Unfortunately, I’ve exhausted all of my Clásico references in that Windows Phone 7 post. How much sense would it make to use all of the references all over again? I mean, this time I could link to El País’s match report (“goals rain down in the Camp Nou like leaves in the autumn, in a natural manner, with a just rhythm, with a beautiful and serene shape, a sign of health and footbalistic prosperity”), but that would be gloating. So, seeing as though I can no longer reference the game, I’ll just come out with it: EA Sports will be backing the MLS’s newest team, the Vancouver Whitecaps, in a big, big way. → Read More
Old Bill’s Effectology series is getting more and more complex. Take this post, for example. It allows you to turn a guitar into a Moog synthesizer using a bunch of EHX pedals. Obviously not everyone can recreate Switched On Bach with a git-fiddle and some boxes, but darn it, isn’t it great that someone somebody tried? → Read More
Back in July, I wrote about a nifty new startup called Standing Cloud that makes it easy to set up hosted installs of dozens of cloud-based applications — like WordPress, Drupal, or Trac — with a single click. Unfortunately, all our commenters seemed to care about was the company’s logo, which consisted of Papyrus font set against a plain white background.
Now Standing Cloud is back with a new, much more attractive logo that should appease all you font critics, and it has some big news in tow: it just closed a $3 million Series B funding round led by Avalon Ventures, with participation from existing investor Foundry Group. This brings Standing Cloud’s total funding to $5 million since it was founded in 2009. → Read More
PlayStation 3 controllers are pretty nice. However, these are just a little bit nicer. For $34.99 Nyko is offering the Raven PS3 controller in standard and alternate configurations with soft-feel grip and a 25-hour battery. The controllers allow you to swap buttons and the “alternate” configuration offers a swap of the left analog stick and the D-pad. → Read More
Verizon’s been pretty open about their plans surround the launch of their 4G LTE network — 38 cities, by the end of this year — but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some lingering fuzzy details. When will the roll out start? Will bandwidth be metered/pay-per-megabyte? Who’s going to explain to all of our grandmothers why the mobile world is using yet another confusing acronym? Tomorrow morning at around 9 AM pacific, Verizon’s going to be holding a press conference where they’ll hopefully be answering all this and more, along with providing final details for the impending launch. We’ll be there (well, as “there” as we can be — it’s a phone-based conference) bright and early, and will report back with anything we hear. → Read More
Virgin’s somewhat highly-anticipated Project iPad magazine went live early this morning. Its focus is on “design, entertainment, technology, entrepreneurs” and its format is kin to other attempts at next-generation magazines, though I’d say this one is more successful.
Of course, it requires an iPad with 4.2 to enjoy, and while five or six million of those have been sold, not everybody will get a chance to check this thing out. So I put together a little video walkthrough for you guys. → Read More
Techcrunch has published thousands of blog posts over its nearly 5 and a half years. Many are good one-day stories, some we’d like to forget, but others are gems. These classics are just as interesting today as when they were first written.
Why Michael is a pirate. The age of process journalism. The best ways you can get blogged. Our first AOL official meeting. Plus, some of the major news we broke.
But try discovering them. It’s nearly impossible. That’s one of the downsides of a reverse chronology blog.
There is a solution. Presenting TechCrunch Classics. A page that will keep an updated list of memorable and favorite posts. → Read More
Shama Largan Ding Dong? Digitimes, whose news we need to take with a grain of salt, is reporting that Largan Precision is making the cameras for the so-called iPad 2. If you read the Digitimes statement, they’re basically saying that Largan Precision is declining to state whether they are making the part or not in a Taiwan Stock Exchange. Largan reportedly makes the 5-megapixel cameras for the iPhone 4. → Read More
Only a few hours after rocking the boat, Wikileaks now finds itself on the business end of a denial of service attack. Access to the site is spotty right now, which would make sense given that the attack is “now exceeding 10 Gigabits a second.” Someone out there is ticked off, but who? → Read More
High-end computer display maker EIZO has announced [JP, PDF] a 3D monitor for the Japanese market today, the DuraVision FDF2301-3D. The LCD is sized at 23 inches, offers full HD resolution and comes with directional backlight. But the major selling point here is that users can view 3D images without glasses. → Read More
After we reported on rumors that Yahoo plans to cut as much as 20 percent of its workforce a few weeks ago, Yahoo called that number “misleading.” But layoffs do seem to be brewing, judging by the increasing number of tips we’ve been getting.
