No doubt after yesterday’s news that HTC is making the switch from AMOLED displays to the much more readily available S-LCD panels, you — like me — have been itching for a hands-on comparison between the two technologies.
Well, I’m not about to tell you that you’ve been personally selected to do a hands-on comparison for yourself, but I am about to give you the next best thing: a video of someone else doing the comparison. → Read More
Personal finance site for women LearnVest has had a big year. Launched last fall at TechCrunch50, the startup raised its first round of funding from Accel Partners and seed investors a few months ago ($4.5 million to be exact).
LearnVest has a simple goal: to help women organize their finances and learn how to become financially savvy. It’s kind of like an online version of financial planner Suze Orman blended with personal finance site Mint.com.
Today, the startup is launching three online programs, called ‘bootcamps,’ to educate women on various financial subjects, including a Financial Basics Bootcamp, Cut Your Costs Bootcamp, and Investing Bootcamp. Instead of creating a book-like online experience, LearnVest is making email newsletters the foundation of the educational sessions. → Read More
It’s 60€ in Europe. Costs as much as a console title only this is the digital version. I guess I’ll just wait until the price drops to a reasonable amount of money. → Read More
The spectactular search deal Microsoft and Yahoo struck last summer doesn’t extend to all country markets. In Japan, Yahoo search will be powered by Google in the future, as announced [JP] on the Google Japan blog and by Yahoo Japan itself [JP, PDF] earlier today (Yahoo Japan‘s current search engine is provided by Yahoo in the US).
Yahoo Japan says the date the switch becomes effective has yet to be determined. Under the agreement, users of the service will be served both paid and algorithmic search results generated by Google technology on the backend (other contents, i.e. links to Yahoo Japan’s Q&A service, will remain in place). Before going for Yahoo Search Technology, Yahoo Japan actually used Google’s search engine from April 2001 to May 2004. → Read More
If Brizzly wouldn’t be slower than molasses in January, I would have long deemed it my Twitter web client of choice (I don’t like running too many desktop clients if I can avoid it – switching tabs in my browser is much quicker). However, it is as slow as a tortoise, so I took a look at the new Twitter.com (testing inline media nowadays) and Seesmic Web for good measure as I tend to use the latter on my iPhone and Android phones.
One thing the Web app has always lacked, is support for Facebook. However, there in the sidebar was the Facebook logo, along with that of LinkedIn and Foursquare. → Read More
Guys! Stainless steel Sharpies! Two extremely well-designed wall clocks for your consumption The Flowlab 14-wheel skateboard – can it possibly work? Using photography software to see through space and time Own the “Numbers” computer from Lost Back to the Future trilogy hits Blu-ray October 26 → Read More
ZumoCast is a new cloud storage service, sorta, minus the cloud. The application streams files directly from your home desktop computer to another Internet connected device.
A year and a half ago Y Combinator startup Zecter launched a cloud storage service called Zumodrive, with a twist – Zumodrive creates a drive on your device that is synced to the cloud. But instead of syncing those files with all of your other devices, Zumodrive tricks the file system into thinking those cloud-stored files are local, and streams them from the cloud when you open or access them. That makes it perfect for mobile devices with limited local storage.
HP has tapped Zecter to provide cloud storage on netbook devices. And they have mobile apps for all the usual suspects. → Read More
There’s always been a form of healthy rivalry between Reddit and Digg, and its respective user bases. I’m one of those indifferent people who think there’s plenty of room for multiple sites of the kind, and that these sites actually make each other stronger and better in their state of co-existence. Rising tide lifting all boats and all that.
Nevertheless, I was keen on sharing an email from reader Harry Maugans, which we received moments ago: (after the jump) → Read More
There’s been much ado about DMCA’s latest ruling, particularly its “jailbreaking” provision, which allows users to run applications that are not approved by their phone maker (ahem, Apple). In less than 24 hours, hundreds have opined on the matter, some wondering what kind of Pandora’s box this ruling could unleash upon iPhone’s carefully manicured Garden of Eden.
Take for instance, PC World’s Lance Ulanoff, who described an “open season on iPhone, AT&T and others,” a world where jailbreaking services banded, “together to create a business organization. They could sue Apple and AT&T, claiming the companies [were] undermining their ability to conduct business.”
While the image of newly empowered developers taking pitchforks to Apple’s guarded ecosystem is a vivid one, Jon Zittrain, Harvard Law professor of internet law and the author of The Future Of The Internet And How To Stop It, doesn’t buy it. Video ahead. → Read More
Taiwan-based phone manufacturer HTC has been selling smartphones in China under the name Dopod for many years, but this morning the company announced that it will soon start selling TD-SCDMA-based phones with the HTC brand actually attached to them.
