The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- TechCrunch Poll: What Do You Use As Your Home Phone Service?
- Mobile Roadie Partners With Ustream To Power Official iPhone App For LeWeb
- Google To Newspaper Industry: Don’t Shoot The Gift Horse That Feeds You
- Zoosk Lands Another $30 Million For Social Dating
- Le Web In Paris Next Week Is The Hottest Ticket In Town. Here’s Two Free Ones
- Here’s Looking At You, Kid – MovieClips.com Beta Goes Live
- Email Of The Week: ABC News Wants Help With Qik Video
- Twitter, Amiando, Obopay, And Playfish Are Named Technology Pioneers By The World Economic Forum
- Foursquare Faces A Rummble In The Jungle
- Friendster Gets A Major Makeover, Calls Other Social Networks Plain And Boring
- Sonoa’s Mobile App Accelerator Looks To Cut Load Times By 90%
- Done Deal: Comcast Takes Over NBC Universal
- Has Twitter Dumped That Hated Retweet Function?
- SEC Files Lawsuit Against Canopy Financial And Co-Founder For Fraud
- Layar 3.0 Is Ready To Add New Layers To Your (Mobile) Reality
- Google Turns To Twitter To Help Friend Connect Fly
- MySpace Music Finally Lands In The UK
- Meebo Gives Publishers More Control Over Meebo Bar With New API
- As Google Backs Away From A Plug-in, Microsoft Rushes Towards One
- WebGL Might Eventually Bring 3D Prowess To Mobile Web Apps
- Google Takes Minimalism To The Extreme With New Fade-In Homepage
- ReTel Technologies Raises $1 Million For Surveillance Video Analytics
- Videos: Watch Me Swipe The Time Inc. Tablet
- Hong Kong Meet-up is Friday at 6pm
- Nimbuzz Introduces Native IM App For BlackBerry Smartphones
| TechCrunch Poll: What Do You Use As Your Home Phone Service? Posted: 03 Dec 2009 08:58 AM PST
I’m a long time Vonage user myself, and haven’t had a landline for nearly a decade.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors  |
| Mobile Roadie Partners With Ustream To Power Official iPhone App For LeWeb Posted: 03 Dec 2009 08:57 AM PST
As mobile web usage increases, conference attendees need real-time, updated information on the go that can be accessible from mobile devices. Mobile Roadie, a startup that helps develops iPhone apps, has developed the official iPhone app for LeWeb, the foremost European technology conference organized by French entrepreneur and Seesmic founder, Loic Le Meur and his wife, Geraldine. LeWeb 2009 is set to take place next week in Paris, France. The LeWeb App, which is free, essentially puts the entire conference in the pockets of show attendees and lets anyone who isn’t attending the conference watch a live stream of the events directly from their iPhones. The LeWeb App packs in the essentials for attendees, speakers, and participants, including a detailed show schedule and agenda, speaker bios, and directions. To help people network at the show, the app contains a list of show attendees with a link to their Twitter profiles. The application also supports Facebook Connect and Twitter integration, so that all comments and Tweets can be blasted back out to Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag for LeWeb. And the app features push notifications so administrators can send alerts and updates easily to iPhone users. Mobile Roadie has partnered with Ustream enable iPhone users to watch LeWeb live inside its own app. For now, Mobile Roadie only offers iPhone apps but will soon offer the ability to develop apps for the Andoid in January. The beauty of Mobile Roadie’s platform is that if offers a dead simple mostly-automated system to build apps and have them posted to Apple's App Store in as little as a week. Launched earlier this year, startup develops mobile apps for other conferences, events, and venues, as well as musicians, athletes, politicians, and other celebrities. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Google To Newspaper Industry: Don’t Shoot The Gift Horse That Feeds You Posted: 03 Dec 2009 08:05 AM PST
Google’s been taking a beating from the newspaper industry lately, and Rupert Murdoch in particular. But the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal let Google CEO Eric Schmidt respond today in an Op-Ed piece which basically says: Hey, we know the Internet is killing your business, but don’t blame us. Google is here to help. Google sends news sites 4 billion clicks a month, and Schmidt says it wants to assist the media industry in coming up with new ways to make money from their content. Google’s chief legal counsel, David Drummond, delivered almost the exact same talking points in a speech to a meeting of the World Association of Newspapers in Hyderabad, India. Drummond prefaced his remarks by imploring the assembled newspaper publishers, “don't shoot, I come in peace.” They shot him anyway, arguing that Google does not respect copyright—which is an absurd argument because