It seems like everyone is up in arms about the iPhone 4 antenna issue. You know, the one Apple CEO Steve Jobs suggested you fix by avoiding “holding it that way.” That “way” being the way just about everyone holds their phone. As such, it should be no surprise that Hitler is upset about this issue as well.
Michael Ingram Jr. made the excellent video below. → Read More
Nokia is having a rough month.
First, it saw itself forced to cut its outlook for the second quarter and the full year, and now The Register reports that the Finnish company has lost one of its top tech brains.
Charles Davies, former Symbian CTO and notably the first employee and later managing director of Psion, is leaving the mobile juggernaut to take up an unknown role at navigation giant TomTom. → Read More
Friendly reminder: Steam has a killer summertime sale going on right now, and it runs through July 4. → Read More
Screen yellowing. Wonky cameras. An antenna that hates left-handers. If you take even the most cursory of glances around the Internet, it makes it seem like every iPhone 4 to come off the production line has one issue or another — but are the problems really that widespread? Now that everyone has had at least 24 hours with the device (with an apologetic exception to all of the Best Buy/Walmart/Radio Shack pre-orderers that left empty handed yesterday), I’m interested to know: are you having issues with your phone? → Read More
It’s fairly hard to review the latest crop of consoles. Nintendo, for example, just released a black Wii – it’s the same Wii, but black – and, not to be outdone, Microsoft just sent out their Xbox 360 S, a full-bore replacement for the space heaters known as the Xbox 360. Do you buy a Slim? Do you replace your old 360? Or do you sit tight until the next generation? Questions, questions, questions. An exhaustive review is a bit of overkill for this update, so let’s just talk about what’s different. First, and most important, the processor (codenamed Valhalla ), eDRAM, and GPU are now on one 40nm die, which means that the problems associated with failing heatsinks should be negligible. → Read More
[Copenhagen] Danish VoIP technology company Vopium has received a $16.5 million capital injection, expanding its group of owners with telecom investor Raghuvinder Kataria, one of the early backers of what is now Bharti Airtel (one of the world’s largest telecommunication service providers).
With the investment, Kataria now owns the majority of shares in Vopium, which will use the funding to expand internationally in an effort to challenge VoIP juggernaut Skype. → Read More
WordPress developer Automattic has acquired Plinky from Thing Labs, the creators of social media application Brizzly. Plinky essentially aims to inspire content creators. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Plinky’s technology prompts you with an intriguing question or challenge and (like a question, or a challenge) and you have to answer. Depending on the prompt, your answer could contain photos, maps, playlists and more. You can then share your Plinky answers on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and others. For example, a sample question prompted from Plinky is “What’s your favorite summer memory?” → Read More
Better batteries may be on the way as lithium-ion battery producer Boston-Power ramps up its manufacturing and R&D with a $60M Series E round from Foundation Asset Management and Oak Investment Partners. Boston-Power produces Sonata, better known as Hewlett-Packard’s Long Life Battery, as well as Swing, which is used to power electric vehicles including the upcoming ZE Saab 9-3.
The company plans to double its workforce, adding sales and marketing staff in Massachusetts and growing its manufacturing centers in Taiwan. → Read More
Super Mario Cross Over is now ever so slightly improved including the addition of Ryu from Ninja Gaiden as well as a new NES sound emulator. The creator posted a full Changelog for your edification. → Read More
Are you toting a Sprint HTC Hero or Samsung Moment? You might wanna take a seat — and while you’re at it, have the ol’ Sad Trombone at the ready. Sprint has positively confirmed that neither of these phones will be updated to Android 2.2 (fire Sad Trombone now!). That means no drastic speed improvements as provided by the new compiler, no built-in Wi-Fi hotspot functionality, and no Flash. Well, unless you root your device and install Android 2.2 without Sprint’s guiding hand. Not that we’d ever tell you to do that. We’re just saying, you know, you should could. On the upside, the EVO 4G will be getting 2.2 — but really, was there any doubt about that? → Read More
Last week we reported that Twitter saw a record number of Tweets-per-second (or TPS) after the Lakers win over the Celtics in the deciding game of the NBA Championship. That event generated 3,085 TPS as the game ended. On an average day, Twitter sees about 750 TPS and 65 million total Tweets a day. But with the World Cup causing massive traffic to Twitter, this record was bound to be short-lived. Today, Twitter announced that Japan’s 3-1 victory over Denmark yesterday resulted in 3,283 TPS.
