Thursday, April 1, 2010

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We Just Tested Twitter's @anywhere Platform (Screenshots) Top
During his keynote at SXSW last month, Twitter CEO Evan Wiliams announced an upcoming new platform called @anywhere, which would allow third party sites to integrate Twitter features (he also showed off some of the partners who would be featuring the platform, which you can see in the image at right). Twitter didn’t give a launch date for when sites would start integrating the new platform, but it looks like we’ve just come across the first site to feature @anywhere. Meet Eggboiling.com . The site, which will almost certainly be pulled down soon after this post is published, is clearly a testing environment for @anywhere, but it’s currently open to the public. Update: Twitter has taken the site down. It features the following (all shown in the screenshots below): various variable states; a button to ‘Connect With Twitter’; buttons to follow twitter users @jack, @biz, and @ev; a test hovercard that allows me to see @wendyverse’s latest tweets and follow counts at a glance, and a test box that lets me tweet. It isn’t particularly easy on the eyes, but it works well enough. Hitting “Connect to Twitter” pulled in my Twitter profile photo and gave me the option to log out. Clicking on each of the ‘follow’ buttons appropriately changed the status from “Follow @jack” to “Following @jack” the next time I refreshed the page. (it just showed ‘pending’ until I refreshed). And sending a tweet from the tweet box worked properly (it says that my tweet was sent via Egg Boiling ). If you’re fast, you may be able to try it out for yourself. Before logging in OAuth to login Connected to Twitter (but before image/logout link have loaded) Image/logout link appear after refreshing the page Testing the hovercard After clicking the ‘more’ button on the hovercard Thanks to Spencer Transier for the tip! CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Facebook To Launch 'Relationships' At f8, Teams With Zynga To Spur Romance Through Gaming Top
Later this month Facebook is holding its f8 conference, where it will be launching a slew of new features (we’ve already broken the news on quite a few of them). Tonight, the company has written a blog post announcing what is perhaps the most ambitious and creepy of them all: Facebook is looking to get into the dating game, and it’s turning to Zynga for help. The gist of the new product? Dubbed ‘Relationships’, Facebook is going to soon offer a section of the site dedicated to helping users meet potential romantic partners. To do that, the company has been working with Zynga over the last four months to develop games that “synthesize romance and foster relationships through social gaming mechanics”, helping users flirt and get to know each other using Farmville-like games to help break the ice. In the post, Facebook says that it will look at the profiles of your previous boyfriends/girlfriends to determine the personality traits you’re attracted to most, and that it will also use advanced photographic analysis to figure out your preferred facial structure and body type. In an attempt to quell privacy concerns before they begin, Facebook notes that all of this is done automatically, and that at no point are employees allowed to view these reports on your innermost psyche. How reassuring. The site appears to be broken up into three sections: at the top is a section for ‘Flirts’, which displays the Facebook friends you’ve been interacting with most. In a move certain to cause riots, Facebook is now allowing users to keep tabs on how many times each of their friends has visited their profile. Facebook claims that this will make it easier to figure out who is lusting after you, and that “shadier” visitors will simply learn not to be so creepy. Below this is a section for games and lessons. These appear to be the Zynga-designed apps, which cover everything from flirting to lessons on hygiene. Finally, there’s a ‘Recent Dates’ section. It’s unclear exactly what this is for, but there’s a Facebook-branded baseball diamond that apparently prompts users to share “how far” they got on their recent dates to their friends’ News Feeds. Given how much these definitions have shifted over the years, this could get messy. The 6.8 Project Perhaps most interesting is the fact that the new Relationships feature belongs to a new (and somewhat sinister sounding) ongoing initiative that Facebook is internally calling The 6.8 Project . The name, which is an allusion to Earth’s total population of 6.8 billion people, is meant to symbolize Facebook’s goal of connecting everyone on the planet. The concern is that that may not be enough. Facebook has grown so quickly over the last few years that the company is worried that its long-term expansion potential over the next decade is limited. At its current growth rate, Facebook will have saturated the market of Internet-using humans in seven years. So — to put things bluntly — they’re looking to encourage current users to procreate, though they’ve only said as much with cutesy euphemisms. Facebook wouldn’t comment on its future plans for the 6.8 Project, but we hear that the company intends to launch a ‘Babybook’ directory for children up for adoption, and there are also discussions about lowering Facebook’s minimum age to five years old. Excerpt from Facebook’s Blog: “Over the last six years, Facebook has been embraced by over 400 million people around the world — and we’re still growing. During that time, our engineers have managed to overcome some truly monumental hurdles, empowering friends and families to share their photos, videos, and thoughts with the people they care about. But there’s still one fundamental human need that we haven’t yet been able to take care of, and ironically enough it’s the primary reason people log on to Facebook every day. It goes by many names: Love. Romance. Great White Buffalo. Call it what you will, it’s something that all of us are looking for. We hope to help you find it with Facebook Relationships. We look forward to sharing more details about the new feature at this month’s f8 conference. With Relationships, we’re going to take your friendships to the next level.
 
