Oh, 2010. It was glorious, but thank the almighty prancing unicorn in the sky that it’s over. It was the year of the iPad, really. Steve Jobs took to the stage of Moscone Center, sat down, and proceeded to show the world how he wanted us to interact with the Internet — several million consumers followed suit immediately. But there was so much more, too! Of course, not everyone had as good year as Apple. Or Roku. Or Amazon. Some companies and products didn’t fare so well and they’re probably looking to the riches that will (hopefully) be made in 2011. Look at Android tablets, netbooks, cable companies and even Windows Home server, Google TV, and the TV show Lost. All losers in the game of Life, 2010 Edition. But no worries. 2011 is tomorrow and the Internet is a kind soul who’s quick to forget past blunders as long as future ventures result positively. It’s just too bad that what happened in 2010 will likely happen in 2011. It’s going to be more of the same. Sorry if I’m the one to tell you this; that’s the way it works ’round here. → Read More
The holiday season traditionally sees a spike in mobile app downloads as users receive new devices and have more free time to interact with their phones. Today mobile social gaming platform OpenFeint is reporting that it added over 450,000 new users on Christmas day, which is a 184% spike over its daily average and the largest single day in its history in terms of new users. And the network added nearly 1.4 million new users in the four days around the holiday, including Christmas.
OpenFeint users downloaded more than 5 million OpenFeint enabled games during the 4-day stretch, with Android downloads growing by 73% and iOS downloads up by 187%. And it appears that activity is up from the same period last year; the network added 88% more users than a year ago. → Read More
Book chain Borders sales are looking bleak and the company is apparently not paying publishers. The company is down two-fold over last year and, although some talks point to a potential Barnes & Noble merger, nothing has been finalized. → Read More
The global virtual goods industry put up some very impressive numbers this year. From special Easter eggs to virtual ad campaigns, virtual goods sales have grabbed their share of headlines over the past twelve months. Now with social gaming on the rise and everyone from your teenage nephew to your grandma to your old rugby teammate buying a “little something” to sweeten their online game, here is a look a back at the year in virtual goods sales.
$7,300,000,000: expected global revenue generated by the virtual goods industry in 2010. This is huge, considering the $60 billion generated in 2009 by the video game industry as a whole, and clearly shows that browser-based gaming is making great strides.
$2,100,000,000: The projected size of the US virtual goods market in 2011. → Read More
Democracy UK, a UK-focused political campaigning initiative by Facebook, has just released a number of mind-blowing stats on the massive usage of the network by its 500-plus million members in 2010. Over the course of the year, Facebook reports that 43,869,800 members changed their status to single, 3,025,791 changed their status to “it’s complicated”, 28,460,516 changed their status to in a relationship, 5,974,574 changed their status to engaged and 36,774,801 changes their status to married.
While these numbers are impressive, Facebook’s stats on “what 20 minutes on Facebook looks like,” are even more staggering. According to Facebook, 1 million links are shared every 20 minutes on the network. Here are a few other stats listed: → Read More
“I don’t mind robots. I mean, R2D2 was alright. He was a fine actor.” → Read More
This is a guest post by Joris Peels, the Community Manager of i.materialise, a 3D printing service for designers, inventors and consumers. They are part of Materialise, a company with over 20 years experience in 3D printing and the market leader in 3D printing services and software.
Making predictions is a sure fire path towards getting ridiculed. But, I’ll be brave and go right ahead and make 11 predictions for 3D printing in 2011.
Makerbot will sell more than 10,000 3D printers in 2011.
To put that in perspective, there are approximately 30,000 3D printers in the world today. Makerbot would have to scale to meet this kind of production but given their strong brand and loyal following it should, together with some prime time TV coverage, be possible.
Bre Pettis will appear on the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine in 2011.
Bre Pettis is the congenial Maker in Chief of Makerbot. Possibly he will be holding a Makerbot. And for all you Kevin Rose watchers out there, this will not be the beginning of the end. → Read More
This is a guest post by Joris Peels, the Community Manager of i.materialise, a 3D printing service for designers, inventors and consumers. They are part of Materialise, a company with over 20 years experience in 3D printing and the market leader in 3D printing services and software.
Making predictions is a sure fire path towards getting ridiculed. But, I’ll be brave and go right ahead and make 11 predictions for 3D printing in 2011.
Makerbot will sell more than 10,000 3D printers in 2011.
To put that in perspective, there are approximately 30,000 3D printers in the world today. Makerbot would have to scale to meet this kind of production but given their strong brand and loyal following it should, together with some prime time TV coverage, be possible.
