The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- The Woz Experienced Reception Woes With His iPhone 4, Too
- Report: HP Stops Android Tablet Development Leaving webOS As The Likely Slate Operating System (Yay!)
- Senior Apple Engineer Warned Steve Jobs About Possible iPhone 4 Antenna Issues
- Facebook Rebuffs British Prime Minister, Won’t Censor Raoul Moat Page
- Feeling Impulsive? Take Brammo’s Empulse Electric Motorcycle For A Spin.
- As OfferPal Stutters, MATOMY Innovates Offer Wall Engagement
- Is A New And Improved MacBook Air Coming Later This Year? Likely.
- Vlingo’s SuperDialer For Android
- Soap.com Launches – “No Lines. No Heavy Bags. No Driving.”
- Millennial Media: Apple OS Grows By 36 Percent In June, Android Up By 23 Percent
- More Warner Catalog TV Shows Come To Netflix: Nip/Tuck, Veronica Mars And More
- The New England Patriots Recruit SCVNGR To ‘Help Vince’ Wilfork
- Smart Grid Company Trilliant Scores $106M In Funding – Next Up, An IPO?
- iPhone 4: Consumer Reports Needs To Get It Together
- How I Think The iPhone 4 Antenna Press Conference Is Going To Play Out
- Jajah Now Powers Low-Cost Long Distance For German O2 Subscribers
- Gendai Games Raises Over $1 Million For iPhone And iPad Game Creation Tool
- France Launches Multi-Lingual Tourist Website. It Goes Down And Stays Down.
- Chatroulette Rolls Out Local And Custom Channels. Top Channel: “Sex”
- HomeAway Ramps Towards IPO With Two Key Hires And $200 Million/Year In Revenue
- In Five Months, FreshBooks Crosses $1 Billion In Transactions
- Apple Calls A Special Press Conference For Friday, Antenna Issue Likely The Subject
- As Long As Reviewing Is A Race, Death Grips Will Always Go Unnoticed
- SolarCity Wins $21.5 Million Funding Round from Mayfield
- Enphase Energy’s Thermostat Lets You Control Your Home’s Temperature From Afar
| The Woz Experienced Reception Woes With His iPhone 4, Too Posted: 15 Jul 2010 08:11 AM PDT
Apple’s executive team will no doubt be fuming this morning, as Bloomberg reported that a senior Apple engineer and antenna expert voiced concerns about potential reception issues with the iPhone 4 due to its antenna design in the early phases of the hardware design process, citing a source familiar to the matter. Adding fuel to the fire is Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (aka The Woz), in an interesting interview with Dutch journalist Henk Van Ess. “It's like the AT&T dead zone has been extended with this new phone,” the man says. Here’s the relevant bit from the interview:
To be fair, the issues don’t seem to bother The Woz as other than that, “the iPhone works well enough and its beauty is worth the care in holding it”. That’s similar to MG Siegler’s arguments in favor of the iPhone 4, while Michael Arrington is more straightforward in his advice (“buy an Android instead”). I’m a proud iPhone 3GS owner seriously considering an Android device for his next smartphone, for a variety of reasons – or maybe I’ll just follow Wozniak’s advice and buy a bunch of phones for backup in one go. What’s the situation you’re in? (Image courtesy of Flickr user OnInnovation)      
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| Posted: 15 Jul 2010 07:40 AM PDT
That’s probably for the best, really. It’s not that surprising to hear that HP had three different versions of the Slate in development all at the same time. The goal was likely to determine which one was best suited for the market and not to release three tablets each on a different platform. It seems, however, the best option won and HP is going with the webOS over Windows 7 or Android.      
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| Senior Apple Engineer Warned Steve Jobs About Possible iPhone 4 Antenna Issues Posted: 15 Jul 2010 07:09 AM PDT
The PR storm Apple is in after it turned out users were running into reception issues with their iPhone 4 devices due to a flaw in the antenna design appears to be destined not to blow over anytime soon, hastily scheduled press conferences and unhelpful software updates notwithstanding. Bloomberg this morning published a report saying Ruben Caballero, one of Apple's senior engineers, actually told chief exec Steve Jobs in the early design phase of the fast-selling smartphone that the antenna design could lead to dropped calls, citing a person familiar with the matter who requested to stay anonymous. Not only that, another unidentified source tells Bloomberg, but a carrier partner also voiced some concerns about the antenna design before the device's June 24 release. There are only so many carriers this could be, obviously. The exclusive carrier in the United States if of course AT&T, and Apple's European partners include Vodafone, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom, while Softbank carries the iPhone 4 in Japan. Here’s the key part of the Bloomberg report:
Can someone please email Steve Jobs to verify if he really dismissed concerns voiced early in the design process by a senior member of staff and a carrier partner, and ask him why? Thanks!      
