AOL (which, in case you didn’t know, has been the owner of TechCrunch for almost a year now) has announced that its board of directors has given the green light for a stock repurchase program that will allow the company to buy back up to $250 million of its outstanding shares of common stock from time to time over the next 12 months.
The move comes after AOL’s stock took a gigantic nosedive… → Read More
With riots and looting breaking out all over London earlier this week, media outlets have been poring over how the violence spread. We were amongst the first to identify the BlackBerry mobile handset and its unique, private Blackberry Messaging service (BBM) as a method whereby rioters and looters, many of them teenagers, broadcast and swapped information in a way that effectively crowd-sourced… → Read More
We spent quite a few posts in the last months covering a patent dispute between LG and Sony over four Blu-ray-related functions used in the PS3. The lawsuits affected sales of the console in the US and Europe in spring this year, and they came right after Sony brought a patent infringement claim (regarding cell phones) against LG to the U.S. International Trade Commission in late 2010. → Read More
Here are some recent stories on TechCrunch Gadgets: → Read More
Just last week, Hitachi decided to pull the plug on their domestic TV production business by year-end, but that doesn’t mean the company doesn’t go out with a bang. A total of six Hitachi Wooo TVs were announced [JP] in Japan today, with the 50-inch 3D model P50-GP08 stealing the show. → Read More
Cat, meet the outside of the bag.
You know that “major announcement” that HTC has scheduled for tomorrow morning? The details have just made their way out a bit early. → Read More
Intel Capital, the investment arm of chip giant Intel Corporation, has announced a $300 Million Ultrabook Fund to fund technologies that will help deliver new and enhanced user experiences, longer battery life and slim component and platform technologies in personal computing.
Earlier this year, Intel pitched a new category of laptops, Ultrabooks, which are supposed have three distinct… → Read More
TechCrunch Disrupt finalist Voxy is announcing new Series A investment today, $2.8 million dollars from investors Seavest Inc and Contour Ventures. Relatively new investor Seavest recently had another education-related portfolio company, Schoolnet, sell for $230 million to education publisher Pearson. → Read More
When Showyou first launched last April, we noted that it was sort of like a Flipboard for video content. A new update out today kicks it up a notch by making things more visually appealing while adding more content and making it easier to find.
Version 2.0 of Showyou features a redesigned iPad UI that is really fantastic looking. The grid-like look existed before, but now it’s smoother and… → Read More
We’ve seen hacks for the Kinect from the very start, and even some that suggested one like this might be possible: a Kinect being moved around like a camera, recording the depth of everything it sees and building up a full-3D map of the room and every object in it. They call it KinectFusion, and it’s really quite fascinating to watch.
The position of the camera is constantly tracked by… → Read More
The word is out, folks: HTC CEO Peter Chou has something big on the books for tomorrow. A live teleconference is scheduled for at 8:30 PT/11:30 ET, and while the email making the rounds offers no insight, you can rest easy knowing that people will be speculating the night away. Personally, given the email’s reliance on the word “major,” I’d expect the announcement to be more than your just your… → Read More
Launching officially to the public today is a new venture called MediaCore, brought to you by Damien Tanner and Stuart Bowness, the former of whom was responsible for Pusher, a solution that adds realtime tech to apps that was funded by the Heroku guys, among others, back in June.
Tanner and Bowness are launching MediaCore to provide any old small business with the ability to roll out their… → Read More
Facebook has responded to a privacy scare meme likely deriving from a recent HackerNews thread called “Facebook has your complete phonebook” both with an official post on Facebook’s Wall and a personal message from a Facebook Messenger engineer Ben Gertzfield on HackerNews. → Read More
Today’s tidbit of Tango news comes not from the far-flung Asian shores it is expected to storm, but rather the small, landlocked nation of Slovakia. As it turns out, the first Tango device has gone on sale, but probably not the one you were hoping for.
A photo has gone up on Pretaktovanie.sk’s Facebook page advertising a HTC HD7 for sale with three choices of software: 7.0.7392, 7.10.7720… → Read More
Since its inception, content on Twitter has largely been displayed in the same basic manner. That is a linear, reverse chronological stream of Tweets. Two new sections being added to the service are about to change that.
Specifically, the “@Mentions” tab on twitter.com is being replaced by two new tabs: “@USERNAME” and “Activity”. These two streams will add an additional layer to Twitter and… → Read More
During its grinding transition into the digital era, the publishing industry has been grasping at straws to find ways to evolve its revenue models. Even as time marches on, publishing companies by and large, continue to struggle with how to most effectively monetize their content and add supplementary (or even primary) revenue streams. JungleCents, the Mark Cuban-backed startup, is ushering men’s… → Read More
After more than a year of uncertainty, the case of the stolen iPhone 4 has been brought to something like a conclusion. San Mateo County Assistant District Attorney Morley Pitt announced that charges would not be filed against Gizmodo’s Jason Chen, whose liberty has been in question since the police raided his house shortly after the alleged theft.
