Ever dreamt of staying in a world-class, five-star hotel at rates that would be more appropriate for your local inn? Off & Away, a new site that’s launching at TechCrunch Disrupt, may be exactly what you’re looking for — assuming you’re not afraid of a little risk. If you’ve ever tried ‘entertainment shopping’ sites like Swoopo, then Off & Away should sound familiar.
When you visit the site, you’ll see a listing of upscale hotel rooms at rock-bottom prices. Click on one, and you’ll see that the price is actually slowly increasing — that’s because Off & Away auctions off each reservation, and other people are bidding for the same room. To participate you need to buy bids (they’re a dollar apiece); then you can bid as many times as you’d like until time runs out. Once that happens one user will walk away with the cheap hotel price. → Read More
Google didn’t invent giving stuff away. Oprah did that. Google just made — or at least greatly popularized — the trend of companies giving their latest and greatest handsets to all the attendees of the developer events in hopes of spiking their interest. The latest company to pull a Google: Samsung. At a Developer Day in South Africa, the company just passed out Bada Wavesto everyone around. They also revealed a number of new details — some good, some.. not so good. → Read More
According to the latest issue of GamePro, Killzone 3 will be fully in 3D, at least if you have the hertz for it. Props to them for taking the bull by the horns; let’s hope it’s less of a sham than that last Killzone media frenzy. I’ve heard it said that games are the only worthwhile application for 3D — that’s a statement that I don’t agree with, but perhaps Killzone 3 may be a good example of just how good 3D can be. → Read More
We all have them: those brief, spontaneous little melodies that pop into the back of our heads, undoubtedly destined for greatness if only we had an ounce of musical talent or a five piece band at our disposal. Well, now you wannabe-maestros have your chance. UJAM is a new startup making its debut today at TechCrunch Disrupt that can turn your humming, whistling, kazoo-playing or not-so-in-tune vocals into something people might actually want to listen to. And it’s really, really cool.
There’s plenty of advanced technology working in the background, but to the user, the site really seems like magic. Whistle a few notes of ‘Ode to Joy’, and in seconds you’ll hear your tune played back by a grand piano. Or an electric guitar. Or a full orchestra, complete with sweeping crescendos that somehow fit your tune perfectly. You can swap between these options in a few clicks, tweaking the results until they suit your fancy. If you happen to sing a few notes out of key, UJam will fix them for you. And if you play an instrument (or at least, try to), you can also use this to quickly turn your one-man show into a full band. → Read More
Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is joining Khosla Ventures, the VC firm. He will join as a senior adviser. Khosla is putting about $1.1 billion into clean technology companies and and tech companies right now.
One of the companies is Calera, a UK company which has a process to sequestrate carbon emissions in cement, while another, Kior, turns wood chips into biofuels.
Mr Blair said: “I am increasingly and crucially aware of the fact that the answer to these twin challenges — climate change and energy security — lies in developing the technological solutions of the future.”
It’s clearly a win for Khosla which will now get access to his significant global network. → Read More
Today at TechCrunch Disrupt, Michael Arrington is sitting down with MySpace’s co-Presidents Jason Hirschhorn and Mike Jones to talk about the status of the evolving site and what it will look like in the future. My notes on the talk are below.
Mike: MySpace is in such a transformative stage it’s important for everyone to question it. We have 120 million unique visitors worldwide. US numbers have been fairly flat. Page views are down… substantially by design. MySpace used to have processes that took 10 page views that should have taken 1. → Read More
It looks like Kindle firmware 2.5 is trickling out to certain Kindle DX owners right this very second. This ought to mean that the update will hit a Kindle near you rather shortly. → Read More
Back in the early cretaceous period – ok, make that 2006 – users of Facebook thought they were using a private social network. As a result they did all sorts of things which they probably wouldn’t have made public. Of course, now we know that Mark Zuckerberg believes that “if people share more, the world will become more open and connected”. In plain English that means Facebook wants to open up much of your data to the outside world, assuming you haven’t gone through your privacy settings with a fine-toothed comb. That may also include your mobile phone number.
Because, in the past (and even today), many Facebook users who lost their mobile phone unwisely created groups often called “lost my phone!!!!! need ur numbers!!!!!” or similar.
They then ask their friends to post their mobile numbers onto the group. Their friends have obliged. Most of these groups are marked as ‘public’, or ‘visible to everyone’ but they would have been much harder to access or scrape before Facebook began opening up.