any publisher can block Google from indexing their site quite easily. Google News now lets publishers with paywalls limit the number of free clicks per day to five per person and publishers can now choose whether they want their content to appear in Google searches, Google News searches, both, or neither. Not even Google can save much of the dying print newspaper business, but it can help them build up their digital revenues. And that’s the subtext of Google’s message to newspaper publishers: Don’t shoot the gift horse that feeds you. (To mangle three well-worn phrases together). Those 4 billion clicks a month are a gift. While they might not add up to expense-account lunches all around at Per Se, they are nourishment nonetheless. Photo credit: Flickr/Randy Son Of Robert Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Zoosk Lands Another $30 Million For Social Dating Posted: 03 Dec 2009 07:50 AM PST
We last covered the company in October, when it reached the 40 million user milestone (12 million of whom are active). The site has been cash flow posistive for the last two months, and is on track for $20 million in revenue this year. After launching in December 2007, Zoosk gained popularity through its social network applications available on Hi5, Bebo, Friendster, MySpace, and Facebook. It also has a standalone site at Zoosk.com, as well as an AIR client. The site tries to differentiate itself from dating portals like Match.com by getting distribution on as many platforms as possible, as well as by targeting a 25-35 year old demographic. Cofounders (and co-CEOs) Alex Mehr and Shayan Zadeh say that that the company will use the money to continue building itself into a leading dating site on the web. The company is also planning to further expand to new platforms: soon it will be launching a strong push on mobile, including a new iPhone app. Zoosk may also begin offline marketing efforts to raise awareness. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Le Web In Paris Next Week Is The Hottest Ticket In Town. Here’s Two Free Ones Posted: 03 Dec 2009 07:07 AM PST
I’ll be there (all week actually). TechCrunch Europe is partnering with Le Web on their startup competition, and I’m moderating two sessions. The first is a platform roundtable with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Six Apart and Ustream. And I’ll also be interviewing Google’s Marissa Mayer on stage again this year (here’s our interview last year). The full agenda is here. Attendance will be at least as high as last year’s 1,750, says the organizers. If you’d like one of the free tickets, please leave a comment below telling us your funniest or saddest story on why you need to attend but can’t afford the ticket. Remember that you have to get yourself to Paris and find somewhere to sleep on your own dime. See you there! Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Here’s Looking At You, Kid – MovieClips.com Beta Goes Live Posted: 03 Dec 2009 07:01 AM PST
And it went ahead and made my day. The site at launch boasts approximately 12,000 two-minute streaming clips from the libraries of 20th Century Fox, MGM, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures. It promises thousands more are coming soon, too. And since the startup is hedging its bets on advertising revenue and income from affiliate purchases by users, the clips are all available for free. Relive scenes from classics such as A Fistful of Dollars, Misery, Casablanca, Do The Right Thing and Mallrats (yes, that’s a classic in my book too). And once you’ve found that clip you were looking for, like the infamous “I’ll be back” scene from the first Terminator movie, you can give it a thumbs up by ‘hyping’ or favoriting it, share your comments below the video or share the whole thing with your buddies on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and so on. It has trivia, too! You’re supposed to be able to embed clips too from what I can gather, but since the code doesn’t appear in the appropriate box users seem currently unable to. The website lets you browse movies clips by movie or actor, but also look up scenes based on actions (e.g. Attack) or even mood (e.g. Scary). When you’re busy searching, you get a handy thumbnail version of clips that you can hover over to preview. The only downside of the site is that clips load terribly slow, at least in my experience. MovieClips plans to generate revenue from affiliate partnerships; you can buy or rent full-length movies directly on legitimate websites and in some cases straight from iTunes. The startup behind the service is privately-held and based in Santa Monica, CA. The company has aligned some notable advisors, including author and Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen, Sid Ganis (former President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences), former Marvel Studios President Michael A. Helfant, Omniture co-founder and CEO Josh James and Ryan Wright, SVP, Sony BMG Music. I’m certain MovieClips.com isn’t the first of its kind (also check out yet-to-launch TC50 2009 finalist AnyClip) but it’s free, legal and as good-looking as it is user-friendly. And in my eyes, that’s a great gift.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Email Of The Week: ABC News Wants Help With Qik Video Posted: 03 Dec 2009 06:47 AM PST
