Entries are rolling in and you guys are GREAT at making up stuff about stuff. Take this one, for example: The teenage years are by far the best and easiest part of parenting. At the age of 16, teenagers are finally able to get a job like they have always wanted. By that age, they are very responsible with money and will offer to use it to help their parents pay down the mortgage rather than waste it by buying video games and a car. Also, the education they are getting in high school will turn them into geniuses, enabling them to get full academic scholarships to the best Ivy League schools, insuring that they get very high paying jobs as soon as they graduate. By then, the parent’s financial problems will be over, because their child can support them forever. Vote early and often, friends! To recap, readers of CrunchGear know full well that 95% of the time we have no idea what we’re talking about. Well, we want you to get in on some of that action by reviewing something you’ve never seen, touched, or even know exists. Two posters with the most comments, votes, and number of votes, wins either an 80GB iPod Classic or a 80GB Zune 2. Here’s what to do. → Read More
Realizing that putting past episodes of TV shows online may actually increase television viewership, MTV Networks has decided to "make every clip from every episode" of South Park available online. I’m not exactly sure why they didn’t just say "every episode" but I hope that’s what they mean. Anyway, it’s thought that other programs from MTV Networks’ archive might soon be available as well, depending on how well the South Park initiative goes. While you’re waiting, you can turn yourself into a South Park character, just like I did. Man, I gotta get me one of those shirts in real life. Sweeeeet. MTV to offer all South Park clips online [Reuters] → Read More
I dig the DS. I have the original one and it looks like a brick but every once in a while I’ll whip out a little Castlevania, just for nostalgia’s sake. Now, however, the Japanese will be able to do even more with their DSes. We, on the other hand, can stroke them and pet them and hug them, but we won’t be able to download TV, books, and manga. The service, called DSVision, requires a MicroSD card kit and lets you send content from the DSVision site to the SD card. You then pop the card into your DS and run around reading your manga. It should cost about $35 and shows will be able $10. There should be about 10,000 titles by 2010 and 300 titles at launch. Again, we don’t get to officially play with it, so suck on it, us, right? Digital download service for DS to launch in Japan [PocketGamer] → Read More
http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=28433 This one makes more sense than the others, but it’s still weird as feck. Whatever you’re smoking over there please feel free to send it my way. → Read More
What do we at CrunchGear love more than gadgets? Besides booze. Women. Hot women. Geeks disguised as hot women to be exact. It seems there’s a list of whose who in babelicous geekdom each year and we welcome that and we know you do to. Enough of the jibber jabber, right? I present to you this year’s top 10: hottest women in tech, according to Askmen.com. → Read More
The New York Times is reporting that Sprint has said thanks but no thanks to an offer from Providence Equity Partners and South Korea’s SK Telecom which would, in effect, replace Sprint’s management team and infuse $5 billion into the company. The deal would have also allowed SK Telecom and Sprint to "significantly cut costs by jointly purchasing handsets and examining network infrastructure." A letter from Providence Equity Partners said that the investment would "signal to the public that Sprint Nextel represents a compelling opportunity" but made no mention of how replacing the entire management team would look to the public. Sprint Is Said to Reject Offer by Investors and SK Telecom [New York Times] → Read More
Google could announce its intention to bid on that sweet, unused spectrum as early as later today, according to the WSJ. We’ve all pretty much assumed Google was going to do so, especially in light of Android, but at least we now have a date. The auction is scheduled to take place on January 24 and the FCC imposed a December 3 deadline for companies to announce their intention to bid. A Google cellphone network, subsidized by ads and using Android phones? Yeah, that might work, especially if the phones aren’t the usual, “Oh, you want an unlocked phone? That’ll be $999, please.” Google ready to bid on mobile airwaves: report [Reuters because the WSJ article is for subscribers only] → Read More