And as we all now know “Public” on Facebook effectively means “On Google”. → Read More
Oh rapture! GPS 800G watch phone is here and it’s ready to rumble! This phone has GPRS tracking, an SOS button, and can record how fast you’re moving, allowing alerts to be sent to scared and frightened parents. But don’t take my word on it:
1.SMS & GPRS Tracking: Capable of text message (SMS) tracking & internet (GPRS) tracking 2. A SOS button for emergency help. 3. Have Timing & Positioning function , it can search the signal of GPS automatically ,then set the time according the time of satellites to choose the different time of every country . 4. It can store three alarm phone number . you can press any one alarm number button to get help actively…
That Nike World Cup ad I mentioned the other day has aired, I think, 800 million times over the past few days on TV. I know I saw it at least once during the Champions League final at the weekend (which Inter thoroughly deserved to win). But get this: the very first time the ad aired in the UK the final six seconds of the ad never made it on the air! Someone’s getting fired… → Read More
I’ve used a number of Bluetooth headsets, and I really tried to make myself comfortable while wearing them. None of them have been quite comfortable enough for me, and I feel like I’m missing out on sounds around me when the piece is sitting dormant in my ear. Perhaps the new Sound ID 510 headset, coupled with the EarPrint App, will solve my concerns. → Read More
We told you Comcast was introducing something fresh and exciting at TechCrunch Disrupt this year. Say hello to Tunerfish, incubated by the Plaxo team (Comcast acquired Plaxo in 2008) and led by former Plaxo VP of Marketing John McCrea.
Tunerfish is driven by people’s passion for TV shows, and revolves around the ability for people to share what they are watching in real time. Launching in the near future, McCrea billed Tunerfish as a ‘social discovery engine’ for video content. → Read More
Notebook and netbook maker Asus is pre-installing the Amazon Kindle for PC application, allowing Asus owners to access Amazon’s selection of e-books without having to suffer through the pain of software installation on their own time. Not much more to say about this, except that it further cements Amazon’s hegemony in the e-book market. How will Barnes and Noble respond, I wonder? → Read More
TechCrunch Disrupt kicked off this morning, with interviews with Kleiner Perkins’ John Doerr and DST’s Yuri Milner. Next up, we’re discussing the future of music, TV, games and publishing. Michael Wolf, Founder and Managing Director, Activate is leading the discussion with Sarah Chubb, President, Conde Nast Digital; Fred Davis, Founding Partner, CODE Advisors; John Hagel, Co-Chairman, Center for the Edge, Deloitte; and Avner Ronen, CEO, Boxee.
Wolf highlighted the newly announced Google TV as being disruptive to the media space. Ronen’s Boxee, which also streams media from your computer to a TV, says that he thinks the Android-based platform could be complimentary to his application. → Read More
Today at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York City, there was a panel with the video comedy house Funny Or Die. Mark Kvamme, a partner at Sequoia Capital (which invested in Funny Or Die) moderated a panel with Funny Or Die’s Dick Glover, Chris Henchy, and Andrew Steele. The topic was the disruption of old media with this new model of short, cheap videos. All seemed confident they would not only be able to compete with the old guard but would change the business growing forward.
Funny Or Die is already doing “tens of millions of dollars in revenue,” according to Kvamme. When he tells that to people, they don’t believe him. But advertisers are starting to come with million-dollar deals as the site grows in popularity. And while the revenues still may be nothing compared to what traditional Hollywood gets, the key is that the overhead costs are a fraction of the costs of what they are in Hollywood. Kvamme says that when he recently showed off a video to Fox, they thought it cost them tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars to make. It actually only cost them $2,200. → Read More
Google has (finally) released its revenue share breakdown for AdSense.
Publishers apparently earn a 68% revenue share worldwide, meaning Google pays 68% of the revenue that they collect from advertisers. Since launching AdSense for Content in 2003, this revenue share has never changed. For Search, partners see a 51% revenue share for the search ads that appear through their site. → Read More
So you just woke up. You had some cereal, some coffee. Hit the old elliptical and then took a shower and went to work. You fire up the old PC, get the TPS reports ready, and while the FTOPS are loading you visit CrunchGear. You play the video above. You realize that your entire world, one day very soon, will change. You discover that LittleDog is the robot that will kill and macerate you. → Read More
Twitter just put up a blog post talking up its platform approach and long-term strategy. In that same post, however, the company has made some decisions that are sure to irk a couple of third-party developers and startups.
Here’s the big news: aside from (its own) Promoted Tweets, Twitter says it will not be allowing any third party to inject paid tweets into a timeline on any service that leverages the Twitter API. The changes will be reflected in an updated set of Terms & Conditions, which is due to be released ‘shortly’.
Update: here it is (details after the jump) → Read More
Match.com and Yahoo are going steady now. Yahoo Personals is out. This morning, Yahoo announced that Match.com will become the exclusive online dating site on Yahoo. Yahoo’s current online dating site, Personals, will be folded into a new co-branded site called “Match.com on Yahoo.” Match already powers Yahoo Personals in a number of European markets.
Yahoo Personals users will be encouraged to migrate to Match.com on Yahoo and given the opportunity to seamlessly migrate their Yahoo Personals accounts over to the new site. Match.com on Yahoo will offer users mobile access, daily personalized matches and more advanced search tools. → Read More
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