The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Occipital Brings Seamless Barcode Scanning To The iPhone With RedLaser
- Tremors Gives You Twitter Vibrations About A Place
- AT&T tethering to cost $55?
- Upcoming Android Apps: Kyte, Rummble, Google Books Reader (Video)
- That Was Quick: Veodia Acquires Screen Capturing Startup ScreenToaster
- Mobile 2.0 Europe: Video Interview With GetJar CEO Ilja Laurs
- As Events Unfold In Iran, Facebook And Google Translate Quickly Add Persian Versions
- All In the Family: Sergey Brin Loans 23andme $10 Million And Google Ponies Up $2.6 Million
- The Pre App Catalog Is Tracking Way, Way Behind Apple’s App Store. And It’s Palm’s Fault.
- Leave It To Chinese Quarantine To Reinforce The Value Of Social Media
- As Blogger Nears Its Tenth Birthday, It Still Dominates. But For How Long?
- Justin.tv Gains DVR Functionality
- Facebook Makes It Easier To Search Your Inbox
- FriendFeed One-Ups Twitter Again With Its Subscription Emails
- Google Flipper Is About To Jump Out Of The Water
- First Look: Beejive 3.0 For iPhone
- Congressman Compares The Plight Of Iranians To GOP On Twitter, Sticks Foot In Mouth
- Quick Hack: Enable AT&T Tethering Under iPhone 3.0
- Google Books Adds New Features And Tools
- Interview: Rob Burkinshaw, Game Designer and Creator of Homeless Sims
- Collecta Enters The Real Time Search Wars
| Occipital Brings Seamless Barcode Scanning To The iPhone With RedLaser Posted: 19 Jun 2009 08:14 AM PDT
Now that the new iPhone 3G S has a video camera, TechStars startup Occipital has released an update to its RedLaser app (iTunes link, $1.99) which speeds up barcode scanning by not requiring you to first take a picture. Occipital claims that its “realtime barcode scanner” is the only one which works on phones with both autofocus (the new 3G S) and without (the older iPhone and iPod Touch). Other barcode scanning apps, such as ShopSavvy’s, can also take advantage of the autofocus camera on the 3G S, but can’t do on-the-fly scanning on the older models. Like other barcode scanning apps, many of which are free, RedLaser looks up price comparisons in an ever-growing product database. The utility of these apps is really determined by how good the back-end database is more than the scanning technology itself. But RedLaser is really more of a technology demo for Occipital, which is developing some some impressive mobile visual search technologies. The scanning technology is available to other developers through an SDK. Here is a video of the app in action: I am more excited by what Occipital has in the works for more sophisticated visual-recognition apps. Last year, at a TechStars Demo Day which Don Dodge covered for us, he explained
Below is a video of a prototype visual-navigation app Occipital is working on. When can I get that on my iPhone? Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
|
| Tremors Gives You Twitter Vibrations About A Place Posted: 19 Jun 2009 07:49 AM PDT  It's pretty obvious that wherever you are in the world, you're usually looking for the best bar, hotel or venue you can get for your money. And all the information is out there now, especially on live streams like Twitter. The problem is searching it and finding it. So if you could somehow match tweets to actual venues you could also use that data to rate the venue itself. The other thing you could do would be to create trust around the actual users which submitted the information. Now, mobile startup Rummble is trying to crack this nut with a beta product called Tremors. This is a new Twitter app which does the following: it attempts to match tweets to venues, based on a combination of fuzzy word matching, the general location the tweet came from and then a rough estimation of whether the Tweet was positive or negative about the venue. Right now it works in New York and Austin, Texas (the SXSW venue) and London. These are a natural fit as they are likely to have a critical mass of Twitter users - San Francisco is coming.
|
| Posted: 19 Jun 2009 05:38 AM PDT  Gruber found some information that the AT&T tethering plan would cost $55 a month and suggests - but cannot confirm - that this will be in addition to the unlimited data plan already in place, potentially hitting the $85 per month for data. I, like him, find this outrageous and can only pray that this number will be more like $55 total. On the aggregate, traffic on wireless networks is fairly low. Major carriers built out quite a bit of bandwidth - they just needed the right customers, applications, and phones to use it correctly. When I was a telecom consultant back in 1999 we were already talking about 3G but no one wanted to start up the pipe for fear of - what? I don't know. Maybe they were afraid people would use it, downloading WAP pages willy-nilly.
