We’re always pretty excited when people contact us for some new technology they’re developing, a startup they’re building, or a refreshing innovation they’ve come across. (We also like it when we get a heads up when companies or technologies screw up, but I digress).
It is thus with great joy that I found an email in our anonymous tips inbox this morning with the tasty subject line: “The Fastest, Easiest, Cheapest, Most Omnipresent, and Universal Means of Communication”.
Anxious to try this speedy, inexpensive and simple product or service out, I opened up the email. → Read More
This afternoon, we wrote a post about the popular RSS feed reader, Reeder, calling out rival MobileRSS for design theft. As we noted, the community was starting to rally around Reeder, as both Read It Later and Instapaper, two of the most popular bookmarking services which work with both apps, blocked MobileRSS from using their APIs as a show of support for Reeder. But MobileRSS had yet to respond. Now they have. And they’re going to do the right thing.
They’ve just sent the following statement to us: → Read More
There really aren’t any signs pointing to the iPad 2 being that much different from the current model. It’s not bigger or smaller (any smaller and it’s a “tweener” and any larger is impractical, according to Jobs), but it’s possible that they could put out something that’s arguably the same size, yet a different shape. I mean, I don’t seriously expect it to happen; it’s much more likely that it’ll just be a bezel shrink with front and rear cameras.
But given Apple’s continuing focus on media and inter-connectivity, and given that media’s increasing focus on the 16:9 aspect ratio, it really isn’t that much of a stretch. At least, it’s not a stretch to hope. Although let’s be honest, take a look at that picture there, it does look pretty strange. → Read More
Igor Barinov, the developer behind the WikiLeaks app that got removed from the App store, has revealed the total breakdown of his app’s reach before it got taken down by Apple. Total damage? 4443 downloads and $5,840.14 in profit. The Moscow-based Barinov says that he’ll be donating $1.00 from each sale, a total of $4443 dollars, to WikiLeaks.
Perhaps this semi-charity feature is what lead Apple to take down the app in the first place? Barinov holds that the company said over the phonethat the app violated the following points of the iPhone Developer TOS. → Read More
Since their launch, Path has maintained that they aim to be a very personal moment sharing service. The idea there is that it wouldn’t just be limited to photo sharing. And as of tonight, they’re not. Path has just added video support to their iPhone app. And in what is sure to be another controversial idea, the clips are limited to only 10 seconds.
The latest version of Path, 1.2, which should be live in the App Store shortly, allows users to upload these short video clips alongside the standard pictures. And just as with pictures, these video clips can be tagged with the people, places, and things in them. → Read More
Even if all you Samsung Epic 4G owners out there were particularly naughty this year, Sprint will give you some festive love the day after Christmas: a much anticipated Froyo update for your favourite toy.
Of course, Froyo is by now getting a little stale, with the much fresher (and festively themed) Gingerbread on the scene, but that doesn’t mean you guys won’t enjoy the extra speed that the Just-In-Time compiler brings, or the ability to install applications to the external memory. → Read More
Lookout, a company that offers security services for a number of smartphones, has just raised $19.5 million in Series C funding led by Index Ventures with existing investor Accel Partners and Khosla Ventures participating in the round. This brings Lookout’s total funding to $36 million.
Lookout’s web-based, cloud-connected applications for Android, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry phones help users from losing their phones and identifies and block threats on a consumer’s phone. Users simply download the software to a device, and it will act as a tracking application and a virus protector much like security software downloaded to a computer. The company also announced today that it now has four million users, after crossing the two million mark in September. → Read More
While T-mobile have supported carrier billing on the Android Market since those far-off days of ’09, they have — up until this point — been the only US carrier to do so.
BUT NO LONGER! As announced on the Android Developer’s Blog today, Google have been busy rolling out the feature (alongside that recent Market update) to a number of AT&T customers over the last few days. → Read More
Anchor Intelligence, a service that detects click fraud, is heading to the deadpool, we’ve confirmed with multiple sources. We first wrote about the company in December 2007.
The company has raised $6 million in venture capital – all of it prior to 2008 – plus another million dollars or so in debt from Western Technology Investment.