This morning, Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures discloses to the world his failure rate as a venture capitalist of 17 years (20 percent over 32 investments, which is enviable in VC circles). He’s also had 11 deals (40 percent) with 5X+ returns, so it more than balances out. Wilson is more at ease talking to the world (through his blog) than most VCs. But all venture capitalists should have to disclose their personal failure rates. After all, measuring performance should go both ways between VCs and entrepreneurs, not to mention venture investors. Sometimes, you can learn a lot more from failure than from success. Wilson shares what he’s learned from his failures. Either a business turns out to be a dumb idea, he says, or, more likely: It was a decent idea but directionally incorrect, it was hugely overfunded, the burn rate was taken to levels way beyond reason, and it became impossible to adapt the business in a financially viable manner. . . . Of the 26 companies that I consider realized or effectively realized in my personal track record, 17 of them made complete transformations or partial transformations of their businesses between the time we invested and the time we sold. That means there a 2/3 chance you’ll have to significantly reinvent your business between the time you take a venture capital investment and when you exit your business. So it’s pretty clear to me that most venture backed investments don’t fail because the business plan was flawed. In my experience at least 2/3 of all business plans we back are flawed. Most venture backed investments fail because the venture capital is used to scale the business before the correct business plan is discovered. That scale/burn rate becomes the cancer that kills the business. We’ve all heard variations of that be-nimble-or-die philosophy, but it bears repeating. What have you learned from your business failures? Comments, as always, are open. CrunchBase Information Fred Wilson Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
It is now official. Google has confirmed earlier reports that it will bid in the upcoming wireless spectrum auctions. Already, it is toying with other prospective bidders, waiting until next Monday, the last possible day, to file its application with the FCC. In mid-December, the FCC will release its list of eligible bidders. The auction itself begins on January 24, and could continue through March. Google exec Chris Sacca also notes that because of anti-collusion rules, Google will not be saying anything else about the auction until it is over. → Read More
Google’s “Blogger in Draft” program that tests functionality for Google’s popular Blogger blogging platform has rolled out OpenID support for comments. The new service will allow anyone with an OpenID account, including LiveJournal and TypeKey services to log in and validate a comment on blogs running under the Blogger in Draft service. Google notes that the feature is a test and that they will seek user feedback, but all things being equal this will end up being provided on Blogger itself. The bigger news, particularly for rabid OpenID advocates is a suggestion from Google that they are “working on functionality to let Blogger’s URLs (both Blog*Spot and custom domains) be used for commenting elsewhere on the web,” which sounds a lot like code for Google is looking at turning Blogger logins into OpenID log ins in a similar way that AOL did with its user base. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to know who is driving this, and Google even drops a hint in the example link: “http://brad.livejournal.com/”; LiveJournal founder and former SixApart employee Brad Fitzpatrick joined Google in August and is credited as the founder of OpenID. OpenID advocates are passionate about the potential of the idea, but despite the noise and companies such as Digg, Yahoo and even to some extent Microsoft adopting OpenID it has failed to capture the broader public’s imagination. If the 1000 pound Gorilla in the room decides to adopt OpenID across its range of products, presumably with Blogger being only the first step of a broader rollout, OpenID may finally take off outside of the first adopter and tech communities. Thanks to David for the tip → Read More
I Love (TwistTogether) Lamp Tech toys are now kids toys, for better or worse 50% of the world has a cellphone, so say the numbers Comics: You have died of Dysentery What’s Worse: Windows Vista or Paris Hilton? → Read More
Hearty congratulations to the winners of the annual awards for the British Interactive Media Association, otherwise known as the BIMAs. In summary, Channel 4 New Media won the “Grand Prix” for 4oD* (the On demand TV catchup service) while ad agency Publicis Dialog won two, and agency GT three. Channel 4 won for the “ingenuity and simplicity of this new interface.” That’s handy because the BIMAs “aim to recognise and reward creative excellence in interactive design”. There were twenty-three awards in total. Army Jobs (by Publicis) and the Interactive Dive Cage at the Bournemouth Aquarium (by Flaming Pear) was commended for “challenging conventional thinking on how we interact with media.” The rest of the winners you’ll find here on Friday. The BIMAs are 23rd years old and are described as “the only significant digital creative awards in the UK which celebrate digital creative excellence and best practice”. And it’s fair to say the enthusiasm and energy of chairman Paul Walsh have put them back onto the map. But they are one of the many awards for online media/marketing/creative in the UK. The NMA Effectiveness Awards “recognise those companies that have a deep understanding of the potential of interactive media.” The Interactive Media and Marketing Awards “recognise and celebrate the most effective examples of marketing and advertising using the internet, mobile and interactive TV.” Not dissimilar again are the Revolution Awards which “reward the best in digital marketing.” Then there’s the Association of Online Publishers Awards for “excellence in all aspects of digital publishing”. And until recently there was even the Bafta Interactives, but they were closed last year in favour of a video games award. (Film people still having trouble with the Web, it seems). In other words, there are a lot of cool, sexy awards ceremonies for media and marketing online in the UK, and let’s be clear, they are all wonderful in their own special way, and recognise the prodigious talent we have on those areas. I’ve even been known to chair the odd awards event myself… But, equally, there are not many UK cool, sexy awards which recognise cool tech companies, like LastFM, a great British story which did not win a BIMA (admittedly they may not have fit into this particular awards), but did build an amazing business and sell to CBS for £140m in the last year. That’s an amazing achievement, and I bet you → Read More
