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
When word got out two weeks ago that Yahoo is not 100% committed to Delicious, people who still use the bookmarking service started to panic and look for alternatives. One competing bookmarking site that some people turned to is Pinboard, a barebones bookmarking site which looks a lot like Delicious did in its early years: lean, no-frills, and very useful. The company saw an influx of traffic and activity. The chart above shows requests per minute to its servers in the three days following the Delicious news compared to the week before.
A couple hour ago, Pinboard Tweeted out a link to the chart: → Read More
Smartphone integration with car-bound OSes is going to be a hot thing next year, and of course Ford’s Sync system is among the major players. Just a week ago they showed off AppLink, which allows a driver to control certain apps (Pandora, a news stream app, and a Twitter app) from the in-car touchscreen. And now you’ve got stuff going the other way: the Sync Destinations app lets you set up a route or destination while waiting for your coffee, then have it load automatically when you get in the car. → Read More
Seriously, how long will it take before we have Robot Jox happening for real? Except in real life the robots will be tele-operated by guys with Kinects. Seriously. This will happen. Watch this video and tell me it won’t. → Read More
Seriously, how long will it take before we have Robot Jox happening for real? Except in real life the robots will be tele-operated by guys with Kinects. Seriously. This will happen. Watch this video and tell me it won’t. → Read More
I’m not making light of this, I’m actually quite upset and disappointed. Another gamer, this one in South Korea, has gone for a marathon 12 hour gaming session, and then collapsed and died. Wake up people! No game is worth playing that long. → Read More
Yesterday we reported that fast growing ecommerce startup Groupon was in the process of raising nearly $1 billion in new venture capital at a $4.75 billion valuation. “The deal should be closed in a few weeks,” we heard from a source.
And in fact the deal hasn’t closed yet – at least, not all of it. But the company has raised a healthy half billion dollars in new venture money at that valuation in the last couple of weeks. Documents signed, checks cashed, the whole nine yards. Now they’re talking to other investors about filling out the round.
So who invested? → Read More
Short version: This new mechanical keyboard from Razer is clicky and attractive, but some layout and design choices irk me, and this thing ain’t cheap. → 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
Check out the new Extra Normal Grande watch from KLOKKERENT. This one ain’t just for the ladies. It looks like a minimal watch, but if you notice closely, there is a spinning disk atop a numbered face that tells the hour. Water resistent up to 100ft with a Japanese Miyota movement. → Read More
Google, as you may have heard, is making a big push into local advertising. It is currently offering $100 million in AdWords credits to new small businesses that sign up and promotes Google Places results for all local searches. Quite frankly, this is scaring the shit out of competitors like Citysearch, Yellowbook, SuperPages, WhitePages, and Yelp. They all rely on Google search results for people to find a good portion of their listings, and if Google displaces them collectively for local business listings, their businesses will be destroyed.
In local, Google is already a big snowball getting bigger and bigger. So how do they fight back? They enter into an anti-Google alliance, of course. The company organizing this alliance is Yext, a New York City startup which specializes in pay-per-call advertising for local businesses and dashboards to help them manage their reputations and listings online. On Monday, it will launch a new feature called “Tags” which will let small businesses highlight their names with a little tag and customizable message across about a dozen local listings sites. Launch parters for this “Tag Alliance” (I like my name better) will include MapQuest, Citysearch, Yellowbook, Local.com, SuperPages, White Pages, MerchantCircle, and Topix, with more to come. → Read More
That your musical “sound” depends more on your hands/skill than the gear you play is a philosophy with which I personally agree. Too many times have I seen a very talented musician make a piece-of-junk guitar sound incredible while a mediocre guitarist (like myself) will make a beautiful, expensive guitar sound mediocre. One guy I know, a Mr. Charlie Pate of Nashville TN, has an interesting strategy for acquiring some of his guitars; he buys cheap, used Ibanez semi-hollow bodies for $200 or less and then spends the rest of his dough on custom pickups, to get a sound he likes. It works for him, but then again, this guy could play a cardboard Ukulele with one string and you’d think it was an old growth Gulse. → Read More
Online holiday spending continues to set records. comScore is reporting that retail e-commerce spending in the U.S. for the first 56 days of the November to December 2010 holiday season has reached a record $30.81 billion, which is an 13 percent increase versus the same period last year. The past week before Christmas saw $2.45 billion in spending, an increase of 17 percent versus the corresponding week last year. As expected, comScore reports that the massive snow storm that hit the Northeast region of the U.S. over the weekend helped push post-Christmas spending to record levels.
The company also reports that in terms of specific products, Computer Hardware ranked as the top growing category for the holiday season with a 23 percent increase versus last year. Interestingly, handheld devices (such as iPads and e-readers) and laptop computers have driven much of the growth in this sector. → Read More
Drag2Up is Google Chrome and Firefox extension that allows you drag and drop image and other files into any website input box. The extension streamlines the file uploading process by uploading your file in the background and then adding a URL link to the input box of your choice. This saves a boatload of time says the extension’s creator, a 15-year-old developer who goes by the name Antimatter15.
Drag2Up also supports multiple files and has support for a multitude of URL shorteners. Depending on the type of file and whether you’re using Chrome or Firefox, files can be uploaded to hosting services Dropbox, Cloudapp, imgur, Imm.io, Imageshack, Flickr, Picasa, Github Gist, Pastebin.com, Mysticpaste, Chemical servers, Dafk and Hotfile. → Read More
The Hex Watch Band didn’t make it into our iPod Nano watch round up but by gum it should have been there, especially considering this truly magical example of videography provided by the company itself.
Check it out after the jump. → Read More
Here’s a simple little giveaway that might perk your day up a bit. Bing is giving away half a million songs, one each to whoever puts an email address in their little box. Of course, they’re also giving away their newsletter. What, you thought it was going to be easy? Head on over to Bing and follow the instructions to get your free song. Interestingly, the songs aren’t from Microsoft’s own Zune service but from Amazon. Whatever, guys! Whatever. → Read More
Facebook holds a trove of information about its hundreds of millions of users, and many of them are more than happy to hand over some of that data — like a list of their personal interests — so that they can connect with their favorite companies or play a new game. Thing is, despite the targeting opportunities afforded by this data, many businesses have still failed to take advantage of it. TextualAds is a firm that’s changing that for text messaging campaigns, by allowing businesses and large brands to push highly targeted SMS messages to their customers.
The service launched in September, and today it’s announcing that it’s closed a $650K seed round. The round’s investors include Dave McClure (500 Startups), Peter Boboff & Chris Redlitz (Transmedia Capital), Marcus Segal (Zynga), Shawn Simpson (former Googler), and Erik Moore. → Read More
This is a guest post by Scott Allison, Founder & CEO of Teamly, a productivity and people management tool which launched in beta in July 2010.
I’m in that end-of-year mood, looking back and assessing how the last year has been for me, and one of the big decisions I’m reflecting on was my relocation in March of this year from Glasgow to London because of its promise as a startup hub. So what’s the reality? Was it worth it? And what does the future hold with the East London Tech City initiative?
After exiting my last business, abica, in October 2009, I took some time out and attended some inspirational events like the awesome Startup Bootcamp at MIT, and spent a couple of days with Zappos in Las Vegas. These experiences reinforced my goal to do something I’m passionate about, change the world for the better and create a global brand and business. I was also clear this new business was going to be a SaaS product, scalable and profitable. But where would I do it? → Read More
