The future! Please observe ToastIt Toaster Bags. Non-toxic, non-stick bags that are heat-resistant up to 500 degrees, dishwasher safe, and cost $4.50 for two. You build a delicious sandwich, put it in a toaster bag, and drop it in your toaster. Boom, hot melty sandwich. → Read More
We’re here in the press room at Google I/O for the follow-up press event to the Google Wave unveiling today during the keynote. The initial audience response to Google Wave was huge; there was a standing ovation the likes of which I haven’t seen at a tech event, including the Apple events in recent years.
We spoke with the creators of the service, brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussen and Stephanie Hannon yesterday, but it should be interesting to see and hear from them following the initial reception. Find our live notes below and the live Qik stream below that. The creators are here along with Vic Gundotra, Google’s VP of Engineering. → Read More
This is pretty old but I thought I’d put it out there in light of recent movements by our future robotic overlords to become autonomous. The Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR) by RTI has a built-in foraging system that can harvest biomass as well as fuel like gasoline, propane, coal, and solar energy on the go. It powers itself with a combustion engine and can hunt out and ingest these foodstuffs automatically. → Read More
Since launching in late 2007, Hulu has done one one thing very well: it lets you watch your favorite TV shows and movies from your computer, free of charge. But aside from improving the user experience with assorted niceties like smart thumbnails, improved navigation, and social features, the site hasn’t really done anything extreme to expand its functionality. That changes today.
One of my only long standing gripes with Hulu was that it could never really replace the TV watching experience simply because you had to sit in front of your computer to control it. Boxee was the perfect solution to this, as it allowed you to control Hulu via remote through a very snazzy media center interface. But Hulu has repeatedly killed that functionality, largely at the behest of its major network investors. → Read More
Google’s Andy Rubin, Mr. Android himself, remarked yesterday that we can expect to see 18 Android phones in the US world by the end of the year. That’s way, way, way up from “one” last year. We may even see 20 Android phones this year, all coming from eight or nine different companies. → Read More
Everyone’s still digesting the Google Wave news from this morning. The demo video that we’re seeing at Google IO isn’t yet up, so for now you’ll have to digest the our overview and screen shots.
But the product is important – not only does it do fantastic new things in a browser care of HTML 5, but it also proposes a new communication paradigm. The founding team behind wave like to say that this is what email would be if it were invented today.
Yesterday we had a chance to sit down with that founding team – brothers Lars Rasmussen and Jens Rasmussen and Stephanie Hannon – to talk about the initial idea behind Wave, and Google’s philosophy in rolling it out. VP Engineering Vic Gundotra also makes a cameo appearance at the end.
The video is below. → Read More
One lucky Californian dude is cruising in style after he took delivery of the very first production electric Mini. The Mini-E is available for lease on a very limited basis reminiscent of the GM EV-1 from the ’90s. Except this time around, the plug-in electric car will only be in customers hands for one short year instead of three. Presumably, the 500 cars will be sent back to Mini for testing and evaluation after the one year is up.
Anyway, Peter Trepp has a blog up about the car and his experiences. He seems totally satisfied despite driving the car in bad LA traffic his first time out. Interestingly, he notes that the Mini-E drivers will not have to touch the brake pedal at all thanks to the strong brake regeneration system, which makes me think this vehicle has a similar system as the Chevy Volt that I didn’t like. → Read More
First it was AT&T mouthing off about carrying the Palm Pre and now Verizon’s CEO Lowell McAdam is stating that VZW will begin selling the Palm Pre “over the next six months or so…” Also mentioned was the Storm 2 by McAdam, which will also go on sale in the same time frame. Side note: Palm shares went up 11 points while Sprint’s went down 3 points after this announcement. → Read More
An “also-ran” is, literally, “a horse that does not win, place, or show in a race.” The world loves an underdog but it never loves an also-ran. It forgets about an also-ran.
And so we reach nearly the end of Palm Pre madness and I’m afraid to report that after all the magic, all the tears, all the joy the Palm Pre will be just another phone. It won’t save Palm, it won’t change paradigms, and it won’t send the iPhone hegemony crashing to its knees. The Palm Pre will launch with a whisper, not a bang. → Read More
Microsoft just announced sales of Xbox 360 consoles have passed the 30 million mark globally, up 28 percent over last year, which it claims is the highest percentage growth in hardware sales of any console so far in 2009. In addition, the Xbox LIVE community has grown to over 20 million users, coming from 26 countries.
And these users spend money, too. In a press release touting the sales numbers, Microsoft claims U.S. consumers alone have spent $14.5 billion across all categories on Xbox 360 at retail, and consumers worldwide have downloaded close to 1 billion pieces of gaming and entertainment content from Xbox LIVE Marketplace to date. → Read More
Hot on the heels of their successful advertising campaign to make consumers see a PC running Windows as a better value than a Macintosh, Microsoft is now declaring “It’s Better With Windows“! The new website, aimed at Asus Eee PC users, reminds us that “Windows helps you quickly and easily get online and connect to your devices and services — without dealing with an unfamiliar environment or major compatibility issues“! Oooh, burn! Watchoo gonna do, Linux? → Read More
Microsoft just announced it’s new search engine Bing, and it is going to spend a reported $80 million to $100 million on an advertising campaign to familiarize consumers with the brand. But was it the best name it could have picked?
