If ever there was an audience for a silver and neon green laptop, kids would be it (and also maybe people who like lime green a lot). That said, Toshiba has just launched its updated kid-friendly laptop: the Satellite L735D.
Toshiba and Best Buy worked on this one together, and did quite a bit of research to make sure that the little ones were getting what they wanted. Which was a lot of silver and neon green. → Read More
Looks like the HD7 won’t be the only Windows Phone on T-Mobile’s shelves for much longer. Right on the heels of yesterday big smartphone announcement, T-Mobile has pulled back the curtains on the newest Windows Phone in their lineup: the HTC Radar 4G.
The Radar was one of two Windows Phones revealed at IFA by HTC, and while AT&T made sure to snag the big boy, the Radar is no slouch. It sports a rather handsome white aluminum body, while a 3.8-inch LCD display running at 800×480 graces the Radar’s front. → Read More
Kobo has been cultivating their Reading Life initiative for a while now, and with the announcement of their new Pulse feature, they’re digging even deeper into the social space than before. Slated to launch in their Kobo iOS apps first, Pulse is a new way for readers to connect with others while digitally thumbing through their collections.
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Last week, OnStar made some changes to its terms of service which were almost universally recognized as being overreaching and unnecessary. The two primary changes were, first, that OnStar would continue to track subscribers who had terminated their service. They could ask to have their data connection severed in addition to unsubscribing, but why should they have to? Second, OnStar gave itself the ability to share or sell anonymized driving data to “any third party,” “for any purpose, at any time.”
Faced with a flurry of criticism from users, sites like this one, and even Congress, OnStar has gone back on at least one of the changes. → Read More
We’ve written plenty of times about Shopkick, a geo-coupon system that has received funding from Kleiner Perkins, Greylock, SV Angel and others. Today, the company is revealing a number of impressive stats about its service.
Instead of checking in, as you would with a geo app like Foursquare or Gowalla, shopkick automatically recognizes when someone with the free Android or iPhone app on their phone walks into a store. Once a shopkick Signal is detected, the app delivers reward points called “kickbucks” to the user for walking into a retail store, trying on clothes, scanning a barcode and other actions. Kickbucks can then be redeemed across all partner stores for gift card rewards or for Facebook Credits. User can also receive special discounts on specific products at partners stores like Macy’s, Best Buy or Target. → Read More
Skype’s updated iOS app is turning out to be a bit of a mixed bag. It manages to add a few useful new features, like Bluetooth headset support and in-call video stabilization, but one addition may have some users groaning: in-app advertising. → Read More
Microsoft promised just a few days back that the Windows Phone 7.5 update (otherwise known as “Mango”, because updates need funny little names now) would roll out “sometime in the next week or two” — and sure enough, said roll out has just begun.
As for who it’s rolling out to… that’s still a bit of a mystery. → Read More
With the launch of the Kindle Fire tomorrow, I thought it would be fun to write a little bit sci-fi and imagine what the publishing market will look like in the next ten or so years. I’m a strong proponent of the ebook and, as I’ve said again and again, I love books but they’re not going to make it past this decade, at least in most of the developed world.
As we well know, ebook sales are now outpacing hardback sales and publishers are now crowing ebook numbers alongside their traditional in-store sales numbers. Soon those in-store sales numbers will dwindle and disappear simply because there will be no stores – heavy readers, the folks who buy genre fiction by the basket-full will be happy to head over to Nooks and Kindles, especially when they drop below $99 (as they will this year). → Read More
WordPress theme provider WooThemes is launching a new service today called WooCommerce, which lets users install a plugin on their WordPress site in order to turn that site into a professional e-commerce storefront. The system includes a plugin and the company’s theme library, while also offering multiple payment gateway options, settings for configuring shipping rates, coupon support, email templates, a reports panel to track sales and performance and more. → Read More
We first wrote about a service called 1000memories back in July 2010. The site was setting out to address a topic that people don’t like to talk about, but is universal all the same: when people pass away, their friends and family members like to remember them and celebrate their memories. That can be difficult though — these people are often separated by great distances, and it’s hard to share antique photos with a lot of people. So 1000memories created a service for digital memorials, where all of these friends and family members can upload their photos and share their favorite memories in a single place.
Now, over a year later, 1000memories is changing things up a bit. Don’t worry, those digital memorials are still a core feature of the site, and all of the memorials that have been created aren’t going anywhere. But the service is adjusting to better cater to the way its users are actually using it. In short, they’re making it a place to share all kinds of digital memories, not just those that concern the recent passing of a loved one.
