Astronaut Pro Tip: Shave your head before entering zero gravity environments. You’ll feel like Captain Picard (because you’re on a spaceship) combined with the nearly mind-over-body control of Professor Xavier. Plus, you won’t look like a fool on the annual Christmas card. → Read More
When it comes to getting people to watch online videos from media sites, Google is still the largest source of outside traffic. Search drives views. But the second largest source of traffic is not Yahoo, Bing, or another search engine. It is now Facebook. According to a report on Online Video & The Media Industry put out jointly by Tubemogul and Brightcove, Facebook passed Yahoo in the third quarter to become the No. 2 source of traffic to online videos at media sites. (The study measures videos across the Brightcove network, with a focus on newspaper, magazine, broadcaster, brand, and online media sites).
In the third quarter, Facebook shares accounted for 9.6 percent of online video traffic. Google still towers above Facebook with more than 50 percent of the referring traffic coming from search, but that is down from the second quarter when it was above 60 percent. In fact, across all search (Google, Yahoo, and Bing), referral traffic to videos on media sites is down. → Read More
More hints—if you can even call them that—about a possible “PSP phone,” however that manifests itself. Kazuo Hirai, the top gentleman over at Sony Computer Entertainment, has said that if Sony were to create such a device it’d be very important not to confuse people about its capabilities, or even its purpose. “We don’t want gamers to be asking, what’s the difference between that and a PSP,” said Hirai. → Read More
Video: TalkTorque 2 Robot Will Be A Master In Non-Verbal Communication Fly Or Die: The Nexus S, Barbie Video Girl, And AR.Drone (TCTV) Go Back To The Future Doc And Marty With This iPhone 4 Flux Capacitor Decal What I Want For Christmas: A 16:9 iPad They Got Him! Children’s Cancer Ward Console Thief Apprehended → Read More
In the spirit of my trademark watch this morning:
Earlier this week, Apple filed a U.S. trademark for ‘VOICEPASS’, in the ‘Construction and Repair Services’ category. Bloomberg casually mentioned the trademark filing earlier today, as did one iPhone tips and tricks blogger and Patently Apple.
The thing about the trademark is that while it was pretty easy to find out what it is for, I haven’t seen anyone discussing its impact and potential. So here goes. → Read More
Here is a new watch from Marcello C. called the Hydrox. Yes, it does have (a lot) of IWC Aquatimer influence, as well as a few other popular dive watches, but it really is a nice looking re-hash timepiece. The Hydrox will be in steel and 43mm wide. There will be a polished version and a PVD black version. Marcello C. does dive watches really nicely, so I am expecting good things out of this one. → Read More
Skype users has been experiencing a lot of connection problems in the past day or so, as you’ve undoubtedly noticed. The service is now slowly crawling back into the land of the living.
The Skype team has been doing a pretty good job keeping people informed about the problems, although they’ve been unable to say when service will be restored for everyone.
The company has just announced that an estimated 10 million people are now back online, although they’re unable to obtain an exact figure because of the way the software works. → Read More
Oh man, it’s going to be hard not to let my feminist side shine through writing about this topic, but I’ll try my best! Ladieshoesme is a brand new French dating site, launched officially on December 13th, where ladies pick a man as if he were a pair of shoes…literally.
Members essentially have to identify themselves as a pair of shoes on the platform. That means, when you create your profile, you also have to include a picture of your favorite pair of shoes. Don’t have one? Not to worry, the site has a selection you can choose from. Plus, you have to also include some information in your profile regarding shoes and feet – like “For me, shoes are…(fill in)” or “What I really hate to see on someone’s feet is…(fill in).” It’s kind of silly and kind of fun, but does this whole expressing yourself via shoes business really change that much? → Read More
William Albano checks in to tell us that Facebook is blocking all j.mp links in status and page updates (but not profiles). Sure enough, I tried to post a j.mp link in a status update just now, and I got an error notice saying:
“This message contains blocked content that has previously been flagged as abusive or spammy. Let us know if you think this is an error.”
Grab ringside seats to the death of optical media with one of three new Blu-ray players complete with 1 year Redbox subscriptions. The folks at Redbox, who are running some other kind of concurrent Blu-Ray promotion, want their business model to remain vaguely viable for at least the next few years so they want to ensure that you and yours are enjoying fine Blu-ray entertainment as streaming moves in to eat their lunch. To that end, we must insist that you read on to find out how to win. → Read More
When domain name investor and blogger Patrick Ruddell (aka Chef Patrick) came across the name ScienceFiction.com, he couldn’t resist: he dropped $175,000 to buy it.
The domain name had been held back by a finance company called Domain Capital due to a defaulted loan, and Ruddell contacted two sci-fi geek friends to turn it into a business. → Read More
Earlier this year, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported that Microsoft, not just Google, made a serious attempt to acquire business directory and reviews site Yelp. According to “two people involved in the negotiations”, the Redmond software giant even bid as high as $700 million for the company. Yelp instead opted to remain independent, for better or worse.
Google is attacking it with Places and Hotpot.
And now some information has surfaced that indicates Microsoft could be planning a Yelp rival as well. → Read More
In recent months there’s been growing buzz here in Israel around a small startup called The Gifts Project. Today, the startup is announcing a $1 million financing round led by Gemini Israel Funds. This follows a seed investment back in 2009 by Dr. Yossi Vardi.
With The Gifts Project, online retailers will be able to offer groups of people the ability to chip-in and buy a gift together for a mutual friend, colleague, or family member. A pretty simple idea with a promising potential considering social commerce is going gangbusters. → Read More
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
