“Yeah, each new iOS announcement is very… bittersweet. We love it because it means new APIs for us to build on, bug fixes for things we’ve had to work around, and, ideally, more people buying the platform we build for. But then we spend months getting slammed by bad reviews, all written by people who just don’t understand: until the release goes gold, beta-specific bugs are not our fault.” — A… → Read More
Music Beta, remember it? It’s the online music locker service that Google unveiled at I/O in May. But the keyword in the title very much remains “Beta” — as in, not in any way ready for prime time. Okay, maybe that’s a bit unfair, the service does work — it just doesn’t offer much. A new feature today hopes to keep people interested while they work on making it better.
Magnifier is a new… → Read More
“The golden era of books is over.” So begins Jeff Bercovici’s post on Fortune.com before he — somewhat self-contrapuntally — goes on to list the top earning authors of the previous year, including James Patterson ($84 million), Danielle Steel ($35 million) and Stephen King ($28 million).
In fact, compelling as Bercovici’s woe-is-books lede is, the stat he uses to back it up – that sales of… → Read More
It’s that time again! With Dave McClure’s 500 Startups now at 175 startups, sometimes hanging out at its headquarters in Mountain View leaves one a little inundated with promising startups. Especially since motherhen McClure insists that he loves all his little monsters the same.
While each of the 30 startups that presented yesterday at Demo Day is clearly a unique little snowflake, I culled… → Read More
GM makes money from platforms, not just cars. With that thought, Cadillac just announced the ELR Coupe, a sleek sportster built on the Voltec platform that also powers the Volt. The dual-powertrain Caddy has been rumored ever since a concept (pictured here) was shown off at the 2009 North American International Auto Show. Well, friends, it’s on.
The ELR will use the same version of the Voltec… → Read More
Series A financings are on the decline. They peaked at 283 in 2007 and are on pace to barely crack 100[1] this year (all data is from CrunchBase through the end of June—it is imperfect but the best I’ve got, see chart). They’ve also declined in relative terms, representing nearly 40% of all equity financings in 2006, and less than 20% year to date. I believe there are two main reasons for… → Read More
The U.S. government is no stranger the to app game: they’ve developed over 50 smartphone apps and mobile sites for everyday use, ranging from apps that find local alternative fueling stations to ones that can identify leaves you’ve photographed. The federal app arsenal runs the gamut for sure, but it doesn’t seem to be enough. The USA.gov blog has announced that until September 15, regular… → Read More
Digital loyalty startup Chatterfly today launched its new rewards program for businesses and consumers in the form of a smartphone application for iPhone and Android. Like similar startups, including the now Google-owned Punchd, Chatterfly aims to replace the paper loyalty card with a more modern, digital version.
But Chatterfly isn’t only focused on making businesses’ punchcards mobile. It’s a… → Read More
Very few headsets out there are “true” surround sound. Most are traditional stereo headphones with “virtual surround sound” — a process that adds depth and directionality, but delivers it through two speakers. Headphones like Tritton’s and Psyko’s actually use multiple drivers to simulate being in a room with, say, five speaker channels and a subwoofer. They’ve had mixed success, but maybe … → Read More
Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat, just delivered a terrific opening keynote presentation for LinuxCon. Whitehurst isn’t just a businessman, he’s also a geek. He used Linux and open source before joining Red Hat, and the opportunity to be CEO of the world’s most successful open source company was a dream come true for him. After a quick summary of some of the major milestones Linux has seen over the… → Read More
Ford Motor Company is teaming up with San Jose-based solar panel maker SunPower to offer a rooftop solar system option which will be sold alongside the upcoming Ford Focus EV. The “Drive Green for Life” program, as it’s being called, involves mounting solar panels on a customer’s home.
These panels wouldn’t be used just to charge the Focus itself, however. They actually help offset the cost… → Read More
You may recall that back in April, Postagram launched as a way to transform your Instagrams into physical picture postcards and deliver them for $0.99. A few month later, PopBooth launched as a way to use your iPhone/iPad as a photo booth complete with the picture print outs. These apps, while great themselves, were tests for Sincerely’s platform. A platform which today they’re opening to all iOS… → Read More
doubleTwist, the slick media player for Android, is growing. A lot.
Last February we reported that the application had passed a major milestone, drawing one million users per month between its mobile and desktop applications.
Today, the company is sharing a much bigger number: they’re getting 1 million users per day between doubleTwist on Android phones and tablets.
Now, obviously this… → Read More
Adam Penenberg aka The Man Who Took Down Stephen Glass decided to write about Serv.io, a crowdsourcing content farm that allows publishers to request articles for quick publication. They call it “content engineering,” which does not bode well for my job since I have a MA and not an MSc.
The resulting article, written with tongue firmly in cheek is an excellent example of the dangers of “content… → Read More
Google has taken to its public blog this morning to talk about the company’s focus on building greener, more sustainable workplaces for its employees. The company is involved in several green initiatives, including energy and water audits, the use of green building materials, and competitive programs that pit teams against each other to become the greener office.
