If this were the AP, the following would be the lede to this next story: “UFC President Dana White wants to put pirates in a kimura.” (That, of course, assumed the AP funny lede guy even knows what a kimura is!) Man, those soft ledes are terrible. Moving on… yeah, Dana White is upset at pirates. The promotion has subpoenaed Justin.tv and Ustream.tv, demanding to know the names of people who stream UFC pay-per-view events. → Read More
Back in May, we first wrote about Pulse, an innovative and pretty news reading app for the iPad created by a couple of Stanford grads. Just about a month later, it hit for the iPhone as well. Today, they’re wasting little time graduating beyond the iUniverse with the launch of Pulse for Android.
Pulse is essentially a better-looking and more intuitive way to read your favorite RSS feeds. That’s because the experience is visual and touch-based, rather than being a bunch of text you click on. The fact that it uses RSS also differentiates Pulse from its new rival Flipboard, which pulls in actual content rather than RSS in a way that may be legally murky. You may recall that Pulse was taken down from the App Store shortly after its iPad launch after the New York Times complained about the use of their content. This was especially odd since just 24 hours earlier, no less than Apple CEO Steve Jobs praised Pulse on stage during his WWDC keynote. But (and perhaps because of that) Pulse was quickly reinstated, and has stuck around with no problems since then. → Read More
Does the mere idea of a console exclusive game from Crytek make your blood boil? Yeah, me neither, but it’s sorta weird seeing the once PC-only developer embrace consoles so forcefully. The big one, obviously, is Crysis 2, being developed for the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3. But then word hit at E3 that Crytek would be developing a 360-only game, Codename: Kingdoms. Hearts, they are broken! And is Crytek now planning on developing a PS3-only game? → Read More
I was struck by how small, inaccurate and out of date this recent list of Angel investors in tech startups in Europe was. It’s time we published one on TechCrunch Europe. So feel free to leave your own nominations in the comments below. Meanwhile you can also contact me on mike AT mbites dot com to nominate tech angel investors, but remember to name the recent deals they’ve done. → Read More
Frackulous is an online video show dedicated to all things apps. We mention it because it’s a new show coming out of Europe, London specifically. It’s been created by Fixation Video, a.k.a. long-time online video journalist and presenter Susi Weaser and Will Head, a respected tech journalist and online video expert. Aimed at a more mainstream audience, it’s worth catching as a good catchup on the latest news. → Read More
It’s no longer illegal under the DMCA to jailbreak your iPhone or bypass a DVD’s CSS in order to obtain fair use footage for educational purposes or criticism. These are the new rules that were handed down moments ago by the U.S. Copyright Office. This is really big. Like, really big. → Read More
Tomorrow is StarCraft II day and I’m probably not the only one that needs a little refresher on the storyline. IGN has us covered. → Read More
According to The Street, Roger Crenshaw, an “analyst,” suspects that Morotola will come out with a 10-inch tablet in November. Why? Who knows. What carrier? Don’t ask Crenshaw. However, clearly Moto needs to keep the Droid love coming and this seems like a good way to do it. A Droid Tablet, anyone? → Read More
While most of the Android-carrying world still waits on the edge of their seat for Android 2.2 (Froyo) to grace their handsets, a handful of engineers over in Mountain View are already hard at work on their next big thing: Android 3.0 (Gingerbread). Gingerbread, it seems, is getting far enough along in its development cycle that at least one or two engineers have it up and running on their kits. → Read More
SecondMarket, a trading platform for private company stocks, has just released it’s Q2 2010 report. Overall transactions were down from Q1 – around $51 million in transactions were completed, less than the $70 million traded in March alone at the end of Q1.
Volume may be down, but prices are still going up. Facebook is now being offered at $65/share, and there are bids as high as $60. In April the price was $50/share.
Facebook accounted for 64% of total closed transactions, followed by Zynga with 12%. LinkedIn, Bloom Energy and Silver Spring Networks tied for third with 6% each. Twitter and MobiTV took most of the rest with 3% each. → Read More
ProcessOne has launched a new hosted instant messaging (IM) service aimed at SMEs. Dubbed Hosted.IM, it allows businesses to easily create a “business-class” IM capability using their own domain name without the cost of managing the required hardware and software in-house.
