According to Palm’s little accessory guide here, non-Palm micro-USB charging solutions won’t work. What the hell? I can’t just plug it into my computer? That Touchstone dock is cool, but I don’t want to have to carry it everywhere I go. Besides, weren’t we supposed to all be moving towards a unified charging solution? I guess like with all highly-anticipated products (like Android, or the President), we have to be ready for some letdowns along the way. Let’s hope it’s just a fib to sell more of Touchstones. There’s more Palm accessory stuff here, and plan info etc, so if you’re curious and the grill is still warming up, go do your thing. [via Gear Diary] → Read More
You’ll recall that, about a year ago, we decided to make captchas—those things you find on Web sites at login that require you to decipher and type words or numbers—our raison d’etre. Two days later we stopped caring (though it is incredibly annoying to have to deal with a captcha, as you see up there, when trying to log into my router—is a spammer or other evildoer going to bother with my dumb router?). So imagine my delight this morning when I read that Google is hard at work developing a new type a captcha, one that, hopefully, won’t drive us crazy anymore. → Read More
In case you missed the earlier CrunchDeal on an Asus EeePC 900 netbook, here’s your chance to snatch one up again. Woot! now has the 8.9-inch netbook on the main site for $150. Pick between white and black and be on your merry way. Asus EeePC 900 Netbook [Woot!] → Read More
Claw vending machines, also known as UFO catchers or crane games, are a multi-billion dollar business in Japan. Combine this fact with the Japanese penchant for robots, and you get the Puchi Robot Catcher, whose arms are used instead of the usual cranes. → Read More
A few weeks ago Rocketboom founder Andrew Baron gave us a glimpse of his next project: a new video portal with an emphasis on analytics and social interaction, dubbed Mag.ma. But aside from some nifty screen shots, nobody has really gotten a chance to play around with the site until now.
Earlier this evening Baron included us in a small batch of new users invited to try out the site, and we’ve been testing it out for the last few hours. To be clear, this is by no means our final review of the site, as it is very much a work in progress and some of its most key features—which allow people to set up and follow real-time video feeds—haven’t been implemented yet. But even with some missing elements, at the very least, it’s clear that Magma is going to be a great place to kill some time.
In his original post on Magma, Baron outlined three main use cases for the site. The first, and the one most people will be using Magma for, is as a comprehensive guide for what’s currently hot in web video. → Read More
The tech world is an interesting one when it comes to companies making money. Some at the top like Microsoft, Apple and Google are raking in billions in profits every year. And each of those do it with different models: Microsoft through software, Apple through hardware and Google through advertising. But at the other end of the spectrum, most startups, even the very popular ones, haven’t yet figured out how to make money beyond their costs.
While the advertising-based model is working for a select few, for most, it’s simply not proving to be a very good stand-alone model. Pandora is one of the companies that web-based advertising is actually working pretty well for. But even they’re not expecting to turn a profit until next year — and that’s based on projections. I bring them up because they recently decided to move forward with a freemium model in a serious way for the first time last week. As a large service with a rabid fan-base, this seems like a brilliant move. And I wonder if the time isn’t right for more services to try this? → Read More
I was about to ignore this email from Microsoft but it seems there is a nugget of wonderful info in there. Remember when we said you could share your apps with four friends – behavior that essentially works on an iPhone and the App Store when you sync to the same iTunes instance? Well you can’t. OK? You can’t. Be quiet. → Read More
A man once told me that I could not have my Cupcake and eat it too. He was obviously dead wrong. Today’s big buzz on the Android front is that the official OTA install package for Android 1.5 (lovingly known around the internets as ‘Cupcake’ update) is now available for direct download and manual patching. For those of us who have waited patiently for the official patch but just can’t wait another day for it to come over-the-air, it is our day of rejoicing. At long last, we get to sink our teeth in to that green sugar-coated muffin, complete with video recording, on-screen keyboard, an expanding library of widgets, and stereo bluetooth support (to name a few additions). → Read More
When you hit the switch on a lamp, you probably have some preconceived notions about where the light is going to come from. It’s time to purge your mind of such design prejudices and embrace the weird and impractical; this “WTF, not what I thought” lamp will challenge your notions of what a lighting device should be.
…in bed. → Read More
Sure enough, CircuitCity.com is back up and ready to sell you some electronic wares. Systemax, the same parent company of Tiger Direct and CompUSA.com, scooped up the bankrupt brand a few weeks ago and just relaunched the site this morning. Too bad that the original company went down in glorious fashion and took 35,000 American jobs with it. Aat least this new site has some great deals. Serious. → Read More
Well, we asked for a denial, and they’re giving us one. Russ Garrett, a Last.fm developer, issues another blanket denial of the Last.fm user data fiasco:
Nothing I can say will convince you that this didn’t happen, because allegedly CBS did the deed and not us. I hope that CBS will issue their own denial soon, but the wheels of large companies run slowly.
