The founders of Joongel which presented at the TC50 DemoPit are announcing a $100K investment from Israeli uber-Angel Dr. Yossi Vardi. Vardi pledged the investment on the spot at TC50 and the parties have since worked on finalizing the terms and paperwork.
Interestingly, the investment will go into a new company called “Modular Patterns, Ltd.” (no site yet) and is intended for the development of… → Read More
The luxury phone market must be absolutely screaming as we await the collapse of civilization and begin our rapid descent into barbarism—using Windows PCs because they’re cheaper than Macs. That’s the only way to explain why Samsung is coming out with the S9402 DuoS, a “luxury” cellphone that has two SIM cards. (Two-SIM phones are marketed like, “What if you’re a… → Read More
What makes a great Android app? One that melds the virtual world with the real world in a fun or informative way. One app that does that in an impressive fashion is called JOYity and it comes from Zelfi, a German mobile gaming startup. JOYity uses the GPS in the Android phone to let you play games and go on adventures based on your location in the real world.
JOYity is a gaming platform in its… → Read More
Once rumored, now real: the Deal Mini 12. It’s the same deal as the Mini 9, that is, a netbook that’s designed for light Internet usage, but this time with a 12-inch display. (Incidentally, my first laptop, a PowerBook G4, also had a 12-inch display—the meshing of netbooks and notebooks?) Dell defines it as great for “teens, tweens, travelers and ‘Tweeters’ to surf the Web… → Read More
Woot; good ‘ol Woot. The LCD might be recertified – whatever that means – but if that’s cool with you, it’s only $749. Yeah, $749 for a 42-inch, 1080p LCD. Not to shabby considering the average price of this set elsewhere is north of $1,100. Hopefully though, Black Friday will produce similar if not better LCD deals. → Read More
Casio Japan today unveiled a cool new cell phone [JP], which not only comes with a number of impressive features but also received FCC approval in August. Casio claims its Exilim W63CA mobile phone is Japan’s first 8.1-megapixel camera phone. The device also features a 3.1-inch OLED display (26 million colors, 480 × 800 resolution). Other functions include a newly developed Exilim engine… → Read More
The up-scale AURA might be Motorola’s last attempt to remain relevant in a post-RAZR mobile world and yet the dudes at Mobile Review got their grubby hands on the $2k cell phone. It sounds like they were impressed with the build quality and the round LCD, but Moto might have dropped the ball on the GUI by simply reworking a standard square LCD menu rather than, you know, designing… → Read More
At this week’s Professional Developers Conference, Microsoft is set to make a slew of announcements about its product lines, and hopefully show a glimpse of some exciting new ones. One of the first gems to surface is that the company is about to give a broad group of developers the ability to create applications for its Surface tabletop computer for the first time.
Everyone who attends the… → Read More
In cooperation with Toyota, the Information and Robot Technology Research Initiative, a research body of prestigious University of Tokyo, has developed a robot that handles household chores [JP, PDF]. The humanoid was demonstrated to Japanese media last week and was able to clean up rooms, put away dishes from tables, open and close doors and do the laundry. The so-called “Home Assistant… → Read More
Japan released a number of super-cute gadgets and electronic devices in the last days. Here are the top five. Top 5: Fragrance case for earphones Marubeni Infotech has announced the “Fragrance Case for Earphone” [JP], a small box made of aluminum tailor-made for the “Y” part of any given earphone. The box is filled with scented cotton that emits a nice smell while the… → Read More
New alarm clock shaped like a railroad crossing sign wakes you up with annoying signals Canon Japan sells super-cute Hello Kitty-branded Selphy photo printer Best. Gaming. Halloween. Costume. Ever. Q-Train: Takara Tomy sells super-cute, remote-controlled toy trains Floppy disk gift tags for tagging your boxes of gift floppies → Read More
Color me impressed: Google has released a custom Google Earth application for the iPhone, and it’s stunning.
The Google Earth geographical software has been altered to make maximum use of the iPhone’s screen and functionality. You’re able to tilt the device to adjust your view when browsing mountainous terrain, use the ‘Location’ feature to jump right to where you are in the blink of an eye, and… → Read More
Project Playlist is one of the many online music services that have popped up over the last few years. It’s both a search engine and a playlist generator – users search for music that’s located on third party websites and then create playlists which can be embedded elsewhere.
The legality of music search engines is far from clear, as we’ve written about earlier. The company says they pay… → Read More
PluggedIn, a startup that we likened to a Hulu for music videos, has launched a new twice-weekly video program called “PluggedIn 5″ featuring popular video blogger iJustine. The site, whose investors include actor Will Smith, is looking to capitalize on the lack of music content on television channels like MTV and will be presenting a handful of music videos based on a weekly theme alongside… → Read More
Despite our bumpy history with TuneCore, we’re big fans of their business model: they help artists get digital distribution of their music on iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, napster, eMusic and other online music sites without the trouble of going through a distributor. A recent deal with iLike expands their footprint further.
