The new Digg is here and clearly it is in your best interests to follow us on it. You can do that by going here and I guess following us. You can also follow us on Twitter and you can follow us home and we’ll keep you like a lost puppy. Whatever floats your boat. We’re just trying to keep current. → Read More
A Swiss startup offering mobile visual search and augmented reality technology, kooaba, landed about $3 million venture funding (from undisclosed Swiss investors) the company’s co-founder and chief executive Herbert Bay reported this morning.
Kooaba was spun out of the Computer Vision Lab at a top science and technology university in Switzerland, ETH Zurich.
The company’s mobile phone apps allow users to take a snapshot of print ads, DVD and book covers, movie posters and physical goods, to derive product information, best available prices, and possibly coupons or associated digital extras. → Read More
Look out GameStop, there’s a new gun in town. And it’s got the brick and mortar location, name recognition, and marketing power to give you a run for your money. Ol’ blue and yellow is moving into the used game market starting this week and I think some competition will only be a good thing. → Read More
We’ve already seen a few pieces of the new iPod touch, which, though it may not be a carbon copy of the iPhone 4 minus the phone, it’ll probably follow the example of previous devices in providing similar functionality.
The new Nano, though — we’ve had some speculation based on the tiny touchscreen leaked a while back, but I was skeptical of the usability of such a wee thing. But these leaked cases seem to indicate that yes, the new Nano is a tiny, touchable square. → Read More
Digg Head of Business Development Matt Van Horn is leaving Digg to move over to the “stealthish” startup Path as VP of Business Development. This Friday will be his last day at Digg, which just this week announced its V.4 redesign.
From Van Horn’s announcement email to colleagues:
When I graduated college in 2006, it was a crazy dream to move to the bay area and join a tech start-up. So I took it upon myself to stalk Kevin and crew repeatedly until they created a position for me. It’s now been more than three years since I started here and I have learned so much and am so grateful for the chance that everyone took in bringing me on board. This has been the opportunity of a lifetime and I am excited for what the future has in store for Digg and will continue to support it in any way I can. → Read More
Back in June, we noted a couple of websites that existed for the sole purpose of revving up mayor battles on Foursquare: When Will I Be Mayor? and Be The Mayor. Today, Foursquare itself has just rolled out a small feature which should also entice users to battle for the crown.
Now, when you check-in to a venue on Foursquare via a mobile app if you’re within 10 check-ins of becoming the mayor, Foursquare will alert you how close you are on the check-in confirmation screen. But the way they do it is a bit different from simply “you need X more check-ins”, instead they tell you that “you’re now X days away from becoming Mayor”. This is an important distinction as it shows that it’s about more than raw number of check-ins. → Read More
I’ve tried out a few of these gun-like controllers in my time, from the silly (just a controller shaped like a gun) to the awesome (pico-projector built-in), and of course everyone loves the Redneck Techie and his Game Gun. But variety is the spice of life, and this Mag Gun has a different system than all of them that may make it worth a look. → Read More
MIT researchers tested the first prototype of the Seaswarm, a pack of robots that use nanotechnology to suck up oil from the surface of the ocean and for immediate processing.
When completed, the robots will be able to travel along oil-spilled waters, collecting oil more cheaply and efficiently than oil skimmers. The robots are large: 16 feet in length and seven feet in width. They push a conveyor belt wrapped by an oil-absorbing nanowire mesh that repels water while slurping up to twenty times its weight in oil. → Read More
The government is coming after you! Run for the hills! Oh, wait, the government owns the hills! Shrill, yes, but there’s a point. A recent article in Time magazine paints a fairly scary picture of the potential for the government to use GPS (originally a military creation, remember) to track your every move. Will this happen? Eh, pretty hard to see that happening—but it could happen. Maybe. → Read More
“Am I expecting a massive day one [for the Move]? Not particularly. We didn’t with EyeToy, either. It went on to be massively successful.” These are the words of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe senior vice-president Ray Maguire. Is Sony trying to lower expectations or just being frank? Perhaps a little bit of both. → Read More
Last month we reported on a new experiment Yelp was running that put it in competition with the likes of Groupon and LivingSocial: time-sensitive daily deals, offering steep discounts at local businesses that users can pre-purchase. Reached for comment at the time, the company said that it was “always testing new things” and also pointed out some of the previous marketing programs it’s run over the years (it was essentially downplaying the experimental local deals).
