http://blip.tv/play/ih_RtB+J5FQ Japan’s biggest telco NTT showcased a micro projector that is built into a cell phone and is able to project a 25-inch video image. Asked if and and when the device will be commercialized I received the usual answer: “Maybe in a few years, maybe never.” → Read More
How the game looks on the Xbox 360 Wanna know why we’re still not playing GoldenEye on Xbox Live Arcade? Blame Nintendo. It goes like this: Rare has already developed the game, and all it’s doing is waiting for the go-ahead from, yes, Nintendo. There’s four parties involved in all of this: Rare (the original developer), Nintendo (the original publisher), Microsoft (which bought… → Read More
A new blue laser diode, developed by Sanyo, could help increase the capacity of Blu-ray discs. Even if it does, however, we’re still a few years away from seeing any such discs. The new diode emits a beam of 450 milliwatts, which would be powerful enough to write onto two additional data layers on a Blu-ray disc. While current Blu-ray discs max out at two, 25GB layers, discs produced using… → Read More
Reports are coming out of Denmark that eBay has acquired the company that runs DBA, the “eBay of Denmark” for 2.1 billion Kroner, or about $383 million (here’s an article in Danish).
DBA, founded in 1995, attracts around a million visitors a month, and is a top ten Danish website. 275,000 new listings are added each month, according to its website.
The site is owned by Blue Avis, founded in… → Read More
http://blip.tv/play/ih_Rs3GJ5FQ The video shows Citizen‘s so-called Denshi peepa (e-paper) display, which has an amazing quality but wasn’t as impressive as Fujitsu’s FLEPIa e-reader. → Read More
http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=40830 We begin this chilly Monday morning with a video game trailer. Currently scheduled for release in the first half of next year, Halo Wars is sure to confuse at least some fans of the series. The real-time strategy game has almost nothing to do with series developer Bungie—those guys are only involved in making sure the game “feels”… → Read More
For those nuts out there like us that use just about every social website there is, the upcoming version 2 of Alert Thingy’s AIR desktop application may be just what you need. The current version of the service supports Twitter, Flickr and Friendfeed. But version 2, which will be released this month, adds support for Digg, YouTube, Facebook, Jaiku, Pownce and Tumblr as well. Creator Jeremy Baines… → Read More
Murata’s Little Seiko was not only the coolest robot of this year’s CEATEC (that ended Saturday) but one of the biggest fan favorites overall. But as the CEATEC is a Japanese exhibition, there was a number of other companies that showcased robots. http://blip.tv/play/ih_RsyuJ5FQ The video above shows Fujitsu’s Enon robot in action. Enon is a service robot that serves multiple… → Read More
Nintendo pedometer to be used in Your Life Rhythm, a walking ‘game’ Video: Rollerman vs Motorcycle Electric Delorean on eBay, possible Flux Capacitor too Video Review: WowWee Tri-Bot Brando intros cubical time wasters that doubles as USB flash drives CEATEC 2008: Japanese research institute showcases one ugly and one cute robot → Read More
If you live in Europe or want an excuse to visit, join me at the upcoming LeWeb conference in Paris, produced by Geraldine and Loic Le Meur, on December 9-10. The conference program is up and the speakers list is top notch (although, oddly, mostly American). Tickets are here.
TechCrunch is a media partner (which means we’ll be covering the event extensively), and we will be holding a party on the… → Read More
Despite the fact that males have long accounted for the majority of online gamers, there is a surprising shortage of casual online games directed at men aged 25-45. Beyond fantasy football and online poker there is little variety, with nearly every game failing to take advantage of advanced graphics or any interactivity beyond clicking “all-in”.
World Golf Tour is looking to fill this gap. … → Read More
TV advertising doesn’t have to be just on TV. That’s the premise behind BlackArrow, a startup that caters to the cable industry by offering a way to place ads on broadband Web video, on-demand TV, and digital-video recorders (with unskippable ads). The company is announcing a new $20 million round of funding from existing investors Cisco Systems., Comcast Interactive Capital, Intel Capital… → Read More
This is an urgent message for anyone who was attending or speaking at Virtual Worlds Forum in London this week. The whole thing is going to be re-scheduled due to an incident on Sunday at the venue in which a member of the public was shot. The venue was to be “The Bridge” in London SE1, which is is situated in a series of Victorian arches adjacent to London Bridge. The site dates back… → Read More
Spoiler Alert! Jill Masterson’s death in “Goldfinger” was an iconic image that all Bond fans remember and new Bond Girl Gemma Arterton’s death in the upcoming 007 movie “Quantum of Solace” draws inspiration from the classic with a different twist. She said: ‘I couldn’t move. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t breathe or hear because it went in my ears. It was… → Read More
Here’s a quick look at HP’s HDX 16 notebook. The Blu-ray notebook sports a HD 16-inch widescreen and tons of touch controls. We’ll have a full review shortly. → Read More
Could this be part of the change that Jannard mentioned when he revealed the Epic and Scarlet were getting rebooted? A ScarletUser forum post by one Joseph says: …within the last 24 hours, Red has registered the trademark “Red 3D” with the description of: Cameras, camera lenses, projectors, eyeglasses and software, all for use in the recording and playback of 3D images. A… → Read More
It took iTunes nearly three years to get to 1 billion song downloads. MySpace Music streamed a billion songs in just a few days after it launched on September 25. And while this isn’t a fair comparison (songs on MySpace are free to stream; on iTunes users were paying $0.99 each), it’s an incredible milestone.
