Whoa.
As you may have heard, Apple filed a massive lawsuit against phone-maker HTC nearly two months ago. Apple is alleging that HTC is infringing on over 20 of its iPhone patents. While HTC makes phones for a number of partners, it’s pretty clear that this is Apple going after Google’s Android platform indirectly. And now Google may have just found an unlikely ally in this fight: Microsoft.
Yes, the software giant, which makes the rival Windows Mobile (and soon Windows Phone 7) phone software has announced a deal with HTC that allows them to license their patented technology. That may make some sense since HTC also makes Windows Mobile phones. But the key to this is right there in Microsoft’s statement on the matter, “Microsoft Corp. and HTC Corp. have signed a patent agreement that provides broad coverage under Microsoft’s patent portfolio for HTC’s mobile phones running the Android mobile platform” (Emphasis mine) → Read More
Opera just released its latest State of the Mobile Web report, in which it zooms in on the popularity of its iPhone application, which was approved for the App Store just a little over two weeks ago.
We already knew a lot of people were seemingly eager to try out the alternative browser on the iPhone – the app saw 1 million dowloads on its first day in the store.
But how is it holding up now? → Read More
When it comes to media management for your portable electronics, there’s the iTunes/iPod goliath, and then there’s everyone else. In the last six months or so we’ve seen the competition in the second category heat up quite a bit, with applications like doubleTwist and Songbird offering strong alternatives to Apple’s dominant media app. Dazzboard is another of these iTunes alternatives that’s taking a different approach: it’s entirely browser based (though you need to install a small plugin). It’s been available for Windows since last summer, and today it’s launching for Mac.
Dazzboard allows users to sync media and playlists to mass storage devices, like most non-Apple MP3 players and Android phones. Along with the standard music, photo, and video syncing you’d expect from an iTunes alternative, the application also lets you to sync content with web services including YouTube, Facebook and Flickr. → Read More
Look, I get the porn thing. Well, sort of. But now Apple has gone too far.
iSealClub is the latest app to be rejected from the App Store. In it, you yes, club seals. I’m shocked — shocked! — that Apple would reject such an app.
Developer Matthew Smyth writes: → Read More
Ooyala, a video platform for publishers, is testing a pay per view product with ABC for at least one show, we’ve learned. ABC’s 10 things I hate about you currently shows a 2 minute preview on the ABC Family website, and then displays a message that the full episode can be purchased for $0.99.
Paypal is the only pay option. If you click on it, a confirmation page pops up clearly showing that the payment is being made to Ooyala, not ABC. There are no commercials during the episode.
This is not a product that Ooyala currently offers that we know of, and we’ve reached out to the company for comment. Screenshots below: → Read More
Looks like the Verizon/Vodafone exclusivity on the Kin 1 and Kin 2 might be short-lived — or at least, someone at Microsoft is already prepping for the day when it’s over.
Days before the Kin 1 and 2 were made official, a ROM hacker known only to the internets as Conflipper published screenshots pulled from an early copy of the Kin OS. After a bit more digging, Conflipper just stumbled upon some more goodies: Kin system provisioning files for other carriers. Lots.. and lots of other carriers. → Read More
Editor’s note: The following excerpt is from Mastering The VC Game, a new book by Jeffrey Bussgang that goes on sale Thursday. It tells the backstory of Twitter from the perspective of founder Jack Dorsey, from his early obsession with couriers and his attempts to create a better dispatch system to his “Aha” moment with Twitter (“What if we simply set status, archive it on the Web, use SMS to do it, and it all happens in real time?”) to why the company picked Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures as its first venture investor (“I want a VC who is always thinking a few steps ahead of me”). Bussgang interviewed both men, and details how the VC and entrepreneur clicked in the second half of this excerpt. The first part recounts the tale of how Dorsey came to invent Twitter.
Jack Dorsey (a.k.a. @jack in the lingo of the Twitterverse) founded Twitter, the social networking and microblogging site where users—Twitterers—post very short (140 characters, tops) updates known as tweets. The concept for Twitter came out of Jack’s lifelong fascination with mapping the real-time movements of people and things within complex environments. “Since I was very small, I’ve been fascinated by how cities work,” Jack told me in his typically straightforward way. “I always got really excited when I thought about visualizing them, specifically around maps. What would you place on a map to show how a city worked?” → Read More
Before there was even an App Store, I knew there was something to UrbanSpoon. Several million downloads and a sale to IAC later, I can safely say I was right. Now the team behind it is trying to capture the magic all over again with its new free iPad app.
