Hope you’ve got some popcorn and a German law book at the ready because this back-and-forth between Apple and Samsung only gets better and better. Today, the preliminary injunction banning Samsung from selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the EU has been partially lifted. Now before you jump to the same conclusions I did, let me say that this suspension has nothing to do with the false evidence… → Read More
Matt Richardson created a wild Arduino system that mutes a TV whenever a name or other keyword is broadcast on TV. It uses the closed caption track and an IR blaster to grab what’s currently playing and then mute the TV for 30 seconds – or more – depending on the current topic.
The project uses the Video Experimenter Shield, Lady Ada’s IR tutorial, and some basic code to scan the captions for… → Read More
Over the past year or so, I’ve noticed a surge in new, scrappy education startups. One of the most promising ones I’ve seen is ShowMe, previously called Easel Learning. The New York City startup just raised an $800,000 seed round from Lerer Ventures, SV Angel, betaworks, Learn Capital, BOLDstart, and angel investor Naval Ravikant. The company is hiring.
ShowMe turns your tablet computer into… → Read More
According to a new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the consumption of energy from renewable sources recently topped both the current and the historical consumption levels for nuclear energy. The shift was immediately caused by nuclear outages that coincided with the high-water season for hydropower generation.
But there’s a long-term upward trend in renewables… → Read More
As a supporter of the vibratory arts, I find the CKIE Duet to be a fairly unique self-pleasuring device. To be clear, it’s not available for sale yet and instead is being sold using a sort of Kickstarter-esque donation system. $75 gets you a “quiet, USB rechargeable, waterproof, multi-speed vibe” while $125 scores you – and I’m not making this up – a model with 8GB onboard storage. → Read More
Google Ventures-backed LawPivot is blending a Q&A platform with legal advice for businesses, and allows technology companies and startups to confidentially ask legal questions to expert attorneys. But until now, LawPivot has kept the legal communications on its site private, so that only the lawyer and business can access this information. Today, the startup is releasing a public-facing… → Read More
Battlefield 3 just got a bit more real. Jets! Robots! 64-player multiplayer! I can’t wait. John Biggs on the other hand is an old man. As seen in the TechCrunch staff chatroom,
John B.
i stick by what i said at e3
if we put as much effort into curing anal cancer as we do into Battlefield 3 we’d be a better species → Read More
Over the last few years, the music industry has endured some serious growing pains. And while the industry still wears its new digital outfit like an ill-fitting coat made of cassettes, I, for one, love hearing about young startups that are trying to make the music industry a better (and more modern) place to hang out and do business. While digital media have given bands access to a wider audience… → Read More
For lack of a better term, Apple has been more than a little litigation-happy lately. While they’ve focused most of their recent efforts on Samsung and Motorola, Apple is now coming under fire from a company they’ve already sued: HTC. → Read More
GetchaBooks, founded by three youngsters (two who are still undergrads at Tufts), has just announced an expanded and improved database of classes and books, pushing the number of schools available in their unique interface from 600 to 1,275.
GetchaBooks is different from other services like Chegg and Textbooks.com in that the search system is centered around courses. Rather than typing in… → Read More
Samsung’s pants are officially ablaze as reports have surfaced that Samsung did know about Apple’s injunction complaint and had even filed a “Schutzschrift.” In English, that’s a protective pleading, and it was filed almost a week before Apple filed its injunction on August 4.
Yet, I seem to recall Samsung saying “The request for injunction was filed with no notice to Samsung, and… → Read More
You’d be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t think of YouTube as an Internet giant. After all, each viral hit is emblazoned with a big, bold counter racking up the millions — or tens of millions — of hits it’s received, and you could waste lifetimes clicking on an endless stream of cat videos if you wanted to.
But even then, it’s hard not to be taken aback by some of the statistics… → Read More
After analyzing a data set of over 57 million purchases across both the Android and iOS platforms, analytics firm Flurry discovered that mobile gamers appear to be spending the majority of their money on “consumable” virtual goods. That is, virtual goods that are depleted when used, like a a set of grenades in a war game, or a fertilizer that helps crops grow faster in a farming game.
Less… → Read More
Tired of waiting for AT&T to launch their first LTE devices? Yeah — so is AT&T, it would seem. So much so, in fact, that they’re prepping to launch their first LTE devices early next week… before their LTE network is even officially fired up. → Read More
HP stated from the start that it planned on putting webOS in more than just smartphones and tablets. It foresaw a time when webOS would run printers, netbooks, and the world! Well, the time has come. HP is looking to grow the webOS base and expand into the world of major appliances and automotive.
HP invested $1.2 billion into Palm last year and from an outsider’s standpoint, it’s hard to view… → Read More
Windows Phone Mango is already primed and ready to compete with iOS and Android, but that doesn’t mean Microsoft is resting on its laurels. Quite the opposite actually.