|
| Upcoming Android Apps: Kyte, Rummble, Google Books Reader (Video) Posted: 19 Jun 2009 03:41 AM PDT  Always nice for a reporter to bump into a developer who builds mobile applications for startups and gives you a live preview and details of yet-to-be-announced stuff. No worries, he has permission to talk about the apps (he thinks). The man I'm talking about is Julián Moreno from development house Droiders, and him and his team have been hacking away at some fine apps for the Android platform: Kyte, Rummble, TransDroid and an ebook reader for the Google Books database.
|
| That Was Quick: Veodia Acquires Screen Capturing Startup ScreenToaster Posted: 19 Jun 2009 01:48 AM PDT
For Paris-based ScreenToaster’s founders Marco Fucci and Elie Curetti this is a remarkable feat, considering the fact that the startup only launched its service in private beta about 8 months ago. Perhaps its fast growth made Veodia notice the team might be onto something: ScreenToaster claims to have seen 40% month-to-month average growth in its user base since it launched its service publicly. Or it could be the French Connection: Veodia happens to be founded by its current CEO Guillaume Cohen, who hails from France. Regardless, this acquisition makes sense for Veodia. They can now complement their existing offering, which powers high-quality video services for the likes of Sun Microsystems, BEA and Stanford University, with a rapid way for these organizations to capture more basic screen recordings for product demos, tutorials etc. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
|
| Mobile 2.0 Europe: Video Interview With GetJar CEO Ilja Laurs Posted: 18 Jun 2009 11:38 PM PDT
I’m here at the Mobile 2.0 Europe conference in sunny Barcelona and today had a great conversation with GetJar founder and CEO Ilja Laurs which I recorded and uploaded to our YouTube channel. GetJar, in case you don’t know, is a platform and device-agnostic central marketplace for mobile applications which Laurs bills as the world’s largest independent, open application store. The company is backed by $6 million in venture capital from Accel Partners and flirts with running a cash-flow positive operation. GetJar hosts over 45,000 applications, supports a community of more than 200,000 mobile app developers and sees over 36 million downloads of applications a month, with some of the top developers seeing downloads numbers ranging up to 20 million per unique app. Besides this enormous distribution scale, the two main other reasons mobile developers would decide to put their apps up in the GetJar marketplace, Laurs tells me, is that the company offers a range of services like stats, analytics, a beta testing environment and tools for distribution as well as a set of tools that enables developers to monetize their apps more efficiently. GetJar is currently testing a pilot program for in-application advertising together with some developers, and aims to release this solution publicly in the near future. Asked which platform he would choose to create apps for if he were an independent mobile app developer with limited resources, Laurs remains diplomatic and says a lot depends on the business model, target audience, type of application and what kind of developer you are. I was also curious about the effect the rise of all the different application stores from handset vendors and mobile operating system makers has had on GetJar as a destination site that pre-dates all these platforms by a margin. Laurs tells me the introduction of Apple’s App Store had an overall positive effect on the GetJar network, doubling its growth in a very short time, because it raised awareness about centralized application marketplaces in general and validated the mobile app development industry to a certain degree. Long term, he admits that there are negatives to the app store hype too, obviously the most important one being the increased competition. Check out the video if you’re curious in finding out which devices Laurs uses and what his personal favorite mobile application is. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
|
