Some auto racing news for your Wednesday morning. Formula One, the fancy circuit that, like soccer, is popular everywhere but the U.S., plans to cut emissions by some 15 percent within three years. That’s a remarkable goal seeing as though Formula One cars (and all supercars, for that matter) are about as green as a smokestack from 1900. → Read More
As you may have read yesterday, TwitPic and Posterous are currently in a row after the latter introduced a “Rescue your photos from TwitPic” tool that provides users with a one-click way to import TwitPic photos over to their Posterous blog.
TwitPic isn’t into the idea and reportedly sent the Posterous team a letter last week threatening legal action against the company if they launched it. → Read More
Cliqset, a realtime online social identity platform is launching a new version of its applications: Cliqset 2.0.
The goal of the new release is to better organize the social web and make Cliqset the go-to “distributed social ecosystem,” says CEO Darren Bounds. One part of this is a full integration with Twitter, to allow users to message Twitter users who haven’t joined
Cliqset yet. Previously the platform only allowed you to interact with Twitter users who were also Cliqset members. → Read More
Sony has announced that their latest F and C series laptops will include a special “overheating” feature caused by a bug in the heat management system in the BIOS.
Users who wish to disable this feature can update the BIOS themselves or return the laptops for service. Those who wish to use the laptops to make grilled cheese and panini are free to do so although getting cheese grease in the battery will void your warranty. → Read More
Onkyo in Japan announced [JP, PDF] a new “digital media audio system” for iPod and PC owners today. The system consists of the ND-S1, a so-called digital media transport interface/cradle, and the DP-M1, a set of active speakers. Onkyo already offers the ND-S1 (even outside Japan), which serves as a link between your home theater or PC and your iPod. → Read More
Gyroscopes are fascinating and electronic gyroscopes are even more fascinating. What you see above is a slice of the iPhone 4′s MEMs gyroscope, a little chip able to sense X,Y, and Z displacement on the fly. → Read More
Oh you’re so silly, HP. Why would you hide a clever function for the front-panel LEDs on the HP StorageWorks X310 Windows Home Server? I mean, who wouldn’t want their status LEDs to chase like KITT’s grill lights or strobe Christmas lights-style? This should be a standard option, not hidden by a keyboard command. Anyway, click through for a quick video demo and instructions to unlock this hidden function. → Read More
Mobile ad network AdMob (now part of Google) released its final Mobile Metrics report today (embedded below), at least for a while. AdMob gathers data from millions of phones and mobile devices which serve up its ad impressions, including almost 44 million iOS devices (iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads). The decision to stop disclosing the data may have something to do with its new owner, Google, wanting to assess what it wants to let out there, but it could also be tied to the fact that AdMob might no longer have access to any iPhone data since Apple is specifically threatening to block it.
Whatever the reason, AdMob’s reports have proven to be a rich source of data on the mobile Web across platforms since mobile ad impressions on the mobile Web and in mobile apps are a decent proxy for mobile Web/app usage overall. So let’s dig in.
Over the past two years, mobile ad impressions from smartphones have grown from 22 percent of the total to 46 percent in May, 2010. Apple iOS devices account for the largest portion worldwide, with 40 percent share. But as you can see in the chart above, that share has been declining since it peaked above 50 percent in November, 2009. Over that time, Android has been steadily taking share, rising to 26 percent. → Read More
This guest post is by Eric Schwamberger, President, Zezza Network. Zezza helped the staid old whiskey brand, Canadian Club, create an online game called the Canadian Club Hide A Case contest. It’s an interesting look at how to build engagement without resorting to retweets.
When leveraged correctly, social media is an undeniably powerful tool for contest promotion. It’s important to strike the right balance between contest promotion and organic conversation. Consumers want to feel they are part of something, not just on a list with numerous other people. Facebook is a great place for brands to help create a real connection with their consumers, and, in turn, create valuable loyalists.
Through our experience we’ve identified a few simple strategies and considerations that nearly all successful contest-focused social media campaigns have in common. → Read More
How fun. B&N just outed the 1.4 firmware for the nook and a few dedicated devs toiled day and night to crack it open to the root level. Well, they’ve done it, which means you get all the new B&N goodies along with a few novel features available only with root-level access. → Read More
Mobile applications discovery and sharing service provider Appsfire has just launched a new product called AppTrends, which essentially delivers near real-time rankings of iPhone apps based on the chatter on Twitter.
Rankings – currently limited to the top 20 apps on the website – are based on what Appsfire determines are noteworthy items in the App Store virtually in real-time. Appsfire crawls Twitter for links to iPhone apps, regardless of whether the iTunes URLs are shortened or not, and determines which apps are hot and which are not based on their popularity on the micro-sharing service. → Read More
Since the launch of the original iPhone, there’s been a nice market for screen protectors. Well, at least until Apple started banning them from stores. But what about protectors that go around the edge of your phone? Well, thanks to the iPhone 4, there may be a market for that as well.
The iPhone 4 hasn’t even been out a week and already awrapforthat.com has popped up to make vinyl skins that wrap around the perimeter of the device. Why would anyone want that? Because of the iPhone 4 antenna issues — the so-called “Death Grip” problem. → Read More
The Viliv N5 is a tiny full-feature Windows 7 PC. It’s really staggering to think that this pocketable device efficiently runs a desktop OS and there aren’t many compromises, either. Anyway, here’s a photo set of the tiny N5 against random things I found around my desk that properly show the N5′s small dimensions. → Read More
Warner Music Group (WMG) has partnered with MTV’s Music Group to give MTV exclusive rights to sell ad inventory around WMG’s music video content in the U.S. across MTV Music Group digital properties and mobile services, as well as on WMG’s artist sites and third-party affiliate sites.
Through the new partnership, WMG artists will also be able to to promote their music through MTV’s content channels (MTV, VH1 etc), including the on network’s Unplugged series, VH1′s Behind the Music and CMT’s Crossroads. → Read More
And so it begins. The European Commission this morning launched a consultation on key questions regarding the contentious issues of net neutrality and the open Internet.
The consultation covers such issues as whether ISPs should be allowed to adopt traffic management practices, prioritizing one kind of Internet traffic over another. This has become an issue with the onset of broadband and Internet services which require more bandwidth, such as VoIP or online TV. Essentially, the EC wants to find out whether these practices would create any problems (economical, technical or otherwise) and have ‘unfair effects’ for users. → Read More
RoboCup 2010, a six-day event in Singapore during which robot geeks from around the world let their robots play soccer against each other, ended last week with a German triumph. In the final game, the Darmstadt Dribblers from the Technische Universität in Darmstadt beat the FUmanoids, a team of robots developed at Freie Universität in Berlin 7:1. → Read More
While it isn’t the update you’ve all been waiting for (ie Android 2.1), Sony have just released (over the air) the first upgrade to their premium Xperia X10 device. → Read More
Right off the heels of announcing an expansion of its Kindle Digital Text Platform to authors and publishers around the world, Amazon announced back in January that it would introduce a new 70 percent royalty option in the program that will allow them to to earn a larger share of revenue from each Kindle book they sell.
Well, it’s the middle of the year, and it has now landed.
For the record: the new royalty option comes will not replace the existing DTP standard royalty option but rather complement it. → Read More
Ah, the luxury phone market. A market I’ll never really relate to; while I get my thrills from finding things at the cheapest possible price, there are people out there that yearn to pay as much as they can for their goods.
Are you of that type? Are you craving something that exudes class, status, and elitism? Do you want something more than a normal iPhone 4 can give? → Read More