On November 23, one tipster wrote that layoffs would be “officially happening after Thanksgiving but before Xmas 2010.” Then yesterday, we started getting tips that the layoffs would begin today. Some product groups that seem to be targeted for cuts include Flickr and Yahoo Groups. → Read More
Looks like Apple is playing the heel again. It has asked PhotoFast to stop producing its 256MB SSD upgrade kits for the new MacBook Air. Boos can be heard all over the arena Why, Apple, why? Why’d you do it? → Read More
In case you want to keep recreating the dead-end dystopia that is Chiba Night City in your own home town, Tokyoflash has three great watches that will go well with the a seven-function force-feedback manipulator, cased in grubby pink plastic that replaced your arm. → Read More
Windows Phone 7 users should circle the entire month of January on their calendar. Word on the street is that an update, to be released that month, will be “MASSIVE.” Yes, we’re talking all caps massive. So massive that it warps space-time itself. So massive that not even liposuction can save it. So massive that it makes Barcelona’s destruction of Real Madrid yesterday look like a minor blip in Mourinho’s career and not a bofetón. Massive! → Read More
Enterprise social networking platform Yammer, has just raised $25 million in new funding led by U.S. Venture Partners with Emergence Capital, Charles River Ventures and Founders Fund also participating. This brings the startup’s total funding to $40 million. Additionally, U.S. Venture Partners’ Principal Mamoon Hamid will be joining Yammer’s board.
Yammer, which launched as the “Twitter for businesses” at TechCrunch 50 in 2008, recently expanded to become a more comprehensive platform for social networking within the enterprise. → Read More
Last week Facebook was hit with yet another patent lawsuit, this time by Walker Digital, an “invention company” founded by Jay S. Walker, co-inventor of Priceline.com. And boy does this one come straight out of left field. → Read More
Raising funds for a small business can be a daunting task for any fledgeling entrepreneur. Whether it be from friends and family or from the general public, finding investors, setting terms of the funding, assigning equity and filing compliance documents is a challenge. Enter ProFounder, a stealth startup that launches today to ensure that all entrepreneurs and small businesses have access to an easy and simple fundraising platform.
ProFounder, which has been in private beta for the past year, offers entrepreneurs two ways to raise money on the site: through a private fundraising round, and/or a public fundraising round. The private fundraising rounds allow entrepreneurs to share a percentage of their revenues with investors (their friends, family, and community) over time. Essentially, this type of fundraising round is an offering of securities, and ProFounder helps facilitate compliance with state and federal laws related to this offering. → Read More
Today Winamp for Android is coming out of beta, a month after its initial launch and more than 500,000 downloads later. The public Android release lets you manage your music downloads on your Android and will offer a couple new features, including wireless syncing over WiFi with Winamp on your desktop computer and the addition of Shoutcast radio stations. (Both Winamp and Shoutcast are owned by AOL, as is TechCrunch). The wireless syncing requires a new desktop version for Windows computers, which is also available today.
Winamp is a popular music management software for Windows, with 60 million users predominantly overseas. In fact, only about 5 percent of its users are in the U.S. But AOL is making a big push with Android, hoping to attract a lot of new U.S. mobile users and become the iTunes for Android devices. AOL has no plans right now to release Winamp for iPhone where it is pretty much impossible to compete with iTunes. “There is a lot of inertia around the iPhone. We have to nail this first,” says Jeff Bronikowski, the new VP of AOL Music who was hired away from Yahoo Music earlier this month. → Read More
Gilt Groupe has made a name for itself, particularly in the United States, for operating a successful flash sales site that offers its members products and experiences at heavily discounted prices for a limited period of time. Now, the company is turning to traditional e-commerce for its next trick. → Read More
It’s time for a new standard for memory cards – according to Sony, Nikon and chip maker SanDisk. The three companies jointly developed a set of specifications for a next-generation memory card for digital cameras and digital video cameras and proposed the specs to the CompactFlash Association. → Read More
