Oh, Google. Hate to do this again, but you really need to lock up these partners and get your PR in order.
A week after we got a pitch from a partner NFC company all-but-confirming that Google’s New York City event would be about their mobile payment system (Google Wallet), another partner has reached out ahead of another announcement. This time, an email seemingly confirms that Google is going… → Read More
Whoops! Looks like someone at Motorola didn’t cover up their breadcrumbs while working on the next version of their Mobility site.
Now, leaked site redesigns generally aren’t something we cover, because, well, no one cares. This one’s special, though. This one’s fun. This one’s jam-packed full of unannounced products. → Read More
If you bought a Macbook between October 2009 and today you may be facing dreaded “peel-butt” where the rubber flakes off of the bottom of the laptop. You can either bring your laptop into the Apple Store for free repair or they can send you a DIY kit. All you really have to do is unscrew a few screws and plop on the new one. → Read More
One of the most interesting panels at last week’s Disrupt featured a discussion about social music between Steve Jang the co-founder and CEO of Schematic Labs and Alexander Ljung the founder and CEO of SoundCloud.
Jang and Ljung are both developing apps and services that enable us to share music, sounds and our musical taste. Jang’s product is Soundtracking, an iPhone app that allows us to… → Read More
Just a quick update for those keeping tabs on the LG Genesis (which, up until Verizon decided not to offer it, was previously known as the “enV Pro”) for U.S. Cellular: look for it to hit the shelves on June 9th for $149.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate. In other news: that $149.99-after-rebate pricetag is the same thing they’re asking for the HTC Merge, which hit their shelves as… → Read More
At TechCrunch Disrupt NYC last week, Google’s location boss Marissa Mayer pointed out that Google Maps for mobile traffic will surpass that of its desktop counterpart by June. Our dependence on mobile technology for where we are and where we’re going seems to be growing by the minute, so its not too surprising to see a number of enhanced Map apps hit various app stores. One in particular, … → Read More
The Urwerk UR-202S, aka the Hammerhead, also bears the name “Full Metal Jacket.” The Stanley Kubrick movie reference points to the fact that this Urwerk watch is the first this brand has offered with a metal bracelet. According to Urwerk, bracelets have been part of their plans for a while but for various reasons was never fully realized until now. Components are limited by manufacturing realities… → Read More
Although this isn’t on the same level as Wooga’s $24m Series B round announced today, it’s more evidence that social gaming remains a hot space.
Pixonic, the social games publisher, has raised a $5 million round from VCs Ventech, Kite Ventures, and TA Ventures. This follows earlier funding of $1m secured last year. The new investment will be used to expand the Russian startup’s social game lineup… → Read More
It seems comments are a little borked today as the Disqus plug-in failed during our last update and problems just started showing up today. I’ve reimported all of the comments for the past few days so here’s hoping it fixes itself. → Read More
It’s hard out there for a Alien Abduction Believer. You’re busy wandering near the desert with a .22 and some binocs and you keep missing your favorite talk shows while keeping our nation safe from the teeming hordes/slavering alien brood mothers at the border. What to do? Why not pay $139 for a flashlight/MP3 player combo so you can get your news fix will keeping an eye out for aliens. Seriously. → Read More
Online payment methods are old and in the way. Sure, whether or not the world will have a generally-agreed-upon payment system is up for debate, but it seems that a new era of micropayments is here — hopefully to stay. With the political and regulatory inertia around bank and credit card-related payment tools, there is room for a third party without these hangups to bring a new perspective to… → Read More
Yesterday, we reported that Twitter was close to acquiring AdGrok, the Y Combinator-backed keyword bidding platform. Today, the company has confirmed the move with a blog post, “@AdGrok Is Going To @JoinTheFlock“. But as we noted in an update to our post yesterday, things are a little bit more complicated than they appear. You see, one of AdGrok’s founders and its CEO, Antonio Garcia-Martinez, is… → Read More
You know, we haven’t really thought much about Pantech since the ol’ days of Helio (and the Pantech-made Helio Ocean.) We’d figured the company had decided that the U.S. mobile market and its current iPhone/Android-mindset was a bit too tough to crack, and had gone back to mainly focusing on slingin’ their feature-phone wares in their home country of South Korea. Well… → Read More
Enterprise social networking platform Yammer is adding two new features to its platform today that are worth noting. The company is supporting in-line videos within news feeds, and is also allowing users to recognize colleagues with badges.
