On today’s episode of TechCrunch NOW, investor Jeff Clavier and CloudCrowd founder, Alex Edelstein, joined us to discuss Apple’s ambitious plans for China, BuyWithMe’s new round of funding, and Twitter’s latest product, Earlybird.
Aside from Steve Jobs’ world domination plans, we focused on the hyper active daily deal market. Jeff Clavier, who has invested in 81 consumer internet companies as of… → Read More
Earlier today YouTube debuted a new mobile experience, using HTML5 to offer a mobile site that sports better video quality and (soon) more content than the native YouTube iPhone application (and it works on other smart phones as well). But they’re not done. Tonight, the video portal is also launching YouTube Leanback, a version of YouTube that’s optimized for watching content on your TV set… → Read More
Remember that adorable stop-motion AT-AT video from a few days back? Well, if you want to ruin the pleasant feelings it invokes, watch the making-of video after the jump. It really kills the magic, though. Just saying. → Read More
There’s no denying that the location-based service Foursquare has done a great job with regard to partnerships with local merchants. A new blog post today touts that and highlights some examples of how the system is working for both Foursquare and the companies. But underneath that are a few other nuggets of interesting information about Foursquare going forward.
First, Foursquare is going to… → Read More
This is for true StarCraft nerds only. No one else needs to waste their time on this silly unboxing. It’s a freaking game, people. But whatever. Everyone is a freak somehow. So with that said, here’s what might be the first unboxing of the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Collector’s Edition. → Read More
There’s no question that the Droid Incredible is one of Verizon’s best handsets right now, but supply issues are preventing customers from getting one. The latest delay pushes the ship date back to August 5th. That’s, well, incredible.
At first the word was HTC was having issues getting a hold of AMOLED screens, pushing shipments back to the middle of July. That could still be true, but if you’re… → Read More
Constant wireless connectivity was one of the more mysterious points of the Nintendo 3DS announcement. It has WiFi, but of course requires an external internet connection to get online and download high scores, extra levels, and so on. But the “constant connection” aspect of the device made everyone a bit curious: if Nintendo is interested in constantly updated content and connectivity like this… → Read More
Let’s get one thing straight: Blizzard is totally in the right here. You’ll recall that they announced yesterday that the era of anonymous commenting on their message boards will come to an end with the release of StarCraft II. Note that all of your current posts on their message board will forever remain under your character’s name. (Don’t worry, Fernando Zorres, your secret is safe with me.)… → Read More
After a better-than-expected pop on the first day of its IPO, Tesla’s stock (under the ticker symbol TSLA) started to slide a few days after. It is now hanging 7 percent below its initial pricing of $17, closing at $15.80 per share today.
Only a week on the market, Tesla’s stock has fluctuated greatly, trading at a high of $30.42 and dropping to a low of $14.98. While some hoped Tesla would… → Read More
We heard a few murmurs about this phone earlier this week, but the actual date of its launch escaped us. As it turns out, today is the day for Samsung’s mid-range Android handset to hit: it’s riding the publicity wave of mega-phones like the EVO and Galaxy line, but sports decidedly less impressive specs. Still, it looks like a perfectly capable and fairly attractive phone, available… → Read More
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is horrible and it’s only going to get worse even if the spill is eventually capped. This eye-opening animation constructed by a team of researchers from the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa doesn’t show what could happen in a year, but rather what’s pretty much unavoidable. → Read More
First Symbian-Guru doesn’t grok Symbian anymore and now Nokia is after Eldar Murtazin, editor of Mobile Review for apparently reviewing pre-released hardware. What else can go wrong in this topsy-turvy world? A huge oil spill in the Gulf? → Read More
Editor’s note: The following analysis is written by Robert J. Moore, the CEO and co-founder of RJMetrics, an on-demand database analytics and business intelligence startup. Robert blogs at The Metric System and can be followed on Twitter at @RJMetrics.
Location-based social networks Foursquare and Gowalla are accumulating users (and headlines) with impressive momentum. While both companies… → Read More
Sure, D-Wade and Chris Bosh may be teaming up to play together in Miami. But LeBron James has a new partner of his own: Bing.
