UMID isn’t going to roll over and let the Viliv N5 take over the clamshell market. Nope, the there’s a new version of the mbook that trumps nearly every hardware spec found on Viliv’s current offering. → Read More
As we noted a few days ago, the latest stable builds of Google Chrome now come with native Flash support built-in by default. The hope behind this is to get better performance and better security out of Adobe’s plug-in. To showcase how well it works, Google has created a Flash-based game on top of YouTube, Chrome Fastball. It’s pretty nifty.
If you go to this page you YouTube, you’ll find the game. Basically, it’s a combination of a YouTube video and a task-based game that you try to complete as quickly as possible. A video starts playing showing a Rube Goldberg-like contraption. As a ball travels through it, at certain points, challenges pop up that you must complete before the video continues. One challenge is to find the best route in Google Maps, one is to tweet something (from a generic Twitter account tied to the game), one is to look up artists on Last.fm, etc. → Read More
Netflix Instant Queue streaming? For Android? Yes please. While Netflix seems to be dumping about 100% of their mobile efforts into their iPad and upcoming iPhone apps right now, that can’t last forever. With every major manufacturer putting Android on just about every other device, it’s finding its user base simply by being on everything. Netflix wants in on that. → Read More
Today, Facebook has announced the rollout of a new permissions model for third-party applications, mandating that apps specify exactly what data they wish to access (and giving users the ability to opt out if they wish to). The change has been in the works for a long time: Facebook’s blog post notes that it was first announced back in August 2009 as a result of privacy concerns brought up by Canada’s Privacy Commissioner. The new dialog boxes were shown off at f8 in April.
Third-party Facebook applications have always had to ask users for permission to access their private data, but before now the dialogs were unspecific, and sometimes required users to click “Yes” to a series of boxes which could get confusing. Now all data that an application wishes to access will be presented in a single dialog box. As usual, applications will be able to access data that you’ve shared with ‘Everyone’ (which actually encompasses quite a bit of data these days). → Read More
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
EXCLUSIVE – DriveGain, a new startup that opens its doors today, aims to help users learn to drive more efficiently and, in doing so, save on their fuel consumption.
It’s founded by Simon East, an ex-Psion exec and former VP, Technology of Symbian who subsequently founded Cognima (ShoZu), and Dr. Phil Dixon, who has a background in racing car simulations and was a recent Vehicle Performance Engineer with the Renault Formula 1 team.
DriveGain’s first offering is an iPhone app of the same name that, unlike the plethora of sat-nav apps available for Apple’s smartphone, doesn’t bark out turn-by-turn directions but gives a range of visual and audio feedback on what changes are required by the driver to burn less fuel. → 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