| As Events Unfold In Iran, Facebook And Google Translate Quickly Add Persian Versions Posted: 18 Jun 2009 09:25 PM PDT  In response to the events surrounding the Iranian election last week, Google and Facebook have both added the Persian language Farsi to their capabilities. The Persian version of Facebook will be available starting tonight. The Facebook blog post announcing the new version is here. Facebook says the Persian version was already being developed but it decided to unveil it because of the sudden increase in activity with the Iranian elections and protests. Facebook adds the disclaimer that the translation is still in rough form. If your browser is set to Farsi, you should automatically see the Persian version of Facebook. Facebook says that more than 400 Persian speakers submitted thousands of individual translations of the site. Google has also added Persion (Farsi) to Google Translate, making it easy to translate any text from Farsi into English and from English into Farsi. Google, like Facebook, says that the launch of the Persian translation was primarily due to the events taking place in Iran. And like Facebook, Google warns that the translation isn’t perfect. Google also invites people to click on the “contribute a better translation” link if they find a poor translation. It’s unclear what will happen with Facebook in Iran, under the current situation. FriendFeed was blocked and Twitter seems to be one of the main forms of social communication online in Iran. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
|
| All In the Family: Sergey Brin Loans 23andme $10 Million And Google Ponies Up $2.6 Million Posted: 18 Jun 2009 04:04 PM PDT
Google is still tightly intertwined with 23andme, a company that helps consumers understand and decipher their genomes. 23andme has raised another $2.6 million from Google out of a total $24.26 million it is trying to raise in a Series B round of funding, according to regulatory filings. This brings the total amount raised from this round to $13.6 million, after May’s $11 million funding round. At the time, Mohr Davidow Ventures divested its stake in 23andme after investing in a direct competitor Navigenics. The juiciest disclosure in the filing is that Brin loaned the startup an additional $10 million which is being converted into Series B preferred shares. Earlier in 2007, he had loaned the company $2.6 million which was repaid from the proceeds of Google’s subsequent $3.9 million stake in 23andMe in May, 2007. The debt was repaid after the Google investment. It appears that Brin once again had to dig into his own pocket to help keep the company afloat. The filing also says one of the investors in the Series B round in May was New Enterprise Associates, which also invested in 23andme’s Series A round. And it mentions that Google has entered into a lease agreement with 23andme, possibly for office space, but it is unclear what exactly is being leased. 23andme, which was co-founded by Sergey Brin's wife, Anne Wojcicki, raised $9 million in a Series A round of funding from Google, Genentech, New Enterprise Associates, and Mohr Davidow Ventures in 2007. The company maps consumers' DNA and helps them find information about their ancestry and their risks of getting certain diseases (Michael tried it last year). Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
|
| The Pre App Catalog Is Tracking Way, Way Behind Apple’s App Store. And It’s Palm’s Fault. Posted: 18 Jun 2009 02:57 PM PDT
Palm’s App Catalog has seen roughly 666,000 app downloads in its first 12 days, according to the mobile analytics firm Medialets. And what’s worse is that the download momentum is slightly slowing down since the initial launch. So don’t be too surprised if one month after the launch, the App Catalog downloads are near 1 million. Yes, 1/60th of what the App Store was doing last year. So why is that? After all, reports are that the Pre itself is selling pretty well. Well, the reasons are fairly obvious, and are all Palm’s fault. Right now, there are only 30 apps in the App Catalog. That’s up from 18 at launch, but there have been no new ones in just about a week now. How many did the App Store have at launch last year? Over 500. And more importantly, the rate of expansion was massive — which led to those 60 million downloads in the first month. The reason the Pre has so few apps is because it has limited who has access to its webOS SDK. Even today, only select developers can get it, to start working on apps. And that’s better than it could have been — initially, Palm wasn’t planning to launch with an app store at all, according to Medialets. But that would have been a really bad move. The smartphone wars today are at least partially being measured by the various app stores, on top of actual device sales. While the iPhone is far from the most popular device around the world, the App Store has had over 1 billion downloads now, and has over 50,000 apps. If you were buying a phone today and had to choose between a device with 50,000 apps and one with 30 apps, which would you choose? Yeah.
