A few weeks ago a good source gave me a legal document written by a former federal prosecutor and senior Department of Justice official. It was arguing that social gaming company Zynga could be breaking multiple state and federal anti-gambling laws via its popular Texas HoldEm game.
A few things are striking about this. First off, Zynga is one a handful of companies building Facebook and iPhone apps that has found a way to make money. Lots of money. Close to $200 hundred million in revenues to be precise. The fact that it could be the next target for an overzealous state attorney is a big story in and of itself. Second, the fact that competitors are this threatened by Zynga’s cash machine shows an ugly battle royale brewing in the application space. (More on that in a bit.)
Online gambling is illegal, according to the U.S. State Department and a handful of states, but there are still some gray areas. In June, the Feds started cracking down on gamblers in an attempt to clear things up. Meanwhile, others like Massachusetts representative Barney Frank are seeking to legalize and tax the $1 billion or more in annual revenues U.S. poker players are mostly sending to sites based overseas. Frank clearly faces a huge uphill battle from religious groups who see poker as a moral issue.
But a site like Zynga should be able to side-step all of this, because although you can buy chips for Zynga’s Texas HoldEm game you can’t redeem them for money, right? Maybe not. → Read More
Google Voice is a pretty amazing service, but it comes with a number of minor annoyances, including the way it handles outgoing calls and SMS messages. Fortunately, Google has recently come out with a number of smartphone apps for BlackBerry and Android that obviate the need for any extra steps, making Google Voice a natural replacement for your phone’s native dialer. The iPhone still lacks an official client, but that hasn’t stopped a handful of third party developers from releasing their own apps, which have been available on the App Store for the last few months. Today, however, it sounds like Apple has made the decision to crack down on these: Sean Kovacs, the developer behind the popular app GV Mobile, has written on his blog that Apple is going to be removing his application, citing the fact that it “duplicates features that come with the iPhone”. → Read More
Japan-based Sumitomo Electric Industries has developed the world’s first laser that’s able to produce “pure” green light (press release in English), meaning its semiconductor laser doesn’t need to convert light to green via another color. Until now, original semiconductor lasers were only available for the other primary colors of light, red and blue. → Read More
Remember all the brouhaha about Twitter trademarking the word ‘tweet’ and subsequently having to explain that they were not exactly doing this to attack third-party app developers over the use of the word?
Well so far Twitter hasn’t been that terribly prolific in using the words ‘tweet’ or ‘retweet’ apart from some odd blog posts and individual employees’ messages on the micro-sharing service. That has changed today.
TechCrunch reader @JoeHagofsky informs us that Twitter has apparently changed the word ‘updates’ on the right sidebar of the page you see when logged onto its website to ‘tweets’ (see screenshots below). It’s also changed on individual profile pages. We see them too and as far as we know this is in fact new. → Read More
WiTricity is working on a wireless power solution that can send power over short distances, thereby reducing the need for wires and cables. The system uses resonant magnetic coupling – essentially a form of radio trasnmission – that can send enough power to charge cellphones or run a television. The actual technology is still a ways of – near field charging will probably appear before this does – but it’s nice to know someone is trying. → Read More
In what may be the most thorough and energetic unboxing of a video game in the history of the internet, everyone’s favorite enthusiastic gamer, DiiFii, unboxes Wii Sports Resort. And we’re talking a major unboxing here: the cardboard, the advertising inserts, the look and feel of the box itself, the simplicity of the actual game disc, and more. There’s also a quick fondling of the MotionPlus peripheral and, of course, some gameplay footage. To enjoy this video as a drinking game, take one drink every time DiiFii says “awesome”. Wii Sports Resort Unboxing [YouTube] → Read More
Verizon confirmed in an analyst conference call that the Palm Pre, the little smartphone the could, will be available on Verizon’s network between Q1 and the end of Q2 next year. This should come as a relief to people who are waiting to ditch their Blackberry Storms for Palm’s new offering. There’s not much more info than that: they just said it would happen. This confirms rumors that the Pre would break out of its pen at Sprint sooner than later and could mean new Sprint models coming running Palm’s WebOS. → Read More
One search engine dies, another takes a step forward. This is a hard space to find a niche in, but the money at stake if you succeed is staggering.
Blekko, the stealth search engine we’ve been covering since early 2008, has raised a third round of financing – $11.5 million from USVP and CMEA. That brings the total amount of capital raised to $17.5 million, including a $1 million credit line. Their last round was in March 2008.