This accusation was made the evening before a three-day holiday weekend in both the UK and the US. Yet again, we were not given the opportunity to respond.
The article claims that “This source’s information comes directly from Last.fm employees who he has spoken with.” Nobody at Last.fm knows anything about such a leak. We didn’t when they last wrote an article, and we don’t now. Any suggestion that we were complicit in transferring user data to any third party is incorrect.
The exact nature of the data that was allegedly transferred is still not clear. It’s implied that the data linked scrobbles to IP addresses. That particular data is controlled tightly inside Last.fm and is only stored for a short period of time. Any request for such data would have to be approved by myself first. The suggestion that CBS’s ops team provided this data is just not possible – Last.fm operates as a separate entity and their operations staff do not have access to our system.
As Arrington points out, transferring personally identifiable data (i.e. IP addresses) from the UK to the US is against data protection laws. We wouldn’t risk a lawsuit to pander to the RIAA’s requests.
It really seems like someone is trying to slander us here.
Here’s a nostalgic look back at the items we’ve recently reviewed here at CrunchGear… Review: WickedLasers Photonic Disruptor “We’re a WickedLasers family. We enjoy shooting them at napkins to make them burn and zapping friends legs while they’re sitting at our picnic table.” Review: TuneUp for iTunes “If you’re like me, your entire music collection has been downloaded/ripped willy-nilly between hits of nitrous oxide and sips of Colt .45.” Review: EA’s Need for Speed Undercover for the iPhone, iPod Touch “For whatever reason, I can’t stop playing the iPhone version of EA’s Need for Speed Undercover, which is why it’s taken me this long to review it. I can’t say that I’ve ever been a big fan of the console series, but EA nailed it on the head with the handheld port.” → Read More
Think you’ve found the ultimate fitness regime to attain the body of a Greek god? ZodBod, a new fitness startup that launched last month, wants to help you share your secrets to success – and possibly make some money in the process. The site invites users to write up and sell their own fitness guides, in which they can instruct visitors on diet and exercise regimes designed to whip them into shape.
Guides on the site run around $5 each, and are an average of 20-25 pages long. Plans can include images, diagrams and tables detailing the exercises and meals guidelines you should be following. To decide which plans to follow, you can read through an extended bio of the author, browse reader reviews, and download a sample excerpt from the guide.
My intitial reaction was that this seemed a little silly – after all, every guide (at least the ones that work) is going to be a variation on the old “diet and exercise” mantra. → Read More
I’m of the opinion that if you write a song like “Yesterday” you can do whatever you want. That’s why (well, partially why) I’m not upset at Sir Paul McCartney, who is having a bit of a hissy fit vis-à-vis Google Street View. McCartney recently asked this his house be removed from Street View because, as a spokesman put it, he felt “unsettled” that people could look at his house 24 hours a day, seven days a week. → Read More
Both Sharp and Mitsubishi have announced new LCD TVs for the Japanese market, and both devices seem to be pretty interesting. They will be available over here as early as next month, with neither Sharp nor Mitsubishi having said anything about an international release yet. → Read More
It’s no surprise that Twitter, the current darling of social media and one of the fastest growing web sites, is now becoming the subject matter of entire conferences. There is a tremendous opportunity for businesses and brands to use Twitter to their advantage, including through customer support, brand management, advertising, job search and much more. But everybody is still trying to figure it out. Let’s have a conference!
Twitter has yet to settle on a monetization strategy but is exploring different business models. Here are several conferences that are taking place in the near future (or have taken place recently) devoted to learning about all things Twitter. Do we really need so many Twitter conferences? → Read More
The Infinity Ventures Summit (IVS) in Sapporo/Japan, one of Asia’s most important web industry events, is a wrap, and we were there to witness a total of 12 startups presenting at the launch pad. The judges awarded 3D model maker MotionPortrait with the top prize. Graph sharing service Vizoo [this and many of the following links are in Japanese], recommendation engine Deqwas, photo management service Cerevo and virtual world Ameba Pigg came in second to fifth. You can read about all winners here.
Here is a quick rundown of the pitches delivered by the seven other companies (some of these were way more promising than the winners). → Read More
Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Keith Rabois, vice president of strategy and business development for Slide, the social entertainment company.
On Monday afternoon, I was speaking on a panel at the Social Graph Symposium when the moderator asked me what eBay could do to revitalize its marketplace by leveraging the social graph. Dave McClure, like many pundits, presumes the social graph could be a great boost for eBay, if not an outright panacea. I replied, “nothing.”
It’s actually the social graph and similar products that have placed a stake in eBay.com. Most often, people blame eBay’s decay on factors like the weakening economy, the rise of Amazon, as well as eBay’s own inefficient search functionality. But the real and simple reason is eBay is no longer fun. Over the years, it has lost online ground and eyeballs to pure entertainment destinations such as YouTube and social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. → Read More
