We got a takedown from Apple today regarding the copy of Snow Leopard release 10A432 we previewed today. This points to Apple’s habit of tying up loose ends before an official release. The takedown reads:
To Whom It May Concern:
We represent Apple Inc. (“Apple”). It has come to our attention that the crunchgear.com website has posted Apple confidential trade secrets and copyrighted material in an article entitled “Preview: Snow Leopard (10A432)” located at http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/08/17/review-snow-leopard-10a432/.
While we appreciate the interest in Snow Leopard, the screenshots that have been posted in the article are confidential and subject to non-disclosure agreements between Apple and its developers. Dissemination of confidential information knowingly obtained or derived from someone in breach of non-disclosure obligations constitutes trade secret misappropriation. See, e.g., Cal. Civ. Code 3426.1(b)(2)(B)(iii). Some of the screenshots also depict works copyrighted by Apple, and copyright law prohibits the unauthorized display of copyrighted works.
Stock photography sites are moving towards free, with either free samples (Photoxpress) or ad-supported images (Fotoglif, GumGum, PicApp). In an effort to encourage a broader distribution of its ad-carrying photos, Fotoglif is opening up a revenue-sharing API for developers. The first 500 people to sign up using the promotion code “Techcrunch” will get into the beta program.
The API gives developers access to millions of photos and related data, which they can mashup into widgets and other apps. The developers get to keep 20 percent of any resulting AdSense dollars generated by the images. Fotoglif pays the photographers 50 percent, and publishing sites another 20 percent, which doesn’t leave much for the startup. → Read More
In Amsterdam today, the makers of mobile Augmented Reality (AR) browser Layar announced version 2.0 of the browser as well as a slew of new layars which have been produced since they opened up their API to developers. A ‘layar’ is information overlaid on the camera view of your mobile phone, e.g. the asking price of an apartment for sale in the building your camera is pointed at. Layar will be pre-installed on the new Samsung Galaxy Android phone about to be released in the Netherlands and the Android version of the browser is available for download in the Android app store. The iPhone version will be available as soon as Apple updates its API to allow access to the iPhone camera. Bruce Sterling on AR The Layar event was opened by science fiction writer Bruce Sterling who has been blogging recently about the augmented reality scene. → Read More
Now, this isn’t scientific data, especially since we know that Microsoft hides that data from prying eyes, but it’s more than supposition. Game Informer did a poll and found that the 360 has the highest failure rate of any of the consoles at 54% — not exactly the most unexpected news, but putting a number on it is kind of sobering.
The survey (which is print-only or I’d link it) also notes that the 360 gets a bit more playtime than its competitors, which might account for a bit more failure, but the PS3 was failing at 11% and the Wii at 7%. Hide that! → Read More
Jambool, the startup behind the Social Gold micropayments platform, has closed a $5 million funding round led by Madrona Venture Group, with Bay Partners participating as well. The company has now raised around $6 million, after a $1 million round in Q3 2008.
Jambool initially started off as a developer for games on social networks — a lucrative but very crowded space that includes players like Zynga and Playfish. In fall 2008, the company decided to switch its focus from game building to providing a platform that other developers can use to quickly integrate microtransactions. → Read More
The unemployment rate in the U.S. was still 9.4 percent in July, but some cities are better than others to look for a job. Of the top 50 metro areas, Washington, D.C., is the easiest for unemployed workers to find a job, while Detroit is the hardest, according to a new Job Market Competition index put together by job search engine Indeed.
The index ranks cities based on how many unemployed people there are compared to job listings. For every one unemployed person in Washington, D.C., for example, there are six job postings. Whereas in Detroit, there is only one job posting for every 18 unemployed people. The higher the ratio of job postings to unemployed, the more chances there are of landing a job.
The top ten cities in the index for finding jobs (and their corresponding ratios of job postings to unemployed) are: → Read More
As much as we’d like the Tapplet, or iPad, to make its debut next month, it’s looking like that won’t be the case. “Sources close to the company” say that the event will be on September 9th and will most assuredly not be Tablet-related. Instead, like last year’s September announcement, it’ll be new iPods and possibly that fancy new iTunes we’ve been hearing about.
While the inclusion of yet more services into Apple’s increasingly bloated all-purpose media player may be seen as excessive, you can always count on Apple to at least sell it. → Read More
In case you were wondering what the automotive community won’t be releasing next year, here’s a nice roundup of the concept cars on display over at Pebble Beach. They’re not all outlandish, although a back seat in a Lotus Elise kind of misses the point, doesn’t it? If I had one, I’d remove the passenger seat. → Read More
A new lawsuit filed against Facebook in the Superior Court of California in Orange County is one of the more entertaining documents we’ve had the pleasure of reading recently. A lot of lawsuits against Facebook are fairly serious, but this one certainly isn’t — we haven’t seen litigation this amusing since the Attorney General of South Carolina set his sights on Craigslist to kick-start his campaign for governor.
Plaintiffs in the case appear to have engaged in run of the mill socializing on Facebook: sharing photos, writing status updates and similar things. They’re then complaining that privacy, copyright and other rights are violated as people look at the photos, read the updates, etc. It’s sort of like jumping into a pool and then complaining that you’re wet.
