[UK] Finding a parking space in major cities across the UK can be a nightmare. Now a new iPhone app from Manchester-based digital agency Stardotstar hopes to make things a little easier.
Nosey Parker enables users of Apple’s smartphone to find the nearest car park to their current position and the cheapest too. → Read More
The last time I ever dealt with a compost pile was back in elementary school science class with an over-zealously earth-minded teacher. While I could never find that much enjoyment from decaying matter, Japanese design firm Bakoko has created an interesting greenhouse heated by various compost chambers in the walls. → Read More
Apple is getting more prudish and pulling sexy apps from iTunes. One of the new rules is no more bikini apps, unless you happen to be Sports Illustrated (or FHM or Playboy). Sports Illustrated, for instance, just released its 2010 Swimsuit app on iTunes on February 9, before the ban really started. The SI Swimsuit app is filled with pictures of bikini-clad models.
If you fire up iTunes right now, you will see the SI Swimsuit app being promoted on the main App Store homepage. It is currently the No. 1 Sports app, the No. 13 free app, and the No. 35 Top Grossing app (you have to pay $1.99 to unlock all the free photos and videos). FHM’s $1.99 app is also filled with bikini and panty pics via its “Girl of the Week” and “Non-Stop Honeys” features. It also offers videos with titles such as “Young and Hardly Innocent” and “Lucy in Naughty Nighties.” The Playboy app is similarly salacious. Yet other non-name-brand bikini apps such as Bikini Blast are nowhere to be found on iTunes anymore. → Read More
I’m testing out JustUnfollow, a new Twitter app from Twi5. The idea is simple – sign in to Twitter via OAuth and a list of people pops up that you follow on Twitter but don’t follow you back. If that makes you angry and insecure, you can then unfollow some or all of those people.
I ran it through my @arrington Twitter account and a few dozen people popped up. Top of list was TechCrunch employee David Diaz. Mocking ensued, and frankly I was hurt that someone on Team TechCrunch had decided I wasn’t worthy of a follow.
But there’s a problem. @davidjamesdiaz does follow me, as do many of the other people on the list.
We’ve notified Twi5 of the error. So go ahead and try this if you want to, but until they fix it, don’t start any unnecessary fights until you double check the results. Check out FriendOrFollow as well, which seems to have a better success rate. → Read More
Acer recently announced its growing presence in the Android realm and Rogers was quick to snap up the manufacturer’s latest device – the Liquid e. If you can get past the drug-related name, the handset doesn’t seem to sound so bad on paper. → Read More
UN Under-Secretary-General Achim Steiner gave a talk at an environment protection conference in Bali describing a growing problem among developing nations: e-waste. While places like China and India already have their own problems with informal e-waste recycling, the UN expects to see the same intractable problems surface in Africa and Latin America while levels of trash will double or triple in already problem-plagued countries. What does this mean? Generally it means that entire swathes of the developing world will soon become e-waste producers and recyclers. As folks in developing counties begin buying computers, TVs, and fridges the e-waste problem is compounded by population and horrible recycling techniques and the refusal by organizations like the CEA to back forced recycling programs in already developed areas. → Read More
Following the disastrous earthquake in Haiti earlier this year, a number of web companies have been setting up special programs to try and do their part to help. Twitter has been one of the most active, as the company has made great use of its social graph to get the word out on how to help through donations and other means. Now they’ve done something else.
Twitter was able to strike a deal with Digicel to bring free SMS tweets to Haitian citizens (who use that carrier). Previously, people in the country would be charged a messaging fee each time they tweeted, so obviously this will help them communicate with the outside world a little easier. And it’s very simple to set use even if you don’t have a Twitter account yet. As co-founder Biz Stone writes today on the company blog → Read More
“Bump is just a gimmick for young people” says DubMeNow CEO Manoj Ramnani. DubMeNow (“Dub” for short) is a real business, he implies, and he can prove it. Dub has been on a tear the last few months in all aspects of their business. They’ve got real revenue: over $2.7M projected for this fiscal year. They’ve raised over $2.8 million in funding thus far, led by Syncom Ventures with other undisclosed angel investors participating. Furthermore, they have found traction in the education market and are soon-to-be deployed to over 750 Universities as a contact-sharing option for students. Their mobile application, DubMeNow, has been downloaded nearly 1 million times – still dwarfed by the 7 million of their Y Combinator- and Sequoia-funded competitor, Bump. Bump and Dub are in a battle to become the de facto contact information-sharing application for mobile phones. Bump is clearly kicking ass in terms of users, and much of that is due to the love they’ve gotten from Apple and through PR. But Manoj doesn’t care – he argues that real revenue and partnerships are going to serve Dub better in the long-term. That statement may be suspect, but there’s no doubt that Dub is making headway. → Read More
Back when we first got word that the HTC Desire was essentially a slightly upgraded Nexus One with a bit of customization on HTC’s part, we knew there wasn’t much to worry about for recent Nexus One purchasers; the very vast majority of the Desire’s upperhand was all in the software, which was bound to be hacked over eventually.
