There’s been a lot of talk out there about what will happen after AT&T acquires T-Mobile USA. How it will affect competition, consumers, and the industry as a whole are just some of the questions that have arisen since the deal’s March announcement. But has anyone stopped to think about what might happen if federal regulators reject the deal? → Read More
In about a week, Disrupt NYC will begin. We will launch over two dozen new startups in our Startup Battlefield and bring together the smartest people in tech to discuss how the Internet is disrupting industry after industry—from media (print, TV, music, gaming) and social commerce to payments and transportation.
We’ve steered away from unwieldy panels, and instead tried to pair up interesting… → Read More
There are rumours of a new European seed fund being built out of London right now, billing itself as a sort of “500 Startups of Europe”. Admittedly Hipster Ventures is a Seppuku-inducing name, but stay with us…
The idea is to whisk the best of European consumer web and mobile companies off to San Francisco to launch them on the West coast. The guy behind it is high profile freelance journalist… → Read More
Last year, OpenFeint launched the private beta of OpenFeint X (OFX), which offers indie developers the ability to create Zynga-like free-to-play games including microtransactions and virtual goods. Until now, the platform has only been available for iOS devices, but today, the company is expanding to Android phones with the private beta launch of OFX for Android.
OFX allows developers can create… → Read More
The first thing many of us do in the morning is check for earth shattering news, and Google has just made the quest to find relevant news a little bit easier by introducing a geolocation-enabled “News Near You” feature in its U.S. Edition.
While there are plenty of niche local news aggregators like Topix or Fwix available for local news junkies, Google News is the dominant player in the news… → Read More
Last October I wrote about a small startup called Mailgun that was setting out on a bold mission: to provide developers a way to programmatically create and manage mailboxes and email messages using a straightforward API. Put another way, they want to abstract the complexities of email in the same way that Twilio has created an easy-to-use developer interface for telephony services.
Today, the… → Read More
Just days before Verizon last set out to launch the Droid CHARGE, their 4G network mysteriously fell apart nationwide. Launching a big 4G device in the middle of your first big outage isn’t exactly good for return rates, so VZW went ahead and pushed things back a bit. With their 4G network back up and seemingly quite stable (I’m using it to publish this post, in fact!), Verizon’s… → Read More
The Harman Kardan iPod/iPhone Bridge has long been a staple of iDevice docking stations. The company just released the third incarnation, which sports the one tiny, but oh-so-important feature. I guess the headline sort of ruins the surprise, eh? → Read More
Oh, poor HTC Merge; you first sneaked your way into the spotlight so many months ago, and yet, you’ve gone mostly unseen ever since. Sure, Alltel picked you up and put you on the shelves — but your true calling was at Verizon, and they just refused to dial your number.
Until now… sort of. → Read More
I’m broadcasting life from the Timecrafter’s watch show in New York with Hugh Dougherty, the Mart & Highlights Editor for the National Association of Watch And Clock Collector’s own watch blog, WatchDig. We’ll be looking at some higher end watches (and some affordable ones as well) and talk about the recent watch show in Basel, Switzerland. → Read More
The oft neglected (in the US) Audemars Piguet Millenary is getting a major re-haul for 2011 with the Millenary 4101 collection. Using the same ovoid shape of case as the previous Millenary, the dial and movement are totally new and based on the very rare and high-end Audemars Piguet Millenary AP Escapement collection (see image of one below). Those models had a special high-beat escapement and… → Read More
When it comes to app development for mobile devices, cross-platform implementation is the new hot thing. Developers have long struggled with fragmentation across operating systems, when they want to just be able to create one app and blast it out on every platform imaginable. Businesses like Heroku and Appcelerator, and gaming versions like Game Closure (and many others) collectively make… → Read More
This is your last chance to win a free ticket to this year’s Disrupt in New York City! The conference is from May 23rd to May 25th, a little over a week away, and has an incredible lineup of guest speakers and judges. You can read all about our speakers here, and you can take a peek at our three day agenda, as of now, here.
We still have a couple other little surprises that we will be announcing. → Read More
Wine enthusiast, author, founder, blogger, investor and serial entrepreneur (did I leave anything out?) Gary Vaynerchuk dropped by our TechCrunch TV studio in New York City with a bottle of red to discuss his new book, The Thank You Economy with TechCrunch Co-editor, Erick Schonfeld. “Context is the new battleground for business” says Vaynerchuk when asked to give the Twitter version summary… → Read More
Netflix previously all but ignored Android, leaving users confused and annoyed by the lack of love. All that changed yesterday when the app dropped on the Nexus S and several HTC devices. But that’s the catch. Only a select few devices currently support the streaming service, so the fun is only for those rocking the HTC Incredible, HTC Nexus One, HTC Evo 4G, HTC G2, and Samsung Nexus S… → Read More
Online games publisher We R Interactive this morning announced that it has raised $5 million in second round funding from a slew of private investors, including Elio Leoni-Sceti, former CEO of EMI Music and Paul Fitzsimons, ex-media sector partner at Apax Partners. The company secured initial funding upon launch back in July 2010, although it’s unclear how much they raised then.
