It looks like we can expect faster wireless connections in the near future: Japanese electronic parts maker Rohm yesterday announced [JP] it has developed a chip that reached a wireless data transmission speed of 1.5 gigabits per second in experiments, the highest level ever. And according to the company, even 30Gbps will be possible in the future.
The semi conductor device uses terahertz waves for data transmission, has a micro antenna attached to it and is 2cm long and 1cm high (size of the module). Rohm developed the technology in cooperation with a research team at Osaka University. → Read More
Mobile ad network Millennial Media is releasing its October Mobile Mix report this morning. In October, Android led the Connected Device and Smartphone OS Mix on Millennial with 56% of the impressions on the ad network. Android has now been the leading OS on Millennial’s platform for the past 11 months.
iOS was the second largest smartphone OS on Millennial’s platform with 28% of the impression share. RIM followed with 13% of the share. iOS led the Connected Device OS mix, thanks to the growth in the iPad, which has has been the number one tablet device on Millennial since its debut in April 2010. → Read More
Hojoki this morning announced that it has raised $620,000 in seed funding as the German startup gears up for the launch of its public beta on the 7th of December (coinciding with the Le Web conference in Paris). The round was led by Kizoo Technology Ventures.
Hojoki’s mission is to solve the problem of ‘information fragmentation’ by building a unified activity stream inbox for cloud apps such as Google Docs, Dropbox, Highrise, GitHub, and plenty of others. → Read More
We’ve shown you many Kinect-based hacks and applications over the past months, and here is a new one from Japan: major robot maker Yaskawa has developed a humanoid that can be remote-controlled using a Kinect interface. Dubbed SmartPal VII, the telepresence robot can be used to communicate with other people over a distance or even help them cleaning up rooms, for example (by controlling the robot’s arms using Kinect). → Read More
What exactly is a PC? That question is likely to become a hot topic over the next few years.
Originally, we thought of PCs as the Apple II or then the IBM PC. They were machines that had to sit on a desk because, while significantly smaller than a mainframe, they were still big and bulky. They had large monitors, boxy bases, and big keyboards. The original Macintosh attempted to make this footprint a bit smaller and the package more compact, but the IBM clones won the day. Windows won the day. PCs by Compaq and HP led to machines by Gateway and Dell. Boxy bases were joined by massive towers. Bigger seemed better. Small monitors were replaced by huge monitors. Then something changed.
While laptops had existed in various forms for years, by the mid 2000s, the prices, performance, and size made them viable “desktop replacements”. They were different enough from traditional PCs that they had their own name, and people thought of them differently. But eventually, as they started to dominate the market, people just began thinking of laptops as PCs as well. They were, after all, personal computers.
→ Read More
Microsoft this morning blasted out an email to all subscribers of its Bing Daily Deals offering, informing users that the service will henceforth be known as ‘MSN Offers’. It’s a confusing move, but then Microsoft has a history of making confusing moves when it comes to naming and branding its products and services.
The company claims it didn’t want people to mix up the daily deals it offers with its Bing Deals service, which essentially aggregates daily deals from a range of third-party providers. → Read More
Here are some recent posts on TechCrunch Gadgets: → Read More
If you’re running a political campaign, a charity, or any other group where keeping in touch with community members — and/or delegating tasks to them — is critical, then you’ll probably be interested in a startup called NationBuilder.
The service launched in April, closing a $500,000 seed funding round the following month that was led by Chris Hughes. Hughes is best known for cofounding Facebook and leading President Obama’s online campaign efforts in 2008 (in other words, he’s exactly the sort of backer you’d want for this kind of startup).
And this fall, it’s started getting some strong traction. In September it had almost 200k unique visitors doing 1.2 million page views — that jumped to 400k uniques the following month, with 2.5 million page views. The service now has 300 groups on board, with a total of some 1 million supporters signed up. One of the site’s core features is fundraising, and groups have raised $3.3 million so far using the platform.
→ Read More
Earlier today patrons of Wine Library received an email informing them that the credit card information they had used to sign up to the WineLibrary.com site may have been compromised in a data breach. The site is the hub of NYT Best Selling Author Gary Vaynerchuk’s family business, made famous by his popular and now retired television show Wine Library.tv.
While the email doesn’t reveal how many accounts were impacted, the site likely has hundreds of thousands of users.
The company reveals that it started investigating a possible breach in October when they received initial customer complaints, complaints which increased towards the beginning of November. The company removed all credit card data from its site on November 11th and last week confirmed that an IP address originating in China was used in the attacks. → Read More
As many of you already know, CrunchBase is a big, free resource for anyone trying to get the latest information on hot new startups, or competitors to their own hot new startups, the investing focus of various investors, and much more.
The thing is, CrunchBase isn’t used all that much on TechCrunch itself beyond the widgets you see at the end of articles. So, I’m going to start testing out a variety of posts with the goal of surfacing new and interesting information for all of you. To kick things off, I’ll take a brief look at the largest seed and angel funding rounds that we recorded over the last 30 days — you’ll see just how big some of these rounds have been getting.
But before I get into that, though, here are a few thoughts on using CrunchBase on TechCrunch. → Read More
Uh-oh. Samsung and Google are still in talks regarding its upcoming Google TV offering. Reuters is reporting that Samsung’s president indicated that the two companies are in “late-stage talks” and that Samsung’s devices will launch in early 2012, just not at CES like it was previously thought.
Google has been working with Samsung for sometime now. In fact Samsung demonstrated a Google TV companion device at last year’s CES. Here’s a demo and the press release. But here we are, almost a full year later and Samsung has still yet to release a model, which in retrospect, was probably for the best. Isn’t that right, Logitech?
