The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- The Best iPhone Apps Of 2009 (Appvee Edition)
- 370 Passwords You Shouldn’t (And Can’t) Use On Twitter
- Pedal Brain’s Gadget Turns Your iPhone Into A Powerful Cycling Computer
- NSFW: The Physical Impossibility of The Future in the Mind of Someone Trapped In Chicago
- Apple Expanding iWork In The Cloud?
- CrunchBoard Jobs: Dictionary.com, Playdom, KickApps and More!
- TSA To Save Print Media? No Electronics On International Flights? What A Joke.
- Location-Based Mobile Advertising Platform AdLocal Enters America, Wants To Win With Japan Know-How
- Should You See Avatar? About 75 Percent Of People Who Tweet About It Think You Should
| The Best iPhone Apps Of 2009 (Appvee Edition) Posted: 27 Dec 2009 08:25 AM PST This guest post was written by Erik Fikkert, Lead Reviewer, AppVee. Also check out AppVee’s previous picks of the best apps in the App store The iPhone and iPod touch have become immediately recognizable names around the world. Apple recently announced that the iPhone is the most popular mobile phone in the US. In addition, the iPod touch is generally regarded as the media player of choice, offering much more than just music. Perhaps the key to their success is the ever-growing app store which currently boasts over 100,000 apps. For those of you not crazy about math, that’s a huge number—you would have to purchase and download over 11 apps an hour, every single day for a year to test them all. While it is safe to say the majority of apps available are less than appealing, there are a few gems that stand out from the rest. We took a look and compiled a list of the best apps 2009 had to offer. 2009 brought some of the best apps to the iPhone and iPod touch to date. Gaming has now advanced to a point that rivals the Sony PSP or Nintendo DS. As the mobile market grows and hardware continues to improve, we are going to see some amazing things come our way. If 2008 was about experimentation, 2009 was about innovation. In 2010, developers will push this innovation to enhance our mobile experience—whether through augmented reality, cloud-based computing, or something completely new. Below you will find our top 10 overall apps, our top 15 games, and top 5 innovations. Tell us which apps are on your top 10 list in comments. TOP 10 APPS Facebook 3.0 Fandango Beejive 3.0 LogMeIn Mobile Navigator Dropbox Textfree Unlimited Google Mobile App TweetDeck Craigsphone Ustream TOP 15 GAMES Flight Control Peggle Rolando 2 Pocket God Enigmo 2 N.O.V.A. Labyrinth 2 Skeeball Zenonia Real Racing Sims 3 Rock Band Super Monkey Ball 2 Doodle Jump Words With Friends TOP 5 INNOVATIONS Red Laser 2.2 Hitchcock I Am T-Pain Mailtones Leaf Trombone Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
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| 370 Passwords You Shouldn’t (And Can’t) Use On Twitter Posted: 27 Dec 2009 05:52 AM PST
It just so happens that Twitter has hard-coded all banned passwords on the sign-up page. All you need to do to retrieve the full list of unwelcome passwords is take a look at the source code of that page. Do a simple search for ‘twttr.BANNED_PASSWORDS’ and voilà, there they are, all 370 of them. This isn’t a security issue, of course, and in fact it’s helpful to distribute the list so you can check if your favorite password that you use for other services might not be as fail-proof as you’d like to think. For the full list, simply download this TXT file, but here are a couple: - password What would be interesting to know is if Twitter got this list from somewhere else, or if they actually analyze which passwords were most commonly chosen by its tens of millions of users in the past, rendering them ‘too obvious’. If the latter, that means this list is probably representative of most Web services. (Thanks to Dario Manoukian for the tip; a quick search turns up a post on The Wundercounter featuring the list too) Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| Pedal Brain’s Gadget Turns Your iPhone Into A Powerful Cycling Computer Posted: 26 Dec 2009 07:42 PM PST
That’s where Pedal Brain comes in. The bootstrapped startup is making a small device called the Pedal Brain Synapse that plugs into your iPhone or iPod Touch and allows them to receive this data, which is then interpreted by an iPhone app. The application shows you how you’re performing in real-time (you’ll want to mount your iPhone in plain view) and can also use GPS to show the position of your team members. Once you’ve completed your ride, you’ll be able to log on to the Pedal Brain site to get more detailed analysis. The site will also have an integrated platform for coaches, so you sign up to get your own trainer to help plot your future rides and track your progress. Pedal Brain founder Matt Bauer acknowledges that there are a handful of other cycling applications available for the iPhone, like Map My Ride, but says that these only offer basic data. That’s because they rely on your phone’s GPS for data, which can help gauge the distance you’ve travelled but can’t measure many of the things that ANT+ devices can. Bauer explains that power (in Watts) is a common metric used to gauge your progress, and can’t be accurately determined using GPS alone. Pedal Brain’s iPhone/iPod accessory, which has already been approved by Apple, will be available through local bike shops this spring. The company is targeting a March release date and plans to sell the device for between $130 and $190. The online service will be subscription based, though users will be able to get a limited version for free (you won’t be able to track your data for longer than a couple weeks).  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| NSFW: The Physical Impossibility of The Future in the Mind of Someone Trapped In Chicago Posted: 26 Dec 2009 05:04 PM PST
