Russian search engine Yandex has acquired Loginza, a local startup whose service allows developers to implement user authentication via the likes of Facebook, Twitter or OpenID-supported sites, without additional registration. Terms of the deal, which came about through Yandex’s “open days for startups”, an initiative as part of the Yandex.Start program, remain undisclosed.
As noted, Loginza’s single sign-in plugin supports authentication via Facebook and Twitter, along with Blogger, WordPress, VeriSign, AOL, Yahoo!, Flickr, Last.fm, LiveJournal, myOpenID and OpenID. It also supports authorization schemes of a number of Russian services: Yandex, Mail.Ru, Vkontakte, Rambler, WebMoney, Diary.ru and Loginza itself. → Read More
I remember going over to a friend’s house back in the 1980s. His dad had something called a PC and when you turned it on instead of making showing a READY prompt it did something strange. After a quick beep, something inside started churning and in a minute you saw a menu of games and programs available on something called a “hard disk,” which I assumed were the standard 3 1/2 inch “hard disks” I’d seen in computer magazines. After hitting a key, we began to play a game called “King’s Quest.” The graphics were bright and fluid – although they were, in fact, green on black – and the story was amazing. You’re a dude! Looking for a princess! There’s a frog! With a ball! What was this sorcery? That game, King’s Quest from Sierra, was one of the first Graphic Adventures, a mixture of text and graphics-based play that created an entire generation of hardcore gamers. → Read More
Just a friendly heads-up for those of you looking to stay as safe as possible in your online travels. A post on Kaspersky’s blog has warned of the dangers of trying to watch pirated TV shows online. In this example, an episode of The Simpsons, hosted on DailyMotion, sends the user on a wild goose chase, the end result of which a machine infected with something like MyWebSearch. You don’t want that nonsense gunking up your system. → Read More
Appsfire, one of the leading mobile app discovery platforms, has analyzed 1,000 devices from its users to gain some insight with regards to the native app vs. Web app debate. It’s 2011, so the research was of course comes accompanied by an infographic.
The infographic, which you can find below, is pretty self-explanatory. While Web apps accessed through mobile phones become more powerful every day, native applications still seem to dominate.
According to Appsfire, owners of iOS devices typically spend only 10 percent of their time in a mobile browser, inclusive of Web apps. → Read More
Did you come to the Crunchies? If so, did you use Instagram to take a picture? If so, did you hashtag it with anything? If you did, you helped create something cool, you just didn’t realize it.
One of the things that makes Instagram great is its simplicity. You take a picture, add a filter, upload, and then off you go to explore other pictures in the stream. Unfortunately, unless you happen to be looking at the stream around the time a picture is taken, you may never see it. Sure, Twitter, Facebook and other integration points help with this somewhat, but there simply hasn’t been a good way to surface older pictures on Instagram before. A new feature launching today may change that. → Read More
You see that phone up there? That’s believed to be HTC’s next big thing — its new flagship phone, if you will. You know what we know beyond that? A whole lotta nothin’. There’s no code name to refer to it as, no leaked specs list to see, no early appearances on any foreign retail sites to poke fun at. Outside of this render that leaked out a few weeks ago, this thing pretty much doesn’t exist — except it totally does exist, given that some ridiculously attentive gadget geek nabbed the above spy shot of it while riding around on the subway. [Via Mobile01, Thanks Chi!] → Read More
Are graphics cards (and processors) now going green? AMD is certainly trying, having noted that its E-350 APU “demonstrated a significant reduction in the overall product ‘carbon footprint’” compared to previous AMD Anthlon processors and Mobility Radeon graphics cards. We’re talking a 40 percent reduction in carbon emission over the life of the APU. This is the part where the smart-aleck know-it-all calls into our radio show and demands that all the egghead scientists complaining about global warming should come and plow his driveway. There’s a difference between weather and climate, sir. Calm down. → Read More
I don’t like to call out bad customer service that often because the cases are often very time and place specific and mostly it’s a matter of misunderstandings all around. However, this one is too good to pass up. A reader, Blazej (he’s Polish), inexplicably purchased two Precision workstations and two 20-inch monitors from Dell on December 31. He paid extra for quick shipping waited for his items to arrive. The “Ship Fast” configuration should have arrived on 1/5/2011 but instead landed on 1/11/2011. That’s fine, right? A few days didn’t kill anyone. Dell gave him back $235.75 for the Ship Fast option. Then it gets better:
5. Now, we are moving to the issue #2: On 1/17/2011 I have received a solicitation, sent to my email address directly from Dell, and offering 35% discount on the entire combined ordered I placed just two-and-a-half weeks ago! This time Ship Fast was not excluded from the promotion. Therefore, if bought at that discount, I would pay $3,131.79 – an additional $548.46 discount that I find to be quite substantial.
The Chevy Volt is going national a little bit ahead of schedule. GM just released a statement proclaiming that the “don’t call it a series hybrid” vehicle will be available from dealers in all 50 US states by the end of 2011. Currently the Volt is sold and delivered only in D.C., California, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Texas. An additional eleven states will have access by the end of the third quarter with the rest of the Union getting access by the end of the year. The press release also adds to the case of the Volt’s important halo status. Harry E. Criswell III, president and owner of Criswell Chevrolet, “The Volt is clearly bringing new customers to Chevrolet. We are seeing 10 to 15 customers a week who are seriously considering buying a Volt. Many of them own competitive brands and now have a Chevy on their shopping list because of the Volt.” GM’s diabolical plan is working. → Read More
A company that provides software and services to the transportation industry, Avego, introduced a pilot program called go520 in Seattle today, to match drivers who have empty seats in their vehicles to carpoolers on their route, using an app for iPhone and other GPS-enabled smartphones.
