A new app by Carnegie Mellon researchers Anthony Tomasic and John Zimmerman in conjunction with the University of Buffalo, allows bus riders to track their current location while riding the bus and, in turn, share this information with people who are still waiting, thereby creating a more complete map and schedule of bus routes and times. The app, Tiramisu, is free but, sadly, it only works in Pittsburgh right now.
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We’ve seen many price drops in the video gaming industry in the last 30 years, but I personally can’t remember such a radical move: Nintendo just announced [in English, PDF] that they will cut the price of their (relatively) new 3D portable gaming system 3DS by a whopping 10,000 Yen ($127) to 15000 Yen ($190). → Read More
Blue Coat Systems, the provider of web security and speed optimization solutions, released a mid-year web security report earlier this month, which, among other things, examined the current state of malware ecosystems, and detailed the growing size and reach of malware delivery networks.
Malware and malicious software have been around for years, but malware networks are becoming increasingly dynamic and continue to wreak havoc on search engines, email, and everything in between. No, my computer has not been infected by visiting this site, and, no, I will not download your antivirus software, Malware bot.
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Is the world ready for the mobile social gaming revolution? Tokyo-based DeNA, the company that makes $1.3 billion a year just by offering mobile games to Japanese cell phone users and acquired ngmoco for $400 million in December, seems to think so. DeNA/ngmoco released an English (and Chinese) version of Mobage, its super-successful Japanese mobile social gaming platform on Android yesterday. → Read More
Brian Chesky is the CEO of Airbnb. In this guest article he discusses the recent Airbnb user safety incident we reported on earlier today.
On June 22nd, we learned that the home of one of our San Francisco hosts was vandalized by an Airbnb guest. We were devastated when we received this news. With a single booking, one person’s malicious actions victimized our host and undermined what had been – for 2 million nights – a case study demonstrating that people are fundamentally good. → Read More
The merging of our smartphone and car interfaces is progressing, but at a rather slow pace. Various crossover apps and accessories have come out but few are really capturing the imaginations of drivers, and slow updates mean the systems are outdated a year after they launch. Well, I expect that will also be the case with Lexus’s latest system, but at least it’s an improvement. → Read More
Here’s a mystery for you: Images of a Motorola Android handset have surfaced on Chinese blogs, and it looks incredibly similar to the Atrix 4G. In fact, it looks identical save for a few miniscule changes.
The pictures come courtesy of IT168 and were published by ePrice.tw, which seems to think that the display will have a contoured design.
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Tomorrow, it will be exactly a month since Google+ was first unveiled. In that short amount of time, they’ve managed to sign up well north of 10 million users, which is amazing. Of course, the easiest path to tens of million of users is to start with hundreds of millions of users. Just ask Buzz or Wave. Still, kudos to Google — phase one of G+ was clearly a success.
Now comes the hard part. Keeping those users around and engaged. → Read More
Quora has just launched a bundle of interesting initiatives over the past day or so, all signs that the Q&A site is trying to figure itself out.
First of all, the company has begun testing something called “Ask to Answer Suggestions” where users start out with a budget of 500 Quora credits (Quoins?) and can offer to pay other users in credits to answer questions. The price for questions will eventually increase or decrease based on answerer’s zeal for answering questions and level of topic expertise. → Read More
Here’s a classic case of a missed opportunity if there ever was one: the Vodafone 555 Blue is, if you’ll pardon the term, a dumbphone with a Facebook button. It’s simple (no fancypants OS here), has a decent-looking keyboard, and it’s got just enough connectivity to keep your average FB junkie from getting the shakes.
