Monday, June 22, 2009

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Pageonce Brilliantly Combines All Your Online Accounts Into One App Top
Step aside, Mint . Pageonce just launched a major update to its iPhone application, and it blows you out of the water. Pageonce's v3 update is absolutely fantastic, and Mint's app pales in comparison. Pageonce's premium app, A Personal Assistant Premium , allows you to connect all of your online accounts to one login (and one application). What do we mean by all accounts? We mean damn near everything: from Facebook and Twitter to American Express to AT&T Wireless, Pageonce allows you to connect with pretty much every account that you have online. And it actually works.
 
Now We're Talking: AIM With Push Support Hits The App Store Top
There’s been a lot of talk the past few days since the launch of the iPhone 3.0 software about the lack of Push Notification apps in the App Store. Well, today brings a big one: AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). Instant messaging apps are perhaps the perfect use for Push Notification, which allows you to use such services without requiring that they be open at all time. In our test of the pre-release beta version of the AIM app with Push, the messages were sent almost instantaneously. In testing it out right now, it looks to be just as fast. When you first fire up this new version of AIM, it asks you if you’d like to receive Push notifications. You can change this at any time in the settings. And you can also choose if you’d like the notifications to be brief (only say that you have a new IM), feature the sender’s name only, be normal size, or full size. You can also set how you’d like Push messages to show up on your phone for each app in the device’s settings. You can have it pop up a message, play a sound, badge your icon or do any combination of those. And Push works with both the free [ iTunes link ] and paid version [ iTunes link ] of the app. The $2.99 paid version removes all advertising. Push is great for services like IM, but it doesn’t resolve the lack of iPhone background support for all apps. With Push you still can’t listen to Pandora while doing something else on the web, for example. I still believe it’s only a matter of time before we see some sort of third-party background task support as well. Update : While users are reporting that they aren’t receiving notifications to update their apps yet, if you use the links above, it is the latest version with Push. CrunchBase Information AIM iphone App iPhone Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Don't Have Enough Widgets In Your Life? Netvibes Adds Recommendations. Top
For those of you who need more information widgets in your life, Netvibes is adding widget recommendations to its homepage service. It just started rolling this feature out today, and all Netvibes users should see it within the next two or three days. It looks at all of the information widgets on all the pages and tabs in your account, compares that to other members with overlapping taste, and suggests content they have that you don’t. When users click on the “add content” button on the top left, a “Recommended” option will appear below the widget search box. Clicking on that will generate 12 new widget recommendations across nine categories of interest: news, sports, business, technology, entertainment, shopping, lifestyle, games, and travel. Netvibes is calling this new widget recommendation and distribution feature Talk To Me. When I tried it, most of the recommendations were for news, since the way I use Netvibes is to scan dozens of blogs and news feeds on a single page. The recommendations, at least for me, were a bit too predictable: WSJ blogs, the Financial Times, The LA Times, CBS News. (Click above for a larger image). These are all things I could have found myself. But the recommendations are suppose dto get better over time, learning from what you add and what you reject. Netvibes is in the widget business, so it needs to encourage more consumption of widgets. It will also be showing targeted sponsored widgets in the same window, marked accordingly, and it gets paid every time someone installs those widgets on a cost-per-install basis. I personally have moved on from widgets to more linear streams of data as my information consumption habit of choice, but a lot of people still like widgets (see, iGoogle). Most widgets are really just a different way to package streams of data such as news or Twitter feeds. On Netvibes, you arrange them in boxes on your page, and can organize multiple pages in tabs, and even go beyond that. But at a certain point you stop adding new widgets just like you stop adding new feeds to your RSS reader because you don’t know what else to add or it simply becomes overwhelming. A good recommendation system could help you discover new widgets, but what is equally important is a way to clean up the widgets you added long ago but never bother to look at. Recommending what to get rid of is just as important as recommending what to add. But that is not part of the system yet. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Exclusive: OTOY Goes Mobile, Turns Your Cell Phone Into A Powerful Gaming Rig Top
Last week we posted a pair of videos showing off OTOY, the upcoming server-side rendering service that can stream complex 3D games to your computer through any web browser. It’s a very impressive technology, requiring no plugins or lengthy installs — just open your browser and you can instantly jump into a game of Crysis or GTA4, streamed in HD quality. Today we’ve gotten our hands on a clip proving that when OTOY says its technology will work on nearly any browser-enabled device, it means it. As the video below shows, OTOY is going to bring modern games like Crysis and GTA 4 to your mobile phone. The phone in the video is a Samsung Omnia, which was released to the public last summer (in other words, you don’t need a cutting edge phone for the technology to work). The game is running through the phone’s built-in browser, with no installs required, and is being controlled via a Xbox gamepad connected wirelessly. OTOY Chief Strategy Officer Mark Tseng says that the company is working on a variety of control schemes, allowing users to control games using a phone’s accelerometer, onscreen gamepad, or external peripherals like the Xbox controller. OTOY will work over Wi-Fi or a 3G connection (the company has it working speeds as low as 1.5 Megabits per second), though Tseng says Wi-Fi works best. He also notes that the technology will work on the iPhone, going on to emphasize that it should work on nearly any device — we can likely expect it to work on the Palm Pre, Android, and most other smartphones as well. At this point the company isn’t willing to divulge how pricing will work, though Tseng says more details