Say hello to Microsoft Tag. It’s a brand new service (I guess you can call it a service) that envisions a world filled with tags. The tags, almost like barcodes or QR codes, are placed all over the place. On merchandise at the mall, on statues at the parks, and so on. You scan the tag with your phone, then all sorts of info pops up. → Read More
Short Version: The Sony Vaio Z-Series is a thin and light with a mission: to prove that a tiny – but expensive – laptop can run Windows 7 and almost anything you throw at it like a champ. → Read More
Awesome. Simply awesome. How could I have gone through my childhood not knowing that I could have played my Sega Genesis games on the Sega Action Chair. The beauty here is that the chair itself is the controller with a joystick pad located on the chairs single mounting point and controller bars holding the buttons. Amazing. → Read More
Safari on the iPhone is by no means a bad mobile browser — in fact, it’s arguably the best one out there. Just because people have something good doesn’t mean they don’t want to peek at what else is out there, though. Even if someone’s dating the finest supermodel in all the lands, they’ll still sneak casual glances at other potential mates. Its just human nature. People like having options. For quite some time, Apple blocked third-party apps that challenged those that came on the handset out of the box, citing “duplication of functionality”. When Opera submitted the Opera Mini browser to the App Store, much ado was made over whether or not it would be approved. It was — and naturally, people looked. 2.6 million of them, in just 2 weeks. → Read More
The iPed? Well that’s fine then. If it had been iPid, well, then I would have thrown a fit—that’s my idea! It’s in China, of course. You know, the land of bootleg electronics. → Read More
The EVO 4G is coming on June 4th, and you’re all prepped for your pre-launch camp out. Your lawn chairs are in the truck, you’ve got your windbreaker and beanie at the ready, and your alarm is set to have you at the front of the line by the time the doors open at 10 a.m. Go ahead and roll back the alarm a few hours. → Read More
Well well well! Sirius XM just released its Android App. As you can see here, I’ve downloaded it and it works. Channel 202 = the only channel that matters. → Read More
The Microsoft Courier might be dead at Microsoft, but Sony just filed a patent that describes almost the exact same thing — but better. → Read More
Hon Hai Precision Industry, the anchor group for Foxconn, is offering its workers a 20% increase in pay as part of a regular third-quarter cycle. It’s important to note that this is a cyclical was planned months in advance the suicides are ancillary to the eleven suicides thus far. → Read More
http://www.hulu.com/embed/wafhIIpriq0Oq-doAeNLsA/672/1127/i966 Clearly her knowledge extends beyond sex robots to the ways of back country folk. Who knew? Oh, she’s also featured on TimeOut New York’s 100+ hot summer singles. → Read More
In two weeks on June 11, TechCrunch will celebrate its fifth birthday. We want to celebrate it with as many people as we can all around the world. So we are using the new Meetup Everywhere platform that Scott Heiferman announced on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt on Wednesday to organize TechCrunch Meetups on June 11 all around the world. Already there are almost 150 meetups planned in places including New York City, San Francisco, London, Hyderabad, Seoul, Tel Aviv, Jakarta, and Sophia.
We will be throwing our own party in the Bay Area (more details on that coming soon), but for those who can’t fly to California, these meetups are a great way to gather with other people who obsess about technology and startups near where you live. We really think of this as a celebration of the last five years of technology and all that has happened on the Web since then. So join one of the 150 meetups already organized or start your own. To get some regional rivalries going, we will offer 50 free tickets to the next TechCrunch Disrupt (airfare and hotel not included) to each of the 50 largest meetups so that one person from each meetup will win a ticket. We will be in touch with the organizers of each of the 50 largest meetups with more details. → Read More
The idea of putting iPhone apps on the Apple TV has been something some of us have been thinking about since at least 2008, when the original App Store launched. When rumors were swirling about Google TV, it became an even better idea as the living room was likely to be a new battleground for Apple/Google. And with the unveiling of Google TV last week, it became clear that this would be a next major fight — provided Apple started taking it seriously. Soon, they will be, if Engadget’s sources are correct.