I know online streaming video isn’t inherently obvious to everyone in the world, but it should be inherently obvious to a television station executive whose title is Director of New Media & Operations. And even if it isn’t, Qik has a video, using cartoons, at the top of their home page showing how to use the service. We’ve removed the name and location of the affiliate to protect this poor guy’s job. But please everyone, we’re not a Q&A service for every aspiring new media director who has no clue what his job is all about. Here’s the email exchange:
Past Winners Of The Email Of The Week Award: Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Twitter, Amiando, Obopay, And Playfish Are Named Technology Pioneers By The World Economic Forum Posted: 03 Dec 2009 06:00 AM PST
Every year the World Economic Forum picks a couple dozen or so up-and-coming technology startups from around the world and dubs them Technology Pioneers. In the past, Technology Pioneers have included Google and Mozilla. Last year, Mint, Etsy, and Brightcove joined the club. Today, the World Economic Forum is naming 26 Technology Pioneers for 2010. They include Twitter, Amiando, Playfish, Obopay, Innovid, Bloom Energy, and Boston Power. Twitter probably should have been named last year, before its huge growth spurt, but better late than never. Amiando, based in Germany, is an online ticket service which is going gangbusters. (It competes with Eventbrite). Playfish is a social gaming company based in the UK, which was recently bought by Electronic Arts for $300 million. Obopay is a mobile payments service which raised $70 million last year and now powers Nokia Money. Eighteen of the 26 companies are from the US. The remaining eight from Brazil, Germany, India, Israel, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom. To be selected, a company must be "involved in the development of a life-changing technology innovation and have the potential for long-term impact on business and society." The companies must also "demonstrate visionary leadership and show all the signs of a long-standing and sustainable market leader." The winners are invited to attend the WEF annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland in January and rub elbows with world political and business leaders. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Foursquare Faces A Rummble In The Jungle Posted: 03 Dec 2009 05:58 AM PST
Furthermore it has also implemented the Twitter’s new Geotagging API which provides accessible location context to tweets from Rummble check-ins and reviews. This works with new versions of twitter clients like Tweetie, Tweetdeck and Seesmic Web, which launched support for the Twitter Geotagging API earlier this week. That means Rummble users can geotag tweets with their current location (if they choose to share it) and any venue in the world. This real-time geo-data is consumable by everyone on Twitter, regardless of whether they are signed up to Rummble or not. This is one of the first social apps (outside of twitter clients) to use geo tweets. It adds geo lat/long into tweets for Twitter’s Location-api for status updates posted out of Rummble. This covers the user’s location, check-ins and tweets posted of Rummble reviews of a bar or cafe etc. Tweets from the Gowalla and Foursquare aps are geotagged if the setting has been switched on in twitter settings. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Friendster Gets A Major Makeover, Calls Other Social Networks Plain And Boring Posted: 03 Dec 2009 05:01 AM PST
Friendster outlines some of the changes in a video (embedded below), in which it calls out other social networks (*cough* Facebook and *cough* MySpace) for being plain and boring. My absolute favorite part of the video: “I mean, if everyone’s there, woop de doo”. Friendster in the clip says the redesign aims to place more emphasis on 3 pillars: Simple, Fun and Personal. The company also features glimpses of the new website lay-out, which looks a whole lot like Facebook in my opinion, but seemingly mixed with the customization capabilities of MySpace (e.g. it looks like you can change the background color of pages with a single click). Apologies for the blurry screenshot, but watch the video to see it in action.
