Some forum-goers at Mobileread found evidence of something called Prime eBooks in the online Kindle code. Searching for images of the new Kindle Tablet, he instead found a variable describing something called PRIME_EBOOKS_COMPATIBLE.
There is also some text that will show up when trying to deleted a “loaned” book, specifically: → Read More
About a month ago, some additions to the code in Chromium (the open source browser behind Chrome) suggested that the long-fabled “GDrive” may be on the verge of actually launching. A week later, user-facing proof started appearing. Then earlier today, sharp-eyed social media consultant, Johannes Wigand, spotted something interesting during a presentation at a Google-sponsored event: something that sure looks a lot like Google Drive.
And it is.
Over the past month, we’ve been able to dig up more information about Google Drive. First of all, it is very real. And it is being used internally at Google. Of course, it was also real back in 2007 and 2008 before it was eventually killed. But talking to employees back then who saw and used the service all agreed that it was pretty wonky and not ready for prime time. This new version is expected to be much better. → Read More
Yesterday Erick and I had an interesting discussion about Facebook vs. Google+ and I came down on the side of G+. Why? Because tools are important, toys aren’t. Granted Facebook’s 500 million visitors a day proves me wrong in numeric terms, but in general usability and quality, I’m coming reluctantly down on the side of Google Plus.
As you well know, Facebook won the Internet with its app features and new timeline feature, a view of your data that offers a sort of time machine into the distant past. I saw pictures of my kids from years ago, their faces implike and far more natal than they are now. It was a great feeling but it lasted maybe fifteen minutes. Now Facebook is showing me a list of things that happened since I was born, a fairly impressive feat given I spent two thirds of my life without the Internet.
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Have you been watching the skies? I have. As the US expands its unmanned air force, researchers are testing and demonstrating autonomous drones — ones that could “hunt, identify and kill the enemy based on calculations made by software, not decisions made by humans.” (According to the author of the wonderfully-titled Army-funded study Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots, “Lethal autonomy is inevitable.”) Philosophers are penning learned monographs on the ethics of drone warfare. Universities are beginning to offer degrees in unmanned autonomous vehicle design.
The US Air Force is even developing an unmanned “counter tunnel robotics.” system. Yes, that’s right, the Air Force. Which gives us this immortal quote in the linked article: “…there is perhaps also an indication here that a conceptual revolution is underway within the Air Force, where the earth itself—geological space—is seen as merely a thicker version of the sky.”
Truly, we are entering the Age of Drones. Unfortunately, the governments, militaries, and philosophers leading us there appear to be suffering from a catastrophic failure of imagination. Only nation-states wield drones as weapons right now: therefore, they seem to reason, only nation-states will ever have weaponized drones, forever and ever amen. → Read More
The Gillmor Gang — John Borthwick, Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — talked Facebook, Spotify, Netflix, Twitter, and, oh what was that oh yes, Google+. In a post-Arrington unpaid blogger world, it seems likely the new alignments suggested by the Facebook announcements will quickly migrate across the social spectrum.
Soon we may see Spotify play the role of ABC to iCloud’s Disney, which in fact is already the case. In turn, smaller producers such as turntable.fm will take the role of satellite producers in much the same way Dick Wolf and the CSI producers orbit NBC and CBS respectively. Where Facebook, Twitter, and G+ stand is TBD.
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How does Switzerland do US patriotism? With a watch of course. Like it or not, Perrelet has just released this spinning stars and stripes version of their Turbine watch called the Turbine XL America. We don’t care that this watch is made for a Dutch soccer team – what we do care about is that this highly limited edition Netherlands-made Pellikaan Timing FC Utrecht timepiece is great looking with a sweet mix of classic, modern, and sport. If you don’t have the right watch to wear while assembling your new computer rig – you know, to really get you in the mood- Click Watches’ DIP Switch or Turn Switch watch look like circuit board parts and are probably your best bet. New from Porsche Design is the pretty neat looking P’6620 Chronograph Dashboard watch. We like the case the best, and with it you’ll have that comfy feeling knowing you are wearing something “designer.” Sober and presentable is often how you want to go with a nice watch. No one is better at that than the British. English watch brand Bremont gets their new BC Solo watch reviewed here. Since when to high-end timepieces and obscure comic strip character go together? They don’t, well save for this one-of-a-kind Reverso Zep watch from Jaeger-LeCoultre. The best part of these “Sea-God” watches is that the guys who made them take them seriously. In reality they are an actually nice looking high-end joke. If you are a Rolex fan you’ll understand. → Read More
Our own John Biggs and his former Gizmodo co-worker, Charlie White, have just released a book about blogging called Bloggers Boot Camp . These gents produced tens of thousands of posts between them, written for some of the biggest names in blogging, and are generally good blokes. Their goal in this to teach how to write for blogs. This isn’t a book on starting a Tumblr or a Wordpress.com. It’s about thinking about your blog posts in terms of content, value, and sharing and it discusses search optimization not through dirty tricks but through good, hard work.
