Yahoo Brickhouse, the two year old San Francisco based Yahoo business unit to foster new product development, is to be shut down by the end of the year, says a source. The announcement may be as early as Wednesday.
The unit has managed to launch some quality (or at least thought provoking) applications like Pipes, FireEagle, Live (deadpooled) and BravoNation.
But Brickhouse has also had a revolving door at the top (mirroring the general executive exodus from Yahoo). The group was originally led by Salim Ismail and Flickr cofounder Caterina Fake – neither remain at Yahoo. Next up was Chad Dickerson, who left to join Etsy in June 2008. The current lead is former Jumpcut CEO Mike Folgner. → Read More
Well played, Nintendo. With this stout defense, you have thwarted forever the aspirations of the evil modders. After all, how will a community of seasoned professionals with a deep understanding of your console’s systems get past this minor obstacle? Truly you have fundamentally interrupted the never-ending cycle described above in figure A. Either that, or there will be new products available before Christmas to deal with this particular model of Wii. Modders: if you’re getting a Wii this holiday season (that is, if you can find one), be sure to check its little model number before plunking down for a mod chip. But you knew that. [via GoNintendo and Giz] → Read More
If you’ve been worried about getting too much electromagnetic radiation from your cell phone, you can finally take off that tinfoil hat! A Belgian firm has announced that they have finally created a gadget that blocks your phone’s harmful rays, or “signal.” Supposedly, their little dime-sized sticker will emit “a quantum physical information wave” to counter your phone’s lethal radiation. The firm responsible hasn’t released any other information about the product as of yet, or else it’s in a language I can’t read. Whatever, it’s all science, am I right? So if you believe that this product may do you some good, and you live in Belgium, you can pick up the “E-Waves Phone Chip” tomorrow for 40 Euros, or about $50. → Read More
Google’s Open Handset Alliance, the ever-growing group of companies willing to work with or produce Android phones, has just swelled its ranks with 14 major companies. Sony Ericsson, Asustek, Atheros, ARM, Toshiba and more have all agreed to get busy with Google’s open mobile OS. That’s good news for everybody, really. Now don’t go expecting a flood of Android phones in the next couple months or anything — it’s likely these companies were the cautious ones and wanted to see how the market reacted to Android before throwing in with the big G. → Read More
Fresh out of Japan, is the new SNUG iT PRO from Delkin. Now, you might have seen other, similar silicone camera cases from other companies, but what makes this one slightly more exciting is that it’s one of the first brands to support the Nikon D90 and Canon 50D. It’s scheduled to be released into the wilds of Japan on December 19th, however there is no word as of yet about the U.S. release. Currently priced at 50 Euros, which is about $65 once it gets here, it’s a reasonably clever product. [via Akihabaranews] → Read More
This is exactly what I feared might happen when I heard Apple was moving to a full NVIDIA solution, complete with the faulty parts that caused so many other mobile setups to croak. A very thorough article at the Inquirer, based on analysis of a new MacBook Pro teardown by parties who wish to remain anonymous, shows that the solder bumps used in at least their test MBP are in fact the infamous high-lead solder that overheated and cracked without fail. An NVIDIA spokesperson has stated that the 9600s in MBPs use the new eutectic solder, but the tests show otherwise. There are a number of explanations for the bad solder being in the new 9600s, but none of them are good for NVIDIA or Apple. There’s no way to tell if your MBP has the bad solder, but if it starts overheating and freaking out like crazy, be assured it isn’t your fault. → Read More
When Virgin Mobile acquired Helio, they also acquired a fat stack of 50 dollar Prepaid AmEx cards that were originally intended for Helio promotions. I assume it was kind of like finding a $20 in a pair of pants you haven’t worn in a long time, except it was a whole bunch of pieces of plastic worth $50 each. Rather than filling the Virgin Mobile offices with PS3s, they figured our readers might be able to use some of them to make Christmas just a wee bit more exciting. The only catch? They expire at the end of 2008, so you’ll have to find something to spend them on quick (as if that’ll be difficult.) Find out how to win at MobileCrunch >> → Read More
If you’re looking for a smaller, cheaper monitor to extend your desktop or use as a simple secondary display, there are lots of budget options available. Dell makes some really nice high-end monitors, but are they the ones to go for if you’ve only got $250 in your pocket? It seems to me that the 1909W makes too many sacrifices: at 1440×900 it’s barely high-res enough for 720p content, and although 5ms is a decent response time, 1000:1 contrast ratio isn’t really cream of the crop. I’m reviewing a Westinghouse right now that has better specs and costs $50 less; I’d go with that over this one in a heartbeat, although the Dell certainly has the Westinghouse beat on design. → Read More