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The latest report from mobile analytics firm Distimo examines in detail the trends surrounding the localization of mobile applications. That is, which app stores tend to have a higher or lower number of apps that are published in just one country alone.
According to its findings, globally, 27% of the most popular applications are popular exclusively in one country in Apple’s App Store for iPhone. Meanwhile, Nokia’s Ovi Store has the highest proportion of apps published in just one country (29.4%) while the App Store for iPad has the lowest (3.4%). → Read More
Xobni always was a clever name (it’s Inbox backwards), but perhaps it was too clever. Today, the startup that tries to make your email smarter is rebranding its newer products Smartr and launching them out of private beta for Android and Gmail.
These products have been in private beta for several months. The Android app takes over your address book on your phone. It ranks contacts by importance and how often you communicate with them instead of alphabetically. Since it is all managed in the cloud, it can handle thousands of contacts. Different tabs show you contact details, that contact’s recent social feeds, your relationship history, and other contacts you share in common. → Read More
Sprint is clearly in a tough spot. It’s been a step behind in getting the iPhone which should be remedied soon, but the yellow carrier is also facing a mega-merger between AT&T and T-Mobile that would drop it way below the competition.
The good news, however, is that it looks like Sprint has a plan, a piece of which involves the deployment of its 4G LTE network in early 2012. → Read More
It’s finally confirmed: Apple’s next event will be held on October 4. And they’re not even being coy about the topic — the invite says, “Let’s talk iPhone”.
In typical Apple fashion the invite is cleverly presented: The date is indicated as part of the iOS calendar app, the time by the clock, and the location (it’s being held at Apple’s campus) by the Maps icon.
Rumors have been swirling about the launch date of the next iPhone, with plenty of speculation that it might be released in September, or maybe announced in September and then released in October, or perhaps that it would be an all-October deal (never before have I seen such earnest debate over calendar dates). The October 4 date was first reported by AllThingsD last week. → Read More
I wasn’t much for playing with toy cars as a kid — you’d have found me parked in front of a Sega Genesis, if anything — but I suspect Disney Mobile’s new line of Appmate iPad peripherals would have been just the thing to change my mind. → Read More
Yesware, a startup that helps track email and improve productivity for salespeople, has raised $1 million in funding from Google Ventures, Foundry Group and other investors.
Yesware is a suite of productivity services that work where salespeople do – in their email and on their phones. The application is available for Gmail and smartphones and provides email analytics, customizable templates and CRM integration to help salespeople close more deals faster. Yesware works in conjunction with a number of popular CRM platforms including Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle CRM, Highrise and others.
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When social music startup Rexly launched at Disrupt NYC last May, we called it the social music discovery app that Ping should have been. It shows you what your friends are listening to on iTunes, but filters the stream in an attempt to surface the best stuff. Up until now, you had to log into Rexly’s site to experience it. But today it is releasing its iPhone app, Music With Friends, which takes over your iPod player and incorporates all sorts of social features.
As you listen to the songs and playlists on your iPhone, Rexly scrobbles them and they show up in a feed that your friends can see. Similarly, you can see a feed of all the songs your friends are listening to who use Rexly, or the most popular songs overall. But instead of just spitting out an unfiltered stream of the ost recent songs in your feed (although you can see that too), the default filter is Rexly’s “magic” stream. It shows you songs from friends or other people you are following you’ve designated as super trustworthy in regards to their musical taste. → Read More
Peak Games, a social gaming company that designs titles that target emerging markets in Turkey, the Middle East, North Africa, and South America, is making some significant announcements today, including acquisitions, partnerships, funding, and snapshot of the company’s continuing growth.
For starters, the company announced today that it has closed an $11.5 million series B round of funding, led by existing European venture investors Earlybird Venture Capital and Hummingbird Ventures. This latest infusion of capital brings the startup’s total investment to $19 million. According to the Peak Games team, the round will be used to continue expanding into emerging markets, to complete game studio acquisitions, and ramp up hiring and user acquisition. → Read More
Pandora, LinkedIn, Box.net and many others are moving to HTML5 to give users a cross-platform, rich media experience. The latest to participate in this tend is SlideShare, a sharing platform for business documents, videos and presentations.
SlideShare lets anyone share presentations and video and also serves as a social discovery platform for users to find relevant content and connect with other members who share similar interests. The company also has a huge enterprise following, and companies like IBM and others use the platform to curate content from all of their employees and partners on a branded page. → Read More
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