Remember the Samsung NX100 camera? It was announced during CES this year, and we’re finally seeing it ship. The NX100 is a micro 4/3rds camera with a 14.6mp sensor, 3″ AMOLED display, and the ability to record videos in 720p. You can pick one up for $599, and it comes with a 20-50mm lens that uses Samsung’s NX mount. [via OLED-Info] → Read More
Roughly two weeks have passed since the developer-only release of the iOS 4.2 Beta. Know what that means? It’s time for another Beta! iOS 4.2 Beta 2 just went live in Apple’s dev center moments ago. Now, the only question: will you do what you had planned to do tonight, or spend the evening digging around in the new Beta in search of hidden gems? → Read More
Shwowp, which is like a Tripit plus Blippy plus Mint for shopping, hails itself as a customer empowerment platform. Founded by Internet marketer Tara Hunt, Shwowp (in the same space as RightCliq) attempts to solve the problem of all our purchase data being scattered across multiple silos like Amazon, Bluefly, etc, by trying to corral our diverse shopping history into one place.
Shwowp users can make a purchase, forward the receipt or order information to wow@shwowp.com and the service will synch that info to your account. Once there you change the data, view your buying patterns and share information about your experience like how long to took to get to the store, availability, how influenced you were by what your friends were buying, etc. → Read More
“Entertainment Shopping” is one of the more controversial genres of startups emerging on the web. The basic premise: you pay for a chance to get something at far cheaper than it normally sells for, but there’s a risk that you’ll come away with nothing. It’s part gambling, part bargain hunting and it’s proved to be very popular, with sites like Swoopo leading the charge and other sites bringing the model to hotels and other verticals. And today, TechCrunch Disrupt Finalist ToVieFor is bringing entertainment shopping to a new market: high fashion.
If you like Gilt Groupe (a site that offers high-fashion items in fire-sales), this should be right up your alley. Log onto the site, and you’ll see an array of high-end handbags and accessories being sold off at a potentially steep discount. If you want to buy one (or at least, a chance to buy one), you need to buy some ToVieFor credits, which run 99 cents and are cheaper in bulk. And then you can get down to business. → Read More
[Insert ironic joke here about how the MEpad is an open platform and how there's no need for a battery, let alone a removable one.] $9.99 for a 50-sheet 5.5 x 8.5 pad. → Read More
By now you must have heard the news that AOL has acquired us. Here are videos of the on stage signing of the agreement and an interview with AOL CEO Tim Armstrong immediately afterwards.
So how did all this happen? And What happens to TechCrunch now?
In May I had a chance to interview Tim on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt: New York. After the talk we went to the speaker room for a quick private chat (this happens after most talks unless the speaker has to rush out). → Read More
If you’ve ever gone job hunting online (and who hasn’t these days?) you know just how incredibly inefficient the process can be. Job listings are littered across the web, making it difficult to filter for the ones that match your skillset. And then when you actually go about applying to a job, you have no idea how you stack up against the competition — or even how many other people have applied. Gild is a new site launching today at TechCrunch Disrupt that wants to make the whole process more efficient for technology professionals.. and maybe even a bit more fun.
Gild is social gaming meets career advancement, which sounds like a contradiction but looks like it might just work in practice. The initial process is pretty straightforward: sign up and set up a profile for yourself, listing off each of your skills and your past work history (the site can import your CV and LinkedIn data). And then the real fun begins. → Read More
Gather around, gather round. Let’s take a few minutes and admire what the Internet pundits claim is the future of TV. The story goes that Best Buy was showing off this Sony NSX-46GT1 HDTV powered by a Google TV Dish Network box at the retailer’s holiday preview event in NYC today. HD Guru happened to be there and snapped these pics while a demonstrator gave him a tour. Everything sounds like it works as advertised. The universal search and full Internet is there as well. Hopefully the platform launches soon. I have high hopes for it. → Read More
If you want that BlackBerry tablet, the PlayBook, your best bet may be to visit a Best Buy near you. Best Buy’s chief executive said that when the device hits the market (hopefully before the end of the year), “we’ll be happy to offer it to our customers.” → Read More
“I hope we’re not entering a world where Silicon Valley becomes Versailles”
That was Matt Cohler speaking today at our TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco. Cohler, a partner at Benchmark Capital (and one of the original employees of Facebook), sat down with our own Mike Arrington to talk about the state of the venture capital industry.
Cohler made his provocative statement in the context of him talking about his concern that politics are coming too much into play behind the scenes in Silicon Valley these days. The whole “Super Angels versus VCs” thing is a part of this. He finds the debate over these terms silly — if you’re investing your own money, you’re an angel, if you’re investing someone else’s money, you’re a VC, is how he sees it. The so-called “Super Angels” are just micro-VCs, he said. → Read More
Citing a change in the “political landscape”, The Difference Engine, a publicly-funded Ycombinator-style acceleration programme for early-stage tech businesses, is making cuts to its investment budget.