To be fair, Apple had a built-in advantage at the launch of the App Store — there were already a few million first generation iPhones out there. Palm attempted to launch the entire package: new device, new OS and new app store, all at the same time. As Medialets notes, the other company that did this recently was Google with its Android platform late last year — but it didn’t have to make the phone, HTC made the G1. Still, Android also failed to secure the type of launch the App Store had for its Android Market. It’s still growing, but not nearly as fast as the App Store. And don’t expect things to pick up anytime soon for the App Catalog. While more developers do have their hands on the SDK now, there is still no real infrastructure to do things such as app payments. That’s something that really hamstrung the Android Market early on. But farther in the future, Palm does have a second device running the webOS coming out. That should undoubtedly help move some apps. Of course, perhaps you heard, Apple has a new device of its own coming out tomorrow. [photo: flickr/robert thomson] Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
|
| Leave It To Chinese Quarantine To Reinforce The Value Of Social Media Posted: 18 Jun 2009 02:44 PM PDT
After a whirlwind tour of East Asia with GeeksOnAPlane (see my assessment posts for China and Japan here and here), I’m back in the states and almost fully recovered from a potent bout of jet lag. I’m not complaining, however, since several other members of our group came down with a nasty stomach flu on the return flight. And one member, Mike Su of Break Media, actually got picked up by the Chinese authorities in Beijing on suspicion of swine flu, only to be stuck in quarantine for five days before getting cleared and released. Mike, who had skipped the Tokyo leg of the trip and joined us in Beijing only a couple of days earlier, took his poorly timed incarceration in stride. Since he needed no real medical attention whatsoever (the officials nabbed him because he had sat two rows away from someone on the plane over who indeed carried swine flu), Mike was left to sit alone in a hotel room for days on end with just his thoughts and a computer. Finding nothing else meaningful to do, he decided to blog his entire experience for the rest of us to enjoy. The result is a set of some pretty amusing and informative posts about what it’s like to experience Chinese quarantine. Welcome to Hotel Quarantine will start you off with the back story, while The Seven People You’ll Meet In Hotel Quarantine is the post that should stand the test of time. Most relevant to the TechCrunch audience, however, is the second-to-last piece, Quarantine 2.0, where Mike reflects on how social media helped make his time in quarantine bearable. He describes how he was able to use Twitter to interact with the outside world and live vicariously through the rest of the GeeksOnAPlane group. Skype and other live streaming services helped him tap remotely into the events we were attending. And blogging, of course, helped him pass the time and ensure that his experience wasn’t for naught.  Kris Krug, who spoke at a TEDx event in Shanghai on Monday, noted that these days "If you don't stick it on the Internet, it didn't happen". For Mike, that didn’t sound like hyperbole, since no one could share his memories unless he published them online. As he put it, “[It's] not that social media replaces or reduces the need for human interaction, but when you're forced into a situation that specifically prevents human interaction, social media becomes your best alternative.” Well put, I think, and a good counter-argument to the idea that social media is a waste of time and ironically anti-social. Not that most of us live in a quarantine-like environment, but it’s important to step back and see just how much better we’re able to connect with other people through space and time these days, even compared to 5 years ago. The most inspirational part of his post comes as an update:
Hear, hear. Let’s hope Mike will join GeeksOnAPlane for the full tour when it travels next to Latin America or some other region, with or without a high sensitivity to transmittable illness. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
|
| As Blogger Nears Its Tenth Birthday, It Still Dominates. But For How Long? Posted: 18 Jun 2009 02:17 PM PDT
Never underestimate the power of first-mover advantage, especially when being one of the first movers gets you bought by Google. Back in August, 1999, Pyra Labs launched Blogger. LiveJournal had launched six months before and Open Diary in October of the previous year. But it was Pyra Labs which was acquired by Google in February, 2003, and the rest was history. Now, nearly ten years later, Blogger is still the dominant hosted blogging platform. In May, 52 million individual people from the U.S. visited a Blogger blog, almost twice as many as the 28 million who visited a blog hosted by Wordpress.com (comScore). Six Apart properties, including Typepad.com, attracted 14 million. Millions of bloggers still use Blogger because it is easy. However, Wordpress.com is making steady gains and growing its aggregate audience in the U.S. at more than twice the annual rate of Blogger (40 percent versus 14 percent). These numbers don’t count all the blogs that