Now you can attach videos to Yammer messages (just as you would with a Word document or PowerPoint presentation), and then users can play the videos directly… → Read More
The aging Nintendo DS Lite just got a breath of sweet life. If you don’t already own the fantastic handheld, perhaps its new, lower $99 price will bring you aboard the party bus. Nintendo just announced the price drop from $129, which in my mind, does nothing but create a bit more competition for the $249 3DS. Maybe this move is a precursor to Nintendo dropping the 3DS’ price next week… → Read More
The Garmin eTrek series has long been the go-to outdoor GPS unit. They’re affordable, capable, and, as I’ve learned, able to survive numerous drops from a tree stand. Garmin just outed the latest editions that bring a far amount of new features to the line. → Read More
I wrote a book in 2004 about hackers, spammers, and other nerds and I thought I’d like to share it with the world. It’s currently available on Amazon and B&N and is $9.99 for the print edition and an inexplicable $9.49 in the Kindle edition. It is apparently not available for the Nook.
The book is 7 years old and is nearly out of print. It is about spammers, hackers, and viruses and I wrote… → Read More
Haters gonna hate. Reports just hit that states “booby-trapped” Ikea alarm clocks recently exploded within stores in Belgium, France and The Netherlands. One calls the incidents fireworks where another uses the phrase small explosions that seem to cause nothing more than earaches. In at least one case, two clocks were simultaneously detonated remotely and a company spokesperson said the other… → Read More
When I got an iPad 2 test unit in the mail a few weeks back, one of the first things I noticed when browsing through apps was that the iWork suite of apps, Numbers, Pages, and Keynote, were all present in the App Store for the iPad. Immediately, I was overcome with jealousy. Of course, typing in Pages on the iPad isn’t the smoothest experience, but having access to these core apps is better than… → Read More
Billed as a sort of affordable TED, The Inspire Conference is coming to London on 7-8 June.
The event, organised by the team behind Launch48, promises to bring “the most brilliant minds” together in Technology, Creativity and Entrepreneurship. And on that note our very own Mike Butcher is making an appearance. He’ll be doing an on-stage discussion/interview with Peter Vesterbacka of Rovio, makers… → Read More
Toshiba may have delayed its Honeycomb tab, but the just-announced WT310 shows the company hasn’t delayed all products in this form factor. The Windows 7 slate runs on an Oak Trail Atom Z670 and 2GB while packing a 64GB SSD, 802.11b/g/n chipset, Bluetooth 3.0, 2MP front & 3MP rear camera along with USB 2.0, HDMI, and a SDHX card slot. Sounds great, right? Well, at least for a Windows 7… → Read More
Pop over to iCloud.com today and you’ll see a doomed web page. The domain, which redirects to Xcerion’s CloudMe software, is sitting on some prime real estate, namely Apple’s new iCloud service.
In a short release, Apple confirmed the existence and name:
Apple® CEO Steve Jobs and a team of Apple executives will kick off the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a… → Read More
There goes all the fun rumors and wild speculation. Apple just released a press release detailing what’s coming next week at the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference. I’ll let that sink in for a moment. Apple pre-announced something — iOS 5 and OS X Lion to be exact. Oh, and something called iCloud, too.
It was already generally accepted that the two operating system were going to… → Read More
After buying Terracotta last week, Software AG is continuing its acquisition spree today. The provider of business process management solutions has acquired UK mobile development company Metismo. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Founded in 2007, Metismo provides a platform for the design and development of device independent mobile apps. The company’s write once – run anywhere… → Read More
Next week, Apple will unveil its much-anticipated iCloud service at its annual developer conference, WWDC. Apple even put out a press release this morning pre-announcing the service—something it almost never does. Details began leaking out in March, and then the name was pretty much confirmed when Apple bought the domain iCloud.com. Yet for all the talk and speculation, we still don’t know… → Read More
Earlier this year, Yuri Milner and Ron Conway’s SV Angel announced a new fund that offers all Y Combinator startups $150,000 in convertible debt. Not only is The Start Fund a brilliant investment strategy, but the news was also a big win for Y Combinator and the startups housed and developed in the incubator. And it was only a matter of time before other incubators and funds caught on to the idea… → Read More
Continuing our series of interviews with companies in the Silicon Roundabout area of London (we’re calling this The Roundabout Tapes), we went to interview Mixcloud.
The on-demand radio service wants to be the ‘YouTube of radio’. Online radio is very much a digital media orphan; languishing in a fragmented space while innovations in other aspects of streaming media have come thick and fast over… → Read More
Magma, the platform that helps magazine publishers (both dead tree and online) streamline their workflow, has secured $350k from Syddansk Teknologisk Innovation (SDTI).
A sort of ‘Basecamp for magazine publishers’, Magma was founded in July 2010 by Andrew Dahl, whose had stints at Amazon, Expedia and PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Sebastian Stockmarr, a User Experience Designer who has worked with… → Read More
Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 owners: don’t forget to put a smile on this morning when you get dressed because the sweetest Eclair of last year is headed your way. Sony Ericsson today announced the release of the update to Android 2.1 Eclair to all Xperia X10 owners on AT&T’s network. → Read More
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