It’s not like Microsoft is going to be disappearing any time soon, especially with the success of the Windows 7 beta, but its death grip on the PC industry is being eroded on multiple fronts and it’s a good exercise to imagine what it might be like if MS were to take the French leave.
It’s important to note that the question of what happens after Microsoft doesn’t need to mean “what would happen… → Read More
Somewhere out there someone needs this 360 degree speaker. Sure, JVC and others make off the shelf solution but that’s no fun. → Read More
UPDATE: Well they did indeed discuss Twitter at reasonable length (well, 40 seconds is a long time on TV). Ross says he’s been following Fry on somethiing called Twitter which is “a bit like a message board”. Fry says Twitter is “much mocked” by those who “don’t get it”. Ross likens it to mobile text messaging. Fry describes it as Microblogging in… → Read More
The evolution of the computer as an art form has been interesting. From the original “any color you want as long as you choose beige” to the current trends of steampunk and case modding, it goes to show that almost anything can be turned into an art form. A design studio based out of Munich has taken this to the next logical step, and created an art exhibition based on USB technology. → Read More
Venture capital firms tightened their purse strings in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the latest MoneyTree Report released by the National Venture Capital Association and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The total dollar amount invested in venture financings was $5.4 billion, down 33 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007 (when it was $8.09 billion) and down 26 percent from the third quarter of… → Read More
Doubles is a unique new instrument that really brings out the “performance” in performance art. It reacts to acceleration and centrifugal force to create sound. Read on to see a video, and learn a little more about it. → Read More
Thanko, the Japanese purveyor of oddities such as USB powered mittens and USB necktie has come up with yet another. This one is only mildly useless though, a USB powered lunch bag. → Read More
Despite the continuous stream of layoffs, CrunchBoard this week has the most diverse job listings I’ve seen yet. There’s both a range of job types–from marketing to technical–and a wide variety of job locations, from New York to Dallas to San Francisco to Portland, OR.
Want to work as a social media planner in Philadelphia?
Or a product manager at Newsweek Digital in New York?
Or maybe in the … → Read More
Richard Waters writes in the FT about how far Sony has fallen. Back in the day, a Sony product meant something – the only real analog to what they once were might be Apple (good products at premium prices that actually sold remarkably well). Buying Sony was like buying from Cuisinart: you were guaranteed something that not everyone had and that you would definitely enjoy. They had brand loyalty… → Read More
Whoa, whoa, whoa… what is going on at CompUSA.com lately? That’s two aggressively priced 22-inch monitor deals in two days. The one from yesterday looked like a downright steal at $140 after a $50 mail-in rebate, but this one today looks even better. → Read More
An anonymous programmer made something called the Sound Grenade for the App Store and gave it away free. It took him all of an hour to write – it’s just a button you press to make an annoying sound – and put it up for all and sundry. How he’s seen 100,000 downloads and is basically making $200 an hour using an in-app advertising system. → Read More
Youtube has officially enabled High Quality in embedded videos. The new embedded player sports a little HQ button, which is strangely absent from Youtube’s on-site player.
One can only assume that they decided they were ready for the blast of traffic that will certainly result from the huge amount of embedded high-quality videos to come. Doubtless the stream pipe has to be a lot fatter for the HQ… → Read More
Rockstar just opened up its sitefor the upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV DLC, The Lost and Damned. There’s two new video for you to check out, one of which I’ve embedded here, and a bunch of screen shots. → Read More
We’ve all read the stories about kids playing games like World of Warcraft till they keel over, but did you know that, generally speaking, gaming is bad for your social and family life? A proper academic study says so, so far be it from us well-adjusted (I think I just qualify as “well-adjusted”) gamers to suggest otherwise. → Read More
TechCrunch Europe is hosting a couple of afternoon panel discussions at the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and we’d love you to come along and join us for some great discussion and evening networking with mobile startups and the investment community. *** GET A TICKET HERE ***. In addition, I’m happy to announce that TechCrunchTalk Mobile 2.0 in Barcelona kicks off a series… → Read More
I knew I lived here for a reason! Seattle has moved to the top of Forbes’ annual “most-wired” American cities list, displacing Atlanta (of all places) and further cementing its unofficial title of Most Awesome. → Read More
If you’re a European startup then you need to check out Plugg organised by long-time Web 2.0 consultant, blogger, entrepreneur and now TechCrunch contributor Robin Wauters. The event will take place on the 12th of March in Brussels, Belgium, and will feature a host of top speakers from the continent, and a startup competition. Registration for the Plugg Start-ups Rally, which is free to… → Read More
This enormous picture, taken by David Bergman, was stitched together from 220 images taken on a Canon G10 mounted on a Gigapan panoramic imager system.