Bre Pettis will appear on the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine in 2011.
Bre Pettis is the congenial Maker in Chief of Makerbot. Possibly he will be holding a Makerbot. And for all you Kevin Rose watchers out there, this will not be the beginning of the end. → Read More
Proof That We’re Living In The Future: The iPhone Heart Monitor O Canada! World’s Most Web Connected Land Android Malware Being Distributed On Chinese Markets NookColor is Barnes & Noble’s Top Seller This Holiday LG’s Smart TV Upgrader Is Kind Of Dumb → Read More
It’s the last day of the year, according to the Gregorian calendar at least, which prompted me to do some research on how well Wikipedia’s fundraising efforts for 2010 were going. As you may have heard, the Wikimedia Foundation is trying to scrape together $16 million from user and supporter donations to fund its strategic plans for 2011 (PDF).
The contribution campaign, starring Wikipedia founder Jimmy ‘Jimbo’ Wales in a prominent role, was kicked off around November 13, 2010, and has so far brought in $15 million according to the banner that appears on top of Wikipedia articles these days.
Or has it? → Read More
Skytap, which provides cloud automation solutions for enterprises and software vendors to develop, test and demo cloud applications, has raised $10 million in funding, according to this SEC filing.
This brings the total amount of financing raised by the company to a healthy $23 million. → Read More
It was only days ago that we wrote that after nearly a year of delays, the first WakeMate units were finally shipping to customers. And now there’s some more bad news — really bad. Some of the initial units are apparently bursting into flames because of any issue with the USB charger included.
Repeat: Do not use the USB charger included with the shipping WakeMate units.
The company has just sent out the following notice to customers: → Read More
iPad case design concepts keep coming out, with more and more of them starting to look the same. The concept is simple: a hard case, with a hand-strap grip on the back that rotates 360 degrees. The case looks like a great idea if you depend on your iPad and use it for extended periods of time. → Read More
We’ve reported before about how the escalating war for talent in Silicon Valley is effectively creating a kind of arms race between tech companies.
For example, Google is offering employees a 10% pay increase for 2011; companies like About.me are getting acquired days after launch; and job postings in the IT industry are shooting to astronomical levels. Even Google’s Eric Schmidt has admitted to this battle.
Facebook, Google, Zynga and Twitter are hiring like crazy – and this insatiable desire for staff is likely to spill over into other countries. And perhaps the obvious first target outside of the Valley is London: English speaking, and a magnet for existing tech people in Europe working for US multinationals. And the latest to consider extending its reach there is Twitter. → Read More
Not a lot to see here, but it’s worth mentioning: HTC has filed a trademark request for something called the Scribe, and describe what they’re protecting as a “handheld wireless device, namely, a tablet computer.” That sounds a lot like a tablet computer to me. Beyond that, nothing is known except that it was only just filed (on the 26th) and there are no corresponding patents, images, or logos. [via PocketNow and Unwired View] → Read More
If you’ve ever gone shopping on eBay, you know how important seller ratings can be — take a stab with someone who has less than a 90-something approval rating, and you’re testing your luck. And even when you’ve found someone with a satisfactory rating, the descriptions left by other buyers tend to be mostly useless (A++++, anyone?), which makes the whole thing feel a little risky regardless. Oh, and sellers can always get scammed by buyers, which makes it even more fun.
Addoway is an e-commerce site that looks to help reduce these feelings of anxiety by using Facebook Connect to help you find sellers that your friends have had good experiences dealing with in the past. The site launched eight months ago, and is currently drawing 90,000 uniques a month. → Read More
This is pretty cool, though let’s all just admit right off the bat that the limitations are pretty major as well. This custom 3rd-party firmware is set to put out a release on 1/1/11 that will enable 4K recording (that’s 4096×2304) on the T2i, which is normally limited to 1080p.
The trouble? At that resolution, you can only record for six seconds. → Read More
Have a great idea, but don’t have the time or money to actually bring it to market? A new startup called OpenInvo wants to help you turn it into a nice chunk of change by selling it to existing businesses that are looking for an extra dose of innovation.
Now, there are other platforms for sharing business ideas — you may be familiar with Kickstarter, which has gotten attention for projects like the iPod Wristwatch. But Kickstarter is for people who want to bring their ideas to fruition and just need funding — OpenInvo is for people who have an idea and are willing to put the time in to flesh it out on paper, but don’t want to have to deal with actually starting a company. → Read More
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