It’s high time to recommend y’all some video games for your holiday perusal. Oh, I know my opinions aren’t always appreciated by some of you, but therein lies the beauty: if you wanted “safe” and/or “popular” you could always watch Good Morning America. You know, “Golly gee, this is so much fun!” Balderdash, I say. Balderdash. So let’s get on with this. MULTI-PLATFORM Since video games, for whatever reason, now require hundreds of millions of dollars to create (excepting, of course, things like Minecraft), publishers are often obligated to release them for at least the PS3 and 360. That means, generally, that if you have only either a PS3 or 360 you should be good to go. You’ll miss out on certain exclusives, but then then it’s not like the PS3 is $600 anymore; the 360 is now cheaper than the Wii, too. (But then Wii has a spiffy red Mario 25th Anniversary edition this year, so…) → Read More
Oh Scott Jordan, is there anything you can’t stick into your coat? The Carry-On Coat is the latest addition to the SeV family and boy does it look exciting. The coat allows you to carry pretty much anything – including, apparently, shirts and ties – right in the lining of your jacket. Priced at $225 it’s a little up there but not as expensive as a nicer trench without all the pockets. → Read More
BREAKING: Google has donated $100,000 to bring the papers of the UK’s most famous computer scientist, Alan Turing, to the home of Bletchley Park where he worked as a codebreaker
The Second world war papers went under the the hammer today in an auction at Christie’s. Google donated $100,000 (£62,700) towards the bid by Bletchley Park Trust, home to the National Museum of Computing, which has also received donations from individuals via a campaign by freelance tech journalist Gareth Halfacree.
The papers were valued at £500,000, however, although reaching a bid of £240,000 failed to reach their reserve price and could now be the subject of private negotiations between their owner and Bletchley Park. → Read More
Aviary is very good at what they do. That is, offering relatively powerful tools for amateur artists to edit content online. But all of those tools are Flash-based. And some of Aviary’s partners didn’t like that too much, feeling they were too cumbersome. And some users were interested in the tools, but also wanted something more lightweight. So Aviary went to work, and came up with a new editor built entirely with HTML5.
The project, which they codenamed “Feather”, is an HTML5 photo editor that resides on both Aviary’s site, and can be easily integrated with any third party site. The tool, which appears as a small square widget overlay, allows people to quickly edit photos without Flash. And it gives third-party sites an option for a light tool that their users can use right on the site. → Read More
TokyoFlash is offering 50% off selected items and is also offering a 15% discount on all watches with the coupon code “BLACK” from on Nov 25-27. What can you get? Only some of the wildest watches on the planet earth, my friends. That’s all. Product Page → Read More
We heard last week that Vudu was coming to the PS3. They said it would launch on the 23rd, and if you’ll direct your eyes to the date portion of your screen, you’ll find that the 23rd is today. Conclusion: Vudu goes live today. → Read More
Sexy Stevie what have you done You made a fool of everyone You made a fool of everyone Sexy Stevie ooh what have you done. Sexy Stevie you convinced John’s wife To sell the Beatles on iTunes To sell the Beatles on iTunes Sexy Stevie oooh you convinced John’s wife → Read More
Vzaar, an online video platform aimed at SMEs that want to publish video, has been plugging away since 2007, but seemed to go in an odd direction – aiming at eBay sellers who wanted to sex-up their auctions. Needless to say it was the low end of the market and eBay auctioneers tend not want to spend money on a dedicated video platform outside of free ones like YouTube. But after bringing in new management, new CEO Stephen McCluskey, formerly with PA consulting group, has pivoted the company towards a more upstream market and gone out looking for new funding.
Through various twists and turns on that funding road it’s now found further funding – terms undisclosed – through a slightly left-field source, namely Hollywood director Oliver Stone, famous for movies on The Doors, JFK and Wall Street. He’s invested alongside existing investor Sophrosyne Ventures LLP. → Read More
Good news for online retailers this holiday shopping season. According to data collected by comScore, e-commerce spending should increase by 11 percent this holiday shopping season. Already, consumers have spent $9 billion online in the first 21 days of November, which is an 13 percent increase versus the corresponding days last year.
comScore is forecasting that online spending from the November to December period will reach $32.4 billion, representing an 11 percent gain versus year ago. In 2009, consumers spent $29 billion on holiday e-commerce purchases. Last year’s e-commerce holiday spending rose by 4 percent from 2008. → Read More
Looking to buy a Kindle or two, but feeling a little cash-strapped? Well buddy, you better get up early on Black Friday, because Amazon has got a deal for you. It looks like they’re going to be selling off the remaining Kindle 2s (that’s this one) for only $89 each. → Read More
Acer has unveiled a new “concept device” that they think represents the future of laptopping. I’m not so sure. And while some of all this depends on how well the keyboard and gestures are executed in their custom UI, I don’t think people are quite ready to go all-touchscreen just yet. For a smartphone it’s one thing, but when you’re trying to put all your computing on a touchscreen, it could get hairy.
