I’m not complaining, but some of the ads being paired with some of the content on Brightcove’s Syndication Marketplace may need some rethinking.
This lovely lady is doing a full-nude striptease (we’ve altered the image), along with an Office Depot advertisement promising “Free Delivery.” Which on second thought may be a brilliant idea.
If you’d like to see the evidence for yourself, the… → Read More
The problem with some of the Japanese gadgets I am blogging about is that they either never become available outside Japan or can only be bought through specialized import shops. But now Bandai America decided to bring its Mugen Puchi Puchi bubble wrap bubble pop simulator to the US. Time to celebrate. The toy, which has been renamed to Mugen Pop Pop in America, features a speaker that rewards… → Read More
When Facebook raised $240 million from Microsoft in 2007, and another $235 million in debt and equity in 2008, everyone thought they had plenty of cash to get through their big growth phase. With that kind of cash, the company could hire as many people as it needed to and not worry about profitability or going public until at least 2009, as board member Jim Breyer said in 2007.
But a confluence… → Read More
Syncplicity, a startup who entered the crowded market of online storage and file synchronization service providers last April, has raised $2.35 million in Series A funding from True Ventures and other private investors, including technology industry veteran Frank Marshall. The announcement comes almost 10 months after the company raised $250,000 in seed funding from relatives, friends and some… → Read More
While it’s by no means playable at this point (unless your favorite hobby is watching sloths tend to a patch of growing grass), the Android Market has now seen it’s first video game emulator: AndroidBoy. As you may have guessed from the tail-end of the name, it’s a Game Boy emulator, supporting games from both the original Game Boy and 1998′s Game Boy Color. Read the rest… → Read More
Never mind that Sun Microsystems just announced a $1.7 billion loss for its most recent quarter (mostly due to write downs of pricey acquisitions like the $4.1 billion it spent on StorageTek). Never mind that its market cap is only $4 billion, despite having three times as much annual revenues and $2 billion in cash. Never mind that… → Read More
Earlier this month, one of the Fallout 3 developers at Bethesda described the intended DRM for the game as the “mildest form possible.” Well, Securom7 isn’t really the mildest form possible, since it has a serious problem coexisting with drive emulation software like Daemon Tools or Alcohol 120%. Now, they could have done a lot worse, and to be honest, it doesn’t interfere… → Read More
While it’s by no means playable at this point (unless your favorite hobby is watching sloths tend to a patch of growing grass), the Android Market has now seen it’s first video game emulator: AndroidBoy. As you may have guessed from the tail-end of the name, it’s a Game Boy emulator, supporting games from both the original Game Boy and 1998′s Game Boy Color. The interface… → Read More
Now, let me make one thing clear. If they made an awesome Nerf game (indeed, if they have already made one), with “dart time,” Nerf shotguns, Nerf arrow sniping, and water ballons, complete with “Nerfalities” and stuff like that… if they made that game, no one would care that it was Nerf because it would just be awesome. I expect, however, that the new Nerf N-Strike… → Read More
When the developer world first got glimpse of the iPhone 2.2 firmware back in late September, many were surprised to find out that nothing had been done to try and block users from jailbreaking (hacking the handset to allow third party applications and modifications not approved by Apple). Nearly a month later, a second beta release of the firmware is in the hands of developers, and the iPhone-dev… → Read More
Flickr’d I know at least some of you are looking forward to the release of Wrath of the Lich King in just a few weeks. Please be advised that Blizzard is holding some sort of launch extravaganza at four locations in the U.S.: the Best Buy at 529 5th Ave. in New York; the Fry’s at 3370 E. La Palma Ave. in Anaheim; the GameStop at 151 Powell St. in San Francisco; and the GameStop at… → Read More
There’s a small sale on iRiver doodads that might interest you, especially with the holiday shopping season coming. From November 1 to December 31, the iRiver Spinn, Lplayer and E100 are all getting their prices slashed anywhere from $30-$60. For example, you can grab the 8GB model of the E100 for $99. If you’re looking for something a little more flexible, the 8GB Spinn is now $229. → Read More
Have you heard the news? Bethesda has started their random fantasy world generator and it should be done around 2010. They’ve upped the detail level to “7″ so you’ll need a pair of new graphics cards and Microsoft should be including Bethesda in DirectX 12 talks. Bethesda also included a little jab for Nintendo, saying they weren’t interested in the Wii right now and… → Read More
Most people aren’t going to go out of their way to recycle a TV or set of speakers. That’s why Sharp has helped set up a proper recycling program that will be up and running in several states by next month before spreading to all 50 of ‘em within the next three years. Even better is that, in addition to accepting Sharp products, the program will also accept stuff made by… → Read More
Google has announced that it will now begin including scanned documents in its search results – a feat that requires an immense amount of processing power and advanced image recognition technology. Unlike standard text documents, scanned files don’t contain any text data that Google’s spiders can index. Instead, Google has employed Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, converting… → Read More
