The Sandy Bridge refresh of the HP dv7 isn’t exactly official yet; that’s coming next week when Intel officially announces the next-gen Core CPUs. But one Micro Center clearly didn’t get the memo as a member of NoteBookReview’s forum site found out when the retailer was more than happy to sell him one. Lucky for us, he not only took a pic of the retail packaging that clearly spells out the internal components, but he also ran some benchmarks on next-gen Intel platform with results that should make you smile. → Read More
Because everything eventually becomes an academic field (I’m still waiting for “Internet” to become a major), researchers from MIT, University of Southampton and Georgia Institute of Technology have teamed up to build Who Gives A Tweet, a Twitter app that allows users to anonymously rate their friends’ and strangers’ tweets in order gain more insight into status update perception. Kind of like Hot Or Not, but for tweets.
While plenty of apps like Twitalyzer and Twitter Grader try to measure your social media engagement whatever that means, the Who Gives A Tweet study attempts to parse what is valuable and not so valuable about microblogging content. Says Michael Bernstein, PhD student at MIT, “Analysing the negatively rated tweets, and the consensus that forms around them, will help us understand the emerging approved or accepted norms in these new forms of online communication.” → Read More
Japan has many advanced home robots, but this one is a bit different: the so-called THKR-4 has been made by an individual who used just off-the-shelf parts. The humanoid isn’t the most elegant of his kind, but he’s able to perform quite a few rather complicated (for a robot) moves. → Read More
Just as the Securities and Exchange Commission is starting to take a closer look at the increasing amount of trading in private company stock, a new startup that’s been in stealth mode since August, 2009 is preparing to launch another way to trade private shares. The company is Xpert Financial which, through its registered subsidiary, Xpert Securities, brings to the table a tacit stamp of approval from the SEC and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), or at least approval to begin operations as an alternative trading system (ATS). Existing secondary markets for private shares such as SharesPost and SecondMarket do not have the same standing in the eyes of the SEC, although it is not clear how much that matters at this point.
Xpert Financial will operate an electronic trading platform for private company shares. It is a registered broker-dealer with FINRA and it recently got approval from the SEC to run an alternative trading platform. Xpert Financial will be the first ATS approved for private stock sales. More common alternative trading systems are ECNs, or Electronic Communication Networks, for publicly traded securities. As an ATS, Expert Financial cannot call itself an exchange, which is why it changed its name from Xchange. → Read More
Say you’re buying a TV – any TV, really – and you’re not quite sure what you’re doing. Say you’re in a store and the sales guy says “Well, you want this to be a Smart TV, right?” and you, not knowing any better, agree. Then he upsells this dumb LG box that simply adds LG’s Smart TV offerings including LG’s apps and some DLNA support. And you go home and realize that it’s just a dumbed-down Roku, Western Digital, or Seagate box. Heck, it’s even worse than Apple TV and the new one, barring the obvious hacked value, is pretty boring and is still better than this. You’ve been played. → Read More
It seems, at least at first blush, that we are out of the slimy gullet and into the potentially less dangerous teeth of this recession. Joblessness is still high but folks I know who are working in IT and CS are in high demand. People are hiring, but not out in the open, and shoppers, as evidenced by this year’s holiday season, have a little bit of cash. But CE manufacturers, back in 2008, pulled into their turtle shells and haven’t come out. The past few years have passed in a slothful haze and I’m worried that 2011 will be another year of negative innovation.
Consider what happened this year: we saw a load of Android phones, we saw an iPad and a new iPhone, and saw some tablets. That’s it. 3D TV was a flop, most other product lines saw little or no improvement, and generally CE industry sat this year out. CES, if all portents can be believed, will be a bust as well.
People ask me every year what my favorite gadget is. That’s almost impossible to answer. Sadly, for me, it’s like asking a proctologist about his favorite patient: they all sort of blend together and none of the experiences are very nice. So what is my favorite gadget? The gadget that truly stood out?
It’s the freaking Parrot AR.Drone. That’s right. A toy. Here’s why, and here’s what manufacturers can take away from this toy. → Read More
Every year, it seems the buzz starts building around now for CES, the giant consumer electronics expo in Las Vegas. And every year at CES, much of the buzz seems to be around the one company that isn’t there — perhaps the most important consumer electronics company these days: Apple.