will be coming soon. This is very powerful stuff. Imagine being able to whip out your cell phone and join a quick raid in World of Warcraft, or play through a mission in Grand Theft Auto. I see this as being particularly appealing for MMO’s, which tend to attract especially devout players who would love to be able to access their accounts away from home. Of course, mobile phones are becoming powerful enough to render 3D graphics on their own — the iPhone offers a slew of games with complex graphics, and the iPhone 3GS is able to support even more detailed games. But these graphics won’t rival modern console or PC games for many years, and you’re going to always have to continuously upgrade your hardware if you want to stay current. Once you have a phone that supports OTOY you shouldn’t have to worry about upgrading your hardware, as all game processing is being done remotely. But streaming games on mobile phones come with its own set of issues. Unlike your home PC, where you can normally count on a stable connection, many of us play games on our phones while we’re in transit, when you can hardly rely on your cell phone’s reception to hold up. But even if they have to stay stationary or jump on a Wi-Fi connection, this is a service that I’m sure many gamers will be salivating over. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Former Deputy National Security Advisor: Twitter Founders Should Get Nobel Peace Prize Top
Oh my God, the haters of Twitter are going to love this. Speaking to Fox News, Mark Pfeifle, a former Deputy National Security Advisor to George W. Bush, offered up this appraisal of the Iran situation: “If there’s anybody that should possibly get a Nobel Peace Prize in the next time around, it should be the founders of Twitter who delayed the tuning up of their system in order for an amazing amount of tweets to be sent out in the last week or so.” Let me just repeat the key phrase there: “If there’s anybody that should possibly get a Nobel Peace Prize in the next time around, it should be the founders of Twitter” Now watch this clip over and over. Just so we don’t get accused of entirely taking this out of context, below we’ll paste the full transcript (and full video) of what he said in the interview. But again, he did say “If there’s anybody that should possibly get a Nobel Peace Prize in the next time around, it should be the founders of Twitter”. Twitter, for its part, says it is not a covert government agency , even though it did postpone maintenance to make sure it was up during the peak hours of Iranian protests. Update : Here’s a tweet Pfeifle sent out recently as well (emphasis mine): RT JBergsman,M. Pfeifle on FNC: Nobel Peace Prize for Twitter founders for #iranelection? Why not. @ev & @biz > deserving than Arafat.Carter Full transcript: Bream: Let’s talk about the Administration’s so far. Has it been on point? What do we need to see next from the White House? Pfeifle: They are walking a tightrope. That’s what they are doing. They do not want the U.S. or West to become the talking point for the Iranian regime, saying they are trying to do a coup by their public statements. What the reaction has been in the prayers yesterday by their supreme leader, he used it anyway and said the West is trying to do this. So, sometimes it doesn’t work. And you try and stay quiet and you try to stay mum or you say too much. The real winners in this and the people that have gotten the message out, even though the U.S. with some exceptions has been fairly quiet is Twitter, has been Facebook, Flickr, YouTube. It’s been all of those. If there’s anybody that should possibly get a Nobel Peace Prize in the next time around, it should be the founders of Twitter who delayed the tuning up of their system in order for an amazing amount of tweets to be sent out in the last week or so. Bream: It’s been such a valuable source of information because, in the past the government there probably had a lot more control over the information disseminated inside the country and outside as well. So now that we have this additional information coming in, does it put the Administration in a different place as far as, you know, crediting some of this information - maybe not being able to credit all of it because it’s coming from unreliable sources? Pfeifle: It’s difficult because it’s moving so quickly. We saw just on the 17th, 221,000 tweets sent about Iran, 3,000 videos were uploaded onto YouTube. It’s been really remarkable, you know, how the emerging media the social networking has taken over and has given a voice to a lot of people who have been silent. Bream: And let’s talk about this escalating today as well, because the government had been cracking saying no more protests in Tehran. Mousavi will be responsible for whatever happens if these people are hurt or injured. They turned out anyway, thousands of them we know so far. Now he’s also amped things up so far by talking about being ready for martyrdom and also calling for a national strike if he is arrested. You know, this seems to be on a trajectory. What happens next there? Pfeifle: It’s really hard to tell. If the country is shutdown by a strike or portions of it, it’s going to put the Iranian regime in a very difficult situation. Already they have massive problems with gas rationings for fairly wealthy country. Where they’ve been putting money into funding Hamas and Hezbollah and putting so much money into their nuclear program instead of into their people. All of this is quailing up. It’s hitting a point right now where the regime is going to have to make some drastic changes one way or the other. They’ve already said that they are going to count 10 percent of the vote. They are already making some concessions and the people’s voices are being heard. Bream: Alright, so we know about the official response we’ve already talked about that so let’s talk about back channels. Obviously there’s a lot going on probably that we don’t know about. What kind of efforts can the Administration make off the radar in this situation? Pfeifle: well, it’s difficult to get to the actual Iranian regime. They are very isolated. There’s some ways through the Swiss, there’s some ways through Ambassadorial channels that you can makes some entries to the Iranians but for the most part they’re not going to listen to the West, they are not going to listen to the U.S. They are going to listen to them more between press releases and public statements as President Obama has done, as the Secretary of State and others have done periodically last week. Bream: Mark Pfeifle, we thank you so much for your insight on this and for sharing your Saturday with us as well. Pfeifle: Thank you Shannon. [thanks James ] CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Tesla CEO Elon Musk Sets The Record Straight About Pending Lawsuit Top
