CrunchDeals, get your Crunchdeals. Read all about it, on your new eReader/tablet. DinoDirect.com is offering up a 7-inch eBook Reader with Google Android for only $99.99 with free shipping. That’s about $100 off the lowest price we could find. → Read More
China is a win/lose situation for most consumer electronic’s companies as it’s an efficient labor force, but trade secrets spread like STDs in nursing homes. That’s why RIM is reportable requiring Quanta to manufacture the PlayBook outside of China and in Taiwan. The goal is to eliminate white-box makers from copying the tablet, although if the PlayBook hits the big time, OEMs makers will find a way to clone it. Of course there’s something to be said about the attention being a bit complimentary, but RIM probably doesn’t want to hear that. → Read More
Earlier this month, I reported on the imminent shutdown of BlueTunes, which provided a solution to upload locally stored music to the cloud. Turns out someone sorta kinda threw BlueTunes a lifeline right before it hit the deadpool.
Online storage startup MiMedia has reached an agreement with BlueTunes for its users to become subscribers of its online music storage offering, and more. → Read More
This is a fun watch to wear. Well-made, functional, bold but not blingy, this is a good one for grab-and-go-out. The 48mm case wears comfortably, and the destro crown keeps it from digging into the wrist. Impeccable Swiss quartz timekeeping, high-contrast dial and aircraft dial cues give you details to appreciate. → Read More
Disruptions can happen to any industry anywhere in the world, which is why this year TechCrunch Disrupt is going global. The conference we launched last year in New York and San Francisco is coming back to both cities, but we are also adding a third Disrupt in Beijing. All three conferences will be filled with all-star speakers, the best new startups that launch on our stages, and the coup of working WiFi.
The first Disrupt will once again take place in New York City on May 23-25, preceded by our ever popular Hackathon on May 21-22 in which pizza-fueled developers gather to hack together a product in 24 hours. Anything can happen at these events. Last year, Charlie Rose kicked off the event by interviewing legendary VC John Doerr, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz told Michael Arrington to “#@*k off,” and a real company emerged from the Hackathon—GroupMe, which later raised $10.6 million. During the main event, we launched two dozen startups, and the winner was an international startup, Soluto.
Today, we will begin taking submissions for Disrupt NY. If you are a founder building a company that is going to change the world, we want you to launch at Disrupt. Nowhere else offers the audience, investors, or media spotlight that Disrupt offers. Please submit your application HERE on our Disrupt application site powered by Producteev. We will be accepting submissions starting today and for the next eight weeks through Sunday, April 3, 2011 at midnight PT. We accept companies on a rolling basis, so please submit as soon as you’re ready for consideration. → Read More
There is a growing trend of companion applications to television shows that bring a second screen to interactivity with TV shows and movies. Apps like GetGlue, Miso, and Tunerfish all add a second platform where users can check-in to a show, earn points and rewards for participation, and interact with social networks. A new player is about to launch in the space that adds a white-label platform for audience engagement for television shows. TV Tune-In, developed by Rogue Paper, is a real-time, companion viewing and mobile app development platform for media companies to help drive viewership, conversation and interactions for television shows and content.
TV Tune-In’s CMS allows media companies to develop branded iPhone and iPad apps for television shows and channels. The apps aims to attract fans around live viewing of their favorite show, event, or sports team. Users can actively comment, Tweet and Like their favorite show, chat with friends, play trivia games, watch exclusive video content, photos and more. As users interact with the application, they can earn rewards like virtual badges. One compelling feature for TV Tune-In is the ability to time-shift interactions and commentary in case you aren’t watching a show live. → Read More
Whatever, it’s Friday: looks like American singer/rapper T-Pain (real name: Faheem Rasheed Najm) got himself a tattoo while in Hawaii.
He eloquently tweeted about the event thusly: “I get a tatt every time I come to Hawaii. I think this ones pretty sweet, unless facebook shuts down soon 0_o”
There’s really not much I can add to this, except that I’m not really impressed with his new tattoo. Lucky for me, I DON’T HAVE TO [Like] IT. → Read More
Microsoft earnings just got released 10 minutes before market close, and aside from growing revenues 5% in the 2nd quarter to $19.95 Billion, their slides reveal some interesting numbers on their entertainment and gaming unit, mainly that they sold 8 million Kinects in the two months since launch.
Said Peter Klien about the Kinect’s success, “We are enthusiastic about the consumer response to our holiday lineup of products, including the launch of Kinect. The 8 million units of Kinect sensors sold in just 60 days far exceeded our expectations. The pace of business spending, combined with strong consumer demand, led to another quarter of operating margin expansion and solid earnings per share growth.” → Read More
Has the pixel to print tipping point been reached? Last July we reported that Amazon’s Kindle eReader books had surpassed hardcover books in terms of sales, selling 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books. Now that lead also holds for paperbacks with 115 Kindle books sold for every hundred paperbacks.
