Over the last few days we’ve seen a lot of attention centered on the new iPhone application from Spotify, the so-called ‘iTunes Killer’ subscription service that lets you plays songs on demand from a library of millions of tracks. We still don’t know if that app is going to make it through Apple’s nebulous approval process, but it’s already got some possible competition: Grooveshark, a streaming music service that lets you stream nearly any song from its web interface, has its own iPhone app ready for release and it’s just about to submit it to Apple. Like Spotify, the application lets you search for any song you want and stream it from the cloud almost instantly.
Now Grooveshark just needs to face the daunting Apple approval process. So will it make it though unscathed? Almost certainly not. → Read More
Losing sleep over rumors that Gearbox may be working on a Halo title for the Xbox 360? Rest easy, friend. 343 Industries byway of HaloWaypoint’s Twitter account announced that Gearbox is not working on a Halo title for Microsoft. → Read More
We on the web are a simple folk — especially us males. We need but two things to keep us happy: Explosions and boobs. And thank God someone has finally cut through all the BS, and given us exactly what we want in one brilliant site called yes, Explosions and Boobs.
The site is actually more elaborate than it may seem at first glorious glance. If you click on either the explosion picture or the picture of the boobs, you will get new pictures of explosions and boobs! Brilliant. It’s hours of endless fun waiting to happen. Who needs to sit through an entire Michael Bay movie when you have this? → Read More
Lovers of Animals Do The Funniest Things-type video fluffery, rejoice! Mobile and web content platform Babelgum just announced a partnership with top humour site Funny or Die. You’ll soon be able to get your fix of comedy on the move via a standalone application, plus Babelgum will shortly start feeding Funny or Die content into its existing apps. The Comedy channel on Babelgum’s website will also have a Funny or Die branded area showcasing classic clips, top rated videos and a smattering of the latest stuff. Babelgum started out as peer-to-peer IPTV company (like Joost). It’s now a Flash-based site with a fairly impressive catalogue of indie content. Those who use the service will no doubt benefit from this fresh injection of LOLs. → Read More
Poof! Sony lost $390.5 million in the first quarter compared to a profit of almost $800 million in Q1 last year. TV sales are way down along with still and video cameras. Samsung, it seems, is kicking their butt. → Read More
Mozilla’s Firefox browser is about to hit a major milestone: 1 billion total downloads. As you can see on this Twitter account set up to monitor the download numbers, it just crossed the 999,000,000 threshold earlier today. Judging by the rate at which it’s increasing, it could hit the milestone as early as tomorrow.
And Mozilla is preparing for the big day with a new site (not live yet), called www.onebillionplusyou.com, which will go live on Monday. There, you’ll find information about the one billion downloads Firefox has seen, we’re told. When the browser hits the milestone, more information should also be available here. → Read More
We don’t typically cover PS Home updates at the ‘Gear, but the Sony PS team just dropped a tiny morsel of goodness and I feel compelled to tell you about it. The Movie Theater in Home is getting revamped with a 10-screen layout that PS Home Community Manager CydoniaX says could one-day stream full-length TV shows and movies. Nothing is set in stone so we’ll throw this one on the backburner for now. → Read More
I always an enjoy a good vortex cannon. Whether you’re using those small ones to scare cats or using a big one to blow up little houses – above – they’re a good time. The cannon sends a huge puff of air in front of it. Some are a bit more powerful than others, but Make has instructions for making your own impressive unit. → Read More
My Name is E appeared earlier this year with a product which sounded familiar to most. It enables you to collect all your social and contact accounts – on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and any other network – in one spot. However, the twist was that you could share them in real life with people you met over the mobile web or their “Connector”, the USB product they also sell. Today they’ve released an app for the iPhone. Could this be the final death of the business card? I doubt it, but this is going to be a pretty interesting product to watch. The Connector is not dissimilar to Poken in some respect, but as well as the wireless USB device it also lets you exchange cards between any mobile via the mobile web. You can connect with someone via Facebook, Linked, in etc, without having to go back to your office and do all the time-consuming inviting. But the mobile web experience is not exactly sinuous. The new iPhone application allows card sharing through a simple flick of the wrist towards another iPhone with the app. E then connect both users and make sure they get automatically connected on the selected social networks as well. The application also allows iPhone users to exchange cards with other phones. If someone doesn’t have an account on E you can send your E card to their email and they can either view the informatoin straight or connect over E. Users can create a card for each situation with different social networking profiles attached to them. They’ve also launched a short URL Eee.am. e.g. http://eee.am/mikebutcher. → Read More
I’m guessing most of us have experienced the sensation of our eyes glossing over and and losing the ability to focus on the computer screen. It feels like your looking at Magic Eye art, almost like you’re looking through the screen. It usually happens after staring at the computer screen for endless hours during an all-nighter LAN party or while sitting in a cubical, mindlessly calling people to refi their mortgage with you. (experience talking there) These Wink Glasses aim to solve that issue by forcing your eye blink. Neat. → Read More
Japan-based security company ALSOK has developed an adorable robot [JP] that fulfills not one but a number of different functions. The so-called An9-PR can be used as a guide to help people in shopping centers or office buildings, an autonomously moving digital signage system or for surveillance. It’s the big brother of the An9-RR, which was introduced back in March.