As a result, they’ve reduced the overall funding from £20k per team to £5k for the idea plus £3,200 per founder (max 3 founders) for which they have also reduced the shareholding from 8% to 6%. The Different Engine, funded in part by One North East, is keen, however, to stress that there have been no cutbacks in the programme itself, which along with investment, offers mentoring and free accommodation for 16 weeks. → Read More
Gripe attempts to capitalize on the human propensity to complain about things as well as the increasing importance of online influence and power. Its location-based mobile app is based on the premise that people want the ability to press a button and resolve grievances towards local businesses and service providers.
Gripe uses as leverage a person’s online clout, namely the number of Twitter and Facebook followers and the reach of those followers to turn “turn complainers into customers.” It also takes status badges on services like Tripadvisor into consideration as somewhat of a threat in order to get a service providers attention and resolve the problem. → Read More
Sumazi attempts to make introductions, positioning itself as “an intelligent recommendation engine for professionals that introduces connects you to the people you don’t know but should.” Sharing the same space with Hashable, Sumazi has the very ambitious goal of being the world’s ultimate super connector.
Founder Sumaya Kazi brings up the example of being able to meet a good UX designer, and promising that with just a few clicks of a button, Sumazi will help you extend your average meaningful connections per year number from four to a lot more. → Read More
Ahem. Well, Bose also had some news of its own today. It announced the existence of something called the VideoWave. It’s a 46-inch LCD TV, which, by itself, isn’t so exciting. What is exciting is the fact that the sound the TV produces is actually… how should I put this? Really, really great. Yes, that’ll do. → Read More
Earlier this month we took a look at Pinger, the company behind Textfree, a massively popular application for the iPhone and iPod Touch that gives users free, unlimited text messaging. Since launching in March 2009, users have sent over 4 billion text messages with the app, which has been downloaded 8 million times (these numbers effectively put Pinger in the top ten US carriers, volume-wise). And today at TechCrunch Disrupt, the company is announcing that it’s venturing into new territory: voice calls.
Textfree will soon include a true SIP-based VOIP client that works over both 3G and Wifi. The feature is enabled by the fact that Pinger gives all of its users free, unique, real phone numbers (it distributed 1.7 million phone numbers last quarter; AT&T gave out 1.6 million in the same time span). Calling works as you’d expect: hit the call button, and you’ll see a dialpad — you’ll be able to place calls whenever you have a data connection. This is especially huge for iPod Touch users, who already comprise most of Textfree’s userbase and can now use their devices as phones. → Read More
Channel surfing may not be the most social experience, but as anyone who has watched their Twitter stream during a broadcast of Mad Men, Lost, or Jersey Shore can attest to, it sure is fun to chat with your friends online about what just happened in the latest episode of your favorite show. yap.TV is a new startup launching today with an application for the iPad that wants to be the platform for this kind of conversation — a central place where you can chat with your friends about current television content. You can grab the application here.
The free application just hit the App Store, and it looks great — which doesn’t come as a huge surprise because the yap.TV team includes some former Apple employees who worked on the iPad. After firing up the app, you’ll see what’s essentially an interactive TV Guide, which lets you scroll through the day’s TV listings by flicking your finger a few times. → Read More
We all have experienced customer service nightmares. Often, one of the must frustrating parts of a poor customer service experience is feeling that your feedback is falling on deaf ears. Tello, which is launching at TechCrunch Disrupt today, is hoping to fill this gap by offering companies a realtime feedback app that consumers can use on their mobile phones to rate customer service on the fly.
On the consumer side, Tello is a free web and mobile service that aggregates ratings for businesses (business listing are aggregated from Localeze) from across the web and allows users to post comments about their experience at a business. Users can provide feedback on specific employees, recommend an employees and share a positive or negative story about the employee. → Read More
Acer’s AspireRevo has started shipping to the US. The new small form factor computer was announced earlier this month, and looks to be a viable machine for someone looking for an inexpensive computer. → Read More
Well, this is kind of awkward.
A couple weeks ago, we reported that AOL was in the process of acquiring of Thing Labs, makers of Brizzly. Neither AOL or Thing Labs would comment at the time, but we had multiple good sources on the deal. Fast forward to today: AOL is finally confirming the deal — right after they just acquired us.
So yes, like we said, AOL is acquiring Thing Labs. Only now, it’s technically our parent company that is buying them. So congrats to us, I guess?! → Read More
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