HTC’s Jetstream (nee Puccini) has been the stuff of rumors for weeks now, but AT&T has officially announced the 10.1 inch tablet this morning.
The Jetstream is HTC’s first to run Android 3.1 Honeycomb, complete with a version of the Sense UI specifically tweaked for the tablet’s larger form factor. A 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor powers the Jetstream, and it packs two cameras: an 8 MP shooter with dual LED flash on the rear, and a 1.3 MP front-facer mounted right over the 10.1 inch WXGA display. → Read More
Ford Motor Company and the leading car-sharing network Zipcar have just announced a partnership that establishes Ford as Zipcar’s largest auto source for Zipcar’s University program. The new, two-year alliance will reach students at over 250 university campuses here in the U.S.
Ford will start shipping its vehicles, primarily the 2012 Ford Focus and Ford Escape, to colleges starting this week.
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Samsung made it known at last night’s big announcement that they intended the Galaxy S II series to be more IT-friendly than its predecessor: improved Exchange support and on-device data encryption were just some of the highlights. This was apparently just the tip of the IT iceberg, as VMware has just announced a partnership with Samsung to integrate support for their View 5 and Horizon Mobile products to the GSII series and the Honeycomb-powered Galaxy Tabs. → Read More
IBM is announcing the acquisition of i2, a company that provides intelligence and investigation management software for law enforcement, defense, national security and private sector organizations. Financial terms were not disclosed.
With more than 4,500 customers in 150 countries, i2 is provides intelligence analytics for crime and fraud prevention in sectors such as banking, defense, health care, insurance, law enforcement, national security and retail. i2 solutions are currently used by 12 of the top 20 retail banks globally and eight of the top 10 largest companies in the world. → Read More
Marketing technology company Fiksu has released new data that shows a downward trend in mobile application installations on iPhone. The increase, in broad terms, is marginal, given the size of the iPhone’s user base, but any non-upward movement is curious.
Says Fiksu, there was a drop from 4.505 million iPhone app installs per day in June to 4.25 million app installations per day in July. → Read More
This whole system of two-year contracts and early termination fees is far and away the worst thing about owning and enjoying a smartphone. Granted, contracts reduce the actual price of the phone by quite a bit, but it’s still super annoying to sign on with some brand new superphone only to have some super-duper phone launch a few weeks later.
And if the contract itself wasn’t annoying enough, Sprint decides to raise its early termination fee by $150. → Read More
Striiv is launching a new device today that blends gaming, fitness, and more. The device itself is a little larger than an Apple Nano, and includes a high-resolution color screen. Striiv acts partly as a pedometer to track your activity and also allows you to play games, and use your activity to donate to charities.
The device, which you can attach to a keychain or to a belt, tracks simple daily interactions like walking, taking the stairs, or exercise, and each activity earns, tracks and transforms your activities into games and donations. With Striiv every step counts toward a donation to charity. At launch, Striiv is partnering with GlobalGiving to donate clean water to children in South America or a polio vaccine to a child in India. → Read More
The first round of ultrabooks are upon us. Acer and Asus are said to have several models ready for an IFA debut later this week, but Notebook Italia just located a product page for the Acer Ultrabook S3 that went up a bit premature and confirms that these next-gen notebooks, ultrabooks, will rock your socks. → Read More
Wikio Group, best known for operating the Wikio news engine, has secured $25 million in financing from investors and is changing its name to ebuzzing, an existing product in its portfolio.
Gimv, one of the main investment companies in Europe, is investing $14.5m, alongside existing shareholders and the founder, Pierre Chappaz. The idea is to become the leader in social media in Europe. What does that mean exactly? Well, Ebuzzing also owns Overblog, a leading blog platform in Europe with over 28 million unique visitors per month according to Comscore. Essentially all of Ebuzzing’s properties provide a route for marketers to promote their brands on social media, in particular via viral video. → Read More
RootMusic, the company behind BandPage, a platform that helps musicians make the most of their Facebook presence, has raised a Series B round of funding to the tune of $16 million after raising $2.3 million earlier this year.
The financing round was led by GGV Capital with new investor Northgate Capital and existing backer Mohr Davidow Ventures participating. → Read More
Epson announced [JP] the Colorio E-820 for the Japanese market today, a photo printer and wireless keyboard set somehow designed like a computer from the 1970s or 1990s (at least when looking at the top menu). The newest in a line of similar devices, this 5,760×1,440dpi inkjet printer is suitable for printing both pictures and postcards without a PC.
Users can create postcards by choosing between 1,055 different pre-set designs and use the 7-inch LCD screen (800×480 resolution) to check their works before printing them. The keyboard is for adding comments, greetings, etc. to the pictures and postcards. → Read More
Like a catwalk model pivoting on the runway, Garmz, a startup which allows upcoming fashion designers to cut out the traditional network of buyers and sell clothes straight to consumers, is today rebranding as Lookk and announcing new Seed investment.
