I must admit that I had quite a massive Star Wars collection as a kid. I loved it, and obsessed with figures I didn’t have, sometimes even driving hours to track down second hand stores where Amamaman was rumored to exist. But this guy is just nuts. He’s indexed his entire collection on this amazing Flash-based Webpage for easy browsing. It’s extensive, and his design is nice, too. Congrats, Joshua Budich, I tip my geek hat to you. → Read More
[photopress:scaled.IMGP6601.JPG,full,pp_image] I’m not a PC gamer at all. I think the last game I played on a PC was my freshmen year in college when the Internet connection was blazing fast and everyone on my floor was into Unreal Tournament. Yeah, pretty sure that was the last I played a game on a PC. But there are millions of gamers out there and tons that are professional. I didn’t think about gaming peripherals until the Falcon Dust-Off Keyboard Quiver arrived at the CG office. → Read More
Google Australia launched Gday today, a new search engine that allows users to search a day in advance of real time: Google spiders crawl publicly available web information and our index of historic, cached web content. Using a mashup of numerous factors such as recurrence plots, fuzzy measure analysis, online betting odds and the weather forecast from the iGoogle weather gadget, we can create a sophisticated model of what the internet will look like 24 hours from now. We can use this technique to predict almost anything on the web – tomorrow’s share price movements, sports results or news events. Plus, using language regression analysis, Google can even predict the actual wording of blogs and newspaper columns, 24 hours before they’re written! To rank these future pages in order of relevance, gDay™ uses a statistical extrapolation of a page’s future PageRank, called SageRank. The technology behind Gday is called Mate, which stands for Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation. More here. → Read More
Just when the recording industry is getting comfortable with the idea of digital downloads for music, piracy and all, along comes a new breed of online copyright infringement: that of digital books. Those fantastic eBook readers like the Kindle and that thing Sony wants us to like are a blessing for us bookworms, but it could be a headache for authors. As DRM is circumvented and copies of works make their way onto P2P networks, where will the royalties come from? The problem isn’t that people want the content for free — indeed, libraries are still around — it’s that copyright law needs to be wholly overhauled to account for modern times. While there’s much buzz about doing just that, for now authors will just have to hope Amazon can out-market services like BitTorrent and make people pay. → Read More
I’ve been meaning to post about Whisher for a while but they just launched some nice beta software so it seems like the right time. The company is based in Barcelona and they showed me their alpha code back in February. Now, however, they’re ready to go live. Whisher is essentially a metered hotspot system. You use their plug-in and see various hotspots on the screen. Instead of seeing an encrypted hotspot called “FARGLEBOXR” you will see a useful name and a price per minute or hour. As a consumer, you know exactly what you’re paying and as a Wi-Fi provider you’ve got an easy-to-use system for allowing folks to hop on without buying secret code numbers at the counter. They’re offering white-box services to providers who can rebrand a Whisher hotspot or simple pay-as-you-go accounts for cybercafes, etc. You can also share your Wi-Fi for free and then pick up other hotspots anywhere in the world, similar to FON. This, combined with micropayments model, makes for an interesting product. The product is available now for OS X and Windows. You can download it here. Coverage is fairly sparse in the U.S. but it’s considerably more robust overseas. → Read More
This morning I checked out Ping.fm, a fairly new service in the social network aggregation space that lets you update your status on several sites at once. So I can submit “Mark is brushing his teeth” to it and both my Facebook friends and Twitter followers will see the message. The site, which is currently in private beta, launches a new iPhone version and WAP site today (1,000 of our readers can sign up here by entering code “techcrunch”). It works with Twitter, Facebook, Jaiku, Pownce, LiveJournal and Tumblr, with MySpace, Bebo and Friendster support coming soon. Update: Ping.fm is giving away a 32gb iPod touch to someone who follows them on Twitter. Ping.fm works pretty much as you would expect. After signing into your various accounts, you can syndicate (or “spam”, as one other person in the office called it) your status to these services. My only beef is that there’s a 60 second lag between the time you submit your status and the time it shows up on these networks. Oh, and there’s no way to check your current status. But you can update your status in alternative ways, such as via email or IM message to a Gtalk or AIM bot. As I was thinking about Ping.fm, however, I felt as though I had seen this done before. So I scrounged around a bit and found