Next weekend Peyton Manning will lead the Colts to a victory over the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV. Hot new commercials will run and there will be remembrances a-plenty about Katrina. Retailers are hoping that you witness all this on a brand new HDTV. And you might want to think about it, too. After all, right now is the best time of year to buy a high definition TV — as long as you follow these six rules. → Read More
Microsoft has just posted the results of its fiscal 2010 second-quarter, which ended December 31. The company reported $19.02 billion in revenue and diluted earnings of $0.74 per share, beating analyst expectations of revenues of $17.8 billion and $0.59 per share. Operating income was $8.51 billion, and net income was $6.66 billion.
Microsoft says that it sold over 60 million licenses of Windows 7 through the second quarter. Sales were driven by growth in the consumer PC market, which is up over 20% year over year.
The Online services Division reported a 5% year over year decline. Online advertising revenue is down 2%. Microsoft notes that Bing’s marketshare has been up for 7 consecutive months, and that while there is growth in search revenue, display revenue has been hurt by declines in international rates. → Read More
The holidays were good to Amazon, which just announced fourth quarter 2009 earnings. Sales were up 42 percent to $9.5 billion in the quarter, and net income shot up 71 percent to $384 million (or 85 cents a share, well above the analyst consensus of 72 cents). Free cash flow was up 113 percent to $2.9 billion. For the full year, sales were $24.5 billion, and net income was $902 million.
Amazon highlighted the success of its Kindle in its earning release, which is not surprising given all the comparison to the iPad which Apple announced yesterday. The one quote from CEO Jeff Bezos in the release is about the Kindle: “Millions of people now own Kindles. And Kindle owners read, a lot. When we have both editions, we sell 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical books. This is year-to-date and includes only paid books — free Kindle books would make the number even higher. It’s been an exciting 27 months.”
Beyond being vague about how many “millions” of people own a Kindle (is it two million or 20 million?), Amazon also mentions that there are now 410,000 books available on the Kindle. The depth and breadth of that catalog is the Kindle’s greatest strength. → Read More
Oh man, I must be dreaming. Please don’t wake up! Please don’t wake up! Please don’t wake up! A mouse pad with a built-in 10-key number pad AND a three-port USB hub? All for $25?! Yum. → Read More
Kids! Who needs school? Why sit in class learning about nothing important when you could be at home trying to pitch a perfect game in MLB 2K10? If your parents get all bent out of shape about you dropping out of school to play video games, kindly refer them to this post and direct their attention to the following statement: The first person to pitch a perfect game in MLB 2K10 gets a million dollars. → Read More
Two years ago, former Googlers Jason Liebman, Daniel Blackman and Sanjay Raman launched Howcast, a site filled with originally-produced how-to videos on everything from “How to Ice Skate” to “How To Deal With a Mean Boss.” Today, Howcast is streaming 25 million videos a month across its network, which includes its own site, popular channels on YouTube and Hulu, and an iPhone app (iTunes link) which has been downloaded more than one million times. A year ago, the startup was streaming about 10 million videos a month.
To put this in perspective, YouTube streams more than 12 billion videos a month and the next nine video properties on the Web all stream north of 200 million videos a month. But Howcast’s growth is still very respectable for a niche video site. The niche Howcast is going after, however is a very broad one. Informational videos can be applied to practically any topic, are always in demand, and are search-engine friendly. Its YouTube channel alone is in the top 100 channels, with close to 100 million cumulative views so far and 111,000 subscribers. → Read More
One of the arguments “in favor” of illegal UFC streaming just became a little bit harder to defend. The company signed a deal with China’s sohu.com to broadcast events online there. The first event to be streamed will be UFC 109: Relentless, headlined by Randy Couture v. Mark Coleman. No prices were announced. → Read More
Here’s a fun activity to pass the time at work. Well, maybe “fun” is stretching it a little bit but it’s an activity nonetheless. As you’re perusing your favorite tech websites today, hit CTRL-F to bring up your browser’s search function and type in “iPad.” Now try to find which site has gone the most gaga over iPad news by the total number of times “iPad” appears on the front page.
A few front runners, as of around noon Eastern: → Read More
Everyone loves the feeling of a brand new BlackBerry trackball; you slide your finger across it, and it rolls in place like a hamster in a ball on top of a sea of butter. A few weeks later — primarily on the older devices — it starts to get a bit chunky; within months, it feels like the inside of your BlackBerry is filled with sand. → Read More
Suddenly, Apple’s $275 million acquisition of mobile ad company Quattro Wireless makes even more sense than it already did when the deal was announced earlier this year.
