Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer visited Silicon Valley on Thursday for his annual meeting with top venture capitalists to talk about Microsoft product strategy. This was his first visit to Silicon Valley since announcing the search partnership with Yahoo in July.
I had a chance to sit down with him just after that event for a hour-long one-one-one interview. In the first 10+ minutes of the interview Ballmer gives his high level thoughts on major Microsoft products and strategies (including Windows, Windows Mobile, Internet Explorer, Bing, Azure, Mesh, Natal and others), competition, the future of search and search marketing, Microsoft’s “three screens and the cloud” strategy, the recent acquisition of Interactive Supercomputing and, yes, even his thoughts on Twitter.
The full video and transcript are below: → Read More
When the FCC took apart the Zune HD, we noted that the test unit had “For our princess” written on the inside of the shell. Nobody knew what to make of it at the time, but now that it’s in the production units it’s clear that it wasn’t a one-time thing. As it turns out, it’s a memorial for a Zune team member who passed away during the device’s development. That was really nice, Microsoft. Just one more reason to love this thing. → Read More
Ski season is rapidly approaching, and resorts will soon be releasing their lift ticket prices (if they haven’t already). But this year, some skiers will have a new option when it comes to buying their tickets: discounted pricing for off-peak days, thanks to a startup called Liftopia. Today the company has annouced that it closed a $1 million Series B funding round led by Erik Blachford (CEO of Terrapass, Former CEO of Expedia) and Amicus Capital, with a number of investors from the company’s Series A round also participating.
Liftopia allows ski resorts to offer variable pricing for tickets based on much how traffic they anticipate seeing on the slopes — in other words, resorts can lower their prices if they think they’re going to have a slow day the same way an airline does if a flight might not fill up. → Read More
Fitness gadget Fitbit was a hit at last year’s TechCrunch50, where it created a ton of buzz and was a runner-up for the top prize. Of course, we all know that it takes hardware companies longer to launch than software startups and since last September, Fitbit has been working tirelessly to refine the product, establish distributions channels and tweak its online platform. Now we won’t have to wait any longer, since Fitbit will officially open up to the public on Tuesday. The site you see currently is the beta version and will feature a redesign as well on Tuesday.
So what does Fitbit do? The sleek little device clips onto your clothing and tracks your movement, sleep and calorie burn throughout the day and night. Fitbit, which costs $99, uses the information it gathers about your movement to help you determine how much exercise you’ve been getting and how many calories you’ve burnt. It can also tell you how many steps you have taken and how well you’ve slept, all based on its internal motion detector. By clicking a little button on the device, you’ll see a small blue LED screen that will alternate between the steps you’ve taken, the calories you’ve burned, your distance, and gives you a gauge of how high your activity level is. This is shown via a small flower that will grow as you exercise more (though I’m told that you will be able to switch your icon). → Read More
This thing, let’s be honest, is not the most elegantly designed handheld device. But seriously, it’s an all-in-one Genesis system with 20 games on it and a 2.4″ screen for $50. I have no problem with that. Do you? I’m waiting to hear back on what games this thing comes with, but you can be sure it’s got Sonic & Knuckles, Ecco the Dolphin, Sonic Spinball, and Golden Axe — plus 16 others. If it’s got Sonic 2 then I’m sold. They’ve got it at Buy.com. → Read More
One sweet day, Canon will unify its naming conventions, and I won’t have to put slashes in post titles ever again. But until that time, we’ll just have to deal with this dual naming nonsense. You may remember the T1i, a camera I advised against getting because of its ridiculous 20 frames per second video mode. The T1 fixes that, but doesn’t appear to change too much else. → Read More
Fluther, a slick service that lets you outsource your questions to other members on the web, has closed a $600k round of seed funding from some of Silicon Valley’s most notable investors. Included in the round were Ron Conway, Naval Ravikant, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and Dave McClure, via FF Angel. Rounding out the roster are Twitter’s Biz Stone and Leonard Speiser (Bix, Twables founder), who are advisors.
Using Fluther is pretty straightforward: you visit the site and ask a question, then wait for other members to answer you in real-time (the site offers a reply system similar to FriendFeed’s that lets you view these responses immediately). Whenever you ask a question Fluther reaches out to other members on the site through Email and (optionally) IM alerts, channeling the questions to members it thinks knows the most about the topic. → Read More
Despite Serkan’s disappointment at the lack of anything particularly new at TGS, there’s still a good amount of new gaming info coming out of there. While the newest and coolest stuff isn’t playable just yet, there are some pretty compelling trailers for the games we’re all looking forward to in 2010. → Read More
While there is often a lot of talk about the downside of URL shorteners being that if they go down, they take your links with them, the much more obvious and real problem is that they very easily mask potentially bad sites. We’ve been seeing this more and more in both public tweets and DMs, but luckily so far most of those have just been worms meant to replicate themselves, rather than really bad viruses. But security software company Symantec released a video today to show some very bad links in action.
