Breaking: Skype appears to have has gone down. We’re trying to ascertain why and get comment from the company. However, as of this moment Skype is not working for millions of users, and the angst is playing out on Twitter right now.
Of course what’s so funny is that so many of us now use Twitter DM (direct message) and perhaps even Facebook IM as a sort of alternative “Skype-a-like” IM platform that there are now potential alternatives. It looks like for now that Skype has huge issues though – and it’s coming at a delicate time for the company as it tries to forge path independent from former owner eBay. → 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
Holidays and whatnot are pretty much about 3 things: delicious food, canceled flights (especially if you’re in Western Europe) and spending time with loved ones…right? And while the weather may be complicating the situation for some, social networks may be here to help (thank Zuckerberg). But don’t just go along writing “I miss you blah blah blah” on the Facebook wall of your sweetheart, get a bit creative !
Now I realize that there are a number of couples that don’t like to display their relationships on Facebook – but for the rest of you, here are a few examples of how couples used social networks in a very special way. → 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
If you have an iPhone, iPad or Android phone, chances are you have at least one “Talking Friends” app on your favorite device, especially if you have kids. Which is it? Tom Cat? Santa? Roby the Robot? Rex the Dinosaur? Harry the Hedgehog? Or is it Bacteria John?
Kids may abolsutely adore those quirky apps, but apparently building and selling them is quite a solid business to boot.
Outfit7, the company behind the ‘Talking Friends’ series of apps for iOS and Android, says it has reached 41 million downloads in less than six months since the first app was released. The download rate is accelerating at 10 million a month and the company’s CEO, Andrej Nabergoj, tells me they expect to hit 100 million downloads by the second quarter of 2011. → 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
It’s the end of the year, and that means many publications are rolling out their annual “best of” list. I don’t know if *we’re* doing anything along those lines, but I *do* have a bone to pick with 1UP. They’ve a delightful little list of 10 things the Xbox 360 did to change gaming forever. You already know most of the list before reading it: Achievement Points, Microsoft Points (1UP calls them “convenient” to use across Microsoft’s various services, as if dollars can’t be used in exchange for goods and services…), Kinect, and general entertainment use (things like Netflix streaming). But the one thing that has my dander up? That the Xbox 360 ushered in an era of HD gaming. Ha! → Read More
Sweden-based Ericsson has agreed to acquire Spanish telecommunications vendor Optimi, which provides networks optimization and management solutions to a diverse set of clients in the telecom space.
For Ericsson, the acquisition is a way to broaden the customer base for its multi-vendor network management and optimization business. → Read More
A couple weeks ago, SimpleGeo launched a couple of their APIs, Context and Places, into public beta and they were told that was probably a good cut off point for new products before the holidays. But they didn’t listen. Today they’re launching a bunch of things right before holiday break starts for many people.
So what did they want to get out the door before the new year? The biggest thing is what’s known as JSONP / JavaScript SDK, which is a new feature of their APIs that allows anyone to enable location on any website they control. This is done with two things: GeoIP and the W3C’s Geolocation API. The former is a technology used while they wait for more browsers to adopt the latter. Essentially, it looks up your IP address on the fly and geocodes it. → Read More
Know about Uber yet? It’s one of those startups that I’ve been fascinated with since I first heard about it last summer. It lets you call for black car service via a mobile application, watch it come to you via GPS, and all charges are automatically billed to your credit card.
In the future I think the service could expand to let anyone become a “driver,” much like AirBnB lets anyone rent out their home like a hotel. For now though the service is limited to black car services and is available only in San Francisco (and one fun night in Paris). → Read More