Asked about the name onstage at the D7 conference, CEO Steve Ballmer admits: “I am not what you would call the creative side of life. Short matters. Being able to verb up can be helpful.” But he also says, “We wanted something that unambiguously says search.”
Does it? To me, Bing says nothing. I think a better name from the ones Microsoft was supposedly considering would have been Sift. Other candidates were Kumo, which is project’s codename, or Hook. Which would you have gone with? → Read More
In case you’re tired of your earphones constantly falling out while you jog or work out, Sony’s new music player, the W Series Walkman [JP], might be the right device for you. It’s light (35g), cordless and curls around your neck and over the ears. → Read More
Yesterday, during the Google I/O keynote, Google’s VP of Engineering, Vic Gundotra, laid out a grand vision for the direction Google sees the web heading towards with the move to the HTML 5 standard. While we’re not there yet, all the major browser players besides Microsoft are aligned and ready for the next phase, which will include such things as the ability to run 3D games and movies in the browser without additional plug-ins. But Google wants to take it one step further with a brand new method of communication for this new era. It’s called Google Wave.
Everyone uses email and instant messaging on the web now, but imagine if you could tie those two forms of communication together and add a load of functionality on top of it. At its most fundamental form, that’s essentially what Wave is. Developed by brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussen and Stephanie Hannon out of Google’s Sydney, Australia offices, Wave was born out of the idea that email and instant messaging, as successful as they still are, were both created a very long time ago. We now have a much more robust web full of content and brimming with a desire to share stuff. Or as Lars Rasumussen put it, “Wave is what email would look like if it were invented today.” → Read More
Spotify, the streaming music service which is gradually gathering a large fan-base in Europe, has been plotting a mobile version. It recently hired a head of mobile and the speculation was that it would come out with an iPhone app first after releasing a teaser video. But today it’s released video of an Android app it’s being demoing to people at Google I/O. The Android app is still very much a work in progress and subject to minor changes, but it gives a pretty good overview of their thinking. The demo highlights a number of features including playback, playlists, offline synch and music search. For those of you who haven’t seen it yet – the service has yet to launch in North America, although I’m about to send some lucky TechCrunch writers some preview codes we’ve gotten hold of – Spotify is a lightweight iTunes-like application for Windows and Mac that lets you search, browse and stream a deep collection of music. Tracks are streamed via a encrypted P2P technology. The free service is ad-financed, hence a general comparison with Last.fm, but it’s primary service is subscription based. It works like a fully-playable iTunes store, creating playlists is easy and some bill it as an alternative to file-sharing, hence why it’s managed to sign so many music labels. Spotify has raised a large round of funding so far, €15.3m from VCs Northzone Venture Partners and Creandum. It launched in the UK in February after building a big following in Sweden, it’s country of origin. → Read More
Today, Microsoft publicly unveiled its soon-to-launch search engine Bing. It will become available over the next few days, and be fully launched by June 3. On the surface, Bing has a distinct gloss. The home page features a rotation of stunning photography, for instance, which can be clicked on to produce related image search results. But the most significant changes are under the covers. “We have taken the algorithmic programming up an order of magnitude,” says Microsoft senior vice president Yusuf Mehdi. Each search result page is customized according to what type of search you do (health, travel, shopping, news, sports). The algorithms determine not only the order of results on the page, but the layout of the page itself, concluding what sections appear. These sections can include anything from guided refinements and a list of related searches in the left-hand pane to images, videos, and local results.
I’ve been playing around with a preview version of Bing for about a week. It is designed to be “more of a decision engine,” says Mehdi. Bing helps people make decisions through guided search and a focus on task completion. In a time when a new Website is created every 4.5 seconds, information overload is becoming a real problem. ” People are getting hundreds of thousands of links but not getting what they want,” says Mehdi. Bing tries to alleviate problem by offering up different experiences depending on the search. → Read More
Looking for a slim, powerful, but still cheap notebook? Well, you have a plethora to choose from already, but Dell is adding the 14-inch Studio 14z to the mix. The notebook comes loaded with Intel Core 2 Duo CPU options, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics, HDMI & DisplayPort outputs, up to a 500GB HDD, an ExpressCard slot, dual headphone jacks, eSATA out, and either a six- or eight-cell battery. All this can be yours and starts out at only $649. Plus, it’s available in six bold colors. How exciting! → Read More
Per a Fortune blog, the Palm Pre syncs “seamlessly” with iTunes. It’s not that shocking considering there are apps that add this functionality to many MP3 players and smartphones. However, this is the first phone besides the iPhone of course that has this ability out of the box. Don’t expect to load your iTunes Music Store purchases on the phone as it can’t handle the DRM. Your what.cd downloads will work fine though. → Read More
