http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/emp/external/player.swf I’m not familiar with the vagaries of UK politics, specifically the new “coalition” government and the implications of the latest election, but this is a good move no matter what party you’re in. The national ID cards, a grievously flawed part of a crippled program, are to be completely abolished within 100 days. For a state that has invested so heavily in surveillance, this about-face comes as rather a surprise — though a pleasant one, to be sure. Rejoice, UK cousins! The lady in the video has the most inscrutably satisfied tone towards the end, there. Cracks me up. → Read More
The One Laptop Per Child program’s leader, Nicholas Negroponte, showed off some renderings of the XO-3 tablet, and announced several new details. The occasion for the presentation was a partnership with Marvell, whose extremely low-cost Moby tablet design surfaced a few months ago. They’re working with Marvell (and Pixel Qi, reportedly) to produce this new tablet, which they are hoping will cost only $75. → Read More
With sales of music games dropping at alarming rates, the savvy game designers at Harmonix (or more likely, the desperate marketers) have decided that in order to revive their flagging franchise, they needed something truly mind-blowing. “I know! How about a keytar?!” → Read More
An anonymous tipster has confirmed the long-whispered rumors that Amazon will offer a Kindle that isn’t white. A mystery unit, described by our tipster as “exactly like a Kindle DX but black,” was being photographed at a Seattle coffee shop (with a 5D mk II, he or she notes) and Mr/Mrs Tipster had the presence of mind to snap a picture before they put it away. → Read More
A 79-year-old man from Utica, NY entered an AT&T store with a hit list of names and a 357 Magnum. He opened fired, hitting one employee, before an off-duty police officer who was shopping at the store pulled his own gun and shot the attacker dead.
The shooter, Abraham Dicken, had held a grudge against the store’s employees for months, even threatening them with a gun once before. His hit-list contained the names of six employees. → Read More
In July of last year, Twitter Search usage was exploding. As such, Twitter hired a new high-profile engineer, Doug Cook, to take over as the new “Director of Search.” Cook has now left the company, we’ve learned.
When reached for comment, Twitter confirmed the departure, but would not give a reason for the split. We had also heard that the reason Cook is out is that the search team is being split into at least two different groups now. Twitter’s comment on the matter seems to confirm that: → Read More
“We need our development teams focused on content and cool features, not anti-piracy technology.” Thank you, finally! See, Blizzard gets it. The company’s co-founder, Frank Pearce, recently told the good folks at Video Gamer that he thinks the fight against DRM is misguided. Not that he supports end-users going around torrenting his games till the end of time, but that the way to “beat” piracy is to embrace gamers and treat them like complete jerks. → Read More
After three full days, our first TechCrunch Disrupt conference is now over. By all metrics it was a big success — and that includes on Twitter. The #tcdisrupt hashtag was a Trending Topic in New York City (where the conference was) basically the entire time it was going on. And many of the individual startups that launched appeared on the list too at points. The Twitter and Facebook analytic company RowFeeder ran some numbers about the show — they’re pretty interesting. Below, find some of their data.
To get this info, they looked at both the hashtag “#TCdisrupt,” and the phrase “Techcrunch Disrupt.” The first chart below shows huge spikes during certain parts of the show. Obviously, Carol Bartz’s fireside swearing session got a lot of play, but so did the “Lean vs. Fat Startup” debate between VCs Fred Wilson and Ben Horowitz. The startup battlefields each day did well, as did the final competition. → Read More
Our clichés need updating. “Axe to grind”? How many people still regularly use axes, axes that need grinding? Why not something like “hard drive to defrag”? “Best thing since sliced bread”? Why not “best thing since the iPad”? We are surrounded by technology, but our language still reflects life on the farm. Let’s do this! → Read More
Over six months after announcing its plans to acquire leading mobile ad network AdMob, Google has finally closed the deal. The news comes a week after the FTC unanimously approved the deal, after holding it up for months as it decided whether or not to block it on antitrust grounds.