Friendster, founded in 2001, has raised over $45 million in venture capital to date, and is sitting on some potentially lucrative IP. It’s no longer hot in the U.S. any way you look at it, but it’s most definitely still a big deal in the Asia/Pacific region. So much so that last year the company appointed Richard Kimber as its new CEO (he used to head Sales and Operations in South East Asia for Google) and has openly started shopping itself to potential buyers in the region over the Summer. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Sonoa’s Mobile App Accelerator Looks To Cut Load Times By 90% Posted: 03 Dec 2009 05:00 AM PST
Sonoa’s Mobile App Accelerator is based off of Amazon’s EC2. Developers send data through Sonoa as a proxy, which is in turn routed to mobile apps requesting the data. The proxy service optomizes using advanced caching and by automatically paginating data. In other words the company says it can send data to phones “drip by drip”, rather than as a large download that can be time consuming to fetch. The service can also translate data sent from the API from XML to formats that are more friendly to the mobile device downlading the data. The service will work for applications on mobile platforms including the iPhone, Android, and Blackberry. Sonoa says that it can decrease load times from 20 seconds to 1-2 seconds. And because it’s based on EC2, it can help your service scale if one of your mobile apps suddenly goes viral (or gets featured on the App Store). Obviously speeding up transfers has some secondary benefits, too — because users are downlading data for less time, this could help a bit with battery life. Sonoa has actually offered services for managing web-based APIs for some time, allowing developers to manage access rules to their APIs. In August it launched Apigee, which the company likens to a Google Analytics for APIs. And, as it turns out, Apigee has become especially popular with mobile developers using it for analytics. Apigee is free to most users, but compared to Sonoa’s core offerings its features are rather limited. The Sonoa Mobile App Accelerator is the company’s answer for developers looking for a more robust, premium package. Sonoa costs $3,000 monthly to start with, and will ramp up as customers choose to add more advanced features. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Done Deal: Comcast Takes Over NBC Universal Posted: 03 Dec 2009 03:48 AM PST
GE will contribute to the joint venture NBCU's businesses valued at $30 billion, including its cable networks, filmed entertainment, televised entertainment, theme parks, and unconsolidated investments, subject to $9.1 billion in debt. Comcast will put in its cable networks (including E!, Versus and the Golf Channel), its ten regional sports networks, and certain digital media properties, collectively valued at $7.25 billion. Comcast has also agreed to pay GE approximately $6.5 billion in cash. Former E! Networks President and CEO Ted Harbert will be heading the new entity, as he was recently promoted to President and CEO of Comcast Entertainment Group. GE expects to realize $9.8 billion pre-tax in cash before debt reduction and transaction fees and after buyout of the Vivendi stake. GE expects to realize approximately $8 billion in cash after paying down the existing NBCU debt and transaction fees. Headquarters for the business will remain in New York. The joint venture board will have three directors nominated by Comcast and two nominated by GE. The transaction is subject to receipt of various regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, which is expected to be a very rocky road. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Has Twitter Dumped That Hated Retweet Function? Posted: 03 Dec 2009 01:04 AM PST
The Retweets area in the right side bar has gone and the RT function button on people’s profiles has gone as well. The design of the Retweet feature created huge confusion over how RTs were attributed, plus different client applications treated RTs differently. Retweets of these retweets were even worse. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| SEC Files Lawsuit Against Canopy Financial And Co-Founder For Fraud Posted: 02 Dec 2009 05:55 PM PST
Just before Thanksgiving we broke the news that Canopy Financial was cooking its books. Everyone involved tried to point the finger to someone else. Well, now the SEC has weighed in with lawsuit alleging fraud on the part of Canopy and one of its co-founders Jeremy Blackburn, who was the COO. He misled investors about Canopy’s financial condition when raising a $75 million round. When the fund-raising was complete, he paid off existing investors to the tune of $40 million, and took about $1.7 million for himself, according to the complaint (embedded below). According to the SEC:
The complaint was filed on November 30, six days after our initial story ran. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Layar 3.0 Is Ready To Add New Layers To Your (Mobile) Reality Posted: 02 Dec 2009 04:26 PM PST
The whole idea of using your mobile phone’s camera view as a screen on top of which to add geo-specific information (also known as augmented reality) is one of the more exciting areas in the world of mobile apps. Amsterdam-based Layar, one of the companies at pushing the boundaries of this growing movement, just released Layar 3.0, which offers a whole slew of new ways to layer data onto the real world as seen through your phone. The company opened up its augmented reality browser to developers last summer and more recently added 3D capabilities. In a blog post, the company details how developers are using its augmented reality platform. One developer created a 3D architectural model of a building in Rotterdam so that visitors to the construction site can see how a superimposed version of it will look on their phones (see video below).
Another one added cut-outs of the Beatles on Abbey Road and other places they sing about. You could do the same with historical tours, adding historical figures and information about events as augmented reality notes which pop up or let you play an audio narration when you are actually there.
Or you could just add Blimps and UFOs over buildings as sort of an augmented reality graffiti.
And of course there is also a Twitter app which shows nearby Tweets, along with the avatars of the people who Tweeted them (at least I think that’s what it shows).