The company has been trying to raise a new round of venture capital and almost succeeded in early 2010, sources say, but for a variety of reasons the deal never closed. Facebook was also close to acquiring the company in the Summer, say multiple sources. The deal, like many other Facebook acquisitions, would have given investors some of their capital back, with lucrative stock-based compensation going to founders and employees. → Read More
Remember that ridiculous $1000 dollar iPhone application, I Am Rich? The one that did nothing but show a tacky static image of a red gem and some silly (and misspelled!) affirmation? It didn’t last very long on iOS (Apple removed it hours after it went up), but it looks like someone else is trying to see how the idea fairs on another platform: Windows Phone 7. → Read More
I’m totally down with the new MotoTab being called the Buzz but PocketNow has discovered that Motorola recently registered “Xoom” as an official trademark, a move that points to rich usage of the name and term in their products. → Read More
You guys, some days I love the internet. Do you remember that despicable burglar who made off with a bunch of consoles from a children’s hospital? Well, I’ve got good news and more good news. → Read More
Big fan of the Nike Training Club? Well you’re in luck then, because Nike just announced that they’ve released an iPhone app, just in time for Christmas. → Read More
It’s been a busy couple of weeks for the folks over at SkyFire. They launched their Flash Video-friendly browser for the iPhone back in early November, only to pull it down almost immediately to ease the onslaught of users hammering their video transcoding server. Even with that temporary App Store absence, however, SkyFire for iPhone managed to pull in just shy of a million bucks in its first weekend alone. There wasn’t much time to celebrate, though, as SkyFire had another device in its sights: the iPad. With their first stab at iOS proving to be a pretty friggin’ hot success, it wasn’t a question of if — it was a question of when, and how much. We’ve just been clued in on the answers to both. → Read More
Short version: 3M’s MPro series puts on a little weight! It’s still smaller than a regular projector, but it’s chunkier than every pico projector out there. But it’s also bright and well-built. If you’re not bothered by its girth, this is a great option, though the whole class of devices is still pretty expensive. → Read More
When it comes to RSS readers, there’s no question that my preference is to use Reeder. Whether on iPhone, iPad, or the Mac, their apps brings a usability and elegance to an otherwise ugly medium. And obviously, design is a huge part of that. So when Reeder developer Silvio Rizzi saw that exact design being used by a competitor, MobileRSS, he was obviously pissed off. And from the looks of it, rightfully so.
What Rizzi did next was both ballsy and brilliant. He created a page on his site to show side-by-side examples of just how bad the rip-off is. And support quickly flowed in. Stories about the rip-off began surfacing. As did hundreds (if not thousands) of retweets. And now the community that is partially responsible for the success that MobileRSS has seen up until now has started responding as well. → Read More
Who’s ready for 2010 to expire? Man, we are. It’s not that 2010 was a bad year or anything, but it was all iPad-this, iPhone-that with a bit of Android news bits scattered here and there.
With the products in the following list lined up for release, 2011 is set to be a much more balanced year. Of course Apple will still be a major part of the news cycle, but everyone from Nintendo to HP to even start-up companies like Notion Ink should be able to enjoy a fair share of the spotlight too. → Read More
The magic vision glasses or eye implants have been a staple of sci-fi for a long time. From the mega-vision of the Terminator or Predator to Deckard’s image enhancer to the silly monocular used by Jason Bourne (I mean come on), we’ve always loved the idea of being able to see more than the eye can actually see. And of course the staples of sci-fi are often staples of R&D as well, and this one is no different.
While many of our current troops are outfitted with some serious visual enhancement gear, the Defense Department is looking into taking this tech to the next level. → Read More
Over the last couple years, there’s been a rise in hosted application platforms that let developers take their mind off of server administration and instead focus entirely on writing and deploying code. The best known of these is probably Heroku, a platform for Rails applications that was just acquired by Salesforce for $212 million. Google’s App Engine is another popular option for Python and Java developers, and there are loads of competitors popping up.
DotCloud is a new Y Combinator-funded company launching today that’s similar to these, but with a key difference: instead of focusing on one or two popular development stacks, it wants to give developers more flexibility by letting them mix and match from over a dozen preconfigured components. → Read More
Twitter is down. Skype is down. Tumblr is down. Facebook is down. Twitter is down again.You can base an entire tech reporting career around writing these types of posts. Because if you’re like me and millions of other users right now, you can’t access your Skype account because of a network connection failure.
And like electricity or Internet, I need Skype to do my job well. → Read More
