The latest from TechCrunch
- Stop! It's A Really Bad Time To Buy Most Gadgets!
- For A Good Read, Check Out Editor's Picks
- Let The Race Begin: Google Launches Elections Hub
- The Commodore 64 Is 30 Years Old
- Samsung's DV300F Dual-View Camera Brings WiFi Into The Mix
- On Facebook, Obama Has The Most Fans, Ron Paul The Highest "Viral Reach"
- Chart: How Google And Apple Won The Smartphone Wars
- Beta Raspberry Pi PCs Draw Big Bids On eBay
- WhatsOutt Gives You The ETA On Everything
- Palm Software Director: "We Just Weren't Able To Execute"
- Sony Slashes Tablet S Price By $100
- They're Alive! Pics Of Unannounced Asus Eee PC Flare Netbooks Leak
- Wikimedia Foundation Raises $20 Million From 1 Million+ Donors
- Sleep Buster: Japanese Company Develops Anti-Sleep Driver Seat Sheet
- Gadgets Week in Review: New To You
- 6 Big HealthTech Ideas That Will Change Medicine In 2012
- GymPact Launches To Help You Keep Your Fitness Resolutions (By Paying If You Don't)
- Uber's New Year's Eve Surcharges Demonstrate The Harsh Reality Of Dynamic Pricing
- Still Looking For A New Year's Resolution? How About Learning To Code …
- Tech Comes To The Real World
| Stop! It's A Really Bad Time To Buy Most Gadgets! | Top |
 Did you know that your brain releases dopamine when it processes something new? At least that's what the Internet told me. Apparently dopamine is key in establishing a craving, which could be why ever-updating sites like blogs or Reddit are so popular. There is always something new. It could also be why some people always crave more gadgets. You're bored with your Galaxy SII and hope the Galaxy Nexus will satisfy that burning desire, which it probably will (unless you're MG). But don't do it -- at least not now. We're officially in a holding pattern. It's a really bad time to buy most consumer electronic products. This happens several times a year. I know there are some tempting post-holiday offers out there. But don't do it. Wait a few weeks. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. | |
| For A Good Read, Check Out Editor's Picks | Top |
 Keeping up with TechCrunch can be overwhelming. And sometimes great posts get lost in the flow, pushed down the homepage before many readers even get a chance to see them. If you click on the subject tabs at the top of the site, you can filter by subjects such as Startups, Mobile, Gadgets, and Enterprise. But we are going to add even more ways to filter all the posts and videos that make it onto TechCrunch in the coming months. If you look up in the Hot Topics links right below the TC logo, you will see a new feature that just went live: Editor's Picks. There you will find our standout posts—ranging from investigations and scoops to arguments and analysis. These are the posts that will make you think. They will introduce you to new ideas, startups and technologies. These aren't necessarily the posts that get the most pageviews or headlines on TechMeme, Hacker News or LinkedIn Today. They are the stories we think are the most important and worthy of attention. | |
| Let The Race Begin: Google Launches Elections Hub | Top |
 A new year is always exciting. A Clean slate. But once every four years, something very important comes into play: a presidential election. This year, all of your election information won't be any more readily available than it is right here, on the interwebs, and Google is set to be your go-to place to keep up with them. Today via the Official Google Blog, the search giant has launched Google.com/elections — "an election hub where citizens can study, watch, discuss, learn about, participate in and perhaps even make an impact on the digital campaign trail as it blazes forward to Tuesday, November 6, 2012." | |
| The Commodore 64 Is 30 Years Old | Top |
| It's been a long time since I clacked away on a C64 but I remember that hunk of pure computing power like it was yesterday. The keyboard (complete with dingbats on the front surface), the power light that glowed like a monocular rat eye, the lines of dust that formed in the 80s-era case. It was a simpler time. The Commodore 64 is 30 years old this week, appearing at CES in 1982 and ending up in third-grade classrooms and kids' rooms for years after until, unceremoniously, millions of school custodians and parents dumped them in the trash as the PC took over desktops all over the world. | |
| Samsung's DV300F Dual-View Camera Brings WiFi Into The Mix | Top |
 Many of you may remember that I was straight-up infatuated with Samsung's MV800 point-and-shoot. And why wouldn't I be? It's absolutely the best point-and-shoot if your favorite subject to shoot happens to be yourself. While Samsung's latest camera isn't quite as narcissistic, the new DV300F announced today still has a pretty awesome trick up its sleeve. | |