Anyway, it just shows how many different directions developers can take augmented reality apps. Layar wants to attract as many developers as possible as it seeks funding beyond the $1 million it’s raised so far. Here’s the video: Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Google Turns To Twitter To Help Friend Connect Fly Posted: 02 Dec 2009 04:05 PM PST
Starting immediately, if a site has Friend Connect installed, a user can log-in using either their Google account or their Twitter account. And if they’ve logged in with their Twitter credentials, their username and profile picture are passed through OAuth back to Friend Connect. More importantly, it means that you can easily tweet with the click of a button (to invite friends to check out the site). And any comment they leave on that site can be automatically tweeted out. The timing of this move is fairly interesting seeing as Yahoo just announced massive Facebook Connect integration. It’s also worth noting the Google rival Microsoft owns a small portion of Facebook through an investment made in 2007. So will Twitter integration help Friend Connect spread the way Facebook Connect is? Probably not since Twitter has nowhere near the 350 million users that Facebook does, but this is a nice addition that certainly can’t hurt. We’ve been saying for months that Twitter should have its own “Connect” platform, which is sort of does in some ways, but this takes it a lot closer. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| MySpace Music Finally Lands In The UK Posted: 02 Dec 2009 04:00 PM PST  MOG may well be hitting a sweet spot with its All Access service, but it's only available in the United States for now. Its most obvious competitor, MySpace Music, was too (apart from Australia and New Zealand) until a minute ago when the company made its official debut in the United Kingdom just over a year and two months after it was launched stateside. Looks like the Telegraph's sources were only a couple of months off, ultimately. Anyway, MySpace users in the UK can now enjoy the same free, ad-supported service our American, Australian and Kiwi friends have had for a while: fully licensed audio and video content from major and indie artists that can be streamed on the social network for free, personalized music players and user & artist playlisting features, in addition to monetization opportunities and access to analytics and charts tools for all artists. |
| Meebo Gives Publishers More Control Over Meebo Bar With New API Posted: 02 Dec 2009 04:00 PM PST
Up until now, the Meebo bar has always consisted of a Chat area in the far right (similar to Facebook Chat), a share button in the far left, and occasionally an ad on the left as well. Now, publishers will be able to introduce their own menus and buttons. For example, I could include a button that listed the top five most popular posts on TechCrunch. Publishers have full control over what they show in their menus or widgets, so there’s plenty of room for creativity.  To help publishers get started, Meebo has built 10 premade buttons that they can quickly integrate. These include buttons to share to StumbleUpon or Digg, view your Facebook stream, and listen to music from Lala. There’s even one that takes the reader to a random article on your site. The new feature will likely appeal to many of Meebo’s partners, but it will be especially helpful to sites with a lot of content who frequently get vistiors through search engine traffic. Oftentimes when you land on a site through a search result, you’ll be looking at an article that is relatively old. Typically if the publisher wants to highlight some of their newer content they have to do it in the nav bar or a side bar on the page, which are easy to scroll past and miss. Using the Meebo bar, publishers can present you with a list of their top recent posts that’s always visible, regardless of where you navigate on the site.  One thing that could turn some publishers off is the fact that Meebo is mandating that you keep the integrated chat feature on the right side of the bar. Meebo is built around instant messaging so this isn’t surprising, but I suspect that there are plenty of publishers who would like to include these custom navigation elements but don’t neccesarily want the chat. But it sounds like Meebo isn’t totally opposed to the idea: the company says it will be “thinking a lot about” what it do with this functionality over the next year. If you’d like to see a customized Meebo bar in action check out CafeMom, which rolled it out this afternoon. More partners will be launching their own custom bars in the near future. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| As Google Backs Away From A Plug-in, Microsoft Rushes Towards One Posted: 02 Dec 2009 03:16 PM PST
