Monstrous Company is today announcing that it has raised a $400,000 round of angel funding to compete in the mobile gaming space. And alongside the announcement, the 2009 Founder Institute graduate is formally unveiling its first game, Entranced, an iPhone games that melds music and visuals into a compelling experience.
Fans of games like Tap Tap Revenge, Rez, and even Guitar Hero will probably most appreciate Entranced, as it’s a game that requires you to listen to music and play along on the screen by tapping different colored objects and they come along. It’s all about timing, as you must hit these objects at the right time for them to explode (or “bloom”) and keep you alive. Rather than having objects that you tab as they come down the screen at you, these objects in Entranced can be anywhere, which makes it a bit challenging at times. Each music track features its own custom visuals, the company notes. There are 5 worlds you can play in Entranced with the promise of more to come. → Read More
This just makes sense. Most flat screen’s speakers are the suck, but there are those that don’t want bulky speakers cluttering up their space. Enter the Q-TV 2.1 speaker system. → Read More
The cable companies suck. All of them. Some suck less than others. But they all suck. We need someone to whip them into shape. And that someone may be Apple.
Apple may be on the verge of gaining two key television network agreements, according to The Wall Street Journal. Specifically, CBS and Walt Disney (which runs ABC) are said to be considering a proposal by Apple to offer a subscription-based TV service over the Internet. Presumably, this would work through iTunes like all of Apple-based content, but also presumably it would work over Apple’s Apple TV device (though maybe a new version of it) to bring this content into the living room, where people are used to consuming it. Simply put: This could be huge. → Read More
This is cutting it close. Sony had previously promised to make the 3G-equipped Reader Daily Edition available before Christmas and the company just announced it’s shipping out pre-orders placed before December 20th. The rest? Well, you’re SOL like some folks that ordered the Nook. → Read More
NZXT announced the launch of their new chassis (don’t call it a case) today. The new chassis, named the Hades is aimed directly at the gamer enthusiast market. Out of the box it’s set up for air cooling, however it’s pre-drilled to make it easier to add a water cooling mod later. → Read More
This is the result of a lot of time, passion for electricity and some fancy camera tricks. We like it. Also, if you do try this at home, send us pics. [Thanks for the tip, Marie] → Read More
Looks like Google is really going full steam ahead with its shortened URLs. Only a week after the search giant launched its own Goo.gl short URLs, its subsidiary YouTube is launching its own short URL service: youtu.be.
In a blog post announcing the new feature, YouTube writes that the short URL will be used exclusively for YouTube videos (which means it isn’t as useful to spammers for misdirection). The post also notes that because all youtu.be shortlinks include the YouTube video ID, developers can use that information to surface thumbnails and track how a video is spreading. → Read More
PogoPlug has gotten a fair bit of coverage here at CrunchGear, including a full review of the original PogoPlug device. A new version was recently released, with quite a bit more to offer, so an updated review is in order. The second generation PogoPlug supports up to four USB drives, offers gigabit Ethernet, has mobile clients for the major smartphones, and has a burgeoning independent developer community. That’s a lot for a $129 gadget! → Read More
[UK] William Reeve is one of the most experienced Internet entreprenuers and investors in the UK.
Just check out his speech at GeeknRolla this year.
Today he tweeted about something he’s found out concerning liquidation preferences.
This is basically the procedure for paying investors off in a sale or winding up of the company. It’s the ‘protection’ VCs or Angels expect to have as a baseline of any equity investment.
What he’s found out is this: that it is possible to give investors Enterprise Investment Scheme tax relief *and* liquidation preferences. → Read More
[France] Paris-based video sharing site Dailymotion has released an iPhone app. In fact, two versions exist. A free to download version (iTunes link) that is supported by ads and a premium ad-free version that costs €4.99, which seems a little on the high side, although that depends on how intrusive those ads are to you.
Like the plethora of competing iPhone video offerings, Dailymotion, which as been called the French YouTube but has much wider reach across continental Europe and elsewhere, is at a significant disadvantage compared to the Google-owned video sharing site, which comes pre-installed on the iPhone. That said, the functionality provided by Dailymotion’s iPhone app at least matches YouTube’s offering. → Read More
In the two weeks since it acquired imeem in a firesale, MySpace has been met with waves of frustration from outraged users who blame the company for shutting down the troubled music service. MySpace didn’t really have anything to do with imeem’s sudden shutdown (it would have closed shop anyway), but most users don’t care — they just want their imeem playlists and free streaming music back. Today, MySpace is reaching out to these disgruntled imeem users to let them know that their playlists will soon be restored, brought back to life with free streams from MySpace Music.