Tomorrow night, millions of people around this country (and likely the world) are going to be tuning into ESPN to watch the NBA star announce his decision about where he’ll be playing basketball for the next several years. ESPN has created a special program for the event… → Read More
Well this sounds boring. Famous movie director Ridley Scott will create (well, produce) a documentary called “Life in a Day.” Or will he? The thing is, it’s going to be a crowd-sourced project, and you, dear humans, will be supplying the footage. The future of film-making? → Read More
Twitter has been having a bit of difficulty remaining stable during the World Cup. But in some ways, it’s a nice problem to have — they’re seeing higher usage levels than they ever have. To some users though, the combination is extremely annoying. Anytime a team scores a goal, tweet streams become a solid chunk of “GOAAAAAALLLL” “#ESP GOOOOOOALLLLL”, etc. But it could be worse: at least Twitter… → Read More
If you’ve got a phone with an HTML5 compliant browser, you’ll probably want to check out YouTube’s new mobile site, which is rolling out over the next few hours at m.youtube.com. It’s a major upgrade from the old mobile web app, with a more polished UI and better load times. It also uses plenty of HTML5 features, including the video tag. But most important is the fact that the web app has… → Read More
The world’s most famous artist named M.I.A., Mathangi Arulpragasam, has a new album coming out next week. It’s called Maya, but it’s stylized as /\/\ /\ Y /\ because writing like you’re in an AOL chatroom in 1996 is cool all over again. The album has already leaked online, so let’s discuss it a little bit. Yes, it’s relevant to the wild world of technology. → Read More
AndroidSpin just got their mitts on this supposed snapshot of T-Mobile’s end-of-the-year launch roadmap, and, after about 20 minutes of squinting, I think we’ve got most of it deciphered. Here’s what we’ve gleaned from it so far: → Read More
I’m not gonna lie — most of the venues I check-in to on apps like Foursquare, Gowalla, and Loopt are bars. Most of the time I’m not there to have dinner either. Instead, I’m there to enjoy an adult beverage. Or three. So why not cut out the middlemen, and instead use a location-based app that flips the equation and focuses on the drinks themselves? That’s exactly what iSwig is. It’s… → Read More
Steve Lewis wants to use data for good. His company, Living PlanIT, works with hundreds of partners to create sustainable cities and improve business and construction efficiency.
Living PlanIT aims to bring high tech tools to the construction industry to help create sustainable, data-driven cities. We wrote about one such city in Portugal, where each building within the city will be able to plug… → Read More
At a recent HTC event, a couple of dudes from Android Guys managed to corner an HTC official and beat a few answers out of him (or her). The big question that got settled was that of the frustrating 30FPS refresh rate cap in place on the EVO. According to HTC, the cap has its origin in the HDMI port, out of which the phone can only push a maximum of 30FPS. So their solution was… to reduce… → Read More
Samsung predicable announced an ebook reader at CES 2010 just like nearly every other company there. The E60, originally called the E6, is a cute little device, with a slider design and a touchscreen — both first in the US market. The reader was supposed to hit the states this Spring with B&N content, but it’s still not here the heat index clearly states it’s summertime.
The Digital Reader… → Read More
Lots of things describe the Android hacking community. Intense. Enthusiastic. Horrifyingly talented. Call them what you will — just don’t call them small. You see, we rarely get a glimpse into just how many people are modifying their Android handsets with custom ROMs; downloads are generally distributed across too many sites to track — and even if they’ve got an official… → Read More
More news on the story that has captured America’s undivided attention. No, not the World Cup, which has captured my undivided attention, but the Hurt Locker BitTorrent lawsuits. When we last left you the Electronic Frontier Foundation was preparing to argue in front of a Federal judge that, in effect, the lawsuits were bunk. That didn’t exactly go as planned, but it’s not all bad news. Well, “bad… → Read More
Apple is on the move today. First the company’s Chinese aspirations broke, and now we learned that Apple plans on opening ten new retail outlets within Germany. (plus one that’s about to open) These new locations could bump Apple’s retail presence up from three to 14. → Read More
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=13118504&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1 Super Mario Bros. from Surfap on Vimeo. Fun fun fun fun: A recreation of Super Mario Brothers painted on a sidewalk and then animated. Much better than looking at videos of oil spills. → Read More
Conspiracy theorists, doff your caps! The root of the suddenly slower upload speeds reported by AT&T customers has been discovered, and it’s not just AT&T screwing with people. → Read More
A solar-powered airplane, named the Solar Impulse, means to prove, once and for all, that harnessing the energy of the Sun is a good and practical idea. I mean, why would we try to capture some of the energy put out by a completely free nuclear reactor hanging in the sky? The plane took off from Switzerland a little bit ago, and will try to fly for 24 hours without stopping. Here’s hoping it’s a… → Read More
Japan’s telecommunications behemoth NTT is working on a device that can transcribe discussions in meetings automatically and in real-time. Japanese daily The Nikkei is reporting that the current prototype features two cameras with fish-eye lenses and eight microphones to capture what is being said and detect who is speaking. → Read More
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