This news comes just days after Google’s revelation (thanks, in part, to our story on the upcoming Chrome for Mac beta) that they were backing away from supporting Gears in the future, in favor of HTML5. Gears is the software that Google created to allow users to use their applications while not connected to the web. But it’s also a plug-in (for all browsers except Google’s own Chrome for the PC). This is a big barrier to entry for many users. And it’s something that creates problems developing apps around it if say, a user doesn’t have Gears installed. So it’s good to see Google step away from a plug-in even if it’s no longer proprietary (originally called “Google Gears,” they have since open-sourced it). And it makes what Microsoft is doing even more frustrating. With Silverlight, Microsoft continues to make it clear that they intend to use this web application framework, which they developed, to power much of what they are doing on the web going forward. Again, the problem here is that not only does Microsoft control this, but it requires a plug-in to use. Sure, they’ve made the plug-in available to most browsers, including the ones by rivals Google and Apple, but it’s still a plug-in. It’s something that’s going to stop everyone from seeing the same web no matter which browser they use. This has of course long been an issue with Microsoft. Despite a clear shift within the rest of the industry toward web standards, Microsoft long played difficult with its Internet Explorer browser. They could afford to, and maybe you could even argue that it was in their interest to, because they were so dominant. It was only when a standards-based browser, Mozilla’s Firefox, started biting off significant chunks of IE’s market share that Microsoft shifted their position to play more nicely with standards. But even today, they still don’t play that nicely. As you can see in this video about IE9, they are still nowhere near passing the Acid3 browser test. Safari, Opera, and Chrome have all now achieved 100/100 scores on the test. Firefox has gotten a 96/100. IE? Well IE8 (the current version) gets a 20/100. And IE9, which isn’t out yet, only gets a 32/100. You can try to argue (which Microsoft does) that much of the test is meaningless to everyday browsing, but the fact remains that all its major competitors are able to pass it or are on the verge of passing it.
When asked about Microsoft’s shift towards requiring Silverlight for applications such as the new Bing Maps, officials from the company basically stated that they’re doing it because they had to. AJAX, the technology that powers many of the other web apps in existance today, simply isn’t powerful enough to do what they want, they reason — continuing on that it’s not about using a proprietary technology, but using the best technology out there. The problem with this once again goes back to the idea of a unified web. If some web apps require plug-ins, the web is not going to be as seamless as it should be. And that’s why HTML5 is potentially so interesting. Because advanced components such as web video, which is now mainly powered by Adobe’s Flash plug-in, could be handled natively within the browser. (Here’s an example of a YouTube video rendered only with HTML5.) Can Silverlight allow for more powerful web applications than standard web technology? Probably. Does the new Bing Maps look cool with seamless transitions between a map view and on-the-street city view? Yes. But another issue is: Do we really need that? How often are you doing to need (or want) to zoom around a city with 3D buildings when you really just want to look up an address? It’s a neat feature, just as it is within Google Street View or Google Earth, but it’s not really all that practical. The majority of location searches I do are on my phone where I simply want to get an address as fast as possible. I actually just had to double check if the iPhone has Street View built-in (it does) because I never, ever use that feature. Nor do I ever really use it on the desktop. It’s useful for some select cases, like maybe if you’re buying a house and want to get a look at the neighborhood. But otherwise, it’s just a nifty feature to demo — which Microsoft did extensively today. Again, I’m not saying it’s not cool. It is. But I’m not sure it’s worth trading the possibility of a unified web for. In fact, I know it’s not. Sadly, with Microsoft, the problem is only going to get worse, and not better. They’ve made that very clear. [photo: Paramount Pictures] Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| WebGL Might Eventually Bring 3D Prowess To Mobile Web Apps Posted: 02 Dec 2009 03:15 PM PST  As mobile platform makers grant more and more system functionality to their browsers, the once distinct lines between native applications and web applications are beginning to blur. Over the past few months, HTML5 and other advances in web technology have allowed developers on various smartphone platforms to access to GPS coordinates, accelerometer data, and more. Plenty of limitations still exist (it's still mostly impossible to access the microphone/camera on most smartphones from the browser, for example), but one big hurdle might be on the way out: hardware-based acceleration, otherwise known as the goods required for graphic-heavy gaming. |
| Google Takes Minimalism To The Extreme With New Fade-In Homepage Posted: 02 Dec 2009 02:55 PM PST
Google’s blog post details some of logic behind the decision to swap the design:
More interesting is some of the data Google collected as it studied what impact this would have on users. Google writes that it tested out 10 different variations on the design, hiding different elements in each to see which performed best. Some of these included odd messages like “This space intentionally left blank”, which sort of killed the effect. Ultimately Google found that the optimal design actually slows users down at first. But as it turns out, they only get slower the first few times they see it — after getting used to it, users perform better than they used to.
