I don’t usually like the squat little portable cases you see around that are made for portability, but this one does it right. iBuyPower has used NZXT’s Rogue case and filled it with things you probably wouldn’t expect in a LAN-going box. Liquid cooling, room for 4-way SLI and a huge amount of RAM, and even two optical drives if you want. I guess the Rogue case isn’t exactly micro, but it is of a more portable form factor than, say, the Whisper. With the carrying strap included with this system, it’d be pretty easy to hump over to the car and toss in the passenger seat. It’s pretty configurable, so specs wouldn’t really serve a purpose here. Go check out the configurator and see what you can get. It starts at $1000. → Read More
Online publishing platform Associated Content has closed a $6 million, Series C financing round funded by SoftBank Capital, Canaan Partners and AOL CEO Tim Armstrong. Associated Content secured $10 million in Series B Financing from SoftBank, Canaan, and Armstrong in 2007. The company also closed $5.4 million in Series A funding from SoftBank in 2006.
Founded by Luke Beatty and originally funded by Tim Armstrong in 2005, Associated Content operates a proprietary content publishing platform that enables individuals and media companies to publish content (text, video, audio etc.) on any topic. Associated Content says that it will use the new funds for consumer, platform, publisher, and advertiser growth. The company has an archive of more than one million pieces of content, and is expanding its network of 250,000 professional and amateur content contributors. → Read More
Center’d, a local activity guide headed by former Yahoo Local GM Jennifer Dulski, is getting a major upgrade today. Alongside a completely revamped homepage, the site is launching a reworked search engine that it says should outperform the keyword searches found on most other local sites.
Center’d has compiled a database of around 1 million entries for various activities, each of which is categorized into a number of intent-based classifications. To do this, the site has spidered through the web analyzing ‘conversations’ taking place around each entry, taking context into account to determine if a review or comment is positive or negative. It then maps out the results in bar graphs, as seen below. Dulski says that this kind of semantic analysis is better than standard keyword search, and it helps eliminate inaccurate matches – for example it would prevent a review that said “this place is not for kids” from appearing under a query for restaurants “for kids”. → Read More
Senseg.com is a haptic interface company based in Helsinki, Finland. I met with the CEO, Ville Makinen, who showed us two simple implementations of the system.
Instead of using vibrating motors, the device surface is completely motionless. Instead, the Senseg system stimulates your fingers or hand with an electrical field to simulate the feeling of friction or texture. The only way I can describe it as being a cross between rubbing soft sandpaper and getting a static electric shock whenever you touch an active point on the screen.
One obvious implementation would be for something like the iPhone. Because it uses no motors you can’t hear it and it doesn’t run down the battery. A small module – about as big as two sugar cubes – controls the sensation by connecting to a thin film that can be placed on any device. The film can even go around curves. The video you see here shows two demo products. One is a UI test with three distinct systems – a slider, a notched slider, and a rotating arrow. When you move your finger on each UI element you feel a different thing. → Read More
DDR3 as a premium RAM technology has been around for a good while now, but the price of setting up a DDR3 system has been less than cost-effective. The benefits of DDR3 haven’t been great enough to justify the huge price gap between common DDR2 and the newer standard. But the changeover has to happen sometime, and it looks like Samsung got a little impatient. They’re offering really tempting pricing on their basic memory modules to memory assemblers, who then will have the choice of passing on the savings to you, the consumer. → Read More
Today was supposed to be a big coming out party for stealthy search engine Wolfram Alpha. Computer scientist Stephen Wolfram gave the first public demonstration of his knowledge mining search engine at Harvard. But to be honest, not too many people were paying attention because A) who wants to sit through a two-hour Webcast and B) Google decided to tease its own efforts at adding structured data to search during the demo.
