It has come to our attention that creatively bankrupt Hollywood has decided to make another Tomb Raider movie. All of us here at CrunchGear—we stay crunchy, even in milk—think this is just another example of Hollywood admitting that, not only has it run out of ideas, but that it has no problem tarnishing the image of its forebears. (See the upcoming Pink Panther 2 the most revolting example.) So, Hollywood, if you’re reading—why wouldn’t it be?—please, pretty please, reconsider. → Read More
The nature of viral videos is that they are usually quirky and come out of nowhere. They somehow capture the zeitgeist of the Web and often involve dancing. But can the success of a viral video be repeated with a sequel? After all, these often don’t have brand-name stars or big marketing budgets. The conventional wisdom is that they are one-shot wonders. However, if a video gets big enough, it can become its own promotional vehicle for follow-on videos.
Take the example of Evolution Dance, the second most popular video of all time on YouTube. It has been viewed 112 million times since April, 2006. It shows motivational speaker Judson Laipply going through a medley of dance moves culled from the past few decades. I personally find it hard to watch all the way through, but it obviously holds a fascination for many people out there. So much so that Laipply decided to upload a sequel, Evolution of Dance 2 (embedded below). The sequel has only been on YouTube for three weeks since January 9, 2009. Yet it has already drawn more than 3 million views. → Read More
Mattel has been accused, again, of supporting Islam in their games and toys. The company stuck some baby gibberish into a doll and a Nintendo DS game that ends with something that sounds like “Islam is the light.” → Read More
We talk about the “cell phone camera noise” law, Linux, secondhand MP3 players full of secret military files, and useless features of point-and-shoot cameras. Plus, Stefan from Nokia calls in and discusses the demise of the N810 WiMAX Edition.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/CrunchGear/2009/01/28/CrunchGear-and-Friends → Read More
Here we have the first image of the new OLPC netbook which may or may not actually ever come to market. Tariq Krim and Michael saw it at Davos today. → Read More
The House of Representatives shot down the bill that would extend the DTV Transition date to June 12. The bill needed two-thirds vote to pass and extend the date by nearly four months. So as it stands now, televisions stations will switch off their analog broadcasts on February 17, 2009 as originally planed and advertised which will potentially leave millions of procrastinators without television. More as we get it but I, for one, hope the bill stays dead. → Read More
In an interview with Laptop Magazine, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang talks about the current state of netbooks, his company’s new Ion platform, rumors about Intel’s supposed strong-arming of device manufacturers, and other netbook and MID platforms from AMD, VIA, along with the probability behind netbooks powered by NVIDIA’s own Tegra platform. → Read More
There’s a “new way to get on Techmeme“. It’s called Twitter, have you heard of it?
All you need to do is send a message on the micro-sharing service that begins with “Tip @Techmeme” or “Tip @TechmemeFH”. The website, which aggregates news stories from across the web and determines which ones are worth featuring on the site and also detects links and relations between stories, will consider the article to be posted for many tech fanatics and professionals news reporters to see. And you’ll get credit with your Twitter id too!
This, of course, is a direct result of the recent hire of a human editor at Techmeme, which essentially came down to the popular website giving up on fully automated news. → Read More
Attention camera fanatics, ebay has a listing for you. The Paillard Bolex H8 Military Gun was apparently used by a Vietnam war reporter and survived. Wartime details about the equipment isn’t listed but just think of the history this camera might have recorded. The buyer gets a few more lens along the original documentation and a case too. But is it worth the $1,318 Buy It Now price? More pics after the jump. → Read More
Whoa. the Microsoft Mac page is gone. No mention of Office 2008 for Mac appears on Microsoft’s website. Interestingly, however, it does still appear on the UK version. Perhaps someone did an rm -rf mac* (or whatever the equivalent is under Windows)?
Thanks, Jimmy! → Read More
When we heard about iLife ’09 last month, Apple touted the Faces and Places features of the iPhone and image stabilization and precise editing in iMovie. How much does all of this pleasure cost? $79 or nothing if you get it with a new Mac. But is it worth the upgrade?
The most prominent additions are Faces and Places. Places uses embedded GPS data to place your photos on a map and you can use this information to make map-based video travelogues. Although this is great for iPhone shots – the iPhone embeds GPS coordinates in every photo it takes – it’s not so great for owners of non-GPS enabled cameras. While there are plenty of folks out there who use and need GPS information in their photos, those folks probably aren’t using iPhoto. It’s a nice to have but not a real draw. → Read More
AOL will cut its work force by 10 percent today, laying off approximately 700 employees, as a result of the struggling economy and a decrease in advertising revenue, we’ve confirmed with the company.
AOL has 7,000 employees worldwide. The cuts have been added to our Layoff Tracker. In a company wide memo (reproduced below), AOL CEO Randy Falco said the layoffs will be rolled out over the next few quarters and U.S. workforce reductions would be completed by March. He added that the company will eliminate merit pay increases in 2009. → Read More
Eh-kysa knybrelc! Oac, dra luihdtufh ec ujan yht [Square] ryc ibtydat dra uvveleym [Final Fantasy XIII] Fap ceda fedr y haf dnyeman. Yht ihmega syho secmaytehk jetau kysa dnyemanc draca tyoc, drec uha crufc yldiym kysabmyo. → Read More
You should know by now that there are going to be 3D Super Bowl Commercials. Right? Anyway, SoBe has produced a behind the scenes look at its commercial. Hopefully the real thing isn’t as craptacular as this clip; it probably will be though. Video after the break and remember, you’ve been warned. → Read More
It’s tremendously snowy outside—not unlike that level in Donkey Kong Country. So the urge to go outside and snap, snap, snap away, taking photos of the lovely scenery, must be palpable. You might want to wrap your camera around in a plastic bag to protect it from the elements (that’s an old trick I learned in a class once), or, to look more middle class, slap this plastic shell on it. You need to show how well-off you are in these uncertain times. → Read More
Looks like Motorola will be pairing a keyboard with push-to-talk in the i465, due sometime this year. The immediacy of text messaging is great, yes, overshadowed only by the immediacy of instantly speaking to someone using a nationwide walkie-talkie, so this handset ought to cover all the need-to-talk-ASAP bases. → Read More
BuzzGain, a new service that helps users manage their relationships and keep tabs on the public perception of their products, has launched in public beta. The service is meant to help small and medium sized companies analyze how their products are being discussed across the web and through social channels like Twitter, and can identify how online “influencers” are interacting. It also helps track thousands of news outlets and hundreds of blogs in an effort to help users understand what each outlet covers, so they don’t reach out repeatedly to writers who have no interest in their product pitches (many bad PR agencies just blast releases to every Email address they have). → Read More
After making the exciting journey from friend-to-friend and scanner-to-internet, a document detailing the launch details for the Samsung Memoir has been leaked for all to enjoy. The good news? In just under a month, we’ll all be able to enjoy the Samsung Memoir in all of its 8-megapixel glory. The bad news? It’ll apparently set you back 300 greenbacks – and that’s after rebates. Yikes. We’ve known for some time now that the Memoir (or, as those namedropping model numbers will call it so that their friends think they’re super awesome, the T929) carries GPS, Stereo Bluetooth, myFaves support and that, unfortunately, it probably won’t be much of a smartphone due to the TouchWiz (the non-Windows Mobile variant) user interface. Freshly leaked as of late is word that it’ll also rock a Xenon flash, autofocus, 16x digital zoom. Oh, and that it’s targeted at “Family focused amateur photographers, 30-45 years old”. So what do you think, family focused amateur photographers between 30 and 45 years old? Would you drop 300 bucks for an 8-megapixel shooter with a relatively limited OS when it drops on February 25th? [Via Tmonews] → Read More
Wiz, the Japanese toy maker behind great stuff like the Flying Ultraman and the consolation money pocket calculator, today unveiled their newest stroke of genius, a mini USB construction site [JP, PDF]. → Read More
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