What we didn’t know, however, was just how fast it would happen. → Read More
When the Google Nexus One was announced, there were several cool new features unveiled for the device and Android 2.1: interactive wallpapers, 3D graphics and support for Google Earth. The latter wasn’t available at the time, and there was no date set, but it looks like it’s available on Android Market now. → Read More
Pentax released their seventh generation SLR, the K-7, last summer, and it turned out to be a great camera. And today Hoya Pentax in Japan announced [press release in English] a limited edition of the K-7 (simply dubbed “Limited Silver”) whose main selling points are a silver-colored body and a “golden section ratio” focusing screen. → Read More
Do you follow more than 100 people on Twitter? If so, have you ever tried to manage them on Twitter.com? It’s awful. Really awful. They make you go through page after page of names in no real order (other than how recently you added them). If you want to remove some people you followed years ago, it’s a huge pain. Seesmic has just made a much better way.
The new Seesmic Web app, launching today, brings with it a new main tab: Contacts. As you can guess, this is a contact manager for Twitter that makes pruning your Twitter contacts a breeze. It also gives you plenty of other interesting information about your followers, those who follow you, and all your Twitter Lists, on the fly. For example, for each person you can not only see all their Twitter profile information, but also their Twitter stats from MrTweet which tell you how often they tweet and who they contact the most (publicly) on Twitter. → Read More
If you run a Website that uses DoubleClick’s DART ad server or Google Ad Manager, those products just got a major upgrade and rebranding. The DART brand is being retired and it will now be called DoubleClick For Publishers. Meanwhile, Google Ad Manager (which targets smaller Websites) will now be called DFP Small Business. With the rebranding, DoubleClick is rolling out a new dashboard to manage the ads served on a publisher’s Website, improved ad-serving algorithms, and anew set of APIs.
Google is consolidating all of its ad serving products for display ads under the DoubleClick banner, and turning DFP Small Business (formerly Google Ad manager) into a feeder system for DoubleClick for Publishers (formerly DART). Google details some of the new changes on its main blog: → Read More
Approximately 11 million new domain names were registered in the fourth quarter of 2009, an eight percent increase in new registrations from the third quarter of 2009.
The increase has brought the total of registrations across all of the Top Level Domain Names to 192 million, an increase of nearly 15 million domain name registrations since the close of 2008. That means we’ll likely cross the 200 million milestone this or next quarter, provided growth continues.
The numbers come from VeriSign’s latest Domain Name Industry Brief (PDF). → Read More
Enterprise content management juggernaut Open Text has bought content analysis startup Nstein Technologies for $34 million. Nstein’s Text Mining Engine helps businesses centralize, understand and manage content through semantic and text analysis.
For example, Nstein powers the backend of The Financial Times’ semantic search engine, called Newssift, that indexes about 4,000 business news sources, from online newspapers and blogs to news portals and research sites. → Read More
Information management company Iron Mountain has acquired Mimosa Systems for a cool $112 million in cash. Mimosa Systems provides an enterprise-friendly archiving system for email, SharePoint data and files.
Iron Mountain provides data management solutions including protection, recovery, archiving, eDiscovery and intellectual property offerings. Mimosa Systems will provide on-premises archiving solution to compliment Iron Mountain’s cloud-based information management systems. → Read More
Daniel Moloney, president of Motorola’s Home business, has decided to leave the company to serve as the CEO for an unnamed Philadelphia, PA-based global producer of electronic components, electrical contacts and assemblies.
Update: looks like he’ll be joining Technitrol as head honcho at the end of March 2010.
Moloney will not be replaced, as Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha will continue to lead the previously announced combined Mobile Devices and Home businesses, as well as take the leadership role for the Home business, effective immediately. → Read More
Canadian performance marketing solutions company Yellow Pages Group (YPG) this morning announced that it has come to an agreement with rival 411 Local Search Corp, under which terms YPG will purchase the 411.ca brand and domain names and acquire an ownership interest in the company to boot.
Simultaneously, the company announced that it has acquired Clear Sky Media, owner of a number of digital coupons and price comparison websites, for an undisclosed sum. → Read More
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