The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- What Is The Real Reason Dell Is Discontinuing 12-inch Netbooks?
- 16 Apps That Make Sharing Large Files A Snap
- Which Search Engine Do You Choose In The Blind Test?
- NYC Mayor Postpones His Day Of Tweeting To Actually, You Know, Do His Job
- NSFW: Don’t bullshit a reformed bullshitter; the off-the-record gravy train stops here
- iTunes 9: Blu-ray And App Organization And Twitter, Oh My?
- App Store Thaw? Apple Accepts A Gmail Push Application
- I Want To Love Firefox 3.5, But It Keeps Crashing On Me
| What Is The Real Reason Dell Is Discontinuing 12-inch Netbooks? Posted: 08 Aug 2009 07:46 PM PDT
That makes absolutely no sense, since it requires no additional hardware horsepower to power a 12-inch netbook v. a 10-inch netbook. The only difference is power usage from the bigger screen. And the two extra inches more than makes up for the shorter battery life or slightly heavier device from packing in more batteries. It only costs a few more dollars to build a 12-inch v. a 10-inch netbook, and users get a bigger screen with the same performance. In fact, Intel’s official position on 10-inch netbooks is almost exactly the opposite of Dell’s. Intel says "If you've ever used a Netbook and used a 10-inch screen size–it's fine for an hour. It's not something you're going to use day in and day out." So why is Dell really discontinuing 12-inch netbooks? Probably a couple of reasons. First, Intel doesn’t like 12-inch netbooks because they are deep into dual core territory, where Intel has much healthier profit margins. For casual users a 12-inch netbook with an Atom chip works just fine, and they are buying these devices instead of more expensive dual core machines. Intel has put pressure on OEMs to build netbooks that have 10 inch or smaller screens. This includes direct pricing pressure - Intel prices Atom chips based on the size of the device screen. Anything over 10 inches is priced higher than devices with 10 inch or smaller screens. We think this is an inappropriate way to price Atom chips. Dell may also be seeing customers who would otherwise buy a dual-core 13-inch or 14-inch Inspiron choosing the lower priced (and less profitable) 12 inch netbook instead. That’s something they aren’t going to be happy about. Netbooks should be getting bigger, not smaller. That’s what users want. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| 16 Apps That Make Sharing Large Files A Snap Posted: 08 Aug 2009 07:41 PM PDT
File sharing services are not as popular today as they were four years ago. It’s not that people are sharing any less. Rather, they just found easier ways to do it. Would you upload a funny video from a friend’s email to any of those services or would you search for it on Youtube and share only the link? Would you upload an MP3 file in order to share with whomever, or would you search for it online, grab the link and then share it? And finally, would you use a file-sharing app just to share a picture on Facebook when you can do it directly from your desktop to your Facebook profile? Of course, you wouldn’t! So why would you use an file-sharing app anyway? Actually for many reasons: for larger files, for privacy, multiple files, file format support, and more. In this post, I compare 16 file-sharing services. I took three main issues under consideration when creating the comprehensive app list below: Free, Fast, and Useful . . . Most of the services suggested require no registration. None of them will ask you to download anything to your computer, and all of them are easy to use, and worth using. It is actually great to see services, such as Yousendit, MailBigFile, and Rapidshare, that are still relevant and are good choices, but if I had to pick one it would be Mediafire. Don’t get confused now. This is not a list of services that let you store all your files in the cloud, organizes them, or allows you to collaborate with friends. It’s more focused on file-sharing only, in the richest capacity—well, okay, you be the judge of that.
