Foursquare has launched its Tip Lists features today, attempting to capitalize on people’s unending desire to create lists about locations, like Top Five Coffee Shops in SF, etc etc. Up until now your Foursquare Tips have sort of roamed free on the app, without rhyme or reason or real incentive to add more. Today the company is trying to improve on the Tips experience and get users to fancy… → Read More
Microsoft is officially putting their MS Reader system to bed. First made available in 2000, before e-ink readers were more than a twinkle in some materials researcher’s eye, the application was intended for the consumption of e-books on LCD screens, using Microsoft’s ClearType font smoothing and a relatively compact, familiar format.
The .lit filetype and Reader application have only been… → Read More
I believe Larry Page when he says that Google started looking at Motorola for its patent portfolio and then decided that there was no reason not to buy the whole company. Hey, the $12.5 billion price tag is less than a third of Google’s cash on hand.
But one of the best bonuses from the deal for Google is that it might well spur Microsoft to buy Nokia or RIM. That would doubtless destroy… → Read More
So, we’re looking for sponsors for various activities aimed at the tech startup community. If any of these take your interest, feel free to email mike AT mbites.com to discuss. The Europas The Europas, the European Startup Awards, were last held in London in December 2010, the second awards ever. It was the culmination of a month of online voting by the European tech startup industry for the… → Read More
HTC has spent the past few weeks hinting and teasing us with the availability of their bootloader unlock tool, but at long last the wait is over. If you own an international HTC Sensation, then congratulations: you’re free to mosey over to HTC Dev to get your fix. → Read More
Last week the Apple-Samsung patent brawl took a serious turn after Apple won a preliminary injunction banning sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 throughout the European Union, excluding the Netherlands. As we noted, Samsung had no idea any of this was happening until after the injunction had been issued, as is standard procedure in the German court system. Had the South Korea-based company known, they… → Read More
“So did you ever kill anyone?” I asked Ryan Blair, a former Los Angeles gang member who is now a successful serial entrepreneur and author of the new best-selling autobiography Nothing to Lose: How I Went From Gang Member To Multimillionaire Entrepreneur.
“No,” he answered, of course. But while Blair might not have killed anyone, he has certainly made a killing as an entrepreneur –… → Read More
It was less than three months ago that Jake Winebaum (the same guy who sold Business.com for $360 million) quietly launched Brighter.com, an online marketplace for discounted dental care. As Erick Schonfeld wrote at the time, Americans pay an estimated $55 billion out of pocket each year on dental bills. Dental plans, like their healthcare brethren, tend to take sizable bites out of our wallets… → Read More
It’s not exactly Googorola-sized news, but I just noticed that Google has very recently gained ownership over the domain Android.me (not worth linking as it is currently not in use – yet?).
Now, Google may have simply asked – or forced – the former owner to transfer ownership of the catchy domain name, so it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to launch a product by that name (besides… → Read More
Security researchers at Trend Micro have discovered a new mobile malware application on Android that disguises itself as a Google+ app. The app has the capability to record phone calls, as well as gather the GPS location of the handset, the text messages and the call logs, all of which are sent off to remote servers.
The app installs itself on Android devices under the guise of being a Google+… → Read More
Nestled in a field 290 miles northeast of San Francisco, the Allen Telescope Array has been dormant since budget cuts forced the SETI Institute to take the facility offline last April. Instead of continuing the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, the array’s 42 radio telescopes now dot the landscape like strange ruins of a lost civilization.
That was the case, at least, until the SETI… → Read More
Qualcomm. You’ve probably heard of them. Hell, chances are pretty solid that you’ve got a bit of Qualcomm in your pocket right now — if you’ve got any recent, popular Android phone in there, at least. More-likely-than-not, it’s running on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipset.
Qualcomm has been up to all sorts of fun stuff lately: they’ve got an SDK that makes it feasible for just about any developer… → Read More
The market is trying to make sense of Google’s $12.5 billion agreement to buy Motorola Mobility. (Google shares are down 2.8 percent in midday trading to $548, while Motorola shares are up nearly 60 percent.) Citi analyst Mark Mahaney, for one, thinks it is a “defensive” move.
In a research note he put out today after the announcement, Mahaney takes a skeptical view of the all-cash deal. … → Read More
The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) is today calling on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to withdraw its controversial plan for new top-level domains. ICANN’s plan would significantly expand Top-Level Domains, allowing companies and brands to register just about any word they want as a top level domain (TLD).
That means in addition to traditional TLDs like .com… → Read More
Google’s purchase of Motorola Mobility is, in the end, a mercenary effort to cement Android’s position in the handset ecosystem and to prop up a stalwart proponent of the platform. That’s fine. Google is a big company and it can now pick and choose – and buy – its own friends without input from the peanut gallery. But what does a Googorola merger mean?