It features a simple electric bulletin board that’s wrapped around its head and a total of three LCD screens built into its body (one 19-incher is on the front and there are two 12-inchers on the back). People can view ads, information on buildings and other information on these (touch) screens. → Read More
In what could be a first for us I’m going to talk about G-Force, the new Jerry Bruckheimer Disney movie. To be clear: this is a movie for kids. I have a kid. So I saw it. Anyway. Where to begin: this is a movie about guinea pigs with special powers who can talk and fight against forces that will destroy our great nation. In this movie they fight against a nefarious consumer electronics maker that seems to be a cross between Philips and Sony. But there’s a twist! I won’t spoil it for you but rest assured you’ll have to explain it to your three year old in very precise terms, ensuring that you don’t slip up and say something wrong. Think Bambi. → Read More
NewsGator Online, one of the first online RSS readers I used back in the day, is being tossed in the deadpool by its parent company in a move that signals its newfound focus on desktop applications and social computing tools for businesses.
Users of the online feed reader are kindly requested to migrate their subscriptions over to Google Reader before August 31, and NewsGator will provide step-by-step instructions and in-product reminders to make sure all goes smoothly.
Speaking of NewsGator’s desktop RSS readers, which include FeedDemon for Windows and NetNewsWire for Macs, they have both been updated to a new version. Users of the software programs are asked to download the updated versions in the next 30 days, and in another testament to the company’s friendly relationship with Mountain View it is mostly touting the new synchronization feature with Google Reader as a selling point. → Read More
You guys gotta hear this. There’s a 78-year-old woman who, for whatever reason, hates the president so much that she has decided to sell her two TVs! (What’s more impressive is that the woman even has a working TV post-digital transition.) → Read More
This picture, taken at the John Wayne Airport by Matthew Olivolo of MobileEdge shows one of his ScanFast backpacks being inspected by the nicest TSA lady I’ve ever seen. What does this suggest? That perhaps those checkpoint friendly backpacks are finally gaining some traction. → Read More
You know those idiotic commenters on Digg? Sure you do. You know, “FIRST”, “LOLZ”, “URGAY”, etc. Yeah, those guys. Well Digg took a step today that could possibly make them at least 10,000 times more annoying: Email alerts.
Now, let’s be clear: This doesn’t mean that people who post an item on Digg will get alerts every time someone comments — that would be awful. Instead, this means that if you leave a comment on an item, you will get alerted when someone comments on that. And this will occur only for top-level comments and not nested ones.
And while that may not sound so bad, it’s no secret that Digg, like many big sites, has a comment section that is almost completely run by trolls. It takes actions to combat that, such as the burying and promoting of certain comments, but this new email alert system will bypass that. → Read More
Tweetminster has raised £100k from angel investor John Arnold. The news comes just a few weeks after it launched its Livewire, a tracker that aggregates online political activity in the UK, in partnership with The Independent newspaper. Arnold, MD of public affairs agency PoliticsDirect, will join Tweetminster as chairman. Alberto Nardelli, a co-founder of Tweetminster, says the company plans to use the investment to build on its capacity and develop premium analytics and data services around the Livewire. These will be released in the next couple of months. One planned premium service will be a way to use social media tools to survey users around specific political issues – sort of like ‘YouGov 2.0′. Not bad going for something that started life as a side project for a bunch of politics geeks. CrunchBase Information Tweetminster Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Lolligift solves a pressing problem in most offices. You know how when Maurice in accounting or Lydia on the dev team breaks a hip or has a birthday? And how Sarah in HR goes around collecting cash for a present for them? And how you have to fish out a ten-spot, the same ten-spot you were planning on using for lunch and now you have to use the ATM which isn’t your bank and costs $2 to use? And how you’re all like “Maybe tomorrow” and Sarah is all like “OK. I’ll put you down for tomorrow but I have to go to get the Bed, Bath and Beyond gift certificate tonight so don’t forget.” And you’re all like “Wait, here’s ten.” And Sarah thinks you’re a freak?
Well, Lolligift solves all that. By sending your co-workers a single link (I will totally laugh if anyone donates to Nik’s fund) they can begin sending cash. You then collect the funds via Paypal (less $5 and Paypal’s cut) or request a free mailed check or Visa Check Card. You can overnight the check for $19.95. → Read More