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| Facebook Rebuffs British Prime Minister, Won’t Censor Raoul Moat Page Posted: 15 Jul 2010 06:45 AM PDT  The British Prime Minister David Cameron and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg look like they could be about to fall out already. Just days after that cosy, if a little awkward, video chat, it seems that this particular marriage of convenience may be over. Yesterday, when answering a question in Parliament regarding whether or not Cameron should ask Zuckerberg to remove a Facebook page housing opinions offering support and sympathy for murderer Raoul Moat, Cameron replied: "As far as I can see, it is absolutely clear that Raoul Moat was a callous murderer-full stop, end of story-and I cannot understand any wave, however small, of public sympathy for this man. There should be sympathy for his victims, and for the havoc he wreaked in that community; there should be no sympathy for him." The Prime Minister's press officer later reportedly followed up by suggesting that the UK government would in fact ask Facebook to remove the 'offending' page.
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| Feeling Impulsive? Take Brammo’s Empulse Electric Motorcycle For A Spin. Posted: 15 Jul 2010 06:15 AM PDT
“We found there was a range anxiety issue with the 40-mile range,” says Brammo CEO Craig Bramscher. Although the Enertia model has been available for about a year and a half, only a couple hundred are currently on the road. The company is working with a few Best Buy stores in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland to sell and service the bikes. Bramscher said he plans to grow the company internationally, especially in Europe and Asia, where the company will soon hire sales and distribution staff. While the Empulse’s maximum 100-mile range is too low for long distance travelers, it’s adequate for many commutes and everyday driving. It does require a motorcycle license, but most states allow you to test on the bike, so you don’t have to learn to shift gears while maneuvering a cone course. You can also skip regular motorcycle maintenance costs, like engine tuning and oil changes, and stop worrying about gas prices: a full charge will cost you about a buck. If you need a replacement part, the bike’s chain, tires and brakes can be replaced with those of a standard motorcycle. The bikes’ batteries can be charged either at a Level 2 charging station, or any standard (Level 1) power outlet. “Anywhere you can plug in a laptop, you can plug in the bike,” Bramscher says. Of course, you’ll need a little patience if you’re plugging it into a regular outlet. A full charge will take about seven to eight hours, in contrast to the two-and-a-half to three-hour charge at a Level 2 charging station—but there aren’t too many of those. If you’re wondering where you might find a Level 2 charging station, Brammo’s got an app for that. The app (initially for the iPhone, with an Android version in the works) will offer a realtime display of nearby charging facilities. The Empluse also features an iPhone port built into the bike. The Empulse Trio will cost $9,995 for the 6.0, $11,995 for the 8.0 and $13,995 for the 10.0 model with a 100 mile range. All three are eligible for federal and state tax incentives. Brammo is based in Ashland, Oregon and raised $12 million in its August 2008 Series A round. Bramscher is gunning to raise $25 to $30 million for a Series B within the next three months. Below is a promotional video for the Empulse:
     
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| As OfferPal Stutters, MATOMY Innovates Offer Wall Engagement Posted: 15 Jul 2010 06:00 AM PDT
With $1M in funding under its belt, Israeli MATOMY is announcing today the ‘Engage Bar‘, an offer wall based JavaScript widget that I expect many publishers will clamor for. If you’re an offer wall hater though, start sharpening your pitchfork. MATOMY’s Engage Bar floats on top of the browser—of the type popularized by Meebo. See it laid on top of a TechCrunch post, here. Its purpose is a two-fold increase in monetization and, as its name suggests, engagement. Although the Engage Bar can be used by publishers of all sorts (virtual currency, micro transactions sites, etc.), MATOMY is focusing its efforts on publishers of social games with virtual currency hooks, stand-alone games and MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) game publishers. This makes sense business-wise, as offer walls are proven to work well in this space. From the monetization standpoint, the Engage Bar’s main allure for game publishers is that it reduces friction. Ordinarily, users have to proactively launch an offer wall after they’ve reached a certain point in a game, need to add virtual currency, or buy virtual goods of some sort. With MATOMY’s Engage Bar, publishers can engage users at all times, enticing them with offers throughout their game play—remember, the bar remains persistent on the browser footer. MATOMY claims that removing the need for that proactive action by the user has a significant effect on monetization. The Bar can also be used to communicate to users via direct messages. Publishers can target users based on language and geography, on top of automatic user-to-offer optimization that MATOMY performs behind the scenes. There are 3,000 international offers, ranging from watching videos, filling out surveys and signing-up for product trials. Publishers can even tie in the bar to their back-end via API and prompt offers based on virtual currency balances. One thing definitely going for MATOMY is that it’s headed by a skilled media executive named Erez Sadan. He was previously the Interactive Advertising SVP at 888.com and more recently the COO of performance marketing network AdsMarket, whose latest funding we recently covered. The company raised its funding from Ilan Shiloah and Nir Tarlovsky. This was a private investment of theirs, rather than one made through their investment outfit, The Time.
