Japanese companies NTT, Toho Gas and Sumitomo Precision Products have achieved a major leap forward in the production of efficient fuel cells. Their new and jointly developed fuel cell system [JP] boasts record-high efficiency (in the field of commercial applications, at least). → Read More
This is an odd USB gadget that doesn’t come from Thanko for a change. A company called Japan Trust Technology is selling a mini Japanese style garden [JP] (OK, it’s just a couple of plastic bamboos) that includes a watering system and is powered by USB. → Read More
Pretty nice deal on the 2GB iPod Nano-like Archos 105 at $26 with free shipping. It generally sells for around $60 or so at various sites, but Amazon’s got it as a one-day Gold Box deal today. → Read More
I’m here at Facebook’s office in downtown Palo Alto, where the company is holding a special Technology Tasting to announce and demonstrate its latest APIs and other features it is going to begin offering developers. In the last two days we’ve heard about some of the announcements, including its decision to grant developers access to full streams – a big step for a service that has previously been quite reserved about exporting its data. And earlier today we learned about its decision to fullly embrace of OpenID, which is a huge leap forward for the initiative.
I’ll be streaming the event live using Qik, during which we will be shown demos of some of the first implementations of the full Facebook streams and its integration with OpenID.
The live video is below: → Read More
Our own MG Siegler is attempting to shoot live video of the ongoing MySpace all hands meeting where the new executive team, including new CEO Owen Van Natta, is addressing the troops.
The result? Total failure. We had to try since the meeting is being held outside. MySpace’s Los Angeles headquarters has no place for a thousand or so people to congregate, so they are holding the meeting outside in the courtyard, facing a public street. So far, so good. But security put up a fence around the courtyard and checked everyone’s badges carefully. MG tried, and tried again, but was turned away.
Ever diligent, MG then tried to video the event from outside the fence. But the audio is so bad that nothing could be heard. On the upside he was kicked out by security and told he’d be arrested if he didn’t leave the property. He’s now trying to find a back way into the courtyard, and I’ve promised to bail him out if it comes to it.
The full video, which contains absolutely no useful content whatsoever, is below. Next time we’re renting a helicopter. → Read More
This is the final boarding call for Good Old Games Flight 1437 with service to Fallout. (Boo.) → Read More
The ad rates for online video keep coming down, and that is a good thing. Video ad network BrightRoll is about to release some data from the first quarter of 2009 which shows ad rates as measured in cost-per-thousand impressions (CPMs) dropping 12 percent annually. The rate of decline is slowing from the 25 percent drop that video ad CPMs experienced during the fourth quarter of 2008. But if they fall farther that could be a good thing.
In a survey of 150 advertising executives in the U.S., more than half (53 percent) expect video CPM rates to be “marginally lower” a year from now, while another 20 percent think CPMS will drop in half. Video CPMs range broadly depending on whether the ads are being sold directly by sites with large video inventories or by ad networks, but a $20 CPM is a broad industry average. These still need to come down to between $7 and $9 to roughly match what advertisers are paying for commercials on TV on average (more like $15 for primetime, and as high as $50 for niche, targeted cable channels). These declining CPMs probably have something to do with the downward revision in ad video revenue estimates that we are starting to see.
(More data after the jump). → Read More
Classic mech fighting game Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram is coming to the 360, but the proprietary control scheme (dual full-sized joysticks) isn’t exactly implemented well in the 360 controller. So what’s a Sega fan to do? Oh, how about hack a couple containers of Japanese candy onto the controller? → Read More
When I was a preschool teacher, I found that my set of rough rare earth magnets were among the kids’ favorite toys. However, management got jittery after those kids ate some elsewhere in the states. I can understand why these Bucky Balls are not for kids — the tiny magnets look eminently swallowable. But damn do they look fun. I can’t imagine that they’d stay in those perfect patterns for long in my hands, but who cares? → Read More
We tend to give away a whole lot of stuff on the TechCrunch network. Phones, DVDs, laptops, TVs – you name it, we’ve probably given it away at some point. That said, I think this is the first time we’ve given away sports tickets.
