The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- How Microsoft Will Lift Us Out Of the IT-Spending Dumps
- Avatar Toys Go Augmented Reality, Courtesy Of Mattel And Total Immersion
- Microsoft’s Silverlight Helps Winchester Sell Silver Bullets
- Video: 3.5% Of Google Wave Explained
- Yahoo Kills Xoopit For Gmail
- Easy Does It: Google Friend Connect One-Ups Facebook Connect’s Install Wizard
- Google Fixes That Pesky “Let’s Stop Facebook’s Growth In India” Bug
- Design Community Decorati Will Be Your Personal Interior Decorator
- First There Was Pirate, Now Facebook Comes In Latin
| How Microsoft Will Lift Us Out Of the IT-Spending Dumps Posted: 03 Oct 2009 09:01 AM PDT
I was on a panel a few weeks ago with Rob Enderle a few weeks back and he was asked by an international journalist what he expected in terms of financial news in the next few months. He made a very interesting point that, being an Apple fanboy, I ignored at the time. He said that Windows 7 would drive a whole new wave of hardware buying and inflate (in a good way) IT spending. I filed this tidbit away next to my thoughts of maybe one day buying a Zune, but then I cracked open the HP Envy 13 and thought back on my own recent experience with Windows 7— and what he’s saying makes sense. A few calls later and I found that a number of IT guys I know are genuinely excited about installing Windows 7 in their shops, guys for whom Vista didn’t even register. We’re about see an IT renaissance, and it will be driven by Microsoft.
There are three forces at work here. First, there is the IT shop. They haven’t upgraded their machines since XP. XP was, at best, 2001 technology and by 2006 over 400 million desktops running the OS. Assuming that even half of those were paid XP seats at major corporations, and you understand that this monster would not just roll over and die. It costs money to upgrade — money companies did not have in late 2007 through all of 2008. Now, with a bit of a loosening in the credit markets, IT departments are going to be upgrading en masse, causing a surge in PC sales and sales of attendant products like drives, memory, and monitors. Second, consumers are just about done with netbooks. This is an unpopular opinion, I know, but as evidenced by the Envy, the underpowered netbook will be replaced by a more powerful, slightly more expensive mid-tier model that will appeal to everyone, businesses included. Instead of a 15-inch Dell monster, road warriors will carry lighter Windows 7 machines with low-voltage but highly optimized components. Netbook advocates cite cloud storage and a lightweight OS, but when Internet Explorer takes forty seconds to load GMail because you’re running a single core Atom, you’re going to have upset customers. It’s getting harder and harder to go from a peppy computer to a slow one simply because the difference in speed is so staggering. The netbook will remain but it won’t be anybody’s every day computer. Finally, it’s time for an gamer upgrade. The holidays are upon us, there are no new consoles to buy, and a new cohort of PC gamers is appearing: kids who grew up on powerful consoles like the XBox 360 and the PS2/PS3 family, kids who started gaming perhaps at age 10 and are now 16 or so, who are looking for a bit more power. Windows 7 will give them that slight perceived boost and, since it will come with new machines, it will increase the install base by accretion. As much as we slobber all over Apple, Microsoft makes the world go around. Google or no Google, the desktop belongs to Redmond and Windows 7 is one of the building blocks of a strong future economy. Here’s hoping they can maintain their Office hegemony but even if they don’t, there’s always Google Wave. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors   |
| Avatar Toys Go Augmented Reality, Courtesy Of Mattel And Total Immersion Posted: 02 Oct 2009 03:01 PM PDT This is a crazy fun demo of the new Avatar toys by Mattel. Each toy includes a little card that is scannable via webcam and creates an on-screen augmented reality robot or character. While this is old hat for most of us, Mattel is quite proud of being ahead of the curve and for good reason. You can see more demos at AvatarItag.com. Total Immersion made the technology and even added a little “button” system to the cards. When you touch a spot on the card, the onscreen character pulls a knife, shoots a gun, or recounts part of the story. The added information and data will change over time, up to the release of the movie on December 18. Obviously this requires a computer and a patient kid but it’s still an exciting addition to an already interesting movie. We’ll have some of these toys in next week and we’ll stage mock battles for you all. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could put two cards on the table at once and have them fight? OMG! Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Microsoft’s Silverlight Helps Winchester Sell Silver Bullets Posted: 02 Oct 2009 01:45 PM PDT