It’s free for up to 5 users after which ‘packs’ can be purchased for up to 10, 25, 50, 75 or 100 users and are “priced accordingly” – although I couldn’t actually find pricing details anywhere on ProcessOne’s website. That said, IM is regarded by consumers as a free service so why would small businesses want to actually pay for such functionality? → Read More
Lot C0101 of the RedEye mini IR adapter for the iPhone and iPad have been recalled for structural issues. The plug can crack away from the case and cause problems. In fact, the plug is attached only with a small piece of adhesive tape, which reduces the total structural integrity to nil. → Read More
Perhaps you recall that late last year, Google was in discussions to buy Yelp. Despite a supposed offer of $550 million plus earn-outs, Yelp walked away from the deal. But that isn’t stopping Google for entering Yelp’s business. Today, Google continues their fast-moving assault on local and location with a revamped Google Maps for mobile.
Central to Maps for mobile 4.4 is Google Places, the newer component of Maps which shows you, you guessed it, places nearby. But it’s much more than just another layer in Google Maps, with this release on every Android phone (1.6 and later), there will now be a dedicated Places icon that appears in the Android app launcher. So yes, Google just basically gave Places its own new app. → Read More
This morning at a special press event in Mountain View, Google announced Google Apps for Government, a new version of Google’s suite of cloud-based enterprise applications that have been hardened to meet the government’s more stringent security restrictions.
Dave Girouard, Google’s President of Enterprise, kicked off the presentation with a few stats: every year, the federal government spends $76 billion on IT expenses. Another $50 billion is spent on IT by state and local governments. Google is looking to help.
Google says that this is the first multi-tenant cloud application suite that has received FISMA certification at a FISMA-Moderate level, which gives it the ability to store and serve sensitive (but not classified) information. Google’s Matthew Glotzbach says this encompasses 80-90% of all government information. → Read More
The electric sports car scene is heating up with Porsche‘s confirmation of a new all-electric sports car based on its Boxster. The company is conducting daily tests of three research cars to study battery systems and electric drive components.
Porsche President and CEO Michael Macht said in a statement that Porsche will “definitely be offering electric sports cars in the future,” but that the performance and cruising range must be comparable to existing sports cars. Greater efficiency and lower emissions are the company’s goals for the new vehicles. → Read More
Let’s pretend that you don’t have very many geeky or sporty friends. It could happen. Say you wanted to try and iPad or a bike or a Kubb set. What would you do? Walk up to complete strangers? Ask them for theirs? Well, in a way, Snapgoods hopes you will.
Think of Snapgoods as Zipcar for stuff. You reserve an item – an iPad, a bike, a pommel horse, a chainsaw – pay a small amount per day ($10-$15 or more for pricier items), put down a security deposit using your Paypal account, and you pick up the item after meeting the lender or, barring that, you pick it up and drop it off at a place local to you both that acts as an escrow point.
In short, Snapgoods assumes that most people won’t break your stuff and that there are people out there who want to try or use your stuff for a few hours. This could be an iPad or, in a more practical case, a concrete drill. In order to ensure that the renter doesn’t break your stuff, they require a number of verification measures including SMS replies, Facebook connections, and “group” creation for different parts of each city. Most important, however, is that Snapgoods is hyperlocal. You’re not going to get offers for people in Kansas City (unless you’re in Kansas City). In fact, Snapgoods is New York only for now, and will be expanding over the next few months. → Read More
http://revision3.com/player-v6422 The PogoPlug gets an upgrade for business use, the US Navy tests a new laser weapon, using optics to communicate with terahertz pulses, 3D TVs keep coming at us, and an amazing video showcasing the Lagoa Multiphysics Engine. Join Cali Lewis for the tech news roundup on GeekBeat.TV #13. → Read More
Glam Media, the top-ranked women’s media network, is honing in on another target: men. This morning the company is launching BrashSports, a new content channel that encompasses a network of more than 25 sports-related properties, including SportsFanLive and Bloguin.
The launch comes on the heels of Glam’s acquisition of sports media ad network Sportgenic last week. That deal was for Sportgenic’s ad platform AdPortal, which Glam is integrating into its own GlamAdapt platform to better compete with Google’s DoubleClick. → Read More
We’re releasing another 100 tickets now to our July 30 summer party at August Capital. Act fast if you want one, these things sell out in less than an hour.
Before that party we’re also hosting an all day event – the Social Currency CrunchUp. You can see the full agenda here.
We kick things off at 9 am when I’ll join Ron Conway and Y Combinator’s Paul Graham on stage to talk about the new wave of ecommerce startups and business models that are starting to make the old guard look positively obsolete. Groupon CEO Andrew Mason takes the stage immediately afterwards, and the rest of the agenda rolls on from there. You won’t want to miss this. Tickets for the conference and the party are here. → Read More
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