Not long after that, we received the screenshot above from an anonymous “benefactor” of Wolfram Alpha asking “which one is computing about the future?” The Wolfram screenshot shows a search for “ISS” and the results show the flight path and current position of the International Space Station, along with its altitude, velocity, inclination, orbit type, and other useful stats. Google population search, in contrast, plots basically one data point over time (although, you can easily add others). The suggestion is that Google quickly ginned up its public data search feature to undermine Wolfram’s debut. And it worked. Nobody really paid attention to the two hour snorecast (except Larry Dignan at Cnet—thank you Larry for sitting through it so the rest of us didn’t have to). → Read More
Hitachi seems to have made a major leap forward in the development of “green” vehicles. The company claims it has developed the world’s most efficient lithium-ion battery for hybrid cars, topping previous Hitachi batteries by an impressive 70% in output density. → Read More
We all know that Facebook is growing like a weed, especially internationally, but which countries are really seeing the most growth? TechCrunch alum Nick Gonzalez has put together a new tool called CheckFacebook designed to help users do exactly that. The site is primarily meant for advertisers, who can use it to gauge where to deploy campaigns, but it also offers an interesting look at each nation’s basic demographic information in an easily digestible format. The site pulls from data that Facebook publicly discloses to advertisers, but isn’t normally readily available because it’s tucked away into the ad signup process.
Each country on the map is shaded according to how popular it is on Facebook, with the darkest shades of green representing the most popular countries (unsurprisingly, the United States is by far the most popular single country, though it only accounts for around 30% of Facebook’s total audience). You can also see some basic demographic information, including gender and age distributions in each nation. → Read More
It’s clear now that Phorm is slowly but surely deadpooling – and I don’t use that phrase lightly. It’s lost the battle to convince customers that its ‘deep packet inspection’ technology isn’t an invasion of privacy (whether it is or not is now almost irrelevant, that’s how it’s seen). It’s been exposed as having had dealings with the British government it previously denied. It’s launched a ham-fisted, aggressive blog (StopPhoulPlay, oh come on…) to argue its case, which bizarrely attacks potential customers. It’s – to use to that handy phrase – all over bar the shouting. Phorm is now irrevocably associated with controversy. So who and what comes after Phorm? Because it’s as simple as this: The idea of tracking user behaviour is simply not going to go away, not matter how much “privacy campaigners” like Privacy International might rail against it. Ever since the first cookie embedded itself into a browser, Internet and media companies have been trying to figure out ways to increase revenues via greater ad targeting – and user tracking is a huge part of that. So, in Phorm’s rear-view mirror is another company, Feeva. Word on the street is that some time ago – well before all the above happened – people from Phorm and people from Feeva met, trying to convince each other that each one was right on how to go about user tracking. Phorm, lead by Kent Ertugrul, was convinced it had the solution and duly launched. But Phorm’s plans to track BT users via a cookie has lead to scrutiny from European regulators and a wave of attacks from consumer activists. Likewise Silicon Valley-based NebuAd was sued in November in the US and is now liquidating its assets. Another, Adzilla, is also attracting law suits galore. But Feeva has kept its powder dry. Did it decide to lie in wait until Phorm had taken all the heat? We’ll probably never know. What is clear is that Feeva proposes a radically different approach, which may well win out in the end. And it goes like this: The San Francisco company targets Internet users with geographic and demographic precision. It does this by harvesting geographic and other information directly from ISPs – but, crucially, in a way that doesn’t identify individual users and in such as way as to put distancing between it and other players like Phorm. Feeva merely obtains the user’s → Read More
Never have I been happier to be a Cablevision subscriber. The New York area company will offer the fastest broadband in the United States starting next month. Top speed is said to be 101 megabits per second downsteam, and 15 megabits per second upstream. My [private high-def BitTorrent site whose name I've removed] account is jumping for joy. → Read More
Just last month, we wrote that Hulu had gained some 10 million viewers to become the fourth largest video portal on the web. Now, it’s slain another rival to the list: Yahoo, to move into #3 — at least in terms of videos viewed.