And this year will be no different. Except that this year, the CES buzz-kill may be more intensified as there are not one, but two key Apple products expected to be announced shortly after the expo: the iPad 2 and the Verizon iPhone. → Read More
Remember when some dude said that the Playbook got 2 hours of battery life on a good day? Wrong, says RIM. They released an official message to all the haters. → Read More
We’ve spent quite a few posts on Sharp’s Android tablets, named Galapagos, in the past months. The 5.5 and 10.8-inch devices are marketed as tablet/e-reader hybrids, with Sharp having inked deals with Japanese publishers to offer books and newspapers to buyers in its home market. And today, various Japanese media are reporting that big S will bring both Galapagos devices to the US next year. → Read More
I previously wrote about the Royal Blue Tourbillon here (where you can get more technical details). The timepieces is a statement-making watch for both the wearer and Ulysse Nardin as a brand. Without trying to piss off Ulysse Nardin, I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that this watch doesn’t need to cost a million dollars for Ulysse Nardin to make a profit. Instead, it is a sign that they can charge it. Popular among demographic groups with lots of money, the limited edition watch will enjoy sales – I know it. → Read More
As we first reported last night, Groupon has already closed $500 million of a whopping $950 million funding round. Now the SEC filing is out showing that the first sale occurred on December 17, and that there is still $450 million worth of securities available to be sold in the current round. The new round gives Groupon a valuation of $4.75 billion.
We noted that most of the proceeds of the round is going back to founders and existing shareholders, with DST leading the round (Fidelity and Morgan Stanley also participated). Now we know exactly how much. The filing specifies that $345 million of the proceeds (from the $500 million raised) will go directly to “executive officers, directors or promoters.” → Read More
The Pew Internet organization put out results of a survey on how many people pay for digital content online. The study found that 65 percent of people online have paid to download some form of digital content or for a subscription to a digital media service. The survey excluded physical goods bought online and was focussed only on digital content such as music, software, news, and other online or electronic publications.
For those who do spend money online on digital media, most spend between $1 and $10 a month, with 68 percent spending less than $30 a month. (You can see the distribution of amount spend in the chart above). The two kinds of digital goods people are most willing to pay for by far are music and software. One third of respondents (33 percent) say they have paid for either digital music or software online. And 21 percent have paid for mobile apps. So if you combine mobile apps and other forms of software, that is the largest single category even accounting for overlap in the numbers. Paying for digital games comes in fourth at 19 percent.
What about digital newspapers or magazines behind paywalls or for sale for tablets like the iPad? → Read More
Japanese PC maker Onkyo, which rolled out three Windows tablets in its home market earlier this year, has unveiled an Android-based tablet that will go on sale (again, in Japan first) this week. Dubbed SlatePad TA117 [JP], the device features a slew of nice features. → Read More
Blue State Digital, the communications firm responsible for coordinating President Barack Obama’s online fundraising and social networking campaigns in the 2008 election, has been acquired by advertising giant WPP. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Blue State Digital is a digital agency that helps form online strategy, and advocacy, membership and fundraising campaigns for nonprofits, educational and cultural institutions, political campaigns and corporate brands. According to a release, Blue State Digital’s revenue has grown more than 30% per year since its founding in 2004 (and the company’s strategy and technology has helped raise $800 million to date). → Read More
Glassdoor.com, a venture-backed online career and workplace community, has self-reportedly culled through tens of thousands interview questions that job seekers have shared on the site in 2010, and selected a number of weird ones. Some of them are pretty bizarre, some are downright hilarious. → Read More
Making the rounds on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr right now is Three Words, a super simple but mighty fun application created by teen tinkerer Mark Bao. What does it do?
Well, it tells you who you are in three words, at least according to the people that visit that Web page, that is. → Read More
Mod Your Fender Blues Jr. ‘Spotify’ Now A Real Word In Sweden The Lumimask: A Mask That Wakes You As Gently As Mother Nature Kinect-Controlled Humanoid Robot – Bring On The Robo-Gladiators! Irony: Read Kindle Books On Your Rooted NookColor → Read More
It was almost exactly a year ago that we wrote about the Googlle Institute of Software Studies, a cleverly-named online university based out of India. After our post on the institution offering students such degrees as a “GCPA” — Googlle Certified Professional in Advanced Computing — it didn’t take long for the website of the school to be shut down. But the person who originally tipped us off to those shenanigans is now back with another fun one. And apparently, it’s based out of the same city in India.
Say hello to the “Hostel Microsoft”. → Read More
We’ve been hearing reports that Skype is debuting a mobile video chat service and D-Day has arrived. The company is launching a brand new version of its iPhone app that includes the ability to turn on video in any Skype chat.
The beauty of the app is that it brings free video calling to iPhone 3G devices, iPad and iPod Touch, all of which couldn’t run Apple’s video calling feature Facetime (the feature only works with iPhone 4 devices and Mac computers). Of course, iPad owners won’t be able to initiate a video call, but these users can receive any video chats from contacts. → Read More
