SanDisk is back, baby. After a long time of just letting its Sansa Fuse line chill, there’s finally a new model. The Sansa Fuse+ is a mighty big refresh that manages to maintain a good amount of its pedigree. Gone is the iPod-inspired scroll wheel with multi-directional trackpad taking its place. The UI also got reworked, but the rest is about the same, which is actually fine by us. We’re big fans of the FM radio, microSD card slot with slotRadio compatibility, and multitude of color options. The new models are available starting today with the 4GB running, $79, 8GB $89, and the 16GB commanding $119. → Read More
Were you looking forwarding to downloading the Final Fantasy XIV open beta client later today? Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it seems that some last-minute glitches have postponed the release of the client. → Read More
Taiwanese electronics company Phison has developed some kind of next-generation Tamagotchi, the U.bo. The little guy is supposed to be an alien spore that lives in a six-legged space ship. Unlike the Tamagotchi, U.bo is a robot that can move around – apart from displaying emotions and actions shown on an 121 pixel LED screen.
Much like the Tamagotchi though, U.bo must be fed with cookies to be kept alive and in a good mood. The robot can also, in a way, “fart, “burp”, and do a number of other nasty things (it can “sing and dance”, too). Two U.bo can even “kiss” each other. → Read More
Showroomprive, which claims to have the No. 2 spot in European private sales sites after Vente Privee, has raised 37 million euros from Accel Partners for a minority stake. The members’ only fashion e-commerce site which sells designer brands at discount prices was founded in France but entered the Spanish market this year and is growing quickly.
Three years after launch Showroomprive claims to be the second online sales site in France with 3 million members and 75 millions euros of revenue in 2009. It’s now aiming for 140 millions euros and
6 millions members. In 2010 it partnered with Orange.fr for “privileged sales,” launched in Spain and is soon launching a mobile app. Showroomprive will invest in a new warehouse to increase capacity and also look to acquire.
Yes folks, it’s time to roll-up all those private sales sites in Europe. → Read More
At VMworld today, VMware has announced that it has acquired two enterprise companies today–IT performance analytics company Integrien and TriCipher, an authentication system for cloud hosted SaaS applications. Both acquisitions are expected to close in the third quarter of 2010. Financial details of the transactions were not disclosed.
TriCipher’s myOneLogin is an on-demand identity and access management service that allows users one single sign-on to more than 4,000 apps, including Salesforce, WebEx and Google Apps. The company has raised $33 million to date. TriCipher’s technology will be added to “multiple VMware initiatives, including identity-based security, integration of hybrid clouds and managed access to SaaS application from any device, where and when a user needs it.” → Read More
Only a few hours after RIM managed to avoid the Indian ban hammer, it now looks like Google and Skype could be the next target. India’s Home Ministry, the country’s interior ministry (think police force and other domestic policy matters), has told the BBC that “any company with a telecoms network should be accessible” to the country’s security services. India says it needs to be able to be able to tap into such communications in order to thwart potential terrorism threats. → Read More
You know how it is. You see people in your Twitter stream all retweeting some cut new Twitter app so you go and try it out. Even the great @StephenFry tried out Twifficiency, which supposedly told you how efficient you were on Twitter, but with scant explanation as to why.
Today, the same has happened with TwitterNation, and I include myself in that. TwitterNation Counter purported to tell us who was the first in a country to join Twitter. → Read More
ShoutEm, a white-label mobile and location social network startup, has secured $1.2 million in a second round investment from Slovenian venture capital fund RSG Capital. With the advent of hyperlocal news, Shout’Em will let smaller websites and business monetize their communities through local advertising as well as vouchers.
As part of the funding round, ShoutEm is being spun off into a separate company – Shout Ltd – and plans to open offices in London and New York for business development and sales, while keeping their core development team in Croatia. ShoutEm previously raised seed round of funding of $500,000 from Bicro in late 2008. → Read More
Earlier this year, mobile developer TuneWiki raised over $7 million to expand beyond the namesake lyric-centric music player that put it on the map. Today sees the company’s first major expansion with the launch of a new iPhone game called Lyric Legend, which combines lyrics with the rhythmic gameplay that made Tapulous’s Tap Tap Revenge a massive hit.
Playing Lyric Legend is pretty straightforward: fire up a song and you’ll see a series of bubbles appear on the screen, each with a different word on it. The song you’ve selected will start playing in the background, and it’s your job to tap each word as it’s sung. → Read More
Ksplice, the technology that allows Linux kernel updates without a reboot, is now free for users of the Fedora distribution. Using Ksplice is like “replacing your car’s engine while speeding down the highway”, and it can potentially save your Linux systems from a lot of downtime. Since Fedora users often live on the bleeding edge of Linux development, Ksplice makes it even easier to do so, and without reboots! → Read More
Digg has hired Amazon exec Matt Williams to be their new CEO, we’ve confirmed. This ends a months-long process that began with the ouster of former CEO Jay Adelson in April. Founder Kevin Rose has run the company since then.
