For geeks who a) happen to believe in Buddha and b) are able of reading Chinese, this must be excellent news: Buddhists can now actually buy a Buddha cell phone in China. The device is not a joke product, but it actually works and makes kind of sense (if you are a Buddhist). → Read More
Here’s a fun tool to keep you busy while procrastinating: MusicShake, a VC-funded TechCrunch40 alumni, has lauched a free widget you can use to create, mix and share songs using a simple, intuitive interface.
If all goes well you should be able to see the widget in action below. It’s composed of a number of blocks that indicate what type of sound bite (instruments, vocals, etc.) you can expect when you hit the ‘play’ button, and a simple timeline-based overview of the song with all its elements. → Read More
The TechCrunch Europe Roundtable event in Stockholm today (live video streamed below and on @TCEurope on Twitter, official hashtag is #tcen) will feature an afternoon of panel discussions and presentations followed by startup pitches and a great networking reception. TechCrunchTalk Nordic will be exploring the Nordic and Baltic tech scene which produced amazing companies like Skype, Habbo Hotel and, more recently, Spotify (not to mention the likes of Ericsson, Nokia and many other huge tech companies). Check out our full schedule and speakers here. We’ll be covering several topics such as the interchange between Nordic and Baltic startups, VC investment in the region, and the next wave of innovations that will come from this area.
TechCrunchTalk Nordic is sponsored by Bloglovin and Sunstone Capital. Our event partners include: ArcticStartup, Swedish Startups, The Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship and Scandinavian Web Developer Conference 2009 . Our streaming video partner is Bambuser.
See after the jump for our live streaming video, which will appear shortly (from 6am San Francisco time, 9am New York, 3pm Stockholm and 2pm London): → Read More
We’ve always had a thing for HP’s Minis — from their understated and practical design to the simple Mi OS, they’ve always been among our favorite tiny laptops. This latest iteration ups the specs just a tiny bit; you can choose a 1.66GHz Atom N280 instead of the 1.6GHz N270, and they’re promising full HD support if you opt for the nicer LED-backlit screen and the upcoming video accelerator. Form factor appears to be more or less unchanged, but that’s a good thing.
As with before, you can get an XP edition with less RAM and less storage for $330, or you can go for the $280 Mi version, which has more of both. I’ve never understood that pricing strategy. There’s also a shiny black business version, but its merits (apart from being black) are not well-explained. → Read More
Last month Time Warner announced that it would likely spin off its AOL assets into a new company, followed by an IPO (10Q SEC filing is here). Little detail was given about the transaction, other than the fact that Google’s 5% stake in AOL would be repurchased. But exactly when the transaction would occur, and what assets it would include, were left unstated. New CEO Tim Armstrong will lead the independent company.
Sources close to AOL tell us that the board of directors will make a final decision on the AOL spinoff at a board meeting this Thursday, May 28, possibly undoing the $147 billion 2001 merger of the two companies. Sources characterize the decision as “a done deal.”
The big question is whether AOL’s dial up access business will remain with AOL. Last year Time Warner was in discussions to sell it to Earthlink. The dial up business continues to decay – at one time AOL had 26.7 million dial up subscribers, but it has fallen to just 6.9 million today. Still, it’s a nearly $2 billion business that brings in, sources say, around $1 billion in free cash to AOL. At current decay rates the business will peter out in another couple of years, but for now it’s an important way for AOL to finance growth (more on that in a post later today). Our sources say the dialup business will become part of the new AOL entity.
Total AOL revenues in 2008 were $4.2 billion, a 20% drop from 2007. AOL had $867 million in revenue and $150 million in operating income for the first quarter of 2009. → Read More
Zensify is a new lifestreaming iPhone app which lets you update, discover and track pictures, videos and comments across multiple social networks. Other apps have tried to do similar things. But what sets Zensify apart is that it shows the user trends within your social graph in the form of a tag cloud of key words. In other words it brings a lot more intelligence to your social graph. Suddenly, you can see a big trending topic amongst people you follow. I’ve been wanting something similar for a while and I’m not alone. David Winer recently Tweeted: “Wouldn’t it be cool if “trending topics” were localized to the people who are followed by the people you follow.” Well Zensify does this.
