Remember that whole trademark tiff between Apple and Amazon over the generic or non-generic term “app store?”
Despite going quiet for the past month, the case is certainly not over, although statements made by U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton suggest that Apple may be losing steam in its fight. → Read More
Remember all those big hints Twitter gave about not developing client apps any more? Well that’s working out well for them. It turns out their own, in-house client app for the iPhone is the worst of all the major Twitter apps for hogging data. In fact the official Twitter App uses double the data of the Tweetdeck iPhone app, according to a new study by mobile data management startup Onavo. Perhaps it’s just as well Twitter bought Tweetdeck recently…
Of course, double the data usage can end up meaning double the cost, depending on your mobile contract and if you are roaming abroad. We’ve reached out to Twitter for comment on this. → Read More
Let’s Check More Fun for Daily Life!! Crapgadget vendor Brando is really selling this horrible umbrella. It includes a sleeve and the admit that “colors may be variant” but that shouldn’t stop you from bringing this umbrella to your local police station for a bit of suicide by cop thanks to the front stock and rifle barrel tip. → Read More
Google’s search market share in Russia remains well below 50% and it’s about to get even more heat. Russian search giant Yandex is now partnering with Russian online media giant Rambler over search and advertising services. Starting today, Rambler’s search services will be powered by Yandex’s search engine and Rambler will join Yandex’s Ad Network, Yandex.Direct.
Right now the Yandex Ad Network counts Odnoklassniki, Mail.ru and even Bing.com among its portfolio of client sites in Russia. Sites using Yandex’s search technology include Livejournal.ru, Nigma.ru and Qip.ru. → Read More
We’re hearing that online textbook rental service Chegg has completed its third acquisition today, snapping up lecture notes and study guides service Notehall for an undisclosed amount of cash and stock.
Chegg, which has received over $219 million in financing and hit revenues in the ballpark of $130 million in 2010, is also reportedly “deep in talks” with bankers regarding its plans to go public. → Read More
If Sprint were a physical being that I could high-five, I’d totally be giving them the Bro-iest high-five the world has ever seen right now. → Read More
ST-Ericsson, a joint venture of STMicroelectronics and Ericsson, this morning announced it will launch a cost savings plan to achieve about $120 million of annualized savings by the end of 2012. The company, which develops a range of mobile platforms and wireless semiconductor solutions, said the plan includes a workforce review that may affect up to 500 employees.
ST-Ericsson, which says more than 4 billion phones have been built using its products and technologies to date, is launching the cost-cutting plan due to “recent changes in the business environment and reduced demand for legacy products at certain customers”. → Read More
iHome and New Balance teamed up to create a strapless heart-rate monitor/headphone combo that allows you to perform all of your favorite exercise measurements in a package about as big as a pack of gum. The headphones require a quick, firm touch to sense your current heart-rate and the information is audibly presented in to your ears.
That’s literally all we know right now, so we’ll assume that New Balance knows what they’re doing here even though most one-touch heart-rate monitors are pretty rough. → Read More
It’s not only douchebags who say that the Internet changes everything. According to James Gleick, one of America’s most important and successful technology writers and the author of the major new book The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood, the Internet is as transformative as the invention of the printing press or writing.
“Cyberspace as a mode of being will never go away.” Gleick told me when he came into TechCrunch’s New York studio. “We live in cyberspace,” he added, explaining that it changes everything that we do.
But Gleick, in spite of his belief that the Internet is central to 21st century life, is too smart to fall into clichés about the digital revolution. No, he insisted, it isn’t wrecking our brains and making us stupid, even though it is drowning us in information. And no, he explained, it isn’t necessarily resulting in Sherry Turkle’s robotic moment – even if he is way too experienced a technology pundit to predict the future. → Read More
As evidenced by the impending $1 billion acquisition of PopCap, the social gaming market is heating up, also in Europe (just look at EA’s Playfish, Wooga, Kobojo and many other fast-growing game developers).
