“Something interesting is about to happen.”
That was what Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s opening remark at our TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco today. He continued on to say that the people in the audience represent another transition in the ways people use computers. We now have “an augmented version of humanity,” Schmidt said. The future is about getting computers to do the things we’re not good at.
Schmidt noted that it’s ridiculous that humans and not computers drive cars. “Your car should drive itself. It just makes sense,” Schmidt said. “It’s a bug that cars were invented before computers,” Schmidt remarked. → Read More
Talking about the geography, proximity to Stanford and other “ingredients” that make San Francisco a great place to incubate startups here at TCDisrupt, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom gave a laundry list of San Francisco startups including Twitter, Zynga, and Foursquare.
Only problem? Foursquare is actually located in the Village Voice building, in New York City.
Note: While Foursquare does technically have “office space” in San Francisco, they are sharing it with another startup, Square. Perhaps avid TechCrunch reader Newsom was referring to this post while up on stage? → Read More
At TechCrunch Disrupt, an audience member just asked Google CEO Eric Schmidt a question about what he thinks of Twitter, and whether Google is buying them. Schmidt declined to answer the latter question but did provide interesting commentary on the first query.
He said: Twitter strikes me as being a very important platform (not surprising, Schmidt actually joined Twitter last year and has used it from time to time). What was interesting was Schmidt’s commentary on Twitter’s potential. He said that “Twitter should be able to come up with advertising and monetization products that are very lucrative.” → Read More
Hardee’s is apparently turning 50 this month (they have a Facebook page saying as much) and they want you to know they like you even if you may consider their food beneath your delicate palate. However, knowing our readership would never turn their nose up at free Country Fried Steak and Gravy Sandwich Smorgasbord for 20, I’ve decided to abandon our traditional locavore tendencies and stoop to offering you the $50 Hardee’s Gift Card they wanted to send us. → Read More
Roku is quickly turning into a major source within the streaming community and its just-announced deal with Ooyala will likely bring even more content to the massive install base. The deal allows publishers to utilize an Ooyala-made, turn-key operation to create a custom Roku channel.
This is a big move for the video distributor as it suddenly gives publishers a totally new demographic to target along by bringing their content to the livingroom. Content can be shot with a big screen in mind. It truly opens new doors for Ooyala users such as Alloy Digital, which is the first content partner to implement the Roku custom channel. → Read More
Today, at TechCrunch Disrupt, Erick Schonfeld sat down with Bill Gurley, partner at Benchmark Capital and and Michael Grimes, Managing Director and Co-Head of Global Technology Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley, to discuss the current IPO market. As Facebook, LinkedIn, Jive and Millennial Media consider taking their companies public over the next few years, GreenDot, an under the radar startup is filing for a $2 billion IPO today.
When asked what will be the one IPO that will change the current market, Gurley said that he didn’t believe that their would be one single public offering that would shake the market and influence other companies. → Read More
Apple TVs are shipping and there isn’t much of a delay if any. That’s good. There will no doubt be dozens of Apple TV hands-on reports and so-called reviews popping-up within the coming days as Fedex men everywhere deliver the streaming box. But Clayton Morris can officially call “First!” on this one, though. He just posted what he calls a review, but while I totally have a bro-crush on the man, I think calling his article a review is a bit generous. Maybe “First Look” or “Hands-On” would be a better label. But no matter, click through to read a bit about his mom and the new Apple TV. → Read More
My mom has some hearing damage in one ear. She doesn’t wear a hearing aid but she does go “Wha?” whenever you ask her something and then you have to scream what you just said, embarrassing everyone at the AA meeting. When Powertel, a subsidiary of a German company, Amplicom that has made devices for the impaired for years, offered to send over a Powertel 500 DECT cordless phone I thought it would be nice for her to try.
It was. → Read More
4G, like all wireless technologies before it, is more or less a big magical mystery to most consumers. All they know — and all they care to know, really — is that 3G was fast, and 4G is faster. For that little niche who does care to know more, however, Sprint’s taken it upon themselves to mount up on a rooftop, camera in hand, and show you all the workings. To make the whole thing considerably more fun, I highly recommend turning on Youtube’s automatic captioning for gems like “there’s usually in tennis you need” and “We have some cell sites are pointing down missile sites all over the place”. Video is after the jump. → Read More
I’m very pleased to announce that we have acquired TechCrunch. Details are in the press release below, and I’m sure founder Michael Arrington will have a few words to say as well. This is a great compliment to our continued investment in world class content.