A DS developer, who shall remain nameless, has encountered an issue that seems odd to them. A game they are developing on works flawlessly on their DS test hardware, but crashes regularly on DSi hardware. B-but, Nintendo said “All DS titles are compatible with DSi, with the exception of those that require use of the GBA slot”! Yes, and they’re sticking to that. Unfortunately… → Read More
In the last few months we’ve seen a number of startups that are looking to help you clip small portions of content from the web for sharing and future reference. But most of them require Firefox/IE extensions – a barrier that can put off many users and handicap a potential userbase. Snipd, a Y Combinator company that was in the TechCrunch50 DemoPit, is looking to offer similar clipping… → Read More
What’s wrong with Wal-Mart? Low prices, friendly old people greeting you as you enter. It’s this close to Heaven. NOT TO SOME PEOPLE. Channel Web, for instance. They have come up with five reasons why Wal-Mart selling the G1 at a discount is evil, evil, evil. You can read the list for yourself—it’s hilarious!—but I wanted to point this one out: It’s Wal-Mart. → Read More
If you are one of the recipients of the 1,330 business method patents issued in the U.S. last year, or the thousands more that have been issued rampantly and indiscriminately over the past decade, you are probably out of luck. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. ruled today that business methods are not patentable unless they meet fairly narrow rules. What this means for Internet… → Read More
The difference between a casual gamer and hardcore gamer seems to be one big grey area these days. The terminology doesn’t exactly convey the same message it used to, but that’s an argument/post for a later time. We all know the Wii epitomizes casual gaming and it looks like EA wants to change that with a slight variation to the Wii Fit. It won’t make it hardcore, but you won’t be standing… → Read More
Just last week, Samsung announced that their widget-fueled Touchwiz interface would hit US shores sometime in late 2008 – and here it is. This morning, Alltel announced that the Touchwiz-powered Samsung Delve has gone up for presale on their site, with delivery (and in-store availability) coming on November 6th. It’s got some reasonable specs for a not-so-smartphone, with a full… → Read More
We’re not a movie blog, we know, but we are a day away from one of my favorite holidays and I came across this Top 10 Nightmare-Maker Movies list from Blockbuster and thought I’d share. It’s also a sloooooow news day. What would your top 10 list look like? 10. Pet Semetary 9. The Blair Witch Project 8. Saw 7. The Shining 6. The Grudge → Read More
Shipping delays have left Wal-Mart shelves bare of the first Android handset, the T-Mobile G1. It was originally reported that the mega-retailer would begin selling the G1 at a discounted price of $148.88 this week, but BetaNews has learned that this is not the case. “We’ve experienced a few shipping issues, but we’re working with T-Mobile on that,” said Wal-Mart’s… → Read More
After the announcement that Qik would be a featured download on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, it looks like competitor Flixwagon is prepared to battle for their chunk of the Nokia mobile streaming market. Flixwagon has announced that they’re now compatible with Nokia’s Share on Ovi media hosting service. Once a user downloads the latest Flixwagon for Symbian application and plugs in… → Read More
The Xbox 360 just gained Netflix high-def streaming capability but a small issue has arisen concerning HDCP and compatible displays. It seems that these high-def files are protected by the copy protection, but no fear, it has nothing to do with component video – and never did. You see, HDCP was devised to protect digital audio and video content that travels over digital mediums such as… → Read More
The demo for WWE Smackdown v. Raw 2009 is now available on the PlayStation Network. Given that I haven’t played a wrestling game since WWF No Mercy for the Nintendo 64, I can’t cast judgement on the Smackdown v. Raw series. Reviews are sorta mixed, it seems. Also, embedded primarily for nostalgic reasons and my own edification, one of the most infamous scenes in pro wrestling from the… → Read More
This is now well past speculation. Owen Van Natta, Facebook’s former Chief Revenue Officer and Amazon’s former Vice President of Worldwide Business and Corporate Development, is the new CEO of Project Playlist.
Or at least that’s what he’s been telling people, we’ve heard from multiple sources.
The company hasn’t returned our emails, even to say “no comment.” Same with Van Natta. We sent… → Read More
When the developer world first got glimpse of the iPhone 2.2 firmware back in late September, many were surprised to find out that nothing had been done to try and block users from jailbreaking (that is, hacking the handset to allow third party applications and modifications not approved by Apple). Nearly a month later, a second beta release of the firmware is in the hands of developers, and the… → Read More
This is the type of minutia that wears down men’s souls: The structures of the trackball module and the Hall IC look almost the same as used in the BlackBerry Bold of Research In Motion Ltd. Translated into English, or Common, this says that the trackball used in the G1 is the same as the one found in BlackBerrys. That’s according to one engineer, at least. And what have we gained with… → Read More
Tens of millions of people rely on Gmail, and some even pay for the “premier” edition through Google Apps for Enterprises (which boasts one million businesses as customers). So when some enterprise customers had to suffer through a Gmail outage two weeks ago that lasted 30 hours, it made some headlines. As did the bigger Gmail outage last August that affected all users for about two hours.
In a… → Read More
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