Comments are the greasy oil that keeps the blog machine running. Here are three great (and 100% unedited) comments recently posted by your fellow readers. On this very special edition of The Best Whatever, Whatever, we’ll be taking a look at three comments from one particular post concerning Paris Hilton and Windows Vista. I couldn’t pick just one, so please enjoy all three with my compliments. → Read More
When Facebook took a $240 million investment from Microsoft last month at a $15 billion valuation, they became, in theory, one of the most valuable Internet-only companies on the planet. But that valuation was tenuous at best. Microsoft and Facebook expanded their year-old advertising relationship as part of the deal. And Facebook was unable to get a third party to pony up cash to justify the valuation. Only a single (financially conflicted) entity was willing to say Facebook was worth $15 billion – that wasn’t good enough supporting evidence for the valuation. Until now, that is. Kara Swisher is reporting that Facebook has grabbed another investor – $60 million from Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing. Facebook has now raised just shy of $340 million in capital. That’s enough to keep them going as a private entity for years, if they choose to do so. Their $15 billion valuation may or may not be real, but they certainly have a lot of cash to fiddle with. CrunchBase Information Facebook Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
New Israeli startup IRSeek is indexing public Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels at the rate of 6 million conversations a day. 300 million conversations have now been indexed by the company. The most popular networks, including EFnet, DALnet, Freenode and QuakeNetUndernet, are all being monitored – IRSeeK is now “listening” to 2000+ channels across 10 networks. There are few IRC search engines today, and most focus on specific niches or single networks, the Company says. Nearly two decades worth of data contained on IRC servers has effectively been lost. IRSeek wants to make sure that future conversations are properly indexed and and searchable. It’s a huge untapped knowledge-base. So if you want to see what people are saying on IRC about, say, iPhone unlocks, now you can. The most popular search terms populate a query could on the front page of the site. The company was founded by Eran Cohen (CEO), and Ariel Berkman (CTO). Development began in mid-2006. The company says a channel is dropped when file sharing activity is detected and private conversations are not eavesdropped in anyway. Still, some IRC users, who have a possibly unreasonable expectation of privacy, may be troubled by IRSeeK. Personal information is often revealed in IRC chats. That information is now indexed and searchable. Searches can also be conducted by IRC nicknames, and all conversations involving that nickname (or even if they were just in the room) are linked. Of course, nicknames aren’t unique and many users may choose the same nickname over time. But even so, the knowledge that everything being typed can be later found by others may have a chilling effect on users. CrunchBase Information IRSeeK Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
The Wall Street Journal is quoting “people familiar with the matter” saying that Google will announce a bid for the 700 MHz wireless spectrum Friday. Google first expressed interesting in bidding in July, when it sent a letter to the FCC demanding that the new bandwidth have four requirements: open applications, open devices, open services and open networks. The FCC only adopted two of Google’s recommendations when it released the terms for the auction July 31, with support for open applications and open devices, but with no requirement for open services or open networks. With the auction due in January and bidders having to declare their intentions to bid by December 3, there has been no shortage of speculation as to whether Google would or wouldn’t participate. The ongoing mystery is exactly what Google plans to do with the spectrum. Since we last wrote about the auction Google has announced the Open Handset Alliance (Android) which includes T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel; in effect Google has an existing partnership with two of the four major existing mobile players in the United States. If Google is seeking to become a cellphone operator in its own right, this wouldn’t be well received by T-Mobile or Sprint Nextel; unless of course Google is already talking about partnerships where by one (or both) of their partners provides the towers and service provision whilst Google maintains spectrum ownership, whilst presumably dictating access terms that would favor open access and/ or Android itself. From a consumer viewpoint Google entering the auction process is a positive step forward, even if we don’t know Google’s intentions yet. Competition is always good, and Google owned spectrum would provide downward pressure on cell phone rates that will benefit users on all networks, not just those using a Google owned service. → Read More
