Jeff Bezos recently said that these days, “if you are just building a device you are unlikely to succeed.” He certainly seems to be backing that statement up, with the launch of the Kindle Fire producing more optimism than the last ten non-iPad tablet launches combined. It seems that people do indeed like the idea of a purpose-built device that does a few things well, walled garden or not.
But Bezos glossed over the other side of the “make your own ecosystem” coin: providing and administrating that ecosystem not only requires immense resources, but can occasionally cause major roadblocks. In this case it appears that the Kindle Fire and Touch will be unavailable UK or EU, for reasons and duration not specified. It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that they’re more than just devices, would it? → Read More
Setting its sights beyond the west after a successful US launch and the recent unveiling of Facebook extended Open Graph integration, subscription music service Spotify has hired former Google executive Dan Brody as General Manager Asia-Pacific. I’m hearing that Brody is currently in Australia talking to potential recruits, and Spotify itself has confirmed the GM position and that Brody is looking to hire people in Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney. → Read More
Reputation on the Internet is a tricky thing to measure. But with the rise of social media—with its retweets, likes, +1s, replies, and followers counts—companies are trying to keep score. If you are a big user of Twitter, you have probably checked out your Klout score or at least heard of it. Well, soon Klout will have a competitor called Kred. It is currently accepting sign-ups for a gradual rollout starting next week.
Kred is the latest product from social data mining startup PeopleBrowsr. “We have been receiving the firehose since 2008,” says CEO Jodee Rich, referring to the full Twitter firehose, “indexing it since then. We have sorted it by community and topic. We look for small close networks of people and look for how they can be just as influential as rockstars.” → Read More
Slowly, but surely, Vienna is building its own reputation as a startup hotspot and eventually there might be a fight between Berlin, London, Copenhagen and Vienna, although London and Berlin are ahead at the moment. There have been a number of large exits driven by Austrian-born founders (exits from UCP, Jahjah, 3united and last.fm exceed 1 billion USD). Companies such as Wikitude, Runtastic and Lookk. However the growing startup community, especially with founders emerging from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries, faces a lack of adequate investors. Now Speedinvest, an early stage Super Angel fund, has just announced that they’ve closed their first $10 million dollar fund targeted towards early stage mobile and web startups coming out of CEE.
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It looks like Amazon and Barnes & Noble aren’t the only ones who want to get into the LCD e-reader scene. Kobo, who like them has a 6-inch touchable e-ink reader, must have felt left out of the 7″ LCD device race, and apparently is releasing the Vox to fill that gap.
We actually heard about the Vox in an FCC filing a couple weeks ago, but held off on posting because there wasn’t much to say. But today the device was listed briefly on Canadian retailer Future Shop’s website, where a number of specs were revealed — though we should take them all with a grain of salt. → Read More
Sony, which provides many theaters with the projectors and hardware needed to display 3D cinema, has informed those theaters that starting this spring, it will no longer provide 3D glasses for free. From now on they’ll have to foot the cost themselves — and by “they” I mean “we,” because obviously the theaters aren’t going to voluntarily pick up this extra expense. → Read More
There may be more than 20,000 apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace now, but it seems as though some “developers” are intent on fiddling with the cool-to-crap ratio. As low-quality, low-functionality apps flood the marketplace, Microsoft will be limiting developers to 10 app submissions per day starting tomorrow. → Read More
Earlier this year it was reported that Foxconn had decided it was going to try to diversity its global holdings by establishing an iPad factory in Brazil. Their reasoning seemed fine: the economy is expanding, there’s a tech-savvy populace, and the government, they figured, would be game for few little sweetheart deals to get the ball rolling. As it turns out, not so much.
“The project for a Brazilian iPad is in doubt,” said one Brazilian official, speaking on terms of anonymity to Reuters. Foxconn is “making crazy demands” and the Brazilian government appears to be unyielding on tax and funding. → Read More
50 Cent’s wireless headphones are finally nearing release and I just received multiple pics and a full spec sheet concerning the upcoming high-end model. Sync by 50 uses the now-popular unibody casing but features full on-board playback controls — something no other headphones can proclaim. Housed in each can is a 40mm driver, which is surrounded by a memory foam cushion. The 3.5mm wireless adapter is said to broadcast the signal 50 feet and somehow allow four simultaneous wireless connections through an unnamed wireless standard.
The spec sheet brags that the headphones features a professionally tuned digital EQ along with 16-bit lossless digital sound. The headset apparently charges through micro USB and ships with a wired mic cable (classy) and a hard-shell carrying case. However, the spec sheet doesn’t state the price or release date.
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As NASA’s steps get smaller, China’s space program is making big leaps with plans to have a manned space station in orbit by 2020.
This morning (around 9pm in China), the Tiangong 1 space station module blasted off from a desert in the northwestern area of China. The reported purpose of this mission is to practice docking with other modules, which is essential to building a space station (obviously). → Read More
Myspace owner-Specific Media has laid of a percentage of its staff today, we’ve confirmed with the company. Specific Media said these layoffs took place in sales and operating areas, and was part of a consolidation effort to eliminate redundancies between the two businesses. As Specific Media says in a statement: The company is consolidating forces to ensure greater alignment between its workforce and the direction in which it’s headed. Specific Media says that “less than 8%” of the company’s employees were laid off. Specific Media has about 750 employees, so around 50-60 employees may have been let go.
