Today is Cyber Monday, a fact you may have already noticed. Oh, and tomorrow, I hereby declare, is Awesome Tuesday. Because if you look at the history of Cyber Monday, then you realize that my creating Awesome Tuesday two seconds ago is just as valid and authentic as the existence of Cyber Monday. → Read More
With the rise of Twitter, we’ve also seen the rise of link shorteners (standard URLS take up too many characters). The king of the link shorteners right now is bit.ly, which is the default shortener on Twitter and accounts for more than 75 percent of all short URLs on the service. Every month, bit.ly shortens about 1 billion links. For spammers, that’s one huge honey jar.
The flip side of a short link like this one—http://bit.ly/6PwhcP—is that you can’t tell by looking at it what website it redirects to. It could be a TechCrunch post, or it could be a spam site. There’s no way to tell the difference when you see the link in a Tweet. (Don’t worry, it’s a TechCrunch post).
The spam problem is getting worse, which is why bit.ly is taking more serious measures to sniff out spam behind its short links. Today it announced it is working with three new services to fight spam and malware: VeriSign’s iDefense, Websense Threatseeker Cloud, and Sophos. → Read More
Want a nice mic for recording your podcast? Talking on Skype? Laying down tracks for your magnum opus, Concerto for Swine and Dancing Girls? Get you a Go Mic. We’re giving one of these mics away to one lucky commenter. → Read More
My first experience with solar energy was in Cub Scouts, when we made a solar-powered hot dog cooker. Unfortunately, solar technology hasn’t advanced terribly much in the intervening decades. At the consumer level, solar power still isn’t particularly useful for very much outside of a few niche markets. i.Tech has a couple of products that make a real effort to bring usefulness to solar power for the average user: the SolarVoice 908 Bluetooth headset and the SolarCharger 906 multi-device charger. → Read More
So this is funny. Yes, Twitter is having downtime issues right now. Yes, again. But that’s nothing new, obviously. What is new is that Twitter being down has also apparently borked the site many people use to check if Twitter is down, downforeveryoneorjustme.
While the site, made by Ryan King, is working for every other site on the web, the image below shows what is returned when you put in twitter.com now. Did I mention King is now a Twitter employee? Beyond meta. → Read More
What we have here is somewhat self-explanatory. The two new Oregon Scientific weather stations provide clock functions along with weather info and are solar powered. Both models feature atomic clocks and a detachable solar panel that recharges the battery. This way, you can know what the weather will be like for your daily tree hugging. → Read More
Short Version $219.94. The price says it all. The TomTom Car Kit is great; it works perfectly, and I loved using it. In fact, I wish I could keep the review unit that TomTom sent me. That said, would I ever spend 2 bills and change on it? Mayyyybe, but it’s unlikely. A standalone TomTom GPS unit can be as cheap as $100, which is half the price of the TomTom Car Kit ($119.95) + TomTom GPS App ($99.99) for the iPhone. Furthermore, it’s hard to justify buying both the hardware and the software when there are cheaper options for both (more on that later). Of course, the product does serve multiple purposes as an in-car iPhone charger, Bluetooth speakerphone and GPS unit. All in all, I was fairly impressed with the device and think those that aren’t turned off by the price might consider its purchase. The convenience of an all-in-one device is compelling. Hit the jump to read on… → Read More
Apparently, like everyone else, the Seattle Times is very interested in trying to figure out what to actually use Google Wave for. But while most are trying to use it for either fun, realtime chats, movie reenactments, or inner-business workings, the Seattle Times have tasked Wave with a larger goal: Catching a killer.
This public Google Wave has been set up to involve the community by offering realtime information that anyone may know about the location of a man suspected of killing four Seattle police officers. A search of a Seattle-area home this morning turned up nothing, but various reports of sightings are coming in, and the Times is opening a Wave to help with the flow of information. → Read More
What is the allure of cheating in video games online? Who takes team deathmatches so seriously that he needs unlimited ammo, no clipping, infinite life, and other assorted nonsense? It’s stupid, and if you try to cheat online you deserve to be banned. So forgive me for not giving a damn about the 2,500 people that were just banned from non-dedicated servers for cheating in Modern Warfare 2. → Read More
Damn it, Canada. As an inhabitant of another country on the same continent, it is my duty to highlight all of the things we have that you don’t. I mean, who needs universal health care when you’ve got truck nuts? Every time someone would bring up the US’ lack of Poutine, I’d counter with the fact that Canada still didn’t have the MiFi hotspot. Alas, I can no longer do so. I’m running out of stuff. → Read More
San Francisco based Eventbrite went prime time earlier this month when they raised $6.5 million from Sequoia Capital, and added partner Roelof Botha to their board of directors. We had a chance to sit down with Botha as well as founders Kevin Hartz and Julia Hartz and talk to them about their business and the fundraising.
