While AT&T continues to exude confidence that their planned acquisition of T-Mobile will get all the necessary approvals, it’s starting to look less and less likely. Many in the industry were already a bit dubious about the deal once we worked out that the top two carriers in the US (the AT&T/T-Mo mega carrier as #1, Verizon as #2) would account for nearly 80 percent of the market share. Just days after the announcement, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse announced his plans to battle the deal. Now, New York’s Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, is looking into the matter. → Read More
One thing I really like to do with GeeknRolla is to make it very real. What does that mean? Well, it’s fast paced – no-one can speak longer than 20 minutes – so they really have to get to the point. The panels are short so people have to step up to the plate and get their message out before we move on. The whole thing is curated from an editorial point of view: what is really going on out there? And more action happens in the breaks and lunch where we make sure people network with each other and get real things done. We even love to break news at the event.
Another way we try to keep it real is by inviting journalists to get on stage and ask real questions of those appearing. Sure, we have the odd cosy ‘fireside’ chat. But we also like to get to the bottom of things. Which is why I’m so proud that my awesome colleagues in the media have joined us to moderate aspects of the programme and generally hang out with the tech startup scene. And those are just the ones on stage – there are plenty more turning up to cover the event.
Combine that with an amazing speaker lineup and you have a great recipe. It’s a privilege to be the Chef.
I can’t wait till tomorrow. Here’s are our on-stage journalist panel moderators (in alphabetical order): → Read More
The various cases of Internet use may be divided into four different classes. Though each class will be found to have many symptoms in common, yet there are variations so marked that there will be little-difficulty in placing each patient in his proper class for treatment. When this division is made and the characters peculiar to each described, it will be well to give the various local and constitutional measures which have been found useful in all—therapeutical agents which are indicated in all, and then point out the special indications which belong to each particular class. → Read More
If you’re not familiar with the famed iChair line then you’re in for a treat. The iChair is basically a case with a little chair stuck to it. When you’re ready to stand your iPhone or 1st gen iPad up on your desk you can be all like “BAM! CHAIR ACTIVATE!” (not really) and you’ve got an iPad or iPhone that’s standing the freak up by itself. → Read More
U.S. online ad network Collective, which recently opened its doors in the UK, has acquired Web TV Enterprise, which claims to be the UK’s largest premium online video ad network. Details of the deal weren’t disclosed.
It follows just weeks after Collective bought video advertising platform Oggifinogi.
Web TV Enterprise has been in the video on-demand advertising space since 2006 and says it reaches more than 25 million UK viewers a month. Collective says the acquisition is part of a strategy designed to cash in on ad spend moving from broadcast video to the web. → Read More
MobiCart, the free service lets users build a native storefront for Apple’s iOS, has secured a $500,000 seed funding round with participation from the UK’s Finance for Business North East Angel Fund.
The new investment will be used to expand the company’s offering, which will add support for Android in the next eight weeks, with Blackberry and Windows Mobile to come later this year, along with introducing new features to its app builder, including a bar code scanner, virtual coupons, and loyalty schemes. → Read More
Kickstarter is really the go-to place for all things iPad/iPhone. If you have a random case you wanna sell, put it up on Kickstarter. It’s kind of a running joke with us right now because of the sheer amount of iPad products on the site. But the Cosmonaut is different. It’s actually clever.
Tablet users should understand the benefit here. Writing on an iPad isn’t like writing on paper. It’s different and as the embedded Kickstarter video explains, the experience is more like using a white board and so this stylus was designed with that in mind. The kicker (get it? because it’s on Kickstarter? nvm) is that this project doesn’t have multiple tiers of funding. Pledge what you want. There’s only 3000 funding slots open and pledges start at just a $1. Clever. → Read More
http://asset.slashgear.tv/sgplayer.swf Yowza. It’s been a while since Samsung has done anything on the software side that was particularly original — but this… this is friggin’ awesome. The idea: as an alternative to multitouch zooming, you place your thumbs on the screen and then move the device closer to or further from your face. By pulling data from the too-oft-unutilized accelerometer inside the phone, Samsung’s able to zoom the page accordingly. It’s a damned fancy demo — but would you use it? Is it any better than just multi-touch zooming to the precise point you’re looking for? Weigh in down in the comments! Let your voice be heard! Rabble rabble! [Via Android Community] → Read More
When Bob Metcalfe says that there’s a social networking bubble, we should take notice. Inventor of the Ethernet, coiner of Metcalfe’s Law, founder of 3Com, a technology pundit and publisher at InfoWorld, VC at Polaris Ventures, and now Professor of Innovation at the University of Texas, Metcalfe is one of the true pioneers of Internet technology and business.