Early adopters who will be among the first to unbox and fire up an Apple iPad in a couple of months, will have nearly 140,000 applications readily available from the App Store right out the gate. That’s the approximate number of applications that are currently offered for free or for a fixed fee on the iPhone / iPod Touch App Store, which will soon be known only as the App Store (or under an entirely different moniker, though unlikely). → Read More
Looking to turn your PC into a live video production studio? Ustream has just launched a new desktop application to help make that happen. Today, the company is launching a new desktop client called Ustream Producer that boasts high video quality and editing tools that can help give your streams an added layer of polish. The application is available for both Mac and PC, and you can grab it here.
Now, you’ve always been able to broadcast to Ustream via your web browser, which uses Flash to access you PC’s webcam. But Ustream says that the desktop client offers both increased video quality (you can stream in HD and H.264), and perhaps more importantly, it allows you to create broadcasts that can be far more complex than just a single stream from your webcam. The application includes support for Picture In Picture, which means you simultaneously show two streams at the same time. → Read More
One of the features highlighted on the location-based service Gowalla that I’ve never gotten into is Trips. The idea behind this feature is to give a list of spots to check-in at to complete a certain trip and earn its badge. For example, the Golden Gate Gallop contains 18 stops that you must hit to complete it. It’s a good idea from a game-perspective, the problem is that most of the trips don’t mirror my actual social life, and so I’d have to go out of my way to do them. That is, until today.
Starting today, Gowalla is opening the ability to create trips to all users. Previously, it was only the Gowalla team and a select group of their friends that have made these. To make a trip, you simply have to visit the Gowalla webpage of a spot you want to add to a trip and click the “Add to Trip” button. From here you’ll be able to name your trip, give it a description, and add up to 19 more spots needed to complete your trip. In other words, this makes Gowalla the perfect app for creating your own pub crawl among friends. → Read More
Straight from the source, you can now get the official $45 desktop dock for your shiny new Nexus One. When you dock your phone, the clock automatically launches. Behold the future! → Read More
The Dell Mini 5, Dell’s Android-powered Snapdragon slate, popped up at CES this year but we never got a clear look at it. However, when the CEO of Dell rolls into the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he can show off anything he wants and our boss got a quick hands-on in the Swiss slush.
To recap, the Mini 5 is a 1GHz Snapdragon-powered netpad (did I just coin a phrase?) running Android 1.6 with 5-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 3G mobile. It should be selling for $1,098 before carrier subsidy. → Read More
Hot damn, you guys. Hot damn. Good Old Games — GOG.com — is now selling old Activision games for six bucks a pop. And you know what Activision owns? All the old Sierra games. → Read More
Remember the BlackBerry Magnum? That half touchscreen, half physical keyboard handset that supposedly got nixed in lieu of something better? Good news! → Read More
Walking vehicles, also known as mecha, don’t play a big role in today’s robotics industry, but that might soon change. (You might remember one of the protagonists in Avatar sitting in a mecha, called AMP in the movie, during the final fight.) Now Tokyo-based robot venture Activelink, a Panasonic spin-off company, says it can make one for you, too.
The startup has begun accepting orders for their aptly named Power Loader, a power-amplifying robotic suit that enables humans to carry loads of up to 100kg. Users need to strap their feet to the mecha’s legs and hold the grips to control the two utility arms. They are then able to lift heavy loads as high as 2m and carry them around. → Read More
Open the floodgates, Jimin! We’ve got a rush of tablets coming from all directions. Too bad most of the internet will call them iPad clones even though they were clearly in the works for some time, eh? Just like this $500 MSI 10-inch tablet. → Read More
Do you like novelty keychains? Do you like classic gaming titles such as Street Fighter II? Do you like novelty keychains that produce the sound effects from such classic titles as Street Fighter II? You must! You’re reading CrunchGear! → Read More
Beyond the Rack, a private sample sale site, has raised $2 million in funding from Oleg Tscheltzoff and Oliver Jung, and Montreal Start Up. This brings the startup’s total funding to $4.5 million.
Similar to Gilt, HauteLook and Ideeli, Beyond the Rack is a members-only shopping site that offers steeply discounted (from 50 to 70 percent) on designer brand clothes, accessories and other goods. The site says that it is seeing 4 million monthly unique visitors, with revenue has growing over 50 percent per month. And Beyond the Rack has 600,000 members after only 9 months of operation. → Read More
