Those of our readers who are in the US will be joining us today in celebrating no historical event in particular by cooking up a huge turkey, sharing it with our family and friends, and generally taking our minds off things for a day. Yes, it’s Thanksgiving. We’re going to be taking it easy today, but we’ll leave you with a few of the things the crew here is thankful for. It was supposed to be gadgets we’re thankful for, but nobody followed my instructions so it’s just plain things. I’ll kick it off. → Read More
Last time we checked in on the Facebook/Google slapfight, Facebook had removed the option to import your contacts from Gmail and was still holding strong on the whole “denying contact info access to Google” rigamarole that started the fight in the first place. Up until now many had no other choice but to use Yahoo Mail if they wanted to mass export their Friends data from Facebook into Google.
Well Happy Thanksgiving data reciprocity fans! A third party developer has decided to build “Facebook Doesn’t Own My Friends,” a Chrome extension that lets you easily export your Facebook Friends’ contact information. → Read More
Beat me with a stick! I just had to plod through Manufacture Royale’s nine page long bloody press release – only to have reasserted what they mention in the first few lines; that they are “unashamedly elitist.” Wipe my brow and hand me an ol’ timey hallucinogenic absinthe, because I need to lay back in a hammock on a steamship and read some Jules Verne to appreciate this steampunk mechanaut. → Read More
Chrome OS draws near. Last night brought perhaps the more surefire sign yet: Google is openly talking to The New York Times about it. Perhaps that is in response to rumors that it was being delayed into next year. While details are still scant, NYT reports that before the end of the year, Google will release a lightweight netbook running Chrome OS. It will likely be branded as a Google product, but built by a third-party, similar to what the search giant did with their Nexus One phone, says the report.
This is in line with what we’ve heard and were told recently. While a full-scale roll out of Chrome OS has likely been pushed into 2011, Google is still saying that they will release something before the end of the year. Based on messages in the open source Chromium forums, it would seem that this will be a beta version of the OS. One that yes, will be running on their own device that they’re currently dogfood testing (testing within the company). → Read More
The Cleantech Open— a prestigious annual competition for U.S. tech startups that protect, restore, and reduce the negative impact of humans on the environment— announced its 2010 winners this week. Puralytics, a clean water startup from Beaverton, Oregon, took first prize.
The Puralytics team invented and sells a nanotechnology-based, photochemical water purification system that, in comparison to other available systems, can purify water more quickly, remove more impurities from it, and requires less electricity to do so. With 15 percent of the world’s total estimated 6.5 billion population lacking freshwater enough to live a healthy life today, companies with promising water technology are in demand, and could help abate a global water and humanitarian crisis. → Read More
Coull, the video advertising network, has opened an office in Santa Barbara, California with an initial team of seven and next up will be a New York office. The launch is in response to US advertisers using the platform including Michael Kors, eHarmony, eFax, Grockit and Paul Fredrick. In addition, Steve Brown, co-founder of buy.at, has joined the board alongside Irfon Watkins, Coull’s CEO. Steve ran buy.at from its inception through to being bought by AOL a couple of years ago.
In contrast to Flash overlay ads, Coull’s technology lets publishers and advertisers tag individual products within videos, making it possible to click through and buy products right from the video.
Here’s an example of the kind of work being done.
Advertisers such as Nike, Renault, Unilever and Agent Provocateur are already users in Europe. Its Video Performance Network now has 2000 advertisers and a publisher reach of 200m unique users per month. → Read More
By now you will have heard about the first official Angry Birds Day when lovers of that crazy iPhone/Android game come together to celebrate the ongoing war between the birds and the pigs.
However, well placed sources told us yesterday that something big was going down on that day, specifically in London’s Trafalgar Square. Now, this is becoming a big venue to launch big games, especialy console games. Here’s the spectacular Halo Reach launch with guys in JetPacks earlier this year.
There is speculation that Angry Birds for Windows Phone 7 will be anounced on the day. There is also speculation that the game’s developer, Rovio Mobile, will launch a games console version or that it will spin out a movie.
Actually personally I think that maybe, just maybe, something different is going on. Here’s why. → Read More
Web designers have to deploy their finished work in a web browser so perhaps it makes sense to move the design tools themselves to the browser too.
That’s the thinking behind BuildorPro, which claims to be the first browser-based, web design and development environment with built in HTML/CSS tools. Or, for seasoned web designers out there, think Coda or Espresso but in the cloud. The app, from London-based startup Buildor, is currently in closed invite-only Beta but we have 300 invites to give away. → Read More
So. Facebook. $35 billion valuation; 600 million users; 25% of all US Web traffic — and all that with fewer employees than Google has job openings. The inventor of the World Wide Web recently warned that the web may be endangered by Facebook’s colossal walled garden. A Google engineer was recently paid $3.5 million to not jump ship to work there. Facebook seems an unstoppable juggernaut. And I kind of want them to die.
Not because of their policies. They’ve been reasonably sensitive to their users’ wants, and willing to admit when they were wrong (remember Facebook Beacon?) There have been worrying signs of late, for example, their two-faced attitude towards data portability and their trademarking of the word “Face”, but I don’t (yet) object to what they do.
