Yesterday, we showed you “Little Seiko”, a pretty awesome unicycling mini humanoid developed by Japan-based Murata. As reported, the new version (the first model appeared 5 years ago) boasts the ability to traverse an S-shaped balance beam without falling over. But yesterday, we could show you just a picture and no video – now we can. → Read More
Much love has been thrown in Google Chrome’s direction of late, not least of which because, well, it’s quite snappy. But let’s not forget the trailblazing browser that helped open the door for all these non-Internet Explorer browsers: Firefox! Yes, Mozilla is closing in on version 4.0 (I’ve been running the betas for some time now, and I’m a fan of the new Mac interface, while the Windows one looks sorta weird in Aero), and now Mac users have a rather specific reason to be excited: hardware acceleration. → Read More
At TechCrunch Disrupt, Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt told the audience that the next step for Google Search is to show more personalized results. It’s unclear when Google will roll out a more personalized search experience, but startup Evernote, the ‘memory enhancement’ service that allows one to capture, organize, and find information across multiple devices and platforms, is hoping to bring this to you now. The startup is releasing a new Google Chrome Extension that includes Simultaneous Search, which lets you search both Google and your Evernote account at the same time.
Here’s how it works. When you beginning typing your Google search, your Evernote notes will also show as a result on top of your Google search result. Evernote will also show you the number of notes that match your query; and you can click on the result to see a list of all your notes that matched the search. Evernote says the extension also works on other Google search portals, including Google Images and Google Shopping. And the startup is planning to expand this functionality to other search engines and browsers. → Read More
Total number of internal TechCrunch meetings in the five years prior to AOL Acquisition: 1
I’m not even sure our AOL acquisition has legally closed yet. But today we celebrate our new corporate overlords with…an internal all hands. EVP David Eun, Heather’s new boss, scheduled a whopping 3.5 hour all hands meeting today starting at 11. Everyone’s here in the office pretending like it’s perfectly normal to be awake and in the office at this ridiculous hour. And God help us if news breaks, because we’ll all be in the conference room acting out a Dilbert cartoon.
I really don’t like internal meetings, even if they do serve a purpose. We once had an all hands here at TechCrunch but it ended after a few minutes because I wanted to go back to my office and do anything else besides be in a meeting. I really hope this doesn’t become a regular thing.
Ok, I’m off to go review HR policies, or something. → Read More
Your do-nothing Congress is doing nothing—shock! Lawmakers have adjourned their latest session in order to return to their home districts in order to campaign for the upcoming election. Boring, I know. One of the things they left on the table? Net Neutrality legislation. Thanks, Congress! → Read More
Another day, another new 3D TV announcement. This time, it’s two new models coming [press release in English] from Sharp Japan, the 46-inch LC-46LB3 and the 52-inch LC-52LB3. The TVs of the AQUOS Quattron series feature a built-in Blu-ray recorder, which are 3D-enabled, too. → Read More
comScore just released its latest online video data in the U.S. for the month of August; showing that viewership remained steady since the previous month. According to comScore, 178 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in August for an average of 14.3 hours per viewer (178 million users watched online video in July as well). The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than 5.2 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month and 85.1 percent of internet users in the U.S. viewed online video in August
Unsurprisingly, YouTube.com took the stop spot in terms of viewers, with 146.3 million unique viewers. Facebook.com jumped one position to capture the #2 spot with 58.6 million viewers, for a total of 243 million viewing sessions, continuing on its growth in video viewership and surpassing Yahoo. Yahoo came in third with 53.9 million viewers, followed by VEVO with 45.4 million. Google Sites in total had the highest number of overall viewing sessions with 1.9 billion and average time spent per viewer at 270 minutes, or 4.5 hours. → Read More
Most flash drives have a lanyard thing but the drives themselves aren’t exactly designed for keychains. They’re cheap plastic and so one. Enter the Super Talent CKB. This flash drive is made out of metal and designed to look like a key. Sure, they’re not exactly novel as the Lacie released iamaKey last year, but still, the form factor is solid and there should be more like these. No word on pricing just yet, but they’re probably not going to be crazy expensive. → Read More
In the game or Risk, the main objective is to take control over every land mass on the planet. With an update to Street View today, Google has just completed that.