The statistic for hardcover books itself has doubled, with three times as many Kindle books as sold as paperbacks in 2010. Free Kindle books are excluded from this number or it would be much higher. → Read More
In the seemingly never-ending discussions about Europe vs. Silicon Valley – how much digital ink can be spilled on ‘why Europe will never be the next Silicon Valley’, ‘why Europe will definitely become the next Silicon Valley’ and ‘Silicon Valley and Europe: a comparative look at fauna and flora’ anyway? – I’m quite amazed by how often pundits point out we could use more role models in Europe’s tech industry.
The idea seems to be that, inspired by their story of how their startup became the next Google, aspiring entrepreneurs need only look at people who’ve built or even exited companies and became fabulously famous and wealthy in the process. I disagree. → Read More
When you buy a new smartphone, is the first thing you look at what the specific absorption rate (SAR) is of the device you’re interesting in spending cash on? Me neither, but according to some health organizations, we should be paying attention to mobile phone radiation.
Rather than try and convince people to stop using their smartphones for phone calls (ain’t gonna happen), Israeli startup tawkon has developed applications that let people minimize exposure to cellular radiation while they continue using their mobile phones. → Read More
After reporting Q4 2010 earnings yesterday, AT&T has published additional statistics on the number of mobile broadband connections the telecommunications company has facilitated in the last quarter. The company says that in terms of emerging devices (this includes non-phone wireless connections), 2 million connected devices were added to the network in the quarter.
Included in this category are what AT&T refers to as embedded computing devices, which are tablets, netbooks and laptops. AT&T says that more than 6 million connected devices have been added to the network over the past five quarters. The total number of emerging devices, including postpaid and prepaid embedded computing devices, connected to the AT&T network – both for consumers and businesses is nearly 11 million. → Read More
Remember that Disney-themed Android phone from Japan we blogged two weeks ago? At that time, Disney Japan didn’t release a lot of information, but now they did [JP], and they also showed the 3D device for the first time. → Read More
At this point most of us are feeling pretty cool about ourselves for at least retweeting the #Twitterrevolution, first in Tunisia and now in Egypt. But only when us Internerds watch mainstream television do we realize that pundits are trying to give the Bush administration and the Obama administration credit for events which might irrevocably change the landscape of North Africa and the Middle East as we know it.
Events that were, at least initially, mediated through Facebook and Twitter. → Read More
17x17x17 Puzzle Cube Makes Rubik’s Look Like Child’s Play Mommy Mittens: You Know, For Mommies An Ode To The Graphic Adventure Video: The Automatic Necktie-Knotting Kinetic Sculpture Photographers: You’re Now Officially Free To Shoot In Public Places And Outside Federal Buildings → Read More
Web-based affiliate management system and “incentive engine” Zferral has bought SaaS web app store Cloudomatic for cash and equity. Cloudomatic was founded by OnSwipe co-founders Jason Baptiste and Andres Barreto, who will continue on as advisors. The price of the acquisition was not disclosed. → Read More
Nokia this morning announced two deals with leading Chinese Internet companies SINA and Tencent, who will be integrating with Nokia’s Ovi Maps in China.
Millions of users of SINA’s microbloging service and Tencent’s massively popular online community QQ (636 million users and counting) will be able to share their location through Nokia mobile devices, check-in to locations and upload content tied to location, such as recommendations and reviews of restaurants, shops and movie theatres. → Read More
Some worrying reports are coming out Egypt right now – to add to all the other worrying reports I guess.
Respected blog The Arabist reports that DSL and 3G services have been taken offline in Cairo. This is confirmed by CNN correspondent Ben Wedeman, on the ground in Cairo.
Now, coincidentally or not, this has come literally within the hour after AP TV posted a video of a man being shot point blank by police. The man appears to be dead, though that is not confirmed.
The main ISPs in Egypt at TEDATA, whose own site appears to be down, Vodafone, and Egynet. In addition, Italy-based Seabone has reported that there was no Internet traffic going into or out of Egypt after 12:30 a.m. local time. → Read More
Last week we told you that T-mobile had announced their 4G variant of the near-ubiquitous Galaxy S. Well, for anyone that’s itching for this high-speed variant, I’m happy to tell you that today, T-mobile’s info page for the handset has gone live. There isn’t any new info given, but there is an option to sign up for notifications about the device. For those that can’t remember, the Galaxy S 4G will run Froyo (Android 2.2), and sport the same 4″ 800×480 Super-AMOLED display that we all know and love, but will be compatible with T-mobile’s HSPA+ 4G network, supporting download speeds of up to 21mbps. If you’re keen to sign up for more info, you can see the page for yourself here. [via Cell Phone Signal] → Read More
