We’ve already gotten word of the T-mobile myTouch 3G Slide specs. We also know that it will be released on the 2nd of June for $179.99. We’ve even had our own hands-on. But there is one little maneuver left in the dance of phone revelations: the unboxing.
And here it is. → Read More
There aren’t many Internet events that are better suited to entertain office drones than a Woot-Off. Simply load it in a tab — or another window if your operation is still rocking IE6 — and waste away your day checking for a new item every few minutes. At least that’s what I did when I was in the corporate world. Perhaps that’s why I’m no longer there? Oh well. Woot-Off! → Read More
Straight from the horse’s mouth: AOL CEO Tim Armstrong just told the TechCrunch Disrupt audience what most industry watchers already knew: the company made a strategic mistake in acquiring social network Bebo, and it ended up being a “major distraction” for them.
Armstrong admitted that it would have been very hard to make Bebo work right out the gate no matter what, and that probably the deal shouldn’t have gone through in the first place, given technology and other issues. → Read More
If you can’t get a signal in Manhattan, blame AT&T. They’ve pretty much admitted that their network in New York is completely inadequate, and now, three years in, they’re taking some concrete steps to alleviate the problem — for tourists, at least. → Read More
Like the camera sitting on the face of every single leaked iPhone HD hasn’t been proof enough, or like the references to video chat in the beta SDKs didn’t mean anything, now we have even more proof that there will be video chat capabilities in the upcoming iPhone HD (or whatever it will be called). Right now, filming is underway for the new iPhone commercials (directed by Sam Mendes, of American Beauty fame), and Engadget have it on good authority that one scene will feature a mother and daughter video-chatting to each other using their next-gen iPhones. Aw, how sweet. Of course, don’t expect any official confirmation before June 7th, but I think this one’s a pretty safe bet. → Read More
Yext, a popular local business search engine, debuted Yext Calls last year at TechCrunch50, which is sort of like a Google Voice for businesses. Yext allows local businesses to use its software to process incoming phone calls and organize them based on what was said during the conversation. This gives businesses the ability to search or browse through the transcripts and calls at any point. Based on keywords that occurred in the call, the software can detect that e.g. price estimates were requested for a car repair or which part of what type of vehicle the caller was having problems with exactly.
But Yext says that in the realtime web, it’s tough to manage your reputation as a business. So the startup is launching a realtime reputation manager for local businesses. It will claim your local business listing on sites like Citysearch, Yelp, YellowPages, Twitter, Facebook and more. The site will pull reviews for a local business on all these sites, a track each review for positive ore negative feedback. → Read More
Co-founder of AOL Steve Case (who will be up on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt this morning – live stream here) has invested an undisclosed sum in online wine marketplace Vinfolio.
The funding comes from Case’s investment company Revolution – partners David Golden and Philippe Bourguignon will join the startup’s board of directors.
The deal terms were not disclosed. → Read More
If you’re watching our livestream of Techcrunch Disrupt, you’re getting every minute of every keynote, panel and Startup Battlefield presentation, but you’re missing out on the dozens of companies in Startup Alley. We’re trying to fix that. Yesterday, we did a quick tour of the Alley during lunch, for day 2 we plan to do the same but take it up a notch. Instead of a random path, we would like you guys to tell us where to go— we’ll be livestreaming this at 1pm.. Vote in the comments or send a tweet to @EvelynRusli, and we’ll go to the startups with the most votes. If you want me to ask a specific question, include that as well. List of today’s Startup Alley companies ahead. → Read More
It seems that all it takes is a class-action lawsuit to get some companies to start treating their customers right.
As a settlement of said lawsuit, today it was announced that AT&T will provide customers with a free unlock code for their device after only 90 days of service. Now, now, don’t get too excited yet: it’s not quite as clear-cut as it may seem. → Read More
On stage today at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York City, Facebook’s vice president of product Chris Cox announced that starting tomorrow, Facebook will be rolling out “drastically simplified” and improved privacy controls. He didn’t give any details, but did suggest that they should alleviate some of the recent privacy problems Facebook has faced.