| On Facebook, Obama Has The Most Fans, Ron Paul The Highest "Viral Reach" | Top |
 Social media analytics firm Socialbakers has tracked more than 10 million Facebook Pages and Places plus billions of individual user interactions in order to determine who the most popular, engaging and influential presidential candidates are on Facebook. Not surprisingly, incumbent Obama has the most Facebook fans, which is one way to measure "popularity." That's not necessarily the fairest way in this case, given that many of those supporters arrived during Obama's previous campaign efforts. | |
| Chart: How Google And Apple Won The Smartphone Wars | Top |
 What a difference just one year can make. In our Year in Tech post, I pointed out that 2011 was the year that Apple and Google won the smartphone wars. I put together the chart above from comScore U.S. mobile subscriber estimates to illustrate the dramatic shift in market share in the smartphone market. In less than 18 months, Apple's and Google's combined market share of U.S. mobile subscribers for iPhones and Android phones went from 43.8 percent to 75.6 percent between August, 2010 and November, 2011. | |
| Beta Raspberry Pi PCs Draw Big Bids On eBay | Top |
 The pint-sized Raspberry Pi computer is due to hit doorsteps and developing markets any time now, but that hasn't stopped some ardent fans from igniting an eBay bidding war over some pre-production units. So far, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has put four pre-production models on eBay, and all of them command a pretty hefty premium over the vaunted $35 price tag that their mass-produced brethren will sport. | |
| WhatsOutt Gives You The ETA On Everything | Top |
 If you're familiar with a site called VideoETA, which tells you when a movie will arrive on DVD, then you'll get the concept behind the new website called WhatsOutt.com. It's basically VideoETA for everything. The site keeps track of new and upcoming releases for movies coming to theaters, DVDs, books, music, and games. | |
| Palm Software Director: "We Just Weren't Able To Execute" | Top |
 Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20 and Brian X Chen has a great tick-tock detailing the initial fall - and continuing fall - of WebOS. The interviews are quite telling, including a quote from Paul Mercer: "Palm was ahead of its time in trying to build a phone software platform using Web technology, and we just weren't able to execute such an ambitious and breakthrough design," said Paul Mercer, former senior director of software at Palm, who oversaw the interface design of WebOS and recruited crucial members of the team. "Perhaps it never could have been executed because the technology wasn't there yet." | |
| Sony Slashes Tablet S Price By $100 | Top |
 Apple's iPad still dominates the tablet market, and it would seem that competing tab makers are realizing how tough it is to go head-to-head with Apple's tablet. The latest proof: Sony has just slashed $100 off of the price of its Tablet S. In other words, the 32GB Tablet S just went from $600 to $500, while the 16GB model has dropped from $500 to $400. | |
| They're Alive! Pics Of Unannounced Asus Eee PC Flare Netbooks Leak | Top |
 Asus clearly didn't get the memo that netbooks are dead. Tablets killed them. Or rather so goes the popular narrative. In real life consumers will continue to look for low-cost alternatives to traditional notebooks and Asus will clearly be there, ready with new models to fill this increasingly niche demand. | |
| Wikimedia Foundation Raises $20 Million From 1 Million+ Donors | Top |
 Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia and other sites, this morning announced that they've raised $20 million from more than a million donors, shattering a record once again. The organization says donations have risen every year since its global fundraising campaigns began in 2003. Wikimedia Foundation claims its sites now serve more than 470 million people every month. Wikipedia, which will celebrate its 11th anniversary in about two weeks, now boasts over 20 million articles in 282 languages. | |
| Sleep Buster: Japanese Company Develops Anti-Sleep Driver Seat Sheet | Top |
 There are quite a few systems and gadgets on the market already that prevent people from falling asleep whilst driving, but Japan-based Juki has developed an entirely new one: a sheet [JP, PDF] that can be mounted on the driver's seat and triggers an alarm when you're about to doze off. The way the so-called Sleep Buster works is that it measures signals from the heart and aorta through a built-in sensor. A piece of software called "Human Tachometer" then visualizes the condition of the driver on a controller: apart from fatigue or drowsiness, users can also check their level of concentration or how distracted they are, for example. | |