But is such a phone practical in today’s market? → Read More
A 19-year old man has been arrested in the Shetland Islands, accused of being Lulzsec spokesperson, “Topiary”. If found guilty, one of two things will happen next…
The Internet Ending:
“Topiary” — who is revealed to be a dark, brooding, leather-clad circa 1995 Jonny Lee Miller — avoids jail by making a side-deal with the CIA to help them take down a rogue hacker who is threatening to sell Pentagon secrets to the Iranians. All goes well until we learn that “Topiary”‘s CIA contact is in fact a double agent, working for the North Koreans. Now chased by three governments, “Topiary” has to recover the Pentagon secrets, take down both rogue agents and prevent world war three. The movie ends with “Topiary”‘s record wiped, and our hero — who it turns out was the only honest man in a world of liars — sails into the sunset with Olivia Wilde, a lifetime of highly paid corporate consultancy gigs ahead of him. (Moral: We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We get to have sex with the chick from Tron: Legacy.) → Read More
Crowdtap, a service that allows marketers to easily collaborate with and mobilize targeted crowds of influential consumers, announced today that it has raised $7 million in series A funding. The round was led by Foundry Group, with participation from GSA Venture Partners and social media agency Mr. Youth.
Mr. Youth invested $3 million of seed funding in Crowdtap back in 2009 (and served as an incubator for the company during its early stages), which brings the startup’s total current investment to $10 million. Crowdtap said that it will use its infusion of capital to ramp up hiring in both its sales and engineering teams. → Read More
Tickets to our Mobile First CrunchUp sold out in one day and we just released our last set of tickets to our annual summer party at August Capital. If you were not able to get a ticket to the CrunchUp (which also gets you into the after party), here is one more chance.
Camber Tech Inc has offered to give away their two tickets to the CrunchUp to two lucky TechCrunch readers. Camber Tech Inc are the guys behind Adlibrium, the first local advertising and commerce platform that runs on mobile devices. They are also doing a non-profit mobile advertising initiative. You can check out their CGI commitment here. → Read More
Less than two weeks ago, Sprint cut the price of its Google Nexus S 4G by half to just $99 on-contract. That had me pink in the cheek with barely controlled glee, so you can only imagine my reaction when I saw that both Best Buy and Amazon were offering the device for free (and nearly free).
Best Buy promises all the Google phone you can handle for free as long as you sign on for a two-year contract, while Amazon lists the handset for $.01 (still on-contract). → Read More
Researchers at Stanford University have put together an interesting new battery technology that combines two theoretically coveted attributes: transparency and flexibility. The method of making the battery transparent is rather clever, and while the resulting product is far less energy-dense than its opaque relatives, it’s still an interesting development.
The secret is organizing the components in a certain way on a microscopic scale. The electrode material isn’t see-through, but there’s no reason it has to be a solid block instead of something less substantial. Materials Science professor Yi Cui figured out a way to organize the active materials in a way that’s nearly invisible to the naked eye. → Read More
Newly public home rental service HomeAway is reporting second quarter earnings today, posting a 40.9 percent revenue growth, to $58.7 million in the second quarter, compared to $41.6 million in the second quarter of 2010. The company said growth was buoyed by renewal rates, coupled with increases in new listings and revenue per listing.
Net income for the quarter was $2.2 million compared to net income of $14.9 million for the second quarter of 2010 (the company said that income for Q2 2010 was positively impacted by the release of a deferred tax asset valuation allowance, resulting in a one-time benefit of $13.4 million). → Read More
Until now everything has been just great for Airbnb, a service that lets people rent out their homes and become a sort of mini-hotel. The company launched in 2008 and has grown rapidly. They’ve been cloned by the Germans, which is always a mark of success. And they’re now a part of the billion dollar valuation club. Even the clone raised $90 million.
Which is all super great. But now the story of a trusting Airbnb user who’s had her home sacked (it’s the only way to describe it) is starting to spread. Airbnb’s response so far has been tepid at best. It turns out that when something like this happens, Airbnb isn’t financially responsible.
The facts: Last month “EJ” wrote a long blog post about how a renter spent an entire week carefully robbing and trashing her home. Walls were cut through to get to locked valuables, including her grandmother’s jewelry. → Read More
Ever since it was first spotted this past winter, we’ve wondered how long it would be before we’d have an Xperia Arc of our own to not notice in our pockets. For months rumors flew about which U.S. carrier would be lucky enough to nab the svelte smartphone, with AT&T emerging as the fan favorite. Well, summer has come, and so has the answer — the Xperia Arc is, carrier-wise, flying solo. → Read More
