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
Hot London-based live music startup Songkick launches a new feature today allowing users to share their experiences of gigs. Users can now connect their Songkick account to their Twitter account and auto-tweet any gigs they plan to go to. That’s not that big a deal. What is pretty interesting however is how they’ve integrated Twitter to bring a realtime stream to their service. When a user goes to a show, Songkick automatically pulls in tweets that they write during the concert as realtime, live reviews. The tweets are from actual gig-goers, making this way more valuable than just pulling in generic artist searches. This looks like the first time anyone has done this. Since Songkick knows which gigs you’re attending via your Songkick gig calendar, once you’ve connected your account with Twitter it searches your twitter stream during the day of the gig for a mention of the artist, the venue or the hashtag #songkick. → 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
Simply amazing. I had no idea that such a transportation vehicle existed for standard roads. But sure enough, Fagioli manufactures the beast and calls it a Self Propelled Modular Transporters (SPMTs). → Read More
It’s not a Windows 7 Party without some tunes, right? Thankfully Microsoft has created a set of commercials with catchy beats, nice visuals, and no stilted, low-paid actors apparently preparing to get it on in the worst Cinemax late night movie ever. Enduserblog has all of the videos for your perusal but I picked out a few more good ones after the jump. → Read More
It’s been a big week for European entrepreneurship, what with 20+ startups emerging at Seedcamp and Dopplr getting picked up by Nokia (or does it just feel that way since I’m here with GeeksOnAPlane for the first time in four years?).
In any case, Seedcamp’s six winners were announced earlier today. If you’re not familiar with Seedcamp, it’s a startup mentorship and funding program for European entrepreneurs that shares basic tenets with US-based Y Combinator and TechStars, among several others. I had the opportunity to sit down on Wednesday with Seedcamp founder Saul Klein and ask him about a variety of topics ranging from the idiosyncrasies of European entrepreneurship to Spotify, smart energy, and the real-time web. In addition to founding Seedcamp, Klein is a partner at Index Ventures and a founding partner at The Accelerator Group (TAG).
A transcript of the interview follows below. → Read More
Well, it looks like we won’t have the infamous “Laptop Burka” to kick around anymore. The owner of the company contacted us to let us know that they are pulling the plug, due to being “murdered” in the press. Their website is down as of this posting. → Read More
People always send in tips about Steve Jobs‘ Mercedes being spotted (usually parked at some weird angle or in the handicap spot) at Apple HQ in Cupertino, CA. But today we have an even better Apple parking lot tip.
Just look at the license plate of the car that was parked at Apple HQ this morning. For those non-religious readers, or those less versed in comedy, I’ll go ahead and spell it out for you. WWSJD stands for What Would Steve Jobs Do? — a take on the popular religious meme WWJD? which stands for What Would Jesus Do? → Read More
Lets say you’ve got way, way too much money. You’ve dumped it out of planes, shot it out of cannons, swam in it Scrooge McDuck style – but now you’re bored. What else is there to do? Well, if you also happen to have absolutely no sense of shame, you can drop some (read: $240,000) of that cash on a fully glitzed BlackBerry Curve 8900. First, they replaced the outer casing with solid 18-carat gold – then, because that wasn’t enough, they went ahead and decked it out with 4,459 brilliant cut diamonds. The company behind the bling, Alexander Amosu LTD., says that they’ll only be pushing out three of these – one of which has already been snatched up. Hey, mystery buyer – wanna hang out? [CIO via CrackBerry] → Read More
It’s Friday. You probably have loads of work but no motivation. I know that feeling. So why not fire up VLC and watch videos Matrix-style. → Read More
The Averatec N3400 is an ultraportable notebook with a 13-inch screen, “aluminum-clad” shell, external DVD burner, and 3.8-pound body weight. Priced at $799, it’s got a lot to offer. → Read More
Do you know who Lily Allen is? I sure as hell don’t, nor do I care to know who she is. I mean, I know who she is now: she’s some musician who is against piracy. Good for her, great. Years from now, Future People will erect a statue of her and put it in the middle of New York harbor in order to honor her bravery. It’s the least we can do, right? Yeah, well, it seems Lily Alen isn’t just brave, but she’s also monumentally hypocritical. Again, good for her, I don’t care. → Read More