We reported a few weeks ago that Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard filed a lawsuit against Tesla and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, citing allegations of slander, libel and breach of contract. Tesla issued a short statement when the lawsuit was filed, calling the lawsuit a "fictionalized account of Tesla's early years." Now Musk has taken to Tesla’s blog to give his own version of the messy situation. Unrelated to the lawsuit, Musk says that Tesla will be profitable by next month, thanks to lower material costs, and increased Roadster Sport sales. Musk responds to several of Eberhard’s allegations that he lied about his background and fictionalized pieces of his resume to embellish the truth: The facts are that when I requested through AC Propulsion to meet Eberhard, he had no technology of his own, he did not have a prototype car and he owned no intellectual property relating to electric cars. All he had was a business plan to commercialize the AC Propulsion Tzero electric sports car concept. Three years later, when Eberhard was asked to leave Tesla, most of the work that he had been paid to do had to be redone. Particularly, Musk addresses Eberhard’s complaints that the PayPal founder misrepresented his education. Musk maintains that he did his undergraduate studies in physics and business at UPenn/Wharton (we confirmed this with Wharton—Musk was an undergraduate alum and holds degrees from both Wharton and the College of Arts & Sciences) and despite dropping out of grad school at Stanford, maintained affiliations with the university by working with the Stanford Engineering Advisory Council. Musk also addresses Eberhard’s claims that he had no hand in the making of the Roadster and that Musk’s management was detrimental to the business. Musk writes that while Eberhard was leading the operational teams, Musk himself focused on the body design, technical specifications and building the Tesla brand. Musk also says he spent significant time “on the details of the product and particularly the body styling — you will see elements of two of my favorite cars (Porsche and McLaren F1) in the Roadster body — but left most day to day management of the company up to Eberhard.” The tale from Musk is quite different than Eberhard’s allegations that Musk and Tesla pushed him out of the company for no reason. According to Musk’s post, Eberhard grossly miscalculated costs of production of the Roadsters and purposely withheld this information from Musk and investors: The real reason that Roadster development cost so much more than can be accounted for by typical entrepreneurial hubris is that we essentially had to spend the development money twice. After Eberhard was asked to step down from the CEO role two years ago, almost every major system on the car, including the body, HVAC, motor, power electronics, transmission and battery pack, had to be redesigned, retooled or switched to a new supplier. The post is a fascinating read in its own right, diving deep into some of the early missteps at Tesla and how they were overcome. For instance, the company’s decision to move production of the battery packs from Asia to the United States was counter-intuitive, but crucial to its survival. Writes Musk: Avoiding the cost of shipping a half ton pack from Asia also meant significant savings on shipping costs. This is a much bigger deal for a heavy and bulky product than a small consumer electronics device, where outsourcing to Asia makes a lot more sense. Very importantly, our supply chain went from a tectonically slow six months and having to pay for tens of millions of dollars of inventory in transit to a matter of a few weeks. Musk also includes some emails to back up his counter-claims against Eberhard but says that while the post is meant to clear up several misconceptions, there is more to come in a formal response to the lawsuit which will be filed soon. I’ve included a couple of the juicier snippets from the emails below but you can see more of the emails in Musk’s blog post. As we wrote in our earlier report, a lot of Eberhard’s claims seem like sour grapes. It’s unclear how much he’s seeking in damages. FYI-Michael Marks was the interim CEO of Tesla who was brought in to the company in 2007. Darryl Siry, was the head of Sales, Marketing & Service at Tesla during this time period From: Michael Marks Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007 10:38 PM To: Elon Musk Subject: boardI've thought about it, and completely agree with the idea that Martin shouldn't stay on the board, just fyiEmail presaging the host of issues that had to be fixed: —–Original Message—– From: Elon Musk Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2007 08:56 AM Pacific Standard Time To: Jim Marver; Ira Ehrenpreis; Antonio J. Gracias; kimbal Subject: Fw: meeting This is not good. Sounds like there are more issues that the board was not informed about. I will send out a note as soon as I talk with Marks and will ask him to email an assessment to the board as soon as he can. Martin seems to be focused on his public image and position within Tesla, rather than solving these critical problems. If you should speak with Martin, please urge him to spend all his energy on making sure that the Roadster works and arrives on time. He doesn't seem to understand that the best way to maximize his reputation and position within the company is to help get this right. From: Darryl Siry Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2008 6:28 PM To: Elon Musk; Ze'ev Drori Subject: Martin EberhardElon & Ze'ev Some recent developments in the past few days have given me cause for serious concern regarding the amplification of Martin's public statements about the company. I have come to the conclusion that Martin and his wife are hell bent on damaging the company by doing everything that they can to cast the company in a negative light and accuse the company of deceptive and unethical practices. My counsel to you in the past has always leaned to the side of appeasement, thinking that by doing what we can to defuse the situation would minimize the negative publicity potential. Recent events have led me to a conclusion that Martin and his wife will continue to take every opportunity to damage the company through their statements in the press and on public internet forums. The fact that we are on the verge of delivering his car and he is increasing his attacks causes me to wonder whether we will ever be free from these unceasing attacks on the company. In conclusion – I believe the board should take under serious consideration the severing of all ties with Martin Eberhard including the refunding of his reservation payment and cancelling of his order. If this course of action were to be pursued by the board, I would recommend that the company issue a public statement announcing our intention and outlining the rationale that led us to this conclusion. While this action may be considered severe and would no doubt create a stir, I feel this route may be better than subjecting the company to an unceasing negative publicity campaign that is fueled by his continued ties to the company as an early customer. Carolyn Eberhard's comments in an email to me implying that they would seek to derail our attempts at going public is especially concerning. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
