Last year in August, Sony promised Europeans will get the world’s first commercialized OLED TV, the XEL-1, “sometime next year”. Now the 11-inch screen is available in the UK, which is probably a good thing. But the problem is the price. → Read More
A fairly big play to help small businesses grow fast launches today in the form of Smarta, an attempt to create a one-stop shop for setting up and growing a business. You’ll be hearing a lot about it in the press because it has a bunch of people behind it with high media profiles, namely two Dragons from the BBC’s Dragons Den TV show. But will it cut the mustard? It will if the tenacity of CEO Sháá Wasmund is anything to go by. She made her name during the last boom as a director of travel company, Deckchair.com and Mykindaplace.com, sold to BSkyB. Most recently she has been at BrightStation Ventures, an investment vehicle, but has since extracted herself to work full time on Smarta, which has nothing to do with BrightStation. Smarta’s private backers are Simon Woodroffe (Founder of YO! Sushi), Bebo founder Michael Birch, David Saul (Business Environment Group) and Dragons’ Den panelists Theo Paphitis (also owner of Ryman Stationery) and Deborah Meaden. There is up-front sponsor money from NatWest, RBS bank and Vodafone, as well as from law firm Mishcon de Reya and serviced office provider Business Environment, which will both be providing services to users. Smarta is due to be launched today by Minister for Digital Engagement and Parliament’s first blogger, Tom Watson MP. Get the picture? So, Smarta is not unlike a sexier, private sector version of Business Link, the government-backed initiative to support small businesses which has been disappointing to say the least. Word on the street tells me they spent £20m on their useless web site, much of it on management consultancies to tell them they were fulfilling their brief. Sounds like your average government department, no? But with Smarta you will be able to do a number of practical things: Legally register a business online with almost as much ease as you would buy a domain name; actually buy domain names; use the in-built social network to promote your businesses and yourself to other entrepreneurs; watch video tutorials and interviews with entrepreneurs; read how-to editorial features for businesses; ask questions; get financial and legal advice. You can also apply for a business banking account from RBS or NatWest. They aim to have 200,000 users by the end of 2009. Revenue will be from sponsorship/advertising and transactions (domain name sales, business planning software etc). Apparently there is a market out there. Here’s → Read More
Yesterday as I was leaving the DLD Conference in Munich, Germany someone walked up to me and quite deliberately spat in my face. Before I even understood what was happening, he veered off into the crowd, just another dark head in a dark suit. People around me stared, then looked away and continued their conversation.
Generally at events people come up to me to talk about their startups. My reaction varies depending on how much sleep I’ve gotten and how many times I’ve been pitched in the previous hour. Sometimes I sit down and watch a demo. Sometimes I give them my card and ask them to contact me. Yesterday I was battling the flu, jetlag and little sleep, and had been battered for three days straight with product pitches from entrepreneurs desperate for press. The event was over and I was on my way back to my hotel. The last thing I wanted was another product pitch as I hurried to the car that would drive me to Davos for the next event. So when I saw this person approach me out of the corner of my eye, I turned away slightly and avoided eye contact. Sometimes that works. But in this case all it did was make me vulnerable to the last thing I expected.
In the past I’ve been grabbed, pulled, shoved and otherwise abused at events, but never spat on. I think this is where I’m going to draw a line. → Read More
The real movie based on Capcom’s never ending video game series Street Fighter (scheduled for release in the US February 27, 2009) gets another Japanese trailer that features several new scenes from the movie (video after the jump). → Read More
Three months ago Steve Case’s Revolution Health sold for $100 million or so to Waterfront Media (after raising $200 million in venture capital). Consolidation continues today with the HealthCentral acquisition of Wellsphere, which we first covered in early 2007. The deal should be announced on Wednesday.
Wellsphere brings its 4 million or so monthly unique visitors to the table. The site also has 300,000 health‐related articles, over 250,000 health‐related images, and nearly 20,000 health and healthy living videos.
The size of the deal is not being disclosed. Wellsphere has raised $3 million in funding from Gemini Israel Funds and Woodrow Myers. HealthCentral has raised a whopping $50 million in capital from Sequoia Capital, Polaris Venture Partners, IAC and Carlyle Group. → Read More
You may have noticed a few changes ’round here. Our own web heroes at TC HQ wanted to fix a few things to make the site look a bit less whitespacey. There are few features we’ll be trying tomorrow but until then, what thinks thee? → Read More
I would expect to find Starcraft courses in Korea, but here in the States it comes as a surprise — a pleasant surprise, but a surprise nonetheless. UC Berkeley is offering a Starcraft course that sounds like a pretty serious class. → Read More
17.1% of all clickthroughs on web advertising are the result of click fraud – the act of clicking on a web ad to artificially increase its click-through rate – according to the latest report from Click Forensics, a company that specializes in monitoring and preventing internet crime. The level of clickfraud is the highest the company has seen since it started monitoring for it in 2006, dashing our hopes that it might hold steady in 2008. The company recorded a rate of 16.3% in Q1 2008.