The gadget blog says that a tip they’ve since confirmed with “a source very close to Apple” suggests that Apple has been working on the next version of the Apple TV. The goods according to them: it will be a very small box (smaller than the current one) with perhaps only outputs for power and TV-out cables. It will run on Apple’s new A4 chip (the one found in the iPad and soon the new iPhone). It will still do 1080p video, but may have as little as 16GB of flash memory. That’s because the thing will be based around streaming over the cloud (or from other computers in your home) rather than local storage. Most significantly, it will run the iPhone OS. → Read More
Have you ever tried to check into a place on Foursquare or some other geo service only to find that there are 10 names for the same location? For instance, Foursquare has tons of different “places” that are all inside Grand Central Terminal in New York City. There is Grand Central Terminal itself, but there is also Track 32, 34, 108, and so on. You can also check into the Blimpies or Hudson News inside the terminal, or the “5:22 Express To Grand Central Terminal” which is not a single place so much as it is a moving train (literally). While there are times you want to have the granularity of being able to say, “I am in front of the central ticket booth with the clock,” nine times out of ten simply checking into Grand Central Terminal is sufficient for most people.
The Grand Central problem is replicated across many popular places in Foursquare and other places databases. According to mobile marketing startup Placecast, location datasets show similar mismatches up to 40 percent of the time. → Read More
Cloud storage and document sharing startup Box.net is the latest startup to adopt HTML5. The startup is announcing today that it is incorporating a broad implementation of HTML5 drag and drop functionality that supports native interaction with desktop. So basically, you can drag and drop files from the desktop right into your Box.net web application.
The feature works on Firefox 3.6 and Chrome for PC (with support for Safari and Chrome on all platforms coming in the next few weeks). Box’s CEO and co-founder Aaron Levie says that Flash didn’t allow this at all due to security issues. While this is a small addition in terms of functionality, he believes that HTML5 provides a much richer user experience when it comes to enterprise applications and the interaction between the browser and the operating system . “HTML5 is the nail on the coffin of desktop applications because we can create this rich interactive experience that acts like a native app.” Levie adds that HTML5 is also appealing because it works on every device. → Read More
According to the WSJ, Motorola president Sanjay Jha said that “We will introduce new Droid products in the Verizon franchise.” This probably means something like the Droid Shadow that “appeared” in a toilet recently. → Read More
New Rock Band to feature the keytar – because as we all know, everyone loves keytars Black Kindle spotted and (barely) pictured Why haven’t our clichés been updated to better reflect today’s technology? Video game addiction: The same as getting high on cocaine? Exploded Andy: A t-shirt for Android fans → Read More
The UK has been gripped by the launch of the iPad if the Twitpics are to be believed. As you can see from the below ( thanks jasonlan and joanikin) there was a large crowd queuing outside Apple’s flagship London store on Regent’s Street, in a line which literally snaked around the corner into Hanover Square. Believe me, that is a long line.
Some estimates have put the crowd at around 500 people outside, waiting to grab the iPad. → Read More
A certain founder of a certain hot startup made the mistake this evening of posting two messages to Twitter that he clearly didn’t intend to. They were sent via text message – and my guess is they were meant for a friend, not public consumption.
Cleaning it up a little, it reads:
…But the investors are already rich so this doesn’t change their lives like it does mine…[It will] come down to [investors] getting a high enough offer than the investors can [say] let’s take it.
From Silicon Valley to New York, from India to South Africa one question keeps popping up in the mind of Web and mobile Web entrepreneurs: What the hell is going on in Indonesia?
Having matured from its early 2000s Internet obsession with Friendster, it seems Indonesia has become something of a Web force, embracing everything from Facebook to Foursquare catching people off guard with some uncommon swarms. We wrote about an obscure Indonesian awards show taking over Twitter back in March, and on May 6, Indonesians flocking to see Iron Man 2 won their first Super Swarm badge on FourSquare—something US Web addicts usually only earn at large events like SXSW.
I’d like to say I hunted down some impressive Internet entrepreneurs during my current trip to Indonesia to ask them exactly what was going on here, but really they found me. (Just another sign of their Web savvy.) I grilled them on some basic questions to bring you a Web-in-Indonesia primer. → Read More
New online photo and location service Picplz, being developed by imeem execs Dalton Caldwell and Bryan Berg, is still far from being fully baked. But people who are determined to get an early look at the new service will soon have a way to do so – if they have an Android phone.
Think of picplz as a photo-based foursquare. You can use it as a simple publishing tool for a photo stream – think Twitpic or Posterous – but it really shines when you access the service via a mobile device. Picplz is integrated tightly with Foursquare to assign a location to your photo and then check in. Your photos are then published on the Picplz site and, optionally, Twitter. Facebook publishing is also coming soon.
The company has built an unpublished Android application as its first mobile app, which I tested earlier today. The app will be added to the Android marketplace sometime soon, and once it is anyone can download it and test the service. It will be the only way to actually create an active account on the service for now, but once you have an account you can use the picplz website as well. → Read More