host Wordpress on their own servers, such as Techcrunch. The vast majority of Blogger traffic comes from outside the United States, where its annual growth rate is 38 percent compared to Wordpress.com’s 59 percent. On a worldwide basis, Blogger blogs have a readership of 267 million people a month, compared to 143 million a month for Wordpress (comScore, April, 2008). The biggest countries are, in order: 1. U.S. From a business standpoint, Blogger is good for Google because it creates millions of sites which can show AdSesne ads. It creates more inventory for Google. Only recently has Google bothered to start showing ads to the users of Blogger itself every time they publish a post. Can Blogger keep its lead indefinitely, or will Wordpress eventually catch up? Or will something else entirely overtake both of them? Today, two of the people behind the original Blogger, Evan Williams and Biz Stone, have another little service that is capturing people’s attention. It is called Twitter, you may have heard about it. In May, Twitter.com had 17.6 million unique U.S. visitors to its Website alone, making it bigger already than Six Apart. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
|
| Justin.tv Gains DVR Functionality Posted: 18 Jun 2009 01:26 PM PDT
While most live-streaming services offer archives of live recorded video, the nice feature here is the simple way to pick up just where you left off watching something. The feature, rolling out this afternoon, will offer a bar under each video that will read, “Continue watching this later.” If you click on it, all that live video will be recorded so that you can come back to it at a time of your choosing. You’ll receive a link to a place to come back and watch it with a message that looks like:
You could also use this link to share with friends if you all wanted to pick up watching something together. Unfortunately, unlike TV DVR, there is no way to fast-forward through parts that you may want to skip. But I’m told that such functionality is likely in the works for a later release.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
|
| Facebook Makes It Easier To Search Your Inbox Posted: 18 Jun 2009 01:17 PM PDT  Facebook has had a big week. The social network finally caught up to MySpace in the U.S., according to ComScore. News leaked of its upcoming Everyone button. And Facebook made some significant improvements to its search capabilities. Now the social network is improving its inbox’s interface, which previously was a little clunky and difficult to organize. The new design gives you filter options at the top of your inbox to help you identify unread messages as well as to report any spam, or unwanted messages you receive. Facebook has also ramped up its search feature within the inbox, which was lacking in its earlier version. To find specific messages, you can type a keyword or a friend’s name in the search box in the upper-left corner of the screen, and then the results come back only for messages from that person. Yes, this is pretty basic stuff, but it should make it easier to search your Facebook inbox. Facebook is keeping some of the same functionality as before. You can still view Updates from the Facebook Pages you are connected with. You can also manage subscriptions to your fan pages by clicking the “Edit Subscriptions” link beneath “Inbox of Updates.” Facebook says it plans to send messages from Groups and Events to Updates as well. Friendfeed has also updated its email capabilities today, making a few useful improvements its email alerts for new subscribers. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
|
| FriendFeed One-Ups Twitter Again With Its Subscription Emails Posted: 18 Jun 2009 12:59 PM PDT
Now, when get an email alert from FriendFeed that you have a new subscriber, you get a big FriendFeed logo, followed by the user’s icon and a link to easily “Subscribe back.” Below that though is the key part. You now see: “Here are some of the things XXXXX has recently shared on FriendFeed,” followed by three recent FriendFeed updates from that user. On each of those items there are also links to easily comment or “like” any of the items. This three element context is a great addition to these updates because it shows you if that user is actually worth following or not. If Twitter had this you could see if that person was simply a spammer as well. Update: There’s also the ability to see which of your friends is subscribed to the person subscribing to you in the email, which is very useful. More on it at the bottom of the post. FriendFeed has a history of beating Twitter to the punch on a lot of things it should be doing. It had a search that could search tweets well before Twitter, has a functional IM service, and has at least partial “track” functionality right now. Some third-party services like Topify and Twimailer already add this advanced email notification functionality to Twitter, but most user still don’t know about such services. The new way:
The old way:
The Twitter way:
Update: Oh and I initially missed this, but this is huge as well. The emails will also tell you if people you know are subscribed to the person who is subscribing to you. Obviously, Facebook has had such functionality on its site for a while, but in a notification email, it’s very useful.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