| Gadgets Week in Review: New To You | Top |
 Here are some stories from the past week on TechCrunch Gadgets: Tech Comes To The Real World It's 2012 Already So Where Are All The Jetsons Flying Cars Video: Electric Car From Japan Reaches Over 300KM Travel Range LG Prada 3.0 Makes Official Debut In Korea, Europe To Follow Fire Emblem: Nintendo Announces First 3DS Game With Paid Download Content | |
| 6 Big HealthTech Ideas That Will Change Medicine In 2012 | Top |
 "In the future we might not prescribe drugs all the time, we might prescribe apps." Singularity University's executive director of FutureMed Daniel Kraft M.D. sat down with me to discuss the biggest emerging trends in HealthTech. Here we'll look at how A.I, big data, 3D printing, social health networks and other new technologies will help you get better medical care. | |
| GymPact Launches To Help You Keep Your Fitness Resolutions (By Paying If You Don't) | Top |
 If you're anything like me, one of your New Years Resolutions may have been to get in better shape. There's no doubt that many of us could stand to live healthier lives, and it's no mistake that devices, services, and tools that help us achieve healthier lifestyles and decreased body masses are on the rise. (See John Biggs' predictions for hot gadgets in 2012 -- you'll notice two fitness gadgets at the top of the list.) Americans spend $50 billion each year on products and services designed to help us lose weight and get in shape. We've seen a host of startups proposing alternative methods to encourage us to stick with out fitness regimens, and today GymPact is launching a website and iPhone app that uses those old behavioral economics to help us to do just that. | |
| Uber's New Year's Eve Surcharges Demonstrate The Harsh Reality Of Dynamic Pricing | Top |
 I woke up this morning to tweets from Uber customers nationwide who felt taken for a ride, literally and figuratively, after requesting an Uber on one of the busiest nights of the year. Despite the fact the company said as such on their blog and communication channels, riders were apparently not expecting the surcharges to be so exponentially high. In exchange for providing cars on demand, Uber used their system to find equilibrium within a market where demand outstripped supply, especially a few hours before and midnight. (I'm not a frequent Uber customer, but I used them three times over my recent holiday trip, and each time was flawless; I'll continue to use the service when I need to.) Uber's hangover this morning is more of a harbinger for consumers in general, especially when it comes to goods and services delivered online. Uber's "surcharges" last night were a classic example of dynamic pricing, or adjusting the price of something relative to the demand and supply, down to the minute or second. The more data a provider has on these inputs, the more likely they are to leverage that data to extract more value from providing equilibrium between supply and demand. Most every consumer is aware of this through searching for and buying airline tickets online, where fares seem to change magically, even mid-search. | |
| Still Looking For A New Year's Resolution? How About Learning To Code … | Top |
 After eating something greasy to get rid of last night's | |
| Tech Comes To The Real World | Top |
 2011 saw many interesting developments in the virtualization of goods. The growth of app stores continued unabated, aided by huge sales of iOS devices and Android handsets, and media of all kinds continued the move to a totally non-physical state for the end user: Netflix, Spotify, and other services make the idea of storing your things, whether on your hard drive or in stacks by the TV, seem very... 2010. Widespread adoption of non-physical media is sparking new industries and setting fire to old ones. But we also are seeing increasing frustration with the limitation of our digital acts to affecting digital things, and vice versa. The cutting edge of technology seems to be confined to the borders of our screens. People don't freak out about the Nest or the Little Printer because they're really such revolutionary devices - they aren't. People are excited because these things portend the fulfillment of the promise technology has unwittingly made: that it will change the way we live, not just the way we consume. | |
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