Sharing files, large or small, should be a simple act, in my opinion—not something that should require a major effort or thought process on your behalf or make you create a complicated profile/account to use it. The options I listed here will help you explore the diverse file-sharing opportunities currently available. Whether you need to send a file privately or publicly, small or big, temporary or permanent, the options are all in this list, you just need to find the best match for your needs. (Folder graphic by Photoxpress) Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
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| Which Search Engine Do You Choose In The Blind Test? Posted: 08 Aug 2009 05:22 PM PDT
A few search engine experts we’ve spoken with over the years say that users tend to think Google results are better just because they’re from Google. If you take any search engine and put the logo on top, it tests better. So Yahoo results with a Google logo will always test better than, say, Google results with the Yahoo or Bing logo. People are just used to thinking about Google as the best search. This search tool strips out all the branding, so you’re forced to really think about which results you like better. And early results showed a much more even distribution than Google’s 70% market share would suggest: Google: 44%, Bing: 33%, Yahoo: 23%. The score keeping feature was removed when people found a way to game it, but you can still run the test against yourself and see which search engine you really like the best. Too bad the one I seem to like will shortly be mothballed. The tool was created by Michael Kordahi, a Developer Evangelist at Microsoft. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| NYC Mayor Postpones His Day Of Tweeting To Actually, You Know, Do His Job Posted: 08 Aug 2009 03:52 PM PDT
So those who were hoping to know what Bloomberg was eating for lunch, what he’s thinking about while walking his dogs, and updates about the Yankees game, will have to wait. Why was Bloomberg planning to tweet for the day? Well, because he’s running for re-election and undoubtedly heard about the power of social media in campaigns these days. What’s kind of sad is Bloomberg’s actual Twitter stream. While it’s pretty clear that it’s not actually run by him right now (hence, the idea of him tweeting for the day actually being compelling), his tweet stream is filled with shameless self-promotion to follow him, and touting his day of tweeting. He #followfriday’d himself no less than two times yesterday. Anyone looking at his tweet stream for information about the Hudson River accident? You’re out of luck. That might actually be useful. Still, it was definitely a good call by the mayor to pass up the Twitter promotional stunt to deal with the tragedy.
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| NSFW: Don’t bullshit a reformed bullshitter; the off-the-record gravy train stops here Posted: 08 Aug 2009 02:14 PM PDT
Truth be told, in the past I have been guilty of prevarication on an Olympian scale in almost all aspects of my life. In business, in relationships, in friendships and even - during one epically drunken evening in a London pub a couple of years ago - in all three at the same time, leading to hilarious consequences, no small amount of heartache and the beginning of my journey of self-improvement. It’s a long story. You should buy it. Given my past indiscretions, then, it’s both perfectly fitting and deliciously ironic how much I hate being lied to. Or rather, how much I hate discovering that I’ve been lied to. I really can’t put into words how furious it makes me; with the liar, the lie and with myself for believing them both. I could probably forgive you for cheating on my sister (I don’t have a sister) or running over my cat (I don’t have a cat), providing you’re honest with me about it. But the moment you lie, and I find out about it, we’re done. So you can imagine how I felt this week when I found out I’d been lied to multiple times by not one but two separate people, regarding two different stories I was trying to report. I won’t name names on this occasion, for reasons I’ll get to, but the details are important. The first liar presented himself to me on Monday when Lacy and I were working on a story about European music house-of-cards Spotify. Ordinarily I am more than able to resist the temptation of doing actual journalism, but a source very close to the company had reached out to me with details of their latest fundraising round and so I felt I had something uncharacteristically useful to contribute to Sarah’s solid reporting of the story. The source was willing to tell me all that he knew on the proviso that I wouldn’t quote him directly or identify him in any way. With every reason to trust him - or rather no reason not to - I agreed. (Journalism students will have correctly determined that he was asking for a neat subset of “off the record” sourcing called the Chatham House Rule. Well done journalism students, go to the top of your irrelevant class.) A few hours later, as is good practise when dealing with unattributable information, I spoke to another well-placed source for verification. “Here’s what I’ve heard from my source,” I said, before spelling out what my Deep Throat had told me. The second source listened intently but with a look of increasing confusion spreading across her face. “Wait,” she said, “did you get this stuff from __________, by any chance”? “I’m not going to talk about sources,” I said. She laughed, for an uncomfortably long time. “Yeah, you’ve obviously been talking to __________. He does this all the time - exaggerates or out-and-out lies to reporters off the record, knowing he won’t be quoted. He thinks he’s some Machiavellian character but the truth is he’s just not very good at it.” No. He most certainly is not. Moving right along, and if you