Play Hard Sports has spent the last 9 months developing a rich new Flash-based football game that puts generic Flash games to shame, featuring detailed graphics, intricate gameplay, and persistent stats. Today the company announced that it has signed Bill Cowher, a famed NFL coach best known for coaching the Steelers to a Super Bowl win, to provide color commentary for the game. To mark the occasion, the company has also decided to swap names (probably a wise decision) and will henceforth be known as “Quick Hit“.
While the game has yet to launch to the public, it is apparently impressing investors: earlier this month the company closed an $8 million Series B funding round, and has raised $13 million to date. In terms of quality, the game seems comparable to World Golf Tour, another rich Flash game that goes far beyond the basic casual games that get discarded after a few minutes. → Read More
I suppose it was only a matter of time. This handset, which will almost certainly never see our fair shores, sports a 3.1-inch 3D screen — 3D capable, to be precise, since I doubt there’s any 3D content ready to go, even in Japan (and certainly not Captain EO). → Read More
Good news from the One Laptop Per Child program: the successor to the ambitious, but ultimately outmatched XO laptop will be open source hardware. Hopefully that will encourage adoption, imitation, and customization, leading the XO-2 to be hopefully more of a success than the XO. → Read More
Airports are riddled with germs and sickly folk that have no business being in public, right? In most instances you can get away from them, but if they’re on your flight, the risk of getting sick increases ten fold. Or something like that. If Belgium’s Biorics’ latest project gets off the ground then we may never have to worry about flying with sick people ever again. → Read More
Meebo’s Community IM, which effectively offers websites a Facebook Chat-like messaging platform “in a box”, looks like it’s finally ready for the masses. The product was first unveiled last July, and has announced partnerships with over a dozen sites including Sugar Publishing, AddictingGames, and myYearbook. But until now it has been rolled out slowly, and is currently live on only three sites: Flixster, Wadja, and Zorpia. While some of the wait can be attributed to the partner sites themselves, Meebo has also been taking its time to ensure that its service could handle the traffic load.
Now it sounds like Meebo is ready to swing into full gear. Today the product went live on Piczo, a social site with a large following among teenagers. And beginning next month, the company will roll out on 5-6 more partner sites and plans to continue that pace for the following months (Meebo won’t comment on which sites will be launching, but we can expect the largest ones to drag their feet the longest). → Read More
FyreTV is a set top box that streams on-demand video (perhaps not the kind of video you’re thinking of) for $9.95 per month. The box itself is free and the monthly fee gets you 100 credits good for between 50 and 100 minutes of video (the kind of video only grown-ups should watch). → Read More
This little object, made by Tenga (and not sold by Muji) is almost certainly not what you think it is. Of course, if you were thinking “self-contained disposable vagina-like environment,” then I beg your pardon. Because that’s exactly what it is. → Read More
In a move that has shocked investors and industry analysts, Nintendo has adjusted its expected net down from ¥345bn to ¥230bn, a drop of more than a billion dollars. Do they know something we don’t? → Read More
Some companies go out with a whisper, others with a bang. In the case of online animation community MyToons, we’d call it the latter.
Not only do we know the startup has laid off its entire staff except for the founders (which equals 20 to 27 people depending on who you ask) because the lead investor refused to pony up more cash, but we’re also hearing stories from multiple sources who claim that the company’s management has all but thrown VC money out the windows, leading to the current unfortunate situation.
Among the allegations put forward by former employees who wish to remain anonymous: grave mismanagement, a complete disinterest from the company’s co-founders to turn MyToons into a revenue-generating business along with more serious accusations that the executives have been misrepresenting the company’s financial and operational status to their investors and moreover wasting VC money on personal purchases like trips to Hawaii, fancy dinners with relatives, home electronics for personal use and so on. We realize this could be simply a case of disgruntled ex-employees looking to discredit their former employers, but we currently consider the tips to be as reliable as they are detailed. → Read More
Mobile game ad network Greystripe has hit 140 million ad-supported game downloads thanks to iPhone users. In the fourth quarter of 2008 alone, it supported 30 million downloads. All of these ad-supported and Greystripe says that over 50 percent of ad impressions are from iPhone games. The ads themselves have game-like characteristics designed to increase teh chances of consumers clicking on them and playing with them, hence “advergames.”
Last summer, TechCrunch reported that Greystripe turned its attention to the iPhone, and is subsequently seeing an increase in downloads and ad impressions. In fact, Greystripe’s Top 10 Total Games (by ad impression) are all iPhone games. In December, the company created its own version of Adobe Flash for the iPhone, which Apple currently prohibits on the iPhone, that would allow advertisers to use rich media flash ads. The company is making the iPhone market a “priority for the foreseeable future,” finding that the device is a much more successful ad platform for gaming than Java devices. → Read More
I’m not a big fan of point and shoot cameras so when I saw the Canon G9 favorably compared to a Leica (AS IF!) I just had to get my hands on the G10.
