Best Buy today announced that Verizon’s version of the rose by so many other names — the Verizon Samsung Fascinate — will be available for pre-order by the general public from August 29th.
If you consider yourself somehow elevated above the great unwashed because of your status as a Best Buy Reward Zone member, well, don’t worry, sir: you’ll have access to the pre-order a full two days before us plebs, which will go some way toward guaranteeing that you get your device before everyone else. → Read More
Oh, Señor Blurrycam, I don’t know how you do it. I envision you flying around the world at plaid speeds, snapping secret pics as you fly by (which goes some way to explain why they’re all so blurry, I suppose). You’re like a nerdy Santa, and I love that about you.
His latest blurry shot? Details from some kind of T-mobile launch calendar stating that the HTC Vanguard will launch on September 29. → Read More
LaCie announced the latest in their line of external drives today, the Rikiki Go. Apparently, a Rikiki is a small monkey with a mohawk, as seen in the product documentation on the LaCie website. Regardless of strange marketing tactics, the latest drive has a brushed aluminium enclosure, and integrated USB cable, and comes with automated backup software included with the drive. The Rikiki comes in two sizes, a 500GB for $89.99, and a 1TB for $149. Shiny. → Read More
I love leaks. I love the idea that some mole inside an organisation smuggled out some classified document, or stole a few secret moments with an upcoming product and a low-quality camera. I envision dramatic escapes, top-level inquiries, blackmail, villains, and robo-ninjas. Sometimes, though, there are product leaks that don’t require a mole. I’m fairly sure there were no Bond-style getaways, no cyanide capsules, and — sadly — no exotic female double agents involved when Sprint posted a knowledge base article (now removed) confirming the future existence of the BlackBerry Curve 8530 successor — the Curve 9330 — on their network. I’m pretty sure someone in the web team just accidentally posted something a little too early. Oh well. At least we have the information, even if it would make a pretty terrible movie. Thanks to Engadget for the info, and I should also mention that they believe the device is destined for Verizon, too. → Read More
Grace Digital Audio just launched their latest, a line of wireless, waterproof outdoor speakers designed to work with almost any MP3 player, mobile phone, stereo, computer or CD player. The portable base unit supports up to 10 speakers, with a range of over 150 feet. → Read More
All right, no more after this. The Galaxy Tab is pretty much what we all expect it to be: a bigger version of the Galaxy smartphone. But if you’re curious how they’ve adapted their imitation-iPhone interface to fit the larger screen, this little video preview shows a lot more than the previous ones. → Read More
A couple days ago, I wrote a post wondering if it wasn’t time to change Facebook’s social graph dynamic? Specifically, I called for a simplified system that had two layers: your friends and your followers. I think that their current social management system which relies heavily on friend lists is highly flawed. And guess what? Mark Zuckerberg agrees.
Tonight at a Facebook Developer’s Garage meeting at Facebook’s headquarters in Palo Alto, Zuckerberg fielded a question about the service’s privacy controls. He said that the ideal solution for sharing different things with different people is to make a friend list. “But guess what? Nobody wants to make lists,” Zuckerberg admitted. → Read More
E3 is over, Gamescom is over, and now we’re looking at the Tokyo Game Show as the next obvious bullet point on the list of “times to announce cool games stuff.” Microsoft seems to be taking advantage, and will be doing one of the big keynotes for the show. “Xbox 360′s Vision and 2010′s Strategy” is the tentative title… not exactly raising the roof with that one, Microsoft, but we’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. → Read More
I’ve been aching to get my hands on a Mint ever since it was introduced at CES this year. It’s a little cleaner robot like the Roomba, but created with hardwood floors in mind. Think of the Roomba as a broom and dustpan, while the Mint is like a Swiffer.
I’ve only had this little guy for long enough to charge him for a few hours and give him the run of the living room once, so this is just a quick overview. → Read More
As seen by the entire Internet, the August 19th premiere of Cee-Lo Green’s “Fuck You” will go down in history as the day the phrase “fuck you” became totally benign and commonplace.
But, in another case of loud web hipster chatter not resulting in a proportionate amount of viewers, “Fuck You” did not get to 1/2 million or 1 million mark faster than glossy stuff like Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone,” which had surpassed the Cee-Lo video’s current 2,822,225 million views IN A DAY. → Read More
Crafty commerce site Etsy just raised another $20 million in its fifth venture round (that would be the Series E). Index Ventures is the new investor leading the round, with partner Danny Rimer getting an observer’s seat on the board. (The board is made up of founder Rob Kalin, Caterina Fake, Accel partner Jim Breyer and Union Square Ventures partner Fred Wilson). Previous investors Accel and Hubert Burda Media put in some money as well in this round.