Here’s a bizarre use for Microsoft's "Flash-killer" Silverlight—a ballistics calculator. Yes, Silverlight is being used to build an application that lets shooting and hunting enthusiasts “customize shooting conditions” while comparing Winchester-made bullets. Winchester’s Ballistics Calculator lets gun users choose their type of ammunition and then compare up to five different bullet types with charts and graphs. You can enter specific conditions like wind speed and outside temperature, maximum range, direction, speed and height. The application will then display charts and graphs that visually lay out the point of impact, drop and trajectory of each type of bullet. According to Microsoft, Winchester chose Silverlight because it is a “cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in” that allowed the ballistics maker to create an app that doesn’t have to be downloaded (but you have to download Silverlight). Silverlight 3 launched this past summer, with the hopes of making inroads against its main competitor Adobe Flash. It looks like Microsoft is going after gun enthusiasts first. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Video: 3.5% Of Google Wave Explained Posted: 02 Oct 2009 01:20 PM PDT So now that some of you have your Google Wave invites (I know not all of you, I don’t even have one for my personal account yet, if it’s any consolation), and we’ve gotten some of that inevitable backlash out of our system, it’s time to figure out just what Google Wave is. And more importantly, what it will be used for. I tried to answer that on TV the other day, but the truth is that as a new communication medium, it’s hard to describe exactly what Wave is. It’s kind of like email meets instant messaging meets real-time sharing and collaboration, but even that description is lacking. Eventually, if Wave takes off, it’s probably one of those things that will just be understood for being what it is, even if no one can really describe it by relating it to something else. That said, the video below does a pretty good job explaining a potential use case for Wave. And what’s most impressive is that this video wasn’t created by Google, but rather by a third-party, Epipheo Studios. If you have no idea why you would want to use Wave (at least 3.5% of it), or what you could use it for, this is worth a watch. [thanks Ben] Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Posted: 02 Oct 2009 01:02 PM PDT
Yahoo is killing support for a popular Gmail plug-in from Xoopit, a startup it acquired in July. An email was sent out today to Xoopit users on Gmail tited, “Xoopit for Gmail is closing. Here’s the info you’ll need.” It details different ways users can export their files, photos, videos, and other attachments which may be stored on the service. From the email:
Xoopit is a handy email plug-in that works with both Gmail and Yahoo Mail, where it powers the My Photos feature. In Gmail, it creates a strip across the top which shows you images of all recent attachments, making it possible to visually scan email for their contents instead of by subject lines. You can also click on the Xoopit thumbnail strip so that it takes over the whole screen with a grid of photos, images,videos, and docs. Back in July when Yahoo bought Xoopit, we wondered why Google didn’t buy it instead. Now at least we know why Yahoo bought it—to take it away from Google (and it’ also a really cool feature). Yahoo certainly has the resources to keep supporting the Gmail plug-in, which is very popular Shutting off support is a small gesture, but it shows that Yahoo is starting to play for keeps. And it doesn’t want to share its toys with Google, despite all of that talk about how open it is. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Easy Does It: Google Friend Connect One-Ups Facebook Connect’s Install Wizard Posted: 02 Oct 2009 12:41 PM PDT
Up until now the install process for Google Friend Connect hasn’t been too difficult — the site walked you through a handful of steps, asked you to upload two files via FTP to your webserver, and you were done. Up until very recently Facebook Connect’s install process was significantly more confusing, but two days ago they updated it to closely match Google’s flow (though you only have to upload one file instead of two). Today Google has managed to one-up Facebook once more: Friend Connect’s new install flow doesn’t require any file uploads, which opens the door to an entirely new set of users. Now all you need to do to implement Google Friend Connect on your site is visit this page, enter your site’s name and URL, and you’re done. Google will present you with a gallery of HTML widgets that you can copy and paste into your site. Aside from making things easier, this opens the door to a new set of users. Namely, people who either don’t know how to use FTP, or who run their sites through hosted services that don’t grant FTP access — and there are a lot of them. Looking at raw numbers, Google Friend Connect appears at first glance to be besting Facebook Connect by a large margin: Google reports over 5 million sites using Friend Connect, while Facebook Connect has around 15,000. But those figures are misleading. In terms of mind-share, Facebook Connect is running circles around Google Friend Connect — just look at how many mainstream sites use Facebook Connect but not Google. Facebook has made it clear that it’s trying to attract more small sites that don’t have development teams, so don’t be surprised if it strikes back with its own super-streamlined install process in the next few weeks.  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Google Fixes That Pesky “Let’s Stop Facebook’s Growth In India” Bug Posted: 02 Oct 2009 12:32 PM PDT