Apart from Myspace, Specific Media is an ad technology company that aims to help drive viewership for content owners, engagement for brands and relevance for consumers. The company allows marketers to buy digital ads across the Web, TV, online video, mobile platforms. Of course, you may know that Specific Media (along with Justin Timberlake) bought Myspace earlier this year from News Corp. for around $35 million. → Read More
Google Analytics, the immensely popular suite of tools that Google offers to help webmasters track their site traffic, is getting a big boost this week: the service has launched a real-time dashboard that updates with user events as they happen.
That’s a big deal, as it brings Google more in line with popular real-time analytics products like Chartbeat, which allows you to track things like how many people are currently on your site, and how much traffic each individual article has gotten in the last few minutes. Prior to today’s launch of real-time, Google Analytics reports typically had a delay window upwards of three hours (and often longer), which meant this kind of tracking wasn’t possible.
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Ugly though they may be, these Swatch watches have a trick up their sleeves. Using the same technology found in the Tissot T-Touch line, these Swatch Touch watches are touch-sensitive and allow you to swipe through different functions and control most of the watch features with a simple finger tap.
The Touch 2011 models support two timezones, a date display, chronograph, alarm, and timer. There are no buttons and it has a curved glass display and weirdly proportioned numerals. It has an integrated strap.
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The Swedish polling company, Media Vision, has released a study (in Swedish) about downloading habits in the country where Spotify was born. Their results? 23 percent of Swedes download music illegally, down 2 to 3 percent since 2010. In short, music piracy, at least in that market, is falling rapidly and much of that decline can be attributed to the popularity of services like Spotify.
As Torrentfreak notes, there’s no way to compete with free, but when content is made available on multiple platforms for a fair price it’s clear that consumers will react favorably.
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Hold onto your phasers — the dream of many a Trekkie is about to come true. Star Trek: The Next Generation will be released on Blu-ray starting in 2012. Every one of the show’s 178 episodes will be released eventually, though not all at once. Why such a slow release? Well, it turns out that instead of upconverting and selling for a premium, the producers of this new version are doing it right. How right? They’re scanning the original 35mm footage, cutting together the shows from that, and re-creating the original effects in high definition.
Now that’s what I call a proper remastering. George Lucas, take note. → Read More
Oh, you think you’re a hardcore Apple fan? Sure, you might have plastered the back window of your hybrid with Apple stickers. Yeah, you’ve got something MG Jobs said painted on the wall above your bed. Hell, you even named your first daughter McKenzie, just so you could call her “Mac”.
But this guy milled his own iPhone 5 prototype, based on nothing but rumors and speculation. Just so he could see what it was like. Yeah. Bar raised. → Read More
People love the $99 TouchPad including HP employees. The TouchPad hit the HP’s employee purchasing program yesterday and potential buyers showed up en mass, promptly crashing the servers. It’s unclear how many TouchPads were sold, but my HP source didn’t manage to snag a cheap TouchPad yet. Instead, he received (and forwarded) an email detailing the problem and warning employees not to bother the call center with their woes. “Our site is too slow,” he said. HP might still have TouchPads reserved for employees as he hasn’t received an email stating they’re sold out.
Hopefully after HP takes care of its employees the company will release the last TouchPads to retailers. After the first batch dried up last month, most stores started wait lists after HP announced more were on their way. My daily routine involves checking several retailers’ websites in the hope that I stumble upon an active Buy Now link — apparently a good chunk of HP’s 300,000 employees are doing the same thing right now. → Read More
Microsoft’s search service Bing is today announcing the launch of airport maps for 42 major airports across the U.S., with plans to expand to other airports over time. The new feature is available now in Bing Maps on the desktop (some airport maps were previously available on mobile).
With this, you can see inside airports in order to locate terminals, check-in counters, restrooms, shops, restaurants, baggage claim areas, information desks and more.
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Logitech is known for their keyboards and mice, and the company always seems to find new ways to make what should be boring old accessories interesting. The MX 3200 Laser keyboard and mouse are an awesome example, as Logitech said the combo pack was built using an AgION surface meant to disrupt the growth of bacterial cells.
Not a bad idea at all, but the way that Logitech marketed the MX 3200 Laser didn’t please the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency one bit. → Read More
Back in late 2009, then-free music identifying service Shazam made a rather drastic change to their business model: they went freemium. Everybody got 5 free song identifications per month… but after that, they’d have to cough up for premium app, “Shazam Encore”.
That worked well enough for a while — then the competition rolled in, and gave away what Shazam was trying to charge for. Shazam responded with an experiment: they’d remove the tagging limits in their app, with a single “sponsor” covering their costs in exchange for ad placement — but only for Android, and only until the end of the year.
Seems that worked well enough: Shazam has just removed the tagging limits in their iOS and Android apps indefinitely. → Read More
