The latest from TechCrunch
- Hey Google, Your Nexus 7 Marketing Images Look Like Crap
- With 4.5M Users, Instructure Takes On The Courseras & Udacities Of The World With Its Own Open Course Network
- FastMail Escapes The 1990s With Sleek New Interface
- Turntable.fm Founder's New DJZ Dance Music Site And DJZtxt App Will Make Your Eyes And Ears Bleed
- Watch Nerdery: Up Close With The New Seiko "Orange Monster"
- Apple's R&D Spending Climbs $1 Billion To $3.4 Billion During FY 2012
- Another 'Sexy' Enterprise Exit: EMC Buys Web Security Firm Silver Tail Systems
- Photo Sharing App Batch Finally Closing Its Doors Since Team Is Now At Airbnb
- Blue Box Raises $3.5 Million For Cloud And Hosting Service With An OpenStack Flavor
- Get Ready For Some Fireworks: Activist Investor Carl Icahn Sets His Sights On Netflix, Taking A 10% Stake
- One Year In, Nextdoor, The Social Network For Neighborhoods, Talks Numbers [TCTV]
- Zillow Acquires Real Estate Shopping And Collaboration Platform For Brokers And Homebuyers, Buyfolio
- Outdoor Ad Startup ADstruc Launches A New Ad-Buying Workflow And Partners With Telmar
- AT&T And T-Mobile Combine Wireless Coverage In Sandy-Affected Areas
- Google Settles With Rosetta Stone Over Trademark Infringement Within Search And Ads Lawsuit
- Google Translate Gets A Better Dictionary With Smarter Rankings, Reverse Translations And Grouped Synonyms
- Microsoft & Urban Airship Team Up To Offer Push Messaging On Windows 8 And Windows Phone 8
- Panic-Inducing Rumors Over Twitter During A Hurricane Should Be Illegal
- Google Brings Its 3D Imagery To 5 New Cities And To The Desktop
- The iPad Mini's Cannibalization Effects: Overpowering Or Overblown?
| Hey Google, Your Nexus 7 Marketing Images Look Like Crap | Top |
| No one understands why President Obama didn’t hammer Governor Romney on his 47% secret video comments during the first presidential debate. In hindsight, a mistake. Like President Obama, Google is throwing away its best ammunition against the iPad mini – pixel density – by publishing marketing materials that make the Nexus 7 look like a turd. I’ve been perusing the iPad mini reviews and am thinking about getting one. A big negative that most people are focusing on is the screen resolution, which is just 1024-by-768 at 163 pixels per inch (ppi). The iPad 3 by comparison is 326 ppi. "Ew, the screen is terrible” writes John Gruber (quoting someone else) “The iPad Mini costs too much, especially considering the lower resolution of its 7.9-inch non-Retina Display” says CNET. So 163 ppi isn’t all that bad, if we’re willing to live in 2010. Anyhow, I read that the Nexus 7, Google’s competing tablet, has similarly sized 1280×800 display but far more pixel density at 216 ppi. The Nexus 7 is also just $200 to the Ipad mini’s $329 (for 16 GB). So I’m thinking, maybe I’ll buy a Nexus 7. I haven’t been testing any Google hardware lately, since I moved to the iPhone last year. As I’m perusing the Google Nexus 7 site with screen quality on my mind I notice something. All the screen images on the device are absolute crap. Normally we all expect a little let’s say optimism in marketing materials for fast food and consumer electronics. But Google seems to be going the other way, showing a device putting out screen resolutions far below what they actually look like in person. A few examples: Here are a few from Apple’s iPad mini site: Based solely on those images, which one of these devices do you want in your hands? All of the above images were screen captured and then I played with the size with Skitch for this post. That distorts them somewhat, but you can go to the links above and see for yourself. My biggest complaint with Android devices in the past was fit and finish. Apple nails it, Google doesn’t. And even when Google has something to really show off, they fail to do it. Somebody in marketing needs to brush up on their photoshop skills, pronto. Pixelated and blurry images (and boring ones, too) don’t make me want to buy a | |
| With 4.5M Users, Instructure Takes On The Courseras & Udacities Of The World With Its Own Open Course Network | Top |
 Instructure launched Canvas in 2011 to give educational institutions an alternative to the ubiquitous (but much criticized) software of educational giants like Blackboard. Today, the company is adding another piece to its learning management system with the launch of its own MOOC hybrid, which allows schools to define the structure of their online courses and customize the learning experience. | |
