As you may have noticed, we’re big fans of Kickstarter around here, but for every good project that gets its much deserved funding, there are innumerable lesser ideas trapped in financial limbo. Today’s case in point: the Scandy, a telescoping clamp that promises to turn your smartphone into a scanner. → Read More
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary has been updated to include 150 new words and definitions this year, its publisher announced this morning.
Four technology-related additions are ‘tweet’, ‘social media’, ‘crowdsourcing’ and ‘m-commerce’, words that should have been familiar to readers of this blog for year now. → Read More
Olympus has just announced the US availability in September of the PEN E-PM1, the “mini” version of the PEN line. This camera is the smallest micro 4/3s shooter available and is compatible with all of Olympus’ current M4/3 lenses.
I’ll be testing the E-PL3 this week for review next week but I can’t wait to get ahold of the E-PM1. The size, compatibility, and lens quality have thus far been very impressive on the rest of the models and this is a definite move in the right direction for the platform.
→ Read More
Last month, Ustream launched its video streaming service on the iPad. As Jason reported at the time, the app allows users to view live and recorded content streaming through the Web and even to stream their own footage directly from their iPad 2s.
The move was a big step forward for live, streaming video on tablet devices, especially in that the latter feature allows users to be couch videographers. Of course, since last year, Ustream has been working on a series of apps that give users the added benefit of video editing features that can turn couch videographers into pro video creators.
Today, Ustream is announcing a partnership with Telestream, the maker of digital media tools and workflow solutions, which will bring Telestream Wirecast live video production technology to all Ustream subscribers and add yet another layer to Ustream’s video editing solutions. → Read More
Chip manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has named Rory P. Read its new president, CEO and board member, effective today. Read joins AMD from PC maker Lenovo, where he worked for five years and most recently served as president and COO.
Thomas Seifert, who served as AMD’s interim CEO since January 2011, will return to his role as SVP, Chief Financial Officer. → Read More
Webs.com, a popular DIY website creation service, is announcing a new mobile site builder today that automatically keeps a smartphone-friendly website in sync with your main website. Previously, mobile application creation was an option only available in the company’s App Store, which provides additional enhancements for site owners. But as of now, this product has been fully integrated into the Webs.com Site Builder.
→ Read More
Though Slacker and Pandora have made the migration, the BlackBerry App World’s selection of music apps is pretty limited compared to competing platforms. In fact, the App World is found wanting in a couple different categories. But that doesn’t mean RIM isn’t open to improvement, albeit incremental improvement. That said, RIM today announced its BBM Music app.
It’s basically a subscription music app with a strong social element. For $4.99 monthly, you can have 50 different songs on what RIM is calling your BBM Music profile. From there, it really all depends on popularity. → Read More
Skype appears to have launched a new app directory in the cloud, allowing users to access all the third-party apps for both consumers and businesses built on top of Skype’s API.
The site is fairly simple in functionality for now, but Skype has sorted both consumer apps and business into groups by genre (call recording, video, desktop sharing etc.), and featured the top downloaded free and paid apps, top rated apps and the newest apps across the board and by genre. For example, Skype recording app VodBurner is the most downloaded app across all categories. → Read More
Vizibility, provider of a personal branding platform for individuals and companies, this morning announced it has raised $1.3 million in seed funding, more than its $1 million target.
Launchpad Venture Group of Boston led the round and was joined by additional investors from Boston Harbor Angels, New York Angels and TiE Angels as well as a number of independent investors from the Northeast and Europe. Earlier backers also participated in the round. → Read More
HP caused a major splash (not only) in the technology world when the world’s biggest computer maker last week announced it plans to spin off its PC business. But one country, which has always been a unique market for many companies, is apparently getting a special treatment: Japan.
We reported back in June that HP will move over part of the production for notebooks from China to Japan, and it looks like the company’s decision from last week didn’t affect the plan. Today, HP actually started manufacturing these devices in its plant in Akishima, Tokyo. → Read More
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 well-known European early-stage seed investment fund and mentoring programme. In its quest to get answers to those questions, the company is organizing a new, totally free event called seedhack, which will be sort of like a hackaton – like the one we organize during TechCrunch Disrupt – but not just for programmers and designers. → 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, 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, 176-degre viewing angle, 2x10W speakers, an HDMI interface, two USB ports (connecting external HDDs is possible), and Ethernet. It weighs 21kg and is 2.1cm at its thinnest part (3.5cm at the thickest). → 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 be considered for purchase (large parts of Africa and Asia, in particular). → 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 handset comes with a 3.7-inch LCD with 800×480 resolution, a 13.2MP CMOS camera, a water- and shock-proof body, 32GB internal memory, a microUSB port, IEEE 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (no tethering), DLNA support, GSM/CDMA, etc. → 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 who also subscribe to Spotify Premium will be given the option to ‘Play Now in Spotify’ after identifying a song through the music discovery and recognition service. That goes for users of both the free and the paid SoundHound apps.
SoundHound users in Europe who don’t subscribe to Spotify Premium will be redirected to a page inviting them to become Spotify users before proceeding to listen to the track. → 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 charges via their smartphones. GoPayment is available for iOS, Android and Blackberry phones and the card reader simply plugs into the audio jack of a phone or tablet. The credit card data is also encrypted, (and never stored on the phone).
→ 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 talks a bit like a man running a combination of an ashram or an online dating service: “We specialize in creating meaningful connections.”
But as of today, CouchSurfing is going all corporate on us. → 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 the slightest bit inevitable about a company whose digital products are perceived as so distinctive they attract dominant market shares despite premium prices. As recently as 2002, personal computers were seen as such a commodity business—dominated by high volume and low costs—that Hewlett Packard paid $25 billion to buy Compaq and vault past Dell to be the No. 1 in the market. Last week, HP, still the leader, said it is considering abandoning PCs altogether, at least partially a concession that Apple was taking an increasing share of the market and most of the profits.
I haven’t been a Mac user since I sold my first generation model—with 128K of memory and one floppy drive. But I recently walked into an Apple store and fondled the latest MacBook Air. I was blown away by how the use of multi-touch gestures and a few other innovations transformed the experience of this very mature category of products. Again. → 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 protection against impact. But what if you drop your iPhone in the toilet?
The folks at Catalyst have an answer for you: EscapeCapsule. → Read More
Barcelona, Spain
New York City
San Francisco, CA
