Tuesday, January 3, 2012

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RIM's New PlayBook Promo: All Models For $299 Top
playbook-dyingWell, if you were hoping to snag a BlackBerry PlayBook on the cheap, it looks like now's the time to act. In what seems like a move born of desperation, all models of the PlayBook are now going for $299 on RIM's online store. Previous PlayBook sales have set the beginning price point at $199 for the 16GB model, but this time you'll be able to purchase a 64GB PlayBook for the same price as a 16GB model.
 
RJMetrics Raises $1.2M For Hosted Business Intelligence Software Suite Top
rjmetricsExclusive - I first learned about hosted business intelligence software startup RJMetrics a few weeks ago, when Fab.com founder Jason Goldberg wrote how he made creative use of their software suite for his latest fundraising round; in fact he said he liked it so much he asked to invest in the company. Fast forward to today: RJMetrics has landed $1.2 million in seed financing from Goldberg, early-stage VCs including SoftTech VC, Lerer Ventures, SV Angel and Zelkova Ventures, and other angel investors such as Wharton Professor Kartik Hosanagar and DuckDuckGo CEO Gabe Weinberg.
 
Internap Buys Hosting, Cloud Services Company Voxel For Up To $35 Million Top
voxelIT infrastructure solutions provider Internap this morning announced its acquisition of privately-held Voxel, an enterprise hosting and cloud services company based in NYC, for $30 million in cash. Under the terms of the deal, an additional $5 million in cash could be put on the table over the next two years, subject to certain performance-based criteria. Founded in 1999 in founder Raj Dutt's dorm room, the company provides on-demand dedicated hosting and cloud services to enterprises and Web-centric businesses.
 
Sanwa Supply Rolls Out Micro Projector For iPhone 4/4S Top
400-PRJ011_MXJapan-based accessory maker Sanwa Supply started selling the 400-PRJ011 [JP] in its online store, a DLP micro projector that slides onto an iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S. The device comes with a 2,100mAh battery, which takes about five hours to fully charge and provides enough juice for 2.5 hours of projector usage. With the projector function turned off, buyers can also use the device to charge their iPhone (it adds 100% to the life of the phone's battery).
 
Report: 522 Exits Of Venture-Backed US Companies Netted $53.2 Billion In 2011 Top
NotausgangAccording to a Dow Jones VentureSource report released this morning, fewer US-based venture-backed companies exited in 2011 than the year before, but the deals netted more capital as the median price for M&A and buyouts, as well the median amount raised in initial public offerings, spiked. Dow Jones VentureSource says there were 522 exits of venture-backed companies in the US throughout 2011, which represents a significant 4 percent drop in deal activity compared to 2010.
 
Blippar Raises Seed Funding From Qualcomm For Mobile Augmented Reality Technology Top
blipparBlippar, the UK startup behind an eponymous mobile image recognition and augmented reality platform, has landed seed funding - the size of the investment was not disclosed - from Qualcomm Ventures. The startup, which is based in London, says the seed funding serves as a springboard for a bigger Series A funding round it expects to close in early 2012. Read more over at TechCrunch Europe.
 
Daily Crunch: Smudge Top
1511Here are some recent stories from TechCrunch Gadgets: The Commodore 64 Is 30 Years Old Sleep Buster: Japanese Company Develops Anti-Sleep Driver Seat Sheet They're Alive! Pics Of Unannounced Asus Eee PC Flare Netbooks Leak Stop! It's A Really Bad Time To Buy Most Gadgets! Want To Make Your iPhone's PIN More Secure? Repeat A Digit.
 
Google May Have Violated Its Own Paid Link Policy With Chrome Promo Campaign Top
Chrome Sponsored Link CampaignGoogle appears to have paid bloggers to write about Chrome in a way that violates its own paid link policy, according to Search Engine Land. If Google applied a similar penalty to those it's doled out to past violators, the Chrome download page would be removed from its search engine results for between a month and a year. Don't bet on that happening, though. The campaign is another example of how Google's diverse business can lead it to trip over itself.
 
This Month's Apple Event To Focus On Publishing And iBooks Top
Screen Shot 2012-01-02 at 6.56.54 PMApple will be holding a product event later this month in New York, Kara Swisher is reporting, and we've confirmed independently with a source. According to the source the event will not involve any hardware at all and instead will focus on publishing and eBooks (sold through Apple's iBooks platform) rather than iAds. Attendance will also be more publishing industry-oriented than consumer-focused.
 
What have you done Top
treeoflifeThis was not a movie for the normals, even with and expressly because of the presence of Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. This was a big budget and highly technological rendering of an enigma. But within that frame, I found myself intuitively understanding things just as they happened, only later finally getting enough data to confirm my instinct. Something powerful was at work, on the fulcrum between the normal and the human condition. For most of the last eight years and certainly the last two, we have been driven by the filter of a man who knew he was dying. Steve Jobs may have done what he did given a more gentle fate, but how he did it within the boundaries of his time left has profoundly altered our sense of what we have done.
 
Flurry: 1.2 Billion Mobile Apps Were Downloaded Over The Holidays Top
1.2B appsWith nearly 7 million new Android phones and iPhones activated on Christmas Day, an app-downloading frenzy was a foregone conclusion. App research firm Flurry estimates that a combined total of 1.2 billion apps were downloaded during the holiday week between December 25-31. That compares to an average of 750,000 mobile apps downloaded per week earlier in December, or a 60 percent jump.
 