| FastMail Escapes The 1990s With Sleek New Interface | Top |
 FastMail is a popular e-mail provider among power users who want to be customers instead of products. But its interface has been stuck in the 90s -- until this week when it rolled out a brand new AJAXy UI. And it's really, well, fast. | |
| Turntable.fm Founder's New DJZ Dance Music Site And DJZtxt App Will Make Your Eyes And Ears Bleed | Top |
 Electronic dance music (EDM) is all the rage with kids born after 1990 (Generation Z), and Turntable.fm founder Seth Goldstein is brining the scene online. Today he launches DJZ, a news hub website, and DJZtxt, a messaging app that turns emojis into sounds. With $1 million in funding from Kleiner Perkins, music industry folk and more, DJZ could capture the youth's eyes and dollars, or get skipped. | |
| Watch Nerdery: Up Close With The New Seiko "Orange Monster" | Top |
 If you know me, you know two things about me: I love watches and I smell, faintly, of ferret. That's why I'd like to share my excitement at this review of the new Seiko SRP313K1 "Orange Monster," one of the nicest and least expensive automatic diving watches you can buy. | |
| Apple's R&D Spending Climbs $1 Billion To $3.4 Billion During FY 2012 | Top |
 Apple released its 10-K filing with the SEC today, reflecting its financial status and records for the entirety of 2012. Most of the content is what we've seen already from quarterly results, but a couple of statistics stood out as particularly interesting and worthy of note. For one, Apple spent $3.4 billion in research and development during its 2012 fiscal year, up $1 billion from 2011. | |
| Another 'Sexy' Enterprise Exit: EMC Buys Web Security Firm Silver Tail Systems | Top |
 The tech press doesn't always give enterprise software startups as much attention as companies on the consumer-focused side. That is slowly changing now, though -- the words "enterprise" and "sexy" have shown up together in a growing number of conference panels and press reports in recent months. | |
| Photo Sharing App Batch Finally Closing Its Doors Since Team Is Now At Airbnb | Top |
 We knew that the Dailybooth team, creators of photo sharing app Batch, moved on to greener pastures at Airbnb. The acquisition was to bolster the mobile apps and presence for Airbnb. What we didn't know is what the fate of its products would be, but now we do. Today, the "Batch team" sent out an email to its users informing them that they should download their photos, because the service will be shutting down: | |
| Blue Box Raises $3.5 Million For Cloud And Hosting Service With An OpenStack Flavor | Top |
 Blue Box has raised $3.5 million for its OpenStack-infused cloud and hosting service designed for companies that have major traffic volumes and big apps and rely on a high level of uptime. | |
| Get Ready For Some Fireworks: Activist Investor Carl Icahn Sets His Sights On Netflix, Taking A 10% Stake | Top |
 Carl Icahn has bought a big chunk of Netflix stock — nearly 10 percent altogether. It's not clear exactly what his intentions are, but according to the filing, the investment was made because Icahn believes the stock is undervalued. And he might have a point: Netflix was once sitting pretty at about $300 a share, but has fallen fast. Netflix shares were hovering around $60 last week. | |
| One Year In, Nextdoor, The Social Network For Neighborhoods, Talks Numbers [TCTV] | Top |
 This time last year marked the debut of Nextdoor, a site that allows people to build private online social networks for their local neighborhoods. The startup has a very noble aim -- bringing people who live in real-life communities closer together -- but at its launch, many people were a bit skeptical. Would people really want to sign up for yet another social network? How would Nextdoor differentiate from the social networking superstar, Facebook? Could Nextdoor be attractive to people beyond tech-savvy urban centers such as San Francisco? | |
| Zillow Acquires Real Estate Shopping And Collaboration Platform For Brokers And Homebuyers, Buyfolio | Top |
 Real estate search giant Zillow has acquired Buyfolio, an online and mobile collaborative shopping platform where home shoppers can search, track, organize and discuss for-sale listings with their real estate agent, significant other or a private group. Financial terms were not disclosed. | |
