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
It was so close I could taste it. Two weeks ago we were ready to publicly launch the CrunchPad. The device was stable enough for a demo. It went hours without crashing. We could even let people play with the device themselves – the user interface was intuitive enough that people “got it” without any instructions. And the look of pure joy on the handful of outsiders who had used it made the nearly 1.5 year effort completely worth it.
Our plan was to debut the CrunchPad on stage at the Real-Time Crunchup event on November 20, a little over a week ago. We even hoped to have devices hacked together with Google Chrome OS and Windows 7 to show people that you could hack this thing to run just about anything you want. We’d put 1,000 of the devices on pre-sale and take orders immediately. Larger scale production would begin early in 2010.
And then the entire project self destructed over nothing more than greed, jealousy and miscommunication. → Read More
You may have noticed things have been a bit quiet on the MobileCrunch front for the past few days. After a few months of nose-to-the-grindstone, the siren call of over-packed plates and family good times stemming from the Thanksgiving holiday was too much; we locked up shop for a few days, headed home, and had a good ol’ vacation. And with that out of the way, we’re back with bellies stuffed and typin’-fingers rested. Expect more stories and faster coverage over the next few weeks, now that my writin’ cells are all recharged. Oh, and be on the lookout for contests – we’ve got some awesome stuff lined up for December. → Read More
In your face, parents all over the world. After pleading with your children to quit rotting their brains with non-stop video game playing, your suggestion of playing a board game instead has backfired on you with the Nintendo edition of Monopoly. → Read More
Digg has poached Keval Desai away from Google as their new Vice President of Product, we’ve confirmed from the company. Desai’s last day at Google is today.
Desai is a long time Google employee, first joining the company in 2003. He’s currently their Director of Product Management and has led development of product/businesses in Google’s advertising business (including AdWords, Syndication & TV Ads).
He’ll be Digg’s first head of product, a responsibility that has been shared at various times by founder Kevin Rose, CEO Jay Adelson and Chief Strategy Officer Mike Maser. And he’s got a big job ahead of him: Digg is hard at work on releasing an entirely new version of the site. → Read More
There is a lot of buzz around SimpleGeo right now. The service, which participated in our RealTime CrunchUp earlier this month, also took home two prizes at the Under The Radar conference just prior to that. And that was a big deal for the company considering it won the audience award even though it’s not exactly the most consumer-oriented project. But people seem to understand that the location space is getting really hot right now, and SimpleGeo, which provides its geolocation infrastructure to other companies, offers one of the best models to capitalize on that. So it should be no surprise that they’ve attracted some big time investors.
SimpleGeo has just closed a $1.5 million seed round of funding, we’ve confirmed. This round, led by First Round Capital, also includes from Redpoint Ventures, Ron Conway, Kevin Rose, Chris Sacca, Joshua Schachter, David Cohen, Debbie Landa, Tim Ferriss, Shawn Fanning, Gary Vaynerchuk, David Lee, and Freestyle Capital. Yes, it’s basically a who’s who in angel investing that is on board now with SimpleGeo. → Read More
So this is how the other half lives, huh? It must be nice to have a house full of $1200 remotes customized with user profiles and home automation controls. Yes, this remote costs $1200 and that doesn’t include installation and yes, you need it to be installed professionally. This isn’t a Harmony remote that can be set up in 10 minutes. But once it’s installed, holy cow, it’s effen amazing. I would call it the perfect remote, but I had two demo units die on me. → Read More
A round-up from Shakil Khan, effectively Spotify’s consigliari today in London opened the kimono a little on where it’s at.
Speaking at the new NOAH Conference in London, the headline points from his talk were that we can, as we expected, see a U.S. launch in Q1 2010 as well as a launch in Germany and China in Q1/2 (so no pressure then). Spotify will also extend from its existing handset deals into premium services on other platforms in 2010. They are talking to TV manufacturers about embedding Spotify into internet-enabled TV sets and Khan said they now get “a call a week” from games console makers which want to add Spotify to their service.
He also went through a round-up of its stats and model to date. → Read More
There were some interesting panel discussion today at the NOAH conference – a new event in London aimed at presented tech companies to the private equity and banking sector – but the plethora of suited and booted attendees were shocked out of their chairs a little when Klaus Hommels, (one of the first angel investors in Skype, QXL and XING and recently a venture partner with Balderton (formerly Benchmark Capital Europe) spoke his mind.
The panel he was on had been beating about the bush on investing in tech startups, until he broke into the discussion to make some salient points:
“Structurally we fucked it up. European tech companies would normally have been picked up by media companies in Europe but they are in such a bad state this is not possible. So before anyone puts money into new companies, we need to ask: who is going to by all the shit in our existing portfolios?!” (I think he might have meant to say ‘stuff’, however…) → Read More
Today is Cyber Monday. It’s like Black Friday but with more indoorsiness. And while Black Friday is more of a brick-and-mortar, you’re-there-in-person type of thing, Cyber Monday is all online and there are far too many stores and deals to completely cover. Here’s a head start on some of the better deals from the bigger sites, though. → Read More
Rumors have been swirling that IBM will be acquiring database security company Guardium after the Israeli financial newspaper, The Market, reported the acquisition yesterday (translated version here). Big Blue is reportedly shelling out $225 million for Israel-based Guardium. This year alone, IBM has acquired six companies, including RedPill Solutions, SPSS, Ounce Labs, Exeros and Outblaze.
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 Market reports that Guardium is profitable, with sales in the tens of millions per year. → Read More
You’re going to have to wait a bit longer to pick up the $260 Nook in some Barnes & Noble retail stores. The lot that was earmarked for the brick and mortar retail market has been redirected to fullfill Internet pre-orders. Those damn early adopters always get all the fun. → Read More
As more consumers turn to the sites like Yelp and Citysearch to find restaurants, it’s important for establishments of all sizes to have a website. While larger restaurants may have more resources to create a sleek site, the mom and pop restaurants need an easy way to create a presence online. GrabMyTable is hoping to be a resource for restaurants to create websites easily as well as a restaurant discovery platform for consumers. We have free lifetime subscriptions for the first five TechCrunch readers and restaurateurs who sign up for GrabyMyTable here.
GrabMyTable was designed with the small restaurant owner in mind who doesn’t have the time or money to put into developing an established site but still wants to maintain an informative website. The platform lets administrators with no HTML knowledge create a site with contact details, photos and videos, menus, specials, and even lets users add a customer review system that can be controlled by the site’s administrator. The service costs $60 per month per site. The startup is also including a consumer-facing directory of all sites created with its technology broken down by city/regional area. → Read More
