Google has quietly (secretly, one might say) invested somewhere between $100 million and $200 million in social gaming behemoth Zynga, we’ve confirmed from multiple sources. The company has raised somewhere around half a billion dollars in venture capital in the last year alone, including $150 million from Softbank Capital last month and $180 million late last year from Digital Sky Technologies… → Read More
Oh, Internet, is there anything you can’t do? iChatr, a new app for the iPhone, is essentially Chatroulette for the iPhone. It’s pretty barren right now – I saw the same people once or twice – but the quality is pretty good and if you have a Sing-a-ma-jig, you can actually make dour iPhone 4 users smile. To move to the next person you simply swipe their face. → Read More
The other day I was talking to an old friend. Not only is this friend outside the tech sphere, he’s just about as opposite of tech savvy as a person can be. He’s basically a luddite. In fact, I was surprised he was even IMing with me, he’s so seldom online. But I was more surprised by what he asked me. “What do you think of the new iPhone?”
It’s one thing to know what an iPhone is, but the fact… → Read More
Back in February 2009 we covered the launch of DevHub, a startup that helps users build their own blogs and websites. At the time the site creator was pretty straightforward, with a focus on monetization through some syndication deals. This week, it’s modifying its approach: DevHub now features a gaming mechanic that’s designed to help new users turn their bare-bones blog templates into… → Read More
A bit of bittersweet news for all you crazy cats and kittens. GeoHot has jailbroken the iPhone 4 but, as he says in his comments, don’t ask him for it. He won’t give it to you. What does this mean? It means you’ll eventually be able to pop homebrew software on the phone but it doesn’t mean you’ll be able to unlock it – yet. That’s next. As Tom Petty wrote… → Read More
It appears that Foursquare has just crossed the 2 million users mark this morning. The location based social network has been growing fast, adding 100,000 users per week. Only three months ago, Foursquare passed one million users after taking a year to accumulate one million members.
Over the past several months, Foursquare has had a number of impressive stats for a startup. Some of them involved… → Read More
I doubt that Steve Jobs has ever asked Apple customers what type of products they want, or that he cares about what they need. Jobs believed that if he developed a mobile phone that plays music and surfs the web, he could create both the want and need. He was right: his iPhone changed the industry and started a mini technology revolution.
Most of the entrepreneurs I know fancy themselves to be… → Read More
In a slightly odd blog post published Friday night, Condé Nast-owned news recommendation service reddit calls for help.
The company would love to hire engineers to complement the current technical team, which has been struggling with site sluggishness and outages lately and would also like to add some new features to reddit at some point.
However, they write, although the company is owned by a… → Read More
In a move that suggests a tad of insecurity on Apple’s behalf, the iPad maker is apparently buying Google AdWords ads targeting potential buyers of the Dell Streak, the Android-powered micro-tablet or netpad or whatever it is people cooler than me call the device.
The screenshot above was taken after I did a search for ‘Dell Streak’ on Google.co.uk (thanks for the tip, Tom from Rudefox). As you… → Read More
I’ve had a very full schedule recently. Last Sunday I was in Amsterdam. On Monday I was “on a boat” off the coast of Texas and then zipped over to Dubai to check out the Ritz-Carlton hotel. By Wednesday I was in New York visiting the Foursquare offices. I spent the rest of the week in Waikiki, at NASA, in Monaco and, finally, at Pixar’s studios in California. I really did visit all of these places… → Read More
Yeah, so this is just a mess. This is a solid gold iPad for $121,408 and weighs over 4 pounds. It’s made by a jewelry shop – although I doubt it’s a real object and they definitely don’t have one in their shop. It’s basically a concept to gain attention. → Read More
Think of the simplest mini-game you can think of. Like, you press a button to win. Now think of playing games like that a hundred times in a row, with intros and outros and Miis all over the place and boppy music. Welcome to Wii Party. Check out the footage above, the first real gameplay we’ve seen outside of a few trailers and such. I don’t know, guys. I’m about ready to jump… → Read More
The well-known statue of Henri IV on Pont Neuf in Paris (well-known to the French, anyway) has been outfitted with a neon white box and a lightsaber. That is all. Actually, that’s not all. I would just like to say that if you, the people of the world, decide to immortalize me with a statue after I leave this plane of existence (or before), feel free to add the lightsaber right off the bat. → Read More
An interesting post just went up on the Twitter Engineering blog. Usually, that blog contains posts that are more interesting to developers working on Twitter’s platform. And this post is that as well, but it also states two much larger things. First, Twitter won’t be using the Cassandra database system to store tweets. Second, Cassandra will be used for Twitter’s realtime analytics product. The… → Read More
If you have $65 to spend and you want a Pinewood Derby racer that will literally outlive you and most of your descendants, drop over to this website and press the Buy Now button. → Read More
Guest post by Cyan Banister…
I’ve met a lot of engineers and entrepreneurs from Detroit and there’s an underlying vibe that resonates from all of them: a specific attitude or work ethic – possibly left over from the automotive industry – that either causes them to try to work harder than their fathers or go against the grain trying to figure out how they can live life to its fullest.
