The final piece of the US Galaxy S puzzle has now fallen into place, with US Cellular’s version — the Mesmerize — becoming available today.
The phone is pretty much the standard version minus the front-facing camera. You still get that gorgeous 4″ Super-AMOLED display, 1GHz Hummingbird processor, and 5MP camera.
It’ll run you $199 on a two-year contract, after an $80 mail-in rebate in the form of a Visa Debit card.
I love those things.
If you’re on US Cellular and keen for a new handset, you really can’t do better than this one.
Keen for some hot PR action? I’ve included the full, unedited Press Release for you after the jump. → Read More
Remember when Amazon got in trouble for the ironic crime of remotely un-publishing 1984 from users’ Kindles? Well, they’re not the only ones capable of doing that, although in Barnes & Noble’s case it’s more of a technical snafu than a willful breach of user rights. → Read More
There’s something in the air tonight… an update perhaps? To your Droid 2, maybe?
Correct! Verizon have said that the latest software version — v2.3.20 — for the Motorola Droid 2 will start rolling out to a limited number of people tonight.
But what does the update bring? I have a list for you after the jump! → Read More
Yesterday, all we had were rumours, now it’s official — the myTouch will launch on November 3rd for $199 on a two-year contract. My how times change.
Of course, if you’re clever, you can scoop it up for less than that.
There isn’t really much more to add: you already know that it runs Froyo, is HSPA+ compatible, sports the latest 1GHz snapdragon processor, has a front facing camera, a 3.8″ 800×480 screen, a 5MP/720p camera, and will launch in 4 colours. → Read More
Something is definitely up at uber nerd site and “Directory of Wonderful Things” BoingBoing.net. A trip to the front page brings up the charming image above, which seems to be some sort of vulgar message from someone called “the|one” to site editor Cory Doctorow. The hack also ingeniously incorporates the “Jesse Slaughter Dun Goofed” viral video. → Read More
I got taken to task yesterday by some humorless fanboys for what was clearly satire, so I’m going to play this one straight. It seems that both Best Buy and Amazon have ceased to issue pre-orders for the Kinect, although you can still buy a bundle with a new 360. This augurs well for Microsoft’s big bid to expand the gamer demographic.
Maybe that $500 million ad push is working! → Read More
It’s a well-established tradition at tech conventions, where nerds like us abound, to stock one’s booth with beautiful women — “come for the girls, stay for the iPod cases” seems to be the idea, and in general it works. But how do you attract the attention of highly-disciplined Lieutenants and cold-hearted strategists? Why, a robot with a .50-cal, of course. → Read More
Ok, now I know that BlackBerries are popular with those “corporate” types with their “business trips” and their “incomes”, but this limited edition £750 BlackBerry Bold 9700 just seems a little …overpriced.
What do you get for £750? Gold accents? Nope. Leather trimming? Nope. A concierge service? Not that, either.
How about some custom wallpapers, pre-loaded Monocle travel guides, a 16GB MicroSD card, and a “special strap”.
I’m in the mood for itemisation right now, so let’s play a round of “What’s Worth What?!” → Read More
We’ve learned that former Digger and teen entrepreneur Brian Wong has just wrapped up a $300K angel round for his mobile gaming ad startup Kiip. You first read about Wong when our own Mike Arrington wrote about the 19 year old being the youngest founder to ever receive venture investment. → Read More
Hot off of the presses from CENS, comes news that Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision Co., Ltd (now the largest electronic manufacturing service IN THE WORLD) will ship a CDMA version of the iPhone to Apple come 2011. The manufacture of the device has reportedly been split evenly with Hon Hai’s buddy Pegatron, who will cease his duties saving the planet from evil robots, just so you can enjoy an iPhone on an operator other than AT&T. He’s such a great guy, Pegatron. Speaking of operators, the article also states that “Apple will launch the phone in early 2011 in cooperation with a couple of telecom companies as Verizon and China Telecom”. So there you have it, more fire for the rumour that is the Verizon iPhone. Not long now, it seems. Not long now… Hon Hai are planning to ship 15 million units in 2011, but between his helping old ladies cross the street and destroying ninja-bots, Pegatron expects to only ship 10 million. [via Mac Daily News] → Read More
When can you really declare your game a smash hit? When it cracks through 10 million downloads? Eh. When you’ve got a full line of plush toys coming based on its characters? Sure, I guess that’s alright. But here’s the real challenge: dig your game deep enough into the hearts and minds of your fans that you’ve got people dressing up like the characters for Halloween. With that in mind: Congratulations, Angry Birds. You’ve (sling)shot your way into a VIP area generally reserved for the likes of Master Chief, Mario, Samus, and other gaming legends. That’s right: you’ve got cosplayers. → Read More
You know, it’s one thing to use subjective and entirely unscientific terms like “feels” or “seems” when it comes to reviewing computers, but there’s something to be said about actually running benchmarks and comparing the numbers to other comparable computers. Numbers don’t lie. So kudos to MacWorld for actually taking the time to see just how impressive, or not, the new MacBook Air is. → Read More
Hellotxt has launched a version of its ‘social dashboard’ for Android. The app’s main feature is to offer an aggregated view of a user’s social networking activity on sites such as Facebook and Twitter, functionality that isn’t too dissimilar to the kind of thing that HTC’s Sense or Motorola’s MotoBlur provide as a way to differentiate their Android offerings from the rest of the market.
