Back in December, LinkedIn released a slick-looking update to the iPhone app. That looks to be the swan song for the man largely responsible for it, Bryan Haggerty. Because today’s he’s leaving LinkedIn for Twitter.
As he both tweets and blogs about, Haggerty will be joining Twitter’s fast-growing mobile team. At LinkedIn, Haggerty did a lot more than the iPhone app, he also built the apps for the Pre and the BlackBerry. He also helped build the Buzz application that let companies scan information about them on yes, Twitter. → Read More
Look, say what you will about the derivative nature of the Mario games (and Nintendo 1st-party products in general, Vitality Sensor excluded), you have to admit that for sheer platforming fun, they are absolutely unmatched. Just look at the varieties of platforming experience on display here. While for themes and graphics they’re not breaking any molds, the creativity on the level of fun and gameplay is oozing out of every frame, and sometimes that’s all that really matters. Yoshi is nice, of course, but I’m loving the drill and the 2-D segments more. That allows for precision game design, as we’ve seen in New Super Mario Bros and stuff like Mega Man 9. I swear, one of these days I might actually have to buy a Wii. → Read More
Aperture 3, Apple’s latest prosumer photo manipulation and organization software, got its first update and it looks like a doozy. As you recall, Aperture was eating memory like an Ancient Roman at an orgy and essentially bogging down all and sundry. This update improves the speed with which large libraries are imported and fixes many of the heavy batch issues that cropped up in the first release.
Full list of fixes after the jump. You can read more about the problem over at the KBase. → Read More
Early termination fees. No one likes them but they can sometimes be a necessary evil. If you become unhappy with your service provider or you are overwhelmed with lust for a new gadget on a different carrier, you pay the price. Carriers say that these termination fees, or ETFs, allow them to subsidize handsets and recover those costs over the course of a contract. Should a contract be broken, a carrier recovers those subsidies with an ETF.
The FCC recently decided something was amiss with ETFs and probed carriers into explaining the rhyme and reason behind the fees. The carriers have finally spoken, albeit a little unconvincingly. Most of you are already familiar with why ETFs exist, but it is interesting to see the canned and obvious responses from the carriers. → Read More
Here’s an interesting DIY project: Santosh apparently felt that the current generation of electric pocket bikes were just a little too large, so he built his own version. While Santosh’s bike is quite small, it is capable of running at almost 10mph. → Read More
Smarkets, a startup which launched into private beta soon after presenting at our annual GeeknRolla event last year, has today launched publically.
Smarkets is a ‘social betting exchange’ which is launching initially with football/soccer bets covering UK football, the Champions League and the World Cup, but has plans to offer bets on the UK general election shortly. The idea is to bring a social and hightech mentality to the traditionally slow-paced industry of gambling. Better late than never I guess. It had planned to launch in late 2008.
The main competition Betfair is worth $3billion and there are other betting exchanges including intrade, tradesports, and betdaq. None are built around social elements. → Read More
Not everyone agrees that the DSi XL was a necessary step; after all, the original DS and DS Lite were the best selling game things on the market with their little screens and limited brightness.
But when you hear about parents and grandparents enjoying a game of Picross or Professor Layton, you start to remember that yeah, there are other people in the world. And maybe they could use a device more suited to their needs. → Read More
If you’re looking for a nice, functional, portable mouse, Microsoft has your number. While their high-end mice tend to lose their luster in the face of cooler gear from Logitech and Razer, Microsoft’s mobile line has always been comfortable and functional. They’ve just expanded it a bit with a few new compact models so you’ve got more than ever to choose from. Let’s see what we’ve got here. → Read More
[Ireland] It’s the type of scenario that keeps even the most seasoned entrepreneurs up at night. Your startup toils away for months on a new product or feature and – boom – a giant like Google comes along and walks all over it.
That appears to be the case for Dublin-based music video site, Muzu TV (see previous TCEU coverage), which today launched its new music video jukebox feature. A sort of Spotify-for-video, it’s not too dissimilar from Google-owned YouTube’s recent disco beta or ‘Music Discovery Project and Playlist Creation Tool’ to give it its full name.
The Muzu video jukebox offers up a search box in which users can type in an artist or track name, and instantly create music video playlists based on the results. Playlists can be edited and re-ordered in real-time, without interrupting the music, and there’s related artist recommendations built-in too, providing an element of discovery. → Read More
hi5, one of the world’s most popular social networks, has been actively remodeling its site to cater to the gaming industry. Last fall, the social network launched a totally revamped site that places a much stronger emphasis on games and virtual currency, along with a new avatar system. Today, the company is furthering this strategy with the acquisition of social gaming developer Big Six. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. See the full release below.