First, we must understand that this is not… → Read More
One of the burning questions we all have after hearing this morning’s news of Google’s $12.5 billion bid for Motorola Mobility is: what does this mean for the next Nexus device?
Will Google leverage its acquisition to build Android phones that look and function exactly how Google wants them to, a move that would postion the company to compete more directly with Apple? Or will it continue to… → Read More
Yep. Angry Birds are officially in the public consciousness. It’s part of the world’s culture now. Nothing proves that more than these official Angry Birds mooncakes. There’s simply no escaping the onslaught of flying birds — even though the game is tired and played-out.
The likely tasty pies are part of Rovio’s new merchandise announced for the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. The gaming company… → Read More
Here’s some amazing tech from Japan: Tokyo-based Mebiol is working on an membrane–based plant cultivation technology called Imec that makes it possible to let plants grow on thin film instead of soil. The film is made of a water-absorbent material called hydrogel and is just “tens of microns” thick. → Read More
Eli Goldberg emails us. He writes:
“If you’re ever having a slow news day, you might be able to do something funny with this.
It’s the instructions I received in summer 1996 when starting at Apple explaining how to employees how use a Netscape web browser to obtain our benefits information, including how to use a web browser’s back button.”
Dear Eli, there’s no such thing as a slow news… → Read More
Mobile computing is more realtime than desktop computing. That’s just obvious. Typically when you are on the go, you want to know what is going on right now around you. The Pew Internet research project put out a new survey today that quantifies how many people rely on their mobile phones for realtime information. In the past month, 51 percent of U.S. adult cell phone owners have used their… → Read More
AT&T’s legal team probably didn’t have too restful a weekend. On Friday afternoon, the legal firm accidentally posted a partially redacted letter to the FCC revealing the original cost of its planned LTE build-out at $3.8 billion. That’s quite a difference from the $39 billion it would cost to achieve the same goal through a T-Mo acquisition, and many found the revelation incredibly… → Read More
Namaste, a games startup which is poised for launch, is building a platform called StoryBricks to enable casual users to create their own games and share them on social networks. The twist is that it’s not for professional game designers but users who want to create their own games. The company is understood to be be in discussions with several top VCs. → Read More
The buzz in photography circles this past weekend was a post by Thomas Hawk declaring “Flickr is Dead.” It’s not the first time we’ve heard this attention-grabbing headline. By the numbers, it’s hard to call a photo sharing site with more than 5 billion photos “dead” just yet, and Hawk admits it will take time. But, Yahoo-owned Flickr is facing increasing competition and influential… → Read More
Jim Zemlin, executive director of the non-profit Linux Foundation, has been using Linux for about as long as I have, which is roughly half the time that Linux has been around. I recently spoke with Jim about the Linux Foundation’s upcoming LinuxCon, the history of Linux, and what might be in store for the next twenty years. → Read More
Google‘s stock price isn’t really going anywhere yet, while the market digests the news that the company is to acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in cash (it dropped about 2 percent on market open but actually topped Friday close level for a while afterwards).
Motorola Mobility shares, meanwhile, soared close to 60 percent to $38.30. Google’s offer price is $40 a share, a 63 percent… → Read More
Just in time for back-to-school season, Amazon has launched a new iPhone application targeted towards students. With the “Amazon Student” app, college students can perform instant price checks on textbooks and other items, keep lists of items they want to buy, and post used textbooks, games, movies, or gadgets for trade-in. → Read More
Considering that current forecasts estimate that as many as 8 trillion text messages will be sent in 2011, and that people are increasingly turning away from landlines in preference to mobile communication, SMS is becoming an increasingly important part of a business’ communication strategies. And this is especially relevant when it comes to customer service.
As businesses move to incorporate… → Read More
Apple is gearing up for a big second half of 2011. The computer company is reportedly ramping up iPhone production lines by 12 to 13 percent, which includes orders for the next-gen iPhone, iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 4.
Per a supply chain source, industry watchdog DigiTimes is reporting some staggering production numbers. Apparently Apple’s 2H2011 iPhone order is now more than 56 million units… → Read More
Last week, a leaked Sprint flyer indicated a $249 price-point for the BlackBerry Bold 9930. Though Sprint’s iteration likely won’t land for another week or so (August 21), Verizon is ready to release its BlackBerry Bold flagship to the world, starting today.
Just like at Sprint, the handset will cost $249 with a two-year agreement. → Read More
Google’s surprise $12.5 billion bid for Motorola Mobility this morning is a bold attempt to move the needle for Google on several fronts. Google is going all in, dipping into its $39 billion of cash to make its biggest acquisition ever. The deal signals that mobile will be one of Google’s main growth drivers and that growth will come from entering new markets, specifically mobile hardware. With… → Read More
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