When it comes to flight information, or to be more accurate, flight statuses, push notification can be a godsend. Case-in-point, Worldmate Gold (iTunes link), one of the first iPhone travel apps to utilize the new OS 3.0′s push notification capabilities. The downside? It’s $20 (well, $19.99).
If you do much traveling this is one iPhone app you may actually be delighted to pay that $20. Also, there’s also a free version (iTunes link), although that version does not have push, the compelling feature of the app. If you’re quick though, you can grab one of the 40 free copies of the Gold version WorldMate is giving away to TechCrunch readers. Simply email techcrunch@worldmate.com and they’ll contact you if you’ve won. → Read More
The infamous DefCon hacking and security convention is underway, and of course when you put together hundreds of talented coders, hackers, and modders, something fun is probably going to happen. And it’s definitely going to happen if you outfit all your con-goers with electronic badges equipped with a microcontroller and tell them to go wild.
This year, the badges also had a microphone and LED, but all the cool hackers bring accessories. I’d program my badge play Super Mario Brothers forever. → Read More
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=5742714&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1 Generally I pass right over concept CE devices. After seeing so many innovative devices never hit production, I lost interest. But this one got my attention.[PSGallery=9woawf1h1u] → Read More
It would seem that the boys from Penny Arcade are in the process of moving their operation into a secret base, where they will continue to take over the world. As a result of that move, they are selling off their Neo-Geo machine to the highest bidder. And hey, the money goes to the Child’s Play charity. → Read More
It’s nice when random brands put out devices seemingly unrelated to their other gear, because they sometimes do things nobody else has bothered to. In this case, Maxell, famed maker of optical media, is releasing some new flash memory stuff.
Their memory cards, I’m sure, are like any other, but they also offer a 16GB USB thumbdrive with a built-in MicroSDHC slot. How come flash drives haven’t had these for years? → Read More
Reporting every expansion pack that comes out isn’t the duty of this great establishment called CrunchGear, but Left 4 Dead has been controversial in this respect. With Left 4 Dead 2 announced and playable before any major content additions to Left 4 Dead, fans of the original game were foaming at the mouth at the gall of Valve in acting like any other game developer.
But Valve has kept the wolves from the door for a bit by announcing that a new map will be released for free (or for $7 on Xbox Live in September). → Read More
It’s a match made in real-time heaven. StockTwits, a popular site that lets you track real-time discussions about stock information on Twitter, is now featuring a live feed of real-time news provided compliments of SkyGrid, the powerful real-time financial news aggregator.
SkyGrid will now embed a widget on StockTwits pages, showing a stream of incoming news for whatever company you’re currently looking at (you can also see a broader stream of news if you haven’t visited an individual company page). In effect, the site will now let you monitor both the news and the conversation around it in real-time, making the site even more useful for investors. And if you’re only on the lookout for good news (or bad news), you can filter by that too: SkyGrid uses semantic text analysis to determine if each incoming article is deemed positive, negative, or neutral about a given company. → Read More
It doesn’t take much to understand just how innovative and usefully this one-off bike could be for so many people. It was created by a 24-year old who wanted a bike that could pack up into a small package but could find one to buy. So he made the Contortionist and it might net him £10,000 in the James Dyson Award for Innovation. → Read More
When I walked in to SpinVox‘s plush Buckinghamshire offices this morning, flanked by the Register‘s Andrew Orlowski and Ben Smith and Dan Lane from The Really Mobile Project, the tension in the building was obvious. There were nervously exchanged glances and bad jokes from senior staff. A smartly-dressed James Whatley eyed me reproachfully. But the guys managed to hold it together for long enough to usher us in to a conference room and ply us with pastries. We were not asked to sign an NDA, but we were asked not to record anything that happened in the room. Ironic, really – and the reason that Ewan MacLeod from Mobile Industry Review declined the invitation. CIO Rob Wheatley took us through a technical explanation that, while honest about the existence of human agents in the process, didn’t give away as many secrets as he made out (between the four of us, there wasn’t much we didn’t already know), before leaping to what we all came for: the demo. → Read More
This looks interesting. IEEE is sponsoring a competition in which coders are to put together Mario-playing bots to compete for cash prizes. Those of you familiar with the Time Attack scene will know that bots like this can be used to accomplish otherwise-impossible (or just tedious) tasks, but designing one to play the game semi-intelligently is another thing entirely.
Your program will be piggybacking on Infinite Mario Brothers, a Java version of Super Mario Brothers, with the significant addition of levels that never end. How cool is that? → Read More
Developed by Mountain Sheep, Minigore was probably the most-hyped $1 iPhone game I’ve seen all summer. Unfortunately, when you hype a game as much as Chillingo did, it comes with a set of expectations. Though Minigore is a mildly entertaining survival shooter, it didn’t entirely hold up to said expectations. The game is simple: you are John Gore and your job is to survive as you are attacked by an endless blitzkrieg of furry enemies. These furry enemies are large square-shaped beasts of varying sizes that charge at you, trying to turn you into lunch meat. You, John Gore, have a machine gun and you rack up points by killing these nasty little critters. → Read More
Tonight Aneesh Chopra, US Chief Technology Officer and Associate Director For Technology, spoke at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View during his first trip to Silicon Valley since he took office in an event that is being put on by the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Churchill Club, and TechNet.
Chopra kicked off the evening by stating that this is the first of many visits to Silicon Valley, where he hopes to continue an onging dialogue throughout his tenure as CTO. He then began exploring some of the ways that technology is having a major impact on our personal lives, briefly describing some of the ways he and his wife have used the Internet to help seek advice in raising their child. But while we’re doing a great job leveraging technology in our personal lives, he says this hasn’t translated to “global competitiveness” and public policy. → Read More
You gotta love automatic updates the bring new features to Blu-ray players. Panasonic is pushing out new firmware for its ’09 Blu-ray lineup that adds Amazon on Demand to the already impressive extras of YouTube, Picasa, Bloomberg, and weather info. Oh, and that little portable Blu-ray player (BD15) also gains this ability along with the DMP-BD60, BD70V, and BD80. So once these players are graced with the update sometime today, users will have access to 45,000 SD titles and 1,000 HD titles. What’s there not to love? → Read More
The cleverly named Go Mic is yet another USB microphone aimed at podcasters on-the-go, and anyone else trying to record decent audio outside of a professional studio. At $50, the Go Mic sits comfortably in the “Sure, why not” category of gadgets you can buy without suffering too much buyer’s remorse. → Read More
Another day, another death in China by overzealous personnel. A boy of 16 was beaten to death at an “Internet Addiction” camp when adult counselers became agitated and beat him during treatment. The “camp” is currently closed and the local government is investigating the occurrence.
The WSJ is reporting that there is currently a country-wide debate about the true meaning of Internet Addiction and if camps like these are truly the only solution. → Read More
To be honest, I’ve paid next to no attention to Gran Turismo for the PSP, primarily because I stopped with Gran Turismo 3. That, and the PSP is sorta meh, to use a fake word. Be that as it may, Sony has arranged a pretty neat pre-order bonus for those of you who… pre-order the game. → Read More
There’s a lot of talk of 2010 being the year of the tablet or, more correctly, the year of the Mobile Internet Device (MID). These devices were supposed to change the world a few years ago (remember Origami?) but never did and we basically bumped over MIDs and into netbooks, resulting in the race to the bottom we’re now seeing. But now we learn that Dell might be making a MID and that Apple is planning a bigger Touch. These two rumors are fairly concrete – I’d give the Tapplet a 75% chance of happening and a Dell MID about 80% – but there’s a big problem: people don’t like MIDs. → Read More
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