A reader forwarded the email below from Yahoo announcing changes to their disposable email address. The only problem is that he couldn’t figure out what it’s trying to say. And after reading it a handful of times, I can’t figure it out either.
Yahoo’s disposable email product lets users give out, well, disposable email addresses. If spam starts to hit that address, you just turn it off.
We asked Yahoo if they know what it means – they say they’ll get back to us. Meanwhile, if anyone else got this, please let us know. And a free TechCrunch tshirt to anyone who can explain what it means. → Read More
I’ve been bearish on Palm as a standalone platform since they launched last May and today the sadness-tinged chickens have come home to roost: Palm is now part of HP and, like the iPaq before it, the Pre and Pixi will slowly be subsumed into the company’s line-up. In fact, I couldn’t be happier for Palm. A recent perusal of HP’s line-up including their new Envy line of laptops show that, unlike Dell, they can produce a beautiful and powerful product at a nice price. Palm, in short, needed out of the hardware business and this gave them that chance. → Read More
HP didn’t just drop $1.2 billion on Palm to simply sit on the assets. There have to be major plans in the works to leverage webOS and slam out some killer consumer devices. This could be huge for not only both companies, but for you and me. → Read More
If you enjoyed taking your favorite Italian plumber into space the first time around, you’ll have even more fun with the sequel. Scheduled to be released May 23rd, Super Mario Galaxy 2 is anything but a rehash of the original. Nintendo was kind enough to give us a demo of some of the new goodies you can expect. You know, if you’re into that sort of thing. → Read More
Earlier this month when Twitter bought Atebits, aka Loren Brichter, the maker of the best iPhone Twitter client, Tweetie, they promised that Tweetie wouldn’t die. Instead it was to be turned into Twitter for iPhone. That update now appears to be coming soon.
In the final update to Tweetie 2 (2.1.2) that just went live in the App Store, the “What’s New” notes tell of a “Suprise!” The surprise is that when you pull down your tweet stream to refresh, you’re greeted with a new slot machine graphic. Hold it down long enough and the slot machine starts spinning. If it comes up with the right combo, you get a message that reads, “Coming Soon! Tweetie will be Twitter for iPhone (Look for the next app update)” → Read More
There’s no question that Facebook’s new social plugins — which include a ‘Like’ button for the web and an array of other widgets — have been adopted at a pretty amazing rate (we had our ‘Like’ buttons live the day they were announced). Facebook has just given us an idea of how quickly these widgets are being adopted: a week after f8, 50,000 websites now feature the Like button and the other new plugins.
75 of those websites were Facebook’s launch partners, which included sites like CNN and the New York Times — everyone else handled the integration on their own, which Facebook has made very straightforward (it generally just involves copy-and-pasting a few lines of code). This growth is important, because as more sites integrate these social widgets, Facebook will increasingly own social interaction across the web. → Read More
PC gamers will remember the original Red Faction, and console gamers will remember its disappointing sequel. Then everybody will remember Red Faction: Guerrilla, its awesome threequel. Well, it looks like the franchise is expanding its tentacles (or rather, it is entangling its tentacles with SyFy’s) and going into the motion picture business. Sure, it’s just a made-for-TV movie right now, but it could turn into a series, and Red Faction is just the first of a big SyFy push into the games world. → Read More
Exciting news from Plex, the media center for Mac OS X that won my heart a long time ago. The devs have announced that they’ve integrated Apple’s new video decode acceleration framework into the latest build. In English, that means all h.264-encoded video—and there’s a lot of it out there—can be sent to your GPU for decoding, giving your CPU a bit more breathing room. It should make for significantly better 1080p video performance. → Read More
Remember that hacking incident we had back in January? TechCrunch.com was defaced twice over a two day period and was redirecting for part of that time to a third party site.
We got through the event and mostly put it behind us. But recently Garda (Ireland’s national police force) and the U.S. Secret Service have been in touch with us because they think they found our man. He’s a suspect in another case and evidence strongly suggesting he was the TechCrunch hacker as well came to their attention. He redirects hacked sites to a website he owns and generates affiliate revenue.
These law enforcement agencies now want to know if we want to press charges so that they can bring a criminal action against the suspect in the United States. → Read More
When it comes to academic research, it’s easy to think that academics are always privy to what their peers are up to, and are up-to-date on the latest research papers in their field. Unfortunately, that’s not usually the case. Academia.edu is a site that’s looking to help change that, by helping researchers connect to each other and find material that’s relevant to their field of study. The site recently closed a $1.6 million Series A round led by Spark Ventures, with participation from angel investors including Mark Shuttleworth (Thawte founder, Ubuntu); Thomas Lehrman (Gerson Lehrman Group co-founder) and Rupert Pennant-Rea (Chairman of The Economist).
CEO Richard Price believes that the community of academics has largely been neglected as the web has evolved, and he’s looking to change that with Academia.edu. The site, which launched in September 2008, serves as a sort of hybrid between LinkedIn, Facebook and Geni, all with a focus on research. → Read More
Here we have what is allegedly a “confirmed” E3 lineup. Let’s see… Guitar Hero 6, big surprise there… Call of Duty: MMO… KI3, maybe that’s Killer Instinct 3? And what’s Mass Effect 3 doing under the Sony heading? → Read More
The iPad went on sale 25 days ago. It’s not yet on sale anywhere else in the world besides the U.S. The 3G version, which some are waiting for, still isn’t available. And yet, according to our logs, the iPad already accounts for more traffic to TechCrunch than Android does.