HelloTxt, which does essentially the same thing. And then I remembered that Socialthing, an activity aggregator we reviewed a few weeks ago, also lets you propagate your status from a centralized site – in addition to doing a lot more. So Ping.fm is essentially a feature of Socialthing, although admittedly it does provide some extra goodies. The funny thing is, despite my preference for Socialthing over Friendfeed, these activity aggregators will also become features of social networks (we know Facebook has plans to make this happen). Where does that leave Ping.fm a year from now? Basically a feature of a feature. To be fair, Ping.fm is a project being run by two guys in their part time. One of them, Sean McCullough, is also a loyal TechCrunch reader who created an RSS reader that displays our headlines within Facebook. But I do think Ping.fm can be used as an example of a problem many Web 2.0 services face. They can fulfill a substantial need, work properly, and even possess a real → Read More
I’m not sure exactly what the draw is to USB displays, but I guess for some people it’s pretty handy. If you can get daisy-chaining to work, it could be nice, but there are data bandwidth issues when you’ve got a lot of information going over that cable. In any case, they’ve released a beta driver set for Intel Macs and “even” MacBook Airs. Thing is, it doesn’t support any kind of acceleration, so any kind of hardware-based tracking, smoothing, filters, or hardware handling of codecs is inapplicable. Bad news, but chances are if you’re using USB as your primary display connection, you’re not using too much hardware acceleration. It looks like there are a lot of limitations, but it is beta after all. → Read More
TG Daily is reporting that Circuit City has begun spring-cleaning on HD DVDs by offering them with discounts up to 50 percent. Can anyone confirm this? → Read More
Usually we like to write posts that have some sort of certainty about them, “iPhones have multitouch!” or things of that nature. For this, we cannot, as the point of the article is the unknown nature of the iPhone in Canadia. Everyone sort of assumed it would go to Rogers, as Rogers is Canadia’s only real nationwide GSM provider. But if that’s the case, it should have started selling by now. Canadia is about to have a bandwidth auction much as we just did, and Niagra Networks Inc., a mysterious networking company, plans to bid on much of the spectrum that can be used for GSM. Both AT&T and T-Mobile are rumored to be partnered with Niagra, who’d likely start up a new GSM network. That being said, all of this is a little problematic for a quick launch of the iPhone, so we still see Apple and Rogers trying to work something out for June. → Read More
The Linux Foundation announced today that Adobe has joined the Foundation and that AIR (AIR runs and creates Web apps that run both off and online) will roll out onto Linux platforms shortly if not already. The newest member to the Foundation wants to help Linux become a leading platform for Web 2.0 technologies and rich Internet applications. “Adobe’s decision to join the LF is a natural extension of its commitment to open standards and open source, which demonstrates its leadership and foresight in the software industry,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “Adobe’s membership will contribute to our goal of increasing even more application development on Linux with a specific emphasis on Web 2.0 applications.” “Adobe delivers key RIA technologies for Linux users, such as Adobe® Flash® Player and now Adobe AIR™, to deploy RIAs in the browser and on the desktop,” said David McAllister, director of standards and open source at Adobe. “The Linux Foundation is a valuable resource, providing a forum where we can work with the community to ensure Adobe RIA technologies are compatible across the Linux software platform.” → Read More
Google’s Web-based word processor, Google Docs, can now be used offline to view and edit documents in your browser. That means you no longer need to be connected to the Internet to write a letter or draft an agreement. When you connect again, all your changes are updated. Google Docs now joins Google Reader as a Web app that can work offline. Spreadsheets and Presentations are coming up next. This offline capability has been a long time coming. Google Docs is finally taking advantage of Google Gears, a browser plugin for creating all sorts of offline apps which launched nearly a year ago. Using Google Gears, Zoho came out with an offline version of its Web-based word processor last August. Is it me, or is innovation at Google slowing down? CrunchBase Information Google Docs Google Gears Zoho Office Suite Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