The project could do for commuters what Cabulous and Uber have begun to do for taxi drivers and their potential customers — make it easy to find one another, while hopefully curbing pollution and traffic congestion when there are too many single-car drivers on the road.
A Washington state -funded project, the go520 app and service allows up to 250 drivers to offer empty seats in their vehicles to 750 riders along Seattle’s SR 520 highway. Drivers require an iPhone; passengers can use any mobile phone with texting capabilities to access the service. The company will make a Windows Phone 7 version available in April 2011… → Read More
According to eMarketer, Apple is to pass Research In Motion as the leader of the US smartphone market this year, only to be overtaken by Android in 2012.
eMarketer, which bases its forecasts on analysis of research estimates and methodologies from multiple firms who monitor the smartphone market, estimates Apple took a 28% share of the US smartphone user market in 2010, just above the 24% of users who use a device running Android. → Read More
There has been talk for months now that Apple and News Corp. would hold a joint event in the Bay Area to announce the launch of The Daily, the iPad-only publication. Then a few wrenches were thrown into the mix.
First of all, Apple supposedly needed a little more time to get their subscription service working in a new version of iTunes. And then, of course, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced he was taking an indefinite leave of absence. Given that The Daily has been a project watched closely by News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, you can be sure that he wanted Jobs up on stage with him to present it to the world. That’s clearly not going to happen now. So News Corp. likely had to switch things around. And today they have. → Read More
Really, kids. It’s not that hard to tie a necktie. I guess our quest to delegate mundane tasks to machines ultimately lead to the creation of the necktie-knotting robot dubbed Why Knot. But for those out there without access to the kinectic sculpture, please Google “how to tie a tie” instead of asking your girlfriend to do it. You’re embarrassing yourself. [DougNorth via MAKE] → Read More
Man, I love me some AR.Drone. It’s literally the coolest thing I’ve used in a long time. And the best part? It just gets cooler. This video shows us what I’m assuming is a non-doctored video of a WinWise employee using a Microsoft Surface to control a Parrot AR.Drone. → Read More
Multi-tools are a popular item among the CrunchGear office. We love ‘em. But the latest from Gerber is a stark departure from the norm. It does away with needlenose pliers for a slimmer casing. Looks almost Victorinox Swiss Army knife, right? And why not? Housed inside the anodized alumium is an awl, screwdriver, scissors, bottle opener, dual-mode blade, and a 25 lumen LED light. Clever. Available February 2011 in blue and orange. [KnifeCenter via Werd via Giz] → Read More
Social commerce network Lockerz has acquired photo sharing app Plixi (which was formerly known as TweetPhoto), we’ve learned exclusively. Terms of the deal were not disclosed but we hear that the acquisition price was between $10 million and $15 million. UPDATE: While Business Insider claims that the deal was $5 million, we have two separate sources confirming our range, and we stand by reported the purchase price.
Plixi is an enormously popular social photo sharing application that serves more than 1 billion photos monthly. The startup rebranded from “Tweetphoto” last year, as the photo sharing network expanded beyond Twitter to other platforms like Facebook and MySpace and added location-based check-in features. While Plixi offers a standalone web and iPhone app, more than 300 developers have integrated Plixi’s photo sharing technology, including Seesmic, TweetDeck and others and the startup handles more than 67 million API requests daily. → Read More
It’s a often-heard story: a photographer is shooting in a public place and security shoos them away, or worse, takes them into custody. Thanks to a recent settlement with the NYCLU, however, all federal personnel should be aware and adhere to a clarified set of rules and, in the end, allow photogs to shoot away.
The Information Bulletin, after the jump, state clear that almost all photographic activity is in the clear and that:
Officers should not seize the camera or its contents, and must be cautious not to give such ‘orders’ to a photographer to erase the contents of a camera, as this constitutes a seizure or detention.
Does this mean you’re free to snap away? Well, in theory, yes, but I suspect there will still be extreme instances where this bulletin is ignored in total and the photographer hustled from the scene. Ideally this would never happen but, as we know, in this era the price of security is eternal badgering. → Read More
Quick! Before it’s gone! Click over to the German Apple iPhone 4 vs iPhone 3GS page to see a pic of the white iPhone 4. It’s a tad small, but you get the idea. It’s just another piece of evidence in the developing case that the white iPhone is finally nearing release.
The phone was originally supposed to be release in the weeks following the iPhone 4′s launch date. But then it was pushed back. Again. And again. Until it was finally pulled completely from Apple’s website. Now a report surfaced claiming a new “miracle painting material” solved the previous issue.
Update: That was fast. Minutes after posting, the whole section shown in the screenshot of the translated German site disappeared! It’s a slippery devil. → Read More
After announcing direct relationships with AT&T, Zong, Boku are announcing relationships with Verizon through mobile payments operator BillToMobile (MoPay, another competitor in the space also has a partnership with BillToMobile).
So why is this important? Historically, mobile payments companies face the challenge of lofty carrier rates. Wireless carriers have charged roughly 30% to 40% to process transactions made via mobile phone accounts, making it very difficult for mobile payment companies like Boku to scale beyond virtual goods. These transactions costs are passed down to developers using Boku and Zong, which are then passed to the consumer. To avoid these costs, Boku and Zong have been negotiating direct relationships with carriers as a way of possibly avoiding these costs. → Read More
Much of what Jumio is building is still very unclear, but chances are this will become one of the hottest startups in 2011, and not just because they hire opera singers to tease their upcoming mobile payments product.
This morning, the company announced part of its advisory board, also revealing that its payment solution is now in the final stages of development.
The advisory board includes people like former Google exec Zain Khan, former Amazon exec Mark Britto and Maarten Linthorst, former NASA partner. → Read More
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