The original idea behind Google Street View was a good one: give everyone in the world a view from any street in the world. Of course, when it launched in May 2007, Street View was only available in five cities in the U.S. But the update today — over three years later — completes an impressive feat for the product: it’s now available on every continent. Yes, all seven. Yes, that includes Antarctica. Yes, a place with no real streets. → Read More
Buzzd, a social city and nightlife mobile app that pulls its data from Twitter and other buzzd users for a bigger picture of the places that are hot in a given location, is debuting a new Android app today. The app will aggregate check-ins from Gowalla, Foursquare, Facebook, Loopt, Brightkite and Buzzd itself to give users a realtime view of the most popular venues in their areas.
The buzzd network compiles information from its base of over a half-million active users and other real-time sources to provide users with activity updates for almost half a million venues across the United States, the U.K. and Canada. The Android app now aggregates over 500,000 check-ins per day from Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, Loopt, Yelp, Whrrl and other real-time location -based services sources to present activity at bars, clubs, restaurants and other points of interest. That data is then added to the app’s “buzzdmeter,” which gives you a real-time measure of activity at popular bars, restaurants and nightclubs in your city. → Read More
After debuted the latest in a series of wacky stunts, dating service and scholarship fund Grouspawn, I caught up with Groupon CEO Andrew Mason backstage at TechCrunch Disrupt to talk about the recent Groupon backlash, the company’s success problem and how transparency can scale to hundreds of millions of dollars in deals in 150 cities around the world. → Read More
WAZZZUP! We are totally raging this weekend. We are going to Sharkey’s first and then Paul is having a hot tub party with you know who. Yeah! Her and like fifty of her friends! Broseph! I know! Aw man, I went totally speed skating yesterday. Yeah, dude, I wear a unitard and get up to like 40 miles an hour. Naw, I’m in training for the championships in Hawaii. Naw. That’s just something I do. I’m totally in it to win it. What? This thing? Duuuuuude. This is the new Jawbone thing from Cisco. Like it’s totally connected to the phone system. Oh man. Someone’s calling. → Read More
Ah, beer. You’re my solace and my comfort in these trying times and I love you. But how do I find you, especially the odd and unique members of your extended family? Thankfully, there now exists BeerBy. → Read More
Internet marketing services company eBridge has raised $2.5 million in financing from Comerica Bank in a bid to broaden the scope of SMB-focused tools and services currently offered through its local business division, eBridgeInteractive.
eBridge has been in operation since 2003, using technology and a service-oriented approach to help small and medium-sized businesses maximize their visibility on the Web. → Read More
The Nintendo 3DS is coming out next year. It will miss this year’s holiday season. That makes Nintendo investors sad. Actually, it does. Why? The 3DS was supposed to come out this year. → Read More
The TechCrunch staff has been pretty busy these last few days, what with throwing and covering a conference and all, but our excellent event photographers (Dave Getzschman, Max Whittaker, and Aaron Morris) have been even busier. They’ve taken hundreds of shots, all far better than those I could manage during the panels and chats, and they’re all collected at the TechCrunch Flickr page.
I’ve sifted through them and collected a few of what I felt were the best. Feel free to use these in any way you see fit, as long as you give credit to TechCrunch and the photographer. → Read More
Don’t go rioting in the streets or anything but apparently there are some small icons in the iOS SDK that show the HDR On and HDR Off logos in standard and “retina” resolution. This could mean that the 3GS could feasibly support HDR photo shoots although it probably actually means that Apple simply created a high-def version of all its icons and this one slipped past the censors. → Read More
Joe Wilcox at BetaNews has posted a must-read article in the wake of the announcement – made at TechCrunch Disrupt SF – that the Redmond software giant would be transitioning all its Windows Live Spaces users to Automattic‘s WordPress.com platform.
You may recall Dharmesh Mehta, Director of Product Management for Windows Live, stating that there were roughly 30 million active Windows Live Spaces accounts.
Wilcox, however, has managed to obtain internal e-mail messages exchanged between (yet unnamed) Microsoft employees that suggest far lower numbers. → Read More
eBuddy, the swiss army knife of web and mobile instant messaging services, this morning announced that it has achieved over 100 million downloads of its mobile applications since its 2007 debut, thus stepping in the footsteps of the likes of Facebook, Google (Maps), and Opera (Mini) when it comes to the number of app downloads reached.
In case you’re not familiar with eBuddy, the service basically enables users around the world to chat for free in one, aggregated interface across most major IM networks, including AIM, Facebook Chat, Google Talk, ICQ, MySpace, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger. → Read More