Press Release: → Read More
From the very beginning, Microsoft have insisted on keeping complete control over both the form factors and internal specs of any phone that wishes to run their upcoming OS, Windows Phone 7.
So far, however, Microsoft have only given details about one of the promised two “chassis” of their phones: the slate-style phones that you’ve seen around. It should be noted that “Chassis 1″ are allowed to have slide-out QWERTY keyboards, but no known WinPho 7 handset currently has one.
So, what is “Chassis 2″, then? → Read More
Slowly, but surely USB 3.0 is finding its way into more portable devices with the Toshiba Canvio being one of the latest. The just-announced Canvio 3.0 line brings USB 3.0 for no additional cost, while still offering the standard pre-loaded backup software and 256-bit data encryption. Available at the standard retail outlets, the line features a 500GB, 750GB, and 1TB drive, that carry the manufactured suggested retail prices of $119, $129, and $179, respectively. Oh, and of course there is a multitude of different trendy designs available. Because nothing says hip like random geometric shapes. → Read More
Welcome back, startup fans. It’s time for another day packed full of tech illuminati, breaking news, and genuinely amazing companies making their debuts. Our agenda for today includes a great number of investors, entrepreneurs, mayors of major cities, and someone who calls himself Chamillionaire.
As always, we’ll be streaming live all day long, as well as taping behind-the-scenes footage and interviews. And as always, employ the #tcdisrupt hashtag for Twitter, Flickr, blog posts, and all the other usual methods of propagating information. → Read More
Given that Apple’s Remote app is built by… you know, Apple, you might have assumed that it would’ve been one of the first out of the gate with support for the iPhone 4′s Retina display, the iPad, and other such Apple-made treats. You know what they say about assumptions, right? As it turns out, the Remote app’s team is pretty small — in fact, last we heard, it was a one-man side project. Such things don’t take priority, you know? Fortunately, it looks like he managed to find some time: version 2.0 of the Remote app is here. → Read More
Amazon.com today introduced the beta version of “Kindle for the Web”, which enables people to read and share digital book samples in their browsers without the need to install or download anything.
The company says it aims to lure bloggers and website publishers who participate in the Amazon Associates Program to embed samples of Kindle books on their websites (here’s how). It seems like a win: these website owners will earn referral fees from Amazon when customers complete book purchases using the links on their websites. → Read More
According to a Tweet from All Things Digital’s Peter Kafka, this morning, Twitter COO Dick Costolo said that the company will be “setting aside” its EarlyBird program, which partnered with retailers and e-commerce companies to offer discounted deals to Twitter users. The announcement appears to have been made in New York at the IAB MIXX conference.
It’s, of course, unclear what “setting aside,” means but clearly Twitter is re-evaluating the promotion. The idea behind EarlyBird was fairly simple. Twitter partnered with advertisers to distribute offers via the @EarlyBird account, and they get to determine the terms of the offer, including availability, amount, and pricing. Deals are published via the @EarlyBird handle several times a week. → Read More
While we’ve been Disrupting all over the place, Twitter has been hitting the advertising beat full force, with COO Dick Costolo at the IAB Conference in New York about to launch “Promoted Accounts” which will insert the accounts of brands and other services next to normal users in Twitter’s “Who To Follow” feature, which recently replaced an old Twitter mainstay, the “Suggested Users” list. → Read More
I wanted to say that the UR-CC1 “King Cobra” was one of the weirder Urwerk watches out there, but that is sort of like saying a guy with 3 arms is that much stranger than a guy with 5 arms. Urwerk timepieces have always been very different in style and appearance, but also provocative. Last year the brand finished developing their UR-CC1 watch that tells time via two linear dials. Based on the dashboard of some older cars, the watch tries to provide luxury, where there was once only utility. → Read More
After filing (renewed) applications for the words “tweet” and “twitter” recently, Twitter has now requested that its trademark “bird in flight” drawing becomes a genuine trademark as far as the United States goes, at least.
As you can see on Trademarkia, the U.S. federal trademark registration was filed for by Twitter early last week. The description given is fairly basic: “the mark consists of an outline of a bird in flight”. It will no doubt be a tough one to obtain. → Read More
I am currently attending the Google Developer Day Tokyo [JP], a one day event Google Japan uses to promote its services and technologies to hundreds of local geeks. At the exhibition area, I stumbled upon “RIC Android”, a robot that not only looks like the cute mascot for Google’s OS but is also probably the first one out there that actually runs on Android software. → Read More
