This is a story that’s bound to explode onto mainstream media today. RocketBoom founder Andrew Baron’s father, Frederick Baron, is dying of multiple myeloma, a particularly nasty form of cancer. Last week doctors gave him days to live – as of this morning he’s still fighting.
According to a blog post by Andrew, the family was preparing for the worst. And then a possible miracle cure: one of… → Read More
The content for most user generated content sites is pretty easy to make. Just shoot a photo for Flickr or record a video for YouTube. But when it comes to the user generated games on Kongregate, you’ll need to acquire some basic programming skills before contributing anything.
Instead of relying on its users to go out and buy O’Reilly books on Flash development, the two-year-old startup has put… → Read More
The WSJ is reporting that Google and Yahoo are negotiating with the Justice Department to remove their objections to the search deal the two companies signed in June but haven’t yet implemented.
The fact everyone’s negotiating isn’t news, but some of the details are. Concessions reportedly being discussed include “capping the volume of Google ads Yahoo would use, assurances that Yahoo would… → Read More
BillShrink, a startup that aims to help users save money across a variety of vertical markets, has closed an $8 million Series B funding round led by Trinity Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners. The round brings BillShrink’s total funding to around $9 million, after a $1 million Series A round last year.
As part of the deal Trinity’s Gus Tai will join BillShrink’s board of directors, which… → Read More
Mint, the personal finance startup that won last year’s TechCrunch 40, has launched a host of new features including investment tracking, 401k managment, and more flexible budget sheets. CEO Aaron Patzer says that the new features finally make Mint a one-stop place to get an overview on your entire financial portfolio, and will drop the site’s ‘Beta’ label accordingly. Patzer also notes that… → Read More
Web-enabled deodorant dock uploads usage patterns LaCie big boxin’ it with the 5Big RAID NAS The giant glowing envelope means you’ve got mail NetTansorWeb: Meet Bandai’s awesome blogging robot Sega Toys Japan introduces mini jukebox for home use Pumpkin carving contest pre-announcement → Read More
My first hands-on with this action/horror shooter from EA Redwood Shores was at E3 where Devin and I were both dumbfounded by what we saw. I couldn’t stop talking about it for hours and Devin eventually told me to STFU. It was dark, gruesome and I had to have it, which is why I attempted to ‘accidentally’ walk away with a build during E3. The graphics and gameplay alone had me sold but it… → Read More
Pure Digital, the company behind the insanely popular series of easy to use “Flip” digital camcorders, is about to get even more insanely popular – especially with the customization crowd. Starting today, you’ll now be able to choose from hundreds of professional designs for the $179.99 Flip Mino camcorder. If none of the available designs are to your liking, you can upload your own or use… → Read More
Who seriously thought that the Knight Rider remake was going to be good? I mean, come on; NBC is doing it? Maybe, just maybe, if FX, HBO, or Showtime was producing the remake, it would of had a chance. But if you are currently watching the show and don’t like what you see, you might enjoy this guys good ‘ol fashion blogging rant. Note to all would be producers of TV and movies remakes. → Read More
The Consumer Electronics Association, which runs the CES conference each year in Las Vegas, has never had an offical blog partner. But they do now, and it’s AOL’s Engadget: “The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) selected Engadget as the Official Blog Partner of the 2009 International CES to be held January 8-11, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada,” AOL says in a press release.
This doesn’t mean much… → Read More
Really, though — who doesn’t like czars? Although the czars of today are a far cry from their imperial namesakes, they are still in positions of great power and presumed authority. I can’t imagine that, more than a decade into the ongoing controversy, this Intellectual Property Czar position has been created for anything other than the abuse of media lobbyists. After all… → Read More
I had a phone call late last week with a semantic startup called Siri that was spun out of SRI International (the birthplace of the computer mouse and the LCD screen, among many other important technologies). Most startups are willing to talk about their products “off the record” but this one wouldn’t divulge much beyond the fact that they’ve raised $8.5 million in Series A funding from Menlo… → Read More
A couple days ago, we posted some leaked screenshots of Brightcove 3, the completely gutted and rebuilt Web video platform from Brightcove that is launching on Tuesday. I was able to catch up with Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire, who gave me an update on the company and took me through all the changes in the service.
Brightcove is a Web video publishing platform that has raised $91 million and… → Read More
Meebo has disclosed that 11 more sites have committed themselves to integrating Community IM, its forthcoming out-of-the-box service that adds Facebook Chat-like instant messaging capabilities to the bottom of any website.