Google Shows How HTML5 Can Run Quake In The Browser Top
A lot of attention lately has been put on the video capabilities of HTML5 browsers, since the iPad doesn’t support Flash. It turns out not to really matter that much because most online video platforms are now drinking the HTML5 Kool-Aid. But what about other things that Flash does well, like games? Well, HTML5 might be a more powerful game engine than most peopel think. To show off what is possible with HTML5 in the browser, some of the engineers on the Google Web Toolkit team created an HTML5 port of the classic first-person shooter game Quake II. Check it out in the video above. It is based on an open-sourced Java port of Quake called Jake2 . A post on the Google Code blog explains how they did it: We started with the existing Jake2 Java port of the Quake II engine, then used the Google Web Toolkit (along with WebGL, WebSockets, and a lot of refactoring) to cross-compile it into Javascript. You can see the results in the video above — we were honestly a bit surprised when we saw it pushing over 30 frames per second on our laptops (your mileage may vary)! It works only on “modern browsers such as Safari and Chrome” and you can find the code here . I haven’t had a chance to try it out. If you can get it to work, tell us what you think in comments. I really hope this isn’t April Fool’s joke. CrunchBase Information Google Information provided by CrunchBase
 
FreshPlanet Debuts With An iPad Game, Plus $1.5 Million From Clavier And French Angels Top
If you are going to launch a gaming startup this week, you might as well make your first game for the iPad. FreshPlanet is a stealthy startup looking to make its public debut with the launch of an educational game for children, Red Fish , on the iPad ( iTunes link ). FreshPlanet is based in New York City and founded by two serial entrepreneur French brothers, Mathieu and Romain Nouzareth . It recently raised a $1.5 million Series A from J eff Clavier’s SofTech VC and a bunch of French angel investors including Jacques Antoine Granjon (founder of Ventes-privees), Xavier Niel (founder of French ISP Free.fr), and Oleg Tscheltzoff (founder of Fotolia) via CapISF. Mathieu and Romain previously founded online game distribution service Boonty (sold t French company Nexway) and casual gaming site Cafe.com . Red Fish is based on a popular French kid’s learning Website called Poisson Rouge . FreshPlanet licensed the game and developed a version specifically for the iPad to start. There is no iPhone version. “The big screen is much more interesting for us,” says Romain. Red Fish teaches kids between 3 and 7 to count, read, spell, and even compose music all using the iPad’s engaging touchscreen. The app is free and comes with 12 different activities, but to unlock the rest (there are 50 total) will cost $9.99. You can watch a demo of the app in the video below. It gives you a good sense of how the iPad can become an educational game platform. Kids love touchscreens (mine are always fooling with my iPhone), and big touchscreens with games designed for them could prove irresistible. FreshPlanet is also testing a music quiz game on Facebook, and plans to design games for both Facebook, the iPad, and the iPhone. CrunchBase Information FreshPlanet Inc. Information provided by CrunchBase
 
The Line For the iPad Starts Behind This Guy Top
The iPad doesn’t go on sale until Saturday, but the line has already started in front of Apple’s flagship store in New York City. Okay, there’s only one guy in line so far, Greg, but if you want to pick up your pre-ordered iPad you are going to have to get behind him. Unless you go to another store. Or just wait for it to be delivered to your house. Anyway, this guy is determined to sit in front of the Apple store for two days and nights. The video below was sent to us by Zoltan Kaprinay , a Hungarian tourist who came to New York to pick up his own iPad on Saturday. He was scoping out the Apple store and captured the footage below. Nobody expects iPhone-long lines for this launch, but for the Mac faithful there’s always a badge of honor that comes with being first. Update : Greg appears to be the same guy who was first in line at the same Apple NYC store for the original iPhone when it came out. Back then he camped out for four days. His name is Greg Packer. CrunchBase Information iPad Information provided by CrunchBase
 

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