Thursday, September 29, 2011

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Sharp's New Android Phone: Waterproof Body, 4.5-Inch 3D QHD Display, 12MP Cam, DLNA Top
Picture 1Sharp has been producing quite a few nice Android phones for the Japanese market lately (with a 25% share, it's the leading manufacturer over here), and today, the company introduced [JP] another great-looking handset, the AQUOS PHONE 102SH. Local carrier SoftBank will start distributing the phone in Japan in December as part of its fall/winter line-up. And there can be now doubt that subscribers can get a real monster with this model.
 
The Planets Are Aligned: Facebook's Spartan And iPad Projects Set To Launch Early Next Week Top
eclipse95Earlier tonight, Alexia found and posted some screenshots of something that sure looked a lot like the mythical "Project Spartan". Shortly thereafter, Facebook took down the page in question. And for good reason. That was Project Spartan, we've now confirmed. Whoops. Well, to be fair, I've heard numerous times that they don't actually call it that internally. That may be a name that external developers use. No matter — we all know what I mean. It's the HTML5-based mobile platform that Facebook has been building in secret for months. And now it's done. In fact, it has been done for a while. From what I hear, it has been waiting on one thing...
 
Oh, Nokia. Another 3,500 People Laid Off, Manufacturing Operations Trimmed Down Top
nokia-logo-1Nokia this morning announced "plans to take additional actions to align its workforce and operations". You know what that means: mass layoffs and then some. In a press release, the Finnish mobile giant says it will reduce its staff by at least 3,500 employees by the end of 2012. Nokia also says there will be reductions in manufacturing; the company is closing its manufacturing facility in Romania by the end of this year and says it will be doubling down on its Asian factories instead.
 
Delicious Fixes Firefox Extension, Starts "Bookmark Rescue Operation" Top
deliAVOS has been getting a whole lot of criticism by former Delicious users and fans - and even original founder Joshua Schachter - after the recent launch of the all-new Delicious. And granted, perhaps they would have been better off waiting a couple more months before launching. But AVOS quickly moved to fix some issues, and announced that it was working on fixing others.
 
More Disrupt Beijing Speakers: Kai-Fu Lee, David Li, Fritz Demopoulos and More Top
disrupt_beijing_photoWith all the recent TechCrunch drama-- not to mention my own busy September giving birth-- you might think our upcoming Disrupt Beijing conference had gotten pushed to the back-burner. You'd be wrong. We've been busy ferreting out and booking more of the hottest names in the Chinese startup scene to augment our already announced keynotes by Tencent CEO Pony Ma, Chinese angel and entrepreneur Lei Jun, and a host of Western entrepreneurs who are traveling to China along with the TechCrunch staff. One of our most anticipated keynotes is no stranger to Silicon Valley: Innovation Works founder and former head of Google China Kai-Fu Lee. Lee is one of those rare executives who has deep experience in the US with top companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google and deep connections in China as well.
 
This Is Facebook's Project Spartan [Screenshots] Top
Facebook Mobile Developer PageThis Facebook mobile developers page is pretty interesting, first of all because it starts with a statistic, "350 million users access Facebook from a mobile device every month," which was just released and then because it describes Facebook mobile web app features and includes screenshots that are unlike anything we've seen live.
 
Real Journalism, VentureBeat Style Top
BS VB post
And that, by the way, is why anyone who cares about real journalism mistrusts TechCrunch—Dylan Tweney, VentureBeat
TechCrunch has plenty of critics. But I don't think I've ever read such a botched attempt at a takedown as a post published this evening on VentureBeat by Dylan Tweney titled, How TechCrunch's back-room deals destroy its credibility (which has now been taken down—here is a splogged version). Tweney emailed me about 20 minutes before he posted claiming, "We have proof that you guys trade favorable coverage for future exclusives, and we're going to publish this evening." What exactly was this "proof"?
 
