Friday, January 13, 2012

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All The Little (But Awesome) Things You Definitely Missed At CES Top
All the thingsIt's true. CES is out of control. I have no reference point since this was my first visit, but from the first second you disembark the monorail and look down over the sprawling campus of the LVCC, you know you won't see everything. The inkling gets stronger as you enter the building, and find that the Samsung booth is about as big as a mall. Luckily for you, John Biggs and I ventured into the deepest corners of the show to find the little booths you most certainly missed. Enjoy!
 
Bloomberg: iPad 3 To Have Quad-Core CPU, LTE, High-Def Screen Top
ipad 2You've just got to love the timing. First, Apple announces their education-focused media event smack dab in the middle of CES. Now, just as CES is winding down, Bloomberg has "three people familiar with the product" spilling purported details on the next iPad. Whether or not Apple won CES without even being there, they're certainly trying.
 
Hands-On With Blue Microphones' 2012 Lineup Top
Blue Mics showed up to CES 2012 with three swanky mics. No, really. They look great but that's because Blue Mics knows how to make a good looking mic. Brian Biggott, Blue Mics' CTO, sat down with me on the TechCrunch CES couch for a quick chat about the company's upcoming mics.
 
Not At Any Price: Twitter Denied Data To Google And Bet On Itself Top
Twitter Google Deal BrokenIf Twitter continued to sell its firehose to Google, fewer searches would occur on Twitter's internal search engine where the microblog platform can serve its own ads. That's why sources familiar with the negotiations tell me Twitter wouldn't renew the data access deal at any price, or at least set a ludicrously high price to sink the deal. Cash and increased visibility on Google Search was more valuable to Twitter in 2009 when it was still trying to gain serious traction. But by July 2011 Twitter was more established and ready to try monetizing without Google. A firehose deal would have impeded this, so it's understandable why Twitter walked away.
 
Hands-On With The LG Spectrum: So Last Year Top
Here at CES 2012, phones are a bit in short supply. At least, new phones are. LG is one of the few companies to officially announce a new smartphone at the show, and I have to say it's one of the best phones we've seen out of LG. Unfortunately, that still leaves the Spectrum quite a ways behind some of the other new phones we've seen recently like the Xperia S, Titan 2, or the Galaxy Nexus (of course). The real stand-out feature here is the 4.5-inch 720p display with a True HD Graphic Engine and Corning Gorilla glass, boasting 326ppi. The phone also touts Verizon's 4G LTE, which is mostly solid unless it's December.
 
Apple Releases List Of Its Suppliers, Discloses Labor Violations Top
AppleApple has, for the very first time, released a report of its suppliers. There are 156 suppliers listed in the PDF the company published (available here), including big names like Sony, Intel, Samsung and Foxconn (also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.), which dragged Apple's name into the light over questionable labor practices, when fourteen of the company's workers plunged to their death at the Foxconn factories in 2010. Since then, the company has been under increased scrutiny, with critics saying it should to be more transparent about the working conditions throughout its supply chain. Today, Apple appears to have answered its critics' calls.
 
Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan Shows Us Project Fiona And The Blade Notebook Top
razerWe couldn't go to CES and not see what Razer had on display, and fortunately, CEO Min-Liang Tan was on hand to take us on a quick tour through the company's booth. In between talking about the company's new gaming accessories and their Synapse cloud storage system for game settings, we were (thankfully) able to get our hands on the Project Fiona tablet and the long-awaited Razer Blade gaming notebook.
 
With SimpleGeo's Shutdown Imminent, Parse Swoops In With A Life Preserver Top
Screen Shot 2012-01-13 at 2.32.59 PMYesterday Urban Airship announced that it would be shutting down SimpleGeo on March 31 2012, only a few months after acquiring the company for around $3.5 million. The news irked plenty of developers — you can find a thread on Hacker News here where some SimpleGeo customers are voicing their frustration. So what are developers supposed to do now? Urban Airship's blog post outlines a few options, including a partnership with Factual to port over any Places data developers might have stored on SimpleGeo. But SimpleGeo also has a handful of other classes of data, like Storage, that Factual can't be used for. Now Parse is stepping in to try to help out (and snag) any customers looking to figure out where to move next.
 
TechCrunch Gadgets Finale: Hands On With The Terrifying Parrot AR Drone 2 Top
Screen Shot 2012-01-13 at 1.30.50 PMIn our last TechCrunch Gadgets Webcast on the CES 2012 show floor, we interviewed Henri Seydoux, CEO of Parrot. We had the opportunity to watch the drone in action - it was wildly terrifying having this thing floating above our heads while we talked - and we recapped the show including some of our Best of Show picks and, important, interviews with actual event-goers who loved to talk about what they saw.
 
Ari Emanuel Told Marc Andreessen, Ron Conway That He'll Help Them Fight SOPA Top
Screen Shot 2012-01-13 at 12.28.09 PMDuring the Q&A of a press conference for the SFCiti initiative, investor Ron Conway told a pretty interesting story about a meeting he had yesterday with William Morris CEO Ari Emanuel and Marc Andreessen in Southern California. "These bills are tantamount to censorship on the Internet," Conway said, segueing into the anecdote where Andreessen apparently asked Emanuel whether the entertainment industry "wanted to turn the United States into China?" with the Stop Online Privacy Act.
 
ESPN Feels Lonely: A Chat Regarding ESPN's Role In The Barren 3D Landscape Top
ESPN, the Worldwide Leader In Tim Tebow news, attended CES this year in the name of 3D TV. The network is fully committed to providing content in 3D and in fact hosted a live boxing match here at CES, which was broadcasted in 3D. I sat down with Bryan Burns, ESPN's VP of Strategic Business Planning to talk about ESPN, lack of 3D content and the boring 2012 BCS Championship game.
 