I'm trapped here in standby limbo: my original connecting flight to Nashville cancelled due to snow – the kind of freak weather condition that no one in Chicago could possibly have predicted for December. Still, at least I've been awake since 4am GMT, and at least my flight left London an hour late because every single passenger had to be patted down by American Airlines staff at the gate, having already passed through the usual madness of security. And at least by "every single passenger" I mean there unfolded a preposterous pantomime where posh white dudes like me were given the most cursorily of rub-downs in order to keep the line moving while those poor saps who fit the terrorist profile – which is to say, anyone who looked a bit brown – were deep-tissue massaged half to death a gaggle of goons in latex gloves. And at least all of that nonsense was utterly pointless because, as any self-respecting terrorist apparently knows, they don't dare go anywhere near your groin. It would be very easy for me to write a reactionary column this week about how technology should have made travel delays like this a thing of the past. About how we have heated soccer pitches, and yet we're told that heated runways don't stack up economically. Or how there's no point in having terrorist watch-lists if people on them are still able to get on flights with bombs sewn into their underwear. I mean, Jesus, we're days away from the end of the first decade of The Future – 40 years after we put a man on the moon – and yet there are so many areas where technology still lets us down. But what good would that do me? I'm already stressed – and they say when you're in a stressful situation you should focus on the positives, not dwell on the negatives. The fact is, for every major way in which the technology of the last decade has failed to deliver – hoverboards, teleportation – there are half a dozen smaller advances so mindblowingly significant to our day-to-day lives that we already take them for granted. For a start, the only thing making this six-hour extended layover in the frozen circle of hell even slightly bearable is the fact that I have my laptop, a power-outlet and decent quality wifi. How the hell did we manage before wifi? It was less than ten years ago that hotspots started to appear – considerably less in the case of airports – and yet already the idea of not being able to access the Internet anytime, anywhere is genuinely impossible to imagine. Like trying to recall how we made social plans before mobile phones, or how we identified prospective sexual partners before Bebo. Whether it be airport wifi on our laptops or oh-just-connect-you-bastard flakiness on the iPhone, the fact that the Internet has become more ubiquitous than electricity in major cities in the past decade is – without any hyperbole whatsoever- a miracle. Sure, it’s destroyed lunch conversation and pub trivia but, in common with anyone who hit their 20s or 30s in the 2000s, I’d happily swap either of those for the ability to book a flight from the back of a cab, or to consult Wikipedia from the toilet. And, oh, Wikipedia! Sure it's unreliable as all hell (citation needed) and anything remotely controversial becomes a battleground of edits and bullshit, but there’s still something incredible about legions of unpaid volunteers, hunched in parental basements around the globe, collaborating to produce an encyclopedia of all human knowledge. Like most hacks, I consult Wikipedia at least half a dozen times a day, safe in the knowledge that I'll be able to find a fact – accurate or not – to support just about any theory my fevered imagination can dream up. A theory that I can write about in a reputable publication and thus, by Wikipedia standards, launder into truth. And how about Netflix? Or Hulu. Or Pandora. Or Last.fm. Or Spotify. To our kids it will seem as natural as water, but neither you nor I will forget the first time we clicked on the title of a song or a movie, only for it to instantly begin playing with crystal clarity. As I’ve written before, it’s the same feeling you experience when a magician turns water into wine in front of your eyes. With all of our talk of DRM and musicians and directors and – oh yeah – authors losing their livelihood it’s easy to forget how utterly bloody marvelous it is that all human creativity is just sitting in the air, all queued up and waiting for us to press play. In fact, just sitting