Knol, Google’s platform for sharing articles about specific topics, appears to have been shutdown. It’s unclear if this is a temporary or permanent situation. We’ve reached out to Google for comment.
We’ve long been speculating as to when Google will shut down Knol. The knowledge-sharing site has essentially been reduced to a “Craigslist wannabe.” The original idea behind Knol was that people could collaboratively write definitive articles about any topic they like and get rewarded by earning a share of the AdSense revenues for each page they author. Unfortunately, no one seems to be reading anything on Knol and the product never really panned out. → Read More
How do you guys feel about PC cases these days? Are you a fan of the over-the-top styling that so many of them feature, or would you like something a little more staid? I ask because NZXT has a new case called the Phantom. It’s not too crazy—there’s no spinning lights or any of that jazz—and it’s a full tower. That’s key in case you want to rock dual video cards or want to add a bunch of PCI cards. → Read More
Facebook’s worst-kept secret is finally ready for its closeup: the company is starting to roll out Facebook Questions, a Q&A service that allows users to poll all of Facebook. Facebook has been inviting users to apply to join a sneak peek of Questions for months now, so we’ve seen much of this before, but this marks the first time that it will begin rolling out to users who didn’t apply for the beta program. Facebook says that this is intiitally rolling out to 3-5 million users, with plans for a broader rollout down the line.
The motivations behind the launch are clear: millions of people already use Facebook status updates to poll their friends — it’s only natural that the site would offer a dedicated mechanism to do this (and it’s also likely to be a boon for page views, especially once Questions are syndicated to search engines). But if you were hoping the new product would incorporate Facebook’s extensive privacy settings, you’ll be disappointed: everything in Questions is shared with everyone else on Facebook, and every question you ask is tied to your real name; likewise, anyone who answers will have their response tied to their account. → Read More
Unless someone at Research In Motion is taking the time to screw with all of us, it looks like we might have an official name for their long-rumored BlackBerry tablet project: BlackPad.
Word of the name comes not from a disgruntled employee, nor from a prototype left at a bar; this one’s straight out of a good ol’ fashion WHOIS lookup on a domain. According to registration records, RIM purchased BlackPad.com just days ago. → Read More
The friendly folks at VSP Vision Care sent along this quick video explaining how our increased use of computers and smartphones have affected our vision. Remember when you were growing up and you were told not to sit too close to the TV? How many of you now spend nearly every waking hour inches away from a computer monitor, or glued to your iPhone? Mm. → Read More
If we’re hearing any one thing from developers that is scaring’em away from Android, it’s that Android apps are just way, way too easy to pirate. Hell, you don’t even have to go through shady third party download sites; just buy an app, copy it to the sd card, and refund the application. Ta-da! (Read: Don’t do that.) Google’s been talking for some time about a new, considerably more secure system for protecting applications from pirates and dishonest refunders. Today, that system goes live. → Read More
Forget about checking-in to venues. Apparently, the new thing to do is to check-in to whatever you’re doing — like watching television shows, or reading a book. It’s something that Hot Potato offers, and they’re in the process of being acquired by Facebook. It’s what GetGlue offers as well, and they’re already seeing over 4.5 million ratings and check-ins a month now. And today, the service is announcing a new exclusive partnership with HBO.
Starting on August 1, when you use GetGlue to check-in watching one of HBO’s hit shows, you’ll earn exclusive stickers designed by HBO. If you’re aware of Foursquare badges or Gowalla pins, it’s the same idea, except based around content. The three shows HBO has selected for this promotion are True Blood, Hung, and Entourage — three of their hottest shows. → Read More
Short Version If Charlie the Unicorn has taught us anything it’s that the road to success is fraught with setbacks and, if you’re not careful, your best friends will cut out your kidneys. It is with these life-lessons in mind that we examine the Dell Streak, a 5-inch Android 1.6 tablet that shows much promise but is hobbled by Android OS fracturing. → Read More
Last May, Kanye West was pissed off. Why? Because people were impersonating him on Twitter. He was so mad that he even wrote a blog post about it — entirely in CAPS. It began, “(This spaz comes courtesy of losers making fake Kanye West Twitter accounts) I DON’T HAVE A FUCKING TWITTER… WHY WOULD I USE TWITTER???”
Well, apparently someone has convinced the hip hop star why he should use Twitter, because as of two hours ago he’s on the service and tweeting away. → Read More
Watch out Meebo, there’s a new kid on the block. Israeli startup Wibiya, which publicly launched its web-based, customizable toolbar to publishers in January of this year, is seeing impressive traffic for a year-old company.
