In the latest chapter of the great Ebook Wars of 2010, Borders is attempting to drive more downloads for its free mobile applications for Android, iPad, iPhone and BlackBerry as well as its equally gratis desktop applications by offering five free books – valued at more than $40 – and content exclusive to the company.
Beginning today, Friday, July 9 through Wednesday, July 14, Borders is… → Read More
Back in January 2010, Google declared that it was no longer willing to continue censoring search results on Google.cn, and that it would possibly shut down the Chinese search page, and potentially even its offices in China. In March, Google backed that talk up by redirecting Google.cn to Google.com.hk, a move that enabled it to keep providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese but from… → Read More
Ericsson, which provides technology and services to telecom operators around the globe, estimates we’ve hit another milestone in the Internet becoming increasingly mobile. The company claims, based on estimates based on industry information, that the 5 billionth mobile subscription was accounted for on Thursday, July 8.
The 5 billion mark was hit largely thanks to a surge in mobile subscriptions… → Read More
Death Star cookies: Admit it, you made this Solar Impulse flight a great success, flies for 26 straight hours powered only by the Sun Self-cleaning road also purifies the air around it Good idea, bad idea: bendable bike locks itself to poles WiFi-enabled lock is a good idea, but the lock needs some work → Read More
Social CRM platform vendor Attensity has issued its analysis of the sentiment expressed throughout various social media platforms about the World Cup finalists. Based on data drawn from the likes of Facebook, Twitter, blogs, video and forum sites, the startup has concluded that while Spain owns the largest share of conversations across the Web, social media users speak slightly more positive of… → Read More
A loved one dies. You get things under control by notifying family and friends, working with a funeral home for the physical remains, and generally getting everything done that needs to get done. You may even get the obituary taken care of for the newspaper, if you still have a local newspaper. But one thing that our culture hasn’t really figured out yet is how to celebrate a past life online. At… → Read More
Nokia is determined to compete with Apple at every level – even in sending the authorities to strong-arm journalists. In a slightly creepy post titled “one of our children is missing,” the cell phone giant has accused Russian blogger, Eldar Murtazin of stealing a prototype of its newest handset. The company also claims that Murtazin is refusing to respond to their letters and… → Read More
Avatar is coming back to theaters August 27, 2010 and will bring an extra eight minutes of “never before seen footage” I know, right? Unbelievable. It’s unbelievable that the 20th Century Fox or James Cameron or whoever are milking the film like this. This probably isn’t an unprecedented Hollywood move, but it’s certainly shady. Apparently a $749,614,235 profit isn’t enough for these d-bags. → Read More
New from Netgear, this networked storage isn’t like your networked storage. While is does have all the standard features you’d imagine – redundant drives up to 12 terabytes – the ReadyNas Ultra also offers a multitude of ways to manage and store media files.
Click past the jump for more.. → Read More
If you were waiting on buying a netbook because they keep putting out new ones with slightly tweaked specs, now might be a good time to buy. Acer and Asus, the two big netbook and ultraportable PC makers, are taking a breather as they evaluate new hardware options and try to sell all the netbooks stacked up in warehouses throughout the country. → Read More
Earlier today, Facebook acquired NextStop, a social travel recommendation service. There’s been some speculation as to why this deal went down. Is Facebook getting into the travel space? Is this about their unlaunched location offering? From what we’re hearing, it’s much more simple than that. It really just boils down to Facebook getting a few very talented people at a relatively low… → Read More
The Apple TV might suddenly be part of the next big thing from Apple. We’ve heard that there’s a major retooling underway and Apple shifted some of their best people on the project. Updated hardware is likely, but new services will likely be at the forefront of the relaunch.
The latest rumor states that Apple is in contract talks to bring TV show rentals to the platform. They would probably work… → Read More
I’d wait for the other shoe to drop before getting too excited about this, but this self-cleaning, air-filtering road surface is pretty cool no matter what. The material in question is being researched by the University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, and deployment of it on a normal road resulted in a 25-to-45% decrease in NOx in the air — that’s a good thing. → Read More
The national distraction is over. NBA star LeBron James has chosen the team he’s going to play for: the Miami Heat. Of course, this means that he won’t be returning to his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers and owner Dan Gilbert is not too happy about that. And he made that very clear to everyone tonight in a scathing letter posted to the Cavs main page on NBA.com.
