Orb, a small company in New York, makes odd-looking speakers with some great sound. They just announced a small speaker/amp combo for $299 which includes two speakers and an optional subwoofer. The handmade speakers come in multiple finishes (I have the copper here at the house, which I personally don’t think go with my rug) but the dark ones look nice. The super eight subwoofer, a real monster, costs $299, while their larger model costs $598. I’ll have my review of these up soon – I’m having some set-up issues – but for the size they’re excellent. → Read More
If your Gmail account is down or consistently throwing random errors your way, like my account is right now, note that it isn’t just you. According to the Apps Status Dashboard, a “significant subset of users” started running into trouble at around 9:45 AM Pacific Time.
At 11:34 PM, Google posted an update, saying that Google Mail service had been restored for some users, and that it expected a resolution for all users “within the next 4 hours” (estimate). → Read More
Long range over-the-air HDTV antennas can get mighty unsightly and expensive. Clixxun’s “Fancy Alpha” attempts to stem that tide with a $40 TV antenna that’s disguised as an unassuming picture frame. → Read More
Google was attacked by hackers in China. Microsoft reports that they’re the target of hackers all day, every day. Now Intel is stepping forward, and admitting in their annual 10-K filing that they were the target of a sophisticated attack. Intel observes that it might be industrial espionage, or it might be “hackers seeking to harm the company.” It makes you wonder how many attacks on smaller organizations go un-reported, or indeed even un-noticed. → Read More
If the $120 price tag that initially accompanied DJ Hero as it made its way to market in late October of last year seemed a bit steep to you (and apparently, you weren’t alone) then you may be interested to hear that you can get the Xbox 360 bundle for $59 from JR.com. → Read More
[Berlin] Germany’s leading online private shopping club, Brands4friends, has appointed ex-VC Olivier Schuepbach as Director of International & Corporate Development where he’ll be spearheading the Berlin-based startup’s international expansion.
Schuepbach, a native Swiss, joins from Wellington Partners, a leading pan-European venture capital firm where he was responsible for new investments in leading European startups.
As part of his new role, Schuepbach will be focusing on Brands4friends’ M&A business, suggesting that the company’s recent investment in UK-based Secretsales, which he led, could just be the start of a spending spree to expand into markets other than Germany. → Read More
At recent the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, mobile app analytics startup Distimo gave a presentation with some other interesting comparisons, such the relative size of the iPhone App Store (150,000 total apps at the time) compared to the Android Market (20,000) and Blackberry (5,000) others. It showed that in January alone, the Apple App store grew by 13,865 apps versus 3,005 new Android apps, 734 new Nokia Ovia apps, and 501 new Blackberry apps. Android was the fastest growing App store and the Android market has more free apps (57 percent) than Apple (25%) or any other mobile app store (full slide deck embedded below).
By far the most popular category in the iPhone app store is games. Distimo reported that 58 percent of all apps in the App Store are games. And in a new report that just came out today (download it here), Distimo breaks down the game apps further by price, category, and which ones sell the most. → Read More
Oh my, does this look nice. If you’ve got a jailbroken iPhone or iPod Touch and you’ve been wishing/hoping/praying for some sort of tactile controller to come along so you can use your favorite emulators as the gaming gods intended, the wait may soon be over. The iControlPad (previous coverage here) has gone into mass production. → Read More
Just the other day, hearts were broken all over the world when Microsoft said that current Windows Mobile 6.5 devices won’t be able to upgrade to Windows Phone 7. The good news is that might not entirely be true as Microsoft said on Twitter that it’s entirely up to hardware manufacturers. Way to confuse us! Another area where WinMo 6.5 gets no love? Adobe Flash 10.1. → Read More
As we reported last night, Yammer has just announced that it will begin allowing users to sign up for the microblogging service without requiring email addresses that are associated with their company domain names (e.g. jason@company.com). This new feature, called Communities, will open the service to less formal organizations, and even families. And it also opens the door to B2B collaboration, which is how Yammer seems to be primarily marketing the new feature Communities will launch on March 1.
This is a big move for the company. On a conference call this morning, Yammer CEO David Sacks said that one of the problems with Yammer so far has been that communication on the service has been restricted to internal use within a company. The issue many people ran into was that they’d want to collaborate with their clients or business partners as well, but didn’t have a way to do that without inviting them to their company’s internal network (which often wasn’t an option). → Read More
That bastion of fine games reporting, Bloomberg News, has a story on a new cart called “Classic Books” that will contain the greatest, public domain, royalty-free hits from Mark Twain and William Shakespeare. → Read More
Casio is no stranger to teaming up with major toy makers, licensing super-cute cartoon characters, using them on existing digital camera models and offering up super-cute limited editions to a fanatic fan base. After cartoon cats Doraemon and Hello Kitty, it’s now time for Rilakkuma, an adorable teddy bear.
The result is the Casio Exilim Rilakkuma edition that was announced [JP] today. → Read More
If the most recent whispers from the webOS rumor mill hold true, we just might be seeing webOS 1.4 ship out to Pres and Pixis around the nation some time today. We know it’ll bring video recording support, and it’ll have a few UI enhancements tucked throughout — but what else? We want the details! Fortunately, it looks like Palm’s own changelog might have just leaked out, jampacked with more details than you could ever want. → Read More
Quake 3 has been ported to Android. It looks slick, too (see video demo below). The project is called “kwaak3” and is based on Quake 3 ports to the iPhone and Nokia N900. The developer got everything up and running on a Motorola Milestone (a GSM Motorola Droid with multi-touch, basically) and makes use of the phone’s keyboard, “so it won’t work on your Nexus One or other phone at this point,” according to the project page. → Read More
Trackur, a bootstrapped startup founded by Internet marketing consultant and writer Andy Beal, up until now offered only paid versions of its online reputation management and social media monitoring tools, albeit with free trial periods.
Today, the fledgling company is introducing an entirely gratis version of the Web-based software suite, giving marketers and small business owners a compelling reason to want to check it out and see why basic Google Alerts simply may not be cutting it anymore. → Read More
We called it. IAC’s Match.com is acquiring fellow dating site Singlesnet. We originally reported on the deal last week. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Match.com said the acquisition is more of a “value acquisition than a strategic one” and Singlesnet will continue to be run as an independent business. Singlesnet’s traffic, says Match,com, is declining but could present new monetization opportunities for “Match.com’s collective portfolio of domestic online dating brands.” → Read More
When Microsoft announced Windows Phone 7 just a few days ago at Mobile World Congress, the only sort of time frame they’d give for release was “by the Holidays”. As it turns out, they may have meant Labor Day. → Read More
Twitter is becoming a serious marketing vehicle for local businesses. Everyone from your local baker to your favorite restaurant is getting on Twitter to talk to customers and draw in new ones. Just last weekend when I was driving to Vermont with my family, I sent out a Tweet asking for a good place to eat lunch. I got more than five responses, including one from a local innkeeper couple recommending two spots in town (not owned by them). That was in Brattleboro, Vermont.
But that was so random. How do you even find out which of your favorite local businesses have Twitter accounts or what their Twitter handles are? Well, CitySearch is doing it for you. The local business guide is starting to build out a definitive directory of Twitter accounts and Tweets about local restaurants, hotels, spas and stores. It is starting small, with about 5,000 business listings currently tied to their Twitter accounts (which businesses can add themselves when they claim their CitySearch page), but its aim is to add Tweets by and about any of the 15 million businesses in its listings. → Read More