The 14-megapixel, $485 G10 is a beefy point and shoot clad in mostly black, military grade plastic and metal. It is truly a beast. But how does it handle? Not bad at all. → Read More
Part of the fun of the DIY community, is that they find new ways to use old technology. Take for example a flatbed scanner. While once these were considered fairly important, and almost everyone had one, that’s not really the case now. Now take an 8×10 view camera. Still fairly prevalent among professional photographers, they use film – and we all know now that digital is much more convenient.
Now consider, what would happen if we combined those two items? → Read More
Update: TechCrunch is looking for 4 remote interns–5+ hours per week. While this week saw fewer new jobs on CrunchBoard, companies are still adding jobs in New York, Silicon Valley, Boston, Philadelphia, and telecommute. (Here at TechCrunch, we’re looking for a Rails Developer.) New jobs on CrunchBoard: Software Engineer Yelp – San Francisco, CA Vice President Online & Mobile Ad Sales MocoSpace – Boston, MA Director of Product Management Stealth Project – San Francisco, CA Director of Marketing Xpree – Redwood City, CA CTO/Lead Developer NowHound – New York City or Telecommute International readers can check out our British and French job boards as well. → Read More
Google Earth, now used to combat the scourge of marijuana. Police in Switzerland used the map software to help find some 1.2 tons worth of the substance. And that’s not all! → Read More
Image by Katie Tegtmeyer As many of us were still sleeping off our New Years celebrations back in early January, a team of security experts found a nasty little bug tucked away into S60 handsets. Dubbed the “Curse of Silence”, SMS capabilities on a wide array of Nokia devices could be disabled by sending a series of specially formatted texts. Were you unlucky enough to be stricken silent by the exploit? Probably not – Nokia and most of the carriers were pretty quick to put up their defenses, blocking these malicious messages at the pass. Still, Nokia has prepped a “Curse of Silence” clean-up application – you know, just in case. If you just happen to have a SMS-less S60 sitting around somewhere, just install the application and give it a run – it’ll handle the rest. [Via AllAboutSymbian] → Read More
Music streaming startup Spotify is getting lots of plaudits from users lately for its ease of use and vast catalogue. But it seems the record labels don’t like it that way. In a blog post the startup outlines how it will be removing a number of songs from its catalogue and adding country restrictions to some tracks, which may make them unplayable for many users. The changes are being made because record labels have slapped restrictions on Spotify’s service.
The issue is to do with the publishing rights associated with compilatoins. A user in one country might be able to listen to a track on one compilation in their country jurisdiction, but to share that track on a playlist with a user in another country could affect the publishing rights. It’s a bizarre situation to think that in 2009, then the out-dated DRM walls are already crumbling, that music streaming remains hobbled in this way. As the Sweden-based startups says: “…our hope is that one day restrictions like this will disappear for good”. See after the jump for the post. → Read More
While this post is actually just an excuse to show you this great picture – high stockings, cellphones, and vaguely menacing medical gear are so underrated – it’s now been proven that facemasks can and do prevent the spread of flu. Unfortunately, you have to wear them almost constantly, which is probably not so much fun. → Read More
Acer went all official on the 10-inch Aspire One a few days ago, but that model is loaded with XP Home. It seems however that a Linux flavor with a 16GB SSD is in the works of the same model and might be loaded with the same distro of Linux as the original 8.9-inch Aspire One. → Read More
Oh it’s on! It seems Russian Prime Minister Putin got into a huge fight with Michael Dell yesterday at the Davos World Economic Forum, which is where world leaders plan their screwing over of the little guy while eating like princes. (So I hear.) Right, so Putin gave a speech talking about lots of stuff, including the current state of technology in Russia. Then Michael Dell opened his big mouth. → Read More
For better or for worse, YouTube has just made it easier to add annotations to your videos. Annotations, which were introduced to the site last June, consist of little grey popups that can include standard text boxes or speech bubbles, or offer interactive links to other clips. They’re useful when they’re used sparingly, but can also be more than a little annoying.
To insert the annotations, users previously had to use an editor tucked under the ‘edit video’ menu. Starting this week, you’ll be able to add annotations directly using a targeting crosshair that appears whenever you view a video that you’ve uploaded. Clicking on the video will bring up a menu asking which annotation you’d like to insert, and you can use a sliding bar on the video’s timeline to determine how long each one appears. A pair of arrows appear at the bottom of the video, allowing you to jump between each annotation so you don’t have to manually watch through the video to find them all. → Read More
