What if we could combine top-notch hackers with leaders from across different companies? What if we could bring talented developers from all over Europe to create innovative solutions for organizations or sectors that desperately need them? Could this format potentially form great new startups that address untapped needs?
Those are the three rhetorical questions asked by Seedcamp, the… → Read More
Sharp in Japan updated their line of AQUOS LCD TVs with the so-called Freestyle AQUOS F5 series [JP]. The four TVs in that series, sized at 20/32/40 and 60 inches have a few common selling points: they are extremely thin, light (one of them is “portable”), and networked.
The 60-inch flagship model (pictured above and below) comes with a UV2A panel with full HD resolution, LED backlight… → Read More
Nokia this morning announced the launch of two dirt cheap phones, the Nokia 101 and Nokia 100, which the company says are its most affordable phones to date.
Priced only 25 euros ($35) and 20 euros ($30), respectively, that should hardly be a surprise.
Of course, ‘dirt cheap’ is relative – the feature phones are meant for people in countries where phones have to be this inexpensive to even… → Read More
Last month, Fujitsu in Japan unveiled the IS12T, announced as the world’s first cell phone running on Windows Phone 7.5 aka Mango. And the country’s second biggest mobile carrier (and exclusive provider of the handset) KDDI au, didn’t lose much time: the IS12T became available today over here (here‘s Fujitsu’s official press release in English from today).
As we reported previously, the Mango… → Read More
Here’s a selection of yesterday’s Gadgets stories: → Read More
Music search and discovery company SoundHound has inked a deal with digital music service provider Spotify to enable SoundHound users in Europe to instantly access the latter’s catalogue (of over 15 million tracks). From the sound of it, the partnership doesn’t enable users outside of Europe to cross that particular bridge just yet.
Starting today, SoundHound users on iOS and Android devices… → Read More
Inuit’s GoPayment reader, which competes directly with Square, is making a significant move in the mobile payments space today, partnering with Verizon Wireless to sell its credit card readers in Verizon Wireless’ 2,300 retail stores and business-to-business sales channels.
Launched two years ago, GoPayment offers a complimentary app and credit card reader to allow small businesses to conduct… → Read More
CouchSurfing International is one of those rare Web companies– like Mozilla or Craigslist– that has eschewed the normal Silicon Valley values of growth, greed and venture capital.
It’s one of those startups that uses the word “community” to mean people that have lasting, real-world connections to one another, not just the new industry jargon for “eyeballs.”
And its CEO Daniel Hoffer still… → Read More
The most amazing thing about Steve Jobs and the revival of Apple he engineered over the last 15 years is so improbable it is. Most of the digital innovations that have transformed our lives have been logical outgrowth of increasing power and decreasing cost of semiconductors. Someone was going to invent personal computers, cell phones, the Internet, even search engines.
But there was nothing… → Read More
There really should be no argument when I say that a case for your iPhone 4 is nothing short of necessary. Unless you’ve got cash to burn, the iPhone is just too damn expensive to leave unprotected. The only problem is that most of them make your phone pretty clunky, which sucks since Apple works hard to make the iPhone as slim as possible. Unfortunately, the only trade-off for all the heft is… → Read More
We all know the broad strokes: a boy is born to a graduate student and her Syrian boyfriend. She places the boy for adoption. He comes to live with Paul and Clara. The boy grows up in Santa Clara county. It’s flat, lots of one story buildings, mostly middle/upper middle class, outside of the bad parts. Parts of it are pretty, parts aren’t. He wasn’t coddled. His biological mother makes his… → Read More
Apple’s Steve Jobs has resigned from his position as CEO and Apple has just announced that COO Tim Cook has taken over as CEO.
As COO ,Cook was responsible for all of the company’s worldwide sales and operations, including end-to-end management of Apple’s supply chain, sales activities, and service and support in all markets and countries. He also headed Apple’s Macintosh division and… → Read More
Title says it all. More to come. For now, the letter from Steve Jobs himself:
To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:
I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come. → Read More
Sometimes the need to test outweighs the need for total secrecy. I’m going to assume Color CEO Bill Nguyen shares that belief. The past two days his Facebook stream has been filled with some seemingly bland pictures. But they’re not bland — they’re test pictures. And they’re sent from a new app called “Blue”.
I don’t know much about the app itself, but I was able to dig up a little bit of… → Read More
Today, mobile payments company Boku is launching direct carrier billing agreements with two of the largest mobile carriers in France— Bouygues Telecom and SFR, offering over 32 million French customers the ability to pay for virtual goods and services using only their existing wireless service account.
Historically, mobile payments companies face the challenge of lofty carrier rates. Wireless… → Read More
Social enterprise giant Jive has just filed its S-1, and will raise as much as $100 million in the offering.