That said, Hellotxt has been in the social networking aggregator space for quite some time and the app represents a nice option for social network users and delivers a few unique features of its own: → Read More
I’m excited to announce the members of The Europas Awards Advisory Board.
What’s so great about this year’s board (just as with last year’s) is that we have a fantastic spread of experience across the spectrum of the tech scene in Europe, and people who really know the scene inside and out. → Read More
Yesterday, both the New York Times and Robert Scoble unveiled publicly for the first time what a company called Kiha Software has been working on for about three years in stealth now: a piece of software called Aro Mobile. With $20 million in backing from the likes of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, they’re obviously getting a lot of buzz. And that should continue when they fully show the system off in a few weeks at Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. But for now we have a video sneak peak of it in action, and 1,000 exclusive beta invites for TechCrunch readers to try out the software themselves.
So what is Aro? Currently, it’s a piece of software that runs on top of Google’s mobile Android OS. But it’s not just another layer like some of those awful skins that OEMs design for Android. Instead, it weaves itself into the OS and uses AI and machine intelligence to make sense of what you’re doing with your phone. It natively ties into your email, phone, calendar, address book, and browser to make them potentially much more useful to you when you’re on the go. → Read More
Like other hot startups there is a healthy secondary market ecosystem for Twitter stock. The current street value of a share of any series of Twitter stock? At least $7 per share, say multiple sources with knowledge of transactions. With 225 million shares outstanding after a three for one stock split earlier this year, that’s a $1.575 billion valuation.
There aren’t nearly as many early Twitter employees with sizable amounts of stock to sell compared to Facebook, but the demand is there for those that are in the market. There are even a few funds that have been created with the sole purpose of buying stock from Twitter employees and investors, and the Twitter board of directors generally doesn’t interfere by exercising its right of first refusal.
The $7/share valuation is generally considered the “fair” price for larger transactions of at least $1 million. Smaller transactions, which can attract a more robust number of potential buyers, are sometimes closing at higher valuations, we’ve heard. → Read More
Sencha is making a big bet on HTML5. The company, which was formerly known as Ext JS, raised a hefty $14 million round led by Sequoia Capital in June. Since then it has been perfecting its HTML5 framework Sencha Touch — a framework that lets you build mobile web apps for iOS and Android that feel almost native and are also cross-platform. And today, the company is adding another big addition to its product suite: Sencha Animator.
If you’ve used Flash before, Animator should be fairly easy to pick up. It’s a tool for creating CSS3-based animations that will work on WebKit browsers — drag a few objects and images onto the screen, set up some keyframes, and you should be off and running. → Read More
Lomography’s latest camera is a bite-sized guy with a panoramic lens and, of course, manual film advance. It’s called the Sprocket Rocket, and it’s about as simple as cameras get these days. The lens is extra-wide-angle to capture extra-full-bleed on the film (i.e. you can print the sprocket holes and numbering), and there are two knobs, for forward and backward film scrolling. → Read More
Shopping online has become standard to most people on the web. While browsing through the thousands of available e-commerce sites can be a tedious and time consuming task, meta shopping sites aim to take the hassle out of a potentially very long search for the best, cheapest and most adequate product out there.
Imagine you could access all of a product’s distributed and decentralized information on the web right when looking at it on Amazon or any other shopping site. That’s where Ciuvo comes in. The Austrian company has developed a nifty add-on for any browser out there (in Beta it’s only available for Chrome and Firefox), that lets you pull in product-related information in real time and smoothly on the top of the site that you are shopping at. → Read More
It’s very apparent within seconds of sitting in the 2011 Ford Edge Sport that it’s different. It feels like the future. There are two LCD screens flanking a lovely analog speedometer, flush mounted inductive-type controls on the center stack and of course, a large infotainment screen. It’s like a car from the future! (It’s not) Inside is the latest generation of Ford’s in-vehicle system. Dubbed MyFord Touch, it’s reach and capabilities are unlike nearly anything else in the same price range. But this system isn’t just stuck in the center stack, tasked with the job of controlling the climate and radio. The MyFord Touch is also in the dash cluster in the form of two LCD screens. This is where it gets interesting and validates its place in Ford’s future. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