     
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| Is A New And Improved MacBook Air Coming Later This Year? Likely. Posted: 15 Jul 2010 05:52 AM PDT
     
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| Vlingo’s SuperDialer For Android Posted: 15 Jul 2010 05:45 AM PDT
Voice search on mobile phones is increasingly becoming a viable alternative to pecking away on your tiny, touchscreen keyboard. Google has great voice search in its both its iPhone and Android apps. Apple just bought Siri, which is a voice-powered personal search assistant. And then there is Vlingo, a Cambridge, Mass.-based voice search company backed by Charles River Ventures and Yahoo. Today, Vlingo is launching a new Android app called SuperDialer. “Think of it as your infinite address book in the cloud,” says CEO Dave Gannon. It is essentially a voice-powered directory that returns local business search results instead of having to dial 411. If you say “pizza,” it will retunr the nearest pizza places based on your location. For each listing, you can call, see it on a map, get directions, or read reviews. Vlingo’s voice apps have ben downloaded more than 5 million times already, mostly on BlackBerry, but its iPhone app is even more popular than Siri’s (it is ranked No. 36 in productivity, versus No. 39 for Siri). The apps let you search the Web by speaking, voice dial, or speak a Twitter or Facebook status update. If you want to be able to dictate text messages or email using its speech-to-text technology, you have to pay $10 to $20. Gannon says Vlingo gets an 8 percent conversion rate of free to paid subscribers. But with SuperDialer, it will also make money off sponsored search results.      
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| Soap.com Launches – “No Lines. No Heavy Bags. No Driving.” Posted: 15 Jul 2010 05:29 AM PDT
Drugstore.com, Alice.com and other online retailers of everyday essentials, a new challenger with a short, pretty dotcom name just hit the Web. The founders of Diapers.com this morning formally launched Soap.com, a new ecommerce site that enables people to buy household necessities, skin and hair care products and whatnot at competitive prices. We reported that the site was due for launch last month, when the co-founders of Quidsi, parent company to Diapers.com – on track for $300 million in revenues this year – and Soap.com Marc Lore and Vinit Bharara gave us an update on their plans. Quidsi launches Soap.com today with more than 25,000 products from more than 900 brands on its virtual shelves, across a wide range of health, beauty, personal care, and household categories. The company has ambitious plans to eventually offer more than 40,000 products by the end of 2010 and more than 100,000 by the end of 2011. To put this in context, the company adds, the average offline drugstore has just 10,000 items. Soap.com will leverage Diapers.com’s back-end logistics to ensure that products are delivered the next day for two-thirds of the country and within two days for the rest. Here’s an inside look at said back-end logistics system – it’s quite impressive:
Update – launch video:
     
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| Millennial Media: Apple OS Grows By 36 Percent In June, Android Up By 23 Percent Posted: 15 Jul 2010 03:45 AM PDT
Android requests continued to rise, and grew another 23 percent month over month. Android is now up a whopping 439% since January. iPad requests are also increasing at a fast rate, growing 206 percent in June, after rising 160 percent in May. RIM ad requests increased percent month-over-month, posting a 41 percent increase in requests since January. In terms of ad impressions, Apple’s OS remained the leading Smartphone OS on Millennial’s network in June with a 56 percent share of impressions and an 8% growth month-over-month. RIM was the second largest Smartphone OS for the eleventh consecutive month, representing a 17 percent share of impressions for June, dropping by 2 percent from last month. Android's OS remained the third largest operating system in for the fourth consecutive month, representing 11 percent of impressions, dropping by 4 percent from May. When splitting ad impressions by device manufacturer, Apple had the largest share increase of 4 percent with approximately 30 percent share of impressions in June. Motorola moved into the number four position, passing HTC and LG, with the mobile company’s devices representing an 8 percent share of impressions for the month. This growth is largely driven by the Droid device, says Millennial. Android devices represented six of June's Top 20 Mobile Phones. The Motorola Droid moved into the top five and the HTC Droid Incredible also entered into the Top 20 at number 13. Of the top 20 mobile phones on Millennial’s network, 13 were smartphones, which represented 43 percent impression share in June. Not to be left out, RIM took the number two spot on the device list with the Curve; RIM devices now account for four of the Top 20 Mobile Phones in June
In terms of platform, 89 percent of developers were creating apps for a single platform, while 11 percent of developers are developing for multiple platforms. Of the developers who focused on a single platform, 31 percent were focused on Android which is a 2 percent increase month-over-month While Android continues to grow at a steady rate, it looks like the iPhone OS is back on a growth pattern after a few months of declines in ad requests and impressions. This could be because of increased iPad use as well as the rollout of the iPhone 4 in mid to late June. As one of the largest mobile ad networks that has not been acquired by a tech giant, Millennial has been seeing impressive growth and reach. The Baltimore-based company has rolled out an iPad SDK, and acquired mobile metrics and analytics firm TapMetrics earlier this year. The company is also well funded; Millennial just raised $16 million in Series C funding last November. The big question that still remains is the long-term effect of Apple’s iAd platform on the space. iAds are performing well for advertisers and publishers, and should be a veritable competitor to other mobile advertising platforms. And there is still the question of how Apple’s new iAd policies on outside networks advertising will play out. While the policy initially was thought to have excluded Google’s AdMob from serving ads on the iPhone, we learned this week that AdMob ads are still being served the iPhone. As we’ve written in the past, Millennial’s future may be in question if the network is looking to be acquired by a major tech giant, like Microsoft. That is if Apple starts enforcing their rules. But perhaps the FTC’s rumored informal investigation into Apple’s iAd policies has changed the game for Apple. And this could no doubt mean good things for Millennial’s future.      