What's In A Name, Indeed. Apple Now Calling It The "iPhone 3GS", No Space Top
When the iPhone 3G S was announced at this year’s WWDC conference, I first wrote it as the “iPhone 3GS” and was corrected by a colleague that according to Apple, there was a space between the “G” and the “S.” That seemed to be the case on Apple’s entire website. But today, with its million units sold announcement , I noticed that Apple has apparently moved to calling the device the iPhone 3GS — with no space. And I’m hardly the only one who noticed the change. So which is it, Apple? Obviously, this isn’t a huge deal, but considering how many people are writing stories, posts, tweeting, etc, about the device right now, you’d think Apple would like to have one correct name out there. But it seems that it’s not even sure. While the press release this morning has “iPhone 3GS,” the website still has “iPhone 3G S.” As I’ve said from when the name was first rumored , I think the iPhone 3G S (or 3GS, for that matter) is kind of a silly name. Already, I’ve heard some people who are unclear if “3GS” just means multiple iPhone 3Gs. And then there’s the whole issue of writing iPhone 3GSs, plural. Plus, having played around with the device all weekend, I’m still not sure they shouldn’t have called it the iPhone 3G V — for Video . I’ve contacted Apple for some clarification. Update : According to a tweet from The Washington Post’s Rob Pegoraro , Apple has made the change to “iPhone 3GS,” citing Apple’s Greg Joswiak. Someone should probably let their website know. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Interview: Jared Brown, IPhone Developer About Having His App Rejected Top
Every day the Internet pays lip service to the "apps" "yanked" by Apple. But what happens when something Apple does in the SDK shuts down an entire type of app, namely the camera apps that added interesting new functionality to the phone? Jared Brown write Quick Shot , an app that added a number of cool features to the iPhone camera. Apple has decided to strictly enforce their SDK guidelines with the release of 3.0, leaving potentially millions of iPhone users with applications that will not be compatible with iPhone OS 3.0. Maybe you are already aware of this, but I had not seen anything written on Techcrunch and thought it was compelling enough to bring to your attention. Our company, Code Monkeys at Work, produces an application, Quick Shot. It's a camera application, not unlike Night Camera. It has been live in the App Store since mid-Feb. When the 3.0 beta came out we updated it to be compatible and submitted it. Each time we submit an update to Quick Shot we cross our fingers, since we always get a different reviewer who takes issue with features/graphics/text that were already approved in earlier versions. Although this time when it got rejected it caught us by complete surprise.
 
A Social Force Departs Google Top
Kevin Marks , a social force within Google and one of the main drivers behind its recent social efforts (including OpenSocial , its Social Graph API, and Microformats ) is leaving the company. He announced his departure today on his blog . Marks was an evangelist to other engineers outside Google, his official title was Developer Advocate. For many Web developers outside Google, he has been the public face of its social efforts in recent years. Contacted by phone, Marks says he is working on a bunch of things “related to the social Web” and “activity streams,” but declined to get into specifics. Asked why he is leaving Google, he responds that his work is pretty much completed: “Over the last two years, we have built out the infrastructure for the social Web. Now it is time to build things on that infrastructure.” He also is ready to work in a smaller company. Noting that he has worked at both large and small companies over the years, he says, “I am due for a small company phase.” That is a nice way to put it. OpenSocial has been gaining steam, but still seems to be lagging Facebook as the platform of choice for social applications and Websites. That is not to say that the game is over or that OpenSocial cannot prevail over time (precisely by being more open). The action, anyway, is moving to real time activity streams and Marks now seems to be pointed in that direction. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Instapaper Gets Folders And Goes Social Top
The online bookmarking functionality I use most often isn’t Delicious or Google Bookmarks or even my browser’s bookmarking area. Instead, I use Instapaper , a really simple way to store things that you want read or come back to later. And the service just got a series of updates over the weekend to make it even better. The biggest update is the addition is the addition of folders . You can now better organize the stuff you bookmark. Developer Marco Arment calls this “by far, the most requested feature in Instapaper's history.” He had been waiting to unveil the web version of folders until it was live in the 2.0 Pro version of the Instapaper iPhone app, but apparently Apple has been really slow at approving it ( no surprise there ), so he rolled it out early. Another big update is that you can now subscribe to other Instapaper users’ Starred items , making the service social. The advent of the folder feature allows for this, as when you click on the “Add folder” link, you now have an option to add another users’ starred items simply by typing in their Instapaper username. Those items are placed in the left-hand sidebar of the Instapaper site, and when you click on a user’s name, you will see all their items just as you would your own Instapaper items. Starring an item in Instapaper works and looks exactly like the same functionality does in Gmail. But before this feature, there wasn’t much of a reason to star items beyond further highlighting what you’ve already bookmarked. Now there is a reason — to share things. At the core of Instapaper is its bookmarklet, which allows for one-click saving on items on the web. That too has received a nice upgrade . Instead of popping open another small browser window to let you know something is saved, it’s all done on the actual page you are saving now as a quick overlay. Apparently, this works better for the new Safari 4 web browser. And finally, Arment announced that the current version of Instapaper Pro, the premium version of the iPhone app (there is also a free version) is available for $4.99 for a limited time, as Instapaper 2.0 looms. This is a nice reduction from the app’s normal $9.99 price and if you buy the current version (1.3) at this discounted price, you’ll still get the full 2.0 update for free. You can find the app in the App Store here . CrunchBase Information Instapaper Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