And it doesn’t just do it across Twitter. It does it also does it across updates from Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, Delicious, Photobucket and 12seconds. For that reason it is my new favourite app, bar none, and it’s available for free from the app store here. → Read More
Half of you are probably asleep after reading a headline with “firmware” and “manual exposure control” in it, but it’s seriously a major update. Exposure control is a must-have if you’re doing any serious shooting, and since the 5D is so popular among people who think they’re serious shooters (I kid, I kid), this is an important update. → Read More
The ZuneHD has been acknowledged by Microsoft, and although much of what we reported turns out to have been true (OLED touchscreen, web browser), we were hoping for a little more resolution. A 480×272 screen on a device branded “HD” is a bit misleading. I suppose the HD is for the HD radio receiver inside, but honestly, that’s not much of a killer app, though it’ll be nice for radio fans. I’ll also be happy to use a touchscreen on the Zune OS, which seems well-made for it, but I confess disappointment at what should have been a breakthrough device. Still, the HDMI out will be nice for sure, so using this thing as a sort of emergency HTPC will be sweet if I get the chance. Here’s the skinny, straight from the press release: → Read More
Adify, a company that powers vertical ad networks, has released its API through a newly formed partner program to allow customers to extend online advertising technologies to the 12,000 publishers who use Adify’s vertical ad networks. Adify’s Network Builder is a technology platform upon which customers can build and commercialize vertical ad networks.
Adify’s Amplified Partner program brings together advertising technology companies Aggregate Knowledge, Ooyala, Rovion and Wave2 Media Solutions and networks who use Adify’s Network Builder, such as SixApartMedia’s VIP Ad Network and Resonate Networks. The release of Adify’s API allows ad technology companies to deliver video, display, and rich media advertising options tailored to each of Adify’s 180 vertical ad networks, which also include networks for the Politico, NBC Universal, The Washington Post, and Martha Stewart Living. → Read More
Now, I can’t say I feel one way or the other about Ford and Sync in particular, but this is a worthwhile milestone. Cars are changing fast, and although I doubt they’ll look like these F-Zero-wannabes any time soon, the coalescing of all those dash controls into a single unit is a serious advance. Ford’s Sync is the poster child for these systems, what with Microsoft’s backing and all that. Now, it may not come standard yet (in fact, it costs a mint to get the whole setup) but getting it into a million vehicles means that it’s no longer a niche add-on but a legit option. → Read More
CrunchGear in-joke #343, “Matt, your Red Bull is in the freezer,” has become “Matt, your Red Bull has cocaine in it.” According to “a sample analysis conducted in North-Rhine Westphalia,” Red Bull Cola contains trace amounts of a cocaine derivative and, on the strength of that research, it’s been banned in several regions of Germany. Interestingly, it’s not being banned because they think cocaine is bad, but because you need a different license to sell narcotics. Those Germans have a process for everything! → Read More
I don’t think you are. If you’re willing to plop down $14.99 for some red hot stickers then I suspect you might be, however, and you’d do well to do so before any one of us decides you’re too chicken. → Read More
Diesel, what were you thinking? Admittedly you don’t make the prettiest watches around, but I find it amazing that you are responsible for this abomination. This is like trying to cross an elephant with a pig, it might seem like a good idea (so much bacon!), but no good can come from it. → Read More
I’m all for cool-looking concept cars, but the question that these designs attempt to answer is a bad one. What will cars look like in 50 years? With climate change, urban densification, and changing power sources for cars, it’s as close to impossible to tell. That shouldn’t stop futurists from imagining stuff, of course, but they should probably think more about the major forces affecting car design, and less about what would look cool in the next version of Extreme-G or F-Zero. → Read More