Also alarming is the fact that over 30% of click fraud is now coming from automated bots – a 14% increase from last quarter and the highest rate Click Forensics has seen since it started collecting data. Click fraud for ads on content networks like Google AdSense and Yahoo Publisher Network was up to 28.2% from 27.1% last quarter, though that figure has decreased since Q4 2007, when it was at 28.3%. Outside of the US, Click Forensics reports that the most click fraud came from Canada (which contributed 7.4%), Germany (3%), and China (2.3%). → Read More
Leapfrog makes some great educational toys, no doubt about it. In fact, my son uses the LeapPad system to read books. Once he was old enough to use it on his own, he spends hours listening and repeating the words to learn them. Now it looks like LeapFrog is going after the younger audience. → Read More
This cuddly destroyer of mankind from Be@rBrick features light-up eyes and probably won’t help your kid sleep at night. I’ve always had a fondness for tin-toy-looking things, but I want them to be kitschy-looking, not terrifying. → Read More
In the face of a 54 percent revenue drop last quarter, there’s been a lot of speculation going around (myself included) as to what’s going to happen with the Microsoft Zune. Microsoft has now come out and said that it has no plans to deep six the hardware or the software and that there will indeed be a new Zune lineup later this year. → Read More
In case you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to take the cart from Central Hall to North Hall (I think that’s where I was going), now you have a chance.
Click on for the speed and the glory of the CES golf ride. For the extremely lazy or fatigued only. → Read More
As 2008 came to a close, we saw the first hints of a new developmental branch of Android called “Cupcake”. Promising video recording, copy and paste, stereo bluetooth and more, an endless clamor has rang from the userbase ever since. There’s still no word as to when we can expect it to drop onto devices, nor are they making promises that any specific feature will make it on to any given handset (be it the G1 or a future release) – but with the Cupcake branch at a reasonably stable point and beginning to show some of its new tricks, we thought we’d do a video run-through of what has made it in so far. → Read More
Ever wonder whether you could just intercept that Live View stream and save it? Well, you can. It’s just no one thought to actually try… until now.
Click for video and an explanation of the hack. → Read More
Breasts and the iPhone have had a tumultuous relationship. Last month, an application that allowed users to shake a pair (possibly NSFW) of 3D breasts was banned from the App Store for being apparently too risque for its audience.
A few weeks later an application called Wobble made it into the App Store using something of a loophole – instead of offering pre-rendered mammary shaking, it allowed users to add their own ‘wobble points’ to any picture, which could conceivably have more tame applications (of course, the site made the designed purpose very clear in its demo video, which can be seen below).
Now it looks like Apple is having second thoughts. After hitting the top spot on the Japanese App Store and seeing 20,000 downloads over ten days, Wobble has been asked by Apple to remove anything having to do with ‘Boobs’ and ‘Booty’ from their marketing text. → Read More
This is by no means a real Apple product, nor are we trying to pass it off as one. The notebook above is simply a clever mock-up of what a an Apple MacBook Mini (read: netbook) could look like. The touchpad/wrist rest folds on top of the keyboard and then the screen folds down. Plausible? Sure, but it’s also plausible that Microsoft will upgrade Windows Vista suckers for free to Windows 7; extremely unlikely, but still plausible. → Read More
Short Version: We take a close look at four NAVIGON GPS units that are overpriced but still capable PND. Click on for a review of the 2000S, 2200T, 7200T and 8100T personal navigation devices. → Read More
I didn’t quite believe it when one of my most trusted sources told me that AOL was seriously considering selling Bebo. But I have now confirmed the rumour with three other sources intimately acquainted with the company. AOL is indeed quietly pondering a sale after watching Bebo perform much worse than it had hoped. That, combined with an advertising market buffeted by the waves of the economic downturn, means Bebo’s days at AOL could be numbered. Selling Bebo only a year after AOL acquired it for $850 million would be an astounding about-face. How did this happen? [UPDATES: As a result of this story, more sources are coming forward. One I trust says Bebo is being pitched at $200 million. Update 2: Sources inside AOL are denying that it is exploring a sale. Bebo also denies a sale. Update 3: We have been in contact with corp communications at AOL, they say on the record: "There is no truth to this rumor." Four of our sources, including former and current Bebo insiders and a well-placed VC, say otherwise. Last December Gigam published "Is Time Warner Having Second Thoughts About Bebo?". I'm not saying Bebo is formally on the block, but I am saying that a sale is something under consideration]. My sources paint a picture of a startup which cleverly went about wooing advertising agencies, their clients, and – in the end – a media company that was prepared to jump on the social networking bandwagon during late 2007. There is absolutely no suggestion that anyone was dishonest or misrepresented the situation. But a year on it’s clear that AOL itself projected more growth onto Bebo that the network could deliver. Head over to TechCrunch.com for the rest of this piece… → Read More
iLife ’09 is finally available on store shelves, and while most of the attention will probably go to iPhoto’s spiffy new face-recognition, there’s a feature tucked into GarageBand that might be making headlines very soon: premium lessons for piano and guitar, presented by the artists themselves. Dubbed ‘Lesson Store’, Apple’s online marketplace for music lessons has all the makings of a revolution in music learning that could prove to be incredibly popular and lucrative. We’ve known about it since its unveiling at Macworld, but only after trying it out can I confirm what many initially suspected: this thing is going to rock. → Read More