LiquidPlanner Finds $1 Million For Project Management Software Top
Project management software startup LiquidPlanner has secured $1 million in angel funding from investors, including the Alliance of Angels, the Bellingham Angel Group and Investor Geoff Entress. The startup will use these funds to support new sales and marketing initiatives and invest in product development. LiquidPlanner, which we reviewed here, help teams of all sizes manage complex projects and is specifically designed to account for unplanned events and delays in projects. Launched to the enterprise space last year, LiquidPlanner’s software is currently being used by 200 companies from a wide spectrum of industries, from creative agencies, design firms, and IT consultancies to the energy, aviation, and telecommunications sectors. Competitors in this space include Basecamp, Clarizen, Huddle, and Viewpath. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
The Story Of Twitter In Picture Form Top
Sure, you could read about the history of Twitter in long-form blog posts, but that seems to go against the spirit of the micro-messaging service. So instead, here’s a picture created by InfoShots for the blog Manolith that puts some key moments of the service’s history in visual form. This spans from the advent of UNIX “Talk” in the 1980s (an early real-time text update system), all the way to the Twipocalypse . And here is InfoShots’ original concept for the image: [Thanks Sean ] Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Review: IPhone 3G S, The Best Phone Out There, But Power Users Should Wait It Out Top
First, an anecdote: when the iPhone first launched in 2007 I took it on a tour of Central Europe, namely Budapest and Warsaw . Communism had just fallen and the hopes and dreams of these benighted nations were dashed. But as I pulled the iPhone from its protective cozy, the eyes of those present were filled with hope again, hope that there was something better out there, something magical. That something was called the iPhone and it was this promise, the promise of a Jobsian escape from the gristmill of history. All of this in a cigarette-pack-sized cellphone. Fast forward two years. With the release of the iPhone 3G S we can safely say that the bloom is off the rose. The 3G S looks exactly like the iPhone 3G in every way. There is no outward identification and, in those intervening years, Hungary, Poland, the UK, Russia - heck, everybody - got the iPhone. Pulling one of these out is like pulling out something like a tin of Altoids - a bit against the grain but common enough to discourage gawking. So we must answer a few questions in this review. They are: * What are the major improvements? * Who is this phone for? * Should you buy one/should you upgrade? And so we begin.
 
Poll Finds That Physical Media Is Dying, HD DVD As Popular As Blu-ray Top
Blu-ray was declared the winning format last year when HD DVD threw in the towel . This victory came after major studios left the HD DVD camp and joined up with Blu-ray. But just because a victory was celebrated, that doesn't mean the format is successful. In fact, a recent Harris Interactive poll shows that many purchased an HD DVD player last year and most don't plan on buying a Blu-ray player anytime soon. This poll's results might be shocking to some outside the tech community, but it clearly shows that consumers are ready to move past physical media and onto the digital downloads. In fact, secondary polls were conducted as well and found that an overwhelming number of people are "not at all likely" to purchase a Blu-ray device within the next year and many will buy fewer DVDs within six months.
 
Google Researchers Teach Computers Out How To Recognize Images Of Famous Landmarks Top
Image recognition is still one of those things that humans find easy to do but computers keep stumbling over. Some Google researchers published a paper describing progress they are making in teaching computers how to identify famous landmarks, which may eventually be applied more broadly to image search in general. In a blog post, Jay Yagnik, the head of Computer Vision Research at Google, writes : While we’ve gone a long way towards unlocking the information stored in text on the web, there’s still much work to be done unlocking the information stored in pixels. In the experiment, the researchers fed “an unnamed, untagged picture of a landmark” found on the Internet and the system would spit back the name and location of the landmark, such as the Acropolis in Greece. Each untagged photo was be compared to 40 million GPS-tagged images on Picasa and Panoramio (both owned by Google), as well as related photos found through Google Image Search. Using clustering and new image indexing techniques, the Google researchers were able to identify untagged photos of the same landmarks from different angles and under various lighting conditions. The researchers report that their system can identify 50,000 landmarks with 80 percent accuracy. I’m not sure that’s quite good enough to even roll that out in a beta product, but if Google can get it to 90 percent or 95 percent that would start to be consumer-friendly. Over the past few years, there’s been a lot of progress in image recognition, especially with facial recognition For instance, Face.com does a particularly good job with Facebook photos. But buildings and objects may be pose a different set of image-recognition challenges. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Microsoft Poaches Former Yahoo Exec To Head Up Data Center Services Top
Acquiring Yahoo , one employee at a time: Microsoft has recruited Kevin Timmons , former lead of Yahoo’s data center team, to head up its Data Center Services organization. Timmons was once director of Operations at GeoCities and worked his way up to VP of Operations at Yahoo, where he led the build-out of the company’s data centers and infrastructure. This move comes shortly after Microsoft data center exec Michael Manos left Redmond to fill a new position at Digital Realty Trust, and only two months after the company hired another Yahoo executive - Dayne Sampson - for a key position at Microsoft Global Foundation Services (which Data Center Services is a part of). (See the GFS blog post for more - hat tip to Data Center Knowledge for the heads up). Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Geodelic Raised $3.5 Million For Location-Aware Recommendations Top
