Fresh off a $33 million funding round, Playdom is making its fifth acquisition of the year today. The gaming giant is buying social gaming startup Hive7. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Hive7, which is backed by True Ventures and was founded in 2005, develops social games for Facebook and MySpace. The startup is best known for its flagship game, Knighthood, which combines combat and diplomacy in a medieval setting. Other titles include Youtopia, Kick-Off, and Sindicate. Hive 7′s developers and team have already joined Playdom’s Mountain View offices. → Read More
Whether it was intended for announcement today or not we’ll never know, but Microsoft’s VP of Marketing just mentioned during a presentation that Windows Phone 7 will be launching this October. No more details, unfortunately — it’s not clear whether it’ll be a full launch with all the handsets ready to go, or a soft launch where they formally announce prices and dates for everything. October still seems dangerously far away when you’ve got the iPhone 4 (problems notwithstanding) and Android 2.2 raring to go. But I’m keeping the fire. It looks like a great mobile OS, and even if it were launching next week that’d be too far out for me. [via Engadget] → Read More
So you want the rest of the office to think you’re a bit odd, and you’re looking for a way to keep you monitor clean. Have I got the product for you. Take what is essentially a plush hamburger complete with lettuce, two patties, an extra bun, and some cheese, and you’ve got the oddest monitor cleaning device ever. → Read More
Warning! The beverage you are about to drink is HIGHLY CARBONATED. Please allow 15 seconds before opening this drink. Why oh why don’t we get these awesome Japanese drink variants here in the U.S.? Video over at Gigazine. By the way, in Japanese it’s the SUTORONGUSHOTTO. [via Inventor Spot and The Awesomer] → Read More
While this isn’t quite on the level of Amazon’s 1984 nonsense, Google did just demonstrate their willingness to remotely detonate apps they deem malicious. In this case, it was a couple dummy apps put up by a researcher — probably trying to figure out why people download what they download. At any rate, he took them off the market after a while, and the Android security team decided to nuke the remaining installs. I’m not calling attention to this out of disapproval, though. It’s part of the terms of service and these weren’t books people had paid for, like in the Amazon situation. But it’s good to know that the capability is there, for good or ill, and someone does have their finger on the button. That’s likely to be the case with almost any service provider from now on, so get used to it. [via The Register] → Read More
Bad news for Activision fans that were hoping to use the Move or Kinect; the publisher is convinced that the high prices for the new peripherals are going to prevent people from adopting the new technology. So don’t expect to see Call of Duty or Guitar Hero using Move or Kinect any time soon. → Read More
By now you’ve heard about the antenna issues some people are having with the new iPhone 4. Basically, it seems like wireless signal strength degrades if you hold the lower left corner on some, but not all devices. This has been shown on video and there are many reports out there about this issue — something that is particularly troublesome for left-handed people. I’m sure a lot of people have asked Apple about the issue — I have too. So far, I have yet to hear anything back other than they’re looking into it. But one man did hear something back about the issue — from Steve Jobs himself. → Read More
Click on through to test your nerd cred. → Read More
By now you’ve heard about the antenna issues some people are having with the new iPhone 4. Basically, it seems like wireless signal strength degrades if you hold the lower left corner on some, but not all devices. This has been shown on video and there are many reports out there about this issue — something that is particularly troublesome for left-handed people. I’m sure a lot of people have asked Apple about the issue — I have too. So far, I have yet to hear anything back other than they’re looking into it. But one man did hear something back about the issue — from Steve Jobs himself.
C.K. Sample emailed Jobs earlier this afternoon about the issue. A few hours later, Jobs responded with the following: → Read More
Larry Cornett, Yahoo’s Vice President of Search Consumer Products, is leaving the company he’s worked for four years, he announced today on his personal blog. His departure was first reported by Search Engine Land. The news comes just over two weeks after Yahoo laid off a portion of its search team, likely as a result of the Bing/Yahoo search deal. At the time, Yahoo declined to give any numbers on the number of people who were axed, but they did give us this statement:
“Yahoo! remains focused on innovating the overall Search experience over the long-term, and the Yahoo! Search group is hard at work on some new experiences that we believe will convert Yahoo! users to Yahoo! searchers. To accomplish our new product objectives, we have decided that we need a different combination of talent and are making changes within the search group in order to more deeply invest in other areas of the group. “
Is it possible to use electrical tape to make your new iPhone work better? Wired reader Ryan Rhea says it is. Turns out that one of the many issues that new iPhone owners are running into is if you touch the metal bezel, you’ll lose some of your connection. This can cause slower download speeds, and even dropped calls depending on your location. Sure, you could buy a case with rubber bumpers on it that would block you from touching the metal portion of your iPhone, but then you miss out on the ghetto look of electrical tape. Of course, keep in mind you could get colors like red, yellow, green, orange, as well as the traditional black. Just remember when you see an iPhone with electrical tape on it, Ryan Rhea thought of it first. → Read More
Bing is on a roll. Yesterday, it released Bing Entertainment and a new iPhone app. And today it is following up with an update to its mobile web search at http://m.bing.com. Bing only recently became a search option on the iPhone, but it really wants to become your default mobile search engine. In fact, if you are not careful, Bing will take over as your default search engine the first time you use it on your iPhone. A message box pops up asking you, “Do you want to change your search engine to Bing?” (Yahoo, the other search options, is using the same notification). Once you do, the hope is there will be no going back.