here, staring out of the window at the snow, I can think of a dozen more technological advances of the past decade that it would be impossible to imagine the world without. Google. The iPod. Facebook. Skype. YouTube. Online banking. ATM check processing. Celebrity sex tapes. Snopes. GPS mapping for all on cellphones. The Kindle. Trip Advisor. As if to prove my point, as I finished writing that list, my iPhone started to vibrate in my pocket. It was a friend in San Francisco who had been following my snowbound breakdown on Twitter and had decided to call to cheer me up. At about the same time, another friend – this one in London – instant messaged me with a very inappropriate joke about bombs on planes which also brightened my evening no end. Ten years ago that simply wouldn't have happened, nor would I be able to distract myself for another few minutes by sending them both a cameraphone photo of all the snow (above). Indeed, the technology of the past decade may not have helped me escape from Chicago but it has at least given me a mental escape tunnel to prevent me going completely mad. And for that reason alone, I raise a frozen hand in salute the technology of the'00s and look forward with excitement with what the '10s will bring. I just hope they start with heated fucking runways. Seriously – how hard can it be? Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
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| Apple Expanding iWork In The Cloud? Posted: 26 Dec 2009 01:34 PM PST
The job posting popped up on CrunchBoard on December 22. Apple is looking for a mid level engineer to “be part of the core development team” and “engage in an area from design to development” of a new javascript rich internet application for the iWork team:
Apple has job postings all the time. But what caught our eye on this one is the language around building an application, from design to development. That suggests something different than just joining the existing team. Apple is putting together a whole new team, for a new project, and they need outside expertise. Want the job? Apply here. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| CrunchBoard Jobs: Dictionary.com, Playdom, KickApps and More! Posted: 26 Dec 2009 01:29 PM PST
As Mike just noted as well, Apple has also posted a job posting for their iWork team. Also, don’t forget that we’re looking for a Conferences & Events Producer, Account Executive and CrunchBase interns here at TechCrunch! For job hunters in Europe, check out our Europe CrunchBoard. Click here to see all the jobs on CrunchBoard. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| TSA To Save Print Media? No Electronics On International Flights? What A Joke. Posted: 26 Dec 2009 12:22 PM PST
Obviously, this is all in reaction to the Nigerian man who attempted to bring down a plane coming into the U.S. And the TSA is going to do whatever it thinks is necessary to prevent further attacks of a similar nature. But the simple fact is that if the TSA was really this seriously worried about electronic devices, they could have banned them anytime since the attacks on September 11, 2001. Instead, they’re doing it more than 8 years later after a man apparently lit some sort of mixture of powder and liquid in his lap. How that relates to electronics, I’m not sure. This just reeks of a “well, we have to do something” move. Again, all the details aren’t known yet, and it’s entirely possible that this is just a temporary measure that will be in place during a heightened security time following the attempted attack. Other reports suggest this will only affect planes coming into the U.S. Of course, if you leave the U.S. to go on an international trip, you’re very likely going to have to come back, so this will affect you. So far, all the TSA is official saying is this:
Those other security measures apparently include not being allowed to get up in the final hour of a flight (so, no bathroom), being limited to one carry-on bag, and not being allowed to have anything on your lap in this final hour. We’ll update this post when the official policy becomes more clear, but given the previous policies of no liquids, taking off your shoes, etc, it wouldn’t be entirely shocking for a no electronics rule of some sort to be commonplace. And it comes at a time when air travel was becoming almost becoming bearable thanks to WiFi on a growing number of flights (though domestic for now). Instead, it looks like we’ll have to revert back to the old standards: Books, magazines, and newspapers for these flights. If I were the print media companies, I’d jack up the prices in airports immediately. They may have just found a business model that will save them: Fear. I stand by my statement earlier: If they take electronics away from us on plane, I’d much prefer to be put into a state of hibernation on the flights like in Avatar. That’s about the only thing that will make those cattle cars tolerable at that point. [photo: flickr/sundaykofax] Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| Location-Based Mobile Advertising Platform AdLocal Enters America, Wants To Win With Japan Know-How Posted: 26 Dec 2009 12:11 PM PST
