Friday, September 30, 2011

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Video: AlphaDog Is A Bigger, Faster, Quieter BigDog Top
alphadogI'm sure all of you remember BigDog, the utterly terrifying biomimetic robot platform that dances over rough terrain on weird legs and makes a sound like it's full of angry bees. You didn't think they were going to give up on it, did you? No, it's been a rousing success apparently, so much so that they decided to build one that outdoes the original in every way. The AlphaDog, as they're calling it, was created to be basically the practical version of BigDog, which, while compelling and scary, was too loud and couldn't carry enough stuff. AlphaDog, on the other hand, can carry 400 pounds of gear for 20 miles in a day, without needing to be refueled.
 
Wi-Fi Hotspot App Connectify Gets New Funding From IQT – The Firm That Finds New Tech For CIA Top
Connectify_logoRemember Connectify? The downloadable software that turns PCs into Wi-Fi hotspots in just a few minutes? It looks like the company now has a new investor: In-Q-Tel (IQT), which just so happens to be the strategic investment firm that seeks out new technologies for the U.S. Intelligence Community, including the CIA.
 
Untappd Takes Their Social Beer Service To iOS, Android Top
iphone_screen_1_lgThe social beer fanatics at Untappd are at it again. Their web app has been letting users share their brews of choice since 2010, but the company has just announced that they have released a pair of native apps for iOS and Android in time for the weekend. According to the company's blog, they're big fans of the mobile web, but "there does come a time when you reach the limitations of the mobile web and have to move to a native platform." Understandable. Though functional, the web app only lets you work with certain parts of the Untappd service, like checking in your brew and searching for similar beers.
 
Sequoia-Backed Stripe Wants To Disrupt The Online Payments Space Top
stripeIn March, we wrote about Stripe, a new payments startup cofounded by brothers Patrick Collison and John Collison. The stealthy company was tackling online business to business and business to consumer payments, and had already received $2 million in backing from a number of all-star investors including PayPal founders Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, as well as Sequoia Capital, Andreesen Horowitz and SV Angel This week, Stripe actually launched to the public and we now have more details on how the startup plans to disrupt a space dominated by PayPal and others. Stripe, which has been in private beta, is a more developer friendly, easy to use payments platform. The platform supports Ruby, PHP, Python, you don't need a merchant account or gateway and Stripe will handle everything, including with storing cards, subscriptions, and direct payouts to a bank account.
 
Best Buy To Cut The HTC Flyer Tablet To $299 On October 1st Top
flyer-4-620x417Watch out for falling tablet prices! No, seriously, don't get burned by price cuts. The HTC Flyer is the latest tablet to see a major price reduction. Starting tomorrow, October 1st, Best Buy will lower the price of the 7-inch Android 2.3 tablet from $499 to $299. This follows the PlayBook, Xoom, and most notable, the TouchPad. The Flyer is nearing its 6 month birthday and hasn't fared very well in the marketplace. This is mainly because it attempted to compete directly with the iPad while offering a smaller screen and dated OS. However, had it launched at $299, the Flyer might have won over more fans because it is a capable tablet with several fun tricks including an active digitizer stylus.
 
T-Mobile Poster Reveals Nokia Drive For Windows Phone, Confirms Sabre? Top
nokiawin7Oops. A new promotional poster made an appearance in a store at T-Mobile's German headquarters, where it confirmed the existence of a Nokia Windows Phone with a 3.7-inch display and Nokia's Drive navigation service. The poster was up only briefly, but a quick-thinking tipster snapped a few shots and fired them off to WinRumors. After running it through a quick and dirty Google translation, the poster's copy mentions that Nokia Drive for WP includes a 3D navigation display like its MeeGo cousin, and support for voice control. Thrilling, no?
 
