Just like every other major Website, Google was inundated with people looking for news about Michael Jackson yesterday. Above is a chart showing the volume of search queries for the deceased pop star. Searches peaked right around 3 PM PDT, as people all over the world were trying to find out information about his passing.
More details on the Google blog. → Read More
A lot of us here at TechCrunch quite like Bing, Microsoft’s new search, sorry, discovery, no sorry, decision engine. For a number of queries it seems to provide better results than Google. But that doesn’t mean the public will start using it. And this video by College Humor I think lays out why.
“Bing helps you Google the best choice, faster. And shows related Googles right there on the results page. Bing knows what you like to Google.” → Read More
Here’s a little treat for all you Apache admins out there in The Internet: mod_pony. It produces an ASCII art representation of a pony. It would be grand to see ponies proliferate around The Internet today! → Read More
I can’t remember the last time I wanted to eat a peripheral this badly. Please obseve a keyboard made of graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows. It’s the S’more Keyboard. → Read More
For the last few weeks it hasn’t been unusual to see AT&T among Twitter’s trending topics — following its disappointing performance at WWDC and the activation issues with the iPhone last week, the carrier hasn’t exactly been garnering positive reactions from its legions of Twitter-using members. Today, it’s reached the top spot on Twitter once again, and, once again, AT&T is the target of waves of contempt.
The source of the recent flurry of AT&T tweets is Adam Savage of MythBusters fame, who tweets that for “a few hours of web surfing in Canada” he was charged a whopping $11,000. AT&T is apparently claiming that Savage managed to download 9 gigabytes in Canada using his USB data connection (which he calls “frakking impossible“). What’s worse, the customer service rep Savage was dealing with was apparently a bit loose with their decimal points, telling Savage that “data is charged at .015 cents, or a penny and a half, per kb”. Read that again — there’s a couple orders of magnitude difference there. → Read More
A couple of days ago we wrote about Facebook’s new Live Stream Box funtionality. Ustream was the first to offer a live video solution for users with Facebook Pages. But the sign up for the free option is limited, and the white-label version carries a one-time fee of $15,000. Enter Stickam. It’s offering live video via its StreamAPI service to anyone. And there’s no set up fee and no monthly fee. But it will still cost you.
The StreamAPI solution is pay-as-you-go, with live video costing you 45 cents a gigabyte. That includes support for HD video, customizable solutions (with no Flash knowledge required) and analytics. It’s a similar approach that Stickam takes with its regular StreamAPI product. → Read More
MJ always had a reputation for putting on a good stage show, but did you know that some of the equipment he used was so creative as to warrant a patent? In the “Smooth Criminal” video, everyone on the stage ends up leaning over at a 45 degree angle at one point, something that is normally not possible. But instead of being held against the stage by the pure power of funk, Jacko actually invented a very special shoe to help pull off the trick. → Read More
We’ve got some NZXT gaming gear to giveaway, but we want to ensure that it goes to a gamer and not some chump that will flip the stuff on Ebay. So we’re actually asking you to do something this time around rather than just leaving something in the comments. It should be easy for a gamer though. All you have to do is spray a logo in a game and send us a screenshot. Prizes: Cryo S Alumium notebook cooler Avatar Gaming Mouse Panzerbox Aluminum ATX Chassis [PSGallery=7p8rl7jquh] All the details, including the files you’ll need, are after the jump. → Read More
A few years ago, Max Levchin—of PayPal and Slide fame— told me there were two kinds of entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley: Those who work tirelessly and are great at execution, and those who are visionary and truly create new ideas—and sometimes new markets. Levchin put himself in the former category. Indeed, a lot of Slide’s success has just been the result of doing a better job ripping off ideas from competitors like RockYou. He put Evan Williams of Blogger and Twitter in the latter. At the time, Twitter was only a techy phenomenon, but Max noted that unlike a lot of other Web 2.0 companies, Twitter was one of the only ones doing something untested and new.
With all the hyperbole about Twitter today, if I asked you whether the executor or the visionary would wind up being more successful, nearly everyone would say the visionary. But—as Levchin no doubt knew when he made this point—the visionary is usually the one that gets the shaft in Silicon Valley. → Read More
An old exploit that worked to control the iPod Touch 2G can be used to take control of the iPhone 3GS, ensuring that carrier unlockers will soon be able to crack their fancy new phones. It seems a piece of boot code was left unaltered since August 2008, allowing the Dev Team to use an old exploit. → Read More
Our own beardy Devin Coldewey had quite a tech boner for the Asus Eee Keyboard back at CES. At that time, a company representative made a “confidential estimate” that the device would be released in August. Then someone at Asus apparently got all giddy or something and it was announced that the Eee Keyboard would launch in June. Well, June’s almost over and there’s no Asus Eee Keyboard. → Read More
The story goes like this: Jimmy Fallon challenged Tiger Woods to Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 on the Wii. Jimmy embarrasses Tiger in Times Square. And then both of them made fools of themselves on Late Night. We won’t spoil the surprise, but lets just say they both play like crap and our own Doug Aamoth would be happy to conduct a golfing clinic for either one. → Read More
When you’ve just gotten laid off, the last thing you want to hear is that you can’t cash your last check because of one final payroll screwup. But that’s apparently exactly what’s going on over at MySpace, which laid off over 30% of its staff (or around 480 employees) earlier this month. The company has just asked many of its laid off employees to refrain from cashing their checks due to an error in calculating how much they should be receiving. Employees are getting voicemails from FIM notifying them that the company has issued a stop payment on their checks, and that they can expect an updated check next week.