|
| Google Flipper Is About To Jump Out Of The Water Posted: 18 Jun 2009 12:12 PM PDT
While we have yet to use it, what looks nice about it is that you can not only browse by sections, but also by sources, keywords, and most importantly by elements such as “most popular” and “recommended.” The visual representation probably won’t revolutionize Google News’ often sub-par performance, but the better filters could. The URL currently takes you to a Google log-in page, but when you sign-in you’re greeted with:
Which means this remains internal to Google right now. But look for it soon. Click on the image below for a slightly larger version.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
|
| First Look: Beejive 3.0 For iPhone Posted: 18 Jun 2009 12:00 PM PDT
Before we start this first look, there’s something I have to admit: I hate most mobile IM clients. We see a whole lot of phones go in and out of the MobileCrunch office, each generally toting its own crappy, broken instant messaging suite. Be they slow, flakey, or just outright terribly designed, we’ve grown to have a nearly unshakable bias against them. With that in mind, know this: We love Beejive 3.0 on the iPhone, which should be hitting the App Store later today. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
|
| Congressman Compares The Plight Of Iranians To GOP On Twitter, Sticks Foot In Mouth Posted: 18 Jun 2009 11:33 AM PDT
Republican Congressman Pete Hoekstra sent out a tweet yesterday comparing the current oppression of Iranians and their reactions on Twitter to “what we did in the House last year when Republicans were shut down in the house.” Apparently Hoekstra is referring to the time last year where Republicans took to Twitter to express their anger after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi adjourned the House, preventing a vote on an energy bill. I don’t know what’s worse-the fact that he is actually comparing a Republican tiff with House Democrats to the oppression and brutality taking place in Iran or the fact that he used Twitter to express this clearly idiotic statement. You would think that a public figure would know better than to write something so ridiculous on a platform that millions of people can see. But according to CNN, Hoekstra has a reputation for Tweeting about things he shouldn’t. Apparently earlier this year, he Tweeted out details about a classified Congressional trip to Baghdad. Apparently, a rep for Hoekstra issued a clarification:
Whatever. Twitter is now abuzz with heckles at Hoekstra-I’ve included some of the best ones below that were listed on a blog that popped up in response to Hoekstra’s remarks:     Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
|
| Quick Hack: Enable AT&T Tethering Under iPhone 3.0 Posted: 18 Jun 2009 10:37 AM PDT  UPDATE - Just go here with your iPhone browser. This enables tethering and if you reboot you can get MMS. MMS is still wonky on AT&T, though. You can also try the longer way below. Sorry, AT&T, but you can't hide tethering from the very folks who taught you, long ago, what it meant to truly tether. First, download this carrier update and then type this into Terminal.
|
| Google Books Adds New Features And Tools Posted: 18 Jun 2009 09:50 AM PDT Google has launched a bunch of new features to Google Books in an effort to promote interactivity between readers and the online books. 1. Embeddable previews of books: This new feature allows you to embed a preview of a full view or partner book in your websites or blogs, just like you would with a YouTube video. You can also copy and paste a url link in an email to share the book with your friends.  2. Ramped up in-book search: For public domain and partner books, Google has made the ability to search for a term within a book a little bit more user friendly. When you search for a term on a book, you can now see an image from the part of the page on which it appears. You can also click on those images to navigate directly to the pages inside the book. And you can filter search results by relevance in addition to page order in the book or magazine.  3. Thumbnail view options: You now have the option to click on the thumbnail view button to see an overview of all the pages in a public domain book or in a magazine.  4. Contents drop-down menu: Via a contents drop-down menu, Google Books will now allow you to jump to chapters within the book–or articles within a magazine (the same technology supports the mobile version of Google Books).  5. Plain Text Mode: Google’s made it easier to see the plain text versions of Google Books. The tool bar now includes a ‘Plain text’ button to see the HTML version of the text, which Google says is especially useful for visually impaired users, who can use this format for text-to-speech and other types of software. 6. Page Turn Button and Animation: In addition to scrolling through the book, you can now also click the page turn button at the bottom of the screen. Google also has implemented an an animated line to move with the page turn to make it easier to keep track of your location in the text.  7. Overview Page Overhaul: Google has added an assortment of data about the book on its overview page, including reviews, ratings, summaries, related books, key words and phrases, references from the web, places mentioned in the book, and publisher information.  Last October, Google signed a $125 million settlement with the Author's Guild to pay authors for copyrighted works it has scanned and made available on the Web through its Google Book Search project. More than 7 million books have been scanned by Google so far, a large portion of them out of print. The Settlement, though the site is up and running, is still up in the air, facing an antitrust investigation by the Department of Justice. And the settlement has draw its fair share of critics, including Jeff Bezos. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