The round gives Etsy a pre-money valuation of just under $300 million, about triple the valuation it got during its last, $27 million round in January, 2008. Most of the shares sold—nearly $14 million of the $20 million—were secondary shares held by some of the early investors. But unlike other rounds we’ve seen lately, this wasn’t a liquidity event for founders. Kalin says he did not sell any shares, nor did any employees. → Read More
Earlier this evening, Facebook held a developer’s garage event at their headquarters — sort of like a State of the Union for third-party developers. Notably, they announced a new partnership with Y Combinator that has the goal of creating new startups with deep integrations with Facebook’s newest tools. But there was also a Q&A session with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, CTO Bret Taylor, and Y Combinator’s Paul Graham that was pretty interesting.
One question asked if Facebook was working on their instant personalization technology for mobile devices. Taylor fielded the question noting that mobile brought about some interesting technology problems in this regard. Most notably, he said the issue is with password entry on mobile devices. According to Taylor, that’s something they have an entire team focused on right now → Read More
And boy is he delicious! The Stay-Puft Marshmallows are caffeinated bite-sized pieces of the Destructor and come in a groovy collectable box. No need to claim to be a god on this one, Ray. Just pop ‘em in your mouth! → Read More
Formspring, the Q&A service that lets users invite their friends to “ask them anything”, has had a wild year: since officially launching last November, the service has skyrocketed to over 16 million registered members, 40 million monthly uniques, and it’s now closing in on one billion questions answered. Because the company is still quite small and has had to deal with actually scaling the site, Formspring’s feature set has been pretty spare until recently. Now the company has a few key new features in the pipeline.
The biggest upcoming feature, which will be launching in the next few weeks, is called ‘Connections’. Before now Formspring has had a very limited social graph — you could ‘follow’ other users, but you couldn’t see who was following you (nor could you see who was following anyone else for that matter). → Read More
In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Valve’s own Gabe Newell took some time to talk about the possibility of a Half-Life movie. Apparently after the smash success of the first game, they were inundated with crappy scripts, and directors who didn’t get what the game was about. As a result, Valve started thinking about how they would make a movie. The result is the ever amusing “Meet the Spy” features that Valve has produced at various times. Newell went on to say that the best people to make a movie about a game, would be the people that made that game. I agree to a certain extent, but keep in mind that scripting skills in a game doesn’t necessarily equal scripting skills for a movie. I have to admit though, I love the storyline in Half-Life series, and would love to see more about the adventures of my brother. → Read More
Well well! I think we all saw this coming! An unmanned robotic combat helicopter, losing its control signal, continues on its merry way into restricted airspace over Washington, DC. Really, what were they thinking? → Read More
Now that TweetDeck’s Android app is out in beta mode, with its multiple streams (notably Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, Google Buzz) and blended options, many users want to know when TweetDeck will overhaul its iPhone app. The company’s CEO and founder, Iain Dodsworth, who dropped by TechCrunch’s headquarters on Wednesday, says it could be a “good couple of months.”
So, what is taking the British startup so bloody long?
According to Dodsworth, his 15-man team is pretty strained, from working on updates to the desktop client, the Android app, the iPhone app and new features like User Streams.
Dodsworth, a self-proclaimed perfectionist, also has a few tricks up his sleeve. As we speak, the TweetDeck lab is working on several “stealth” ideas. Although Dodsworth was generally vague during our off and on camera interviews, he seemed especially excited about the idea of allowing nearby TweetDecks to talk to each other (See video ahead). → Read More
http://player.ooyala.com/player.swf?embedCode=lwaWRvMTrOVGHmKNs1kfU–673aJeWxL&version=2 I realize pictures can go but so far, so here’s a quick video of what you can expect when reading on the new Kindle. → Read More
E-ink, you are everywhere already. But LG wants you even more everywhere. So they’re putting more effort into the production of bigger, better E-paper displays. They’re showing off a couple new models, though nothing radical. Still, a 9.7″ color E-ink display and a gigantic, flexible tabloid-sized one? Sign me up. → Read More
When it comes to trademarks, Facebook is proving to be a bully. It is going after Teachbook in court for using a similar name, and already forced Placebook to change its name. But that is only half the story.
It is not just the word “book” at the end of a company or product name that Facebook might object to. If it has its way, the word “Face” at the beginning of a name might also bring out its lawyers. In fact, Facebook is currently trying to register the word “Face” as a trademark. (It already owns the trademark on “Facebook”). Facebook took over the trademark application for “Face” from a company in the UK called CIS Internet Limited, which operated a site called Faceparty.com. Presumably, Facebook bought the application sometime around November, 2008, which is when its lawyer started dealing with the USPTO.
However, at least one person is objecting to this trademark: Aaron Greenspan. Yup, that Aaron Greenspan, Mark Zuckerberg’s classmate at Harvard who laid a claim to helping create Facebook, which he later settled. → Read More