follow me on Twitter you can probably guess the identity of my second liar of the week. You might even have read the open letter I wrote to him on my blog, but let’s keep his name off TechCrunch just this once. Sufficed to say he’s someone with whom I’ve had numerous conversations - some on the record, others off - in which he’s told me his side of what is a very weird and very painful story of lies, betrayal and start-ups-gone-bad. In return I’d given him a fair hearing and, I thought, reported the facts in a way that was fair to all parties. But as time went on, his version of events began to unravel. More and more independent information that I received pointed to the fact that I’d been mislead - and on a few comical occasions the liar’s new lies even began to contradict his previous ones. I mean, seriously. Being fooled by one off the record liar in a week is unfortunate, two starts to look like carelessness. You can imagine how angry I felt. And yet with that anger came a sudden realisation: with almost every lie I’ve ever been told professionally, the circumstances have been the same. The person telling it has always insisted on being off the record, ostensibly because the information they’re giving me is so sensitive that they would risk losing their livelihood if they were revealed as the source. But really because they are talking out of their ass with a serious agenda and don’t want to be exposed as a liar. It’s happened to me maybe fifty times, and I’m not even a real reporter. What seems to have been forgotten in the past few years, by both sources and reporters, is that an off the record agreement is not a one-way deal which allows an interested party to spin a story without any risk that it will come back and bite them on the ass. Rather it’s a contract between two parties, designed to ensure that the truth can be told, in keeping with the public interest, without fear of oppression. It’s a way for a source to feel safe in revealing, honestly, what they know, in return for agreement that the reporter would go to jail before identifying him or her. The reporter is agreeing to take all the heat for the story; to put their ass on the line for the source - and the price of having the reporter take that risk is total honesty. Think Mark Felt and Bob Woodward; that’s how it’s supposed to work. And yet, until now, the big difference between the “off the record” contract and any other binding contract is that the former didn’t carry any penalties whatsoever for breach. Even if all evidence points to an anonymous source being 100% full of shit, the fact remains that the reporter has agreed in advance not to identify them. Sure, I’ll never trust either of my two liars again, but they’re still free to scamper off to another reporter and peddle the same bullshit with a decent chance it’ll be published, at least as a rumour. Every technology and business reporter I’ve spoken to this week about the off the record problem has their own story to tell about bullshitting sources, and every single one says they don’t know what to do about it. They just consider it one of the risks of the game. Well enough’s enough. The one-sided contract ends here. From now on, if you tell me something off the record and I later discover that you’ve knowingly mislead me, our contract of anonymity is immediately void, for breach. That means that everything you’ve told me about the story becomes on the record, and fully attributable. Every. Single. Thing. I will call you out on your lies and I will embarrass the hell out of you, to the point that no reporter - or any other right-thinking human being - will ever believe a word you say ever again. If there’s any justice in the world, you’ll also be fired. And have your sister cheated on, and your cat run over. This new policy starts today, and over the coming days and weeks I’ll be taking my message on the road, selling the idea to every other reporter I meet. It’s time those of us who write about business and technology begin holding ourselves to the same standards we expect from any other kind of reporting, and it’s time to indict those backroom bullshitters who think that journalists are their own private press machines. Consider yourself warned, liars. Your free ride stops here. Because God knows, if there’s one person more unwise to bullshit than a bullshitter, it’s a reformed bullshitter. And, yes, you can absolutely quote me on that. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| iTunes 9: Blu-ray And App Organization And Twitter, Oh My? Posted: 08 Aug 2009 11:15 AM PDT
Each of those features have been talked about for some time now on the web. But as BGR notes, the talk of Blu-ray does line itself up well with an AppleInsider report from yesterday that very vaguely suggested Apple has new iMacs due shortly with features that have long been on the wish-lists of Mac owners. Blu-ray is certainly on that list, and seems like a pretty good candidate, despite Steve Jobs’ calling the format a “bag of hurt” as recently as October of last year. More compelling may be the talk of a new way to organize iPhone/iPod touch apps in iTunes. This has been badly needed ever since it became clear that people were downloading a ton of apps to use on one device. Currently, system for managing them within iTunes is quite franktly, awful. The concept video posted at the bottom of this story shows how it really should work. BGR says the Twitter/Facebook/Last.fm stuff from its tip was more vague, but you can imagine that if such features were integrated it would involve tweeting out or updating your Facebook status with what song you are listening to. It’s possible that for Last.fm, iTunes would build-in support for logging what songs you are playing, something which Last.fm currently does through its own software. The Twitter angle is also interesting because of the rumors of talks between the two companies