The newest enlistements include Bleacher Report, Dhingana, Fanpop, GlobalGrind, IBeatYou, OrangeShark, PerfSpot, UGAME.net, Yaari, Zinch, and Zorpia. These join a set of… → Read More
Just wanted to give everyone a heads-up on an upcoming contest that might require a little pre-planning on your part. In the spirit of Halloween we are going to host a pumpkin carving contest for a couple of awesome prizes. With the holiday quickly approaching, we didn’t want you carve your pumpkin before hearing about the contest. The prizes will be announced in the coming days, but trust… → Read More
Yes, yes, it’s a Tool-Assisted Speedrun. It’s a whole different thing from regular speed runs, although those can be pretty spectacular too (Portal single-segment in 13m06s, Super Metroid in 32m). The Super Mario 64 time attacks are getting to the ridiculously optimized state that until this point few games attain in the scene — Mega Man and the Sonic games are getting close. → Read More
I understand that companies like Casio are dealing with large volumes and must enforce a certain level of scrutiny when it comes to returns, or face enormous costs from unnecessary replacements. But this is ridiculous. Like the laptop with “liquid inside keyboard,” Casio’s complaint is completely ridiculous and completely transparent. You can see the technician going down the… → Read More
Billy doesn’t have a pleasant outlook on the United States financial future saying at a Harvard Business School speaking event that we will experience a ‘significant recession’ and 9% unemployment sometime in the future. Higher personal and governmental debt are contributing to the U.S. economic slowdown, Gates said today in comments at Harvard Business School in Boston. → Read More
Ah, Black Friday. After working at Circuit City from 2000 to 2006, I don’t care how good the deals are, I’m sleeping in that day. This year is shaping up nicely though if the $99 GPS and $149 Blu-ray player rumors are true. Reportable, the GPS units are going to be top tier units from Garmin, TomTom, or Magellan and the Blu-ray player should be the Samsung BDP-1500. Still, I… → Read More
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=607349&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1 Oh, it’s darling! How can you not want one of these? It turns hard candy (mm, sour apple Jolly Ranchers) into cotton candy — a direct violation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics! I’m not sure Mambas qualify, they’re… → Read More
The Averatec netbook that we caught “wind” of (pun majorly intended) back in August is now shipping. It’s called the Averatec Buddy and you’ll remember that it’s actually pretty much a rebranded MSI Wind, except that the Buddy has dropped the Bluetooth connection and popped in a 160GB hard drive. Oh, and the 10.2-inch screen features AveraBrite! Also, Averatec lists the Buddy’s weight… → Read More
This BSG Cylon kit might be old, but who cares! It’s eff’n sweet. Just buy this $17.99 kit and bust out your Boy Scout carving skills. Best geeky pumpkin ever. Beats my Pac-man carvings from last year by a mile. → Read More
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin Here’s the story so far. There’s a company called M2Z Networks that wants to lease the band of wireless spectrum between 2155-2175 MHz known as AWS-3 (Advanced Wireless Service). M2Z then wants to turn around and use that band to provide free wireless internet access “for 95 percent of the population within 10 years,” according to the AFP. Well guess who made a… → Read More
Microsoft has announced that the latest version of Windows, due in the next couple of years, will be called – drumroll please – Windows 7. It’s about time Microsoft adopted a naming system that might actually make some sense to users, but I can’t wait for hordes of customers to start asking if they somehow missed Windows 1 through 6.
Windows has had one of the most ridiculous naming schemes in… → Read More
I had been dreading this call all day. I was going to have to dial-up Comcast and attempt to order a couple of Cable Cards for a TiVo HD XL and I wasn’t looking forward to the ensuing conversations. To my absolute surprise though, the call went well. The billing specialist listened to my needs, recommended the right solution which happened to be two cable cards and didn’t try to… → Read More
Now those hucksters over there at 9to5Mac (for shame!) are claiming a tipster has told them it’s a battery release latch. Well, if Apple knew nothing about designing hardware, and the MBP didn’t already have a battery release latch, I might have believed it! Seriously, a battery release latch there would be calamitous. And it’s not a dock thing either, damn your eyes! Just wait… → Read More
RjDj, a new iPhone application that was released earlier this week, is one of the coolest things I’ve seen released on the still fledgling platform. Download it now, if only to try it for a few minutes. You can download the full version for $2.99 here, or you can try out the free version (which only has one ‘scene’).
The application is difficult to describe and on paper it sounds sort of silly… → Read More
I’d love to be able to say, “Now I’ve seen it all!” and actually mean it, but something even more wonderfully weird than this net-connected deodorant dock will eventually come along and usurp all the bizarre inventions of days gone by. Today, though, it’s the “Zero Privacy” deodorant dock that takes the cake. It was originally built as a class project by two Canadian college… → Read More
We’ve run out of our 500 pre-allotted beta invites for MashLogic, a new Firefox plugin that puts users in control of website links. But you can get one by putting your name down on InviteShare, where current MashLogic users are encouraged invite up to two people each.
Also check out David Cowan’s post on the release of MashLogic. Cowan, a partner at Bessemer, describes the plugin as important for… → Read More
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