We were supposed to talk for just ten minutes, but the interview went on for a solid 25 minutes before we were done. Julia and Kevin talked about Eventbrite’s growth to ten million registered users based only on word of mouth advertising. The company lets people sell (or give away) tickets to events – something only the big venues could do previously through companies like TicketMaster.
The service is free for people who give away tickets, and they charge a small percentage on non-free sales. The free tickets spread the word to new users, who often come back to sell tickets to their own events. This year, Eventbrite will rack up $100 million in gross ticket sales, says the company. The average ticket price, not factoring in the free tickets, is $60. → Read More
As online retailers are witnessed strong Black Friday results, Google is reporting that there was a surge in online shopping searches with “Black Friday” on Thanksgiving day and the Friday after the holiday. Searches with the term “Black Friday” were up by more than 20%, year over year, according to Google. Searches for “black friday sales” and “black friday ads” were both up by more than 50%, year over year.
This data indicates that consumers match deals around this time of the year with Black Friday and that these deals are increasingly displayed online versus on TV or in newspapers. The most fast growing store-specific search terms were “Walmart Black Friday”, “Kohls Black Friday Ad”, “Sears Black Friday Sales” and “Target Black Friday Deals Online.” → Read More
A pico projector with Windows CE OS 5.0 on board? Yes, there are devices like that. Japan-based Lancerlink announced [JP] one of these today, the MPJ-104WCE. What you get is basically an LCOS (3M) projector with a mini computer built into it (the Windows CE is an English version).
The projector produces 10-30 inch pictures with 640×480 resolution and 10 lumens brightness. There are also two 0.5W speakers built into the body. But sized at just 138.5×58.5x25mm, the device also sports a Samsung ARM 9 processor at 400MHz, 64MB of internal memory (up to 4GB with an SD card), a USB port, an SD card interface and native support for MS Powerpoint, Excel and Word files. → Read More
It may not have seen as much hype as it’s big brother, the Moto Droid, but the Verizon Droid Eris is still one helluva handset. Generally coming in at around $99 bucks, it’s one of the cheapest ways to get in on all this Android-hullabaloo – and for one day, it’s even cheaper. And by “cheaper”, we mean free. → Read More
What is it with architects that they feel the need to glom onto the latest buzzwords to justify their projects? A group from M.I.T.’s Senseable City Lab is looking for funding for an ambitious observation deck designed for the 2012 London Olympics. They are calling it the Cloud. It is a “lightweight transparent tower, composed of a ‘cloud’ of inflatable, light-emitting spheres . . . fed by real time information from all over the world.”
The structure is an architectural interpretation of the realtime cloud. Videos of the Olympic events, Twitter and Facebook streams, and other realtime data such as energy usage, Internet traffic, and mobile phone activity will be projected onto LED displays in the Cloud so that people in the Cloud can observe the events from high above London. → Read More
LG has announced a new Windows Mobile 6.5-based smartphone, the eXpo. But unlike other 6.5 smarties on the market, the newest member of the LG family is packing just about everything but the kitchen sink including a 1GHz processor, a built-in fingerprint sensor, and an optional Pico Projector. Maybe they should have named it the LG SwissArmy Knife Phone. → Read More
You know what’s not smart? Tweeting about being on the lam. Who would do such a thing? If you guessed former UFC fighter turned porn star War Machine you’d be correct. → Read More
HTC Hero owners, we feel your pain. Just months ago, you had the hottest Android device in existence. While it’s still one damned-slick piece of mobile on the hardware front, the software — now two builds behind — is beginning to show its age. You wouldn’t believe how many requests I get in the tips line asking if we’ve got any details on when the Hero’s getting the update treatment. We still don’t know when, but it looks like we’ve now got a good idea of what the next Hero update will be: Android 2.1. → Read More
Rumors were swirling that IBM would be acquiring database security company Guardium after the Israeli financial newspaper, TheMarker, reported the acquisition yesterday (translated version here). Big Blue has officially confirmed to TechCrunch that it has acquired Guardium but did not disclose financial terms. TheMarker reported that IBM is shelling out $225 million for Massachusetts-based Guardium.
A subsidiary of Log-On Software, Guardium provides technologies that ensure security of enterprise databases. The startup protects databases for Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and other companies. The company’s technology is installed in more than 450 data centers worldwide. IBM says it will integrate Guardium within IBM’s Information Management Software portfolio. Guardium, which was founded in 2002, has raised a total of $21 million in funding from Cisco, Cedar Fund, Ascent Venture Partners, Stage One Ventures, Veritas Venture Partners and others. → Read More
You might find this suprising, but the top social gaming companies on the iPhone are not the same ones you know of from Facebook and MySpace. Zynga, despite $54.2M in funding, has hardly made a dent on the iPhone. Neither has Playfish, which was recently bought for $300M. Playdom hasn’t done squat, either. Although “the big three” of social gaming are great at online games, they aren’t doing too well on the iPhone. For example, Zynga’s Mafia Wars game hardly hit the top 25 throughout its time on the App Store. → Read More