Basically, TuneCore is the place to go if you are unsigned but want people… → Read More
Remember Silverlight? Well, Netflix is putting Microsoft’s video playback system to good use by offering “Watch Instantly” functionality under OS X “by the end of the year.” Since “Watch Instantly” was introduced about two years ago Macintosh and Linux users have been complaining bitterly about Netflix’s failure to offer the service on their browsers… → Read More
Oh man, this is deeply nerdy. This fellow Phill’s girlfriend was playing Chrono Trigger using an SNES emulator, and he hacked the ROM she was using, adding an entire new area (“Koma Kulshan,” an old name for Mt. Baker, I’m guessing this guy is from the NW like me) filled with NPCs acting out the couple’s favorite memories. At the end, there is apparently going to be a… → Read More
Qik, a startup that allows you to stream live video to the web directly from your phone, has launched support for RIM’s incredibly popular Blackberry platform. The software is currently available in an alpha state (so don’t be surprised if you encounter bugs), and includes support for the Blackberry Bold and Pearl (other phones, like the Flip and Curve, will be available in a later release that… → Read More
According to several sources, MySpace has decided to throw in the towel with regards to its expansion in The Netherlands. The social networking site had opened up an Amsterdam office merely 9 months ago but has now announced it will shut it down and move the Benelux operations over to its Berlin office.
In February 2008, shortly after its official launch in Holland, word got out that MySpace had… → Read More
Most people tend to register the same username when signing up for services, for obvious reasons. Your username is your personal identity and most people don’t need more than one. It’s also easier to remember. But one thing that is becoming increasingly difficult to remember, with so many new Web services sprouting up ever day, is which services you have signed up for exactly.
A recently… → Read More
SlingMedia’s ambitious new video portal, Sling.com, is set to launch on November 10, we’ve heard (the original launch date was November 3, but was pushed back for some reason).
The site, which is currently in private beta, brings in videos from Hulu, CBS and other sites, providing a very comprehensive group of TV shows and films. And users can also access their own home cable/satellite via their… → Read More
There’s a quickening in the air as some big players come to the table with broad initiatives. Last night at Neil Young’s Bridge concert, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff came back from a trip to Young’s dressing room and murmured something to the effect that something amazing was about to happen. He was right: Young’s set climaxed with a stunning version of the Beatles’ A… → Read More
A report by US Army Intelligence points to Twitter, GPS devices, and voice changing software as potential “terrorist tools.” Friend of CG, Noah Shachtman, posted the report on Danger Room noting that intelligence services have said that everything from MMORPGs to garage door openers could be potentially dangerous to Americas precious bodily fluids. They note: “Twitter was… → Read More
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2069634&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=13G Baseband Tool from iphonedev on Vimeo. The wizards at the iPhone-Dev Team have just about cracked the iPhone baseband which means carrier unlock is almost upon us. What does this mean? Sadly, not much. The iPhone is still physically –… → Read More
MySpace continues to clean up the look and feel of its site with the launch of a new profile and editor. It’s not ready for mainstream U.S. use yet, so they’ve unleashed it on Canadian users for testing (anyone can try it out though, see below).
This is the next stage in their ongoing effort to make the site more usable for people who aren’t comfortable with a no-rules, add-your-own-html… → Read More
Since most of you don’t have an Android G1 phone, we are featuring some video reviews from the AppVee crew to show you what you are missing (or not, depending on your point of view). You can watch the first ten video reviews in an earlier post. Below are five more, two of which are on my top ten (ShopSavvy and iSkoot for Skype).
One of the most potentially useful set of apps on Android turn the… → Read More
Apparently it is true, Britney Spears is on Twitter, and while the transparency of her new media outreach has been questioned, having a celebrity of her magnitude using your service is undoubtedly a good thing.
Only, it could have been so much more.
You see, for Britney, Twitter is just another stop on the social media PR train — blog, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, et. al. Twitter has… → Read More
What’s a good strategy when about 1,000 developers and startups converge on one point? Throw a Techcrunch party of course. So it was with some relish that we threw an end of conference networking event for startups following the Web 2.0 Expo Europe O’Reilly conference in Berlin this week. We called it LateCrunch, opened up tickets and over 300 people turned up. But, there was method to this… → Read More
History buffs and students are going to like WorldHistory, a new product from Utah-based Family Link.
The product is still in private beta, but you can get a good sense for what they’ll offer from the demo videos here. Use the map to find a location you are interested in and see historical events that occurred there visually. Set a date range and see just the events during those years. → Read More
A remake of the famous Budweiser “Wassup” commercials from 1999-2002 is making the rounds at YouTube as a brilliant ad for Obama. It touches on unemployment, health care, the stock market, the war in Iraq and the environment, all in around two minutes. The original commercial is below: → Read More
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