Last year I made a habit of calling out manufacturers that released Blu-ray players that didn’t have the latest Profile 2.0 spec. That was last year. But for some odd reason, JVC has introduced a brand new Blu-ray player that confirms to the old Profile 1.1 spec and therefore doesn’t have an Ethernet port or can playback any of the BD-Live features. Oh and this player has an MSRP of $200. → Read More
It’s been some time since I’ve written about Plex, the Mac-specific fork of XBMC that, well, is fantastic. It seems Snow Leopard somewhat borked the application, but the latest release is all fixed up. Have a peach. → Read More
Google has just launched into a surprise roundtable at its music event in Hollywood, where a number of top music executives and artists are discussing the news and the music industry. I’m live blogging my notes below (everything paraphrased).
Guests:
Mos Def
Wendy Nussbaum (UMG)
Steve Savoca (Domino Recording)
Syd Schwartz (EMI)
Mike Shinoda (Linkin Park)
Ryan Tedder (OneRepublic)
MS: We used to be called Hybrid Theory. We settled on Lincoln Park, we went online to see if we could get our URL. We were online early on, changed the name of the band to get URL that would give the fans the most direct link to our fans.
Q: Did you ever think international? Do you think about the French version of the Linkin Park website?
MS: We’re in the process of doing that right now to create an easier experience for fans in Asia and Europe.. → Read More
It seems like when you watch movies where there are scientists out in the field, they inevitably have a hard-case laptop bag that they just set on a rock and open up. Boom, laptop! Well, those big ol’ chrome suitcases may look cool, but they’re a bit unwieldy. Better to get something a little smaller and softer, yet robust enough to withstand a few kicks. The Viper from Booq (not to be confused with the harder Vyper) seems to fit the bill. → Read More
Google has responded to the FCC’s inquiry regarding Google Voice (see document embedded below). There’s been and intense back-and-forth between AT&T, Google, and the FCC over Google Voice’s blocking of some rural telephone numbers. AT&T recently sent a letter to the FCC to undermine Google’s recent argument that it’s blocking exorbitantly expensive calls to some numbers in part because they are associated with sex lines. AT&T’s also thinks that the FCC should consider regulating the search giant on the web as well.
Google response says that its engineers have developed a “tailored solution” for restricting calls to specific numbers engaged in what some have called high-cost “traffic pumping” schemes, like adult chat and “free” conference call lines. Google didn’t want these schemes to exploit the “free nature” of Google voice and over the past few weeks have been trying to locate the source of the problem. Google now says that Google Voice now restricts calls to fewer than 100 specific phone numbers, which Google thinks are part of a traffic pumping scheme. → Read More
[UK] We’d been hearing whispers that Atlas-backed discount fashion buying club Koodos was looking at its ‘options’, but we’ve confirmed today that it was yesterday acquired by the e-trader group which specialises in the onwards sale of surplus stock. The price is undisclosed but it’s a cash and shares deal which we understand to be in the vicinity of less than £250,000. In other words, that is pretty cheap, especially for a VC-backed business. It had one undisclosed round from Atlas in June 2006 but has been looking for £3-6m follow-on funding since the beginning of the year. While the Koodos operational team is staying on, CEO Miriam Lahage will be departing after a handover period. E-Trader Group CEO Harvey Sinclair, a serial entrepreneur with exits, told me the sale came about because Atlas is “backing the E-Trader story. We’ve been talking to them at length and they buy into it heavily.” However our sources say Koodos had run into severe trading difficulty recently, hence the sale. We put it to both Atlas and to E-trader Group that we understood Koodos had in fact had gone into administration. Atlas denied this. Sinclair told us Koodos had been “looking at a financing structure which allowed their business to work more efficiently.” → Read More
I’m here at Capitol Records in Hollywood, California for a special media event where Lala, MySpace, iLike, Google and others are officially announcing the launch of Google’s Music Onebox — a special new kind of Google search result that will let you instantly stream songs directly from Google’s results page. We first broke the news of the feature’s impending launch last week, though none of the companies involved have been willing to comment on it until now.
Here’s how the new feature will work: Onebox will let users stream songs directly from Google’s search result page, and will also include additional content like tour information and music videos (the actual content shown will vary depending on the partner — more on that later). Enter a query for “Use Somebody”, and you’re going to see a small ‘play’ button in your search result that lets you stream the Kings of Leon song in its entirety, or buy the song. Clicking on the play button will bring up a small browser window that will immediately start streaming your song. → Read More
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/BTRPlayer.swf?file=http://www.blogtalkradio.com%2fCrunchGear%2fplay_list.xml&autostart=false&shuffle=false&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/FlashPlayerCallback.aspx&width=630&height=105&volume=80&corner=rounded Here are some of the topics from today’s podcast… Google Maps Navigation Verizon Droid Is Rock and Roll dead? The future of ad-supported/sponsored content LISTEN: Show Link | RSS Feed | iTunes Link → Read More
Ben Huh is usually holed up in his Seattle-based company Pet Holdings Inc—better known as the company that brings you I Can Has Cheezburger?, the FAIL Blog and nearly thirty other sites that aim to make you laugh for five minutes every day. But he’s down in the Bay Area this week to promote the launch of three new books “How to Take over the World: A LOLCat Guide 2 Winning,” “Graph out Loud,” based on GraphJam and FAIL Nation: A Visual Romp through the World of Epic Fails.” A big party is happening tonight.