The new mobile web site looks gorgeous in the iPhone’s mobile web browser (as well as on Androids, Palms, Windows phones, Kins, and Zunes). It looks more like an app, with simplified menu buttons along the bottom (local, maps, directions, movies, weather, favorites) and smooth scrolling in maps. The homepage features Bing’s signature background photo, which looks great on an iPhone screen). And right under the search box, you have the option to “Locate me.” It was able to find my exact street address immediately, something which Google’s mobile web search was having trouble with for me (I had to manually enter my zipcode to get local results). Once you let Bing locate you, it remembers your location on subsequent searches. → Read More
The simple bookmarking tool, Instapaper, is easily one of the best apps available for the iPhone (and iPad). It’s perhaps the perfect way to keep track of and manage online posts (especially long ones) that you want to read later on a mobile device. Seeing as the iPhone 4 was just released today with its new high quality Retina Display to make reading more enjoyable on the go, these two seem like a match made in heaven. And now they are.
Apple has just approved version 2.2.4 of Instapaper. The universal app (meaning it will work on both the iPhone/iPod touch and iPad) brings several key updates. First, the graphics have been updated to make them look better on the iPhone 4′s Retina Display. Second, swipe-to-page has been added to both the iOS 4 version of the app and the iPad version. This new functionality mimics the way you turn a page in Apple’s own iBooks app. Developer Marco Arment also promises better page turning performance with the latest version. Third, a few interface bugs have been fixed. And finally, OAuth support for Twitter has been added. → Read More
We’re all excited for Froyo to hit our compatible Android handsets, but don’t forget that there’s a whole Atom-based Android community as well. Those little x86 tablets and netbooks desperately need the speed boost, and Intel aims to be ready as soon as possible. They’ve already started porting, and they’re planning a summer release. I haven’t been impressed by the larger Android devices, but maybe they just needed a little 2.2 magic. Nice to know as well: all Intel’s coding and porting efforts will be open-sourced on completion. Can you feel the love?! [via Phandroid] → Read More
As you’ve undoubtedly heard, one of the big new features of the iPhone 4 is FaceTime, the video chatting functionality. If you’re on a call with another iPhone 4 user (and both of you are connected to WiFi), you’ll see a new FaceTime button in the bottom row of the call options. But as some people have noticed, this new button replaces the “Hold” button found on all other iPhones. So how do you put a call on hold now? One reader, Jonathan Cowperthwait, emailed Steve Jobs today to find out.
Less than two hours later, he got a response. (Apparently, Jobs is on top of his emails even on days when he’s launching a massive new product.) In typical Jobs fashion, here’s his answer: → Read More
This is pretty funny. You’ve probably seen some of the propaganda over the last year or so about how GPUs are orders of magnitude faster than CPUs at certain tasks, due to their parallel processing engine. Intel got tired of hearing about it, I guess, and decided to debunk the myth. They set out to disprove the notion that a GPU can be 100 times faster than a CPU. They kind of did it, but I think this is what is termed a Pyrrhic victory. → Read More
Ah, the joys of first-batch Apple hardware. In addition to the hardware issues we’ve been seeing reported, there is now a group of users claiming that their rear-facing cameras are refusing to work at all. Apparently the shutter graphic just stays closed, and none of the buttons work. This occurs in the camera app or any app that calls in the picture-taking function, like Facebook. Rebooting and restoring are doing nothing, so I’m guessing this is an issue with the code shipping inside the iPhone 4, since we haven’t heard reports of any other handsets freezing up. If this happens to you, you can of course reset your phone by holding the home and power buttons down for a few seconds, but if it continues, feel free to return it for a new unit. I’ll update this post if a solution is found. Pretty borked rollout, Apple! Although to be fair, I played with one last night and it had none of the launch issues. So there’s one more data point, I guess. [Thanks, Brook] → Read More
Just a friendly reminder, Futurama returns to Comedy Central tonight. And while I made a joke about setting your DVR, please watch it live. Particularly if you are a Neilsen family. It’s only going to stay around if you watch the show, and the networks still think it only counts if you watch it live, and not record it on your DVR and watch it later. I think this is foolish, but whatever. At any rate, the Futurama’s triumphant return is tonight at 10pm eastern time. Try not to miss it people. [via SciFi Squad] → Read More
In terms of the hardware, one of the only completely new features on the iPhone 4 is the gyroscope. It’s so new, in fact, that third-party developers haven’t had a chance to play around with it yet because they didn’t have access to the iPhone 4 hardware until today (or at least two days ago). And because they didn’t have the hardware, that means there are a sad lack of apps that use the feature so far. But actually, there is one out there. Ngmoco’s Eliminate: GunRange. And it’s awesome.
The game itself is simple. You pick a gun (preferably a high-powered semi-automatic one) and head to the shooting range. But the game shines thanks to the gyroscope — which is required for you to play. Rather than dragging your finger around the screen to tell your gun where to aim, you simply tilt the iPhone itself. Sure, you could sort of do this previously with the compass built in to the iPhone 3GS — but trust me, this is much, much better. → Read More
Did you know that, according to Electrolux, a Swedish appliance manufacturer, there are gigantic piles of plastic debris floating about our planet’s oceans? Some of these are as big as the state of Texas! Way to go, humans! So, Electrolux’s proposal? Collect all that trash, then turn it into vacuum cleaners. You couldn’t make that up if you tried. → Read More
Barcelona, Spain
New York City
San Francisco, CA
