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
Earlier today, there was a lot of hubbub over Facebook supposedly enabling HTML5 video playback on their website. This would, of course, allow Facebook videos to be played natively within the browser on the iPad and iPhone. More significantly, it would be another big blow to Adobe’s Flash format. The only problem? These Facebook videos aren’t using HTML5 at all.
Yes, videos on Facebook do play when clicked on from the iPad or iPhone, but only ReadWriteWeb noted that this was through an h264 player (which both the iPhone and iPad have always supported), and not actually any sort of HTML5 implimentation. We’ve since confirmed this with Facebook which says, “You are correct, this is not html 5. All new videos are encoded in h264 format, so we’re playing videos natively in the iPad since it supports h264-encoded videos.” → Read More
Steven Frank’s Internet Technology Podcast is serious business. Click through for his first unboxing, oh so many moons ago. → Read More
WePay, a startup that’s meant to help take the pain out of managing payments for groups like fraternities and soccer teams, has landed a big new hire: Rasmus Lerdorf, the man who originally created the programming language PHP. Lerdorf, who left Yahoo last November, will be leading development of WePay’s API. The API will begin rolling out to a small number of developers this summer (you can ask to take part by emailing API@wepay.com ).
WePay’s platform is built to facilitate payments in group situations, where you often have to collect money from multiple people (as opposed to systems like PayPal where 1-to-1 transactions are more common). Founder Bill Clerico says that so far the service has gotten a lot of traction with fraternities, and is also catching on with roommates who regularly have to share bills. Since launching a month ago, Clerico says that the volume of transactions has been growing 50% each week. → Read More
Uh oh, sounds like the tablet that Steve brought down from the mountain might be susceptible to attack. A recent campaign by malware spammers has been targeting users of the much hyped iPad, inviting users to download an updated and improved version of iTunes. The update promises to provide more compatibility and better performance, and is completely fake. → Read More
Well well well, look what Benheck has come up with. It’s a PS3 Slim laptop. It’s everything you need to play God of War III in one handy package. And, if you’re a wealthy person, Mr. Heckenorn will happily construct you one! → Read More
It’s a brave new world of health and technology, coming together to keep you as healthy as modern medicine allows. The Senate Committee on Aging was witness to a show-and-tell of sorts last week, getting a first-hand look at some of the hi-tech innovations that promise to annoy people who cringe at the idea of universal healthcare. Because keeping people healthy is pure, pure evil, apparently. → Read More
I sat down with August Capital partner David Hornik at the TechCrunch TV studio to talk about the tech issues of the week: The Age of Facebook, Our mutual love of the iPad, and a discussion of companies who’ve stumbled recently: Twitter, Blippy and Foursquare.
We also explore Hornik’s strange obsession with Alice in Wonderland. If you’re pitching him for an investment, try bringing him a first edition. It’ll only set you back a few hundred thousand dollars.
Video below: → Read More
One thing you’ve got to hand to Jason Calacanis, he always tries to turn lemons into lemonade. A few days ago a private email between him and one of his employees was published where he accepted a resignation less than gracefully. His response today is to give people advice on how to resign properly so as to, we assume, avoid getting flamed by your boss in response.
Here are Jason’s six tips for a proper resignation, along with a handy script. You can read his whole post on calacanis.com. → Read More
Okay, this isn’t even funny anymore. Why the hell isn’t the black Wii available in the states? It has been available in Japan for almost nine months and about six months in Europe. That’s just crazy. Previously Nintendo even stated that it had no plans on releasing a Wii in any other color besides white in America. But that stance might have changed. → Read More
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