Ah – another day, another Android rumor. As Android fleshes itself out into the torrential go-to OS for smartphone manufacturers that we’ve all hoped it would, we can expect to see more and more Android rumors rambling about. In other words,
According to TheUnlockr, the phone you’re looking at above is none other than HTC’s first Snapdragon-powered Android phone, the Passion for Verizon. That seems a bit strange for a couple of reasons: → Read More
Not much info on this yet, but NEC is apparently preparing a mobile PC that’s reportedly as “capable as a personal computer” for business customers. The yet to be named device features three main buttons and a 7 to 8-inch LCD display (which appears to be a touch screen). Sorry, the small picture is all that’s available at this point. → Read More
Twitter’s growth these days seems to be coming from abroad. ComScore data shows a 6.7 percent jump from August to September in worldwide vistors to 58.4 million (which translates to 949 percent increase from a year ago). The 20.9 million visitors from the U.S., in contrast, has remained flat since June.
These numbers do not include mobile or desktop app usage. But if Twitter hopes to become the first Web service to reach one billion users, it had better speed up its growth. Facebook, which is outgrowing Twitter in the U.S. even on a percentage basis, had an estimated 411 million visitors worldwide in September (up 5.5 percent from August). And Google is at 879 million unique visitors globally, according to comScore. → Read More
[UK] The failure of BT Workspace, one of the usual pathetic corporate attempts to try and produce a collaborative working platform, has left a gaping whole for those small businesses that used it. It’s been overtaken by other products, notably those from startups like Huddle. But what should former customers do? US-based SMBLive which had run the BT Workspace, has decided to try and offer an alternative. So they are partnering with UK-based Glasscubes, offering former Workspace users a new Glasscube account. → Read More
Adaptive Blue’s Glue is a nifty Firefox add-on that uses semantic technology to understand the subject of the page you are on and then shows you via a bar at the bottom of your browser whether your friends have commented or liked the item anywhere on the Web. Glue works for movies, books, games, restaurants, wines, stock charts, and lets you share your likes with friends on Facebook (via Facebook Connect) and on Twitter. Until now, Glue tried to show you everything at the bottom of your browser on related pages, which can be obtrusive and annoying to the browsing experience. Today, Glue is branching out from just a plug-in to being a full-fledged destination site with a social product recommendation stream from your friends.
Glue’s destination site, GetGlue.com, is a recommendation network for people with the same interests in books, music, movies and other products. Starting later today, the site will offer a stream of suggestions based on user interests, friends activity and things that are popular with all of Glue’s users. The site is integrated with Glue’s revamped browser plug-in to get suggestions in context on sites like Amazon, Wikipedia, Last.fm, Netflix, Wine.com and Citysearch. → Read More
There is cool and then there is cool. Alright, I guess this isn’t that cool — it seems sort of dangerous, after all — but it’s still neat. Neat is a good way to describe iDriver, an iPhone app that turns regular automobiles into full size remote control cars. Yup. Full. Size. Remote. Control. Cars. → Read More
If you think about it, you’ll probably only need to hang your flat panel TV on the wall once. Maybe twice. Maybe three times if you really move around a lot, like in the middle of the night when you hear a knock on your door and thank god you slept in your clothes because there’s only enough time to put on a pair of Velcro shoes and grab your 40-inch TV. → Read More
TomTom’s iPhone car dock is now available from the U.S. Apple Store for $120 with a shipping time of 2 to 3 weeks. You’ll recall that the actual TomTom iPhone app runs for $100 on top of that. → Read More
Get out your buying wallets because the Palm Pixi is coming to Sprint stores on November 15. Pricing details are as follows: It will cost just $99.99 with a two-year service agreement, after a $50 instant rebate and $100 mail-in rebate and be available at Sprint stores, online at www.sprint.com, through telesales at 1-800-SPRINT1, and at Best Buy, RadioShack and select Wal-Mart stores. To refresh your memory, the Palm Pixi is the second WebOS phone, this time with a Treo-esque keyboard. → Read More
In just about every other movie or TV show we watch, at least one of the characters (if not half the cast) is rocking the iPhone. For example: Have you seen Chuck? If not, you definitely should — it’s a great show — but it has more Apples than Granny Smith.