If that’s actually the case, here’s what I love about this: 1) Google says it was trying to add security features to improve Okrut Friends Export, yet it apparently didn’t bother to test the functionality after adding said feature. If they had, they would have immediately realized it was broken, like so many users did immediately. Google is a company meticulous about its testing of things, so that seems a bit odd. 2) The fact that Google would add additional security measures immediately following the revelation that Facebook had a tool it was promoting in India to allow users to easily import their Orkut friends is interesting. And by “interesting,” I mean suspicious. Does Facebook’s importing tool still work? Anyone in India, feel free to let us know in the comment. I’m not saying this wasn’t, in fact, a bug. I’m just saying that the timing of said bug was interesting to say the least. And it certainly doesn’t seem like the usually careful Google cared very much about creating a bug that stopped the hemorrhaging of its Orkut users over to Facebook in India. Sometimes “bugs” are convenient until you get called out on them. Just sayin’. [photo: flickr/the consumerist] Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Design Community Decorati Will Be Your Personal Interior Decorator Posted: 02 Oct 2009 10:57 AM PDT  The interior design industry has been characterized as archaic thanks to a lack of digital presence. Decorati is hoping to change this by digitizing and democratizing the interior design space with its online platform for both interior decorators and consumers who are looking for professional design advice and guidance. Interior designer and Decorati founder Shane Reilly was frustrated that trade-only manufacturers which produced high-end furniture did not publish their listings of products online. Interior designers would have drive to a design center to see samples or flip through three-ring paper binders for trade-only products, and then submit a purchase order via fax or mail. To offer decorators an easy alternative, Decorati pools manufacturer data online and made it searchable across type, price, and lead time. The site has furniture listings from over 500 manufacturers who typically show only in design center showrooms. And with Decorati’s platform, consumers can shop for these products without needing a professional license, democratizing the industry. It used to be through word of mouth or business listings that consumers were able to find interior decorators. Decorati, which has a database of over 20,000 designers across the U.S., allows consumers to search for interior decorators by location and type of design. On the flip side, consumers can submit a project inquiry to Decorati's Design Advisors program and Decorati will match them with up to five designers that match the consumer’s style and needs. This is also a revenue stream for Decorati, because designers purchase the leads. Decorati also makes money from commissions from any product bought via the site’s platform and through advertising on the site. Another compelling feature on Decorati is the ability for interior designers to upload portfolios and tag each piece of furniture and accessory with identifying information. This benefits the designer because the portfolio is linked wherever the product shows up, and it lets the consumers can see how to use the product. And Decorati has recruited several big-name investors, board members and advisors, including Peter Thiel (investor), Keith Rabois (board member), Steve Chen (advisor), Michael and Xochi Birch (advisors), and Scott Faber (advisor). While the prices for furniture on Decorati aren’t cheap, the site definitely lowers the costs by letting consumers access high-end furniture and design ideas without the help of a costly decorator. And if you do want to hire a professional, the site makes it fairly easy to find one that matches your needs. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| First There Was Pirate, Now Facebook Comes In Latin Posted: 02 Oct 2009 10:22 AM PDT
Okay, now Facebook is just showing off. Having translated Facebook into more than 70 languages, including “Pirate,” it’s run out of living languages and the site is now available in Latin. What’s next, Klingon? Actually, what’s next is whatever Facebook’s users want it to be because they are the ones doing the translating. Facebook crowdsources the translation of its site. During the protests in Iran this summer, Facebook was quickly translated into Farsi. This approach has been so successful that Facebook is now making its translation tools available to any other site or app which uses Facebook Connect. And that’s sort of the point. There should be no language barriers on the Web. Any page should be available in any language. That’s an ideal, of course, but Facebook’s ability to tap into native speakers and amateur translators around the world makes that goal slightly less daunting. Even Google Translate doesn’t offer Latin. (Photo credit: Flickr/Rachel Scott Halls) Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
The battle over your online identity rages on. Google Friend Connect, the search giant’s platform that lets you accept Google and OpenID accounts on your site, has 
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