There isn’t too much to talk about here, but this gorgeous little case from Acme Made deserves a look from anybody looking for an expensive but lovely little gift for a spouse or lady friend. Pictures and such after the break. → Read More
We reviewed a bottle of tequila a little while ago and they just contacted us with some handy tips for holiday entertaining. One of the recipes? Maestro’s Moment of Clarity 2 oz Maestro Dobel Tequila ¾ oz simple syrup 2 oz dashed Regan’s orange bitters In a pint glass, add all spirits and mixers. With a bar spoon stir for 20-30 sec. Strain into a cocktail glass. For garnish: with a potato peeler, peel a large piece of orange peel and drop in cocktail. As I recall, the moment of clarity is when the alcoholic finally realizes enough is enough. Happy holidays! → Read More
To ease the effects of increasing congestion on networks, researchers are looking to a 1960s sociology experiment that could hold the key to better Internet routing. Internet routers are currently using the border gateway protocol (BGP) standard to map out the path that data takes. BGP requires each router to store a list of network addresses (aka routing table) which tells it where to forward packets of information. As the number of Internet-connected machines increase, routing tables are growing longer and require updates more frequently, slowing down a network. What can be done? → Read More
What the hell, this looks amazing. I simply cannot wait until I literally pound on my enemies in order to attack. And as you can see, it’s no weak application of the touchscreen interface: he’s dragging, he’s using multiple fingers, and I’m sure a competent developer (Blizzard, for instance) would be quite capable of mapping abilities, shortcuts, and so on to various gestures. Now imagine this crossed with Tom Clancy’s EndWar and try not to cry tears of geeky joy. → Read More
Facebook has just named the five winners of $225,000 cash grants from the second round of its fbFund, a joint venture between Facebook, Accel, and Founders Fund meant to cultivate and reward excellent applications on Facebook Platform. The winners: GroupCard, Kontagent, MouseHunt, Weddingbook, and Wildfire.
fbFund was announced by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg at last year’s TechCrunch40 conference. According to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg the company received over 600 applications within a month of opening this round to submissions. In October the company announced 25 finalists, each of which received $25,000 and was invited to showcase their applications today at Facebook’s Palo Alto headquarters at an event attended by venture capitalists, Facebook executives, and members of the press.
Today’s winners were in part determined by voting that took place on Facebook, which received over 180,000 votes from 88,000 users worldwide. During the event’s keynote presentation, Sandberg emphasized the importance of Facebook Platform and its 670,000 developers to the social network, explaining that the company simply doesn’t have the resources to build enough features and applications to suit the site’s 130 million users. → Read More
Activision may have a slight problem on its hands what with Guitar Hero: World Tour not selling too well. The latest numbers, as one analyst from Electronic Entertainment Design and Research has interpreted for us, suggest that Guitar Hero sales may have peaked. (Please note the distinction between Guitar Hero and “music games;” no one is saying that music games are dead.) This is the bad news, as articulated by the analyst: Currently, we expect unit sales to decline by more than 50 percent series-over-series for November. This is coming off the October month where series-over-series units declined by more than 60 percent. A couple reasons for this, maybe. (Who knows for real, in other words.) One is that Rock Band 2 has been reviewed more favorably than GH:WT, suggesting that it’s the better game. (Doug essentially says the same thing in his comparison between the two.) When forced to chose between the two (“you can only have one game this year for Christmas, son, seeing as though mommy and daddy are out of work now”), the rational person is going to pick the better game. Let’s not forget that many stores were selling Guitar Hero 3 cheaply on Black Friday, which could have eaten into GH:WT‘s sales. It could also be that GH fans put a premium on guitar play rather than the whole “we’re a fake band, together!” camaraderie of GH:WT. → Read More
When Virgin Mobile acquired Helio, they also acquired a fat stack of 50 dollar Prepaid AmEx cards that were originally intended for Helio promotions. I assume it was kind of like finding a $20 in a pair of pants you haven’t worn in a long time, except it was a whole bunch of pieces of plastic worth $50 each. Rather than filling the Virgin Mobile offices with PS3s, they figured our readers might be able to use some of them to make Christmas just a wee bit more exciting. The only catch? They expire at the end of 2008, so you’ll have to find something to spend them on quick (as if that’ll be difficult.) Over the next 7 days or so, we’ll be giving them all away to our lovely readers. Some contests (like the one below) will be comment contests. For others, it might be a good idea to keep an eye on our Twitter feed. It’ll be different every time, so stay sharp – expect one or two contests each day. Find out how to enter the first contest after the jump. → Read More
New York City
San Francisco, CA
