There’s a very interesting rumor circulating around out there right now. Apparently, Google is about to announce some sort of new partnership involving its Chrome browser and Adobe’s Flash platform, CNET reported earlier today as a rumor.
Google isn’t talking, but what we’re hearing is that this could be related to the Open Screen Project that Google signed up for late last year. The project, started by Adobe a year ago, aims to give web developers a unified platform for content across a range of devices. The reason Google cares about this is its Android mobile operating system, and undoubtedly its future foray into netbooks with Chrome OS later this year. → Read More
Let’s face it, as our mobile computing devices get smaller and smaller, they get more fragile. To protect our precious gadgets, we wrap them in cushiony cases to protect them from a devastating fall to the ground. But these cases increase the bulk, reducing the convenience of the small form factor. One new option for iPhone — and now iPad — owners is Fusion of Idea’s StealthArmor. → Read More
The rumor mill is churning today as news of a CDMA iPhone running on Verizon will be manufactured by Pegatron in China while a whole new AT&T model, made by Foxconn, will also drop in the summer/fall timeframe. the Journal notes that the two new devices will be exactly the same except, obviously, the CDMA version will lack a SIM card. We’ve seen weird leaks of an iPhone 4G screen – something longer than the current iPhone screen with a front-facing camera – but nothing concrete. We also need to take this with a grain of salt. Asian manufacturers enjoy talking up their connections with certain companies because it gives them a slight boost in the equities markets, so this could be a pump and dump. → Read More
So what to make of this latest Call of Duty rumor? The seventh game in the series will be named Call of Duty: Black Ops, and will take place between the end of World War II and the present day. It won’t necessarily “be” a Vietnam War game, but will have missions that take place all over the world. Remember: it’s being developed by Treyarch (i.e. not Infinity Ward), the same dudes who developed Call of Duty 3 and Call of Duty: World at War. → Read More
I’ve long suspected that the basic usage pattern for Twitter is that people try it, don’t get it or become discouraged because they don’t know anyone else on it, but it grows on them eventually until they start using it every day. Many people, of course, never come back, but for those who do, they need to get past that familiarity curve before it becomes an essential communications tool.
Now I have some data to back up my theory. Social media analytics company Sysomos just released some data based on its analysis of over one billion Tweets which shows the contribution of updates by how long people have been on the service. The most active users are those who joined Twitter more than nine months ago. They account for 41.6 percent of all Tweets. → Read More
It took a year for anyone to figure out that Forbes (now Newsweek) writer Dan Lyons was the guy behind the Fake Steve Jobs blog. Now, a couple of years later, the blog is still going strong. And it remains very, very funny.
Now Lyons’ success in writing about Steve Jobs may lead directly to the blog being shut down, we’ve heard. → Read More
It was only a few days ago that I mentioned that, you know, your data is never secure. So, this story isn’t surprising at all. It turns out that the records of more than 3.3 million student loans were stolen a few days ago. Data stolen includes names, Social Security numbers, and credit card numbers. Awesome. → Read More
The Wall Street Journal has just published an article that states that Apple is currently working on a new iPhone model to be released this summer. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone (the last three iPhones have all been released during either June or July) but the report also includes one big red juicy tidbit: there’s a CDMA iPhone in the works as well, and it’s scheduled for mass production in September by Pegatron Technology Corp.
CDMA is of course the wireless technology used by Verizon (AT&T and most other operators worldwide use GSM) — it’s the reason you can’t buy an unlocked iPhone and get it working on Verizon. The WSJ’s report notes that these CDMA phones are scheduled to be produced in September, but that it isn’t clear when Apple might make them available. → Read More
It’s no Kindle, but at $149 the Aluratek eBook Reader Pro is a pretty interesting device. It comes with a 2GB card and includes 100 public domain books including Wuthering Heights and The Bible.
It works with PDFs, ePubs, and Mobi files along with standard text files. The whole thing works quite well and it’s a nice, small size, especially for an inexpensive e-reader. It’s definitely a no-frills ereader solution but it may be good for folks who find ebooks online and not through the Kindle store. → Read More
Under the radar startup ReadyForce has raised $12.2 million in funding from Menlo Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners, Founder Collective and other investors.
The startup seems to still be under wraps according to its website, which is pretty bare. We do know that ReadyForce was founded by Bill Trenchard, former CEO of LiveOps, and is developing “applications that will create a virtual marketplace for on-demand labor.” → Read More
With the iPad launching on Saturday in the U.S., Apple’s stock price continues to rise. Today, shares closed at $232.39, another all time high. Notably, this push Apple’s market cap past $210 billion for the first time, as it’s now as $210.73 billion. But even more notably is that Apple is now under $50 billion away from its chief rival, Microsoft.