I love the iPad, but even I was surprised when I saw this. The stats are for the last 30 days — and again, the iPad hasn’t even been out that entire time. Here’s a percentage breakdown of which OS visitors to TechCrunch have been using in the past 30 days: → Read More
[Estonia] Fortumo, the mobile payments provider, has launched FortuMoPay, a new service designed for selling credits in “online games, web applications and social networks.”
It differs from competitors such as Zong (which recently signed a partnership with Facebook) and boku, says the company, in the way it targets small and medium-sized businesses (or even individuals) by making it quick and easy to start taking mobile payments. There’s also no upfront costs; Fortumo takes a share of revenue instead.
A merchant gets to specify the amount they wish to charge for 1 item or credit and then Fortumo automatically handles the back-end activation of all corresponding short codes, keywords and currency conversions. It shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes to implement, says the company, and with very little technical skills. In this way, Fortumo is targeting the long tail of virtual goods. → Read More
I’m not sure what this says about the iPad or Louis Vuitton. On one hand it speaks volumes about the iPad’s culturally significance that just weeks after its launch, trendy leather goods maker Louis Vuitton feels confident about the device to announces cases. But then what does it say about Louis Vuitton who is clearly willing to jump on bandwagons right away. Then again, what the hell do I know about Louis Vuitton or trendy culture? → Read More
How much did Apple pay for the acquisition of Siri, the maker of a mobile virtual personal assistant app? Apple won’t say, and neither will the company or its investors. I spoke with two Siri board members today, and neither would go near the subject. “I can confirm the transaction has happened, but nothing about the transaction itself or Apple’s plans,” says Gary Morgenthaler of Morgenthaler Ventures. “All I can say is we are pleased,” says SRI’s Norman Winarsky. I even asked Siri’s app on my iPhone. It directed me to a nearby Apple Store.
But if the buzz in Silicon Valley is correct, Siri’s investors have a lot to be pleased about. I’ve been digging around. Sources I trust with indirect knowledge of the transaction peg it at between $150 million to $250 million, with the strongest rumor being “more than $200 million.” Siri’s investors put a total of $24 million into the startup, so that would make the exit at least an eight-bagger.
Why did Apple pay so much for an iPhone app company? When you look at Siri as an iPhone app with only about a quarter million downloads of its free app, the price seems very expensive. But what Apple really bought was an entry into mobile search. → Read More
As expected, Chinese search giant Baidu posted strong first quarter results thanks in part to a gain in marketshare from Google. Total revenues in the first quarter of 2010 were $189.6 million, a 59.6% increase from the corresponding period in 2009. Net income in the first quarter of 2010 was $70.4 million, a 165.3% increase from the first quarter of 2009.
In the earnings release, Baidu’s chairman and CEO Robin Li also stated that new internet advertising product Phoenix Nest’s performance “continued to exceed” expectations. Baidu likely saw a flux in revenue from the product as it just replaced Baidu Bidding rank in December. Baidu was expected to see gains thanks to stronger paid search revenue as Google’s censorship issues with China escalated. Google shut down its Chinese search engine in late March in response to the widely reported cyber attack on Google in December 2009. → Read More
Damn you, Sapphire. Three weeks ago I bought your vanilla Radeon 5970, and now you release the Radeon 5970 4G TOXIC Edition? What a load of bunk. Fastest video card on the planet, you say? Well I say FE$%Fxtgredth. → Read More
On the heels of the report that Apple purchased chip maker Intrinsity, Apple appears to have made another purchase: Siri, a personal assistant for the iPhone. According to a pre-merger notification released by the Federal Trade Commission, and first noticed by Robert Scoble, the transaction will not be held up by any antitrust reviews. The deal was likely small from Apple’s perspective. Siri is a small startup that has raised $24 million in funding. Update: Siri board member Gary Morganthaler confirmed the transaction.
Siri brings a conversational interface to the iPhone which allows you to ask it to perform tasks for you such as find a French restaurant nearby and book a table, look up movie listings, order a taxi, or look up the phone number and address of a local business.You can read our full review of the app here. → Read More
America might finally catch up to Europe and Asia with offshore wind farms. The US federal government finally green lighted a project today that will bring a 24 square mile 130-turbine farm to the waters 5 miles off the coast of Cape Cod in Nantuket Sound. It’s said to generate 75% of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantuket’s power requirement. Great, right?
Well even though it’s been approved by state and federal government, okay’d by both Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, the project is still controversial and bound to be tied up in the courts for years. → Read More
As you may have heard, HP has just announced the acquisition of Palm for $1.2 billion. It’s a massive move that HP hopes will reshape the mobile industry. I got a chance to talk with Brian Humphries, HP’s Senior Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development, about the deal just now.
“This is a great opportunity to take two Silicon Valley idols and put them together,” Humphries noted. That’s an obvious statement, but he quickly moved on to the meat. “WebOS is the best-in-class mobile operating system. Our intent is to double down on webOS,” Humphries said. → Read More
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