Voiding warranties is half of fun of owning gadgets. I mean, who doesn’t want to take something apart to see what makes it work? And besides, you’ve got that workbench in the garage and a couple tools lying around, why not do something with them? → Read More
As we talked about the other day, sending text messages while driving is bad, okay? And in California it’s illegal. So do Americans listen? If you make it against the law to send text messages, will only outlaws text? → Read More
Short Version: Billed by Alienware as “the most powerful laptop in the universe,” the M17x is simply an amazing piece of hardware. It combines the latest in hardware with an extremely high-quality finish to create a laptop that is incredibly fast and well-designed. Unfortunately, it also might be the most expensive laptop in the universe. → Read More
TC50 DemoPit company AskYourTargetMarket is hoping to simplify market research for businesses and solutions by offering a comprehensive platform where businesses can both create and deploy surveys. Since the site is in closed beta, AskYourTargetMarket has offered 500 invites for TechCrunch readers. Each invite comes with a free survey package for up to 50 respondents; enter the beta code “TC50-2009″ here.
The site lets you define your target market demographic, then write a survey to distribute to focus groups. Because you are able to target a particular group, you don’t have to waste space on your survey with demographic questions. Once your survey is finalized, AskYourTargetMarket will launch it to your desired demographic within their consumer panel for as little as $29.95 for 50 respondents. The site, which says it has thousands of U.S. consumers on their survey panel, draws its respondents from its sister site, InstantCashSweepstakes.com, which offers users a cash prize incentive for filling out surveys. → Read More
I took the chance at Koei Tecmo’s booth at the Tokyo Game Show and played Undead Knights on the PSP for a while. As the name suggests, the game is about zombies. And there are knights, lots of them, who you can turn into zombies and let them kill off enemies for you. Undead Knights is PSP-exclusive and will go on sale in Japan on October 15 (USA: September 29). → Read More
Seriously, if your weekends are void of human contact and your nights are spent alone on Reddit, buy this GameCube. It’s $30. Then head over to eBay or Gamestop and snag some used games on the cheap too. My god, man, it’s only $29.99. For a GameCube! Buy it! → Read More
Wallets are a very personal thing. Generally speaking, once you find one you like, you stick with that one until it wears out, and then spend weeks trying to find a replacement that’s the same style, only to realize that they don’t make them anymore, and you’re going to have to find something else. This was my dilemma, so when I was asked to review the Flipside Wallet, I was a little dubious about how well I would like it, given how particular I am. → Read More
Sony laid out its motion controller plans the other day at the Tokyo Game Show and mentioned that Resident Evil 5 and LittleBigPlanet would be the first games to take advantage of the system. Well, freaks and geeks, wanna see some actually gameplay? ‘Course you do. → Read More
I’ve always liked how outspoken Tim Westergren of Pandora is. He’s not one of those all-too-common founders who puffs up his chest and gives rationalizations for why everything is great even as user numbers are sliding or a competitor is stealing momentum. When his company is in trouble—which Pandora was for most of its life—he’ll tell you in excruciating detail, even down to ugly employee lawsuits.
And that’s worked to Pandora’s advantage. Westergren did such a good job of warning the site’s rabid fans that the RIAA may be running it out of business that they once broke fax machines on Capitol Hill with complaints. Westergren gets what a lot of entrepreneurs don’t: It’s about survival, not ego. That’s especially true when you’re an online music company.
Of course, today Pandora is sitting pretty thanks to a hard work and a serendipitous one-two-three punch. → Read More
Knockoffs are nothing new, but usually they run some weirdo OS that’s skinned to look like the original, as with the HiPhone. Not so in this case: since Android is freely available to install on any hardware whatever, the primary difference will be the hardware, which doesn’t look that bad. The Tiger G3 is obviously a Hero knockoff, but it’s got a front-facing camera and DTV antenna — for $140 it might be worth grabbing just so you can pretend you have the original. → Read More
It’s expected that the European Commission will pass legislation that will require manufacturers to include a noise limiter on portable media players. This is being done, of course, because listening to said devices at extraordinarily loud volume levels is quite dangerous; up to 10 percent of users are in danger totally destroying their hearing by keeping the players on too loud. → Read More
Earlier today news broke that AT&T had filed a letter with the FCC asserting that Google is violating net neutrality principles with Google Voice by preventing users from calling certain numbers. Google has wasted no time in posting a response to its Public Policy Blog to defend itself against the accusations.