Pitt said that “it is a very gray area,” but… → Read More
Alternative banking service BankSimple has just announced $10 million in funding from IA Ventures and Shasta Ventures. This Series B round will join the $3 million in Series A and seed that the startup saw from investors including First Round Capital, IA , Village Ventures, SV Angel and others. → Read More
Premium video streaming site Hulu has just announced that it’s about to make its first international expansion: Japan.
Hulu is keeping mum on the details, but it sounds like it will only offer a premium subscription service (the US version of Hulu offers both premium and free content). The company now has an office in Tokyo and is working on preparing for launch “later this year” (again, no… → Read More
Starting today, Twitter will begin testing its link-wrapping feature which will automatically shorten all URL’s 20 characters long or greater into t.co-wrapped links. This test will affect a certain percentage of tweets posted publicly through the service, or sent out via direct message.
The tests are a “canary in the coal mine,” says Twitter – meaning an attempt to work out any issues with the… → Read More
Apparently TechCrunch HQ isn’t the only office that hates having to deal with coordinating lunch.
Today ZeroCater, a startup that looks to help make your office’s lunchtime as painless as possible by handling all of the logistics for you (see our past coverage), is announcing that it has raised $1.5 million.
This new round is in addition to earlier investments from Y Combinator and … → Read More
I’m sure many of our readers have come across a situation where they’d have liked USB to carry a bit more power to their devices. Your phone or iPod, charging ever-so-slowly, or perhaps an external drive that only works on “powered” USB ports — or must be plugged into a wall socket. A wall socket, in this day and age! I ask you!
Fortunately, the SuperSpeed USB group (or whatever shadowy… → Read More
I think we can all agree that one of the worst parts about buying a new gadget is the fact that it’s just one more thing we’ll have to charge, one more electrical socket we’ll have to free up, and one more charger to keep up with. But a new Kickstarter project aims to help deal with that. From a startup called Nice, I proudly introduce to you CableKeeps. → Read More
Verizon is preparing to launch an Android phone targeted towards women, the HTC Bliss. The device comes in a “pretty” seafoam-like green color, and will include a dangling charm that lights up when you have a missed call or new message.
Oh, and here’s the best part – the phone is also rumored to ship with special women-friendly apps, like a calorie counter and an app for shopping.
Groan. → Read More
We covered the PenMoto when it was still a gleam in its creator’s eye and, sadly, it was never completed as the designer, Kelvin Geis, cancelled it on Kickstarter. Well, friends, the PenMoto is back and it’s better than ever.
The new project involves the same pen mount product – a magnet holds your Wacom or drawing pen in place so you can use the keyboard and then flip it back into your hand… → Read More
Last August, we reported that Noah Everett, the founder of Twitter photo sharing site Twitpic, has launched a new site, called Heello. The site wasn’t open to the public yet, but a year later, it looks like the curtains have finally been drawn on Heello.
At first glance, it seems a lot like Twitter. You create a username, which is @’username’ and you can connect with Twitter and Facebook. You… → Read More
HDI makes high-end projectors and this $55,000, 300-inch 3D projector is one of their products. The projectors come in multiple styles and types (these are just renders) and each model number, the 120, 200 and 300, is related to the maximum screen size these puppies can project. At 55 bones these things had better give you an MRI as well. → Read More
If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it eleventy-four times. Mobile advertising is hot right now. U.S. mobile ad revenues, for example, are expected to hit $2.8 billion by 2015, says BIA/Kelsey, thanks largely to the the fact that 76.8 million Americans now own a smartphone.
This is all well and good, but the fact of the matter is that app developers still face a lot hurdles when it comes to… → Read More
Social marketing company SocialTwist announced today that it has now reached 100,000 websites, including those run by major brands like ConAgra Foods, P&G, Sara Lee, Barnes & Noble, Jamba Juice, Intel and others. The sites use SocialTwist’s enterprise-grade platform to identify and grow their audiences, including core brand influencers. Over the past 12 months, more than 4.8 million… → Read More
I’ve been meaning to write this post all week. But you know how things are – there is always something better to do, always something more fun, always one excuse or another to put it off. If you are like me and struggle to get things done, then David Allen might be your man. He’s the Mr-Getting-Things-Done of the self-help world, an efficiency guru with 1.3 million Twitter followers, best… → Read More
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