Microsoft ended the day down slightly, to close at $29.60. This pushed Microsoft’s market cap to $259.61 billion. As I wrote, it’s now a question of when Apple will pass Microsoft in value, not if. → Read More
There’s less than a week to go until the iPad’s April 3 launch date, but up until now footage of people actually using the device has been relatively scant — there’s the Steve Jobs keynote address, a few Flip-cam recordings from the twenty minutes reporters had after the keynote, and a whirlwind commercial. Today, we’re getting much, much more: Apple has just posted a series of eleven Guided Tours that walk you through many of the device’s core features, including Safari, Mail, iBooks, and the iWork suite.
We can’t embed the videos here (you’ll have to head to Apple’s site to watch them), but here are some screenshots showing off the device. → Read More
I almost bought a Sony PS3 specifically so that I could use Linux on it. Now, I’m glad I didn’t, because Sony has announced that in an upcoming firmware release they’re going to remove support for alternate operating systems. The official explanation for the removal of this feature is “due to security concerns”, but no specific security concerns have actually been mentioned yet. → Read More
USB 3.0 hard drives are little on the expensive side right now. But there’s a new option in town that will let you give the faster interface a-go with a spare hard drive. → Read More
According to research sponsored by Toshiba, more Americans are afraid of losing digital data — photos, documents, etc — than they are about losing their wallet or an audit by the IRS. This is probably because more people have suffered a digital loss than have been audited by the IRS — we all say “It can’t happen to me!” until it actually does happen, and only then do we change our behaviors. But the reality is, backing up data has historically been tedious, if not actually challenging. And restores are so rarely done as to require the user to search for the long discarded product manual so they can figure out how to do it… → Read More
Montblanc is a pen company. They do watches as an aside, some sort of weird cross-marketing thing that presumably they’ll use to convince watch lovers to go and pick up some pens. However, they have truly outdone themselves with the TimeWriter 1 Metamorphosis.
Ariel at ABlogtoRead found the full details on this watch but, in short, when you pull down a lever the entire face changes. One face, with the lever up, shows the time and date. When you pull the lever you release a single-push chronograph. While the technology isn’t that impressive, the presentation is amazing. Watch the video about and fast forward to about 5 minutes to see how it works. → Read More
Whether it is all the media attention or there are just a lot of lonely people out there with a deep need to talk to strangers, Chatroulette is on a roll. In February, 2010, the young site attracted 3.9 million visitors worldwide, up from 944,000 in January, 2010, according to the latest data from comScore (see chart above). Google Trends for Websites shows a similar growth curve, with about 500,000 unique daily visitors.
The quadrupling of visitors measured by comScore coincided with the relatively new site being discovered by news sites and blogs. It may just indicate the intense level of curiosity about the site, which matches random people together in a simple video chat environment. When you get bored (or creeped out) you can click to start a new session. Or it may be tapping into the basic human need to communicate. It gives “instant communications” a whole new meaning. → Read More
There’s never a shortage of controversy surrounding Google Street View. Even if you think the service is useful and/or cool to look at, you have to admit there’s something creepy about Google cars driving around countries collecting these data with cameras mounted on the roof. And it appears that someone in Germany had just about enough of that.
Police are investigating an incident in Oldenburg, Germany where a parked Google Street View car was vandalized overnight (in German – rough English translation). Apparently, the perpetrator let the air out of the car’s tires and also cut a wire that hooks the roof-mounted camera up with the inside of the car. It seems that nothing was stolen from the car, and none of the equipment on the outside was even taken. So it would seem this is clearly just a sign of protest against Google. → Read More
[Turkey] Markafoni, the Turkish private shopping club, has raised £4.7 million (11 million Turkish Lira) from Trayas, an investment group whose partners include leading European investors Klaus Hommels and Oliver Jung.
Trayas seems to be focusing on investing in private shopping clubs, having already closed deals in Brazil, Switzerland and India. Of note, Hommels has previously invested in Facebook, Skype and Spotify.
Markafoni is the first and leading private shopping club in Turkey. Its closest competitor is Germany-based B2C giant Otto Group’s limango. There are also newcomers TrendYol.com and Bedava.com. → Read More
Everybody hates their email inbox. I’ve begged entrepreneurs to fix the problem. So far, nothing.
A new service called Attention Auction isn’t going to fix that problem, either. But it’s a start.
People bid to get you to read their email. You find someone you want to contact, see how many other messages are in their inbox and how they are priced, and then bid for your message to get in the line. If your message isn’t read you can increase the price and push it higher in the queue. As a recipient you’ll see messages sorted from the highest price to the lowest. Open the message and get paid. → Read More
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