A friend sent me this video today that sparked some interesting lines of thought. I’ve been online since the early 90s, so I often lose sight of just how rapidly things have advanced, and how deeply the Internet — and technology in general — has changed all of our lives. Just think: “If MySpace were a country, it would be the fifth largest country in the world” and “Today, the number of text messages sent and received every day, exceeds the total population of the planet.” → Read More
Let’s be honest. When companies talk about providing “complete” Internet access on their mobile devices, they are really only speaking a half-truth. That is, at least until Adobe Flash comes to mobile browsers. Love it or hate it, Flash has become an integral website component, be it for video playback, games, or interactive animations. Its absence is very noticeable while surfing the Net on iPhones, WinMo / Symbian handsets, and Android-powered devices alike. While Adobe continues to work on an official mobile Flash version (except for the iPhone), that hasn’t stopped other third parties from jumping the gun. → Read More
Initially unveiled way back in September of last year, the “Gametrak Freedom” motion sensing remote control for Xbox 360 and the PS3 has undergone a bit of a makeover and is currently on display at the Games Developer Conference in San Francisco. → Read More
Remember BlockBuster? For you younglings who don’t, it was a poplar retail chain that rented “videos” and “DVDs” to people, in person. It’s still around, but no one really uses it anymore. Anyway, BlockBuster just inked a deal with TiVO, which also isn’t doing too well—it currently has its smallest subscriber base since 2005—to bring BlockBuster-branded streaming movies to TiVo. Movies will cost up to $4 to rent. → Read More
Wolfenstein 3D is one of the best games ever made. When I saw it in the app store I felt I had to buy it. After playing the game for 30 minutes, my purchase is justified. Solid controls, original visuals and sound — Nazis, here I come! → Read More
Tel Aviv, Israel— When I moved to Silicon Valley in early 2000, I quickly became fascinated with Israel. A very tight relationship had formed between the holy-land-for-all-things-tech and the actual Holy Land, bolstered by the success of people like Yossi Vardi and Checkpoint’s Gil Schwed.
The rapid pace of liquidity in the late 1990s meant Valley investors couldn’t find enough start-ups to stuff their money into, and unlike dot com fluffiness that was roaming around San Francisco, Israelis were hard-core techies with a work ethic that seemed to defy basic human needs like sleeping and eating. Most of all, Israelis, particularly those in high-tech and cosmopolitan Tel Aviv, had a reputation for living like there was no tomorrow, because when you’re surrounded by hostile neighbors there may not be.
But in almost ten years since the tech crash, has the Holy Land lost its high-tech mojo? → Read More
And so it goes. Last.fm, which just went to a pay-to-play model, is shutting down mobile streaming due to “licensing agreements.” This means unofficial Last.fm scrobbling and streaming apps will now be verboten – although for how long and to what degree are not clear. The service will now cost 3 euros per month to users outside of the UK, US, and Germany and current subscribers will receive a 30-track trial. Interestingly, the mobile changes actually address some non-public API calls that allowed software makers to stream Last.fm content relatively unpreturbed. The company said in a blog posting that these APIs will be closed. → Read More
If all the paper shredders in the world were hand operated like this Eco-Friendly Hand Crank Paper Shredder, it’d save enough electricity to power every building on all seven continents until the year 2096. That statement may or may not be true, but why take any chances? → Read More
DSLReports is reporting (HA!) that Sprint’s 4G WiMax service, called Clearwire, to Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Honolulu, Vegas, Philly, Portland and Seattle this year. Then, in 2010, expect Boston, Houston, NY, SF, and DC. Chicago is currently live but you cannot purchase subscriptions in that market. → Read More
Newegg has a pretty good deal on a 1.5TB external hard drive. The Seagate FreeAgent costs $119, features a 7200 rpm drive, connects via USB, and includes free shipping (the deal ends today). Reviews have been mixed as this drive apparently had some problems early on, although it appears that the kinks have been worked out thanks to new firmware. Seagate FreeAgent [Newegg.com] → Read More
Music search and streaming service Project Playlist may finally be turning the tide in its ongoing battle with the music industry. EMI Music, one of the three major labels which was suing Project Playlist for copyright infringement, dropped out of the litigation and is announcing today that it has licensed its entire catalog to the service instead. EMI joins Sony BMG, which was never part of the lawsuit, in licensing its digital catalog of music to Project Playlist.
That is two down, two to go. Warner Music and Universal Music Group are still party to the suit. If Project Playlist CEO Owen Van Natta can get them to license their catalogs as well, maybe the vultures circling the company will go away. The service is currently banned on both Facebook and MySpace. Getting the other two labels on board would be necessary for lifting those bans.