→ Read More
It’s possible new media will steal a page from the VCs and the economics of the Cloud, putting these streaming deals together on multiple networks (Facebook, YouTube, Ustream, iCloud) with talent owning the rights in return for low startup costs. Spotify could fight off the independents by offering contracts directly to the artists, and team with the streaming studios to live cast sessions and concerts over the federated network. Soundtrack compilations for stream network-owned series like House of Cards may be where music and gaming crossover first occurs.
→ Read More
Before we kicked off Disrupt Beijing, the TechCrunchTV team had just enough time to venture out into the city to begin exploring the local startup scene. One of our stops: The Garage Café, a coffee shop where startup companies go to work on their projects. For the price of a cup of coffee (a little over 3 US dollars), teams can set up office for the day and have access to a library of reference books, job boards, and the venture capitalists that also frequent the space. With at least ten early-stage startups working in the café at any given time, the Garage Café has become a go-to place for entrepreneurs to meet, exchange ideas, and in a dozen instances since the café opened in April, find investors. → Read More
Installing Windows has always been something of a joke. Not always warranted, of course, but we all know how funny and catastrophic anecdotes outlive the less thrilling reality of something as commonplace as an OS install. Yet we all have heard a few horror stories about Windows installs, or at the very least joked about how long it often takes.
Microsoft actually went to some lengths in Windows 7 to correct this soft spot of theirs, and it’s true that the installation process is simpler and better. Seeing how well this was received, and also noting a number of market trends worth integrating, they are now taking the improvements a step further with Windows 8. A one-click install or upgrade is still a ways out, but the new features are kin with Windows 8′s approach of marrying stability with mobility. → Read More
Over the past few years, Facebook has partnered with a variety of handset makers to release smartphones and feature phones that deeply integrate the social network into software and hardware. These phones have sold poorly, though. Meanwhile iOS and Android are claiming more and more of the market such that they endanger Facebook’s future, cramping its mobile platform and relegating it to just being an app. Last year we wrote that Facebook was likely building a custom-version of Android, and now AllThingsD says Facebook is, and it that it will run on an HTC-made Facebook phone.
A custom operating system could attract users with even deeper software integrations, and let Facebook monetize in-app payments. The company hopes that despite a lack of proof that users want such a thing, its phone will sell well, and allow it more determination over the future of its mobile apps and platform. → Read More
Turns out you don’t have to charge an arm and a leg for SMS messages to make money off of texting.
One startup that’s proven this is Pinger, the company behind the massively popular free texting app Textfree. Today, the company is announcing that it’s reached a major milestone: since launching in March 2009, Textfree users have sent and received a total of 20 billion text messages. For free. And they’re sending and receiving another 1.5 billion messages every month (they were growing at 1 billion per month in March of this year).
Textfree is so popular because it gives users free texting to and from — here’s the important bit — their own, unique phone numbers. Fire up the app for the first time and you’ll be given a new phone number that people can text the same way they would any other mobile number. Textfree is available for both iOS and Android, and it’s particularly popular on devices like the iPod Touch, which wouldn’t otherwise have full texting functionality (the iOS version also offers free and low-cost phone calls, which will be released on the Android version down the line). Pinger makes money via advertising.
→ Read More
We knew that HP’s gamble on webOS was an expensive one, but thanks to the company’s Q4 and full-year financials, we’re finally getting a feel for just how dearly the webOS experiment cost them. This past year, the company lost a staggering $3.3 billion thanks to their most recent foray into the mobile space.
I know I’m not the first to say this, nor will I be the last, but one word comes to mind: Ouch. → Read More
If you’ve been paying attention this morning, you’re perhaps somewhat aware of a program Microsoft has in place called Mobile Acceleration Week (part of its BizSpark program), where 12 hand-picked startups can access hands-on support and training to build compelling apps for the Windows Phone platform. MAWs happen all over the world all year long, but I was lucky enough to catch up with some of the participants of New York’s Mobile Acceleration Week, and was pretty pleased with the apps I saw.
Microsoft gives each startup 60 days to push the app to market, so don’t get too excited and start hunting through the Marketplace. You won’t find what you’re looking for just yet. But considering that today’s theme (at least in my world) seems to be the state of Redmond’s mobile app platform, I thought it’d be worthwhile to give you a look at where the Marketplace is headed, and what you might find there in the coming weeks. → Read More
You know that scene in Minority Report where Tom Cruise is walking through a mall and all the digital signs are talking to him and showing him highly targeted ads? Yeah, well, we are not there yet. But we are moving that direction. A New York City company called Inwindow Outdoor is testing several prototype digital “Experience Stations” in malls and hotel lobbies like the one I demo in the video above. They combine several interactive technologies—including motion capture, large touch screens, and NFC readers—to create immersive experiences in physical locations.
The unit I got a chance to play with above was loaded with a few typical apps designed to showcase its capabilities. These apps included everything from an interactive ad with a photobooth feature to a way to watch movie trailers and buy tickets with an NFC-enabled phone or unlock local deals from stores at that specific mall. The prototypes were built in partnership with Intel. → Read More
Facebook today began allowing a limited test group of users to download a new Facebook Messenger for Windows 7 desktop client. It provides access to Chat, the Ticker feed, and notifications. Facebook is looking to gauge interest in desktop access to these real-time features that could keep users engaged with the service all day without having to keep a browser window open. The client could become popular, considering that the Facebook-integrated Windows Live Messenger desktop client that lets you Chat with friends as well as third-party instant messaging contacts is the top app on the Facebook Platform with 18.2 million daily active users. → Read More