According to Quantcast, Wibiya is seeing 151 million monthly visitors to its toolbars. In contrast, Quantcast also reports that Meebo is currently seeing 143 million monthly visitors. Currently, Wibiya has more than 70,000 active websites using its toolbar, including TheStreet, TheOnion, Playboy, Philly.com, JellyBelly.com and more. Wibiya says that nearly 1000 new websites are adding the toolbar per day. → Read More
The back-and-forth jabbing between Motorola and Apple is like the Cantina gunfight between Han Solo and Greedo — depending on who you talk to, who shot first seems to vary.
The way I saw it unfold: Motorola ran a full page ad in the New York Times proclaiming that you can hold the Droid X “any way you like“. Apple responded by adding the Droid X to the list of phones they demonstrate as being death-grippable. And now, Motorola returns with another ad.. → Read More
Time, Inc. and Apple are going through a rough patch. Time wants to be able to sell digital subscriptions of its properties, including Sports Illustrated, via the iTunes Store, but Apple won’t let that happen. This puts Time in a weird spot: it can either sell its magazines like any company would sell any widget on the iTunes Store (giving Apple complete control in the process), it can negotiate a new situation with Apple so that it can take control of the selling of digital subscriptions, or it can try to strong-arm Apple into getting its way—perhaps by pulling all of its content off the iTunes Store. → Read More
Last year, we covered the launch of Home-Account, a mortgage search and counseling service. Though launched in the implosion of the housing market, the site raised funding from an impressive group of investors, including Charles River Ventures, Marc Benioff, Ron Conway, Mark Pincus, and Jeff Clavier. One of the seed investors in the round was personal finance site Bills.com, which put close to a million dollars in Home-Account. Today, Home-Account is announcing that it has been acquired by Bills.com. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
A Kayak.com for mortgages, Home-Account offers a free and paid service for those who are looking for mortgage or to re-finance. Home-Account helps consumers find the right mortgage for their needs and credit histories from its partner lenders. Home-Account doesn’t make commissions from the buyers or the lenders, like some online mortgage services like LendingTree.com and LowerMyBills.com. It makes money solely from the consumer subscriptions. Home-Account’s founder Mark Goldstein says that since the company’s launch last year, the startup helped close “hundreds of mortgages.” → Read More
You can’t say Toshiba isn’t following up on its announcement in April to enter the 3D game. Apart from the pretty awesome (but pricey) CELL 3D TVs the company showed today, Toshiba is also ready to roll out [JP] some more affordable 3D LCDs for the rest of us. There will be a 46- and a 55-incher in the REGZA F1 series and three models (42, 47, and 55 inches) in the REGZA ZG1 series. → Read More
Need a camcorder or a Wi-Fi camera? Samsung has you covered. Sadly, these two bog standard cameras come from our friends at Samsung look a little plain but both record in HD and the camera supports Wi-Fi uploads. The camera, the ST80, costs $249. The camera, the HMX-E10, costs $199. → Read More
You can always count on Hunch founder Chris Dixon for interesting Tweets. He just sent out this one:
turns out patent trolling might not pay. Intellectual Ventures has negative 78% return.http://bit.ly/bSfamC
The link is a PDf download of a document from the University of Texas Management Company listing all of its private investments in venture funds and private equity funds, along with their internal rates of return (IRR). One of the worst performers is Intellectual Ventures, the patent portfolio fund started by Nathan Myrhvold that has a reputation for patent extortion. One of its funds, the Invention Development Fund I, has a negative 73 percent IRR (Dixon mistakenly thought it was negative 78 percent, but close enough). Another fund, the Invention Investment Fund II, has a negative 10 percent return. The two funds combined are delivering a negative 36.66 percent IRR for the University of Texas. → Read More
The importation, sale, or advertising of the R4 card, sometimes (often?) used to pirate Nintendo DS games, is now illegal in the UK. Defendants tried to argue that the R4 shouldn’t be demonized, much less made illegal, because it can also be used to play homebrew software. The High Court disagreed. → Read More
Weebly, the startup that lets you build a website with an easy drag-and-drop interface, is looking to help you give your site a little extra flair: they’ve just launched a new image editor called ImagePerfect that allows users to craft nifty custom header images with a few clicks. It may not be a Photoshop killer, but it took Weebly CEO David Rusenko all of one minute to build the Mustang image above (in other words, it’s pretty easy to use).
No, this isn’t anywhere near the first web-based image editor (also see services like Aviary and Google-owned Picnik). But it is tightly integrated into the Weebly experience — instead of kicking you into another window when you go to edit an image, ImagePerfect slides nicely into view, allowing you to modify your image in context with the rest of the page. → Read More
The 3D TV boom isn’t ending. As announced back in April, Toshiba Japan today showed [press release in English] a total of three new Cell Regza LCD TVs, and all of them are 3D enabled and full HD. These are the “CELL REGZA SLIM” 46XE2 (46 inches) and CELL REGZA SLIM 55XE3 (55 inches) plus another 55-inch model, the CELL Regza 55X2 (pictured). → Read More