But, in spite of Metcalfe’s sense that the social networking bubble will burst, he remains bullish about innovation on the Internet. In particular, he sees three sectors which are about to be radically disrupted by the Internet: healthcare, education and energy. That’s where we’re going next, Metcalfe predicts. So forget about your social media start-up, he advises, and focus on reinventing the education, healthcare and energy industries. → Read More
Casio today announced [JP] a total of twelve new DLP projectors for the Japanese market, all of which can produce 3D images and feature a hybrid laser/LED light source. The company will start rolling out eight “standard” models starting in Japan in May, before offering two short-focus and two high-end devices in July. → Read More
Even if you never heed any other word of gadget advice I give, heed this: Sprint has just opened up the reservation queue for their crazy new multi-screen Android phone, the Kyocera Echo. Don’t do it.. Don’t stand in line for it, either. Wait a few weeks. → Read More
President Obama spoke to Univision yesterday at one of those town hall meetings the TV networks like to organize. What’s pertinent to us here is that our president, the man who’s famous for carrying a BlackBerry wherever he goes, does, in fact, own his own computer. → Read More
They say if you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door. They also say if you build a better nail clipper someone, probably a very strange-looking man, will bring the nail clipper onto the subway and proceed to groom his fingers between the 36th St. and Pacific Street stops on the N train, filling the subway car with the endless, gut-gurgling sound of spent fingernails pinging off of steel bars and plastic seating. The Klhip is that nail clipper. → Read More
How much would you pay to enter Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field that is WWDC? $100? $1,000? Well, the show is sold out so your options are pretty slim getting in — unless you buy this ticket on Ebay. Right now it’s going for $2,500, which is nearly a clean $1000 over the show’s standard $1,599 price. Chances are as news of this ticket spreads the price will skyrocket before the auction ends on April 7th. Could it hit $10k? Asteroid. [Tuaw] → Read More
Startup incubator TechStars has raised $8 million in new funding for its programs in Boston, Boulder, New York, and Seattle. The new funding comes from more than fifty venture funds and over 25 individual angel investors. This brings the incubator’s total funding to nearly $11.5 million.
TechStars, which launched in 2007, is a “startup boot camp” for tech entrepreneurs in which selected startup receive up to $18,000 in seed funding (or $6,000 per founder up to three founders in exchange for 5 percent of the company), three months of mentorship from successful entrepreneurs and investors, and the opportunity to pitch to angel investors and venture capitalists at the end of the program. → Read More
Performance-based mobile ad platform, MobPartner, has just scored €2.5 million ($3.5 million) from France-based VC funds Alven Capital and Newfund. The funding will go towards developing MobPartner’s services in English-speaking markets as well as certain emerging markets in Asia, Africa and Latin America where mobile phones are the main way to access the internet.
The company founded in 2008 is essentially the equivalent of Admob – which was bought by Google for $750 million in 2009 – but for performance marketing. MobPartner’s model lies at the junction between performance and mobile marketing, aiming to reduce risks for advertisers and maximise revenues for publishers; advertisers only pay when the user completes a specific action – like completing a sale, placing a call, etc. → Read More
Microsoft Hotmail doesn’t get much love in Silicon Valley these days, but the service has been steadily making improvements to the product, particularly over the last 18 months or so. And today it’s giving a boost to its ‘Active Views’ product — which sets out to make email quicker and more interactive than the sort we’re used to — by adding new partners including Posterous, and LivingSocial.
Hotmail’s first iteration of Active Views involves linked content — Dharmesh Mehta, director of Windows Live, says that 90% of email contains a link to an external service like YouTube, Flickr, or LinkedIn. So when Hotmail sees that there’s a link to a YouTube video, it will automatically embed the video so that you don’t have to actually follow the link (Hotmail isn’t the only service to do this). Mehta says that this has been very effective — while only 10% of users click on a normal link to a video, 25% will click on an embedded version. → Read More
USB 3.0 is faster than USB 2.0. That’s a fact, jack. So then you might as well use that huge data pipe for the latest generations of speedy memory cards. This card reader from Brando can read data at 92.2MB/s and sequential write 62.17MB/s. Right now the retailer is only taking pre-orders with an expected April ship date, but the $25 price puts this model right in line with USB 2.0 readers. Since the new, faster standard is backwards compatible, this model should be at the top of your shopping list — even if you’re eventually going to ride the Thunderbolt. → Read More
For the small percentage of our readers who do not enjoy a random penis sighting, comes Pick or Skip, a cleaned-up version of Chatroulette.
The idea behind the new site was to build a safe and more structured experience on top of the random connection/conversation aspect that made Chatroulette such a craze last year. → Read More
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