It looks as though the carriers are ready to weigh in on the Apple vs. Samsung case, with Verizon and T-Mobile both voicing their opinions over the past week. Since the original showdown in April — when Apple sued Samsung over Galaxy tablets and smartphones — Apple has had the upper-hand, winning an injunction against the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany, delaying the same GalTab multiple times in Australia, and winning a preliminary injunction on three Galaxy smartphones in the Netherlands.
After watching the events play out, Verizon and now T-Mobile have said that they play for Samsung’s team, and would like to keep Samsung’s products on their shelves. → Read More
The Amazon Kindle Fire isn’t the only low-cost tablet option in town. Sure, it might be the hot new kid, but there are a multitude of tablets that can be had for $300 or less. Some are cheap and clearly only for enthusiasts. Other tabs are legitimate deals that offer Honeycomb on modern CPUs. Best of all – and Amazon knows this – all of them can run the Kindle app, instantly turning them into Kindle Fire competitors. → Read More
Travel discounter Priceline.com is launching a new daily deals service aimed at helping users find cheap hotel rooms. (Or maybe it would be more accurate to call it a “nightly” deals service?)
Starting today, same-day offers for heavily discounted hotel rooms will become available in Priceline’s “Hotel & Rental Car Negotiator” app at 11 AM local time and can be instantly booked up until 11 PM, or until the deal sells out. → Read More
Although in this economy you can probably hire someone to walk behind you who will occasionally remind you of your mortality, it is probably a bit more efficient to just put up this Mr. Jones Accurate Clock.
Based on the popular Accurate Watch, the hands of this clock say “Remember you will die” – a sobering thought over a breakfast Pop-Tart and a Pumpkin Chai Latte, but there you have it. It’s available now for $119 at Watchismo and should probably put a spring in your step next time you decide to put off doing that big project you planned to finish. After all, memento mori. → Read More
We reported earlier this week that Staples and Office Depot are running sales promotions for the ailing BlackBerry PlayBook, and today another big-box retailer has jumped into the fray. CNET reports that Best Buy has begun to sell all models of the PlayBook with a hefty $200 discount.
That price break brings RIM’s 16GB model down to $299, the 32GB model to $399, and the 64GB model to $499.
→ Read More
Hot flight search startup Hipmunk is about to land on Android. The app will be available for free, and you can install it right here.
I’ve tested the app and it looks great (it’s a nice reminder that Android apps can be slick and well designed, even if a lot of them aren’t…). And it works just as you’d expect: enter your destination, departure/arrival dates, and choose from coach, business or first class. The app will present Hipmunk’s grid of flights, which you can sort by Agony, Price, and Time. Oh, and all flights carrying life-sustaining Wifi are clearly labeled with nice orange icons. → Read More
Networked Insights, the developers of a marketing decision platform has raised $20 million in new funding led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management. This brings the startup’s total funding to nearly $30 million.
Founded in 2006, Networked Insights’ SocialSense platform analyzes social data help brands strategize and spend on marketing, advertising, research and product development. Networked Insights says it’s able to mine data from 750 million people and billions online conversations on a monthly basis, which enables marketers to harness insights and streamline research for future advertising campaigns. Networked Insights makes sense of this massive amount off data to figure out were brands should spend media dollars, whether that be TV, mobile, social etc.
→ Read More
Real estate search engine Trulia is expanding its mobile offerings today with a new Android tablet app as well as an Android app devoted specifically for rentals. The company already offers comprehensive iPhone, iPad, Android and mobile web apps that feature much of the functionality of the site.
Trulia’s Android tablet app is similar to the iPad app in that it uses the full screen to display property photos and a large, interactive map with properties. Unique to Android, the app allows you to view property slideshows on the tablet’s entire screen. You can also see where restaurants, schools and other points of interest are in relation to homes for sale or rent and access the agent’s contact info for the property. → Read More
Redfin, the online platform for real estate search and brokerage services, has made some noise in the past, building a service that’s currently being valued at $230 million, at least according to trading on SharesPost. It’s been a little while since we’ve heard some big news from the Seattle-based company, but this morning the real estate brokerage is releasing a cool new feature that puts real estate agents on notice and gives home buyers and sellers a nifty “hot or not” comparison tool.