Here is an excerpt of the book and they’d love you to pop over to their website to pick it up or check out the 12-week virtual writing course they’re running with the help of Simversity. Read on for a giveaway and discount. → Read More
Here is a selection of yesterday’s Gadgets stories: → Read More
After yesterday’s announcement of its expanded Open Graph capabilities, Facebook has been sharing your music listening activity over its News Ticker, allowing for music discovery and the realization that as TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington put it, “A lot of you have just really terrible taste in music.”
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Editor’s note: This post is authored by guest contributor Jon Bischke. Jon is a founder of RG Labs and is an advisor to several startups. You can follow Jon on Twitter here.
San Francisco. Palo Alto. New York. Cambridge. Austin. Boulder. Detroit. One of those doesn’t seem to fit in there right? After all, Detroit’s a mess isn’t it? The median house price in Detroit is $6,000. Half of the adults in the city are functionally illiterate. 48% of children live below the poverty line. Some people would say that Detroit epitomizes what is wrong with America.
But for a group of talented and motivated entrepreneurs in Detroit it’s something else. It’s a chance to show what’s right about America. Last week I had the pleasure of meeting with a dozen of Detroit’s top founders to discuss what it’s like to start a company in what’s probably the most economically depressed city in the country. While their businesses were different and they didn’t agree on everything, they all shared one thing: a strong feeling that the Detroit of the future will be better than the Detroit of the present. → Read More
For years, I’ve pointed to Netflix as one of the shining examples of the Subscription Economy. But in two painfully long weeks, Netflix has taken a huge misstep, violated the trust of its customers and even opened the door to its supposedly long-vanquished elder, Blockbuster!
Few remember this. Netflix started out as DVD by mail, but with the same restrictions as a retail Blockbuster experience (e.g. late fees, etc.). Then Netflix realized something important that changed the company forever. Success wasn’t tied to the number of DVDs it shipped. It was the number of customers they had and could hold onto. Rabid customer loyalty was key to its success then and it still is today. → Read More
TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, who recently left the company he founded over six years ago, is back in action. Or at least, he has proven that he still knows how to set up a WordPress blog.
Arrington just tweeted a link to Uncrunched, which will be his personal blog from here on out. There isn’t really much there yet, save for his first post titled, ‘Here I Am’. That’s it — the post consists of just the title — but presumably his later posts will be a little more content-heavy (fingers crossed that this new role as General Partner at CrunchFund is just a ploy to unearth all of Silicon Valley’s dark secrets).
Which brings us to the comments.
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Here’s a noodle-scratcher to ponder over the weekend: the HTC Vigor was supposedly going to hit Verizon as the Droid Incredible HD, but files leaked from the forthcoming device hint that the phone may not carry the Droid distinction after all. → Read More
Groupon has lost its second COO in six months.
Back in March of this year, Rob Solomon, who joined the company in March 2010, announced that he would be leaving the company. A month later, Groupon hired former Google VP Margo Georgiadis to replace him.
And today, just five months after she joined the executive team, Groupon is announcing that Georgiadis is leaving the company to re-join Google as President, Americas. Given that Groupon is currently in the process of going public, this doesn’t seem to bode well for the company. In the blog post announcing the news, Groupon CEO Andrew Mason vaguely attributes the departure to the fact that Groupon added 8 members to its executive team since the beginning of the year, and says that it’s rare for any company to “bat 1000%”. → Read More
One of my favorite bits from Disrupt SF was the set of rapid-fire presentations from Imagine K12, an incubator for education-related startups. We heard in June that some 200 applicants had been narrowed down to 10 companies, and those 10 made brief presentations in front of the audience at Disrupt. We couldn’t write them up at the time, so here is a belated rundown of these interesting new companies and services.
I urge our readers to watch the video or at least skim our summaries and evaluations. Startups too seldom directly address social issues like this, and one of these services might be something that can really benefit you or your kids. → Read More
Kissmetrics, an analytics startup that helps you keep tabs on how your users are using your website, is adding a new tool to its suite of products today: Cohort Analysis.
Cohorts, for those that aren’t familiar with them, are groups of users who sign up during a given time period (say, everyone who signed up between January 1 and 7, 2011). And analyzing them can offer some valuable insight into how people are using (or have stopped using) your service. Kissmetrics cofounder Neil Patel explains that the vanity metrics we often see being discussed in the press, like total user count, can be misleading. For example, your site might have growing overall usage each month, but that growth may be fueled entirely by a rise in new signups — who could mask the fact that your older users are fading away. → Read More
California-based electric vehicle charging station developer 350Green will purchase and install over 400 charging stations from manufacturer Coulomb Technologies, the company has announced. The new additions will be rolled out across the U.S. to help build out 350Green’s network to over 1,000 stations. In addition, the stations will be powered by the ChargePoint Network, Coloumb’s EV-charging infrastructure which also includes online portals for use by hosts, fleet managers, drivers and utilities.
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If you get your DVDs from Netflix, soon the name on the familiar red envelope will be Qwikster. But how long is Qwikster for this world? In this episode of Fly or Die, John Biggs and I dig into the pros and cons of the service.
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The Gillmor Gang – Robert Scoble, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, John Borthwick, and Steve Gillmor – recording concluded at 2pm PST. → Read More
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