Sooner or later, one of these shows is going to have a reason to destroy an iPhone on camera. Up until now, the prop folks have only read had two options: Smash a real iPhone to pieces, or recreate the iPhone in one-off prop form. Depending on the size of the production, either of those options might be a bit too pricey. Enter: the iPhone dummy. → Read More
Earlier this month TC writer MG Siegler wrote a post called The Speed of Share, where he noted that sharing content to Facebook wasn’t as good an experience as it was for many of the various Twitter services like Tweetmeme. Today, that balance changes a bit: Facebook has just launched a new version of Facebook Share, which includes such niceties as a live counter that tells you how many times an item has been shared. We’ve just rolled it out to TechCrunch as well. Try it out above!
Along with the improved look of the Share Button, Facebook Share now offers publishers detailed analytics, allowing you to see how many times a link has been shared, as well as actions that occur on Facebook itself, like the number of comments and Likes it’s received as well as the number of times people have clicked on the link back to your site. → Read More
Okay, so Apple just updated the Mac Mini, iMac, and totally redesigned the white MacBook. But what about the MacBook Pros? PC manufacturers are already stuffing Intel Core i7 and i5 CPUs into their flagship notebooks, but the MacBook Pros are still rocking Core 2 Duos. That might change soon according to the OS X 10.6.2 update. → Read More
Last week, Volkswagen “launched” the new 2010 GTI via an iPhone App. This week, famous rock band Alice in Chains launches its new album via an iPhone App. It comes out tomorrow, and includes the album itself, along with photos, news, videos, etc. Think of it as a bonus DVD, back in the early days of when the record labels were trying to figure out how to get people to buy CDs. → Read More
Good old “Two-Fist” Bill Keller, executive editor of the NYT, dropped the Apple bomb at a pay-vs.-free talk at an “off-the-record” staff meeting which, luckily, was been recorded for posterior. His talk mostly revolves around how the NYT will survive the web, itself an important and fascinating topic. However, the Internerds aren’t happy with all of that. Keller, probably tipped off by his staff, mentions the “Apple slate.”
You see, after hemming and hawing about all this “digitalization” of the computer nerds with all their Kindles and ebooks and supercomputers he lets loose with this rocking little piece of fluff:
“… we need to figure out the right journalistic product to deliver to mobile platforms and devices. I’m hoping we can get the newsroom more actively involved in the challenge of delivering our best journalism in the form of Times Reader, iPhone apps, WAP, or the impending Apple slate, or whatever comes after that.”
BLAM! WAP! When a man past a certain age plops the word WAP next to the words “impeding Apple slate,” you can be sure said man knows nothing on either topic. → Read More
As the threat of the swine flu (otherwise known as H1N1) pandemic become more serious and President Obama declares a national emergency over the rapidly spreading virus, Harvard Medical School is hoping to help educate people with its new iPhone app. The Swine Flu app, which is currently available on the app store, costs $1.99.
The Swine Flu Application includes videos, animations and text that allow you to learn the basics about swine flu, how to reduce the risk to you and your family, and how to prepare your business for the pandemic. The app also features real-time updates and news from Harvard Med School about H1N1. → Read More
The Koike Laboratory from the University of Electro Communications in Tokyo was responsible for one of the most spectacular booths at the Digital Contents Expo that ended in Tokyo yesterday. They developed an “augmented tabletop video game with pinching gesture recognition”. The device is basically a touch screen running an action game.
Video after the jump. → Read More
Unity Technologies, the San Francisco company behind the eponymous multi-platform game development platform, has now closed its first round of funding. The Series A financing was led by Sequoia Capital like we reported last week and apparently also included some Silicon Valley notables like David Gardner, the CEO of Atari, and Diane Greene, founder and former CEO of VMware. → Read More
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