Love your iPad’s form factor, but don’t like iOS? Not sure there are really a lot of you out there, but the post must go on regardless. Hacker Hexxeh has posted a picture of what appears to be Chromium (the open-source Chrome-based OS) running on an iPad. → Read More
EngageSciences, exhibiting in the Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt this week, has revealed it’s closed an angel investment of $750,000 from private European investors. Terms were not disclosed but we understand the round came from some UK and European angels.
The startup has been developing its application since December, focusing the concept of “social nurturing” – a fancy way of saying its about getting more fans for brand brands and companies. The startup is slightly different form the the current crop of U.S. social media marketing vendors, in that too many of these companies just focus on just getting more “Likes” for brands or increasing their fan count or simply running a one-off contest. This is rather tactical and avoids the issue of user retention in the longer term. → Read More
Pioneer announced two new speaker systems for DJs and music producers. Both systems are active reference, and product studio quality sound in a compact package. Expect to pay for this level of quality of course, the 5-inch DJ05 will set you back $899, and the 8-inch S-DJ08 will cost $1199 when they come out this January. Check out the press release after the jump. → Read More
The TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield is approaching its dramatic conclusion, and the 7 finalists remaining are making their closing arguments in front of a panel of all-star Silicon Valley judges. Here are their questions and the startups’ answers, along with links to our past coverage of each company.
Judges:
Kevin Rose
Marissa Mayer
Jason Goldman
Ron Conway
Roelof Botha → Read More
Let’s see now, exactly how did Silicon Valley become Silicon Valley? Well, there was decades of history from the 1930s onwards. Hewlett and Packard in their garage; World War 2 and the development of the military industrial complex in the Bay Area; and of course the creation of the technology industry. That’s not all, but those were some of the crucial elements.
But what really helped create the Valley was an almost zero barrier to entry and an open environment committed to sharing information and a huge tolerance of risk. Companies clustered in geography, but also hung out with eachother in a random, serendipitous manner which created sparks of ideas and innovation. In other words, the Valley was not really built on formality in the way that too many things in Europe are for it’s own good.
Which is why we’re supporting the new #TechHubFriday events in London at the new work space for the tech community in London TechHub, and especially this Friday which will be a free demo night for entrepreneurs and startups (interest disclosed). You can come along, meet other tech entrepreneurs, have a drink and show people what you’re working on. → Read More
Big news for Wii players, Nintendo is working on a new controller, the Wii Remote Plus. They are combining the best qualities of the Wii Remote and the Wii MotionPlus, but little else is currently available about the new controller. Nintendo has stated that they will be releasing more information in the near future. → Read More
How exciting. iFixit found a8GB of flash memory courtesy of Samsung and a lot of the same chips and bits found inside the iPhone and iPad. There’s even solder points for a dock connector lending to the thought that the Apple TV is nothing more than a repackaged iPhone minus certain parts. See, I told you it was exciting. You can keep your high going by clicking over to iFixit for even more fun. → Read More
“Environmentalists get in the way…and do more damage than they know,” said Vinod Khosla, one of the world’s leading clean tech investors, today at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco. Why? Self-described environmentalists demand or adopt technology that sounds promising without a sense of its true cost or impact to the environment. “Painting your roof white is better for the environment than driving a Prius or similar vehicle,” Khosla pointed out.
The green movement contrarian famously invested in a business that aims to make coal power cleaner (Calera) with carbon sequestration. The very notion displeases environmentalists who are concerned about the way coal is mined, as well as emissions from coal-burning plants. → Read More
Today at our TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Google’s Marissa Mayer took the stage to talk a bit with our own Michael Arrington. After she revealed a couple new Google Instant features, she went right into another topic: social.
Michael (of course) asked Mayer to disclose Google’s plans for their upcoming social strategy. Mayer (of course) would not do that. But then Michael turned the discussion to a social product Google does currently offer: Orkut. To hear Mayer tell it, the service never caught on in the U.S. simply because it was far too slow after its initial launch. → Read More
Barclays Capital analyst Douglas Anmuth is predicting that Amazon will sell 5 million Kindles this year, putting it in the first place in terms of dedicated e-reader sales. Anmuth sees the iPad and the Kindle “bifurcating” the market for e-readers with the Kindle running the low-end while iPad takes the high. → Read More
We just got done interviewing Digg founder Kevin Rose here at TC Disrupt and got back to our seats to discover that a new “Digg This” button had just been launched both on our site and on Digg.com itself.