We’ve just learned Nauta Capital is doing its bit to keep the heat up by investing €2.4 million (roughly $3.4 million) in Spanish social games studio Social Point. → Read More
Tired of not being able to get your on-the-go Modern Family fix from Hulu just because you’re rockin’ an Android phone rather than an iPhone? Fret no longer! Hulu Plus for Android has arrived. Sort of. → Read More
Facebook has just named Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings to its board. We’ve pasted the release below.
Hastings co-founded Netflix in 1997 with then CEO Marc Randolph and launched the movie subscription service in 1999. Prior to that, Hastings founded Pure Atria Software, where he was CEO until the company was acquired by Rational Software Corporation in 1997. Hastings also serves on Microsoft’s board, which is interesting considering that Microsoft is also an investor in Facebook. → Read More
The best part of these timepieces is easily the box. I wasn’t allowed to take pictures, but Romain Jerome showed me a sneak preview of the Space Invaders watches back in March. The idea is to recall some of the fun and playfulness, as well as the novelty of the late 1970s video game. The box is actually a light box and you place the watch inside of it. Actually the watch is already placed inside of it and there are no doors, just a peep hole. If you want to remove the watch – consider it a fun challenge (like the game). Inside the box is a black light, then when lit illuminates the lume on the dial of the Space Invader watches. It is cool and fun, and perhaps better with LSD. → Read More
Most gadgets charge off USB nowadays so it only makes sense to have a wall outlet with a couple of outlets. ThinkGeek has you covered with the FastMac U-Socket USB Wallplug. The standard 110 volt socket has two 5.0V 2100mA outlets playing wingman. ThinkGeek has them in stock and shipping for just $24.99 → Read More
Taking a page from Facebook’s ad formats, professional social network LinkedIn is launching new social ad formats today that will leverage members’ actions on the site to serve more targeted ads.
So if you follow a company, or recommend a product or company, LinkedIn will use this data in display ads to give you a more targeted advertisement. For example, LinkedIn could put up an ad for a Google job posting (sponsored by Google) that will show people in your network who work at Google and could refer you. → Read More
The ultra-tiny Pentax Q is the smallest interchangeable lens camera (which leaked today) in all the land and costs a little over $800, a wild price to pay for a camera that is arguably tiny. Sadly, as Engadget points out, the value for money just isn’t there with a “1/2.3-inch backlit CMOS image sensor” that competes with other compact cameras rather than other cameras from Olympus, Panasonic, Sony, and Samsung. It’s tiny, sure, but it’s not particularly better. However, doesn’t it look like a little cutie? PR after the jump. → Read More
When Unsubscribe.com launched last October, the premise was pretty simple. You install it in your email, and any time you want to unsubscribe from a marketing email, you just hit the “Unsusbcribe” button and the service takes care of the rest.
Now the service is expanding to social apps. If you are like me, you have dozens of both Web and mobile apps that you’ve signed into with with your Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn ID. Unsubscribe shows you all the apps with access to your data via those three platforms (Google and Yahoo logins are coming next). It also shows you the relative level of access each app has to your data, along with color-coded reputation shield and a recommendation to remove the app, be cautious, or keep it. And then with one unsubscribe button, you can revoke access to any app. → Read More
Sometimes rules are meant to be broken. Hungarian site Technet.hu knows this, and decided to shoot a spy-style video of Nokia CEO Stephen Elop showing off the first Nokia Windows Phone 7 smartphone at a secret event, despite the fact that the Nokia boss specifically asked attendants to put away cameras. → Read More
China-based JUST GOOD Technology Corp. and UNIS Corp. must really like the PaPeRo, NEC’s super-cute mini robot that was first shown to the public back in 1997. Or how else can you explain the existence of their so-called UNISROBO? As Plastic Pals points out, both robots are very much alike from a design perspective. → Read More
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