TheFunded, a site where entrepreneurs can leave anonymous feedback about their experiences with venture capitalists, has created quite a stir on Sand Hill Road. Rarely do I meet with a VC without the subject of it coming up, and how unfair it is. The fact that the site is now publishing confidential term sheet clauses as well only exacerbates the angst. Now VCs are fighting back. Someone has launched TheUnFunded, a site that works very much like TheFunded but let’s VCs share their opinions of the entrepreneurs they meet with. The site will officially launch tomorrow (4/1), but it’s live now: Inspired by TheFunded.com’s ability to allow entrepreneurs to anonymously rate VC firms, we thought it was only fair that investors also be able to anonymously rate startups and entrepreneurs. So we decided to launch TheUnfunded to do just that. Only investors that can prove their identity will be allowed to join TheUnfunded, where they can anonymously provide feedback on the startups that they’ve met with along a five point scale. The fund raising process is indeed a long, difficult one. From an investors perspective there was just no way to tell how much an entrepreneurs well-crafted story matched the reality of their business. Until now. The VC behind the site reached out to me to tell me about it, but asked to remain anonymous for now. There’s already entertaining content on the site, though: The founder arrived 10 minutes late — and began the meeting by telling me that he just came from Sequioa (yeah, right). He then proceeded to state (five times) that his company was the next Facebook. Wow – this guy was clueless. He started his slide deck and went on autopilot. I think he spoke for 18 minutes straight without even looking to see if I was awake. But worse than his pitching skills is his knowledge of his industry and competitors. I named four competitive companies that he never heard of. The founder arrived on time and hit on my receptionist. My assistant came to bring him back to the board room, and the founder hit on my assistant. CrunchBase Information The Funded Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
A recent poll of 2,000 international online marketers has revealed that Apple is the most successful brand in the world. Virgin, Google, Coca-Cola and Nike were right behind Apple in the polling that asked marketers which brands they wanted to sit next to at a dinner party and which would be the most successful in the future, among others. Apple took home six of the 10 categories while Microsoft took home two accolades I’m sure they’d rather forget about. The pollsters wanted to argue and rebrand the Redmond giant. D’oh. → Read More
Great. Super. Fantastic! As if I’m not neurotic enough, Scienticians or some dudes have postulated that we’re suffering from a new type of mental disorder known as nomophobia — the fear of being without your mobile phone. No,they’re serious, and I’m afraid I suffer from the affliction. If I leave my house for an important meeting and I’ve forgotten my phone, I turn around and go get it. I’d rather be late than disconnected. And my therapist wonders why I can’t get any sleep. → Read More
High res Any MotoGP fans in the crowd? Well, whatever. I’m a fan. Today, Capcom announced that they’ve acquired the exclusive platform rights to MotoGP through 2012. That means, you might see a MotoGP title on all platforms sans the Nintendo DS. The picture above should not be misconstrued, as I am not a Valentino Rossi supporter or Yamaha fan. I used to root for Sete Gibernau until he retired. “We are very excited to have signed this long term agreement with Dorna Sports, which for the first time grants one publisher worldwide multi-platform rights to the adrenaline fuelled world of MotoGP,” said Mark Beaumont, executive vice president, officer and head of Capcom’s consumer software publishing in the Americas and Europe. “We feel this move to a single publisher will greatly benefit our ability to develop titles that deliver more authenticity and excitement to the consumer.” “Capcom has already shown its ability to deliver a title that captures the essence of MotoGP and we look forward to working with them over the next five years,” said Carmelo Ezpeleta, CEO of Dorna Sports. → Read More
These posters at ThinkGeek look pretty excellent. They got the palette right (if they were going for a Soviet look) and the show fits the concept exactly. The WWII-submarine-esque world of Galactica seems a natural fit for the “ENLIST!” look of these posters. It’s just in time for the season premiere this Friday, though you’ll have to order fast if you want to decorate your filthy hovel with these things in time for your nerdy party. [via GeekSugar] → Read More
Facebook isn’t just messing around with a few European language translations any more. They’re using their new user-powered translation engine to get Facebook into 22 more languages, on top of English, French, German and Spanish. It will take some time for users to translate the sites, and Facebook likes to stagger launches to maximize PR. If you want to help out with the project, the application is here. CrunchBase Information Facebook Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Sony is partnering with AT&T to bring its back catalog of movies to wireless phones. Using the newly announced MediaFLO network AT&T is rolling out this month, customers will be able to browse, rent, and watch the films on their mobiles. No word yet on pricing or why anyone would want to watch a movie on a 1.5×2.5-inch screen, but we’re guessing they’re targeting people stuck on tarmacs for hours at airports that don’t care if you live or die. → Read More