Warner and Universal don’t seem to be in any rush to settle, however. → Read More
It looks like 2009 will be a good year for midi controllers. First Akai came out with the APC40, soon followed by The Maschine by Native Instruments. This new baby here, the Ohm64 from Livid is elegant and sexy. → Read More
While advertising revenues have been disappointingly low for most applications on Facebook and other social networks, another option app developers are increasingly turning towards is micropayments for virtual goods or premium features. Both Facebook and MySpace have admitted that they are working on their own payment systems, and Apple could play a role as well since it already has a payment system in place for iPhone apps (although even Apple is running into some bumps).
While the bigger players are fiddling with their payment system plans, nimbler startups are moving in to fill the gap. One of these is Spare Change Payments, which is trying to become the Paypal of micropayments. A year after launch, more than 700 apps across Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo use Spare Change for micropayments. Spare Change is processing $2.5 million a month in micropayments, which is a $30 million annual run-rate. The apps that are having the most success with micropayments are games and ones that sell virtual goods.
Now, the company is making it easier for consumers to pay through Spare Change with a new payment widget that pops up in each app instead of sending people off to a separate payments page. → Read More
The latest venture fund to set up a separate seed financing program is Boston-based Spark Capital, a prolific investor in Internet and new media companies such as Twitter, Boxee, Tumblr, Veoh and KickApps. The initiative is dubbed Start@Spark, and is primarily geared towards startups from the Boston and New York areas.
Early-stage investments will amount up to $250,000, and will not be restricted to information technology companies but also periodically be granted to startups offering financial or educational services. Entrepreneurs who get into the program will have access to Spark’s partner network and legal counsel, and will also be prepared for a second, more formal round of funding at a later stage if progress is deemed satisfactory by the firm. You can apply here. → Read More
Online deal marketplace FatWallet.com is getting a makeover. FatWallet redesigned its existing site to give it a slick, user-friendly interface. The money-saving site also added a new feature to organize its deals called Coupon Search, which is stocked with with online coupons for consumers. And FatWallet expanded its roster of retail parters. While the site originally had relationships with 800 retailers, it now gets deals from over 2,400 online retailers.
FatWallet also revamped its Cash Back feature, which consumers get cash back from shopping at certain sites. The cash back feature actually has some pretty good deals. For example, if you book a United Airlines flight, you could get 4 percent back. The site also offers consumers a forum where they can share money saving tips and shopping deals. FatWallet has deals from some pretty well-known retailers like Dell, Sephora, Macys and Travelocity. And FatWallet’s forums for consumers are fairly extensive and useful, ranging from threads addressing the the best deals on tech gadgets to which credit card to get. → Read More
Yahoo is cutting more fat today by closing its travel bargains website FareChase, which it originally acquired back in July 2004 and re-launched two years later. The company will be announcing the shut-down later today, and will start redirecting visitors of the service to its main travel site soon.
The service let customers perform comparative searches for pricing on flights, hotels, cruises and cars, but it was apparently not enough of a strategic product enhancement for Yahoo Travel, hence the company discontinuing it altogether to tighten its focus and cut costs in these difficult times.
Sounds like a plan to me. → Read More
No, it is not April Fools day – yet. The British government is proposing that Twitter be taught in elementary schools as part of a wider push to make online communication and social media a permanent part of the UK’s education system.
And that’s not all. Kids will be taught blogging, podcasting and how to use Wikipedia alongside Maths, English and Science. The draft plans were due to be published next month, but have leaked early.
Children will also learn “fluency” in keyboard skills, and how to use a spellchecker. Luckily they will still be taught how to spell themselves, rather than rely on Mr Clippy. → Read More
Radionomy, based out of Brussels, Belgium (yes we do have a startup scene here), has secured more funding in order to bring more enhancements to and enable scale for its personalized web radio application, which it is debuting in public beta today.
The size of the financing round wasn’t shared in detail, but the startup did say its total capital now exceeds €1.5 million (roughly $2 million).
Radionomy essentially offers everyone a chance to set up their own Internet radio station free of charge and share a personalized radio show complete with music programming, jingles and commercials with friends and the rest of the world. Users get to tap into readily available music libraries and jingles and add custom sequences, interviews, reports and podcasts to the mix, enabling anyone to build a genuinely personalized radio show and broadcast it for free, worldwide. Radionomy takes care of the associated costs (including royalties), and shares advertising revenue with radio station creators, relative to the size of their audience. Read more about the project, which is European in scope, right here → Read More
Things are getting out of control in the 3D modeling business. Models for movies and games have gone from thousands to hundreds of thousands of triangles, and the lighting and shading necessary for them is getting so complicated as to require a whole separate video card. Imagine you’re an animator at Pixar — do you think they made WALL-E on netbooks? No, son. They probably used things we haven’t even heard of on this planet, and they probably had Quadro graphics cards in them. Nvidia’s new line of unbelievably expensive cards will block out the sun, and ray-trace its own shadow in real time. → Read More
