weeks to October 13, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Some may suggest that the Facebook platform is providing a superior social networking offering that is driving a switch; this in part is valid however it ignores two other factors. First is the direction of MySpace: it’s hard to grow traffic when you’re already at the top, so traffic options are static or down. MySpace is adopting an open platform that will provide additional services for their members, but in the mean time not much new happening on MySpace; boredom with MySpace would naturally result in declining traffic. The second factor is the amazing word of mouth Facebook currently has. The platform is irrelevant when anyone and everyone is talking Facebook at the moment, and not just within tech circles. I’ve had old school friends I haven’t seen in 20 years ping me on Facebook, and a majority of my friends list would now consist of non-tech related friends. Facebook comes up in conversations all the time when I’m talking to people outside of the tech community: it has become the next YouTube in terms of popular awareness. The switch stats are so far only applicable to Australia, but it wouldn’t be surprising if this is the start of a trend, particularly in English speaking countries. There is only so much the broader market can take in terms of multi-using social networking sites. As more people get onto Facebook it becomes more likely that people will use Facebook as their first, and perhaps only choice in online social networking. CrunchBase Information Facebook MySpace Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Geoff Evila recently awoke from a 4-month coma and realized that he’d missed camping out for the launch of the iPhone. His buddy Steve dropped by the Chandler, Arizona Apple Store and relayed Geoff’s story of an almost-deadly car crash turned 4-month coma and convinced the store’s employees to do their best to recreate the excitement of June 29th, the iPhone’s original launch date when Geoff showed up to purchase his iPhone. → Read More
Oh joy! Next time I think I’m man enough to play a first person shooter against kids half my age, I’ll be sure to wear this thing. That way, I’ll be able to feel myself getting shot non-stop thanks to 8 special zones placed around the vest that shoot a hard puff of air based upon where you’re hit. This actually looks like a cool device and if I didn’t suck so bad at FPS games, I might pick one up. The best part? It’s not ridiculously expensive at $189. You’ll get a custom FPS developed by TN Games, the company that sells the vest, plus a special version of Call of Duty II that makes use of the technology. There are also patches for Doom 3, Quake 3, and Quake 4 that’ll be available soon. The vest ships on November 21st. You can preorder it now and get a $20 discount. “3rd Space” Vest Lets You Feel Blows in Video Games [Real Tech News] → Read More
Tape It Off The Internet, the social-networking-around-TV startup, will announce Monday that it has secured an undisclosed “a seven-figure” Series A funding round from Europe’s largest early-stage technology venture capital fund, Pond Venture Partners. The move comes three weeks after the site opened its doors to new users and after almost a year in closed, invite-only beta. TechCrunch UK has the exclusive on the deal, its implications, and an extensive interview with co-founder Paul Cleghorn from last year. → Read More
New Web TV startup Testcard.tv, which drew heavily on the TV-Links site closed by the Police this week for alleged copyright infringement, has been taken down for “site maintenance”. UPDATE: Testcard.tv has now clarified its position, releasing a statement that the site was withdrawn by its owners pending a time when “further information is available in relation to the legal framework in which online tv aggregators such as testcard.tv operate”. There is no suggestion that Testcard.tv was implicated or involved in the case surrounding TV-Links. Testcard launched its site on October 8 after a month-long trial, acting as an aggregator or indexer of content that is hosted on third party platforms such as Google Video, YouTube and mainstream broadcasters. But the bulk of its content appeared to most casual observers to come from TV Links, which pointed to both legally available and illegally uploaded content. The allegation was also made by TV-Links in a TechCrunch UK comment. TV-links, the UK’s best known volunteer-driven database of free streaming TV shows and movies, was closed down and one of it’s key organisers arrested on Thursday. The site had been targeted by authorities for allowing users to stream illegal versions of major Hollywood hits and TV shows. It did not actually host downloadable material, as its disclaimer states. The Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact) were crowing over the news yesterday. Fact claims that TV Links was providing links to illegal film content that had been camcorder recorded from cinemas and then uploaded to the internet. A 26-year-old man from Cheltenham was arrested on Thursday in connection with offences relating to the facilitation of copyright infringement on the internet, Fact said. The move followed an operation by officers from Gloucestershire County Council trading standards in conjunction with investigators from Fact and Gloucestershire Police. One blogger said they were on TV Links when the site was taken down. Many observers will be bemused that the police took down a site which merely contained links, when the hosters of the actual content, legal and copyrighted, have not been affected. As Jack Scholfield from The Guardian points out: “There are a couple of multibillionaires called Larry Page and Sergey Brin — the founders of Google — who provide vast numbers of links to content that is being illegally distributed. Indeed, as everyone knows, they actually host plenty of illegal content on their own video site, YouTube, which → Read More
A reader noticed that stealth search engine Powerset is using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service to gauge user reactions to search results. See the screen shot (click for larger view) – users are shown a query and a number of results and are asked to evaluate the relevancy of each result from five choices. In this case, the query is “revealing bikinis.” Users are asked to evaluate four sets of results within ten minutes, and are paid $0.02 for the effort. The current batch of Powerset projects have run their course, and there are currently no other projects available on Mechanical Turk. I spoke with Powerset CEO Barney Pell this evening who confirmed that they are using Mechanical Turk to get human feedback on search results. He says the results are not all Powerset generated – rather, they show results from Powerset, Google and others to see which users prefer for a given query. He also says this is an ongoing project, and new ones will be added soon. Pell also said that Powerset plans to use Mechanical Turk over the long haul, even after launch. They’ll put actual user queries into Mechanical Turk in real time, add Powerset and competitor results and see which results people find more relevant. If results suggest Powerset isn’t more relevant, they’ll adjust their engine. Powerset also uses the EC2 computing service, another web service offered by Amazon. They recently released some of their internal growth models that allow people to compare the relative costs of EC2 to building out a real data center. → Read More
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