Perhaps this “design refresh” is the first in a slew of features about to launch in the coming weeks? While prettier and faster, the button opens up a pop window where you have to “Digg” the story for a second time in order for the “Digg” to register which still seems like an uneccessary extra step. → Read More
Today at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, Google’s Marissa Mayer took the stage to talk with our own Michael Arrington. But before her talk she had a couple new things to announce. Specifically, new things about the recently-announced Google Instant.
Mayer invited a couple Google employees up on stage to show off a couple new Google Instant features. One allows you to use keyboard navigations with the service. The other brings Instant features to other search verticals — like video and news search. These features will be rolling out of the next couple of days, Google says. → Read More
Shervin Pishevar, founder and Executive Chairman of mobile gaming company SGN, has just taken the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt to showcase an impressive new iPhone application called Mini Tycoon: Casino. The game is the first of a series that Pishevar believes will be extremely popular on the platform — he’s predicting Casino will do over $1 million in revenue per month.
The preview of the game was fairly brief, but gameplay will be similar to Farmville, except you’ll be planting slot machines instead of crops on your path to building a successful virtual casino. Pishevar says that the game has been in development for a year and that a huge amount of attention has been paid to getting the details right — and the graphics do look quite polished. → Read More
Digg founder Kevin Rose took the stage here today to talk to TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington about the future of Digg among other things.
One revelation that came up during the talk? Jay Adelson, Rose and Digg crew turned down a $60 million dollar in cash plus $20 million in earnout offer during the trajectory of the social news site. Rose told Arrington that he didn’t regret turning down the offer, which we’re guessing came either from Current or Google (Rose refused to disclose). → Read More
This video shows the version of iOS running on the Apple TV appearing to work correctly on an iPod Touch Gen. 4. Hacked by DHowett, the system seems to do everything the Apple TV can do but the process is very rough and technically could fry your device. Think of it as an interesting yet dangerous experiment, and, like most dangerous experiments, they should be left to the experts. via TUAW → Read More
Bose showed off their latest innovation yesterday: The VideoWave, an average 46-inch LCD with an enlarged Wave Radio speaker setup bolted on the backside. It’s expensive. Of course it’s expensive. I mean, it’s a Bose system. Did you expect anything less? However, it’s a tad too expensive at $5,349 and I believe Bose knows this.
Now, I understand Bose and their target demographic. I sold AV equipment retail for years at Circuit City and know that Bose products sell themselves. They require nothing more than a quick demo and a store credit card with a high enough limit. My friend’s father recently “treated” himself to Bose speakers after retirement, beaming with pride as he unboxed his set.
It’s even easier to sell against Bose, though. All it requires is a reasonable argument from the salesman and suddenly a customer is spending hundreds, if not thousands less, on an Onkyo HTIB with professional installation. It’s this logic Bose is afraid of and perhaps explains the high-price. Bose knows they’re not going to sell a lot of these TVs. → Read More
At the Web 2.0 expo in New York today, Facebook CTO Bret Taylor announced that 2 million websites have added the “Like” button and Facebook’s other new social plug-ins, which were launched five months ago. Facebook also confirmed the stat in a Tweet.
That’s impressive considering the number was 50,000 only five months ago. Facebook’s new social plugins,which include a ‘Like’ button for the web and an array of other widgets, were launched at f8 in April. → Read More
Fresh off a $7.4 million funding round, last year’s TechCrunch50 winner Redbeacon took the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt today. The company announced that it has expanded to its second city; Seattle. Redbeacon was previously only available in San Francisco (and has over 5,000 Bay Area providers listed on the site).
Redbeacon lets users search, browse and book local service providers – from plumbers to bakers – on its website. Service providers pay a fee to Redbeacon for new paying customers, or in some categories, like lawyers, for a lead. → Read More
Oh, Yatzhee, always being funny. This time he takes on Amnesia: The Dark Descent, an indie horror game with bite. → Read More
Bitfenix is a new company in the case market, but they are certainly making their mark. Their latest product is the Survivor series, a ruggedized mid-tower ATX case that manages not to look silly. → Read More