The lawsuit complains about or at least insidiously describes pretty much every single part of Facebook, from the nefarious “wall” to a potentially incriminating “Data Analyst” job listing the company posted in 2007. Oh, and the best part? The AP and WSJ just reported the case straight, without the slightest suggestion that the Plaintiffs might be a little off. We’ve embedded the full, 40 page suit below. → Read More
One of the problems with modern society going “green” is that many of our appliances are inherently inefficient. Take for example the refrigerators and freezers that many of us use. A vertical fridge/freezer combination just isn’t that energy efficient, even if it is “energy star” rated. Most fridges waste upwards of 365 kWh a year. So what can be done? → Read More
I know I give tiny cameras a lot of guff, but merely small ones are getting pretty damn good. It’s wrong to hold the iPhone camera to the same standards as something with a lens and sensor four times larger, but this new webcam from Microsoft seems to know its limitations. They probably could have pushed it to 1080p if they wanted, and people would have freaked out, but man that would have been one ugly image. → Read More
Verbatim announced today that they are releasing a new line of USB external hard drives. Now wait, before you scroll on to the next story, take a look at this thing. It’s got a fairly sexy design, and a new feature that sets it apart from all the other external hard drive enclosures out there: a built-in display. → Read More
Selling at the time of this writing for just over $1700, this 1949 “toy” cost today’s equivalent of $400 and includes “a U-239 Geiger counter, Electroscope, Spinthariscope, Wilson Cloud Chamber, nuclear spheres model, a book on prospecting for uranium, the Gilbert Atomic Energy Manual, and Learn How Dagwood Split the Atom comic book.
Nowadays you’re more likely to find a kit about how to prove the Earth is 6,000 years old. Oh, the times they are a-changing. → Read More
Maybe you’re trying to erase any lingering virtual sweet nothings of an ancient romance, or maybe you’re trying to wipe all sign of your top secret government job; whatever the case may be, you’d probably expect a deleted e-mail to stay deleted. That’s just not the case with the current iPhone OS. → Read More
As promised, Google has just launched bookmark syncing for users on the dev channel of its Chrome web browser. This allows you to keep your browser bookmarks in sync no matter which of your computers you are using.
Syncing has been a standard feature of Apple’s Safari browser for some months now, but you need to have MobileMe for it to work. And Firefox users could download add-ons like Xmarks (previously called Foxmarks) to get the functionality, but with Chrome it will be built-in, and most importantly, unlike MobileMe, free. Google notes that the bookmarks are stored on users’ Google account alongside Google Docs and sync via XMPP. → Read More
Just in from a source involved with the transaction – the $100 million Facebook Employee share buyback has been oversubscribed (its not clear by how much), and ex-employees are being cut back significantly.
The program was announced on July 13. Up to $100 million in employee common stock was to be purchased by Russian investment group Digital Sky Technologies, which also funded a separate $200 million venture investment in May 2009. Employees, ex-employees and other common stockholders could participate, and had to indicate their intention to sell by early August.
People were limited to selling up to the lesser of 25% of their total holdings or $1 million. Shares are being purchased based on a $6.5 billion valuation.
Employees were given first dibs on stock sales, we’ve confirmed. Ex-employees were notified up front that they’d be able to sell only after current employees. And it turns out it made a difference – the ex-employees were cut back to “a small fraction” of the original amount requested. Some executives and larger shareholders may be able to sell additional stock via a separate arrangement, says our source. → Read More
What were you doing in 1999? Maybe you were following the Kosovo War. Maybe you were starting to use Napster. Maybe you were entering your senior year of high school (I was). Or maybe you started blogging. After all, on August 23, 1999, Pyra Labs launched its Blogger product, which would go on to become the biggest blogging platform in the world.
Yes, on Sunday, Blogger turns 10 years old. And to celebrate, the Blogger team (which is now a part of Google following a 2003 acquisition) is promising a bunch of gifts to users in the form of new features. Without naming anything specifically, Blogger points to this list as a good reference point for some of what they’ll be rolling out over the next few weeks. Of note on that list are a better commenting system and WordPress-style pages (About page, etc). → Read More
You may wanna jump on this Best Buy iTunes deal if you drop serious coin on iTunes. It’s kind of like when restaurants and gas stations offer specials when you pre-pay for their services. Except this time you get music, movies, and apps. → Read More
Both on TechCrunch.com, and by our own efforts on TechCrunch Europe, we try to do two things: 1) cover the tech market journalistically 2) engage with the market as player and commentator, trying to push things forward. We do the latter most often by highlighting new startups, companies and individuals we think the wider market should hear about. But the majority of the time we actually take a pretty upbeat view of things, especially at TechCrunch Europe. Why? Because the market for tech startups remains at a relatively early stage here. Yes we could argue long and hard about what stage it’s at, but generally speaking the majority of the stuff we come across is often still in development. That will probably be the case for a while, but it doesn’t mean we can’t cover it. When I first started writing about Favorit three years ago, Nick Halstead was just another crazy geek with this mad idea to build a new platform for blog comments. Guess what? It didn’t work, but we covered him and eventually that platform became the basis for Tweetmeme, a hugely successful Twitter aggregator and platform. When we started writing about Huddle in 2007, Andy McLoughlin and Alastair Mitchell had a seemingly insane idea to take on the mighty BaseCamp. In 2008 they are the only collaboration partner for LinkedIn and a Europas winner. But there is another side to our support for the startup community. We get to ask questions. That’s our role. We’re part of the media, but, crucially, we’re also part of the community itself. We hang out with tech companies and tech people all the time. TechCrunch Europe is part of the eco-system. We’re like fertiliser – not only are we able to nurture, but just occasionally we are forced to pour a bucket of shit over something, just so that something new and better can grow up. Which brings me to the entire story surrounding Spinvox right now and certain commentators who seem suggest that TCE and other parts of the media are ‘out to get them’. So here’s the deal. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