I dislike Facebook because they’re mediocre. They have a platform and opportunity unlike anyone else, ever—and what have they done with it? Nothing. None of their so-called innovations are actually even remotely so. Copying Twitter was smart, but hardly new; ditto Foursquare. They called Facebook Groups an innovation; it’s a basic feature they should have implemented years ago. Now they’re laughably trying to claim that integrating email into their messaging system is a world-shaking revolution. → Read More
I’m actually not here right now. I wrote this yesterday while listening to Kanye West’s new album, which I’m still deciding if I like or not. I think my opinion right now is, “Meh, I can take it or leave it.” (I think Big Boi’s album is better, and I’ll never say a bad word about The Roots.) Nicki Minaj’s verse on “Monster” is pretty dope, but beyond that? Whatever. Maybe Kanye can go back in time and ask Eric B. and Rakim to teach him how to rap. That would be cool. → Read More
As everyone is getting their turkeys into the oven and putting the finishing touches on Thanksgiving Day meals, a lot of questions come up. What should the internal temperature of a turkey be to know it is done? How many mashed sweet potatoes would make 3 cups? How do I soften hardened brown sugar? The answers (165 degrees, 3, and microwave it) can be found on Foodpickle, a crowdsourced Q&A section of the foodie site Food52.
You can ask a question on Foodpickle itself, or tweet it to @foodpickle. Answers are tweeted back at you. Foodpickle also accepts text messages to 803-380-FOOD (3663). And if you are lucky, your question might even be answered by food writer Amanda Hesser. → Read More
So I guess the guy in the video above is going to swallow a little wireless receiver/speaker/cancer pill on Friday, November 26th. Why? He wants to. Of course the whole stunt will be livestreamed and there’s a handy countdown timer on the official site. → Read More
I’ve come across quite a few Santa Claus imposters in my time. Most of them were easy to spot: there’s the funky smell that has more in common with aftershave than cookies; the squeaky voice that would make any reindeer snicker; or, most often, the fake beard that looks like a giant cotton ball and droops in all the wrong places.
But last Tuesday, I met the real Santa. Big as a house. Able to list off a dozen varieties of cookies in one breath. Six foot, eleventy-three inches tall. Smelled like candy canes. And a voice that was somehow both jolly and booming at the same time. So, of course, we grabbed a camera and asked him what makes St. Nick tick. Be sure to stay tuned until he discusses the tension between real and ‘designer’-bearded Santas. → Read More
The Gillmor Gang almost didn’t happen today, as technical problems tormented the hastily assembled pre-holiday hoedown. Will Kinect save Microsoft? No, says Robert Scoble. Will Facebook and Apple destroy our freedom as they capture our identities and lock us behind a pay wall of our own choosing? Yes, says identity leader Dick Hardt. Gillmor had other ideas, but spent much of his time below decks trying to wrangle Kevin Marks’ up and down Skype connection. This is a long show, about as long as it takes to set up Apple TV and the new iOS version 4.2 on a chain of iDevices, but in the end something about it works. Enjoy while you’re waiting for the turkey to cook, and a Happy Thanksgiving from the Gang.
Video Ahead → Read More
I thought we’d get a Hello Kitty tablet before anything else, but today Onkyo Japan has announced a Snoopy-themed Windows tablet [JP, PDF] for the local market (Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit, to be more exact). Buyers will get a rebranded Onkyo device with a Snoopy drawing on the back, a Snoopy stylus, and a special “Peanuts” case. → Read More
Bizness Apps CEO Andrew Gazdecki checked in to tell us that they’ve joined the admittedly very crowded market of DIY iPhone app development platforms, but says they can do it from start to finish for just $39 a month, obviously a highly competitive price.
The fledgling company has just scored an undisclosed round of seed funding from two angel investors, namely Build.com CEO Chris Friedland (see his reasons for investing here) and founder and CEO of Collegescheduler.com Robert Strazzarino. → Read More
As the holiday shopping season gets into full swing, Google has released a study examining how consumers shop for laptops, netbooks, e-readers and tablets. The search giant interviewed around 4,000 respondents and used analysis of clickstream data from Compete’s 2 million US internet users. We’ve embedded the study below but here are some of the findings that we found most interesting from the report.
In terms of interest, new devices like tablets and e-readers are getting attention in terms of searches on the web. In terms of unique visitors to each category, tablets saw 1328% growth and eReaders saw 114 percent growth. Netbook’s visitors dropped by 50 percent and laptops dropped by 9 percent. → Read More
USB 3.0 is slowly but surely making its way into the mainstream. Buffalo in Japan today announced [JP] a total of four memory sticks with USB 3.0, with 8, 16, 32 and 64GB on board. The new devices only support Windows XP/Vista/7 machines though (you’ll get just USB 2.0 speed for Macs). → Read More
App store analytics provider Distimo took its monthly look at the world of mobile application stores, and this time zoomed in on the differences between Microsoft‘s Windows Phone 7 Marketplace and Windows Marketplace for Mobile (6.x).
For you information, Distimo gathered data on all major app stores, but the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace data specifically was collected from 1 November until 22 November 2010, in the United States only (the store launched at the end of October 2010). → Read More