To be clear, the new March U.S. numbers released by comScore show that Hulu is still slightly behind Yahoo’s video properties when it comes to unique viewers. But the NBC and Fox-backed Hulu should pass it any day now in that category as well. Meanwhile, the number two player, Fox Interactive Media (which runs MySpace), is slipping just as quickly as Hulu is rising in videos viewed. It could well be as soon as this month when Hulu moves into the number two web video position. → Read More
If you like Slushees but you hate the inconvenience of getting out of your car, entering your local convenience store, and paying upwards of two dollars, might I suggest the Slush Mug, a $10 mug with a freezable core that allows you to make your own slushalicious treats at home with just six hours of prep time and another six minutes of stirring. → Read More
OK. This is an official GE video so once you get past the first 50 seconds of fluff, it explains how microholographic discs work in everyday speak. Seriously, it’s 1:52 out of your life and you’ll probably learn something about next-gen optical media. Click through to watch the video. → Read More
Japan-based PC accessory maker Sanwa Supply is selling a tiny point-and-click device that can possibly save a lot of space in your work area and might be handy during presentations. The device is sized at just 35×30×30mm, can be used held in your hand with your thumb operating it and looks cool. → Read More
Google is getting fancy with public data in search results. If you search for “unemployment rate New York” or for any other state or county in the U.S., the first result will be the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics along with a chart. If you click on the link or image it will take you to an interactive chart where you can compare the unemployment rate to other states or counties. For instance, here is New York (8.1%) vs. California (11.5%).
Try it with “population New York” or the name of another state or city, and it will give you the same thing. Google gets that data straight from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Population Division. On the Google Blog, product manager Ola Rosling writes: → Read More
It’s time to get excited, friends. Not only will Capcom release Marvel vs. Capcom 2 on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network this summer, but it will release demo this Thursday. That means you only have to wait two days till you’re unleashing 100+ hit combos and trash talking like you never thought you could. → Read More
I continue to be fascinated by Owen Van Natta’s abrupt departure from Project Playlist, the company he ran for five whole months before becoming the CEO of the much more exciting MySpace.
Emails have been flying in from company CEOs who say Van Natta, with a promise of “massive funding from China,” offered to acquire them (there was no funding). Playlist employees, speaking off the record, are in shock. And worst of all, Van Natta recruited a number of executives, including one, ironically, from MySpace, on the promise that he’d lead the company to a win. Which he definitely would have done, if he hadn’t been interviewing non stop for other jobs since nearly the very day he was announced to head up Playlist.
We’ll post the full list of the down and out executives soon. But among the saddest stories is Jason Bitensky, who joined Project Playlist today as Director of National Sales. Bitensky, a former Slide executive, was heavily recruited by Van Natta for months, says a source, and he finally agreed a couple of weeks ago to resign from his current position at Nabbr and join Van Natta at Playlist. Unfortunately, he gave his notice to Nabbr before the news broke that Van Natta was jumping ship, putting him in an awkward position, to say the least. → Read More
Wikipedia aside, wikis just don’t get any respect. PBwiki, a startup that specializes in helping businesses, non-profits, and educational institutions collaborate via wikis, finally realized that and has officially changed its name to PBworks. Founder and Chief Product Officer David Weekly says the name change reflects the company’s expansion into offerings and functionality that extend beyond just a wiki. That is his story and he is sticking to it.
PBworks, which had an overhaul of its user interface and features last year, offers businesses a customized wiki workspace, with mobile support, document management, access controls and more. The company is also introducing a new project management application in the next few months. The company also rolled out a “Legal Edition” which merges a wiki with case management features, offers a legal knowledge base, and an electronic deal room to manage files that require review, input, and approval by legal professionals. → Read More
Gameloft, the folks behind Oregon Trail for the iPhone and countless other mobile and console games, have just released their earnings report for the first calendar quarter of 2009. Though sales saw a dip from quarter-to-quarter, they’re up significantly from the same quarter last year. In the first three months of this year, Gameloft pulled in a total of €30.8 million ($40.2 million USD), as opposed to €33.8 million ($44.2 million USD) in the fourth quarter of last year. This works out to a quarter-to-quarter variation of roughly -9%. Compared to Q1 of 2008′s €25.3 million ($33 million USD), however, sales are up nearly 22%. Though Gameloft dabbles in the console gaming space, their primary focus is on mobile. It’s also their main revenue generator, accounting for 94% of their sales thus far in 2009. → Read More
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