Easter eggs inside! → Read More
As Brownlee notes, this is a “bog-standard” robotic chess board whose automatic movement feature is loud and grinding. But don’t you want do own it? After all, it’s being endorsed by a strangely disquieting man in a Phantom of the Opera mask. → Read More
How bad is the economy? In an effort to raise money for his rent, one man named Victor is trying to sell his Digg account on Craigslist for $650. It’s not because Victor is a power user on Digg. The name of the account is “youtube” His post on Craigslist reads: → Read More
So Halo Wars, which comes out in North America on March 3, has gone gold. (Unless, of course, Microsoft is lying to us.) That means, for the non-nerds in the house, that the game is all done and Microsoft is busying pressing copy after copy in some plant somewhere. → Read More
Conspiracy theorists, start your engines.
Right now if you run a Google search for “palm pre” from a mobile phone, you’ll be shown that there are 0 pages related to Palm’s upcoming smartphone, which will soon faceoff with Google’s Android, Blackberry, and the iPhone in the battle for touch-screen supremacy.
In fact, a number of searches with the world “Palm” in it are turning up zero results… → Read More
ot too long ago we asked how you would improve the PSP if given half a chance. One response, and a common thread on many a message board, was to add a second joystick (or “nub”), making the task of porting over PS2 games, and generally delivering a more console-like experience, all the more easy for developers. One such developer, Sony Bend, which developed the PSP Syphon Filter games, is… → Read More
EA Sports recently updated the rosters and player stats for both the Cardinals and the Steelers and squared the two teams off against each other in a simulation of the upcoming Super Bowl. → Read More
Red hot Stockholm-based music startup Spotify has appointed Gustav Söderström as director of “portable solutions”. This clearly means Spotify intends to exand its music streaming service into the mobile arena. Söderström is a serial entrepreneur, joining Yahoo! in 2006 after his early-player mobile social software company Kenet Works AB was acquired. For the last two years… → Read More
Oh, boy! Apple and Palm are going to fight each other on the playground after school. Such is how we have to present the coming Pre v. iPhone “showdown,” you know, because it’s far easier to present something as a “battle” or “war” than it is to merely explain what’s going on: two companies [will] have similar products available. But no! Bang the drums, sound the alarm, hide the women… → Read More
DailyFill, a gossip site in the same vein as TMZ and Perez Hilton, is off to an impressive start. Less than two months after launch, Quantcast is already reporting 1.7 million unique visitors – a figure on par with PopSugar’s traffic numbers (though we should note that the Sugar network as a whole sees much more traffic).
The site first grabbed attention because it was created by Slingshot… → Read More
The Apple Air had a great big target slapped onto it once Jobs unveiled it. Now Quanta is the latest to enter the niche market of ultra-thin notebooks. Previously, Quanta made their cash by manufacturing computers for others, most notably, Apple so this notebook will probably bring the goods. → Read More
Rumors ’bout the Verizon Hub/One (concept pictured) have been circulating the Internet for ages now but Verizon just made it official with what seems to be a February 1st, 2009 launch date. Specific hardware details are skecty, along with pricing $199 after a $50 MIR with a $35 a month fee, however, Verizon says they will fill in the blanks shortly. It seems that the Hub is designed to replace the… → Read More
If you know a boy between 6 and 12 who likes cars, check out the beta for a new virtual world designed by Ridemakerz, the build-your-own-car toy store. We have invites here.
The toy store commissioned the Electric Sheep Co. to build a browser-based virtual world for boys based on its Webflock platform. When I wrote about Ridemakerz back in December, here is how I described the project: → Read More
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