The proceeds of… → Read More
We’ve covered quite a few rescue robots in the past, but Helios IX, developed at the Tokyo Institute of Technology is certainly one of the most versatile models. The robot is designed to be used in post-disaster situations, as it can climb up and down stairs, overcome uneven ground, open doors and pick up objects. → Read More
Analytics ninja Sean Power lost his laptop in Soho – it was stolen, although it may not have been stolen by the man who had it – and using Prey he was able to track it to a particular bar near City Hall in downtown Manhattan.
Sean got some snaps of the guy and his browsing habits and asked that some of his Twitter followers visit the bar to wait for the police. When the police refused to come… → Read More
Just about anything worth having in this world comes in knock-off form, and it would appear that Google’s Nexus S is worth having, as a knockoff called the K1000D has surfaced in Shenzhen Huaqiangbei district in China. As we’d expect, the K1000D isn’t as powerful as the Nexus S, but it’s just as pretty. → Read More
A judge yesterday threw out most of the claims made in a lawsuit against Facebook, in which two California individuals, David Gould and Mike Robertson, accused the social networking giant of sharing their names and other private information with some advertisers in direct violation of its own privacy policy.
That said, the judge also ruled the lawsuit will not be dismissed in its entirety either… → Read More
TimeCrafters is New York’s first high-end watchmaking show featuring many of the brands that we talk about on CrunchGear and my watch podcast. I’ll be streaming the event live at 10am Eastern today and, if you’re in the New York area, you can visit the show tomorrow and Sunday for $20 at the door. → Read More
The only thing worse than a regifter is someone who gives you something special only to snatch it back, which could accurately describe Verizon during its 4G LTE network outage. To offer blazing-fast speeds only to have them fail on us is a huge party foul, to say the least. What’s worse, Verizon really screwed Samsung out of a pretty high-profile product launch, with its Droid Charge… → Read More
OpenTable’s co-founder Chuck Templeton is launching his latest venture today—OhSoWe. The site essentially aims to bring together neighborhoods. It’s sort of like an online version of a block association.
On the site, users can create a “neighborstead,” to form a block club, neighborhood association or a neighbor-based organization. People have to create profiles and join the site (there’s no… → Read More
Japan-based Ortus Technology has developed what it calls the world’s smallest 3D display with full HD resolution – after announcing the world’s smallest full HD display in 2D last October. Also sized at 4.8 inches, the new screen is basically the 3D version of that model. Unfortunately, users need to wear glasses to view pictures in 3D. → Read More
I am guessing we will see more of these in the near future: Fujitsu today officially announced [JP] the LIFEBOOK TH40/D, a tablet featuring a slide-out keyboard. The tablet has a 10.1-inch LCD screen with 1,024×600 resolution and is powered by Windows 7 Home Premium. → Read More
Exclusive – Earlier this week, Microsoft dropped a bombshell on pretty much the entire technology industry, acquiring VoIP juggernaut Skype for a baffling $8.5 billion in cash.
One side-effect unrevealed up until today: TechCrunch has learned that Skype came extremely close to buying Swedish startup MyWidz right before negotiations with Microsoft were kicked into high gear, freezing said… → Read More
Samsung’s New High-Resolution Screens: Too Good To Be True? Apple Patents Cool “Chameleon” Camera Mode Discussion Table: Pioneer’s (Awesome) Take On Microsoft’s Surface (Video) Rex Ray Dodocase, For Art-Lovin’ iPad 2 Owners It Is Finished: The New Yorker iPad App Is The Beginning Of The End Of Print → Read More
Japan’s biggest mobile carrier NTT Docomo today announced it will develop with Twitter a set of new mobile services for its domestic customer base of 58 million. Under the deal, Docomo plans to integrate a “touch and follow” app into NFC-equipped feature phones, allowing two users to start following each other just by placing their handsets together.
Read the rest on TechCrunch. → Read More
Wal-Mart this morning announced that it intends to acquire a minority stake in the holding company of Yihaodian, a massive B2C ecommerce company based in China. The transaction is expected to close within 60 days, the retail giant says.
Launched in July 2008, Yihaodian offers more than 75,000 products ranging from clothing to grocery to consumer electronics. Less than 3 years after launch, the… → Read More
Japan’s biggest mobile carrier NTT Docomo today announced it will develop with Twitter a set of new mobile services for its domestic customer base of 58 million. Under the deal, Docomo plans to integrate a “touch and follow” app into NFC-equipped feature phones, allowing two users to start following each other just by placing their handsets together. → Read More
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