So when you are configuring your next Dell Inspiron, Studio, or XPS system, there is going to be a $20 option to have Dell preload Iron Man on your machine. Yup. Great movie but a little strange business model. Word is that Dell is trying to get more and more studios signed on to expand the selection past this one movie. If Dell is to have their way, you should be able to purchase a slew of movies to fill up your brand new machine and there might even be an online movie store. No word on the DRM specifics besides that a owner will be able burn one copy, but something tells us you’re not going to be able to share this file at your LAN party. → Read More
Now that Congress has failed to bail out Wall Street, the country (and world, to a lesser extent) has begun bracing itself for nuclear winter. The technology sector is no exception, even if the Silicon Valley tends to fancy itself as immune to broader economic turmoil.
As Fred Wilson points out, those startups backed by venture capitalists will fare the best during these hard times. So we compiled a list of all the technology startups that have raised at least $25 million over the past two years, according to CrunchBase. The ~160 startups to stockpile that much capital recently are listed below. → Read More
I love these little open handhelds. The GP2X has been the standard for a while, but the Pandora looks to be the new king of the hill. You can order one now for $329, and various accessories as well (not in America? click here). There are only 3000 available in the first batch, and no more will be ready until ’09, so be quick about it and get yourself an early Christmas present. → Read More
Why would you want to hook up a PS3 Eye to your Windows machine? Well, you’ve already bought it – you might as well use it for something. (This is where someone is supposed to say “Ohhh snap!”, or declare a successful “burn”.) When AlexP over at NUI Group needed a high quality video recorder for multitouch projects, he turned to the PS3 Eye. Dirt cheap and capable of capturing VGA video at 60 frames per second, it was perfect – except that it didn’t work with Windows due to a lack of drivers. So after burning through a few barrels of that good ol’ midnight oil, Alex has released a driver of his own, granting the PS3 Eye a new reason for existing. I actually attempted to build a multi-touch table with some friends about a year back, but gave up specifically because we weren’t able to find a suitable camera within our price range. Looks like it might be time to give it another shot. [Via Hackaday] → Read More
Microsoft CEO Steve “Sweat” Ballmer said that the financial crisis will “sap consumer and business spending,” leading to a downturn in Microsoft’s revenue. He explained that no company will be immune to the crisis although analysts predict an 8 percent rise in revenue this quarter. Get the Microsoft Stock Quote widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox! He explained that none of the business units within MS will go to “0″ but that companies holding down spending while the crisis blows over will definitely not be buying Windows Vista Ultimate. This goes double, obviously, for consumers. “On the other hand, when businesses have less money — they can borrow less money, they can spend less money — that can’t be good. When consumers feel the economic pinch, house prices come down. That can’t be good,” Ballmer said. → Read More
So, who still likes Mortal Kombat? Bless your heart, then, for a new three-game collection has shipped to stores nationwide. It’s called Mortal Kombat: Kollection, and it includes 2004′s Mortal Kombat: Deception, 2005′s Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks and 2006′s Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. It’s for the PS2, as you can plainly see right there. In truth, none of these games really impressed me when I first played them, but the price, $30, isn’t entirely unreasonable. You know what’s even cheaper, though? Downloading MAME and playing the arcade version of Mortal Kombat II, by far the best in the series. → Read More
Hot on the heels of all those DS rumors, Nintendo has scheduled a press release this week to unveil a new Wii game that hopefully is a new Blaster Master (not likely but please, lord): “We can announce today that Nintendo will reveal a new game for the Wii during this event which is actually an old franchise that everyone is waiting for.” What could it be? Not Zelda, not Mario, not Metroid. Castlevania? Contra? Kid Icarus? Perhaps F-Zero? Any of these would be fun; let’s just hope it’s not Wii Paint or something. Oh my god, Star Fox. → Read More
Apparently more than a few traders had heart palpitations today. As the market closed, Google’s share price appeared to fall apart, falling to $200 from an opening price of $396. At least that’s what the Nasdaq ticker showed.
That was $62 billion in market cap that was zapped away in the last four minutes before the fiscal quarter ended and the markets closed, and it was automatically reported by Google Finance and other sites (the comments here on MarketWatch’s uncorrected article show how freaked out some people were).
And the “drop” came as the markets surged on news that the bailout was still in play and mark-to-market rules were suspended (allowing banks to stay solvent). So what happened?