In addition, Google says that… → Read More
Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the Droid HD. The previously unseen handset was known to be floating around, thanks to its EXIF data making a quick appearance on Flickr, but the Droid HD is ready for a bit of spotlight.
The Droid Bionic has been enjoying its share of attention for months now, even as its release date keeps getting pushed further and further back. Now that we have a good handle on… → Read More
The folks at Makerbot made a bust of Stephen Colbert and gave him a copy when they appeared on his show a month or so ago. Not content to let it just moulder in the shop, they decided to attach it to a weather balloon and send it up over Long Island. The resulting video and images are striking: the Great Eagle himself in flight high over the salty waves of the Atlantic, overtopping the great… → Read More
A new report put out today by PricewaterhouseCoopers lays out the tech M&A landscape. Technology deals totaled $26 billion in the second quarter of 2011, slightly down from the $26.6 billion worth of deals in the first quarter, but up 6.7 percent from the same quarter a year ago. These numbers include only deals closed in the quarter like Qualcomm’s $3.5 billion acquisition of Atheros… → Read More
Skype just launched a new iOS application that lets users locate Wi-Fi hotspots where they can pay for access using Skype Credit. It currently supports over 1 million hotspots worldwide, including those found in hotels, airports, train stations, convention centers, bars and restaurants. The advantage of using this app over buying a voucher directly with the hotspot service provider is that you… → Read More
While Verizon didn’t flat-out advocate the proposed Googorola deal, the company was the first U.S. carrier to comment on the merger, saying it welcomed the possibility that these patent disputes might calm down, reports the Wall Street Journal. Apple and others have been on a war path lately, aiming to dismantle Android by attacking major Android OEMs like HTC and Samsung.
With Motorola’s… → Read More
Former MySpace VP Ryan Sit is trying to recreate the types of social interactions people engage in while shopping at the mall with friends. Of course, shopping online is a different matter, but with Facebook becoming more of an e-commerce destination, social shopping could take off. Sit has launched his own shopping mall of sorts, called the TheStyleCure.
The startup lists over 1 million… → Read More
MileWise is a new search engine designed for frequent fliers that helps you find flights you can pay for using cash, airline miles or hotel and credit card points. The startup lets users track their air miles and rewards programs points in one single interface, then leverages that information to suggest which flights offer the most value.
Unlike on other flight search engines where flights can… → Read More
The BlackBerry Bold 9900 just hit T-Mobile shelves, but wait just a second before you bolt to run and grab one. The handset from RIM is launching for business customers only until August 31, at which point the rest of us can get our BBM on. Of course, BlackBerries are built with the enterprise in mind, so it kind of makes sense that suits would get first dibs. Then again, RIM isn’t necessarily… → Read More
For a mere $50 you, too, can own a small, iPhone-controlled helicopter made by a company that has been traditionally known for selling phone cases.
Like Parrot before them, Griffin is branching out from its traditional product line and offering this small dual-rotor helicopter that is, in general, controlled via IR commands sent using a special dongle attached to the iPhone. There is full… → Read More
Social causes startup Jumo has been acquired by GOOD, the publisher of a website and magazine aimed at do-gooders. Jumo was founded by Chris Hughes, one of Facebook’s co-founders and a Harvard roommate of Mark Zuckerberg’s. Hughes left Facebook to run Obama’s Website and social media outreach during the 2008 Election. “GOOD acquired Jumo,” Hughes tells me, “and users will soon see a single… → Read More
A rocky financial climate isn’t stopping this IPO—Chinese online video site Tudou has started trading on the NASDAQ this morning under the symbol ‘TUDO.’ Last night, Tudou priced its shares $29 a piece, raising $174 million in the offering. This morning, Tudou opened 13 percent below its pricing at $25.11 per share, giving the company a valuation of $2.8 billion (as opposed to $3.2 billion at… → Read More
Reports are trickling into to our tipline that Ooma, a popular VOIP service, is currently experiencing major network issues. Currently, Ooma’s phone service seems offline nationwide, and their website and support forums are working sporadically if at all.
Some users (mostly in California) are reporting that their service is returning, but right now, it would appear that a majority of… → Read More
Alice Taylor, CEO of Makielab and wife of BoingBoing’s Cory Doctorow, took a nice snapshot of a anorexic mannequin in an “Always Skinny” display at the Gap. The mannequin is clearly emaciated and, skinny tights or no, probably should get some help. Alice snapped a picture, Cory posted it, all was right with the world.
The Daily Mail’s blogger, one Ariel Ramerez, asked if they could use the… → Read More
Following up on yesterday’s 20 Years of Linux, the Linux Foundation is releasing today an infographic highlighting some of the remarkable changes in Linux and the larger computer industry over the last twenty years. The Linux kernel had 250,000 lines of code in 1995, but had 14 million lines of code in 2010. Linux users are using it increasingly at home and at work today, rather than just at… → Read More
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