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| More Warner Catalog TV Shows Come To Netflix: Nip/Tuck, Veronica Mars And More Posted: 15 Jul 2010 03:35 AM PDT
Warner Bros. and Netflix this morning announced an expansion of the companies’ existing streaming content agreement, adding a slew of catalog TV shows, including drama series “Nip/Tuck,” “Veronica Mars,” “Pushing Daisies” and “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” to those already available to watch instantly at Netflix. Netflix has acquired streaming rights to said shows and more for a period of four years, and also extended the existing license it had in place with Warners Bros for catalog movies through 2011. Earlier this year, Netflix and Warner Bros. announced an agreement under which new release titles on DVD and Blu-ray will be made available to Netflix subscribers after a 28-day window, giving Warner Bros. the opportunity to maximize the sales potential of those titles. Sadly for MG, the agreement announced today does not alter the previous arrangement with regard to the 28-day window for new release titles. Last April, Netflix had announced renewed distribution deals with two other major content providers, Twentieth Century Fox and Universal Studios Home Entertainment. Both agreements encompassed physical and digital distribution of movies and, in the case of Fox, TV shows. Earlier this month, Netflix also announced a long-term agreement with Relativity Media under which major theatrically released films owned by Relativity will be licensed directly and exclusively to Netflix for streaming to its subscribers during the “pay TV window.” Traditionally, these films have flowed through Relativity’s studio releasing partners to output deals with premium TV channels. These new and extended digital distribution agreements with content owners are bound to propel Netflix even higher on the list of comScore's top online video sites, and it’s already getting bigger than Hulu in the United States. As a reminder: Netflix recently released an iPad app, soon to be joined by an iPhone app and it’s making inroads with Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 owners, too. When the company released its Q4 2009 results back in January, we noted that the percentage of subscribers who watched instantly more than 15 minutes of a TV episode or movie in the last quarter of 2009 was nearly 50 percent, compared to 28 percent for the same period of 2008. In the first quarter of this year, that percentage climbed up to 55%. Next week, the company will announce its Q2 2010 results – expect that percentage to be up again. (Image via the official Nip/Tuck website)      
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| The New England Patriots Recruit SCVNGR To ‘Help Vince’ Wilfork Posted: 15 Jul 2010 03:30 AM PDT
You see, starting today the Patriots are running a large-scale Help Vince campaign across New England as the team looks to engage its fans in the offseason. And to do that, it’s turning to SCVNGR to power an array of Patriots-themed location based challenges, badges, and treks as users vie for prizes, which include a grand prize lunch with a member of the Patriots squad. The Patriots will be promoting the ‘Help Vince’ campaign across New England with TV spots, billboards, and more. You can see the team’s site dedicated to the campaign here. SCVNGR has built out challenges at 200 different locations across New England, including sports bars, a covered bridge out in Maine, and Boston Common. As fans complete challenges they’ll accrue points, with the top scorers earning a variety of prizes (including the aforementioned Patriots lunch). This is obviously a huge win for SCVNGR, which is about to get free promotion that reaches millions of people (actually, SCVNGR is getting paid for their role, as the startup has spent a lot of time building out custom challenges and badges). This is easily the company’s biggest partnership, and it’s probably going to help it hook a substantial number of new users. Of course, there’s a big question here: Why SCVNGR? Foursquare and Gowalla have both been around for much longer, and Foursquare in particular has landed many parnerships with well-known brands. SCVNGR CEO Seth Priebatsch says that the service can offer more customized experiences than competitors like Foursquare — where Foursquare simply offers badges, SCVNGR can prompt users to take a photo wearing Patriots gear, or complete a more engaging task. The Patriots can treat the ‘Help Vince‘ challenges as a sort of standalone, Patriots-themed game on SCVNGR; it would be harder to do that on competitors’ platforms. Update – video:
     
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| Smart Grid Company Trilliant Scores $106M In Funding – Next Up, An IPO? Posted: 15 Jul 2010 02:50 AM PDT
Trilliant, a California-based provider of smart grid solutions that enhance energy efficiency, utility operations, and renewable resource integration, this morning announced that it has secured a whopping $106 million in funding from a global syndicate of industry and financial big-names. The round was led by Investor Growth Capital, VantagePoint Venture Partners, ABB and GE and will reportedly by used to ramp up growth in North America and abroad. Last time we covered the company was in August 2008, when Trilliant raised $40 million from MissionPoint Capital Partners and zouk ventures, who also participated in this new monster round. Likely, the next step for the company would be to go public. Trilliant provides hardware, software and real-time Smart Grid communication network solutions around the world, boasting over 200 utility customers today. Originally founded in 1985, the company now exclusively focuses on providing electric utilities with end-to-end communications networks that span from the head-end operations center to all devices on the grid – not only meters and in-home energy management devices but also substations and grid devices such as transformers and capacitor banks. The company has just won a contract to build a $200 million smart-meter system for the 610,000 customers of Central Maine Power. It will also expand into Europe via partnerships with Centrica in the UK and ESB in Ireland. With Centrica, Trilliant plans to install 5 million meters in the UK over the next five years.