As … → Read More
Sony has been pushing for 3D more and more, and this E3 was kind of a turning point for them. The combination of the Move and 3D gaming means they actually have a unique angle on gaming now, instead of just a different controller and hardware.
But it’s not like they rolled out all the new features at once; while some 3D demos are being rolled out with a smaller-scale update, the big stuff is… → Read More
Farfetch.com, an online fashion shopping site, has secured a $4.5 million investment from Advent Venture Partners.
Farfetch.com is a classic marketplace play which brings independent fashion boutiques from Europe and North America under one roof.
Launched in 2008, it’s had a lot of growth and sales have more than doubled in the last six months, compared to the previous half year. The money will… → Read More
In it’s seemingly never ending quest to slash public spending and bring down the deficit the UK government is resorting to increasingly bizarre stunts to whip the public up into a frenzy of “slash and burn”.
One of the most recent was the YourFreedom campaign which is trying to get the public to suggest which “red tape” inducing laws they want slashed (we’d like the repeal of the badly drafted… → Read More
Just a quick note: the Vibrant, T-Mobile’s variant of the Samsung Galaxy S Android big-phone, will be getting here a little early — July 15th to be precise. Maybe it’s to head off the Droid X menace (not to mention the other Galaxy models), or maybe they just got things done a little quicker than expected and want to push it out the door. We’ll never know. I mean, unless… → Read More
Cute mockup. That’s exactly where my mind went when I saw this little guy. Too bad the cost would be way too much for the Shuffle — I’m leaning more toward a laptop touch panel or something like that. Too small to replace the MacBook touchpads, if you ask me. → Read More
Sick of circling the city streets in your car, looking for a spot — any spot — that you can squeeze into? Google may have the answer, or at least the very beginnings of one, though it’s going to heavily rely on the good deeds of your peers to be a success. Meet Google Open Spot, the latest addition to Google Labs, which has just released a new application for Android phones.
The service is… → Read More
After all, who but the very best could have foisted such transparent BS as a fix to a blatant design flaw? Congratulations to Steve and Jony. In all honesty, these guys really are incredibly smart and good at their jobs, but their being honored at this moment of all moments is just a little rich. → Read More
In loving memory of the greatest message board thread in the history of the Internet: the nearly 2,500 page monster discussing the now-rescinded plan to use real names on the Blizzard message board. May the server it’s hosted on be donated to the Library of Congress. → Read More
This morning, we covered the debut of 1000Memories, a Y Combinator backed startup that helps family and friends memorialize loved ones online. The company was started by three friends, Brett Huneycutt and Jonathan Good, formerly of Mckinsey, and Rudy Adler, a former employee of ad agency Wieden + Kennedy.
Adler and Huneycutt dropped by our studios for our latest episode of TechCrunch NOW, to… → Read More
Yeah, this is probably the best thing you’ll see on the Internet today — maybe this weekend. It’s that good. You’ll appreciate it even if you haven’t seen one episode of Firefly. Fun fact: I’ve only seen the series premier for some reason I can’t explain. → Read More
In a recent interview with The Seoul Economic Daily in Korea, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak praised the Apple iPhone over Android. Woz has three iPhones and an iPad, so it should be no surprise that he prefers them over Android, though he does give some tepid praise to the voice recognition of Android on his Nexus One phone. Woz also provided some advice to → Read More
Beyond the Rack, a members-only sample sale site has raised another round of funding. The startup has just announced a $12 million round of funding from Highland Capital Partners and BDC Venture Capital. This brings the Beyond The Rack’s total funding to $16.5 million.
Similar to Gilt, HauteLook and Ideeli, Beyond the Rack is a members-only shopping site that offers steeply discounted (from 50 to… → Read More
Digital commerce giant eBay announced this morning the international releases of its eBay Selling application and its eBay for iPad application. The free Selling application is now available in Germany and the UK, and the eBay for iPad application is now translated into French, Italian, German and Spanish and currently available through Apple’s 77 iTunes App Stores.
In a separate release, eBay… → Read More
“Foursquare gets all the hype.” It’s something I hear just about every day from just about every other location-based startup. And it’s true, though I would argue that it’s warranted — and investors seem to agree. But it’s also important to keep some perspective. While Foursquare is just shy of 2 million users, other services like MyTown have quickly surpassed that number. Same with Google… → Read More
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