On the face of it, UrbanSpoon for the iPad may not seem as useful as it is for the iPhone. After all, most people don’t just whip out their iPad on the street when they’re looking for a restaurant (though some may when the 3G version hits, who knows). But plenty of dinner choices are made right before you leave the house — and that’s what UrbanSpoon for the iPad is perfect for. → Read More
Joy! New apps. If you’re a Zune HD owner, fire up the ol’ girl and get downloading. This Labyrinth game looks pretty cool, and the Zune HD’s accelerometer is pretty responsive, so it should be good. Now give me a Mahjjong game and I’ll be set for life. → Read More
Sources at Samsung revealed that they are looking at TV’s that incorporate Google’s Android OS in them. I’m not so sure I want a TV that is quite that intelligent. → Read More
There isn’t much to be said here. One look at the pic and headline and you probably already know what it’s a 4-port Wii Remote inductive changing station. But you probably don’t know that the PowerV Quad even works Wii Motion Plus and silcone covers. Nice, eh? $50 and ships in a few weeks. → Read More
This is an editorial and in no way represents the policies or opinions of the TechCrunch network. As you’ve no doubt heard, Jason Chen’s house was raided by the local police, on a judge-signed warrant presumably brought about by charges filed by Apple. We’ve been discussing the case throughout the day — as non-lawyers but with that excellent visual acuity which hindsight is known for — and we have agreed that there are, in fact, some things we might have done differently in their position. Their reporting is their business, of course, and they have parleyed this story into enough traffic melt their servers, so I don’t mean this as a criticism of their coverage, but rather a few lessons we’ve learned from it that may prove valuable to anyone in a similar situation. Again, I would like to emphasize that I am not a lawyer, and furthermore the boss, who possesses many lawyer-like qualities, has already weighed in. But in case you find yourself about to break a big story like this, to be forewarned of the dangers and protections awaiting you is to be forearmed, and with a little foresight your foyer won’t be littered with the splinters of your foredoor. That’s your front door, which the cops will break down if you’re not there to open it when they serve the warrant. → Read More
Yesterday, we noted that during a recent interview in Los Angeles, singer John Mayer shared his thoughts about why Twitter was “over.” Today, on his Tumblr blog (appropriately titled One Forty Plus), he clarified a bit.
In his post entitled, “Twitter Isn’t “Over”, I’m Over It,” Mayer talks about how the over-abundance of tiny amounts (140 characters) of information on Twitter is a limitation of the service. That line of thinking has been around ever since Twitter’s launch a few years ago, so nothing groundbreaking there. He does, however, make a pretty decent point, “Finding out in 140 characters what a stranger has to say about you is like a mathematical equation without an established value of ‘x’. Who are you, stranger?”
But much more interesting is what Mayer does next. He gives a huge, wet kiss to another micro-blogging service: Tumblr. → Read More
Look, we all know Wii Music was nonsense. And it wasn’t that playing music on a Wii is a bad idea, it’s that you just pretend to play music. If they had given it the attention it deserved, they might have put something together like this Carnegie Mellon student Shu did. Using a few flex sensors and the buttons and accelerometer in a Nunchuk, he’s made a functioning air guitar that even a baby could play competently. I mean, like a blues baby or something, not just any baby. → Read More
Late last month, a number of sites noted that a very early build of Fennec, the mobile version of Firefox, was available to download for Android phones. However, that build wasn’t official as it was put together by an individual and optimized for the Droid device. Today, Mozilla has itself put out a pre-Alpha build of Fennec that should work at the very least on Droid and the Nexus One.
Mozilla is quick to note that this is a pre-Alpha build of the browser, and is only for testing purposes. But that isn’t stopping Mozilla’s Vladimir Vukićević from announcing it on his blog. “There also aren’t yet any automated nightly developer builds or automated updates to this build; it’s even more of a pre-nightly build (even earlier than pre-alpha). But, it’s usable enough that we wanted to get some feedback on it as we continue to develop,” he notes. → Read More
That’s…. quite a lot of photos to get for free! Do you have a drive full of snapshots from the last couple years that you’ve never really gotten around to printing? Well, now’s your chance. All you have to do is sign up for a new account at ArtsCow and you can get 150 (100 4×6″ and 50 5×7″) printed immediately. You’re limited to 150 per month, but hey, that’s 150 more free prints than you had last month. → Read More
Here’s a lovely little tidbit that’s leaked out of the FCC, looks like HTC has a new phone coming out in the AT&T 3G bands. Along with the boring technical details, the FCC also was kind enough to share some pictures! Could this be the new HTC Wildfire? HTC currently calls it the “PC70110″, but it’s typical to see this type of code name used during pre-production. Check out the pictures after the jump. → Read More
In the market for a good deal on a laptop? Sony’s Vaio is known for being a pretty decent piece of kit, and this particular model is no exception. It’s a refurbished unit, with a 90 warranty from Sony, but it’s still a good deal. → Read More
The FedEx man just dropped off the new Lexar 16GB Echo ZE Backup Drive. This thing is tiny. Like I knew it was small judging by the press photos when it was announced back at CES, but I had no idea it was this small. You need to see this thing to scale to really appreciate it and so I snapped a few pictures with random items around my desk. Click through for the photo gallery. You have to see this thing. Full review coming soon. → Read More
Android phones save lives. Or they could, if they had this application installed. Let’s say grandma is walking around the house with her Droid in the pocket of her house coat, and she falls down. Luckily, you installed the iFall application. It uses the accelerometer in her phone to tell you that she fell down, allowing you to come to the rescue. → Read More