On a mobile phone, the more you can automate search, the more likely people are to use it. Or at least that is the principle which seems to be guiding Geodelic Systems , a startup which is creating a “search-less search” experience for mobile phones. Today in a press release, it revealed that it raised $3.5 million in an earlier round possibly in 2008 from Clearstone Ventures (where it was incubated) and Shasta Ventures. The company was founded by Rahul Sonnad, who previously founded thePlatform , a Web video publishing service he sold to Comcast in 2006. Geodelic is creating a location-aware search engine for restaurants, movies, stores, flights, hotels, and local attractions which recommends results based on their distance from you. A “location carousel” brings up nearby results on a map by category and it learns from you behavior which places, stores, and brands you like the best, and will target you accordingly. The app is designed to be as passive as possible, eliminating or minimizing the amount of typing required. However, it doesn’t go as far as some augmented reality tagging apps such as Layar or Sekai Camera, which add a data layer on top of the view through a phone’s camera. T-Mobile’s next-generation Android phone, the myTouch 3G, will feature an app created by Geodelic called Sherpa . And, judging by all the iPhone screenshots on its site (two of which I’ve pasted below), an iPhone app is also in the works. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Bing Mobile Concept Screenshots Surface, Looks To Be A Simple Rebadging Top
Microsoft just launched Bing a few weeks ago with lots of fanfare and media coverage . Already the service has gained market share , but it seems that Microsoft is ready to the mobile field as well. But, unlike the Internet site which received an extreme makeover, the mobile client might simply be a rebadging if these screenshots are true. These screenshots come from an April-build of the Bing mobile app. (Kumo was the codename for Bing, btw) It should look familiar as, well, it's basically Live Search. That's not all bad though. Live Search isn't a bad app. In fact it had voice search and location-based services a while before Google's app did.
 
Apple Touts Over 1 Million iPhone 3GS Devices Sold, Quotes Steve Jobs Top
Earlier today, reports started flowing in about Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster claiming 750,000 iPhone 3GS devices were sold over the weekend. In a news release , however, Apple claims that that number is off by more than 1/3, saying that sales actually exceeded 1 million units. In addition, the company says six million customers have downloaded the new iPhone 3.0 software in the first five days since its release. Remarkably, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is quoted at the beginning of the press release - something we haven’t seen for quite a while and this after a weekend during which it was uncovered the man had a liver transplant a couple of months ago - saying: “Customers are voting and the iPhone is winning. With over 50,000 applications available from Apple’s revolutionary App Store, iPhone momentum is stronger than ever.” As a reminder, Apple also sold 1 million iPhone 3G devices on its first weekend back in July 2008. I’m not entirely sure if this is new, but the press release also mentions that MMS on the AT&T network will be available in ‘late summer’ (it was ‘later this summer’ in all other communication about the launch date as far as I can remember). Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Is Privacy An Illusion? Facebook 'Fans' Claim Hack Exposes Private Profile Information (Update) Top
FBHive , a new site covering news and opinions about Facebook started by ‘two twenty-something guys’ who are self-proclaimed ‘avid fans’ of the social networking service, is launching today with a bang. According to the website owners, a security loophole allows anyone to view private profile information even if that information has been shielded off by privacy settings. Think FBHive is touting this hack simply to draw attention to the new site? Think again. As a challenge, I asked them to tell me some things about me that they could only find on my Facebook account, which is protected from public viewing and should only be accessible to my networks and friends. Almost immediately, they replied with my birth date, the name of my hometown, the name of my fiancé and my political views. That’s scary (and more proof is available if you click the link below). In their first blog post , FBHive mentions that a similar hack - using the search function to uncover private information - was reported by The Register back in 2007, but that their process is ‘much more simplified and specific’. Moreover, they also claim the bug has already been reported to Facebook several times since June 7th, but that so far response has been virtually non-existing. The FBHive team is giving the Facebook team - which we’ve also alerted about the claim - about 24 hours to finally respond to their reach-out, and will post details on how exactly one can obtain basic private profile information from protected accounts should the company fail to respond adequately. Update: statement from Facebook: We have identified this bug and closed the loophole. We don't have any evidence to suggest that it was ever exploited for malicious purposes. This is yet another blow to Facebook: yesterday Michael published an article about a weeks-long issue with click fraud on the social networking service, which the company acknowledged almost immediately with a promise for a quick fix. (Image found on the blog of Pino Bruno ) Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
FitOrbit Launches With Heavy Backers, Connects You To Real Personal Fitness Trainers Online Top
Today sees the launch of FitOrbit , a service that aims to remove the disadvantages associated with working with real life personal trainers for one-on-one fitness and meal plans. FitOrbit, which comes with both a web and iPhone application, boasts the support of a number of big names in both the financing and health industry. The newly formed startup behind FitOrbit, dubbed Global Fitness Media, is backed by people like angel investor Ron Conway , John Brown (President of Time Inc’s Health franchise), Dr. Jeffrey Weisz (Medical Director of Southern California Permanente Medical Group), Kathy Kaehler (’trainer to the stars’) and Jake Steinfeld (Founder, Body by Jake, Exercise TV and Chairman of the California Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports). Private investment company Polar Capital Group is also participating. When you register for a FitOrbit account, the first thing you want to do is take a short quiz to determine which real life personal trainer you would want to connect with based on your profile and current lifestyle. You can also opt to pick your own