     
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| iPhone 4: Consumer Reports Needs To Get It Together Posted: 15 Jul 2010 01:23 AM PDT
Anyway, she finds out. And then I can’t buy the one I want to buy, the shiny one on Amazon, because of some issue Consumer Reports said that the better one is the boring unshiny one and I need to be more responsible and stop wasting money on stupid stuff. And so a chart of red and black dots gets to decide for me. Because one thing I’ve learned in life is to never make mom unhappy. She’s upset enough that her son turned out to be a blogger, whatever that is. But the thing is, that trust that my mom gives to Consumer Reports was hard earned over decades of obsessive use. She trusts Consumer Reports. And if I read it I might trust it too. If they rated stuff on shininess I’d definitely subscribe. Or if they rated robots. But suddenly Consumer Reports is crazy for the link bait. This iPhone 4 antenna problem has them going absolutely batshit crazy, and nearly every day they’re firing off a new set of recommendations, or demands, that conflict with the old recommendations and demands. I would like to say this is just process journalism and applaud it. But they actually seem completely schizophrenic. It’s not a process, it’s chaos theory. The best parts are the constant updates to all the old articles where they try to justify all of their conflicting justifications simultaneously. July 2: “iPhone 4′s supposed signal woes aren't unique, and may not be serious” July 3: “iPhone 4 signal debate rages; we experience signal loss in some calls”
July 13: “Why Apple—and not its customers—should fix the iPhone 4″ (what happened to the duct tape?) July 14: Forget the duct tape! “Apple's Bumper case alleviates the iPhone 4 signal-loss problem” People who subscribe to Consumer Reports don’t want to read about using duct tape to fix their stuff. They aren’t early adopters and they do want to be given a clear buy rating. They don’t need breathless up to the minute updates on what sticky non-conductive material will be best suited to make a broken phone work. My poor mother must be so confused right now. So I’ll just tell her what she needs to know: Don’t buy anything that needs duct tape to work properly. DO NOT BUY an iPhone 4 until this problem is fixed. And then still don’t buy one because AT&T is awful. Buy an Android instead.      