Updated: Ashton Kutcher Invests In Gidsy, An Airbnb For Travel Experiences Top
384px-Ashton_Kutcher_by_David_ShankboneVarious German media outlets are reporting that Hollywood star Ashton Kutcher, has invested once again in a startup in Berlin, after doing so with SoundCloud and Amen. What is it with Ashton and Berlin? Post-Demi, is he planning to move or something? A kind of Airbnb for what you do at a place, not just where you sleep, we've now exclusively confirmed that Gidsy got a $1.4 million seed Investment from Sunstone Capital, along with Index Ventures, Werner Vogels (of Amazon), Peter Read (UK) and the aforementioned Kutcher. The new investors join Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss from Soundcloud, Matt Stinchcomb from Etsy, Felix Petersen from Amen and 'investor of the year' at The Europas Awards, Christophe Maire, who provided the company's early financing.
 
4Mads Launches New Adtech Startup For DIY Online & Mobile Ads Top
4mads_logoSan Francisco-based 4Mads is a new, angel-funded startup in the adtech space which allows SMB's and local brands the ability to create both online and mobile rich media ads. The service, which has been in private testing for the past year, just went live this week with the launch of its one-stop shop and easy to use, drag-and-drop tools.
 
Keen On… People Power: The App That Will Power The Future Top
Screen Shot 2012-01-13 at 7.20.50 AMEd Schmit's AT&T Developer Program was busy this week at CES. Not only did they run an innovative Hackathon, but they also announced the winner of their $20,000 Power the Future competition, a six month quest to find the best sustainability app to help consumers improve the quality of their environment.
 
Google's Plan to Make Android Beautiful: Carrots And Sticks Top
duarteshotYesterday Google unveiled Android Design, a very nicely done (and sorely need) portal that instructs third-party developers on how they should go about designing their applications, both in terms of making them look nice, and in providing a consistent experience for users. But while these guidelines are a big step forward for Android, there's another issue: Google doesn't really have any way to ensure that developers actually follow them. After all, there's essentially no approval process for an application to get admitted to Android Market — provided you aren't bundling malware or violating Google's Terms of Service, you're in. So what is Google's plan? Yesterday I spoke with Matias Duarte, the Director of User Experience for Android (and the man ultimately responsible for its look and feel). And while he was coy about Google's plans, he did give some hints. Namely, that Google will be working to give developers significant incentives to follow the UI guidelines.
 
iCloud's App Search Engine: A First Step To A Cloud-Enabled Phone Top
icloud-app-searchApple has built a search engine for apps. It's called iCloud - or more technically, it's one aspect of the overall iCloud service. Using it, you can search through every app you have installed on your iOS device or have ever purchased in the past. And it's available on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch right now. The average smartphone user has 64 mobile apps installed on their mobile device. I'm ahead of the curve. I have around 400. It's pushing nearly 7 GB of storage. Granted, many of these apps were installed for testing purposes only - they aren't used daily by any means. But my real problem is that I'm not inclined to remove apps I don't use. They just sit there on the phone, abandoned, languishing on the back screens. I could delete them, but I don't. You know...just in case. But the promise of iCloud, as I see it, is that these apps can disappear from the iPhone's homescreen, but never have to fully disappear from reach. They can be recalled through a simple search.
 
Health Sensors Are Everywhere: Up Close With Striiv And Fitbit Top
This was the year of the sensors. From Fitbit's new Aria Wi-Fi scale to the Basis sports watch, I saw more devices to keep you healthy and lean than ever. I sat down with the folks from Fitbit and Striiv who both saw the power of self-reporting and mindfulness when it comes to weight loss. Striiv, for example, has a new feature that allows you to connect to your friends wirelessly to compete in contests like walkathons and races. For example, you and the wife can compete to get to 5,000 steps first during the day and the winner has to do chores or gets some of the losers "energy."
 
December Presents: Record Traffic For Social Interest Sites Tumblr And Pinterest Top
Screen Shot 2012-01-13 at 9.28.15 AMOne of the most interesting findings of comScore's 2011 social networking report was the surge in sites designed around users' interests, not necessarily real-life social circles. The web measurement firm's December numbers, which came after the report, more than confirm the trend. And I'm not just talking about Twitter and Google+, both of which had strong months. I mean Tumblr and Pinterest.
 
Smart TVs: How Do They Work? Top
smartTVSmart TVs were everywhere at CES. I must have seen two hundred of them while I was there. I could report on specs, resolution or 3D screens, but really, I am more curious about that word "smart" than I am about the raw specs. Is it merely the sum of new features that defines what a Smart TV is or should be? Just what exactly is it that makes a Smart TV, well...smart? It probably has something to do with apps right? Maybe. Internet connectivity? Likely. Gesture controls? Possibly. Rather than speculate, I decided to visit a few people at the CES booths of Samsung, Sony and LG in order to get their take on Smart TVs. Basically, I asked them all the same 2 questions: How do you define what a Smart TV is today and what is your company's vision for Smart TVs in the future?
 
Scrollsy Is A Scrollable, Pinterest-Like Version Of Etsy Top
ScrollsyRemember Jonathan Bouman, the young, Netherlands-based developer who brought us the awesome creation that is Scrolldit, a scrollable version of Reddit? Well, he's back. And this time, he's made a scrollable version of Etsy. It's called Scrollsy, and, if you're an Etsy lover, I guarantee that you're about to waste a whole bunch of time on this site.
 

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