While some believe search will account for the biggest chunk of the market, others expect geo-aware advertising, another way of bringing “relevant” ads to users, to have a bright future, too. This is where AdLocal, a location-based, self-service mobile ad platform that (re-)launched yesterday, comes in. Offered by Sunnyvale-based Cirius Technologies USA, the platform has been around in Japan since 2006, currently commanding the largest share of location-based advertising in Japan’s $1 billion [PDF] mobile ad space. And now Cirius is ready to utilize the years of experience the company gained in the world’s most competitive mobile market in the US (AdLocal isn’t available outside America and Japan at this point). AdLocal allows advertisers to manage their campaigns and publishers to add their mobile sites or applications by themselves through a Web-based dashboard. By locating a mobile user’s physical location via GPS, cell identification and other methods, the mobile ad network can tell when a consumer is close to a specific business address and then serves up tailor-made ads for that business in real-time. Screenshot: AdLocal ad radius view in San Francisco Publishers can put advertisements into their iPhone and Android apps through the so-called AdLocal Delivery API and the AdLocal SDK (which is currently Beta for Android). SDKs for other platforms are currently in the works. Advertisers can create ads themselves by using a wizard and then specifying the desired locations, budgets and dates to display their ads (deals, promotions, coupons etc.). And boosting relevance this way seems to work, at least in Japan. Cirius Technologies claims mobile advertisers using AdLocal saw CTRs growing by 395% after switching from non-local to local ads on a year-on-year basis. Publishers apparently saw their average CPMs jumping 826%. The company is expecting similar results for advertisers in the US. (If you’re one of those, you might want to give AdLocal a spin before their special $50 trial campaign is over.) There are quite a few companies ready for the location-based advertising gold rush. Startups operating in this space include Acuity Mobile (recently acquired by geo giant NAVTEQ), AppLoop for the iPhone (deadpooled earlier this year), Placecast (which raised $5 million last month for its opt-in solution), AdInfuse (with adInMotion) and Yowza (which is a popular geo-aware iPhone app for coupons). The following screenshots show a typical AdLocal campaign view and a summary (click to enlarge): Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
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| Should You See Avatar? About 75 Percent Of People Who Tweet About It Think You Should Posted: 26 Dec 2009 09:48 AM PST James Cameron’s visually-thrilling Avatar started out modestly for a mega-Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster, pulling in only $27 million its first day at the box office (compared to $72 million for Twilight Saga: New Moon and $68 million for Transformers). But Avatar is the “iPhone of Movies,” as Michael likes to call it (I think he’s seen it four times already, and that is just what he’ll admit to on Yammer). He is not the only one enamored with the movie, which is now nearing $400 million in worldwide box office ticket sales. If people who are Tweeting about the movie are any judge, about 75 percent of people are saying good things about it, according to Twitter Sentiment (a site which analyzes the sentiment of Tweets). You see roughly the same numbers on TweetFeel and other sentiment analysis sites. Twitter is the new word of mouth. Twitter Sentiment counts 111,092 positive recent Tweets with the word “avatar,” compared to 37,434 negative ones. That is a pretty large sample size, and seems to be a fairly good proxy for overall sentiment. Some of these could be Tweets about avatars in general, but if you look at the actual Tweets, they are nearly all about the movie right now. Some representative Tweets: @steveborn1: Avatar kicked ass. Best movie I have seen this year @roguepuppet: @katiekillian avatar is amazing. Catch it in 3d if you can @JuLiWong: Okay i agree with everyone, AVATAR is good. AWESOME actually! :) @tubamasterj: i love avatar. why cant we live in a simple, beautiful world like pandora @UzumundyRussuto: Avatar is way better the second time!! @wam3studios: Avatar kicked ass………. Despite the acting 140 characters is really all you need for a movie review. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
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If you’re on 
For years, runners have been able to take advantage of Nike+, a nifty accessory that lets your iPod communicate with your shoes to turn it into a personal running coach of sorts. Soon, cyclists will have access to a tool that’s in the same vein as Nike+, but far more powerful. It’s called 
A year ago Apple launched 
Before I begin, let me just state that TSA has yet to confirm any of this on its website, so the details aren’t entirely clear at the moment. That said, there are 
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