Williams has been with Amazon for more than a decade – since 1999. He is currently the GM of Consumer Payments. But he has held a variety of jobs – GM Webstore, Director Tech Alliances, Director Community & Cross-Merchandising and Director, Auctions and Marketplace. → Read More
For the longest time the Kindle was only available via Amazon. It’s actually a wonder that it did so well without a brick and mortar presence, but a few months back, Target started displaying and selling the ereader within its stores. Soon, Staples will be the latest to hawk the best-selling ereader device in 1,550 of its stores. Participating Staples locations will begin selling all three Kindle models sometime this autumn. → Read More
IFA is upon us; think CES but bigger. The showfloor doesn’t open until September 3rd, but most of the news should drop this week as companies try to steal 15 minutes of fame before the flustercuck begins. And this year it’s all about Android tablets and 3D TVs. I know, exciting stuff.
You could almost feel the excitement at CES 2010 back in January. It felt like the whole CE market was on the verge of something big. Tablets and 3D TVs were the buzzwords but only the big players where showing off prototypes and first-gen models. All the mid-level consumer electronics makers had ereaders instead of tablets. But IFA should be a bit different now that the Chinese OEM factories are already pumping out slates and 3D TVs are commonplace. But you might not wanna get too attached to any of the products announced in the coming days; they might not be for you. → Read More
Kansas City-based startup Neighbortree checked in to tell us about their efforts to grow a fledgling network of hyper-local neighborhood community websites operated by residents. The company has just raised $120,000 from an undisclosed regional angel investment firm, notably a mere month after launching its service.
Neighbortree provides free, interactive neighborhood websites to any type of residential community, including traditional neighborhoods, subdivisions, condominiums and apartment buildings. Think of it as a sort of Ning for neighborhoods. → Read More
There’s sure to be a deluge of tablets coming out of this year’s IFA show in Berlin. I know I’ve written about the Samsung Galaxy approximately 8,000 times in the past few weeks! So, here’s another: the Viewsonic ViewPad 7. She’s an Android-based tablet, as so many are these days, and she has a 7-inch, 800-480 display. Why are these things popular again? → Read More
Udemy, which aims to democratize learning on the Web by basically letting anyone teach and school themselves through online courses, has raised $1 million in seed funding from a host of top notch investors to ramp up hiring efforts.
The Founder Institute-incubated startup received funding from an impressive list of angel investors such as Keith Rabois, Rick Thompson, Russ Fradin, Benjamin Ling, Larry Braitman, Jeremy Stoppelman, Naval Ravikant, Paul Martino, Josh Stylman, Mark Sugarman‘s MHS Capital and Dave McClure‘s 500 Startups fund.
Proud disclosure: the company was co-founded by TechCrunch / MobileCrunch writer Gagan Biyani. They grow up so fast. → Read More
Do you own an iPad, iPhone, iPod, Sony Xperia, a Nintendo DS, or other mobile devices? Do you need a power source when you use these gadgets on the go? If yes, then the mobile chargers Sanyo announced today might do the trick for you.
There will be two versions: one, the so-called “eneloop stick booster” (pictured above) comes with adapters (licensed by Nintendo) to power your DS and the other mobile devices mentioned above on the go. The other (dubbed eneloop mobile booster/pictured below) is not compatible to the DS – as is one of the stick type boosters, actually. → Read More
As competition in the e-books device market heats up, Borders is cutting the prices of its leading eReading devices, the Kobo and Aluratek to $129 and $99.99 respectively. The Kobo was previously priced at $149.99 and the Aluratek was priced at $119.99.
Borders is also announcing that Velocity Micro’s Android-based Cruz Reader R101 and Cruz Tablet T103 are now available for preorder on Borders.com for $199 and $299 respectively. Borders is currently offering 1.5 million titles through its e-book readers. → Read More
Slow and steady wins the race, right? Wrong. Not in the mobile world. In the mobile world, where next month’s software patch is all the rage before it’s even announced, slow and steady gets you tromped all over. Alas, until HP/Palm really get into their post-merger swing, slow and steady is all they’ve got.
This morning, that slow and steady pace brings a minor update (1.3) for webOS’ Facebook app. So, what’s inside? → Read More
Is there any other RTS out there that could as easily be made into a movie as StarCraft? Probably not, no. What’s slightly more pie-in-the-sky? Getting James Cameron to direct it. It’s a nice idea, certainly, and especially considering that the man only directs smash-hits, but do you really see James Cameron taking time out of his post-Avatar world to direct a video game movie? I mean, isn’t he busy planning an Avatar sequel? → Read More