A letter, posted in Comic… → Read More
As is the case with so many concepts we see here at CG, the design here hasn’t really caught up to the idea — like that other bike lock I just wrote up. Lock that alerts you via WiFi if it gets tampered with? Good. Lock that looks like you could cut through it with a pair of kiddie scissors? Not so good. → Read More
Yahoo is outsourcing yet another product to an outside company. Tonight, Yahoo is announcing an exclusive partnership with real estate listings and search site Zillow. As part of the partnership, which will go into effect later this year, Zillow will power all for-sale listings on Yahoo Real Estate. The financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed.
Zillow’s will integrate its 4 million… → Read More
Good news for OLPC users, the software engineering team announced today that they have built in multi-touch support into the next version of the OS. The new OS, code name “Sugar” will be appearing on the new XO-1.75 child notebook. → Read More
Okay, the future is officially here. A few days ago, the team from Mountain View-based startup Anybots swung by TechCrunch headquarters to deliver a special new addition to our office: Anybots robot model QB, which stands around five feet tall and can zip around the office at 3.5 miles per hour on a pair of sturdy wheels. It looks like a cross between a Segway and E.T., with some optical sensors… → Read More
Unorthodox ideas like this one by Brit Kevin Scott are often the germ for more advanced designs, but I think this one takes things a bit too far. A built-in lock utilizing the bike itself is a great idea, but messing with a key structural element like the frame bars is a dangerous move. Although the mechanism here is cool and convenient, I wouldn’t trust it (or the bike) after a few months… → Read More
Those goofy ninja drawings, multicolored troll things, and birthday cakes adorning your Facebook wall are about to become collector’s items. Facebook has just announced that it is closing Facebook Gifts — a feature that launched back in early 2007 as the result of a Hackathon project and went on to seed the creation of Facebook Credits (it marked the first time Facebook users could actually pay… → Read More
So you can’t afford to pop for a real Leica MP camera. Not a problem! Some enterprising bloke has a cheapskate alternative for you, the Likea MPH. Sure, it’s not the real thing, but it looks close and it’s $4,575 cheaper then an actual Leica. → Read More
We’ve seen a fair amount of in-eye machinery. From the Retinal Implant Program and Second Sight to the Eyeborg and that lady who just wants a webcam eye, there’s quite a lot going on in the field.
This particular technology is actually much simpler than those electronic solutions, because it addresses a simpler problem. Degeneration of the retina around the macula can make central vision blurry… → Read More
http://o.aolcdn.com/videoplayer/AOL_PlayerLoader.swf Most of us have a special place in our hearts for The Screen Savers. It was a fantastic show that aired at exactly the right time in history. But over time the show died and was replaced by Attack of the Show — a fine show, but more of an geek soup show than a direct replacement for the Leo, Patrick, and Kevin show. The later being less… → Read More
Please join us at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco on September 27-29 2010.
It started as an experiment in New York this past May. We sensed a fundamental shift taking place with technology and media—a shift in platforms, applications, revenue models and consumer behavior—and we wanted to talk about it. Appropriately, we found an old Merrill-Lynch office building and took it over for… → Read More
Listen, I hate forking over $100 a month for my TV, too. I also wholeheartedly agree with The Consumerist picking Comcast as the worst company in America. But they still get my money every month and just like the vast majority of people who pay for their TV, that’s not going to change anytime soon. There simply isn’t anything that replicates the experience and is free or low-cost. No one, not even… → Read More
The Shanghai Apple Store’s curtain dropped yesterday reveling its glass cylinder entrance. Apparently some of the first guests were greeted with these sweet t’s that showcase the new store’s soon-to-be iconic structure. I want one. → Read More
It can be argued that this has been the Decade of Piracy. Whereas media piracy existed as a scourge for millennia (Bach was totally pissed when PrisM posted the pre-release sheet music to the ‘Das Wohltemperirte Clavier’) the rise of the MP3 and other media compression formats – not to mention the release of the iPod in 2001 – brought piracy into the mainstream. I knew we were in trouble when, in… → Read More
Those of you who read CrunchGear regularly might already know that I’m the resident optimist when it comes to 3D. I fended off Ebert’s attacks on it, and made a comprehensive guide for those who like reading lots of words. But I’m no drone. I’m not going to defend The Last Airbender, for instance. So when I hear that there may be a full theatrical 2D-to-3D conversion of A… → Read More
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
Berlin, Germany
San Francisco
San Francisco, CA