Modeled to offer Facebook-like features to enterprises, Jive’s software combines computing with social collaboration to offer fully-featured social networks for businesses. Its suite of applications help businesses collaborate on a variety of tasks, including holding discussions… → Read More
If you’ve ever roved around Facebook’s developer forums, you may have noticed that — aside from being loaded with complaints and bug reports — they’re pretty basic. There’s nothing wrong with them per se, but they feel like a pretty generic forum install, and not a hub for developers on one of the web’s most popular web platforms.
Today, Facebook is announcing how it’s going to fix the… → Read More
We’re through, GameStop.
I turned a blind eye when you offered me peanuts for a game that you were still slinging used for bucks shy of full retail. I shrugged it off when your employees endlessly pressured me to pre-order games that I didn’t want every time I set foot in the store. I laughed when I was turned away for trying to buy a new release on launch day sans preorder, only to have a copy… → Read More
Real estate listings site Zillow reported its first earnings as a public company today, after debuting on the NASDAQ in mid-July. Zillow revealed record revenues of $15.8 million in the second quarter, up 116% year-over-year. Net Income for the quarter came in at $1.6 million, compared to a net loss of $2 million in the same period a year ago and a net loss of $0.8 in the first quarter of 2011. → Read More
Acer, recently the world’s second-largest shipper of PCs, has had a rough year. But in March a deliberate decision was made by upper management to abandon their goal of dethroning HP and instead focus on making better, more distinguishable products. The result: sales and revenue in freefall. At least they knew it was coming — but losing millions of customers and a huge proportion of your… → Read More
Registration is officially open for our fourth Hackathon, and we’d love to make it our biggest yet! We promise more pizza, more caffeine and more glory than ever. We had 700 registrants for the last event in New York — let’s top it! The format remains the same – a little less than 24 hours to create a hack on site and present a working demo to an audience of developers, press and industry… → Read More
Since HP made the announcement it would be spinning off its PC business, there have been questions over who would scoop it up. A number of different OEMs fit the bill and have the cash to take on HP’s PSG, but one in particular seemed to be looking for an outsourcing partner before HP ever made its announcement.
Digitimes reported that Samsung had been in talks with Quanta, Compal and Pegatron… → Read More
That’s not the Terminator’s gallbladder you’re looking at there. It’s actually a pocket watch made by Urwerk, a noted designer of extremely high-end timepieces for folks like to think they are Jules Verne.
The watch, called the UR-1001 Zeit Device, tells the time down to (up to?) the century and even has a register for 1,000s of years aka millennia. Why? Because they wanted to, that’s why. → Read More
I’ll be the first to admit that I usually rock a man-bag on a daily basis, but rarely have I ever considered using something as hardcore as the ITS Tactical Discreet Messenger Bag. While my usual load-out consists of the AOL-issued work laptop and a camera, the TDM bag packs compartments for use that goes above and beyond the ordinary. → Read More
RIM announced well in advance of the PlayBook’s launch that it would be able to play nice with certain Android apps, but aside from a leaked beta, PlayBook owners still have nothing to show for it. RIM may not play the waiting game again with their forthcoming string of QNX-powered BlackBerrys though, as the word from Waterloo is that they will be able to run Android apps right out of the… → Read More
Amazingly, someone is still making MP3 players for the mass market. I’m pleased to present the $70 Sandisk Sansa Clip Zip, a tiny, portable media player that comes in 4 GB and 8 GB varieties (the 4GB model costs $50).
The Clip Zip comes in 7 colors including red, blue, and orange and is compatible with almost any audio format. It also has a microSD slot so you can expand the player to 32 GB. It… → Read More
Over the last several months you’ve probably come across Google’s +1 quite a few times. You may have even clicked it, only to wonder what exactly you’d just accomplished. Because, at least from the user’s perspective, there hasn’t been any reward from clicking on it. You’d push the button for the treat, only to leave empty-handed. That hasn’t stopped the +1 button from getting huge distribution… → Read More
If you’ve ever called your carrier about spotty coverage, then chances are you’ve heard the party line: “we’re working to improve the service in your area.” It’s delightfully vague — you know that your concerns are being considered, just without any concrete timeline for improvement.
Today, AT&T has announced their intention to make those mythical service improvements more transparent. → Read More
Bleacher Report may have spent much of its life quietly climbing the rankings of top sports destinations, but it’s not being bashful or patient anymore.
In a little more than a year, it has hired Brian Grey as its new CEO, a guy who used to run two of its four largest competitors, and it has passed Sports Illustrated and CBS Sports in traffic, beefed up its sales staff, starting hiring a… → Read More
The bounty to get a workable version of the Android operating system installed on the now-discontinued HP TouchPad is up to $2,000+, as of today.
As we previously reported, the goal of this project is to get some version of Android 2.x onto the TouchPad and, most importantly, stable. If successful, this effort will help keep the HP tablet a little more relevant to those unfortunate early… → Read More
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