Jason Hui’s Lenovo S10 reboots every time he puts his Nokia E71 anywhere close to the keyboard. It’s really a sight to behold and, according to Hui, is likely caused by “the Lenovo S10’s poor EMF shielding, the Nokia E71’s (high)er SAR, and the fringe zone” cell coverage area where he lives. → Read More
Make way for the Eee PC 1004DN, ASUS’ first netbook with a built-in optical drive. Rumors swirled last week, but ASUS made everything official by announcing that the machine will feature a Super-Multi DVD burner, a chiclet-style keyboard, an Express Card slot, multi-touch trackpad, brushed aluminum casing, and almost six hours of battery life. → Read More
The Japanese App Store already offers Skype for the iPhone (v1.0.0.63) and we have some screenshots. Japanese bloggers say the contact list takes some time to load after logging in. Group chat is possible. In chat mode, users have three options: “Bookmark”, “Leave Chat” and “Close Chat”. → Read More
Two Microsoft-related announcements coming from social networking giant MySpace today: the portal is adding support for Windows Mobile-run phones to its new mobile application, due this summer, and bringing the Silverlight runtime to its developer program thanks to a jointly developed Open Source kit.
The upcoming application will be created by MySpace in conjunction with Microsoft developers, and optimize the user experience for owners of devices running the latest version of Windows Mobile (6.1, which was introduced in April 2008). The company says it currently has 20 million mobile users and is focused on developing applications for all platforms, including the iPhone, Android-run devices, Blackberry, Palm, Nokia, etc.
Additionally, MySpace is going to include the Silverlight runtime in its Open Platform and offer a jointly built SDK, leveraging the JavaScript OpenSocial container used by most of the applications that run on the social networking service. → Read More
In an upbeat report this morning, the Interactive Advertising Bureau reported that internet advertising in the U.S. grew 10.6 percent to $23.4 billion. And the $6.1 billion fourth quarter (up 2.6 percent) was the first time Internet advertising surpassed the $6 billion mark. That said, the rate of growth declined both on an annual and quarterly basis. Even the 4.5 percent sequential growth over the third quarter was the lowest since 2002 (as was the annual growth rate). But the sequential growth showed a promising uptick in the fourth quarter compared to the previous three quarters, as the chart above shows. This rebound is also in line with what the four big Web advertising companies (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL) saw in the fourth quarter.
Search advertising dominated, with 45 percent of total Internet advertising market share. It also grew 20 percent for the year. The only category which grew as fast was rich media and video. Online video advertising grew faster than any other sub-category, with 123 percent annual growth (going from $324 million in 2007 to $724 million in 2008). Display advertising was able to eke out 8 percent growth for the year, but declined 4 percent in the fourth quarter.
The IAB also trotted out some numbers showing that Internet advertising revenues are outpacing TV advertising by some measures. The entire report is embedded after the jump. → Read More
The Kindle 2 is hot in the US, but in Japan color e-paper is the major topic in the blogosphere. The black and white Sony e-reader was a gigantic flop and Amazon Japan hasn’t said yet if it will sell the Kindle here in Nippon.
Fujitsu will attempt to fill the void by offering its FLEPia color e-book (pictured) next month, but now Ricoh claims it has developed a technology that makes it possible to produce color e-paper, which is 50% brighter than conventional devices. → Read More
Sonoa Systems, a provider of analytics, management, and governance solutions for cloud services and APIs, has struck a deal with MTV Networks (MTVN) to optimize the network’s online and mobile content distributions. Sonoa’s product, ServiceNet, will help MTVN manage the delivery of video feeds as the they open their APIs to partners and consumers in the cloud. MTVN is using Sonoa’s cloud-based service to give their online syndication partners a platform to use and deploy the network’s content feeds. Sonoa’s analytics will help MTVN measure performance and usage patterns of each syndication feed and allows the network to see how people are using their technologies and APIs. And having this highly personalized information will let MTVN determine new revenue opportunities and measure customer satisfaction. Sonoa’s product is another way of how enterprises can leverage the cloud to help serve partners and clients. In this case, the cloud is being used as a distribution platform for content. Using the cloud for mass distribution of media content is pretty compelling and just shows how the cloud is continuously expanding business models and data storage functionality. Here’s what Chet Kapoor, CEO of Sonoa Systems said about the partnership: “As more companies look to create new business models via cloud services, solving the common challenges faced when exposing services, feeds and APIs become critical to their success. Our solution solves these issues delivering a layer of security, control, performance and visibility in the cloud that result in better performance and substantially lower operational costs. MTVN is definitely ahead the curve, their innovation is truly a great example of how both traditional enterprises as well as web-centric companies can use cloud services to better serve and reach their partners and customers.” CrunchBase Information Sonoa Systems Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism released a study today that claims bloggers and journalists have an “uneasy” optimism about the future of news media on the web. But, the study says, their optimism definitely trumps that of broadcast and print employees in traditional media industries.