As you can see in the video below, clicking on just one link infected a computer a dozen or so times in seconds. Obviously, Symantec’s intention is showing this is to sell their software that helps to protect against these attacks, but the point is still a good one to make. While URL shorteners like Bit.ly have begun warning users about potentially harmful links, others don’t bother. And let’s be honest, most of us click on links from friends regardless of what URL shortener they are using. → Read More
So this is a bike made entirely of bamboo. That’s right – there’s no metal under those tubes. The maker put his entire process on Instructables and seems to be able to ride the thing without it exploding on him. However, he uses epoxy and other stuff to keep it together, which is slightly disconcerting. → Read More
Chippy, over at UMPC Portal, got to spend some quality time with the upcoming Viliv S10 Blade at IDF and seems impressed. That’s saying something as previously he has reviewed the Viliv S5, X70, and currently has in house – like us – the S7. Personally I’m finding that the small form factor of the 7-inch S7 is the perfect netbook size, but some folks might like the bigger 10-inch screen the S10 Blade will offer. Plus, it seems even thinner. It’s going to be a hot netbook, that’s for damn sure. Anyway, hit up the read link and watch the video after the jump. → Read More
PayPal co-founder and Founders Fund Managing Partner Luke Nosek is tackling a new field: DNA sequencing. Nosek sent out an email (which we’ve pasted below) saying that he has joined Halcyon Molecular, a human genome sequencing firm, as founding president.
According to the email, Halcyon will sequence complete human genomes in less than ten minutes and for less than $100. This is significant drop in price and time from existing genome sequencing labs that take weeks and thousands of dollars to process DNA. Nosek writes that he will continue to lead The Founders Fund’s genomics investing, but his primary role will be leading and advising Halcyon as the company progresses and readies for launch. Nosek adds that Peter Thiel, fellow co-founder of PayPal and Managing Partner at Founders Fund will be joining Halcyon’s board. → Read More
Was it the PS2 or PS3 that was banned from Iraq because of fears that Saddam Hussein’s regime would co-opt the system for nefarious ends? Or maybe I made that up? It doesn’t matter. The point is that, yeah, your favorite video game system (well, maybe not the Wii) is pretty damn powerful little computer. So powerful, in fact, that it can be used rather effectively by doctors and researchers. → Read More
This, according to Honda, is the future of personal mobility. (In the future, walking will be seen as passe and uncool.) It’s called the U3-X, and it just debuted in Tokyo. It’s sorta like a Segway, but a little less cumbersome (but just as unusual looking to the layman). → Read More
I’m sure the K700 is really nice. And if it were ever going to come out in the USA, I’d love to take it out some time just to talk, maybe grab some gelato, or whatever. But I’m just not feeling that connection… oh, all right, if you must know, it’s the chin. A strong chin is sexy on some handsets — I hooked up with an original Hero once — but it just doesn’t fit with the rest of the K700. You know what I mean? I think Philips does — check out those pictures, they used “Myspace angles” to hide it. → Read More
This just in: the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers thinks it’s a bad idea for you to talk on your phone while driving if you’re not using a headset. They also think that you shouldn’t text while driving, because that causes you to take your eyes off the road. Well duh? → Read More
Guys, I’m really excited. I’m stoked that Microsoft choose me, ME, to host a Windows 7 Launch Party. That’s right, lame ol’ Burns is going to host a Windows 7 party. I just got my confirmation email saying I was a finalist and to head over to HouseParty.com ASAP. Once I filled out all the steps to create a party webpage and invite my guests, I got the email above confirming I’m the coolest person on Earth. Now all I have to do is wait for my pack of party supplies to arrive, which includes a signature edition of Windows 7 Ultimate thankyouverymuch, and watch those fabulous party instructional videos for pointers. → Read More
Finally, actual PS3 Slim sales numbers. Before all we had were percentages—sales up 300 percent over last week, that type of thing. Anyhow, Sony sold one million PS3 Slims since its launch back on September 1. That’s worldwide, mind you. → Read More
Bing is beginning to find its way onto the iPhone through apps that build on top of its APIs. One that just hit the iTunes Store is an augmented reality app called Robotvision (iTunes link). Like other AR apps, it uses the video camera on the iPhone 3GS, as well as the GPS and the compass to bring up data about nearby restaurants and shops, including reviews. It gets this local business data from Microsoft’s Bing search engine.
Once you find a place nearby, you can call it the business from within the app. A lot of this functionality is already in the current Yelp iPhone app hidden as an Easter Egg, but Robotvision has some nice extra features. For instance, a feature is triggered by looking down at the screen, which shows the business and others like it as pins on a map. You can toggle back and forth between augmented reality view and map view depending on how the phone is positioned. (see video demo below). → Read More
Fitness gadget Fitbit was a hit at last year’s TechCrunch50, where it created a ton of buzz and was a runner-up for the top prize. Of course, we all know that it takes hardware companies longer to launch than software startups and since last September, Fitbit has been working tirelessly to refine the product, establish distributions channels and tweak its online platform. Now we won’t have to wait any longer, since Fitbit will officially open up to the public on Tuesday. The site you see currently is the beta version and will feature a redesign as well on Tuesday.
So what does Fitbit do? The sleek little device clips onto your clothing and tracks your movement, sleep and calorie burn throughout the day and night. Fitbit, which costs $99, uses the information it gathers about your movement to help you determine how much exercise you’ve been getting and how many calories you’ve burnt. It can also tell you how many steps you have taken and how well you’ve slept, all based on its internal motion detector. By clicking a little button on the device, you’ll see a small blue LED screen that will alternate between the steps you’ve taken, the calories you’ve burned, your distance, and gives you a gauge of how high your activity level is. This is shown via a small flower that will grow as you exercise more (though I’m told that you will be able to switch your icon). → Read More
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