Ever since the recent wave of privacy backlash began following Facebook’s f8 conference, Facebook has been saying they were listening to feedback and would respond. No less than CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been talking about the issues very publicly. He has said they “missed the mark” and “made a bunch of mistakes.” He also has said they are working on a “simpler way to control your information.” → Read More
Today at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York City, Michael is on stage to talk about the future of mobile with Facebook’s Chris Cox, Google’s Vic Gundotra, and Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley.
Below find my live notes (paraphrased): → Read More
Digital photography company Phase One, which offers in open-platform based medium format camera systems and solutions, is taking over Microsoft’s Expression Media product.
The acquisition of the product is an extension of a partnership between the Copenhagen-based company and Microsoft, inked in 2007.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. → Read More
We reported recently that online document sharing site Scribd will start to ditch Flash across its tens of millions of uploaded documents and convert them all to native HTML5 Web pages, another win for Apple in its battle against Flash. Today, at TechCrunch Disrupt, Scribd CEO and co-founder Jared Friedman, is announcing that the startup has moved much of its content, including tens of millions of books, magazines, newspapers, presentations, research and more, to the HTML5 format.
Friedman has told us that he believes HTML5 improves the reading experience, by allowing any document to become a Web page. “The possibilities are endless,” Friedman said in a statement. And the HTML5 format is able to bring the richness of fonts and graphics from documents to native Web pages. A new bookmark feature will help you keep your place in especially long documents. Scribd’s documents will be especially iPad friendly. Instead of downloading a book from Apple’s iBooks store or Amazon’s Kindle app, you can see if an electronic version is on Scribd and read it in your browser. → Read More
Would ya looky here! Looks like someone over at Innovative Singapore has posted a video that shows what it would be like to turn on a WinPho 7 phone for the very first time.
The device shown in the video (and right here) is the LG Panther, which has been making its way around the webs for a little while now.
It seems that LG will ditch the “Panther” monicker for a much more memorable “GW910″, which is an issue I’ll be taking up with their marketers directly. → Read More
If you like to trade stocks, chances are you do your research on sites like Yahoo Finance, Google Finance, or even StockTwits to find ideas, and then you go log into your brokerage account to execute a trade. Or maybe you get distracted by a dancing bear on YouTube and never buy or sell that stock.
Online discount brokerage Zecco wants to make sure you can trade anywhere on the Web, whenever the feeling hits you. Today, it is releasing Zap Trade with StockTwits, and as a Firefox add-on. On StockTwits, there will now be a Z button which will launch a Zecco trading widget. The widget allows customers to place stock trades without going back to Zecco. Trade, Tweet, Repeat. → Read More
BroadVision has publicly launched Clearvale, a “networks of networks” for the social enterprise. In beta for the past 10 months, Clearvale provides businesses with the tools, and infrastructure to instantly create enterprise social networks, while also being able to connect with other social networks on the platform.
The Clearvale gives businesses a DIY model for building a highly customized, private social network. And with Clearvale, businesses can connect with others outside their own ecosystems. BroadVision also plans to launch a developer community as well asan “app store” for enterprise social networking. Additionally, BroadVision will be opening the Clearvale API. → Read More
Los Angeles-based digital advertising company The Rubicon Project this morning announced that it has acquired SiteScout, a four-year-old security technology company based in Seattle.
SiteScout essentially helps online publishers protect their Web sites from malicious advertising (malvertising), and The Rubicon Project can use their technology to ramp up the security layer of its REVV for publishers platform.
A purchase price was not disclosed. → Read More
New footage of LittleDog found: Run away! Run away! Here’s a waterproof flashlight/video camera iLuv has three new speaker systems for your enjoyment 2010: The year instant messaging finally died? A concept ambidextrous mouse, for your perusal → Read More
Anyone who was in the room today for the first day of TechCrunch Disrupt won’t need me to tell them that the event was a huge success. From Charlie Rose and John Doer first thing in the morning, to David Carr and Eric Hippeau last thing in the afternoon – via the first two rounds of the start-up battlefield, plus the already-infamous Arrington vs Bartz interview – it was a hell of a day. And there are still two more to go.
Another thing that was a huge success was our live streaming of the event. We’ve just received the day’s stats from broadcast partners, Livestream: over the course of the day we streamed over 1 million viewer minutes of video, a total of 87,873 visits by 31,033 unique viewers. Or to put it another way, for every person in the room, 21 were watching online. → Read More
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