We took a look at Blekko in late May. The company wants absolutely no press at all while they continue to bake the product, but we think there is something interesting under the hood. And apparently a few investors agree. → Read More
To quote Grandpa Simpson, “Oh, bitch, bitch, bitch.” Today I woke up to reports that AT&T was being Evil, blocking access to certain sections of 4chan, which you’ll see described as anything from a “Wild West” to a “hornet’s nest.” (That blocking has since stopped, by the way.) I like to describe it as the last honest place on the Internet. People are creative like that. Anyhow, before you e-riot or whatever, consider this posting by an admin at unWired, another ISP that was blocking access to 4chan. → Read More
King of Queens Season Five, Episode 20 (titled Driving Reign) finds Doug Heffernan and his cousin Danny squaring off in an IPS truck race. Hilarity ensues — see the video clip below.
But did you know that the friendly men and women of the United Parcel Service, upon which the fictional International Parcel Service is based, have their very own real-life driving competitions? It’s true! → Read More
While there’s a lot of talk about Apple’s rumored tablet device as it relates to new initiatives from the music industry, the device is undoubtedly a lot larger in scope. The music-angle talk is mostly thanks to the Financial Times all-over-the-place first report yesterday. But a second story also released yesterday with much of the same information, clears things up a bit, and adds a few interesting new nuggets of information.
Here’s the best excerpt:
“It would be a colour, flat-panel TV to the old-fashioned, black and white TV of the Kindle,” one publishing executive said.
Uh oh, Amazon. → Read More
Now this is odd. Wee Matt Buchanan from Dublin above has been receiving tweets complaining of his incessant attacks against telecom giant AT&T. Three people have said the exact same thing about his angry tirades, suggesting that either Matt has been hitting the sauce (very possible) or that someone has attempted a very stupid astroturfing campaign with or without AT&T’s permission (more possible). → Read More
USB gadget specialized Thanko strikes again. This time, the Tokyo-based company gives you a small portable camera [JP] that can be attached to your bike or helmet, for example. The so-called Action Camera is similar to a device Thanko released in May, but this new model isn’t waterproof.
But it can record video at 30fps (in 640 x 480 VGA), weighs just 80g and stores video on MicroSD cards (up to 2GB, the internal memory is 32MB only). Charge the battery for 2.5 hours and you can use the Action Camera for up to 2 hours. Needless to say, there is also a USB 2.0 port (this is a Thanko product, after all). → Read More
New iPods usually come out in September, right? There or thereabouts, at any rate. Well then maybe we should look into this report that says Toshiba will “ramp up” production of flash memory chips during the month of Auguest. Word on the street is that Toshiba is doing so to fulfill a big order from Apple. So, new iPods on the way? Speculate away! → Read More
The Internet got in a bit of a tizzy this weekend when it was reported that Twitter was banned from being accessed from inside the White House. What is this, Iran, some wondered? But have no fear, despite what White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told C-SPAN, Twitter is apparently not entirely blocked and they’re working to open it up more, Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton told Mediaite today.
Here’s where the confusion apparently comes from. Access to Twitter’s website is blocked on most White House computers, but that’s only for security and recordkeeping reasons for the time-being. Apparently, the White House is working with the White House counsel and the Office of Administration CIO “to review and relax these restrictions,” Burton says. And, more importantly, it is apparently not official policy of the White House that staffers are not allowed to tweet, and some do so from their own web-connected devices. → Read More
Admit it: you’ve been thinking about learning a foreign language. Maybe you’ve been planning a trip to Mexico or were considering taking over a small, French-speaking colony in the Maldives. Regardless of your interest or your armaments, it’s always nice to know a foreign language.
Until now the traditional online teaching methods have involved simple flash-card-like exercises and animations aimed at getting you acquainted with a language or, at the very least, CDs running you through the traditional “I would like to buy some hashish” and “My hovercraft is full of eels” rigmarole we know all too well from learning languages on tape. Rosetta Stone aims to change all that will their new TOTALe live language lessons and activities. → Read More
Samsung is now getting into the e-book game. It has developed its very own e-book reader, which will first be available in Korea for around $270. It’ll be Korea-only for a little while yet. → Read More
Three new cameras from Panasonic inbound.
Finally, someone besides Samsung is claiming a world’s first. Claiming the hat today is Panasonic with the Lumix ZR1 digital camera. The latest Lumix features a 0.3mm thin ashperical lens, which is a world’s first. Other notable features include a 25mm ultra-wide-angle, 8x optical zoom Leica DC Vario-Elmar lens and a start-up time of 1.1 seconds. The ZR1 will be available in September for $280 in black, blue, silver and red. → Read More
Jeremy Wright has stepped down as CEO of b5media, the blog network he helped co-found, mostly for unspecified personal reasons.
While Wright will remain a board member and shareholder of the venture-backed startup, he already has a replacement: Elaine Kunda will take over the reins as CEO from this point forward.
The decision apparently stems from the beginning of this year, when Wright took a short vacation and went offline for about 10 days. He writes: → Read More