“It was a data glitch, which is extremely rare” said one hedge fund guy I know. “But yeah, for a second we freaked out.” In after hours trading Google is back to normal, trading at $407. → Read More
TechCrunch UK is throwing a networking party for European startups called “LateCrunch”, in conjunction with Web 2 Expo Berlin (21-23 October). The event will be on Thursday 23rd October, the last night of the Expo, and it’s going to be the official “after-party” for Web 2 Expo. It will start at 10pm and go until 5am. We want this to be a cool, fun event for people to hang out with each other, meet startups and create the real beginnings of an amazing tech scene across Europe. We are releasing the first tranche of tickets today (Tuesday 30th September). We have pre-released a limited amount already, aimed at our targetted list of startups, VCs and entrepreneurs, in order to ensure the party is packed with startups. All further details about the event will appear on TechCrunch UK first. So if you want to be the first to get a ticket then subscribe to the RSS feed, the official Twitter feed @techcrunchuk, and/or Mike Butcher’s (Editor, TechCrunch UK) personal Twitter account @mbites. When? 23rd October 2008 from 22.00 hours until 5am. Where? HomeBase Lounge, Köthener Str. 44, 10777 Berlin, Germany (see fantastic photo by Korbatz, above). For a map of the location, please go here . For recommendations of nearby hotels, please go here. How do you get in? Please get a ticket at http://www.amiando.com/latecrunch.html Attendee identification will be checked at the door. Due to the strong demand for tickets, we regret tickets are not transferable and not refundable. If you use your name to purchase multiple tickets, your guests must arrive with you to check in at the door. There is a small 15 Euro fee for tickets in order to allay costs and prevent no-shows. Press / Official Bloggers: To apply for press/blogger status at LateCrunch please contact Rassami Hok Ljungberg (Rassami[AT]rassami.com of Rassami PR, Twitter: @rassami)who will be co-ordinating press attendance with the official Web2Expo organisers. Sponsors of LateCrunch: (If you are interested in sponsoring, please contact Petra Johansson on petra.johansson[at]btinternet.com (Twitter: @petrajohansson) of Twisted Tree Events for further information) Aventiv Aventiv created NomaDesk, the world’s first virtual fileserver for nomadic businesses. Blurb Blurb is a creative publishing platform which enables every blogger, artist, marketer, photographer, traveler, entrepreneur and poet to create and sell their own book. Gimahhot Gimahhot is Amazon Marketplace with bargaining. Users can either buy at the merchants’ offer prices or they can also enter → Read More
YouTube has launched a new feature as part of its Insight tool for content creators that allows members to visually examine exactly where in their videos their viewers gain and lose interest. The new feature, called Hot Spots, displays the dropoff data in a dynamic graph that can be viewed alongside the original video.
To determine which points in a video are “hot”, Hot Spots compares each video to other videos of similar length on YouTube – if people are leaving more quickly than average at a given time, you’ll know you have some tweaking to do. The site also tracks rewind and fast forward data, so you can see if viewers are repeatedly watching a certain segment. → Read More
Today should be a happy day for Real, having just released RealDVD, the DVD-copying-for-the-masses Windows app. But now there’s lawsuits involved, and lawsuits make Baby Deity unhappy. RealNetworks has gone to court to get a judge to declare RealDVD A-OK. This comes after some saber-rattling by several Hollywood studios, several of which threatened RealNetworks over the sale of RealDVD. Something about copyright infringement or some other nonsense. It’s pretty silly when you examine just how lightly RealNetworks treaded with RealDVD. RealNetworks went to all this trouble to not only preserve CSS on RealDVD’d image files, but it added an additional layer of DRM to prevent RealDVD image trading. So now we wait for the technologically ignorant court system to digest all the facts. → Read More
After a nearly endless stream of hearsay and rumors on the matter, Adobe has now gone on the record about Flash on the iPhone. During a presentation at the Flash on the Beach expo today in the UK, Adobe’s Senior Director of Engineering Paul Betlem mentioned that the Flash development team was actively working on a release for the iPhone, but due to the closed nature of the handset, the final call would be Apple’s. Betlem didn’t specify whether Adobe is working on embedding Flash within the Safari browser, or if Flash playback would require a standalone application. While Apple has yet to allow any sort of plug-in to run within Safari, making the exception for Flash may be necessary. → Read More
You might want to consider adding these VHF radios to your economic apocalypse gear and as your going to need to communicate with your fishing buddies as you’re fleeing the Wall Street zombies. The two new models, the VHF 100 and VHF 200, both sport the classic Smokey the Bandit radio look, but are equipped with the latest radio tech. The entry level 100 model transmits via 25 watts of power and offer Class D DSC capabilities while the upgraded 200 offers NMEA 2000 compatibility. If you opt for the higher-end $399 model, you gain a wired fist microphone and a remote that offers full radio control. Or you can just get the basic model for $249. Whatever way you go, they’ll help you evade the yacht-piloting zombie CEOs. PR → Read More
When the iPhone was first released, there was an abundance of speculation over whether the phone’s lack of Flash support would cripple its browser and give us something less than “the real web” that Apple had promised. At the time, Steve Jobs explained that the full version of Flash wouldn’t run well on the iPhone (the iPhone runs on an ARM11 chip, which doesn’t play nice with Flash), but that Adobe’s Mobile Flash was lacking in functionality – he wanted a product in the middle before Apple would consider putting Flash on the iPhone.
Today at the Flash On The Beach (FOTB) conference, Adobe has confirmed that such an application is in development (it had previously been speculated to exist, but there was no official word from either company). Adobe Sr. Director of Engineering Paul Betlem made the announcement, stating “My team is working on Flash on the iPhone, but it’s a closed platform.” → Read More
Although one of the things that attracts me about SteelSeries is its understated design aesthetic, this new cherry-red version of their Siberia headset is actually quite fetching. Anything but black, please. If you’re looking for a new pair of cans, look for some in the upcoming flurry of reviews (including some SteelSeries stuff), but I can tell you right now that the Siberias are a solid buy. There’s also a lot of empty space here so I’m going to fill it. With text. That’s probably enough. → Read More
With one of the most fascinating PR headlines I’ve seen this year we find ourselves smack in the middle of the perfect Web 2.0 storm: Latinos, babies, and social networks. Introducing Babyspot Latino, a social network for parents of Latino babies or babies of Latino parents. Add in the words “Twitter” and “API” and you’ve got a grand slam.
Don’t get me wrong, this a noble goal. It brings a new voice to baby care to a market traditionally under-served by standard social networks. The site debuted on a Spanish-language talk show featuring cute little shavers capering like cupids and the site will include educational material on baby health and pregnancy along with the standard BabySpot features like photo sharing and group creation. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