When it finally reached a decision, the FTC pointed to Apple’s recent entry into the mobile ad market with iAds as evidence that there would still be plenty of competition in the nascent mobile advertising space (an argument that we made before, as did many others). The FTC may have also been swayed by blog posts from developers questioned during the FTC inquiry who felt that the deal should go through. Some developers also wrote that they felt like the FTC had an agenda and that they were being pressured to say things that would hurt Google’s cause. → Read More
Can we get better government through game mechanics? We are about to find out. Today, ChallengePost was named the official online “challenge platform” of the U.S. federal government. Any government agency that wants to run a challenge to get ideas from citizens can use ChallengePost as a way to gather ideas and even offer cash prizes for the best ideas.
ChallengePost ran the NYC Big Apps contest and Michelle Obama’s Apps for Healthy Kids challenge. Many of these challenges revolve around tapping into government data in creative ways or creating software with some sort of civic benefit. → Read More
Over six months after announcing its plans to acquire leading mobile ad network AdMob, Google has finally closed the deal. The news comes a week after the FTC unanimously approved the deal, after holding it up for months as it decided whether or not to block it on antitrust grounds.
When it finally reached a decision, the FTC pointed to Apple’s recent entry into the mobile ad market with iAds as evidence that there would still be plenty of competition in the nascent mobile advertising space (an argument that we made before, as did many others). The FTC may have also been swayed by blog posts from developers questioned during the FTC inquiry who felt that the deal should go through. → Read More
There’s just no hope anymore. The GOP, one of the two great political parties in the United States, recently requested people submit ideas to be incorporated into the party’s platform this fall. A Web site was created. And then, predictably, people starting trolling the site. “A ‘teacher’ told my child in class that dolphins were mammals and not fish! And the same thing about whales! We need TRADITIONAL VALUES in all areas of education. If it swims in the water, it is a FISH. Period! End of Story.” Well, I’m assuming that’s a troll. You never can tell anymore. → Read More
A UK therapist claims that two hours of playing video games gives the same high as doing a line of cocaine. Of course that raises the question of, well, what would you rather your kid do, bump lines off a dirty mirror or play Mario Kart before going to bed? What, too flip? → Read More
Today, Facebook is releasing its first official SDK for Android, offering developers on Google’s mobile OS an easy way to tie their Android native apps to Facebook Platform. As AllFacebook noted last week, this SDK is actually more advanced than the iPhone SDK because it features Facebook’s Graph API, which was unveiled at its f8 developer conference last month.
According to the post on Facebook’s Developer blog, the SDK also uses OAuth 2.0 for authentication and the ability to publish stories to Facebook using Feed forms. → Read More
Today, Facebook is releasing its first official SDK for Android, offering developers on Google’s mobile OS an easy way to tie their Android native apps to Facebook Platform. As AllFacebook noted last week, this SDK is actually more advanced than the iPhone SDK because it features Facebook’s Graph API, which was unveiled at its f8 developer conference last month.
According to the post on Facebook’s Developer blog, the SDK also uses OAuth 2.0 for authentication and the ability to publish stories to Facebook using Feed forms. → Read More
I sure hope for Microsoft‘s sake this isn’t true. Word on the street is that Project Natal (which won’t be the final name) will cost $150 and will launch in October. Considering Microsoft is aiming Natal at so-called casual gamers, what are the odds these people are going to shell out $150 to be able to play that paint-slinging game we’ve seen demoed over and over again? → Read More
Early this morning, the rumormill went a bit bonkers. A hole to a parallel universe apparently ripped open outside of an analyst’s office. Through this hole, the analyst saw a world where Steve Ballmer presented something at Apple’s WWDC 2010 keynote. Alas, the analyst didn’t realize that this was a parallel universe, instead interpreting it as a glance into the future. “Steve Ballmer will be presenting at WWDC! Steve Ballmer will be presenting at WWDC!”, he shouted. People were skeptical, and rightly so. It’s all a bunch of nonsense, says Microsoft. → Read More
Are you totally into Android? Then you’re totally in luck. The folks who brought you Exploded iPad and Exploded iPhone present Exploded Andy, the Android android cut down to his component parts, including a fat, fleshy brain. → Read More
There’s a new gaming mouse in town, amigos. It’s the Mionix NAOS 3200, and it’s made of “carefully selected high-end components.” What kind of components? I’m guessing dark matter. → Read More