I was hoping to get down to the 140 Twitter conference today in Mountain View, but FriendFeed proved too efficient at carving up today’s developments in realtime. Robert Scoble’s live microblogging suggests Twitter is feeling the heat from Facebook and FriendFeed, but the Track report was murky, with no chance of rain anytime soon. Track is coming back, but not from Twitter anytime soon. It’s coming from FriendFeed, and it’s coming in weeks not months. Track is realtime search of the present, not the past, and FriendFeed has most of the ingredients already in place. You can monitor the flow of various users (essentially the Group function Twitter has been talking about and various clients have been providing) in a realtime flow. A new AIR-based notification service acts in concert with the main flow, allowing you to monitor incoming while moving back in time to catch up. FriendFeed’s realtime search already provides immediate filtering around keywords, but because it’s not yet realtime in display it doesn’t allow conversations to spring up between people outside of existing conversation threads. Once the conversation is engaged, the interface updates immediately in context, enabling the kinds of swarms that have grown around Gillmor Gang recording sessions. But finding these swarms requires an overt search or the serendipity of a Tweet. As I said, a realtime stream of such a search will be available within weeks. The next step is to enable users to effectively splice Track streams in with the main flow, or specific groups, or even multiple filters. That will come soon but not at the same time, though the two technologies are apparently proceeding on parallel tracks, pardon the expression. While some services have already delivered something similar to this, they are leveraging the Twitter search functionality along with its much larger cloud, attendant scaling issues, varying business relationships, and rate limiting. FriendFeed Track is a superset of those Twitter subservices, failing as other services do when Twitter stumbles but offering a constant realtime conversation regardless. Track solves several problems in this hybrid world of cross-cloud communications, making it irrelevant what version of @reply functionality is in place by tracking usernames as a replacement for following mass numbers of people. FriendFeed conversations encourage discovery of new participants by including anyone regardless of subscription status, and Tracking lets you discover conversations of interest outside of your existing threads. Stream splicing closes the loop → Read More
Ain’t nothing wrong with Zunes, but you could be forgiven for a few covetous glances at your friend’s iPod Touch or Samsung P3. Touchscreen, widgets, apps… sure, they’re tempting, but they’re also expensive, space-limited and the music playing functionality isn’t any better. But Microsoft understands why you might be considering cheating on them with another media player when your Zune 30 croaks or runs out of warranty.
So they’re offering you a deal: trade in your aging Zune 30 and get a significant price break on new Zunes. Sounds good, but what if they’re just trying to offload inventory before the ZuneHD comes out? → Read More
I had a chance to sit down this afternoon with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Yuri Milner, the Founder and CEO of new investor Digital Sky Technologies.
Digital Sky Technologies is the new owner of just less than 2% of Facebook, paying a whopping $200 million for the privilege. But it’s still a bargain compared to what Microsoft and others paid – this current round values Facebook at a third less than the $15 billion valuation they accepted in October 2007. We live blogged the press call on the announcement earlier today.
The full transcript of the video is below. One thing that isn’t clear is why Facebook took the money. Late last year Zuckerberg said he’d be willing to raise more, but only at the $15 billion valuation. Now they’ve raised money at $10 billion, even though they still say they’re approaching profitability and don’t really need it. We discuss that in the interview, but the answer still eludes us.
Milner is a colorful character. He was the first Russian to get an American MBA – he graduated from Wharton Business School in 1992. Instead of taking a U.S. investment banking job he returned to Russia “to take advantage of the developing free markets,” he said, adding “My idea is to be in the most useful place in the proper time.”
The full video and transcript after the jump: → Read More
Multiply, a social network with a heavy focus on sharing media with friends and family, is getting a major upgrade at 10 AM tomorrow, introducing an overhauled (and much improved) interface, extensive photo editing functionality, a fully integrated photo finishing platform.
Multiply doesn’t get nearly as much attention as bigger players like Facebook and MySpace, but it has built up a solid base of users, some of whom are giving the company a steady source of income through its premium accounts. Where other social networks like Facebook have embraced a mentality of helping users widely share their thoughts and photos, Multiply has held onto the belief that sometimes users only want to share their personal media with a handful of their good friends and family.
With the latest release, Multiply is looking to embrace the “digital mom”. Recognizing that many of the site’s members are adults looking to share their media with loved ones, the site has adopted an interface that is best described as a media inbox. → Read More
Not much info to give, but we (and just about every other Web site in existence) just got notice from Rockstar that a new DLC for Grand Theft Auto IV will be released this fall for the Xbox 360. That’s the rather festive logo right there for Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony. → Read More