As anticipation builds, Microsoft continues to add features to make this platform even better than what was expected. Today, the company added a handful of new features to the Games Hub, along with the announcement of 14 new… → Read More
Groupchat.tv is a new Facebook application that brings a Google Hangouts-like group video chatting experience to Facebook. The app was created over the course of the weekend, during the HAPI hackathon in San Francisco, by the same folks who run e-commerce site TinyPay.me.
And here’s the crazy part – Groupchat.tv supports up to 50 video streams at the same time! → Read More
Edmonton-based Empire Avenue, the stock market for social influence, announced today that it has raised $1.2 million in series A seed financing. The round was led by San Francisco VC firm Crosslink Capital, with contributions from iNovia Capital, TriplePoint Capital (which incubated Empire Avenue in Silicon Valley), as well as BioWare co-founders Drs. Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, among others. → Read More
It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly three years since Swype first made a splash at TechCrunch 50, and since then it’s quickly popped up on handset after handset. Easily one of the most popular alternative input methods out there, Swype has announced today a special agreement for users of the Sprint Nexus S 4G: you bring the hardware, they’ll bring the latest version of Swype.
While the… → Read More
Shuffler.fm, an online Web application for music discovery, received a major update today. Now users can play mixes of their favorite blogs, browse the Web’s most popular songs and artists, create personalized channels and more.
But what has us even more excited is the upcoming Shuffler.fm iPad application, which provides a visual way to explore new music, optimized for the touchscreen… → Read More
It seems that every day another company in the tech industry hits an important milestone, but the one achieved today by Kontagent, the social analytics platform for app developers, is pretty impressive. The fbFund winner is now tracking over 150 million monthly active users (MAUs) and is handling over 1 billion messages per day. Broken down, that’s 15,000+ messages per second, or more than twice… → Read More
About.com’s Calorie Count iPhone app is getting a nifty upgrade today, with the addition of voice recognition technology to the dieting app (courtesy of iSpeech). The newest version of the app allows users vocally record food choices, and then search the app’s database to pull nutritional information from more than 250,000 choices.
The apps, which has more than 2.9 million users, allows user… → Read More
Socialware, which helps companies manage compiance with social media and sales, has raised $7 million in Series C funding led by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital. Earlier this year, the startup raised $3 million from FLOODGATE, G-51 Capital and Silverton Partners. To date, Socialware has raised $12 million.
Socialware provides the technology and social networking compliance tools to enable the… → Read More
Acquia, a commercial open source software company that provides products, services, and technical support for the Drupal social publishing system, is expanding its product portfolio with the acquisitions of Cyrve, a provider of Drupal migration services, and Growing Venture Solutions, a provider of Drupal security services.
Terms of the acquisitions were not disclosed. → Read More
Groupon rival BuyWithMe has acquired Scoop St., a social commerce company focused on the New York City market. Scoop St. was founded in 2009 and grew organically in the group buying space, using a model similar to Groupon.
On Scoop St., one-time deals, called “Scoops,” were only made available when a large enough group of people were interested. The company also introduced unique features… → Read More
Netflix has just announced a “kids-only” section of their online service dedicated to titles – you guessed it – just 4 kidz! This allows children to pick movies with a parent or caregiver without fear that they’ll see Asia Argento’s backside in Boarding Gate next to Babe: Pig In The City in the recommended movies listing. It also simplifies the browsing process by removing the cruft usually… → Read More
T-Mobile is working hard to grow its pre-paid service. Two weeks ago, the pink carrier signed a deal with 7-Eleven to sell the GS170 flip phone in its convenient stores. As the transition away from Radio Shack continues, the carrier has added another retailer to its list of handset outlets: Family Dollar. → Read More
LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner explained on the company’s first earnings call a few weeks ago that the company is planning to make a big investment in its mobile strategy. Today, the professional social network is bringing a significant update to its mobile apps, including a new iPhone, Android and mobile web apps.
LinkedIn Mobile is growing 400% year-over-year in terms of users, and LinkedIn says… → Read More
Robbie Bach, 22 year veteran of Microsoft and most recently the company’s Xbox division, has moved to Sonos. Sonos head John MacFarlane pulled Bach out of semi-retirement in order to help with their retail presence.
Sonos makes audio sharing devices for the home, creating seamless soundscapes in multiple rooms using hardware that, for the most part, surpasses a standard set of bookshelf… → Read More
HTC is prepping its first Honeycomb tab for release. Previous rumors placed the Puccini hitting the shelves sometime at the end of August or early September. That seems slightly more likely per a new report that states “late Q3 or early Q4.” But the question remains, does the market need another Honeycomb tablet, even one as powerful as the Puccini, when Ice Cream Sandwich is right around the… → Read More
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