Famigo Wants To Help Families Discover Kid-Friendly Mobile Apps Top
famFor many families, finding the best kid-friendly apps among the million plus apps in the Apple App Store and Android Market can be daunting. Enter Famigo, an app directory and curation platform that helps families find games, e-books and other apps that are appropriate for kids. Families can now use Family App Review to discover, select and share favorite apps for both the Apple iOS and Android mobile platforms. Basically, Famigo not only provides an app directory but also surfaces the best apps for Apple or Android across a variety of family-focused categories, such as the best games by age group and more. Parents can also sign up to receive a weekly email that recommends the best apps for their platform of choice, iOS or Android, tailored to their family's needs. Users can also refine searches by excluding features such as advertising, profanity, violence and in-app purchases.
 
Nike VC Arm To Invest In Green Startups Top
Nike-logoSports brand and sneaker maker Nike is going to start investing in green startups, through its new VC arm called the Sustainable Business & Innovation Lab. This group will seek out companies focused on sustainable products, sustainable manufacturing and sustainable marketplaces. The fund is designed to support Nike's goals involving the integration of corporate responsibility into its business and its evolution to a "closed-loop" business model.
 
Backed With $1.3 Million, Pantheon Launches Drupal-Based Web Development Platform Top
PantheonSan Francisco-based Pantheon opened its doors to the public today after a year building its Web development platform for Drupal sites.  (Drupal is an open-source content management system).  Pantheon is a combination of a Web development tool in the cloud and a Web hosting and management service.  Companies can develop, test, host, and manage their websites on Pantheon  It is all based in the cloud, and the service is free for developers.  Once you make a site go live, it costs $100  a month. The company raised a $1.3 million seed round a year ago from First Round Capital, Baseline, Floodgate, Founder Collective, and Heroku founders James Lindenbaum, Adam Wiggins, and Orion Henry.  You can think of Pantheon as a Heroku for Drupal sites in that it puts the web development environment in the cloud.  Founder and CEo Zack Rosen has  simpler description of what Pantheon offers.  " You can get an enterprise-complete website for your organization with the level of polish of a consumer-grade site."
 
Despite Solyndra, U.S. Solar Up 69% Top
solar-panelsIn 2010, the U.S. installed 887 megawatts (MW) of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV), up 104% from the 435 MW installed in 2009, according to a new recent report by the Solar Energy Industries Association and GTM Research. However, the U.S. market's share of global installations fell to 5.1%, down from 6.0% in 2009. In the end of 2011, that's expected to change, thanks to slowdowns in major European markets like Italy and Germany. And in a few years time, the report says, the U.S. market may be the largest in the world.
 
In Australia, Samsung Offers Apple A Deal Over Galaxy Tab 10.1 Ban Top
hand_shakeLast we heard of settlement talks between Apple and Samsung was in June, and you can tell from recent events that those talks probably didn't end well. Today in Australia, however, Samsung's lawyers have reportedly extended an olive branch, hoping to end delays of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 launch in the Aussie market. If Apple accepts the terms of the agreement, we could see the GalTab 10.1 on Australian shelves by next week, said Samsung attorney David Catterns.
 
Ex-Googlers Debut Zillabyte To Let Business Users Easily Analyze Big Data Top
zillaEx-Googler Jake Quist is debuting a new stealthy startup, called Zillabyte, that aims to disrupt the data analysis space. Quist explains that while he and his co-founder were engineers at Google, they were able to access a number of internal, extremely in-depth data analysis tools. But aside from being powerful, these tools were convenient for Quist and other Googlers to use and made it easy to analyze data and make better decisions. As Quist tells me, When we left Google, we realized that data analysis outside the Googleplex kind of sucks. Big time. The tools available are so niche that only big enterprise can purchase them. The alternatives suck too.
 
Samsung Announces The Dual-Core Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus Top
samsung-galaxy-tab-7-plusDespite the fact that Apple has found a way to block sales of the latest two Galaxy Tabs, Samsung is going to try try again. The company officially announced the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus this morning, a 7-inch, HSPA+, dual-core slate. With the 7.0 Plus, Samsung has basically covered every size tablet there is: two 10.1-inch models, an 8.9-incher, a 7.7-inch tab, now a straight up 7-incher, along with the 5.3-inch smartphone/tablet hybrid Galaxy Note.
 