trainer, but it makes more sense to indicate what type of fitness plan you’re most interested in and why, what your gender is, whether you’re living alone or with a big family, and so on. I signed up and picked Rachel C as my personal trainer, and she said: “I will create a customized, personalized, fitness and meal plan for you. I’ll be on hand to give you feedback, edit your plan, and give you timely motivation and encouragement.” That’s exactly what you’d expect from a real life personal trainer, so I was interested to learn how she aimed to do that over the Internet. But this comes with a price tag that you’re only going to be able to live with if you’re really serious about your plans to achieve better fitness: prices range from $9.99 per week for a 6-month package to $29.99 per week for just one week. In return, you get an instant channel to your personal trainer (who also gets the majority of the fees that you pay), who besides providing you with adequate training and nutrition plans also helps you stay motivated. Here are some funny but helpful actions that can be part of the feedback loop (see this video for more clarity on that one): What is a Cheat? A cheat is an opportunity for you to tell your trainer when you stray from your fitness plan. Examples of cheats would be going to town on a bag of greasy potato chips, or, staying in bed all day with a tub of ice cream. What is a Panic? A panic is an opportunity for you to tell your trainer, and support group when need motivation to do something, you are frustrated, and you don't know what else to do. Your trainer and support group will get your panic and send you messages of encouragement to get up and get with the plan. What is a Nudge? A nudge is a friendly hello, and a reminder that you've got supporters. What are Alerts? Alerts are status updates for you, your trainer, and your supporters If you’re a trainer looking to sign up for FitOrbit, be prepared to do some homework yourself: apart from submitting identification and other documents, signing an NDA and a contract, trainers who want to be accepted must quality for the program by attending a special webinar and pass a ‘Trainer Test Week’, among other things. And even then, anyone who chose you as their personal trainer has the right to disagree with you on meal or workout plans and even file a concern that he or she doesn’t ‘like you’. All in all, I think the FitOrbit model makes sense in a modern world where people are increasingly growing accustomed to getting what they would usually have to leave the house for and pay a premium for real life interaction over the wire. For those interested in contracting a real life personal trainer, it’s definitely worth comparing the costs and effectiveness of FitOrbit to the real deal. If you do, let us know how it went and how both stacked up. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
YCD Multimedia Raises $12 Million For In-Store Digital Media Solutions Top
YCD Multimedia , an international provider of in-store digital media solutions has closed its Series E investment round, a new financing package totaling $12 million. This packages includes conversion of a bridge loan facility and new equity investment led by Pitango Venture Capital and Arts Alliance Digital Ventures. YCD Multimedia software integrates with existing retail and communications applications, and delivers a range of digital media - music playlists, visuals, etc. - to on-site digital signage. This allows traditional retailers, banks, hotels etc. to run digital promotion and advertising campaigns on screens and video walls throughout physical locations. Founded back in 1999, YCD Multimedia boasts offices in the US, UK and Israel and an international reseller network. The company is headed by CEO Barry Salzman, former President of DoubleClick’s global media business. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Celeb Blogger Perez Hilton Assaulted By Artist will.i.am, He Tweets Top
Renowned celebrity blogger Perez Hilton (real name Mario Armando Lavandeira) was apparently assaulted by artist will.i.am, frontman of The Black Eyed Peas and his security guards, according to messages posted to his Twitter account . We’re pretty sure this really happened, although you never know. Follow-up tweets read that the bleeding had stopped, the police had arrived and would investigate the case further, and that today would be a normal day at work for Lavandeira without any mention of the incident on his wildly popular blog until the authorities close up the investigation. Update: will.i.am’s video response Update 2: and Perez Hilton’s video response It’s remarkable that he chose to tweet out a message for help rather than contact the police directly (he has over 1 million followers on Twitter). From the looks of it, he needed to effectively ask people to stop calling the police because the department got flooded with incoming calls from his fans. Or how Twitter can be both a way for people to call for help in real-time, but also a way for them to order a mob. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
When It Comes To Search Trends, Google Is Lagging Behind Bing Top
As Microsoft tries to take away market share from Google with its new search engine, Bing , it is battling Google feature by feature. One feature where Microsoft seems to be edging out Google is with displaying recent search trends. This may not be a major feature, but it shows a weakness in Google’s armor. On Google, you can create charts showing the popularity of keywords using Google Trends . On Bing, this feature is called xRank. For all but the most popular terms, Google Trends shows a lag of about three days, whereas xRank shows data that is up to date as of today. For instance, you might want to see how many people are searching for Ricky Barnes, the golfer who came out of nowhere to lead the U.S. Open this weekend. Bing’s xRank shows the spike in interest you’d expect to see over the past two days, whereas Google Trends shows no data whatsoever. The terms “do not have enough search volume to show graphs.” Or try “Neda,” the name believed to belong to the Iranian woman who died tragically during a protest march in Tehran, and whose dying image and video is spreading around the Web. Bing’s xRank shows the burst in interest today, along with thumbnails of related news videos. It is also a trending topic on Twitter search . Yet the Google Trend graph is three days old. It only goes up to June 18th. In cases such as these, the fact that Google is not showing the search data from today and yesterday means that it is completely missing the trend. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
T-Mobile Will Drop Its Second Android Phone, The myTouch 3G, This August For $199. Top