Google And Samsung Announce October 11 Event: Nexus Prime Imminent Top
samsungunpackedIt looks like the wait for the elusive Nexus Prime may soon be over. Samsung has just started sending out invites for a special Samsung/Google event that's being held on October 11 at 11:30 AM in San Diego. The topic isn't listed, but the invitation says we'll see "what's new from Android". The Prime, which has been rumored for months but is still unconfirmed, is expected to be the first device running Ice Cream Sandwich — the next major Android update, which will unify for 'mobile' Gingerbread OS with 'Tablet' Honeycomb. It's also expected to be a beast specs-wise, with a dual-core processor, 4.5" or 4.65" screen, and 4G. Oh, and my favorite rumor: it's supposed to be running on Verizon's top-notch 4G network.
 
Official Flickr App Arrives For Android Top
flickrapppBeing an Android user as well as a Flickr user has been dangerous territory for quite a long time now. There's been no official app, and the third-party ones haven't been too hot. Luckily for us, Yahoo has finally dropped a Flickr app that not only has their official blessing, but doesn't suck at all.
 
Lucky eBay Buyer Demos Ice Cream Sandwich On Video Top
New App Drawer and HomescreenWhy is it that random eBay shoppers always seem to have the best luck? In what has to be one of the most fortuitous purchases I've seen in a while, someone picked up a Nexus S off of the auction site that just happened to be running a build of Google's latest Android update: Ice Cream Sandwich. Well, that's the story, anyway. Thankfully, our lucky buyer was able to contain his or her excitement long enough to take some pictures and video and send them to Engadget.
 
BetterLesson Grabs $1.6 Million To Let Educators Find And Share The Best Lesson Plans Top
Screen shot 2011-09-28 at 3.38.22 PM Boston-based BetterLesson launched in 2009 with a simple mission: Provide an easy way for educators to connect with each other and share their lessons. As Co-founder and VP of Operations Erin Osborn and Founder and CEO Alex Grodd are both former teachers themselves (and Jonathan Hendler, the third co-founder and CTO has a mom who was a career teacher), they were tired of watching as their colleagues' cool, original lesson plans would disappear into the folders and hard drives of obsolescence. So the founders set out to design an open, social platform to aggregate the best K thru 12 teacher-generated content. To help it grow, the startup has announced that it has officially closed a $1.6 million series A round of venture funding from a host of venture firms, including Highland Capital Partners, General Catalyst, New Markets Ventures, and NewSchools Venture Fund -- as well as angel investors like Steve Kaufer of Trip Advisor, Matt Greenfield (Stonework Capital), and Shawn and Jennifer Carolan of Menlo Ventures, NewSchools Venture Fund, and more.
 
Video: Jeff Bezos Demos The Kindle Fire Top
Amazon Fire Announcement.movThe highlight of today's Amazon event was when CEO Jeff Bezos finally announced the Kindle Fire about midway through. We captured it on video, and you can see for yourself how Bezos introduced the device. He demos the unique interface, which highlights the media you've interacted with most recently. There is also Whispersync for movies, which lets you pick up watching a movie where you left off when you move between devices. And he even plays Fruit Ninja to show off the dual-core processor's speed.
 
Motorola Finally Comes Through With Xoom LTE Upgrades Top
motorola-xoom_1lteXoom users, rejoice! Despite having to stick it out for a few extra months, the 3G version of Motorola's ambitious 10-incher is finally getting a piece of the LTE action starting tomorrow. Frustrated users may remember that the Xoom was originally slated to get its LTE upgrade some time in Q2 2011, but months have come and gone without a firm release date.
 