Canonical Releases Windows Version of Ubuntu One Top
ubuntu-oneCanonical, the commercial backer behind the Ubuntu Linux distribution, have been hosting a file synchronization service called Ubuntu One for a couple years now. A free account gets you 5GB of storage, and the client side controls have been baked into the last couple of releases of the Ubuntu distribution. It works pretty much like Dropbox or similar services, but has been -- until today -- Linux-only. In an announcement late last night, Canonical has revealed that there is now a Windows client for Ubuntu One, allowing you to access all your files from either Linux or Windows computers.
 
Report: HP Still Looking To Offload Palm, Amazon Named As Top Contender Top
webos-fireThe Kindle Fire announcement set the interwebs ablaze as Amazon burst into the tablet scene. But the retailer-turned-CE player might be looking to go a different way in the future. Amazon has been named as Palm's current top suitor among "a handful of contenders" as HP looks to rid itself from the TouchPad/webOS disaster. It's unclear from VentureBeat's leaks why Amazon is interested in Palm. Ditching Android for webOS after building an ecosystem around Android seems foolish and shortsighted. This move, if it's really happening, could be more about hardware development and patents than reviving a dead operating system. Sorry, fanboys.
 
Timelines.com Sues Facebook, Says Its New Timeline Feature Could "Eliminate" Them Top
timelinesTimelines Inc., a small venture capital-backed Chicago company that operates the Timelines.com website, has launched a trademark-infringement suit against Facebook on Thursday, claiming that the latter's recently announced Timeline feature could "quite possibly eliminate" its entire business. Timelines.com is a website that basically allows people to record and share personal or historic events, and contribute descriptions, links, photos and videos related to those events, people, companies, bands and whatnot (i.e. Cuban Missile Crisis, Al Capone and Pink Floyd).
 
Video Calling Service Tango Launches On PC Top
Tango logoAs promised earlier this summer, mobile video calling app Tango has finally made it to the PC. Today, a year after its launch on iOS and Android, Tango is now available for Windows desktop computers (XP, Vista and Windows 7). The company says a Mac version will be available later this year.
 
Appsfire To Amazon: Your Kindle Fire Logo Looks Mighty Familiar Top
fireHey Amazon, Appsfire wants to have a chat about your logo for the Kindle Fire, that interesting, affordable tablet you announced a few days ago. They're upset because it looks a lot like theirs. Writes Appsfire co-founder Ouriel Ohayon: (after the jump)
 
[Update: Video] Sharp Showcases 4K LCD TV (3,840×2,160 Resolution), To Sell It 2012 Top
sharp tvFull HD resolution (1,920×1,080 pixels) isn't enough for Sharp. The company has developed [JP] a TV that's capable of producing images with 3,840×2,160 resolution and is ready to show the device to the public during the CEATEC 2011 exhibition that takes place next week near Tokyo. The 60-inch 4K TV has been developed in cooperation with the I3 (I-cubed) Research Center in Kawasaki. I am assuming Sharp will share more detailed specs when they bring the prototype to CEATEC (so far, only the size and resolution have been revealed).
 
Disney Mobile Japan Announces Two (Cute) Android Phones Top
Picture 6Disney, which has been doing business as an MVNO in Japan (Disney Mobile) since 2008, took the wraps off two new Android phones [JP] yesterday. The DM010SH will be rolled out in Japan in October, followed by the DM011SH in December (prices tbd). Technically, the DM010SH is based on the Sharp's AQUOS 009SH [JP] and features Android 2.3, a 4-inch LCD with QHD resolution, an 8MP CMOS camera, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, a microSDHC slot, a digital TV tuner, an e-wallet function, infrared communication, etc.
 

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