Big Six’s founders, Kevin Gliner, Monty Kerr and Chad Hansing, will join the hi5 management team. Hi5 says the deal will boost the social networks efforts in developing in commerce platforms and payment processing offerings. Right now, gaming is a central part of hi5′s strategy for growth so it makes sens for the social network to acquire innovative technologies and talent. The games section of hi5′s site accounts for around 1/3 of the site’s traffic, and direct user payments through the game already account for 15% of hi5’s revenue. → Read More
Now, before we enter the breach, I think it bears repeating that MobileCrunch and indeed the rest of the TechCrunch network in no way condone software/application piracy. Developers work too hard for responsible members of the tech community to give them the shaft like that. That said, while cracked iPhone app repositories like apptrackr continue to operate with impunity, we’re surprised to see that the big Android equivalent has been forced to shut down first. Jesusxxx’s Blapkmarket, which provided paid apps free of charge to its users, was just recently shut down by his hosting company. The justifications for maintaining a collection of pirated apps are many, and they generally seem to address legitimate grievances with the whole app purchase process. Blapkmarket, for example, allowed users to “test” applications outside of the standard 24 hour grace period laid out in the Android Market program policies. Perhaps more importantly, it allowed Android users in other countries to access and use apps that for one reason or another weren’t available in their home markets. Jesusxxx has even gone on record saying that foreign customers “provide[d] the highest number of requests for paid apps” in an interview with Android Guys. → Read More
What’s your yearly calendar budget? Five bucks? This $80 perpetual calendar will pay for itself in just 16 years! Think of all the calendar money you could save over the course of a lifetime. The amount is truly mind-boggling. → Read More
A bill introduced today in the Senate by Democrat John Kerry and Republican Richard Lugar proposes a new type of visa for immigrants who create startups and jobs in the U.S. A similar proposal is part of an immigration reform bill in the House. The Startup Visa has been controversial and will no doubt draw fire from anti-immigrant forces and xenophobes. But if we are going to be giving away visas, giving them to people who will help build the U.S. economy and create jobs is hard to argue against.
The Startup Visa Act of 2010 would create a two year visa for immigrant entrepreneurs who are able to raise a minimum of $250,000, with $100,000 coming from a qualified U.S. angel or venture investor. After two years, if the immigrant entrepreneur is able to create five or more jobs (not including their children or spouse), attract an additional $1 million in investment, or produce $1 million in revenues, he or she will become a legal resident. → Read More
According to the FCC, about 93 million Americans don’t use fast, broadband Internet, citing cost and complexity as a factor in their refusal to enter the 20th century. The study, below, found that 80 million adults and 13 million children either still use dial-up or don’t use the Internet at all at home, suggesting that either the survey methodology might be flawed or we’re in serious trouble. UPDATE – Also, one American doesn’t know how to use apostrophes. Fixed. → Read More
Given that past leaks have been indicating as much for a few weeks now, it doesn’t come as any surprise that the HTC Incredible is heading to Verizon.
Still, it’s always nice to see new, unannounced handsets make their debut in a carrier’s inventory, as the Incredible just has. → Read More
The Lower Merion School District (motto: “We’re Building the Future Police State”), caught using a remote monitoring service on school-supplied laptops while the kids were at home, had some pretty creepy rules on the books to ensure compliance. To wit we find, thanks to strydehax, these gems:
* Possession of a monitored Macbook was required for classes
* Possession of an unmonitored personal computer was forbidden and would be confiscated* Disabling the camera was impossible
* Jailbreaking a school laptop in order to secure it or monitor it against intrusion was an offense which merited expulsion
Is your boss clamping down on the hours you spend playing Farmville on Facebook? Are you blocked at work from accessing 4chan and your other favorite websites? You can use something like Try2StopMe, one of probably thousands of website proxy services that allow you to access your favorite destinations through a middleman. Don’t expect this service to remain accessible long: like most proxy services the various content filtering subscriptions used by corporate firewalls find and block these things pretty quickly. Plus, you have no assurance that the middleman isn’t keeping a copy of everything you send — like your Facebook login credentials — for its own nefarious use later. → Read More
These days, APIs are a must for just about every web service. It’s no longer enough to simply be a web site, everyone wants to be a platform, and APIs are the hooks that enable that by way of data. Since 2006, Mashery has existed as a company to both enable APIs for companies and manage them. And today that vision is being rewarded again with a $5.5 million Series C round of funding.
The round, led by Cisco, is also being participated in by existing investors, Formative Ventures, First Round Capital, and 406 Ventures. Cisco, which is a key player in networking, video, mobile, and cloud services is a good investor for Mashery to pick up as the web continues to evolve to new devices and move towards the cloud. The Cisco investment should also help open new businesses to the idea of using Mashery’s services. → Read More
Remember the time when Apple added an “Explicit” category to the list of app genres that developers could submit to? You should, because it was only a few hours ago. Well, it’s gone. The option has been pulled from the submission page, and the developer who spotted the backpedaling says a quick call to Apple confirmed that it has been pulled, and, while they’re considering an “Explicit” section of the store, its not likely to happen any time soon. [Via Giz] → Read More
There hasn’t been a whole lot of advancement in the salt and pepper industry – UNTIL NOW!
Yes, the “Pump and Grind Salt and Pepper Mills” cost $20 apiece and allow you to season your favorite foods with one hand. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