Can Twitter's Self-Serve Ad Product Meet Rosy Expectations To Drive Revenues To $400M By 2013? Top
twitterAs Twitter CEO Dick Costolo told the media a few weeks ago, advertising is a key strategy for the company. "Our advertising method is the only one we need to be a big business," he said at the time. And Twitter has rolled out a number of new products including Promoted Tweets. But according to a new eMarketer report, Twitter's ad revenue is expected to be lower this year, and will grow significantly over the next few years once the platform's self-serve ad product rolls out. eMarketer estimates global ad revenues at Twitter will grow 210% to $139.5 million in 2011, up from just $45 million in 2010, in the company's first full year of selling advertising. For background, eMarketer forms its estimates for advertising spending on Twitter through an analysis of estimates of consumer usage, marketer usage, ad pricing, and impressions on Twitter, as well as revenue estimates from research firms and other sources.
 
NASA To Invite 150 Of Its Twitter Followers To Mars Rover Launch Top
nasatweetWhile giveaways and "follow us and win!" contests aren't always worth calling out, this promotion from @NASA is too great to pass up. They're planning on inviting 150 of their followers to watch the Curiosity Mars Rover launch. Yes, the actual launch, from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
 
Self-Service Ad Platform isocket Grabs More Funding; Partners With Google; Steals Rubicon Exec Top
27157v2-max-250x250isocket, a startup that makes it easy to buy and sell online advertising, is making a few big announcements today, including the closing of a million dollar-plus series A round of funding from their existing seed investors (the startup raised $1.8 million back in 2009), which includes some big name angels like Tim Draper of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, David Blumberg of Blumberg Capital, Jeff Clavier of SoftTech VC, and David Cohen of TechStars. (Disclosure: TechCrunch uses isocket to power its direct advertising.) In addition to its new infusion of capital, isocket is announcing that it has poached Ben Trenda from the Rubicon Project. Ben is joining isocket as VP of Sales. TechCrunch covered his exit from Aol (where he was the VP of Agency Relationships) to join Rubicon in April of last year. At Rubicon, Trenda was responsible for launching the company's realtime bidding business and helped the Project grow to the second largest ad exchange behind Google.
 
Microsoft Wants To Pick Your Brain For Windows Phone Tweaks Top
Download-Official-Windows-Phone-Put-people-first-Logo-01Mango has already begun to trickle out into the wild, and Microsoft is still trying to figure out exactly what their Windows Phone users want. Case in point: they've just unveiled their new Suggestion Box, where users can submit and vote for ideas that they would like to see implemented in Windows Phone 7.
 
New Humble Bundle Tries Different Pricing Tack Top
bundIf you've watched the gaming world at all over the last year or so, you're probably aware of the Humble Bundle, a charity-orientated promotion where you pay what you want for a few standout indie titles. The few so far have had a great reception, raising millions for charity (EFF and Child's Play). A new one has just launched with acclaimed strategy shooter Frozen Synapse as the main draw, but there's a new wrinkle in the pricing scheme. Instead of just having the whole bundle available for any price you want to pay, you receive either just Frozen Synapse or the game plus the whole previous bundle depending on how much you give. Give under the average and get the game, give over the average and get the bundle. It's a little bit brilliant.
 
TCTV: Hands On With The Kindle Fire Top
Amazon Fire-tc_upload.mp4The Kindle Fire is the device we were all waiting for and when it arrived it did not disappoint. The Fire is a 7-inch media device that plays well with all of Amazon's media services including the book store, the video store, and the music store. It includes a web browser and supports Amazon's own Amazon App Store, a branch of the Android App Store that focuses on apps optimized for this device.
 
Which Wireless Carrier Stores Your Private Data The Longest? Top
big carrierYour cell phone knows all sorts of stuff about you. It knows where you've been, which websites you've visited, who you call most, and, depending on how many times you've found yourselves drunk with your cell phone handy, what you look like without pants on. But still, you can be comforted in knowing that all of that information can be destroyed with little more than a brick and a bit of unchecked rage. But what about the stuff that doesn't live on your phone? The other half of the wireless formula, the carriers, know a hell of a lot about you too. Who holds onto that data the longest?
 

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