Two days ago I wrote about a thermostat you can adjust from your phone, and today Allure Energy announced another twist on the idea. The company connects your thermostat to a BlackBerry or iPhone app that tracks how far you are from home and adjusts your thermostat accordingly. Think of it as a location-based service for interacting with your thermostat.
When you leave in the morning, the system… → Read More
Server downtime is a fact of life for most web administrators, and there’s no shortage of products and software that make it easy to monitor when something has gone awry. Of course, an inbox full of urgent emails telling you your server is frying isn’t too helpful when you’re sound asleep.That’s where PagerDuty, a startup that launched a year ago, is looking to help. Today the company is… → Read More
Flint (and glass) knapping is no longer practiced on a large scale, but it used to be the primary method of making weapons for primitive cultures. In this day and age of course, it’s easy to go to the sporting goods store and pick up a quality steel knife, but it wasn’t always so. → Read More
Harvesting kinetic energy to “charge” a power element is something that goes back thousands of years, to the wind and water mills among other things. And in a more germane form, the self-winding watch goes back decades, if not longer (I’m not the watch expert here). So it’s not really a surprise that it’s being put into batteries — though I wonder whether this is the most efficient way of… → Read More
TechCrunch Europe Summer Pitch Battle (which used #tcbattle on Twitter) was a new kind of event for us. Over 40 different pitches where heard from people ranging from tiny one-person startups to much more developed entities. In the past we’ve run more formal events where startups have to apply to pitch prior to the event and slide presentations are pre-loaded. With this we literally flew by the… → Read More
Apple wants you to know that they’re very serious about testing their products, even though they end up with a death grip issue anyway, and also use the wrong signal display algorithm for three years. This little video at Apple shows their testing setup. It’s a pretty blatant scramble for goodwill, but the fact is this: anechoic chambers are cool-looking. So go watch! → Read More
Last week we heard about an iPhone 4 cord that flared up, scorching the device and melting the cord. This week it’s an iPad; TechReport reader Forge says he woke up at 5 in the morning to the smell of burnt plastic. The USB connector was melting and the iPad was extremely hot, so much so that when he grabbed it to disconnect the cord, he immediately dropped it on the ground. → Read More
The iPhone 4 may be available to the general public, but the police investigation into the leaked device that Gizmodo purchased last spring is still going strong. Now there’s been a new development: the EFF reports that the San Mateo District Attorney has withdrawn the warrant it used to search Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s house last April, when it confiscated multiple computers, hard drives, and… → Read More
Local reviews site Qype has released an updated iPhone app which does something interesting and new. If users use the app to check-in to venues, or if they’ve put in some reviews, it will give automatic recommendations for venues.
These recommendations are based on your previous behaviour, such as what you’ve reviewed, check-ins, not on what your friends like. So if you like speciality coffee… → Read More
The Nexus One’s time is about to expire. Google will soon no longer stock its self-branded Android handset and just received its last shipment of handsets. It was good while it lasted. Even though the Nexus One never really caught on outside of the close-knit Android community, it was a killer handset and might still be one of the top three available. → Read More
From the product description, We are always in compliance with Section 13 from part 40 of the NRC Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules and regulations and Postal Service regulations specified in 49 CFR 173.421 for activity limits of low level radioactive materials. Item will be shipped in accordance with Postal Service activity limits specified in Publication 52. $29.99 (make sure you read the… → Read More
On July 13, three days ago, France launched France.fr to give the world a multilingual website with information about the country. It shortly went down. And stayed down. Today we checked back in to see how the little site was doing. Not so well, it turns out.
This is more than a mild embarrassment for France’s senior government official overseeing the Internet, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet. When… → Read More
Forget France.fr for a moment and consider MyLittleParis. With over 200K subscribers, it’s probably hard to imagine that these unique newsletters came about by pure accident – but it just so happens that that’s the case. Turns out the founder, Fany Péchiodat, was asked non-stop by friends for her creative ideas and insider information on the best places in Paris and eventually found herself… → Read More
A few weeks ago Microsoft sent us the new Xbox 360. No note or explanation, just a another random box delivered to our address. It’s been sitting here unopened and no one in the office seems to want it. So, we’re going to give it away. This is the new slim version that’s Kinect-ready.