Annoyingly, Huh is also running around San Francisco this week doing all kinds of media interviews. But here are some things I pried out of him yesterday that you may not know. → Read More
We’re here today at the Facebook Developer Garage being held at the company’s headquarters in Palo Alto, CA. The point of this rather large meetup for developers and the press is to talk about the future of Facebook’s Platform. As such, they’re calling this event the “Roadmap Edition.” As we noted earlier, big changes are expected to be announced today that will alter the way developers interact with Facebook’s Platform; this is D-Day.
Below find our live notes (paraphrased):
Mark Zuckerberg: Thanks for coming to our first ever edition of the roadmap developer garage. The Platform and Connect are quick becoming the most important part of our strategy today. We hope what we’re doing will help foster innovation. → Read More
A new law in Ontario, Canada has banned the use of handheld devices while driving. This includes cellphones, GPS devices, MP3 players, etc. Slight problem: the law is broad enough that you can construe it to include doing things like changing the radio station or reaching for a cup of coffee. → Read More
A few weeks back, we shared a video by Swedish Design agency Ocean Observations which demonstrated a rather clever (but arguably useless) concept: Exposé for the iPhone homescreen. We shared that video on a whim, and the resulting conversation and comments were outstanding. As a result, the same design firm has since churned out two more iPhone-related concept videos: Coverflow Multitasking, and Dashboard Widgets. Just like the last time, we’re left wondering: would you use these? → Read More
The ban hammer is about to smash UK file-sharers. Legislation there is set to take effect in April that would, as a last resort, kick illegal file-sharers off the Internet. Very exciting~! → Read More
When Google announced what is clearly the best car navigation application on any mobile today, it didn’t just take a swipe at GPS navigation companies such as Garmin and TomTom. It took a swipe at Apple.
Beyond the advanced features of the Google Maps Navigation app (voice search, crowdsourced traffic data, Street View navigation), what makes the app noteworthy is that it launched on Google’s own Android phones first rather than on the iPhone. By doing so, Google is putting Apple on notice that it is no longer reserving its best apps for the iPhone. This is but the latest sign of a growing rift between Apple and Google. → Read More
Google Powermeter, the search giant’s home energy monitoring tool, has launched in the UK today. While the environment stands to benefit – research shows that when users have access to detailed information about their energy use, household energy bills are reduced by up to 10% – Cambridge, UK-based AlertMe should also do quite well out of this. The VC-backed company has become Google’s first device partner for the service. AlertMe is backed by leading clean technology investors including Good Energies, Index Ventures, SET VP, and Vantage Point, and in June 2009 announced an £8 million Series B round of funding bringing the total amount raised to £13 million. Users who want to take advantage of Google Powermeter can purchase a self-installable AlertMe Energy kit and accompanying subscription (£69.00 for the hardware and then £2.99 per month). They’ll then be able to access their energy consumption data on Powermeter, sort of like Google Analytics but for energy, visualised on their iGoogle home page. AlertMe also provides its own web-based ‘dashboard’ that can be accessed wherever there is an Internet connection, including through mobile phones. → Read More
One of my favorite games of all time, Catan, is now available as a $5 download for the iPhone and iPod touch. As board games go, The Settlers of Catan is a psycho-erotic thriller capable of hooking even the most un-hookable of gamers. → Read More
Brightkite was one of the early players in the location-based social networking game, which is a space that is growing rapidly. Originally a TechStars startup, Brightkite was bought in April by Limbo and has been flying a bit under the radar as a fresh crop of location-based services have popped up including the new favorite, Foursquare.
A few weeks ago, the startup launched Brightkite 2.0 for the web, which was chock full of new and noteworthy features. Today, the much-awaited Brightkite 2.0 for the iPhone, which is free, hit the app store. → Read More
The Future University (cool name) in Hakodate, Northern Japan, presented the Ikabo, a giant squid robot at the Digital Contents Expo in Tokyo (that ended on Sunday). Not only is the robot tall (2.2m), cute and pretty heavy (weight: 200kg), but it also mimics your hand movements via Wii motion controllers. → Read More
Scrapblog, a startup that lets you build rich Flash-based online scrapbooks, is launching a nifty new tool today, called QuickMix, which lets users create personalized scrapbooks in minutes. The launch is coupled with the announcement of Jill Braff as the new CEO and president of Scrapblog.
QuickMix lets users upload photos from a variety of photo sites and applications, including Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Picasa and more. You can then select a pre-built “kit,” which is a layout and design for the online scrapbook. Kits have a variety of styles, including designs catered to weddings, birthdays, travel, holidays, and babies. For example, you could select a Halloween-themed kit for photos from the holiday. Then, QuickMix will instantly produce a digital scrapbook tailored to the photos themselves.QuickMix’s technology will crop all the photos and organize the images vertically and horizontally. I demoed the new feature and it’s very quick and easy to use; high-quality, pretty scrapbooks can be made in minutes. → Read More
The somewhat blurry image above is, we believe, a new Digg homepage voting feature that will launch in the near future.
So what is it? It’s not the “Real Time Digg” relaunch that will integrate data from Twitter and other sources. Instead, we believe it is an experimental feature Digg will try out that encourages users to vote on whether a particular upcoming story should make it to the homepage or not.
Digg isn’t talking, so we don’t know much else. The 3/25 numbers on the left are a counter to show how much longer the story will remain on the home page (3 minutes, 25 seconds, based on us squinting at a blow up). It’s notable that users are asked to vote a story up or down without seeing comments or how others have voted.
The identity of the hand is also a mystery. More on this when it launches. → Read More
Barcelona, Spain
New York City
San Francisco, CA