Of course, Twitter cautioned that it is tough to pinpoint any records set this week on a single World Cup game because many are being played simultaneously. Apparently, the Netherlands/Cameroon game ended six minutes prior to the Japan/Denmark game. And total numbers, Twitter says, were fairly similar to the first week when only one game was being played at a time. → Read More
I’d just like to point out that it’s 12:15pm ET on June 25, 2010, and XM Radio Online has once again crashed and burned. That’s with the iPhone App, the plain on’ Web site, and my third-party application that I use because the plain ol’ Web site is terrible on a Mac. Good service you’ve got here, Sirius XM. Third time this week it’s happened to me (but I only listen a few hours per day, so who knows how often the stream is really down). And to be clear this only seems to affect XM Radio Online users, not Sirius folks. At what point can you reasonably say, “Well, your honor, I paid for a service that patently didn’t work. I’d just like my money back is all”? And… she’s back. That only took 30+ minutes. Cool. → Read More
So, we’re not huge fans of the EVO 4G, but as some of you commenters have made abundantly clear, you seem to love it (or think you will). Well, here’s your chance to find out first hand. We’re going to give one away to a TechCrunch reader.
The phone is sold out across the U.S. But Google has given us one to give away. And this is better than one you’ll get in the store because a) it’s free and b) you can sign-up for Sprint service for the thing without having to sign a long term contract. Yes, that’s the real deal. So really, you’re getting all the benefits of this phone you would get for the full $449.99 retail price. → Read More
Well look at that: Texas Instruments has itself a tablet PC. It’s called the Blaze, it’ll be available this August, and it looks to be fairly well-equipped. A 10.4-inch screen (1024×768 resolution), built-in cellular modem, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and, for whatever reason, FM radio. Tablet PCs: the savior of the radio industry~! → Read More
http://www.ustream.tv/flash/live/1/222459Live Streaming by Ustream.TV Some dudes in Lafayette, Indiana are going to play 800 levels of Mario, from SMB to Super Mario Sunshine. Last year they spent 96 hours playing and this year should be even more impressive. You can watch them go to it right here and you can Donate to Child’s Play right here as they fight through the magical land of Mario World. → Read More
By now, many of you have your new iPhone 4s. And even more of you have an iPhone equipped with the latest iOS 4 software. So you want to find the apps tailored to run on it, right? Well, now Apple has a section of the App Store for that.
Apple has singled out 36 apps that it dubs “Awesome iOS 4 Apps” to get you started with the new OS. Not surprisingly, they highlight many of the ones we highlighted last weekend right before the OS came out. Included here are are apps such as Pandora, Dropbox, Twitter, Loopt, How To Cook Everything, and GodFinger. → Read More
The biggest problem with testing Facetime is the dearth of real, hard-core nerds out there with iPhone 4s. I’ve been able to talk to Greg and my buddy Tom, but that’s about it.
Now, however, you can call 1-888-FACETIME (188832238463) and talk to an Apple rep live over Facetime. They’re available from 8am to 8pm CDT. I tried it. It actually works. → Read More
There’s a bunch of possibilities to get attention when you’ve just founded a startup and try to get the word out about your first products. Coming up with a unique name is one way, and California-based audio tech maker Schiit has surely pulled that part off. Yes, it’s the company’s real name (tag line: “You are not going to believe this Schiit”), but Schiit’s producing what looks like low-cost, but high-quality (and quite stylish) audio devices. → Read More
Now the talking heads on cable news will have something else to complain about. ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has given initial approval for a .xxx top-level domain. Should the initial approval become final approval, you’ll be able to register URLs like nakedchicksdoingstuff.xxx. → Read More
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