Here we have a robotic penguin named MyDeskFriend from Arimaz. MDF is an interactive robot that connects to your Facebook account and is akin to the Tamagotchi, but the level of interactivity goes beyond yourself and infiltrates your entire Facebook friend list. → Read More
If you own an iPhone, chances are you have at least one Twitter client on it. And while everyday seems to bring new ones into the App Store, at the end of the day, Tweetie always seems to be the one that I go back to. TwitterFon, Twitterriffic and most recently, TweetDeck, all are worthy challengers, but I find each of them lacking in some regard. Usually, it’s either speed or simplicity. Tweetie seems to be a perfect combination of the two. But a new app, Birdfeed, may be a little more perfect.
When you first boot it up, you may think Birdfeed looks a little sparse. But there’s a lot behind this simple design, it’s just tucked away, so as not to clutter the main experience, as so many apps do. The main Birdfeed screen consists of your Twitter timeline, a button to load newer tweets, a button to compose a tweet, and a button to your account — that’s it. Clicking on any tweet in your timeline will load it on its own screen and from there you can easily see that person’s profile, reply to that tweet, favorite it or forward it (retweet it, post a link to it, or mail a link to it). → Read More
I think we adequately covered the life-size Gundam statue in Odaiba, but apparently that was just the beginning. Kobe has decided that it needs its own monument to an anime robot (what recession?), and they’ve chosen as the object of their adoration Tetsujin-28, AKA Gigantor. Of a similar height to a Gundam mecha but significantly… more stout, the Gigantor statue will stand 59 feet tall, but will weigh 50 tons (the Gundam was a paltry 35).
Check out the video after the Shonen Jump. → Read More
Bungie left Microsoft about 18 months ago, and what’s the first game it develops? Yup, a Halo game, Halo: ODST, to be exact. I just read a quick little piece over on the Seattle Times’ site that may be worth the effort, especial to those of you who are trying to figure out whether or not the game is for you. → Read More
Looking for a new mouse? Well, no matter how much you’re thinking of spending, there’s a good deal out there for you somewhere. We found some great mice for $50, $40, $30, $20, and even $10. So whether you’re a high roller or looking for an extra mouse for the kitchen PC, we’ve got you covered.
All prices include shipping, but there might be some tax up in there. → Read More
Tomorrow, YouTube is going to release a very important addition to its suite of advertising products, and it has the potential to have a huge impact for politicians, brands, and charities alike. The funny thing is, you probably thought it was already out there.
The product’s official name is the Call-To-Action Overlay, and it’s about as straightforward as ads come: it’s a semi-transparent pop-up that links viewers to any website you choose. For example, I could place an overlay on a TechCrunch video inviting users to visit the corresponding post we wrote about it. Yes, it’s that simple.
It’s hard to believe, but you’ve never been able to do this on YouTube before now. If you ever wanted to drive users watching your YouTube video to another site, you’d have to include it as a link in the summary at the right-hand side of the page, which most people ignore anyway. Users can include links in annotations, but only to other YouTube videos. Think back to President Obama’s landmark election campaign, which was helped in no small part by his YouTube presence. If he ever wanted to direct visitors to one of his campaign homepages, he’d have to ask visitors to enter his site’s URL manually. That’s a pretty major hurdle to overcome. This gets rid of it. → Read More
Did you know that the worms inside Mexican Jumping Beans weave a silk wall if their beans are broken? Or that they avoid light and heat? Or that they taste horrible in a burrito? Learn all this and more in this video from the BBC and then head over to MyPetBeans where they sell a tin of beans for $10. I just bought some for my kid(s). → Read More
I’m delighted to announce the members of The Europas Awards Advisory Board. As you can see there is an enormous wealth of talent here – these are people who know the pan-European tech and startup scene like few others. Over the next few days, until the Wednesday deadline for public voting, our Advisory Board will also be looking at the nominations and selecting their winners for the Europas. After which, their picks will be aggregated with the public vote. And of course it goes without saying that they won’t be able to vote for any company (or person for that matter) in which they have any kind interest. Meanwhile, behind the scenes here at TechCrunch Europe HQ we can see just how much and how often everyone is voting in these awards (thanks to PollDaddy for some awesome tech) and, well, let me just say it’s A LOT. It’s great to see such passion out there amongst tech startups, so come on everyone, keep voting. In addition we have some more news: New UK startup OneDrum (which literally just launched) will be sponsoring the refreshments at The Europas Awards party. Latitude and Park Lane Champagne are the awards prize sponsors. And Mixcloud is going to supply a some banging DJs for the after party. Plus, Techfluff.tv/ Newspepper will be streaming the event live. Here are the CrunchBase entries for our Advisory Board: CrunchBase Information Alain Eskenazi Aleš Špetič Anil Hansjee Arda Kutsal Brent Hoberman Gianluca Dettori John Biggs Laurent Féral-Pierssens Michael Birch Orli Yakuel Paul Fisher Reshma Sohoni Robin Wauters Rudy De Waele Stefan Glaenzer Stephan Uhrenbacher Tom Raftery Ville Vesterinen Information provided by CrunchBase CrunchBase Information Ziad M Kane Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
EurekaFest is a yearly event held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that showcases the prototype inventions of high school students from around the country. The inventions consist of various gadgets and devices aimed at helping solve real-world problems. → Read More