Today, the company is making things a bit more official: it’s announced a new sneak peek on its blog that says it’s now offering local deals in San Diego, with plans to expand to San Francisco, New York, and other cities in the near future. → Read More
Facebook Places, launched last week in the US only, is clearly poised to go global at some point. Facebook has already been through the wringer on privacy, and back again. In privacy-obsessed Europe it gets a double-dose of controversy every time it tweaks the openness of the social graph. So how would you feel about shaking your phone to set the privacy level of your location?
The idea is simple. Navigating menus on a mobile to adjust your privacy levels for that moment in time is pretty tedious.
So Lukasz Jedrzejczyk, a researcher at the the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK (and his and colleagues) have come up with a new take on tweaking your settings. Shake it baby! → Read More
You’re a pretty punctual person, right? Right. But sometimes stuff just happens, you know? Maybe you forgot your wallet and had to go back. Maybe you couldn’t find your keys. Maybe you had to bust through the front windshield of a flipped-over bus to save the orphans inside.
Whatever the totally-legitimate-and-not-at-all-made-up reason is, Telenav’s OnMyWay for iPhone will automatically let your party know you’re running a bit late, and when they should expect you → Read More
This morning, we saw Dell’s announcement this morning that 3PAR had accepted its increased offer to acquire the storage company for $24.30 per share in cash, or approximately $1.6 billion, net of 3PAR’s cash. Now HP just upped the ante, offering $1.8 billion for 3PAR, or $27 per share in cash.
Clearly these companies want 3PAR. Bad. Dell had previously signed an agreement to acquire 3PAR for $18 per share, with a provision for matching competing bids. HP subsequently outbid Dell for the data storage company, offering $24 per share in cash, or also roughly $1.6 billion at the time. But Dell and 3PAR signed an amendment to the agreement reflecting the new offer price, which brings its bid up to par with HP’s offer. → Read More
Remember back in the day when Twitter follower email notifications basically only told you a person’s username? Yeah, those were pretty useless. Luckily, we’re far beyond that. And a new addition today makes these notifications more useful than ever.
Over time, Twitter has added things like profile pictures, stats (number of tweets, following/followers), and most recently, list stats and bios. But a new addition allows you to see just how many people you follow also follow the person requesting you. And it shows you how many people the user follows that you also follow. → Read More
Scientists at the University of Liverpool report that they have created dry water. That is, a mostly normal drop of wet water is surrounded by a coating of sandy silica, creating, basically, powdered water. Don’t expect to be able to pour yourself a nice tall glass of dry water, though. The proposed uses for this new form of water mostly deal with absorbing greenhouse gases. The research shows that dry water is three times better at absorbing carbon dioxide than the normal wet water is. → Read More
I was prepared to ignore the first few Facebook emails from my contacts there imploring me to visit web sites that were totally out of character for them. “Hey, change you password, you’ve been hacked” I would email them. But no more. Things are getting out of hand.
Just now I had an IM conversation with a former TechCrunch analyst and colleague, Daniel Kimerling. Daniel is no slouch, having worked at places like the Center for Strategic and International Studies. So I was surprised to get a a Facebook IM out of the blue from him. It ran like this: → Read More
This is a guest post by Ulf Weihbold, Head of Profit Development and SEM Analyst for Smarter Ecommerce, in Linz, Austria.
When it comes to e-commerce there is a general understanding that Europe by far is not as advanced as the US. Sometimes you even hear that Europe is several months or even years behind. This might not actually be entirely true. Maybe a better question to ask should be: are these two big markets even comparable? → Read More
Most of the time I’m like “Brando, you dumb” but today I’m like “Brando, wow.” This is basically a waterproof headset the connects via Bluetooth to most A2DP-compatible devices. You also get a bag to put your stuff into so it doesn’t get wet and it works with the iPhone.
It’s waterproof to 3 meters and you can even use it out of the water. Sadly it’s $57 so it’s a bit pricey, but you guys weren’t going to buy this anyway. Who swims anymore? → Read More
We’ve been hearing recently that South African media conglomerate and recent DST investor Naspers was sniffing around Crasiglist competitor OLX. Today, we confirmed with OLX co-founders Alec Oxenford and Fabrice Grinda that Naspers has made a strategic investment in the online classifieds company.
While Buenos Aires-based OLX is not disclosing the amount invested, we’ve heard from sources that the investment was in the range of $20 to $40 million. Naspers also bought out the shares of all of OLX’s previous investors, which include Nexus Venture Partners, The Founders Fund, DN Capital, General Catalyst Partners, and Bessemer Venture Partners. Prior to this round of funding, OLX had raised nearly $30 million. → Read More
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