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| How I Think The iPhone 4 Antenna Press Conference Is Going To Play Out Posted: 15 Jul 2010 01:16 AM PDT
The only details Apple is giving out about the event is that it’s going to take place on their campus on Friday morning at 10 AM PT. But talking to some other people who got calls from Apple as well about the event may hold some clues as to what we can expect. First and foremost, the whole thing is bizarre. Apple has announced events with very little notification before, but never this little notification. The event is Friday morning and they notified people on Wednesday evening (or night for those people on the east coast). This essentially gives people one day notice. And they’re calling people across the U.S. about it, and asking if they can make it. For some, this means last-minute cross country flights. Obviously, Apple isn’t going to be paying for those, so it’s not clear how many people from outside the Bay Area are going to attend. And many are unsure if they should attend because Apple is being so vague about what they’ll be talking about. But you have to imagine if it’s a last-second press conference, it has to be pretty major, right? Not necessarily. My sense is that the main idea behind this event is to get a bunch of big publications and other key Apple influencers into a room to go over the iPhone 4 antenna issue once and for all. I have little doubt that Apple CEO Steve Jobs himself will be leading this discussion, with other Apple executives talking as well. I also suspect we may see some antenna and wireless industry experts to offer their insights as well. The purpose of such a gathering would be to cut off the backlash against the iPhone 4 at the knees. The Consumer Reports flip-flop would seem to be the major catalyst here. And regardless of what you think of Consumer Reports, Apple knows that it is a brand many average consumers trust. In fact, Apple has had no problem citing it before when they rate the iPhone favorably (incidentally, the iPhone 4 is Consumer Reports’ highest-rated smartphone, despite the non-recommendation). Still, the Consumer Reports story is just one thing. More troubling to Apple has to be the cascade effect it has had on the media. CNN is talking about it, MSNBC is talking about it, local news is talking about it — even David Letterman is talking about it. The situation has gotten out of control in a way the tightly-controlled Apple cannot find comfortable at all. So that’s what I believe this event is about. A way to pivot the message back to what Apple perceives to be the facts. Apple will undoubtedly acknowledge that holding the iPhone 4 does affect the signal. But they’ll note once again that this is true of all cellphones. And perhaps some experts will chime in to show some results to prove this to be the case. They’ll also undoubtedly point out how the iPhone 4 actually has the best antenna Apple has ever produced. They’ll probably have results to back this up as well. The focus will be on the facts that Apple has studies to prove. And the idea behind all of this is to drill it into our heads that the antenna issue is being blown out of proportion. That it’s an easy headline about a hot product. And Apple’s tactic may just work. Because it’s a lot harder to blindly write about one side of a topic when the other side has very directly addressed and refuted the issues with you. Apple will also likely talk about the software fix that is currently testing (iOS 4.1) which they say will help the issue as well. Our early tests show iOS 4.1 doesn’t fix the antenna issue at all (it is, after all, a hardware issue). But it does alter the bar indicators to make them more accurately reflect your actual signal, which is what Apple said it would do. Earlier tonight, a MacRumors forum poster laid out a similar scenario about how this event may play out. The difference is that he believes Apple will give out $50 gift cards that iPhone 4 purchasers can use to buy iPhone bumpers (cases) if they wish. I’m not sure how likely that is. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple does announce a way to specifically give away these bumpers (which are normally $29) to people who buy (or have bought) the iPhone 4. Another thing the forum post didn’t really hit on was the importance of who is invited to this event. As I said, Apple seems to be focusing on key influencers in the tech media. My belief is that Apple is hoping that by aiming at the top, the message will trickle down and overwhelm the Consumer Reports fall-out. Again, whether you agree with it or not, it seems like a pretty good strategy. Of course, all of that is just speculation. With this little amount of time before the event, it’s unlikely that anything will leak out before it happens. But there is always the possibility of one giant curveball. While I still find it hard to believe that Apple is thinking about an iPhone 4 recall at this point, the possibility is interesting for this Friday event. After all, it makes more sense to issue a recall in a controlled manner (where journalists can digest the news and ask questions), rather than to issue a statement about it and have everyone scream bloody murder. Again, I don’t think that is going to happen, but it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility if say, Apple is willing to acknowledge that there are at least some defective iPhone 4 antennas. The thing that’s a bit curious about this press conference is that Apple has already set a precedent by issuing a statement about the antenna issue on July 2. If they’re now doing a full press conference, surely their announcement must be more significant, right? But again, that statement was before Consumer Reports changed its mind and decided you shouldn’t buy the iPhone 4 due to the antenna issue. And that report has led us to where we are now. To combat that, Apple may feel the time is right to pull out their not-so-secret weapon: Steve Jobs. On a stage. Talking. [photo: flickr/acaben      
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| Jajah Now Powers Low-Cost Long Distance For German O2 Subscribers Posted: 15 Jul 2010 12:00 AM PDT
This is interesting for a few reasons. First, it’s obviously a fairly speedy integration given the size of O2. Jajah CEO Trevor Healy also says that this marks the first time that a global carrier is offering a VoIP-powered service to its subscribers — he explains that O2 is willing to embrace the ‘Silicon Valley approach’ to digital communications, as opposed to holding steadfast to tradional voice services. Here’s to hoping the US carriers follow suit. O2 says it will be rolling out further Jajah-powered features in the next few months (presumably including a rollout of Global Friends to countries outside of Germany). O2 has 54 million subscribers across Europe.      
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| Gendai Games Raises Over $1 Million For iPhone And iPad Game Creation Tool Posted: 14 Jul 2010 08:59 PM PDT
The game creation tool, called GameSalad, is allows non-programmers to build, develop and publish 2D casual games games for the iPhone and iPad. GameSalad has been downloaded more than 70,000 times and in the nine months since the launch of its iPhone publishing service, GameSalad has powered over 800 titles in the iTunes App Store including Asplosion! HD and Doodle Cannon. The new funding will be used for product development and to hire additional talent. The startup faces competition from a number of other companies who also have democratized game development, including Playcrafter, and WIldpockets.      