| Outdoor Ad Startup ADstruc Launches A New Ad-Buying Workflow And Partners With Telmar | Top |
 ADstruc has been working to modernize the buying of outdoor advertising for the past couple of years. Now it's taking two big steps in that process with last week's launch of the new ADstruc platform, and today's announcement that it's partnering with ad software maker Telmar. CEO John Laramie told me that the new platform builds on the services that ADstruc already offers, but the company describes the new platform as not just a new feature or tool, and instead "a complete workflow solution" offering "the easiest way to buy and sell outdoor advertising" like billboards. Agencies and other advertisers can post requests for proposal (RFPs) for their campaigns, and outdoor ad companies can bid to participate. The advertisers can actually browse the bids in a map, narrow down their search based on different criteria, and even see what their ad will look like in a given location. It's a big change, Laramie said, from an industry where most of the campaign planning happens on spreadsheets. | |
| AT&T And T-Mobile Combine Wireless Coverage In Sandy-Affected Areas | Top |
 AT&T and T-Mobile have signed an agreement that lets subscribers to either company roam on either network in devastated parts of the country where Hurricane Sandy has left users with poor cellular coverage. In the past 72 hours, our nation's mobile carriers have been through quite a bit. Sandy left a wake of destruction in her path. In fact, this morning the FCC said that 25 percent of towers in 10 states are down. | |
| Google Settles With Rosetta Stone Over Trademark Infringement Within Search And Ads Lawsuit | Top |
 According to Reuters, Google has settled a lawsuit brought by software maker Rosetta Stone over the search company allowing people to purchase keywords within its ad product using its trademarked name. The lawsuit was filed in 2009 and has dragged on in Virginia since then. The language-teaching company says that competitors were getting a leg up by confusing people searching for them on Google. I've been through something similar, when someone purchased AdWords using my full name. It was pretty annoying. | |
| Google Translate Gets A Better Dictionary With Smarter Rankings, Reverse Translations And Grouped Synonyms | Top |
 Google just launched an update to Google Translate that brings a few new features to the tool that will make it easier to decide which translation of a given word is the one you're looking for. | |
| Microsoft & Urban Airship Team Up To Offer Push Messaging On Windows 8 And Windows Phone 8 | Top |
 Following Monday's reveal of Windows Phone 8, the most recent update to Microsoft's mobile phone operating system, backend service provider Urban Airship is announcing that it has entered into an agreement with Microsoft to be the preferred provider for push messaging services on the new platform. | |
| Panic-Inducing Rumors Over Twitter During A Hurricane Should Be Illegal | Top |
 First Amendment protections are a solemn oath designed to preserve a functioning democracy; they in no way logically extend to protecting the capacity to inflict harm on vulnerable citizens for mere amusement. For good reason, New York City Councilman Peter Vallone is considering criminal charges against Hurricane Sandy prankster Shashank Tripathi who spread malicious rumors about power outages over Twitter (under the handle, @ComfortablySmug). | |
| Google Brings Its 3D Imagery To 5 New Cities And To The Desktop | Top |
 After launching its new 3D imagery on mobile a few months ago, Google today finally brought these 3D buildings in select cities and its new tour guide feature to Google Earth 7 on the desktop. With this update, Google is also bringing its 3D imagery to five new cities: Avignon, France; Austin, Texas; Munich, Germany; Phoenix, Arizona and Mannheim, Germany. | |
| The iPad Mini's Cannibalization Effects: Overpowering Or Overblown? | Top |
 The iPad mini seems downright hungry, and it has a taste not just for other small tablets, but for its larger brethren, the iPad with Retina Display. Some analysts are saying as much, with expectations of the iPad mini's cannibalization effect on existing iPad sales ranging from around 10 to 20 percent. But one suggests that it could be more like 50 percent, based on numbers Apple revealed. | |
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