a few months ago. We were unable to confirm those rumors, but perhaps the two sides did meet to talk about something like this. Obviously, that’s just speculation. Apple has worked with Facebook in the past to get support for uploading pictures built-in to the newest version of iPhoto. The integration is pretty slick as it also allows you to tag Facebook friends in pictures, and keeps edits made on both iPhoto and Facebook in sync. And just imagine if Apple made a feature not only to send the name of a currently playing song to Twitter and Facebook, but if it included a link to buy the song on iTunes as well. That could mean some significant sales. While we’re speculating, I would also love to see a Genius feature for iPhone apps, something which I talked about the need for recently. Again, these are all just rumors for now, but we could see if they’re true or not as early as next month when it’s likely that Apple will hold some kind of iPod even, just like it does every September. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
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| App Store Thaw? Apple Accepts A Gmail Push Application Posted: 08 Aug 2009 10:18 AM PDT
Now, before you get all excited, it’s not live just yet. The developers had an issue with the Amazon servers they use to run their system, so they temporarily took the app down, but the team expects things to be back to normal and the app to be in the store in the next 24 hours, we’re told. Again, as far as Apple is concerned, the app is good to go. If you need to know about the app itself, I suggest you read our initial piece, but it’s pretty straightforward, it brings push support to Gmail on the iPhone via Push Notifications because Apple doesn’t support push Gmail natively, for whatever reason. What we’re more interested in is the timing of this acceptance. Granted, this is all speculative, but the timing of Apple accepting a Gmail push notification app that it has been sitting on for a month is curious. Earlier this week, Google CEO Eric Schmidt stepped down from Apple’s board of directors. A few days prior to that, the FCC sent letters to both Apple and Google inquiring about the their relationship as it relates to the App Store. This was brought about by Apple rejecting Google’s Google Voice app. And then yesterday, we reported that Google and Apple did have a no-poaching rule for hiring between the two companies, something which the Justice Department was looking into. Could all that pressure, specifically on Apple as it relates to Google, have caused Apple to accept this app? Or, at the very least, did Schmidt’s removal from Apple’s board pave the way for this? The developers are wondering the same things. Sure, it may sound silly that Apple’s stance on one app could be changed by these things, but we do know that Apple has started watching even single app rejections/non-approvals more closely as no less than Apple VP Phil Schiller is now weighing in on them. Or maybe this is the first sign of a thaw for Apple’s frigid policies with developers who create apps in what it considers to be a gray area. I’m not saying GPush was definitely one of those apps (though we did wonder that from day one), but a month is a long time to wait for approval, even by the App Store’s standards. And the GPush developers say that they did not change anything in the app to make Apple accept it. Whatever the reason for the acceptance, if you’re a Gmail addict, it will be a good thing to have GPush in the store. As I said, look for the app sometime in the next 24 hours in the App Store. It will be $0.99 for the first week of availability, then the price will go up to $1.99. [photo: flickr/richard stebbing] Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| I Want To Love Firefox 3.5, But It Keeps Crashing On Me Posted: 08 Aug 2009 09:59 AM PDT
Ever since the new Firefox 3.5 came out about a month ago, I’ve been using it as my main browser. Generally I am very happy with it. Pages load a lot faster than they did before, the plus-sign feature in tabs which launches a new one is a godsend, and I am very excited about the prospects for all of the open video technologies built into it. But there is one persistent bug that might push me to another browser: it keeps crashing on me. This usually happens when I have too many tabs open (like 15 or 20, which is not unusual for me towards the end of the day). The whole thing will just freeze and I’ll have to force the browser to quit. When I relaunch I get a message like the one above, sheepishly saying, “Well, this is embarrassing.” Yes, it is embarrassing. A modern browser should be able to handle dozens of open tabs, and if there is a problem with one, it should be able to isolate it and allow you to carry with your business in the other tabs. Without basic stability, none of the other great features or add-ons really matter much. Mozilla needs to fix this issue fast because Firefox 3.5 is already gaining a lot of traction. Net Applications has it at a 4.5 percent market share at the end of July, while StatCounter has it at 9.4 percent as of today. People are using this as their main browser, despite the beta label, and there are plenty of other powerful choices out there from Safari to Chrome to, yes, even IE8. I realize that Firefox 3.5
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Dell has retired their 12-inch Intel Atom-powered netbooks, they 
Have you tried out this 
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had planned to take the entire day tomorrow to use Twitter to send out mundane updates about his life. Unfortunately, the Hudson River 
As anyone who has read my critically acclaimed, Pulitzer-Prize-winning 
This is completely a rumor, but an awesome one. Citing a “pretty reliable” source, 
It has now been over a month since we first 
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