According to the study, most journalists who work in the online news industry believe that the internet is having a negative impact on fundamental journalistic values, including a loosening of standards (45% of respondents felt this way), increased emphasis on speed (25%), and the addition of voices from outside the traditional media institutions (31%). While there’s no doubt that the internet is changing the way journalism is conducted and delivered, I’m hesitant to think that speed and increased diversity of viewpoints from outside the industry is detrimental to journalistic integrity. → Read More
At a time when limited partners are being stingy with their venture dollars, Charles River Ventures just announced it raised $320 million for its fourteenth fund, Charles River Partnership XIV. (The last fund it raised was $285 million in April, 2007). With the new fund, the firm now manages $2.1 billion.
Raising any capital in this environment is an achievement in itself. But CRV has been able to return $600 million to its limited partners over the past two years. Some of the bigger liquidity events during that time included the IPOs of BigBand Networks, Netezza, and Virtusa, as well as the acquisitions of EqualLogic to Dell (for $1.4 billion), Acopia Networks to F5 Networks (for $210 million), and Compete to TNS (for $75 million).
Current investments include Geni, Nantero, Scribd, Social Media, Twitter, Vlingo and Yammer, → Read More
Even white label social networks like Kickapps realize there is no use competing with the viral social networking power of Facebook and MySpace. Instead, Kickapps now wants to ride on their coattails to engage clients in using their platform as a social network. Kickapps, a white label social networking startup, will now support Facebook Connect and OpenID on KickApps-powered websites.
Clients will have the option to activate the OpenID and 3rd party registrations from their desktop console and then integrate their log-ins and profiles from social networks including Facebook and MySpace. Kickapps will automatically import data from from a client’s Facebook or MySpace profile for free. With Facebook Connect, a client can let members post a note on their Facebook news feed about what they are doing on a KickApps powered site with a link back to the site. → Read More
Are you prepared to have your mind blown? As expected, Skype for iPhone will appear “sometime Tuesday” and allow you to make VoIP calls to friends and family all over the world, a move that at once blows a great waft of flatulence in the face of the carriers and, in one smooth motion, high fives the international community of Skype users.
It should be available from the App Store for free.
UPDATE – OMG! It’s coming to the Blackberry in May! → Read More
Today, like everyone else, Motorola announced a brand new handset to showcase at CTIA this week. The Evoke QA4 features a 2.8-inch touch-screen, slide-out 12-key pad and a touch-screen QWERTY. The handset is enhanced with widgets for RSS feeds, MySpace or YouTube. Also equipped with a full HTML browser and accelerometer, the Evoke evokes memories of all the other touch-screen handsets to come out in the last two years. → Read More
Famous crap gadget maker Thanko has updated its website over the weekend with yet another whacky USB device. Believe it or not but they are now selling a USB cigarette. Everyone is familiar with the concept of electric cigarettes by now, but Thanko’s version works in a slightly different way. → Read More
Google China has taken the beta label off its dedicated, free MP3 search engine now that the local Google branch announced deals with all four major music labels (Warner, Universal, EMI and Sony) at a press conference earlier today. The website, which had been in beta for over a year, can be found here, or you can try the translated version (note that you won’t be able to download or listen to songs outside of the country).
The site offers over a million music tracks thanks to a partnership with Top100.cn (a company co-founded by basketball start Yao Ming which Google has invested in), most of them Chinese but also foreign tunes approved by the government. For example, users can download the latest Metallica album free of charge, of which you can see a screenshot below. Apart from the four labels mentioned above, several major publishers and 140+ indie labels are said to be on board. → Read More
SeeqPod has decided to sell its source code to developers to spawn more clones, one of the media search startups that built upon its API is apparently calling it quits: Streamzy, which we profiled in July 2008, is selling itself on eBay at a starting bid of $1,000, provided it’s not a lame April Fools joke (the bidding ends April 1).
Update: Streamzy co-founder Brian Krantz says it’s definitely not a joke.
The service amassed merely 2,400 registered users since its launch in early 2008, and has a monthly visitor rate of only 7,000. The back-end runs for free on Google App Engine and the Flex front-end code will be included should someone decide to pick up the site. → Read More
Good morning and welcome to AT&T’s omnibus launch of multiple phones, including the Nokia E71x and the Samsung Propel Pro. The E71x, essentially one of Nokia’s best QWERTY phones, costs $99 with contract and the QWERTY Propel Pro costs $149.99. The Impression is also coming out with an AMOLED screen for $199 and two LG lumps, the Xenon and Neon, will be popping off the periodic table and into your pocket for about $99. Fun fact: “The Xenon is also featured in MTV’s upcoming series “The Phone”, executive produced by Justin Timberlake.” Full release after the jump. → Read More
I don’t care much for the celebrity culture, but clearly I’m in the minority judging by the amount of people who read gossip magazines and websites in order to get updates on every move their idols make. Twitter has already proven to be a great way for a number of celebrities to bypass those media and enabled them to let their audience know what they’re having for lunch straight away, unfiltered, unless of course there’s a PR machine doing the 140-character typing for them.
Either way, Twitter has gotten a lot of (occasionally unfavorable) press thanks to celebrities who join the service and provide their fans with some insight on their activities and whereabouts, and often engage in conversations with them online or by SMS. → Read More