We’ve known this was happening for a while now (MySpace even tells users who visit imeem.com that their playlists are being migrated), but it now looks like the site is taking a more proactive approach to keeping its users informed. → Read More
If you have a dog and you’ve thrown a party, you know that dogs generally add a bit of fun to the mix at the beginning of the party but by the end, they’ve mostly eaten food off the coffee table, scared the bejesus out of the three guests who have an irrational fear of dogs, and had a few “accidents” in high-traffic areas like hallways and doorways. → Read More
Video language learning website EnglishCentral recently raised a total of $3.5 million, according to an SEC filing. Part of that funding was $1.38 million from a previous convertible debt round, making the amount raised in the current series A financing $2.1 million. EnglishCentral is backed by Google Ventures and Atlas Venture. The fact that Google Ventures was the lead investor in a seed round last October was reported, but the amount invested was never disclosed. Based on the information in the filing, it is possible that that the seed round was in the form of the $1.38 million convertible note and is now converting into equity with the additional $2.1 million investment.
The filing does not say who the invested in the new round, but Rich Miner of Google Ventures is listed as a director of the company. Google Ventures is Google’s venture arm which launched last April with an initial $100 million and can invest in pretty much anything, although mostly it’s been putting money into clean tech startups. → Read More
A number of pictures have hit the web now showing the Nexus One, aka the Google Phone, in the flesh. But there haven’t been too many showing its packaging, and it getting unboxed. Today, some Twitpics shared by one user show those. As a bonus, he also shows off a bit of its HTC-innards, and even shared a nice little video of the device in action.
The Nexus One is expected to be released early next year sold both unlocked from Google and in partnership with at least one major carrier. Plenty of Googlers already have the device and have been going around all over the country showing it off. There was previously a video of it booting up, but apparently Google made the YouTube user take it down. → Read More
It’s no secret that the D3s is an excellent camera. But I would have thought NASA would choose something a little more specialized for, you know, space. But it looks like the D3s is going to do just fine, since they just bought eleven.
Obviously there’s the vacuum and infinite cold of space to think of, so these cameras will have special enclosures and other equipment; it’s not like they’re just stopping by Best Buy on the way to the shuttle. → Read More
For those of you who have graduated from college in the past decade, you may want to relive the glory days of playing Super Smash Bros. until 4AM, except this time you’ll just skip an entire day of work instead of a morning class or two. On the plus side, at least you live in a marginally cleaner apartment now. → Read More
Love it or hate it, Google Wave is proving to be a great way for people to express themselves creatively in the form of videos. We’ve seen it with Pulp Fiction and Good Will Hunting. We’ve seen it with the Declaration of Independance. And now we have a 2009 year-in-review Google Wave video.
There’s not much to say other than this is really well done. It was created by Whirled Interactive, the same group that made the movie Waves. These guys are good. → Read More
Appolicious, a comprehensive iPhone app directory with a social twist, is on a roll. The startup just raised $1.5 million in funding last week and is now launching a free iPhone app that compliments its web platform.
The Appolicious iPhone app will recommend apps for you based on ratings, reviews, comments and will also let users review and rate apps from the phone itself. Appolicious pulls in professional reviews about each app and also provides you with lists about the most popular apps on its network. You can also keep track of all of your apps and share your apps and recommendations with your social graph via Twitter and Facebook.The iPhone app is similar to fellow iPhone app Chorus. → Read More
When Facebook bought FriendFeed a few months ago, no one was really sure what would happen to the service. The acquisition was mainly for FriendFeed’s talent, so there was much concern that FriendFeed would wither. And to an extent it has. But, as it’s proving today, it still can serve some purpose for Facebook: A testing ground for new technology.
As Facebook’s David Recordon writes today on the Developer Blog, the development team has implemented a prototype version of the new OAuth WRAP specification on FriendFeed. One of FriendFeed’s co-founders, Bret Taylor, who is now Facebook’s Director of Product Management for Platform, also writes at length about it on his own blog. The basic gist is that Facebook decided to test out implementing it in FriendFeed so that they could get feedback from anyone in the developer community that wants to try it out. → Read More
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