Of course, the company hasn’t studied how much time will be lost as tech-savvy people have to field calls from their friends about how they accidentally “broke Google”. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| ReTel Technologies Raises $1 Million For Surveillance Video Analytics Posted: 02 Dec 2009 02:49 PM PST
TechStars startup ReTel Technologies just raised $1 million in seed funding from SoftTech VC, Hyde Park Angels, FF Angel, Maples Investments, eonBusiness and Zelkova Ventures. The funds will be used for product development and to expand ReTel's engineering and sales teams. ReTel’s flagship product, ConstantAudit, provides video surveillance analysis for stores and restaurants. The startup uses security camera feeds to deliver interesting metrics and data such as table cleanliness, service times, and employee activities. ReTel delivers human tested analytics using paid micro-tasks on services like Mechanical Turk to break down data from the videos. This enables the company to deliver sophisticated reports that include data points such as male vs. female ratios, instances of theft by employees, and other actions that only humans can get right. Launched from TechStar’s 2009 class, ReTel has already signed on Shell Petroleum and Dunkin' Donuts as customers. ReTel was also recently chosen as one of seven finalists out of hundreds of applicants for Amazon.com's 2009 AWS Start-Up Challenge. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Videos: Watch Me Swipe The Time Inc. Tablet Posted: 02 Dec 2009 02:09 PM PST Earlier today, I got a look at Time Inc’s new digital magazine concept. While I was there I captured some of the demo on video. Actually, Sports Illustrated editor Terry McDonell was kind enough to shoot the video above while I played with a prototype version of the tablet mag showing an SI issue on an HP tablet computer with a touchscreen. You can see how quickly the digital magazine lets me swipe through pages and photo slides, and get a general idea about some of the navigation elements. When you tap on a page, a navigation wheel pops up with different sharing options and ways to call up additional information, live stats, photos, and videos. The voice explaining the features belongs to David Link of the Wonderfactory, who did much of the conceptual design. In the next video, you can see an example of how the digital magazine can embed entire photo slide shows where a single photo would normally be in a print magazine, as well as some of the other photo gallery options. Sports photos are still a huge reason people buy Sports Illustrated and go to its Website. At about 46 seconds into the video, McDonell starts talking about how this format is better suited to viewing photos and how it could theoretically allow Sports Illustrated to show readers more of the photos which never otherwise make it into the magazine. He also reveals some findings from focus groups Time Inc has been conducting in which it asks whether consumers would be willing to pay extra for a digital version of the magazine. McDonell says that some indicated they’d be willing to pay $50 more a year for the digital version, although the official pricing has not yet been determined. Below is Time Inc’s official demo video, which is a much slicker production, as well as a video of Condé Nast’s digital version of Wired for comparison as displayed in a loud retail store (it’s the Wired store in NYC). If magazines were repackaged as digital apps would you buy them?
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Hong Kong Meet-up is Friday at 6pm Posted: 02 Dec 2009 02:00 PM PST  We'll have a nice, old timey meet-up in Hong Kong this Friday, December 4 at 6pm at the California Bar 30 D'Aguilar Street Hong Kong. I've set up a Plancast event for us so watch that for any changes. If anything changes at the last minute, check my Twitter feed. |
| Nimbuzz Introduces Native IM App For BlackBerry Smartphones Posted: 02 Dec 2009 12:33 PM PST
The native functionality allows the free app to run in the background without interruption, have alert notifications 'pushed' to the BlackBerry device’s home screen and match notifications with the phone’s sound profiles. The program is first-generation, and Nimbuzz promises more features are forthcoming. For instance, the app can today only be used for instant messaging conversations on BlackBerry smartphones, because the relevant API only very recently gained support for VoIP applications (the startup said to expect integration of Internet calling features in the app shortly). Nimbuzz for BlackBerry currently supports online chat through Skype, Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, Facebook, MySpace and more. Both installation and usage of the communication tool are free of charge. Nimbuzz, backed by $25 million in venture capital, notably also recently won the 'Connect On Blackberry' award at RIM’s BlackBerry Alliance Program's EMEA Innovation Awards in Rome. To date, over 38 million BlackBerry devices have been sold, and Nimbuzz has been installed on about 12 million of them. The new native app should work on all BlackBerry smartphones running OS v4.6 or higher, including the Storm, Bold, Tour, Pearl Flip and BlackBerry Curve 8900 smartphones. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
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