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| France Launches Multi-Lingual Tourist Website. It Goes Down And Stays Down. Posted: 14 Jul 2010 08:46 PM PDT
From The Connexion on the launch:
And France’s senior government official overseeing the Internet, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, even took the time to tweet “Lancement aujourd’hui du portail officiel de la France dans le monde” (“Today’s launch of official website of France in the world”). A French friend says of the site (when it was live) “It just does not work, full of bugs, and the english translation is hilariously bad.” He won’t let me attribute his quote though, saying he’d like to remain in good standing with the French community. For now France.fr has a landing page saying the site is unavailable in a variety of languages. In French it goes into more detail, noting that the site is a victim of its own success. There’s the joke about how the only people France can beat at anything are the French themselves, usually noting the French Revolution. But I won’t repeat that here. Instead I’ll just say – Vive la France!      
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| Chatroulette Rolls Out Local And Custom Channels. Top Channel: “Sex” Posted: 14 Jul 2010 07:10 PM PDT
As first noticed by NewTeeVee, Chatroulette has launched a feature called Localroulette that will use your IP address to direct you to a channel with other users from your region. A second, related feature is Channelroulette, which lets you start or join a channel with a custom title/theme.
However, even for users who aren’t eager to engage in XXX-rated chitchat, there are a few pluses. First off, it’s really easy to create your own custom channel by simply appending a subdomain to the normal Chatroulette URL in the format example.Chatroulette.com, which has plenty of potential uses. And, as NewTeeVee points out, it’s possible that more lewd users will congregate in the sex-themed channels, leaving everyone else alone (again, don’t count on it). Look for more changes from Chatroulette in the near future. We previously reported that its young founder Andrey Ternovskiy has enlisted Napster founder Shawn Fanning as an advisor, and the site may start using filters and reputation systems to help weed out users who have a habit of spontaneously displaying their genitals.      
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| HomeAway Ramps Towards IPO With Two Key Hires And $200 Million/Year In Revenue Posted: 14 Jul 2010 06:22 PM PDT
A year and a half ago the company was valued at $1.4 billion after a $250 million round of financing. Revenue at the time was around $150 million, we heard. Now revenue is more like $200 million/year, with $70 million or so in pure profit. This thing, in short, is throwing off cash, and lots of it.      
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| In Five Months, FreshBooks Crosses $1 Billion In Transactions Posted: 14 Jul 2010 06:00 PM PDT
In addition to announcing the $1 billion milestone, FreshBooks released other findings about usage on its system during the same period. The average invoice size on FreshBooks was $1,677. Users in Mexico and Sweden saw the largest invoice sizes with $4,669 and $4,423 respectively. India and Malaysia were the lowest with $414 and $406. Average invoice size for the U.S. was $919. The average time to pay an invoice on Freshbooks was 22.8 days FreshBooks says that its billings did not reach the $1 billion threshold last year until August. Launched in 2004, the startup has steadily added useful features to its billing service over the past few years, including benchmark reports on aggregated business data, an open API, and data mining from users. Competitors in the online billing space include BillMyClients and Blinksale.      
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| Apple Calls A Special Press Conference For Friday, Antenna Issue Likely The Subject Posted: 14 Jul 2010 05:15 PM PDT
Apple blog The Loop has the (basically non-existent) details right now — that it will be in California on Friday morning and about iPhone 4. A small group of press are reportedly getting the invites right now. Update: We just got the call, we’ll be there at 10 AM PT on Friday to cover it live. The big question that everyone must be wondering is if Apple will announce a recall of the iPhone 4 based on the antenna problems — which are very real. We still believe that’s pretty unlikely. That said, it’s very, very, very rare (in fact, I don’t think it has ever happened) that Apple would call a special press conference at the last second. If they didn’t have something very major to say, they’d much more likely issue a release. But with all the talk and speculation flying around out there, perhaps Apple (and CEO Steve Jobs in particular) just wants to sit people down to talk about the issue. Apple has been widely criticized for saying basically nothing about the issue beyond Jobs’ quotes that users should buy a case or hold the phone different. Apple released the first beta of the iOS 4.1 software today. As our sister site MobileCrunch noted, it does not fix the antenna issue. Instead, it simply does what Apple said it was going to do: make the signal strength indicator more accurate.      
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| As Long As Reviewing Is A Race, Death Grips Will Always Go Unnoticed Posted: 14 Jul 2010 05:04 PM PDT
But it’s also worth considering that a phone, or media player, or game console, or operating system, really isn’t something you can review over a week or two. A restaurant you can review after a meal. A movie you can review after a viewing. A blog post, apparently, you can review just from the headline. But a device that’s going to be a part of your life for a year, two years, or more? Any review posted before, at, or within a few days of launch should properly be considered a first impression. Flagship devices like mobile phones and media players remain on sale for such a long time, and are used by so many people, that a serious, comprehensive, real-life review really is necessary.      