Redfin is today releasing the “Redfin Scouting Report”, a way for users to look up the performance statistics for over 1 million real estate agents in 14 major metropolitan areas, with information on nearly every agent in these cities, according to Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman. → Read More
Universum, a company that specializes in employer branding, has published some findings based on the preferences of over 160,000 career seekers with a business or engineering background from the world´s 12 largest economies (based on nominal GDP).
The goal: to find out which company is most attractive an employer according to business and engineering students.
Well, there’s no way around it: Google is solidly numero uno in both categories – just like last year and the year before that (see PDF). → Read More
And here’s the third phone from Japanese carrier SoftBank‘s fall/winter line-up that deserves a dedicated article: it’s the so-called DELL STREAK PRO 101DL [JP], which the company will start offering to its subscribers in January 2012 (price tbd). And this isn’t an Android tablet but a phone.
And judging by the specs, it’s going to be quite a nice one. → Read More
SweetLabs, the San Diego company behind the Pokki app platform and the OpenCandy advertising network, has raised $13 million in funding in a Series C round led by Intel Capital, with earlier backers Google Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners also participating.
The fresh money will primarily be used to invest in Pokki, a platform that lets developers create and distribute desktop apps using standard Web languages like CSS3 and JavaScript, the company says. → Read More
Sharp’s AQUOS PHONE 102SH wasn’t the only cool Android phone to hit the Japanese market today. Local carrier SoftBank will also start distributing the so-called LUMIX Phone 101P [JP] as part of its fall/winter line-up of new cell phones in November.
Made by Panasonic, the Android device is designed to be a mix between a phone and a digital camera (and it sure looks like it). → Read More
As you may have heard, the San Francisco Port Authority recently shut down the tech hub located at Pier 38, which was home to companies like Automattic, True Ventures, 99Designs, and others. One of the tenants, Polaris Venture Partners‘ Dogpatch Labs, was also kicked out and has now moved to downtown Palo Alto along with its 18 current residents.
Xconomy reports that Dogpatch Labs’ new Palo Alto home is adjacent to the also new Polaris Venture Partners office (the might want to update their website if this is indeed the case). → Read More
Social media analytics company Socialbakers, previously known as Facebakers, has raised $2 million in funding in a round led by Earlybird Venture Capital. The funding will enable Socialbakers, which was founded in 2009 and says it is already profitable, to extend its offerings for social media monitoring.
Read on at TechCrunch Europe. → Read More
Sharp has been producing quite a few nice Android phones for the Japanese market lately (with a 25% share, it’s the leading manufacturer over here), and today, the company introduced [JP] another great-looking handset, the AQUOS PHONE 102SH.
Local carrier SoftBank will start distributing the phone in Japan in December as part of its fall/winter line-up. And there can be now doubt that subscribers can get a real monster with this model. → Read More
Earlier tonight, Alexia found and posted some screenshots of something that sure looked a lot like the mythical “Project Spartan“. Shortly thereafter, Facebook took down the page in question. And for good reason. That was Project Spartan, we’ve now confirmed.
Whoops.
Well, to be fair, I’ve heard numerous times that they don’t actually call it that internally. That may be a name that external developers use. No matter — we all know what I mean. It’s the HTML5-based mobile platform that Facebook has been building in secret for months. And now it’s done. In fact, it has been done for a while. From what I hear, it has been waiting on one thing… → Read More
Here are some of yesterday’s highlights on TechCrunch Gadgets: → Read More
Nokia this morning announced “plans to take additional actions to align its workforce and operations”. You know what that means: mass layoffs and then some. In a press release, the Finnish mobile giant says it will reduce its staff by at least 3,500 employees by the end of 2012.
Nokia also says there will be reductions in manufacturing; the company is closing its manufacturing facility in Romania by the end of this year and says it will be doubling down on its Asian factories instead. → Read More
AVOS has been getting a whole lot of criticism by former Delicious users and fans – and even original founder Joshua Schachter – after the recent launch of the all-new Delicious. And granted, perhaps they would have been better off waiting a couple more months before launching.
But AVOS quickly moved to fix some issues, and announced that it was working on fixing others. → Read More
