Swype is an amazing gesture-based data entry system that truly blew our collective minds at TC, CG, and MC. To type, you simply connect letters together using a stylus or finger and predictive text to pick letters and words out of seemingly unintelligible squiggles. → Read More
Nokia’s Comes With Music will launch in the UK next month, before spreading to the Continent and to Asia next year.
Comes With Music, you may remember, is Nokia’s scheme to include music from the top record companies (less EMI, for now) with its cellphones, slowly getting the company into the Apple-dominated music business. → Read More
While most of us would call a making a slurry of processed vegetable oil a fun weekend but the boys at Make call it an alternative fuel source. The best part? It involves caustic chemicals and alcohol, just like my wedding. While you may not want to do this around the kids, it might be a fun weekend project for green enthusiasts. → Read More
Think you’ve got the gift of foresight? The Washington Post has partnered with Predictify, an online polling service, to create a “Prediction Center” that allows readers to vote on possible outcomes for selected stories. Users will be able to leave their predictions and discuss their beliefs on an integrated comment thread, with the most accurate participants appearing on a leaderboard. You can access the main Predictify hub here. Predictify, which launched in 2007, goes beyond basic polling systems by integrating discussion features and monitoring a users’ accuracy score across the entire service. While there isn’t currently a way to weight one question more than another, the site’s algorithm does take into account the type of question and the accuracy rate of participants. Besides the Washington Post, Predictify is also found on The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle’s sites. To offer an incentive for users to take part in the polls, the site has also implemented a premium program that allows companies to sponsor a poll and reward the most accurate participants with cash. In return, these sponsors are entitled to the demographics data that the service asks for with each vote. CEO Parker Barrile says that at this point it isn’t clear if the Washington Post will be making use of this feature, but if it does it will clearly distinguish sponsored polls from normal content. While this partnership isn’t groundbreaking by any means, it serves as a reminder that “old media” is willing to embrace the interactivity afforded by the web. Whether or not the Washington Post’s implementation of Predictify will be popular remains to be seen, but for now it’s a big score for the service. Note: TechCrunch is syndicated to WashingtonPost.com. CrunchBase Information Predictify Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Earlier this week Crunchgear broke the news on two new upcoming Kindle models: a smaller form factor Kindle to be released this year ahead of the holidays, and a large screen (probably 8.5×11) to come sometime next year. A couple of commenters in that post have pointed out that the large screen Kindle is perfect to target the college/university textbook market, a $5.5 billion market annually in the U.S. alone. Most students still buy print versions of textbooks, and carrying them around is as big a pain as it has been for past generations of students. Most publishers now offer electronic versions of their textbooks – McGraw-Hill Education, for example, publishes 95% of their books electronically as well as in print. But there is no compelling device to read them on. The current kindle is too small, and laptops run out of power too quickly. A new large screen kindle would solve those problems. The battery life is much longer than most electronic devices, and carrying a large Kindle is still a lot better than carrying ten heavy textbooks. Our guess is that Amazon will make a major push into the educational markets next year – it’s the only obvious reason to create a large screen Kindle. CrunchBase Information Amazon Amazon Kindle Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Yahoo has announced its anticipated reorganization. As expected executives Hilary Schneider and Ash Patel are consolidating power under president Sue Decker. All product development will come under the responsibility of Patel, a Yahoo veteran and Yang loyalist. Schneider will take over all the advertising sales teams across the company. A third “Insights Strategy” team has also been formed to centralize strategy. Nobody has yet been named to head up that group. This reshuffle follows mass defections and a shakeup of its upper ranks. Wall Street is underwhelmed. The stock is down nearly 3 percent today (granted, on a terrible day for stocks overall). The company is also announcing a new cloud computing group and new responsibilities for three search executives—Venkat Panchapakesan, Tuoc Luong, and David Ku— who are filling the hole left by former EVP of engineering Qi Lu. Here’s the press release: Yahoo! Announces Realignment to Support Core Strategies Centralizes Audience Product Development; Forms New U.S. Region; Realigns Technology Organization SUNNYVALE, Calif., Jun 26, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company, today announced changes to its organization aimed at improving its products, technologies and execution. The moves support its strategy to be the starting point for the most users, the must-buy for the most advertisers and the platform of choice for developers. Key elements Yahoo! announced are the centralization of consumer product development to enhance the company’s ability to release products worldwide; the creation of a U.S. region focused on bringing products to market for users, advertisers and publishers; formation of an insights strategy team; and enhancements to the technology infrastructure to optimize the use of data and improve coordination between product and engineering teams. “These moves accelerate the ability of our deep and talented team to build great products, grow our audiences and improve monetization globally,” said Jerry Yang, CEO. “They are designed to put us in an even better position to leverage our leading global audience and capture the opportunity we see in the convergence of search and display advertising.” Business and Product Changes The company is creating three new teams that will report to President Sue Decker. An Audience Products Division will assume responsibility for companywide product strategy and product management. It will be led by Ash Patel who previously managed the company’s Platforms & Infrastructure group. A U.S. region with accountability for all go-to-market activity in the U.S. will be → Read More
We’re fast approaching our super fun CrunchNetwork Prague Meet-up and getting ready for the big night. We’re going to have some surprises coming up so watch this space but until then feel free to RSVP by email or on Facebook. Remember the event is on Friday, May 23, 2008 from 7pm until ?? at Restaurace Zvonařka. The program will be fairly basic but I’m planning an elevator pitch face-of, allowing 10 start-ups the chance to do a 2 minute presentation to the entire audience using limited tools. We’ll then pick the best pitch and that team will get an as-yet-to-be-undetermined really great prize (think plasma TV). If you’re interested in participating, please contact Jack DeNeut at jack @ nelso dot com. If you have something you want to discuss with me for consideration on TechCrunch, MobileCrunch, or CrunchGear, please have a paper presentation handy with a detailed description of your project — powerpoint and business plans are right out. Consider creating a press-release for the event. Special thanks to all these sponsors: Nelso – Multi-language local search for Europe Geewa – Multiplayer games for PC and mobile Newstin – Connecting people through news to create global communities of interest Wirenode – Simple-to-use tools that allow anyone to create a mobile website GoodData – A complete, on-demand business intelligence platform → Read More
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