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| SolarCity Wins $21.5 Million Funding Round from Mayfield Posted: 14 Jul 2010 04:33 PM PDT
SolarCity today announced that it is taking a $21.5 million round of funding led by Mayfield Fund, and the company’s previous investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, DBL Investors and Generation Capital. The company’s prior funding totaled approximately $134 million, and included investors First Solar, JP Morgan and Elon Musk. SolarCity helps businesses, home owners and government agencies adopt solar power and save money using clean energy versus electricity generated from non-renewables. It designs, installs and provides finance options for the development of solar projects. In 2008, it provided and installed the thousands of solar panels that grace the roof of eBay Inc.’s green building (pictured) in San Jose. Earlier this week, SolarCity signed a new partnership deal with Rabobank, the international private bank with a triple A credit rating. The bank has agreed to provide solar project financing for its commercial clients via SolarCity. Rabobank N.A. in California also installed solar power generating rooftops at six of its retail locations. The shiny new Rabobank-SolarCity rooftops provide power not just for the banks themselves, but for customers of another Elon Musk concern — Tesla Motors. AutoBlogGreen gushes that any of Tesla’s electric vehicles making a pit stop along California’s “clean corridor,” or Highway 101 Rabobank locations can get recharged renewably. SolarCity plans to use its latest round of venture funding to expand into new geographic markets, and entertain acquisitions. Its solar projects, so far, are in five states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon and Texas. In California and Arizona, SolarCity faces direct competition from SunRun, another venture-backed firm with investments totaling about $140 million, with its most recent round led by Sequoia Capital.      
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| Enphase Energy’s Thermostat Lets You Control Your Home’s Temperature From Afar Posted: 14 Jul 2010 03:34 PM PDT
Green data geeks now have another tool for controlling their energy consumption. Enphase Energy‘s new Environ Smart Thermostat lets you control your home’s temperature and monitor your solar installations remotely. The company is known for its microinverter system, which turns solar-generated DC power into home energy friendly AC power. A microinverter is attached to every solar module, and the unit also monitors the module’s performance and sends out an alert if there is a problem with the module, be it debris or a tree branch that grew large enough to shade the solar panel. All of the data is transmitted to a website where you can analyze your energy consumption and, with the new thermostat, control your home’s temperature from afar. Want to turn on the AC before your commute home so you can step into a cold house? No problem. You can also turn over control to Enphase, which can help you program your thermostat to meet your energy goals, like letting the temperature rise a few degrees during peak times to save on your energy bill. “What we want to do is plug a hole on the energy consumption side,” says CEO Paul Nahi. The thermostat works with Enphase installations and sells for $349. The company began selling solar installations in 2008, and currently has customers in 49 states and all Canadian provinces. Enphase has raised $100 million in funding and although the company won’t release specific figures, Nahi said the company is “financially sound.”      
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HP was apparently working on an Android tablet along with a Windows 7 and webOS model. Yeah, all three at the same time. The Android flavor was even scheduled for a late-2010 release. But the project was reportable 
If you’re reading into the 
Computer manufacturers generally update their notebook lines every few months — except for 
Mobile ad network 
As we wrote last month, Millennial has added new measurement data focusing on mobile developer channels and trends. Gaming apps once again took the number one spot for and accounted for 41 percent of apps on the network in June. Music apps, as well as Food and Dining apps, experienced significant increases in June. Sports-focused apps took the third position, accounting for 7 percent of apps on the network, rising from the number six spot in May. This could reflect increased use and downloads of sports related apps because of the World Cup games, Stanley Cup Finals and and NBA finals. 
Over the last few weeks, the New England sports press has been scratching their heads over mysterious T-shirts they received from The Patriots that were emblazoned with the words, “HELP VINCE“. The shirts obviously refer to NFL star Vince Wilfork, but give no indication as to what he needs help with. As it turns out, he’s “lost” his Super Bowl Ring, and he needs help finding it — and the Patriots are giving location-based startup 
Sometimes I want to buy something like a blender or a car or a washing machine. And sometimes my wonderful and loving mother (
Perhaps you heard, Apple is having 
Less then seven months after it was 
Word is breaking that Apple is calling a special press conference on this coming Friday to talk about the iPhone 4. Yes, 
The question that is on many people’s minds as the iPhone 4 antenna drama plays itself out is “why didn’t any of the reviewers notice this?” After all, we had reviews of the iPhone from the heavy hitters quite a bit ahead of time — seasoned tech journalists who were ostensibly on the lookout for issues like this. Yet I don’t recall reading a single word about sudden signal drops, proximity sensor issues, screen discoloration, or any of the other launch issues. This may be explained by the fact that a sample size of a dozen or two may easily have avoided the launch issues, which clearly do not affect all units.
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