Eden Ventures has taken the lead on the investment. Terms were undisclosed but sources say Eden went in for just over £500,000. Other Angels investors have joined the round including 500 Startups founder Dave McClure, Kima Ventures, and Angel investors Sherry Coutu, Richard Titus, Tom Hulme and Net-a-Porter founder Carmen Busquets. The startup is a former 2010 Seedcamp winner and took the standard £50,000 investment then. → Read More
Nokia this morning announced that Tero Ojanperä, former CTO and currently Executive Vice President and a member of the company’s ‘Leadership Team’, is leaving the flailing phone manufacturer at the end of this month, after serving Nokia for 21 years.
He will take on a new role as managing partner of a new investment fund called Vision+. Amusingly, Vision+ has already formed a deep partnership with Ojanperä’s former employer. → Read More
Yesterday, we reported about Sony, Hitachi and Toshiba planning to establish a joint venture for small and mid-size LCD panels in Japan. And today, the three companies, plus major shareholder Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, made the plan official.
As reported, the semi-public organization will control 70% of the venture (to be set up by the end of the year), with the other partners holding a 10% stake each. Tentatively named “Japan Display”, the venture will launch with a cool US$2.6 billion investment and instantly control 21.5% of the world market for small and medium-sized LCDs. → Read More
Here are some of yesterday’s stories on TechCrunch Gadgets: → Read More
Earlier this year, during CES 2011, Sony showcased a prototype of a wearable 3D display that looked much like those virtual reality helmets we’ve been seeing since the 1990s. And today, the company announced that it’s actually ready to start selling the OLED device, dubbed “Personal 3D Viewer”/ HMZ-T1, on November 11 – in Japan. → Read More
Everything’s candy and roses for Dropbox today as the company simultaneously breaks out the expensive champagne and whispers “no comment” to anyone asking about the news. No matter, though, I’m right here cheering them on, too. That’s just how I roll. High fives, all alone, but there in spirit.
Anyhow, all this reminiscing about the young days of Dropbox and I kept coming back to this one story. It happened about a year ago, at the Lobby Conference in Hawaii put on by August Capital. I’ve attended the conference each year and it’s a blast. But there’s one big rule – everything is off record – and if I break that rule I’ll get banned from the event. So I spend the weekend somewhat under utilized. I still collect information quietly but don’t say a word until I get back to the real world, and even then I’m hazy on whether or not my sources were drunk on Mai Tais at the time of disclosure. This is all true – just look back at the big stories I’ve broken in the week that follows the Lobby conference each year.
Anyway, back to Dropbox CEO Drew Houston. A bunch of us are out at dinner. I’m sitting between Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson having their first heart to heart after Jay resigned as CEO of Digg. Kevin ate most of the sushi before it got down to me, and Jay drank all the alcohol before it made its way to me. So I was sitting there hungry and thirsty and listening to some of the best content I’ve heard in a long while and I was thinking if a permanent ban from the conference was worth it if I could just sneakily pull out my video camera and get a clip of Jay telling Kevin what he could go do to himself. → Read More
Hot damn, I want one of those HP TouchPad tablets. Why? Because they’re sold out!
Perception of scarcity is a fascinating human condition. It’s one of the first things we learn as children – that running towards something is usually a guarantee that you won’t get it. But act like you don’t want something, and it’ll come running to you. The creation of the perception of scarcity is a winning, if shallow, tactic in most human relationships.
And finally HP has its day. In July HP couldn’t sell a TouchPad tablet despite having distribution deals with Best Buy and other major retailers. Apple had sucked all the oxygen out of the tablet market. HP offered its inferior product at the same price as the iPad. But consumers weren’t fooled. No one wants a Dodge at a Cadillac price. → Read More
Salesforce’s ‘social network for the enterprise’ Chatter has been the company’s first real foray into incorporating social with business functions. Salesforce originally announced Chatter back in November of 2009, and the application launched into public beta in June 2010 after four months in private beta. Salesforce has said publicly that Chatter has been its most successful product launch to date, even spending millions on a Super Bowl ad for Chatter. And recently Salesforce rolled out a new, more Facebook-like version and made the application free for users, with premium features as an optional add-on. And today, in conjunction with the company’s Dreamforce conference (the theme of which is the social enterprise); Salesforce is debuting a brand new Chatter complete with realtime chat, support for customer groups, a new API, and a brand new HTML5 mobile app.
As Al Falcione, Salesforce’s VP of Product Marketing, tells me there are three main components to a company’s strategy for social enterprise. First, the company has to develop a social customer profile, which captures a company’s likes on Facebook, Twitter communications, connections on LinkedIn and more. Basically, customers want social insight into the web presence of potential company they are working with.
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