There’s also a bunch of additional stuff that came with it, we’ll send all that to you, too (see photo… → Read More
Yelp has one of the most popular apps on the iPhone, but its Android app is catching on too. Launched last December, the app is approaching one million downloads and activity on the app is picking up like crazy due to a recent upgrade that adds the ability to check into Yelp locations and Tweet them out or share them on Facebook. The number of active users is growing 50 percent week over week… → Read More
Apple started off today’s press conference with a little bit of bragging: they moved over 3,000,000 iPhone 4‘s in three weeks. It took the original iPhone two and a half financial quarters to hit that sort of sales numbers. However, those numbers are on the same sort of blockbuster level that the iPhone 3G and even 3GS experienced in their early days. Those sales numbers are with the… → Read More
This is odd. Skype, which has offered an iPhone application for quite a while and recently released a version that gives users the ability to make calls over 3G, has vanished from the App Store. This is especially strange because Skype was recently featured on stage during the debut of iPhone’s OS 4.0, which will allow for the application to run in the background. We reached out to Skype about… → Read More
Guzzle is a super simple way to see current information about anything you want. It’s a mashup of a search engine and a feed reader: set up any number of keywords, and Guzzle will show you up-to-the-minute stories from hundreds of sources involving those terms. No account is required, but creating an account will let you save your settings. Now there’s a Guzzle iPhone app available, so that you… → Read More
Haiti is still struggling to recover from the 7-point magnitude earthquake that struck on January 12th. The natural disaster disrupted everything there, including the systems that keep water clean, garbage away from homes and farm land, and people (let alone habitat and animals) healthy.
Despite an outpouring of donations and promises to help from international nonprofits, shelter, food, water… → Read More
UPDATE: Batch if tickets is sold out. Check back again next week.
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.
If you don’t get a ticket, don’t email me begging for one. Come to our Social Currency Crunchup earlier that day instead. A ticket to the CrunchUp gives you entry to the… → Read More
Since its launch, BlueSwarm has raised more than $172 million for fundraising campaigns, with the vast majority of those funds directed towards political election campaigns.
The startup, which is a platform that leverages social media tools to attract and track donations, has wooed many politicians, including several gubernatorial candidates like Massachusetts’ Charlie Baker, Wisconsin’s Tom… → Read More
Ministers from France, Germany and the UK are calling for the EU to cut its carbon emissions by 30% on 1990 levels by 2020, arguing that failure to reach the goal will have long-term economic consequences. The current target is a 20% reduction from 1990 levels.
The officials say increasing the target will help create jobs in clean energy sectors and help keep the EU competitive with China, Japan… → Read More
You never know where you are going to see something innovative—even right here the heart of the “Sili-corn Valley” that is Central Ohio. This week, I met a gentleman by the name of Dan Rockwell at the local Mobile Monday gathering, and we had a short conversation about his company’s latest mobile app called Chump Dump.
The somewhat irreverent concept is both funny and serious; gain points for… → Read More
It seems that Japan’s obsession with Gundam is limitless. What can follow after a 60-foot Gundam robot, a Gundam Cafe in Akihabara, or a 1.5m tall figure? Answer: a Gundam jet. → Read More
You know, it’s the little things that makes companies great. Attention to detail, if you will. I just opened my new Droid X and attempted to active the phone. It failed. That’s fine. Things happen.
Then this message plays,
“I’m sorry. We are unable to program your phone at this time. Please call customer service from a landline phone and a representative will be happy to assist you.”
Oh boy… → Read More
The iPhone 4 may be available to the general public, but the police investigation into the leaked device that Gizmodo purchased last spring is still going strong. Now there’s been a new development: the EFF reports that the San Mateo District Attorney has withdrawn the warrant it used to search Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s house last April, when it confiscated multiple computers, hard drives, and… → Read More
Forget about about buying a 5-port USB every couple of years to support your growing collection of novelty flash drives. Do it once and do it right. Buy the Professional Hub Series B2 charging station. → Read More
The all-electric RAV4 is set to make a comeback. But this time around Tesla Motors is going to provide the electric powerplant, rather than Toyota themselves. In fact, Tesla might even be doing the bulk of the assembling if this CNN Money report is correct.
Toyota announced that the Japanese auto maker planned to invest $50 million into Tesla after a successful initial public offering. That took… → Read More
Today during the Q&A session after the iPhone 4 antenna press conference a question was asked about the report in the New York Times yesterday that there will be a software fix for the issue. CEO Steve Jobs fielded the question but was confused as to how anyone would think there could be a software fix for a problem that’s an issue with many smartphones, as he put it. But SVP Scott Forstall… → Read More
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