In a press release issued moments ago, the company said it has teamed up with carrier China Mobile to bring future HTC phones to market and formed a new distribution partnership with China’s largest electronics distributor, GOME Electrical Appliances.
Initially coming to mainland China are HTC’s newly unveiled smartphones with the Sense user interface: The HTC Tianxi, Tianyi, Desire and Wildfire. → Read More
Taiwan-based phone manufacturer HTC has been selling smartphones in China under the name Dopod for many years, but this morning the company announced that it will soon start selling TD-SCDMA-based phones with the HTC brand actually attached to them.
In a press release issued moments ago, the company said it has teamed up with carrier China Mobile to bring future HTC phones to market and formed a new distribution partnership with China’s largest electronics distributor, GOME Electrical Appliances.
Initially coming to mainland China are HTC’s newly unveiled smartphones with the Sense user interface: The HTC Tianxi, Tianyi, Desire and Wildfire. → Read More
While the picture above certainly makes it look like Adidas’s Tron-themed sneakers will glow like crazy, that’s not actually the case. It turns out the glowy bits are “glow in the dark stitch detailing and reflective TRON disk screenprints” probably made from reflector material. In their defense, that stuff can get pretty bright in the right environment, and it lasts a long time: I have some Pumas from 2001 that still shine. There are no more details right now, but if they’re anything like the Star Wars line, they’ll be limited and rather expensive. [via Fashionably Geek and Nerd Approved] → Read More
Multi-tools are all the rage now, but that wasn’t always the case. In fact, inventor Tim Leatherman shopped his idea around years before finally finding a company that was willing to sell his product. He formed his own company in 1983, and the rest is history. → Read More
The Doc is coming back again on October 26th. You might remember this date as being significant from the first movie: October 26th is the day that Marty met Doc Brown at the mall and traveled back to 1955. The best news is this release is all three movies on one disc in one box. The set includes two hours of bonus footage, deleted scenes, and other extras. No idea on the price yet. Now where are Star Wars and Indiana Jones? [via Gizmodo] → Read More
These are, well, amazing photos. The story goes Leo from TheChive simply walked past barricades and security surrounding the Transformers 3 shoot in downtown Chicago. His 56 published pics seem to confirm the tale. He seemed close enough to catch a whiff of McDreamy’s pheromones. Scary thought. → Read More
A Facebook game about Facebook games was inevitable: Hence “Cow Clicker,” a spoof Facebook app created by game theorist Ian Bogost in an attempt to distill the appeal of Zynga games like FarmVille, Mafia Wars and FrontierVille. Between Scamville, Mark Pincus’ “every dirty trick in the book” comments, and a particularly unfortunate speech at the GDC, 2010 is the year to hate on social games — viewed by many gaming industry developers to be simplistic derivatives requiring no talent or skill.
Whether Zynga games are successful because they give users valuable social experiences or because they are, according Bogost’s fellow game theorist Jesper Juul, “brain hacks that exploit human psychology in order to make money,” people will always be willing to play up the latter theory. The word “exploit” added to any article makes for great pageviews. As do extreme examples, like the case of the kid who ran up a $1400 debt on his parents’ credit card trying to pimp out his farm. → Read More
Oh my god, guys! How did I not know these existed?! I think they’re new! I’m going to replace all my current Sharpies with these immediately! Stainless steel with laser-etched Sharpie logo. Life is good, people. Life is good. [via Doobybrain] → Read More
Earlier today Google Operating System noticed something odd in an official Google Docs demo video: an icon for an unreleased document editor called Google Punch. Numerous blogs have taken a stab at guessing what Google Punch may be (we initially speculated that it’s Google’s answer to Microsoft Publisher). But we’re hearing that it is something decidedly less exciting: Google Punch may just be a placeholder for a new version of an existing editor.
In other words, Google is testing a new version of Docs, Spreadsheets, Presentations, or one of its other existing apps, and just needed something to call it. So what exactly is this new editor going to feature? It’s possible that Google is working to integrate DocVerse, the service it acquired in March that allows users to collaborate on Microsoft Office files. → Read More
The DMCA ruling won’t change things for the average iPhone user — the main difference being that jailbreakers now can’t be sued by Apple successfully under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Apple will continue their attempts to block the jailbroken phones with every iOS update and jailbreakers will keep getting more and more savvy, like a vicious cycle of digital cat and mouse.
Jay Freeman, who runs Cydia, what many in the industry refer to as the “Jailbroken App Store,” posits that what today’s ruling did change was awareness; “More people will jailbreak their phones. Now that they think it’s legal.“ [Emphasis mine]. When asked whether the ruling had increased traffic to his site, Freeman bemoaned that today’s stats were unfortunately not available. → Read More
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