The Iconia has two 1366×768 capacitive touchscreens, one in the usual place and one where the keyboard would be. Doesn’t that sound fun? You’re not sure? Yeah, me neither. → Read More
Acer had been quiet about their tablet plans. There were hints along the way but nothing even leaked out in a traditional fashion. But that all changed today at an Acer sponsored event where *shocker* they introduced three proper tablets and a smartphone that’s nearly a tablet itself. → Read More
We all wonder what’s going on with the items we ship. Do they wing their way across the country in a pillowy cloud of comfort? Do they fall from great heights onto hard concrete? To test this, Popular Mechanics sent a box containing a device that tests for gravity and acceleration to multiple places in the US. The results were quite interesting. → Read More
Now here’s a prickly issue: should the government have to obtain a warrant in order to slap a GPS tracking device on your car as you drive around town doing whatever? A federal appeals court says yes, in fact, the government does have to obtain a warrant, if for no other reason than a “reasonable person does not expect anyone to monitor and retain a record of every time he drives his car, including his origin, route, destination and each place he stops and how long he stays there.” → Read More
Facebook is just a payment away from trademarking the word “Face.” As of today the U.S. Patent And Trademark Office has sent the social networking site a Notice of Allowance, which means they have agreed to grant the “Face” trademark to Facebook under certain conditions.
All Facebook needs to do is pay the issue fee within three months of today and the “Face” trademark will be issued and be published in the official USPTO gazette and everything. → Read More
MyVoucherCodes, the UK’s leading discount voucher code site, has launched its local offering with an iPhone app (and accompanying website) that helps consumers locate the best local deals via GPS. However, as we noted when the company first unveiled its ‘hyper-local’ strategy, the idea isn’t a new one and MyVoucherCodes is entering a space that is getting crowded fast.
In the local mobile discount market, Vouchercloud from Invitation Digital, which we profiled in February, is probably MyVoucherCodes’ closest competitor. So encouraging has VoucherCloud’s iPhone app been, the company has seen fit to take a slice of the lower end of the market too with a recently launched SMS-powered option. And of course, there’s also competition from the host of deal-a-day Groupon clones, of which MyVoucherCodes founder Mark Pearson has one of his own – and Groupon itself.
That’s a lot of discounting. → Read More
Yes, as Steve Jobs likes to point out, Android has at least one third-party App Store that is dedicated to pornography and other ‘adult’ content. No, it doesn’t have anything to do with Google — it’s made by a company called MiKandi (NSFW). And while it draws plenty of snickering and sneers from the Apple faithful, it capitalizes on a fact of life: a lot of people watch porn. And some of them are willing to pay for it.
Today, MiKandi has released a new version of its adult app store. The company says that it’s been rebuilt from the ground up, and it also includes one major new feature: support for paid applications. Previously MiKandi apps have been free; now developers will be able to generate revenue through a channel other than advertising. → Read More
Twago, which provides a “global online intermediation platform” for services in the areas of IT, design, and business support, has received backing from a Frankfurt, Germany-based investment group from the private banking sector. The exact amount isn’t being disclosed but is described as in the “six-digit” Euros, while the actual investors are also remaining coy.
However, that isn’t stopping Twago talking up its valuation – said to have risen to a multi-million Euro figure in just one year – or its average monthly growth rate of 40 percent. → Read More
Well this is potentially huge. A Nielsen survey says that more kids this holiday season are interested in iOS devices than traditional consoles. You know what this means: time to throw your PS3s and Xbox 360s into the village pyre. → Read More
In the venture business being ahead of your time can be almost as bad as being late to a market. But the other great thing about the venture business is there are exceptions to every rule. Craig Donato is hoping that Oodle is the exception to that one. He’s spent more than ten years building a social classified company, powering the marketplaces for Oodle.com, MySpace and Facebook and growing to more than 14 million unique users. It’s backed by some of the smartest investors on the Web like Reid Hoffman and David Sze from Greylock, who both invested in Facebook and LinkedIn so they know a thing or two about the social graph.
Now one of Facebook’s other hot venture capital investors, Accel Partners, has funded Yardsellr which claims it’ll be the “eBay of Facebook;” meanwhile Groupon’s runaway success has made everyone reevaluate social shopping. So what does all that mean for Oodle?
For one thing, the company isn’t slowing down. → Read More