Good news for you Adobe Photoshop (and other Creative Suite applications) CS4 users who just so happen to have a high-end Nvidia GPU. Nvidia released today a bunch of plug-ins for Adobe CS4 (both PC and Mac) that leverage the power of your GPU. For example, one such plug-in, Elemental Accelerator 2.0 for Windows, taps into your Quadro GPU to help encode video faster. Encoding H.264 video with Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 while using the plugin improves encoding time by 11 times. (Mac users will have to settle with Elemental Accelerator 1.2.) → Read More
So here’s a pretty easy contest for anyone living in or around Brooklyn, NY. Online invitation purveyor pingg (akin to evite, but way cooler) is currently seeking submissions for their Brooklyn-themed photography gallery. The finalists from the submissions will have their work showcased in a Designer Series gallery that’s dedicated to Brooklyn. So what does that mean for you? → Read More
CollegeHumor has outdone itself again. Just a few days after unveiling Bing, the better way to Google, the site has released Web Site Story, a five minute musical tribute to some of the web’s most popular websites. I’m not going to ruin any of the jokes, but suffice to say if you’ve ever bashed Evite, found yourself a few characters over the Twitter limit, or relied on Pandora to serve up some new tunes, you’re going to love this. http://www.collegehumor.com/moogaloop/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1913584&fullscreen=1 See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor. → Read More
According to the WSJ, Dell engineers are hard at work on an Android powered device that’s pocket-sized with the ability to tap into the Internet. Multiple sources (two to be exact) have seen early prototypes of the purported Android device and say that it’s “slightly larger” than the iPod Touch. Another source for the WSJ on this story says the device could be out in the second half of 2009. The same source goes on to say that the device could be delayed or scrapped. Other notable tidbits include the use of an ARM-based chip for the device. Dell is looking to sell through cellular carrier channels, says another source, which means this could be an actual phone or a netbook. via WSJ → Read More
It’s difficult to trust computer makers on certain aspects of their product. Sure, you can believe them when they state the number of gigabytes in the drive, or what type of processor is in there, but when it comes to claims of performance and usability, they can be a bit biased. And while I’m sure everyone has their own way of testing something like battery life, shouldn’t we give it the same sort of rigorous scrutiny as everything else? It’s left to the tech sites to actually benchmark battery life (among other claims), but it seems like a few guidelines would make it a lot easier on the average consumer. We’ll keep it simple, since the last thing a site like Newegg or Dell needs is another interminable column of numbers no one understands. So here’s what we need: → Read More
Last month we wrote about OffiSync, a powerful plugin that directly ties Microsoft Office to Google Docs, allowing you to save your desktop files to the cloud automatically. Since launch the plugin has fared quite well, with over 50,000 downloads. And today it’s releasing a new version that could prove immensely useful for those of you that frequently use Office.
The biggest addition to the plugin is integrated text and image search. While Office comes with a directory of clip art, it leaves something to leave desired — I almost always find myself just going straight to Google Image search. Now, using OffiSync, you can search Google Images directly from within Office. The plugin supports advanced searches, like sorting by color, size, and usage rights. Once you’ve found an image you like, simply hit ‘Insert’ and the picture will appear wherever your text cursor was. There’s also an integrated browser: just navigate to the page you’d like to quote, highlight the text, and hit Insert. → Read More
JVC Japan announced the XV-BP1 today [JP], a new Blu-ray player that comes with two interesting features and a fair price. The player supports DivX/MPEG-4/MKV/AVCHD files and sports a USB port at the front so you can plug in a USB stick with your DivX-movies (you know, the ones you downloaded legally earlier) into the device and directly start watching. → Read More
In case you didn’t know, Apple refreshed its notebook lineup a few weeks back and rebadged the 13-inch unibody Macbook as a Pro model. Apparently the masses like it as that model now occupies the top spot in Amazons best selling laptop computer list and number four overall. It wasn’t that long ago that netbooks ruled that second list and the white 13-inch Macbook was the top selling Apple computer at number 14. → Read More
URL shortener and analytics service Bit.ly has been working on a new set of products, being referred to as “Bit.ly Now” internally, which will define the next stage of the company’s growth. The company confirmed these plans to us today. The services will include both a destination website as well as a distributed service via expansions to the Bit.ly API.
The core Bit.ly service, which lets users shorten web URLs into something suitable for Twitter and other services with limits on characters per post, has continued to grow quickly. 7 million URLs are shortened via the service each day, the company says, and 2-3 million of those are unique URLs Bit.ly has not seen before. Those Bit.ly URLs are clicked on 150 million times per week across a wide range of services – Twitter, Facebook, instant messaging, email, etc. Twitter itself now uses Bit.ly for URl shortening, and the service has quickly taken the lead in their market.
The magic behind Bit.ly are the stats that the service makes available on the underlying domains being clicked. Investor John Borthwick explained it all to investors in an email we obtained earlier this month: → Read More
In the neverending quest to shrink down the size of notebook power adapters, Cooler Master tosses its hat into the ring with the pretty-small SNA 95. It’s a 95-watt adapter with some thoughtful extras like a USB charging port, cable management base, and nine different power tips for widespread compatibility with most notebook manufacturers. → Read More