FuzzyCube Software, the folks behind the iPhone game iQuarterback, just dropped us a pair of tickets to the Dallas Cowboys vs New York Giants game coming up in September. This game is going to be one to remember; not only is it a face-off between rivals, but its also the first game the Cowboys will be playing in their brand new stadium. Even with a few months to go before the big day, these tickets are already going for 200 bucks a pop. Want them? Find out how to win after the jump. → Read More
TriGem has unveiled the feature-laden Averatec N2700, a 12-inch ultraportable with 4GB of RAM and a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU weighing in at just over four pounds for $699. → Read More
I don’t know what kind of drugs the people at Thanko take, but they must be very hardcore. There is no other explanation for the product they are selling now, is there? It’s a transparent PC mouse that houses a plastic tarantula [JP]. Either that or a mini scorpion. → Read More
With the news that Facebook is going to begin allowing developers to incorporate full streams into their applications, developers are scrambling to get their apps up to speed. This morning we got our first look at the upcoming new version of Seesmic Desktop, and now we’ve learned that Xobni, the popular Outlook plugin that helps make Email easier to manage, will be going live with a new upgrade beginning at 6 PM tonight. Because of the way Xobni is built users won’t have to download an upgrade either – all changes will be server side.
Up until now Xobni has included some basic Facebook contact information, including profile photos and status updates, but it wasn’t as comprehensive as your full Facebook news feed (you couldn’t see how your contacts were interacting with each other, for example). Now you’ll be able to see this information at a glance directly from your Outlook mail client, which is obviously far more efficient than having to manually check your Facebook page. → Read More
Heads up, 360 gamers. You can now find Rockstar’s Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne on Xbox Live. Each game costs 1,200 Microsoft points, or $15 in non-spacebucks. → Read More
Apparently it’s embrace the developer community day at Facebook. In addition to the news that they are making activity stream data available to third party developers, they’ll also be making an announcement around OpenID, we’ve heard. And importantly, the announcement is that they’ll become what’s called a relying party, meaning anyone with an OpenID (Yahoo, Google, AOL, MySpace are all issuers, and Microsoft is in beta) can create and log into a Facebook account using those credentials.
Let me take a step back. OpenID is a distributed single sign on solution that allows people to sign into different services with the same login credentials. There are two ways companies/websites can participate in the OpenID framework – as “issuing parties” or as “relying parties.” Issuing parties make their user accounts OpenID compatible. Relying parties are websites that allow users to sign into their sites with credentials from Issuing parties. Of course, sites can also be both. In fact, if they aren’t both it can be confusing and isn’t a good user experience.
All the big guys are now Issuing Parties, which allow their users logging in all over the Internet with those credentials. But none of them accept IDs from anywhere else, so anyone that uses their services has to create new credentials with them. It’s all gain, no pain. There are two exceptions – AOL Mapquest and Google’s Blogger – but for the most part the big guys are issuers, not relying parties. And that has led us in the past to accuse them of exploiting OpenID for their own benefit without giving back to the community. See our post Is OpenID Being Exploited By The Big Internet Companies?
→ Read More
Short version: An alright set of $99 computer speakers that, while lacking a dedicated subwoofer, do produce good lows as well as good highs. → Read More
Finding and registering an available domain name just became even easier. Now you can do it via Twitter thanks to Tweetname. Founder Philip Kaplan (aka “Pud,” the former CEO and current chairman of AdBrite) argues that Tweetname makes domain purchasing much simpler than going through other domain registrars like GoDaddy, which requires you to actually go its site. In truth, it is not that complicated but Tweetname aims to make domain registering Tweet-simple. You set it up once and then it does all the work for you.
Once you log into Tweetname for the first time, the site uses OAuth to connect to your Twitter account. You fill out your credentials, including name, address, credit card info, billing info and then Tweetname automatically follows you and arranges for you to follow Tweetname.
After this is set up, you can Tweet a potential domain name via a direct message to Tweetname, and Tweetname within seconds will let you know if it is available (“Success!”) or not (“D’oh”), and will purchase and register the domain for you. → Read More
This week’s TechCrunch Europe Job of the Week is for a C# ASP.NET Developer with BraveNewTalent.com. Remember, it costs only £20 to post *any* kind of advert on the CrunchBoard related to your startup/business, whether it be jobs, searches for office space or requests for new projects. Every week we publish the Job of the Week here (8,000+ on RSS) and Twitter it to about 7,000+ more people. To apply to have Job of the Week featured, put up a job on the CrunchBoard and contact editorial. → Read More
This has been a very exciting year for things-that-could-kill-us. First it was the economy that could kill us all; then it was those Somali pirates who posed a threat to our very way of life; and now we all should fear swine flu. Why should we fear la grippe porcine? Well, it seems to be spreading around the world pretty swiftly, and it’s doing a pretty thorough job of wreaking havoc in Mexico. So, here’s a map! → Read More