Review: The Playstation 3D Display Lets You Bring All Of Your Friends Top
5889446392Back at E3, the gaming world let out a collective groan when Sony announced they were making a special 3D TV for the PS3. However, that groan swiftly turned into a clamor of adoration once it was explained that the TV, in addition to displaying 3D content, would also allow two players to play side by side, seeing different displays through two pairs of 3D glasses. Called SimulView, it was pretty darn cool. Fast forward to December and the 24-inch TV has shipped and costs $499. The display has two HDMI ports and little else - you plug in a PS3 and start playing games and Blu-Ray disks. Is this PS3-branded widescreen 1080p monitor good? Definitely. But is it a necessary accessory for gamers and non-gamers alike? That remains to be seen. Read on.
 
The Retrode 2 Makes Your SNES And Genesis Cartridges Useful Again Top
Retrode2-cartsControllers2Last year, or I suppose it is now the year before last, we saw the Retrode, a little device that let you easily create ROM files from your SNES and Genesis cartridges. Useful, but sort of a one-shot device if you're not a serious collector. The team behind it has created a new device, the Retrode 2 naturally, that is a bit more useful to the average retro-loving gamer. Instead of just forming ROMs in a one-off process, the Retrode 2 acts as a cartridge reader for your emulator, and lets you plug in the original controllers as well. Being able to play SNES on those is a great bonus — there's nothing that takes true 16-bit fans out of the game so much as having to play these old things on a newfangled controller.
 
Chrome Is Edging Out Firefox Top
Top 5 Browsers StatCounterAndroid isn't the only Google product that gobbled up market share in 2011.  Its Chrome browser also had an amazing year. By one measure, StatCounter, Chrome went from 15 percent market share a year ago to 27 percent share in December, 2011. Chrome ended the year two points above Firefox's 25 percent share (which is down from 31 percent a year ago).  Even as Google recently renegotiated its deal to maintain the default search spot n Firefox for the next three years (to the tune of nearly $1 billion), it keeps taking share in the market.
 
iPhone 4S Beats Out Lumia 800 In Benchmark Testing (Video) Top
Screen shot 2012-01-02 at 4.53.51 PMHave you been wondering which mobile browser is the fastest of late? It would be an understandable thing to pontificate, seeing that Android takes the cake when it comes to LTE support, iOS has the class-leading dual-core A5 chip on its side, and Windows Phone's IE mobile browser is basically a beast. It's a worthwhile question, to say the least. Luckily MyNokiablog noticed a YouTube video uploaded by user 359gsm, in which the iPhone 4S, the Lumia 800, and an iPhone 4 (running iOS 4.3) are put through the ringer. The specific definition of ringer: Browsermark, Speed Reading, Sunspider, Acid3, and HTML5 tests.
 
Want To Make Your iPhone's PIN More Secure? Repeat A Digit. Top
nasty handsHere's one for today's "Yeah, I probably should've thought of that" pile. If you've got anything even remotely private on your phone (and who doesn't? Your phone has access to your email, and thereby access to everything else), you've hopefully got a security PIN on the lockscreen. But which numbers should you use? 4 unique numbers would be most secure, right? Not quite, and here's why: we've got nasty, nasty fingers.
 
SoundCloud Raises $50 Million Round Led By Kleiner Perkins Top
soundcloudSoundCloud has raised a new fundraising round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The amount was not released but TechCrunch understands it to be $50 million. This would give the company a $200 million pre-money valuation. GGV Capital also participated in this round. The social sound platform which has seen high growth in the past year will use the funding to expand more rapidly, especially in the US. Mary Meeker, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, will take a board observer seat at the company. She already serves on the board of Square.
 
iOS Closes Out The Year With 52% Mobile Web Market Share Top
mobile-web-marketshare-2011Who's browsing the mobile web the most? Apparently, iPhone and iPad owners are. According to end-of-the-month data from statistics provider NetMarketShare, iOS users ended up with a 52% market share of mobile web browsing in December 2011. More simply put, that means that over half of the mobile web browsing last month took place on an iOS device. Android, meanwhile, had a 16.2% share, behind Java ME at 21.27%, which fell into second place.
 
Amazon And Microsoft Engineers Launch 21habit To Help You Track Your New Year's Resolutions Top
21habitEspecially at this time of year, more and more consumers are flocking to social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to express resolutions or personal goals publicly. But simply expressing your resolution via a Tweet or Status Update doesn't help you actually break a habit or resolve an issue for the long term. Enter 21habit, which is a simple tool designed to help people make or break habits, 21 days at a time. It's also a great way for people to track their New Year's Resolutions. And in addition to helping people make changes in their lives, 21habit raises money for charity. The startup was actually founded (and self-funded) by Microsoft software developer Pranav Goel, and Amazon engineers Himanshu Khurana, Hemanth Pai and Ian McAllister (who heads up new traffic and customer growth initiatives at Amazon) as a side project. Here's how it works.
 
Happy New Year! Here Are Some Great One-Sentence Startup Pitches Top
oneYou amaze me. When I asked you for the best one-sentence pitch you could come up with for your startup, I was expecting 20, perhaps 30 comments and a handful of emails. Instead, we received hundreds (670+ to be more precise) submissions, and I appreciated the lively discussions from the community at large - thanks to everyone who jumped in.
 

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