|
| Interview: Rob Burkinshaw, Game Designer and Creator of Homeless Sims Posted: 18 Jun 2009 09:43 AM PDT  Yesterday we posted about Alice and Kev, homeless Sims that exist entirely in the world of Sims 3. They are a family. Alice is a girl with the traditional adolescent pre-teen worries but she's saddled with a father who is high-strung, hates kids, and is generally a misfit in the orderly world of the Sims. They are homeless in that they live in a house with no walls and sleep on park benches. They have no source of food except for things given to them from other Sims or stolen in the course of the day. They can't get clean in their own home - there's no bathroom - and Alice's sleep is interrupted constantly by Kev's rants. Rob Burkinshaw created the experiment, called Alice and Kev, as an examination of game theory and a test of his in-game photography skills but it quickly morphed into one of the most heart-breaking stories I've read in a long time.
|
| Collecta Enters The Real Time Search Wars Posted: 18 Jun 2009 08:55 AM PDT
As we become inundated with more and more streams of data from Twitter, Facebook, blog, Flickr, and everywhere else, we need better ways to search what is happening right now. Twitter, Facebook, and Google are working on their own real-time search efforts, along with a slew of startups including OneRiot, Scoopler, and CrowdEye (which launched last night). The latest entrant in the real time search wars is Collecta It just launched a few minutes ago, and it scours the Web for real-time information. Results come from Twitter, of course, but also from news feeds, blog posts, comments, and Flickr photos. Status updates on Jaiku and Identica are also captured. If you do a search for iPhone, for instance, you will get a constantly updating stream of results which flow down the middle column of the page. If you click on any result, you will see a bigger version of the Tweet or the entire comment or feed item on the right. You can filter the stream by stories, updates, comments, or photos by checking boxes on the left under Search options. Everything Collecta collects and indexes is then pushed out via an XMPP stream, which means that your search results get updated the second that Collecta recieves new information. When CEO Gerry Campbell gave me a demo yesterday, I asked him why Collecta doesn’t rank results by some sort of authority instead of simply showing a chronological stream. Campbell used to be the president of search at Rueters, and before that the SVP of search at AOL. So he is very familiar with the traditional search mindset of trying to show the most “relevant” results. He suggested that those types of filtering options could be added in the future, but he wanted to start out with a new experience. What you are getting with Collecta is the pure stream of what is happening right now. If you want to refine that then you can do that by refining your search terms. He wants to encourage users to perform searches and let the results wash over them. The second he starts re-ordering results by some sort of authority ranking, then something that happened an hour ago or last week might turn up at the top of results. (Of course, a simple time decay could solve that problem). I appreciate that he is trying to encourage new forms of interacting with search results, but at some point I think he really needs to add relevance filters as well. Collecta was founded in November of 2008, and raised $1.85 million in a series A round which closed in March 2009. True Ventures and Campbell were the investors. The company was co-founded by Jack Moffitt, Brian Zisk, and Patrick Mahoney. Derek Powazek of JPG Magazine fame is the creative director.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
|
One month after the launch of the App Store in 2008, Apple had seen over 60 million downloads of its apps. The Palm Pre hasn’t been out for a month yet, but it’s about halfway there, so how close is it to that number? Not close at all. Not in the same ballpark. Not even in the same city.
The thing that saved television watching for me was the advent of the digital video recorder (DVR). I love the idea that you can be watching something, but have to stop to do something else, so you just pause it, and it will record it so you can come back later and pick up where you left off. Now you can have the same functionality on the live-streaming video site, 
A few months ago, 
Google is about to launch a new Google Labs project it calls 
| You are subscribed to email updates from TechCrunch To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
Inbox too full?  | |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment