Yup, WWDC will run from June 9-12, more or less as that one guy predicted a few weeks ago. It’s at that Moscone West place, where Apple usually likes to hold its big rally-round-the-flag meetings → Read More
You can get a free Sidekick 2008 from LetsTalk.com when you sign up for a new two-year contract with T-Mobile. Or, if you need to extend your contract you can get one for $49. T-Mobile is selling the device directly for $99, so you can save a little moolah with this deal. T-Mobile Sidekick 2008 [LetsTalk.com via dealnews] → Read More
Imagine this is an analog to the BLAPP Store. Each jacket is an app. Mike Lazaridis, co-CEO of RIM, will be announcing the BLAPP World at CTIA this year, adding one more app store to an already healthy app-store market. BusinessWeek calls the BLAPP store “much anticipated” and explains that it will be “chock-full of software programs.” Yes, that’s right: they described BLAPP world they way you’d describe rocky road ice cream and its attendant peanuts and marshmallows. → Read More
Are you one of the eight people who actually uses iGoogle? Good news for you, then, as Google is working with video game publishers, like Nintendo, Capcom and Activison Blizzard, to produce custom themes for the site. (Two minutes pass.) I just turned on this Street Fighter IV theme, and the chances of me using iGoogle just went up by 100 percent. So, job done, Google. → Read More
Everybody panic! IDG is reporting that MS might charge users who send 5 or more mobile apps to the Microsoft Mobile App Bazaar in one year or update their apps too often. Why? Maybe the depression? → Read More
Thenew iTunes pricing scheme is set for an April 7 launch, says the Los Angeles Times. They do good work over there. Apple hasn’t revealed this date publicly, but April 7 is supposedly what Cupertino is telling record labels. Remember: prices now top out at $1.29 for popular songs. Think Britney Spears—she’s still popular, right?—Lady Gaga, anything with Auto Tune, etc. This country, I swear. (Although, let the record show, I do like Taylor Swift, which makes me a complete hypocrite and a half-idiot. And I’m not even talking about, “Wow, she’s hot,” I actually mean I enjoy her music.) → Read More
Just because your bank account might be light is no reason to cancel your vacation this year. There are alternatives to expensive hotels. Expensive summer home rentals. Actually, renting someone’s vacation home for two to three weeks is usually cheaper than a fancy hotel and you get a lot more room to spread out. But finding a vacation home to rent out can be a real chore. Sites like VRBO.com have great inventory, but they are not easy to navigate or search. You have to know the exact town you want to stay in because there is no way to search listings on a map.
Enter Hotpads, the real estate site that is all about maps. It just added a “vacation” tab to its site, which lets you search for 20,000 vacation home rentals across the U.S. Results are plotted on a map, which is really convenient when you want to know how far away from the beach or the ski slopes the property is. Results can also be sorted by price and availability, which show up when you mouse over any given house icon. For instance, here is a search for Lake Tahoe vacation homes on HotPads (screenshot above), and here is what you get on VRBO (below). It is just alist of towns. Not very helpful, especially if you are traveling to somewhere you are not familiar with. → Read More
Buyers clubs along the lines of Vente Privee (which started in France) and Brand For Friends in Germany are spreading like wildfire across Europe and no wonder. They are business models tailor-made for the recession, offering big discounts on designer goods among almost guaranteed buyers. They hit revenue almost from the word go and the jungle drums tell me that Vente-Privee is on course to deliver hundreds of millions in revenue this year alone. Now online shopping club KupiVIP.ru in Russia, operated by Privat Trade Ltd has raised $8 million in a second round of funding from Mangrove Capital Partners, Arlan, and ABRT Fund, we hear from Russian blog/search startup Quintura. The company previously raised $3 million from the same investors. The site organises designer brand online sales in fashion and fashion accessories with discounts of up to 70% off boutique prices. KupiVIP has hit 200,000 registered users since launching last October. Now, Brands4friends is also Mangrove backed. Notice a trend anyone? Expand into big territories and then exit by rolling up these startups into a sale to a retailer hit by the downturn that needs a new model. QED, perhaps… As I wrote in February last year, News International saw the trend early in the UK and invested in online fashion company Brand Alley UK, which offers private sales and bargains designer fashion brands. The joint venture with French online boutique BrandAlley is, of course, a luxury “private members’ club”. BrandAlley was launched in 2005, is backed with VC cash (I’m just checking who) and claims a membership base of well over 1.3 million and 200 brands. → Read More
Residents of Esparto, California had their windows shattered by an explosion created as part of a Mythbusters segment designed to see whether or not it was truly possible to knock someone’s socks off. According to KCRA news, the Mythbusters crew ignited 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate about a mile outside of Esparto that resulted in an explosion that “was a lot bigger than they expected.” → Read More
I may not know much about wrestling, but I do know that Photoshopping three stock photos on a muddy background and calling it Rubber Colorful Skin does not make for a salable product. I did, after all, try that technique in my new line of Rubber Colorful Skin Sex Wear and sorely overestimated the international need for such a product. → Read More
Innovative electric-car startup Tesla is unveiling the latest addition to its lineup this afternoon in Southern California. The sedan is meant to serve as a more affordable entry to the Tesla lineup that will appeal to the mainstream, with a ticket price of around $50,000 (as opposed to well over $100,000 for the Tesla Roadster). Current estimates for release of the car are late in 2011.
Earlier today Digg’s Kevin Rose leaked a number of photos of the car (which has been kept tightly under wraps until now). The car apparently features a very large touchscreen in the center console, as well as a digital display that is possibly touch-sensitive in the dash. Rose appears to have made the Flickr accounts he originally posted the photos to private, but they have been copied to a number of other sites.
The video feed should be live by 12:45 PM PST
Update: It looks like Ustream had trouble with its feed, but here are some details, via Jason Calacanis’s Twitter stream.
Sony today announced two new Blu-ray and HDD recorders for the Japanese market that feature a VOD function [JP]. The BDZ-A750 and the BDZ-A950 are Japan-only. Owners of a PSP or a Sony DAP can connect their devices to the recorders via USB to download and view content on their portables later. → Read More
I was so worried about this book ever becoming a movie – Horton Hears a Who and the other Seuss stuff was execrable – but this preview shows that Spike Jonze and David Eggers can me beautiful monster music together. October 16, eh? Can’t wait. → Read More
It’s been almost a year since we first got our hands on Samsung’s updated (u740) Alias, and whadoyaknow, Samsung is getting ready to launch the Alias2 on the Verizon Wireless network any time now. Funny how that tends to work. Just as you get comfortable with yesteryear’s technology…BAM, the next generation hits the scene. → Read More
I took a deep personal interest in Batter Blaster when I first covered it way back in October of 2007. At that time it was only available in the San Francisco area and, after what seemed like eons, I finally saw Batter Blaster in a grocery store here in Boston last night. Hit the jump to check out a video review of the Batter Blaster pancakes in a can. → Read More
There’s some changes going on at Lenovo. The corporation, of which the Chinese government is its largest shareholder, will turn its attention toward so-called emerging markets, such as the Middle East and Asia, China included. This necessarily comes at the expense of places like Western Europe and North America, where Lenovo will lessen its presence → Read More
Sony’s “don’t call it a netbook” VAIO P may be getting an internal makeover by the summer according to the all-things-Sony blog, Sony Insider. The current VAIO series model numbers have naming conventions such as “VGN-P530H/G” and Sony Insider was able to dig up six mysterious model numbers that look similar to the current ones, but place them in the 700 series instead of the 500 series. → Read More
Want to know everything that could possibly go wrong with Google? Well, you can read the risk section of its latest SEC filing, but that’s a snore. Or you can flip through the slides after the jump, which were put together by French consulting firm FaberNovel. They were the ones who gave us the hugely popular slideshow, “Everything you always wanted to know about Google . . . but were afraid to ask”.
This one is titled more morosely, “Why could Google die . . . maybe not now, but tomorrow.” I wouldn’t be picking out caskets just yet, but the slideshow does provide a convenient cheat sheet for most of the major threats that Google faces. It quickly goes through them, including the threat of antitrust and copyright infringement litigation, a massive privacy disaster, hiring and retention issues, disruption from new startups. There is even a nice slide listing Google’s 12 main weaknesses, along with a visual assessment of the probability, timing, and impact of each scenario. Of course, chances are that it doesn’t include the one threat that will get Google in the end. (I don’t know what it is either, but I am a big believer in black swans). → Read More
So Apple just released a firmware update for the new 17-inch MacBook Pro that supposedly fixes that nasty screen tearing issue we discussed. As with all firmware updates, you’re asked to pray to your god of choice in order to ensure that the update goes smoothly. → Read More