For those who missed the initial letter: AT&T has long had to deal with local phone carriers who charge exorbitant prices to long-distance companies to connect their calls. These local carriers are further exploiting the system by partnering with phone sex operators and similar services to maximize the number of calls to these high-priced numbers. AT&T has tried to restrict such calls but was barred from doing so, and it’s angry that Google Voice — which does restrict calls to some of these pornographic numbers to save money — is getting away with it. → Read More
Picking out the right gadget to buy is so difficult that an entire publishing industry (Cnet, Engagdet, CrunchGear, GDGT) has grown around helping people sort through the process. A new site in private beta called Measy is taking a different approach. You take a quiz answering questions about what you are looking for in a digital camera, flat-screen TV, or netbook, and it comes up with the gadgets that match your requirements.
We have invites for the first 200 people who redeem them here with the promotion code “techcrunchfriends.”
Measy’s CEO Ian Manheimer is the creator of Glassbooth, a site which helped voters pick candidates based on taking a quiz about their political views and then matching those up with candidates’ positions. Measy takes a similar approach to helping people make decisions about what gadgets they should buy. → Read More
Squidoo founder and author Seth Godin has backed down on creating company pages by default as part of their new ‘Brands In Public’ service that launched a few days ago. The idea behind the new service is that brands are able to track feedback from customers on a public ‘lense’ (aka. a web page).
Feedback is aggregated from multiple sources, but mostly twitter and mostly by matching against the brand name. The concept itself is not an evil one, but Squidoo setup feedback pages for over 200 brands at launch without the express permission from the vast majority of them. The hitch was that if a brand wanted to control the lense and the feedback, they would have to pay Squidoo $400 a month – and it was that part of the deal that made a large number of people rightfully angry. → Read More
China Unicom, the country’s second-largest carrier, will offer the iPhone starting in mid-October. And in pricing that is rather the opposite of the low upfront cost and high monthly pricing at AT&T, they’ll be selling the device almost at cost and pairing it with plans that make ours look positively extortionate.
Prices will start around $300 for an 8GB iPhone 3G, which seems a bit high until you consider the fact that they’ll be paying less than $20 per month for service. → Read More
When Apple news is thin, you do what you can. Some sites divide what little rumor and hearsay there is into tiny portions and dole them out like communion wafers to the Apple faithful. Maybe that’s overstating a bit. On reflection, no — no, it’s not. In this case, we had a little speculation last night that maybe the long-dormant iMacs would be getting a refresh within the next month. And in the morning, what is this? New theories that perhaps Apple’s other neglected hardware would be receiving a bump? Inconceivable! → Read More
Motorola has got a thing for four letter words. No, no – not those words. You know, device names like RAZR, ROKR, etc. Thus, it came as no surprise that its first entry into the Androidian landscape, which was announced earlier this month, is yet another four letter word: CLIQ. Although not expected to ship until sometime next month, the ever-resourceful Boy Genius has got his hands on a pre-release CLIQ and has been kind enough to share some insights. → Read More
So, this is what that Halo anime series, Halo Legends, looks like. It needs to be said that my knowledge of anime is more or less non-existent (I saw Akira once when I was around 16-years-old. It didn’t change my life.), so pardon my inability to critique it with any degree of competence. → Read More
Well this is interesting. Fresh off a wave of good karma following the revelation that it was not behind blocking Google Voice on the iPhone, AT&T appears to be looking to draw the ire of consumers with regards to the service once again. The telco giant has sent a letter (attached below) to the FCC asking them to investigate Google Voice. Yes, you read that right. But this actually goes much deeper than that. Once again, this is about net neutrality.
While AT&T may have not blocked Google Voice from being on the iPhone, it clearly does not like the service (no surprise there). From AT&T’s letter:
According to Google, non-discrimination ensures that a provider “cannot block fair access” to another provider.9 But that is exactly what Google is doing when it blocks calls that Google Voice customers make to telephone numbers associated with certain local exchange carriers.
Accepting credit cards is crucial for any merchant but the obvious downside of this are the associated credit card processing fees which can amount to significant chunks of change. Usually fees range anywhere between 2 percent and 4 percent. Startup TransFS is hoping to help businesses sort through this issue by offering a comparison shopping website for credit card processing fees.
On TransFS, businesses submit information about their transactions including the percentage of online, in-store, mail-order and phone transactions; the merchant’s current credit-card processing fees; and monthly volume of sales and average transaction size. This is all variable information used by processing firms when determining fees for a particular merchant. → Read More