Google has released two new features for its RSS reading product, Recommendations and Drag-and-Drop. The Discovery recommendation feature suggests new sites a user may wish to read based on current subscriptions and (interestingly) browsing history. Google has previously offered feed bundles based on subjects, but this is the first time it has offered customized recommendations in this way. The drag-and-drop functionality allows users to re-order or move subscribed feeds within a folder or to another folder. This style of functionality isn’t unique, and as Google itself points out, RSS readers such as Bloglines and NewsGator already provide drag-and-drop functionality. Google thanks a number of interns and ex-interns for the new features, a nice thing to do. As a Google Reader user I know I’m certainly going to use the drag-and-drop functionality, and I’m even looking at some of the suggested feeds as well, but I’ve got to ask: how is it that we can get drag-and-drop in Reader and not Gmail? Surely Gmail could do with this functionality. Maybe the Gmail team needs some interns as well CrunchBase Information Google Reader Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Remember yesterday we brought you news of a Korean man who owned an LG cellphone that exploded and killed him? Ok, it wasn’t the phone, it was something else. We’re still not sure what, but the degree to which he was injured wasn’t consistent with an exploding battery. So, you know, it’s okay to quit panicking. Your phone isn’t going to do you in. But something else will. Have a good day! UPDATE: It was his co-worker. He was killed by his own co-worker. Yikes. “I was moving the excavator and Seo was suddently out of my sight. I ran out and saw he was lying down bleeding and his cloths on fire,” Kwon was quoted as saying by the police. “All these happened in a moment, and I was too afraid about the accident. So I lied that the battery exploded and killed Seo.” Thanks Bryan! SOURCE: Korea Times Report: Phone May Not Have Killed Worker [WaPost] → Read More
With Facebook making changes to its Beacon program, users will see a new set of options every time they interact with a “Beacon Affiliate”. This is what you’ll see: Notification Facebook users will see a notification in the lower right corner of the screen after transacting with a Beacon Affiliate. Options include “No Thanks” that will immediately stop the transaction from being published. Alternatively closing or ignoring the warning won’t immediately publish the story, but it will be put in a queue Second Warning Presuming you’ve ignored or closed the first notification, Facebook warns users again the next time they visit their home page. A new box reminds you that an activity has been sent to Facebook. Like the first notification you can choose to not publish the activity by hitting remove, or you can choose to publish it by hitting ok. Per the original statement from Facebook at this stage, presuming you’ve ignored the warnings and not selected to publish the activity or told Facebook no, it won’t be published. Here’s the kicker though: they’ll keep annoying you until you finally make a decision: If a user does nothing with the initial notification on Facebook, it will hide after some duration without a story being published. When a user takes a future action on a Beacon site, it will reappear and display all the potential stories along with the opportunity to click “OK” to publish or click “remove” to not publish. But there is hope should you not wish to have your Facebook experience consumed by messages asking you to publish or not publish an activity, you can opt out permanently Opt Out Found via the “External Websites” section of the Facebook Privacy page, this allows users to permanently opt in or out of Beacon notifications, or if you’re not sure be notified. The downside is that there is no global option to opt out of every Beacon affiliated program; it has to be set per program. Better this than nothing I suppose. Update: second screen shot is updated. Thanks to Facebook for the more up to date shot. → Read More
Well, I wouldn’t presume to say, but this fellow at PC Magazine seems to be less shy about it, and he has a bone to pick with Cupertino’s latest opus. He’s concerned about the stability issues, unnecessary and distracting visual elements, questionable “fixes,” and my personal least favorite thing about Leopard, Time Machine. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Mac, but I fully agree with his points on this shady little update. The one thing I don’t agree with, however, is his penchant for rhetorical questions. Does he really think that adding a question at the end of a paragraph makes it more forceful? Leopard is the New Vista, and It’s Pissing Me Off [Yahoo! News] → Read More
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