As the first Android phone, T-Mobile’s G1 was a much welcomed entry into the smartphone market. And it may have been considered the must-have smartphone were it not for a certain device from Apple. The reason is that while the Android platform itself has a lot of possibility given its open nature, the G1 hardware simply was not great when compared to something like the iPhone. But now T-Mobile is coming back with another attempt at an Android phone in the U.S., which it is calling the myTouch 3G — and it’s much better. How do I know? Well because I’ve actually had a unit for a few weeks now. You see, the myTouch 3G, which will be available in early August for $199 with a 2-year agreement, is actually the same device as the Google Ion phone that was given to everyone who attended the Google I/O conference a few weeks ago. And technically, both are really the HTC Magic, which was released a few months ago in Europe, and more recently in Canada. But for the myTouch 3G, T-Mobile is offering some other bells and whistles to differentiate it. The biggest thing T-Mobile is trumpeting for this device is a deep level of customization. Users will be able to customize the menus, wallpapers, icons and a range of other things on the device with the use of themes and skins. This is a sharp break from a device like the iPhone which has a completely un-customizable look and feel. And the device itself will come in three colors: black, white and what it calls the “distinctive” merlot. (Which only makes me think of Paul Giammati in Sideways , “I am NOT drinking any fucking merlot!”). But there will also be the option to completely customize the shell of your phone too. The other key point T-Mobile is touting for the myTouch is something called Sherpa, which T-Mobile worked with startup Geodelic to create. Basically, Sherpa is an application that claims to learn from a user’s actions. So, for example, if you’re searching a lot of Thai food, Sherpa should recognize that as something that you like in the future. And it uses your location information to give you tailored results for what it believes you will want based on what you’re around. Here’s T-Mobile’s spiel on it: At the heart of the T-Mobile myTouch, Sherpa™ is an application with a built-in learning engine that automatically customizes itself to your preferences. Created by Geodelic, the application learns your likes and dislikes through behavior and user feedback, prioritizing recommended retailers, restaurants and attractions. Seamlessly blending behavior recognition, a recommendation engine and location-relevant information, this combination of learning is exclusive to Sherpa and unlike any experience currently on the market. The Hardware But how does the actual hardware of the myTouch stack up against the G1? Very well. The first thing you’ll notice is that it’s substantially smaller than that G1. This is all thanks to the removal of the physical keyboard . Because myTouch uses the Android 1.5 “Cupcake” software, it utilizes a virtual keyboard. While this will undoubtedly annoy some users, from a design perspective, it was a very good move. It allows for a device that is not only smaller, and lighter (it’s about an ounce and a half lighter), but it looks a lot nicer too. And it’s gotten a little bump in its specs. While it features the same processor, the myTouch has double the internal memory of the G1 (now 512 MB), which makes applications load and run much more smoothly. The screen size and resolution remain the same (3.2-inch TFT-LCD 320 x 480). And, unfortunately, while the display is capacitive, it still does not support multi-touch which is a key feature of the iPhone and the new Palm Pre. The myTouch also has the same 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus that the G1 had. And the device also comes pre-installed with a 4GB microSD card, but this is user-upgradable to any size. But the most noticeable difference has to be the battery life. In my experience, the G1 had very poor battery life. The myTouch offers a huge improvement in that regard. How much? Well just in everyday use with a couple applications running in the background, my G1 battery would be gone in a few hours. The myTouch battery easily lasts all day in the same environment. The iPhone While this device trumps the G1 in every way, the comparison that more people may be interested in for the myTouch is likely how it stacks up against the iPhone. With the removal of the physical keyboard, the devices are more similar now. Before I get to that, I will say that the biggest factor for which one you’re likely to enjoy more will be if you’re a bigger fan of the more open Android platform, or the more tightly controlled approach Apple is taking with the iPhone OS. In terms of hardware, there is still no question in my mind that the iPhone is still much nicer. HTC managed many solid improvements over the G1, but when holding the two hand in hand, the myTouch still feels plasticky, and as a result, cheap, compared to the iPhone. If you have the original iPhone or the iPhone 3G, you’ll appreciate the 3.2 megapixel camera and the ability to shoot video with the myTouch, but the just-released iPhone 3G S matches both of those features now . In terms of speed, it’s a bit hard to compare the two since the platforms run different applications. The myTouch, like the G1, features a 528 MHz processor which is a faster processor than the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G had. But again, the new iPhone 3G S meets that speed and even pushes past it, in terms of raw processing power. I’ve only played with the iPhone 3G S for a few days, but I think it’s safe to say that for day to day use of any application and browsing the web, the new iPhone blows past the myTouch in terms of speed. But again, the myTouch seems noticably faster in many regards then the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G. That’s not the say that the myTouch has no advantages against the iPhone. It has a huge one: It can run third-party applications in the background. Apple has been toying around with the idea , but the Android phones have done this since day one. And as I noted above, while this severely hurt the G1’s battery performance, the myPhone performs much better even with applications running in the background. Price But in a move that still isn’t being talked about all that much, Apple may have dropped a bomb on devices like the myPhone 3G not with the iPhone 3G S as much as with the $99 iPhone 3G. At $199, the myTouch is the same price point as the entry-level iPhone 3G S, but I can see a lot of new smartphone buyers opting for the older iPhone for $100 cheaper. Pre-orders for the myTouch will take place for existing T-Mobile customers on July 8. The device will be $199 with a 2-year agreement, and generally availability is set for early August. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 

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