What MySpace won’t say for some reason is what the billionth song was, or when exactly… → Read More
Another lazy Sunday? I sure hope so, now that you can spend part of it looking at pics of the latest unboxing to hit/bore the Internet, that of the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220. As for the phone itself, BGR hates on it pretty thoroughly, going so far as to call the display the “worst [one] we’ve seen on a BlackBerry since… well, a long time.” Is this what it sounds like when doves cry? → Read More
Big rumor this weekend, which makes you wonder why it emerged during the weekend and not the workweek. Be that as it may… Apple is looking to construct, or already has, its own ultra modern manufacturing facility. A fancy factory, in English. Names being thrown around include Brick, MacBrick, or variations thereof. The facility would make use of, among other high-tech innovations, laser and… → Read More
Did someone declare that startups would have a hard time raising money? Not for some of them. Paris Based Inspirational Stores will announce tomorrow a 10 million euros series B lead by Atlas Ventures and OTC asset Management. Inspirational Stores offers famous high-end brands without online retail activity a full turn-key solution to give them a second life on the web starting from web presence… → Read More
Bitwine, a service launched in late 2006 that lets people ask questions to experts for a fee. Originally the service was tethered to Skype; more recently it began letting users connect to experts via Skype, other VoIP service, or normal phone lines. Experts can charge their clients either by the minute or a simple flat fee. Clients pay by PayPal and the money gets sent to experts as soon as the… → Read More
Everyone has their favorite way to predict who will win the Presidential election. Amazon likes to keep track of Halloween mask sales. Supporters of either candidate can buy rubber masks of each to wear for Halloween. So far, 57 percent of the masks Amazon has sold have been Obama masks, versus 43 percent for McCain masks.
The weird thing is that is right around the same number that McCain is… → Read More
When we commissioned the statuettes for the Crunchies Awards last year, we hoped to create something a little more memorable than the typical plastic tombstone. We opted for a plastic monkey holding a bone aloft instead. While it does have a certain menacing quality to it, we never expected anyone to turn it into weapon.
But now you can find “The Crunchie” in the online game Duels. Our award… → Read More
Congress is finally understanding the reality of the Yahoo-Google search deal, and what it means for the state of search competition in general. It’s not about price fixing advertising rates, it’s about neutering the second place market participant.
As I wrote on September 27, the current deal between Yahoo and Google will inevitably lead to the decline of Yahoo’s core search advertising… → Read More
When it comes to communication, efficiency is everything. Voicemail is giving way to text based messages like SMS and Email, which are more easily sorted and can be quickly skimmed. But while basic text may be enough to convey simple ideas, it often falls short with when trying to pitch a startup, or offer a business proposal. GoldMail has built a platform that allows users to send media-rich… → Read More
As the slowdown begins to tickle the Internet economy, voices from unlikely places are grappling with the “opportunity” the possible worldwide depression presents for the tech industry. Steve Ballmer is on a barnstorming tour about Microsoft’s move into what he temporarily calls the Windows Cloud OS> IBM is busy opening 13 cloud computing centers around the world. And Jonathan… → Read More
Microsoft has not divulged the exact date for the launch of the New Xbox Experience, but the folks over at the Gamerscore blog have slowly shown us bits and pieces over the last few weeks. This time around, they’re giving us a peak into the new Games Store. The gist of it seems that every game you look at will show every bit of pertinent downloadable content in one place, so you don’t have to… → Read More
Forget the stock market, it’s falling apart. Invest your money in OneSeason instead, a newly launched San Francisco-based startup that lets you invest real money in professional athletes. Alex Rodriguez is a steal at $7.00 per share ($17.6 million total value). I just bought one share of Kobe Bryant for $7.48 (he’s valued at $77.6 million).
The company was founded by CEO Mike Sroka and CTO DJ… → Read More
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