This isn’t the company’s only blunder during this sensitive time. We’ve heard that that last day for the terminated MySpace employees was chaotic and poorly planned, and that the company hasn’t been very tactful regarding treatment of laid off employees. In the press release announcing the layoffs, CEO Owen Van Natta called the company “bloated”, displaying a surprising lack of respect towards the terminated workers. It gets worse: MySpace has been holding a number of meetings for staff who are still at the company, during which they’ve referred to the recently terminated employees as “fat”. Unfortunately, some of these “fatty” employees have been present at these very meetings — the company has kept a number of terminated employees onboard through the duration of their contract, creating a group of so-called “walking dead” who are being insulted to their faces. Classy. → Read More
One of the hottest areas of search right now is real time search, which attempts to find results based on what is happening right now. Twitter’s search engine fast becoming one of the key ways to navigate the service and discover what people are thinking about any subject at any given moment. Facebook is testing out ways to let you search your personal stream. Google is waking up to the challenge as well (Larry Page is particularly concerned with keeping up).
Every week, it seems, a new startup launches tackling real time search from a different angle. (Collecta, One Riot, Scoopler, Topsy, Almost.at, Tweetmeme, CrowdEye, Omgili, to name a few).. They are trying to apply real time search to all the different streams of information flowing over the Internet right now: Twitter, Facebook feeds, Digg submissions, blog comments, RSS feeds, Flickr photos, YouTube uploads, shared links on bit.ly and elsewhere. The list keeps getting longer every day.
There is something about human nature which makes us want to prioritize information by how recent it is, and that is the fundamental appeal of real time search. The difference between real time search and regular search didn’t really crystallize for me until I had a conversation with Edo Segal, who sold his real time search company Relegence to AOL a few years ago and holds three patents on the subject. “Real time taps into consciousness,” says Segal, “search taps into memory. That is why it so potent. You experience the world in real time.” → Read More
Remember the Sega Nomad? If you excitedly shot up out of your chair yelling “YES!” then you may be interested in a newer, more streamlined device called the Retro-Gen Portable that’ll be available for $50 in about a month. → Read More
Looks like the licensing nazi has struck again. The slick “Sense” UI on the coveted HTC Hero is not going to be available as an upgrade for anybody in the US any time soon. That’s right, even though my G1 and the MyTouch/Magic are made and developed by HTC, you’ll find it also says Google on the back. Being a Google-branded product apparently precludes the Magic and G1 from using the Sense UI featured on the Hero, by dint of some sort of evil licensing sorcery. Personally I’m not that offended; the Hero was made to take advantage of the Sense UI, and I think you would get a sub-optimal experience on the G1 or Magic. Sure, I would have liked to give it a shot, but not so much that I’m going to take it to the streets. → Read More
Amazon’s got a nice deal on the Tonium Pacemaker portable DJ system until 1:00 PM Eastern today. Normally selling for $499, you can get an extra $100 off as one of Amazon’s daily Gold Box deals. → Read More
Flickr, Yahoo’s photo property, is one of the largest picture sharing services in the world. However, if you were to ask a group of random people how you spell its domain, a high percentage would likely tell you F-L-I-C-K-E-R. That’s not surprising, but it’s undoubtedly longstanding a headache for Yahoo. And now the people who own Flicker.com are looking to capitalize on it.
If you visit the site, you’ll see that it now exposes its traffic stats in the lower right-hand corner. It’s a blatant attempt to make money, at the very least from advertisers willing to throw links on the page. Or presumably to get someone to buy the domain. → Read More
Secretly taking photos of people is sort of easy to do with a cell phone but it’s probably even easier to do with a Volkswagen-style car key. For $66, Brando will be more than happy to sell you one too. → Read More
You know who loves the Wii Motion Plus? Doug Aamoth. You know who’s about to write about the Wii Motion Plus? Me, Nicholas Deleon. Such is life. Anyway, one small problem arises when you use the Wii Motion Plus: you can no longer outfit the controller with those fun plastic accessories—a pistol, for example. Italy’s Nihoto fixes all that with its new line of accessories that do indeed work with the Wii Motion Plus. → Read More
