The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- The Chevy Volt Is Now Officially On Sale For $41K MSRP Minus Up To A $7,500 Tax Credit
- Apple’s Innovative New… Battery Charger?
- 37signals Buys Campfire iPhone App Ember
- Collaborative Mapping Startup CloudMade Lands $12.3 Million From Greylock
- Dude-Centric Video Network Break Media Moves Into 3D Programming
- After 6 Years, Apple Laying 30-Inch Display To Rest. New 27-Inch LED To Rule Supreme
- Stieg Larsson Is The First Author To Reach One Million Books Sold On The Amazon Kindle Store
- Lookout’s App Genome Project Identifies iPhone And Android App Security Threats
- Microsoft Releases Power Counter for Green Consumers
- Yahoo: comScore Underreported Our U.S. Page Views By 1 Billion Last June
- Apple On The Defensive: Jailbreaking Your iPhone May Be legal But It’ll Still Void Your Warranty
- Apple Outs A 27-inch, 16:9 Cinema Display
- GameStop Acquires Social Gaming Site Kongregate
- The Apple iMac And Mac Pro Get CPU, GPU Bumps In Latest Refresh
- Voilà! Apple’s Magic Trackpad Appears. Multi-Touch On Any Mac For $69
- LearnVest Launches Financial Bootcamp Programs To Keep Women Fiscally Fit
- Yahoo Japan To Use Google Search (And Not Bing) In The Future
- Seesmic Web Adds Desktop App-Like Abilities, Facebook And LinkedIn Support
- Listiki Offers A Smart Way Of Gathering Opinion Through Crowdsourced Lists
- ZumoCast Is Like Cloud Storage Without The Cloud, Or The Cost
- Digg Vs. Reddit: The Infographic
- Zittrain: No Get Out Of Jail Free Card For Jailbreak Developers
- HTC To Sell HTC-Branded Android, Windows Mobile Smartphones In China
- Why Clicking On Cows Brings Us Closer Together
- Don’t Get Excited About Google’s Mysterious Punch Just Yet
| The Chevy Volt Is Now Officially On Sale For $41K MSRP Minus Up To A $7,500 Tax Credit Posted: 27 Jul 2010 09:01 AM PDT
The Volt will slowly roll out nationwide starting with California, New York, Michigan, Connecticut, Texas, New Jersey, and the Washington D.C. area. GetMyVolt.com will locate your nearest dealership who should be able to start processing orders as soon as today. Customers will then receive a phone call from a dedicated Volt advisor who will be able to answer any further questions. But will GM have any issue moving the $41k Volt off of dealer’s lots? Probably not.      
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| Apple’s Innovative New… Battery Charger? Posted: 27 Jul 2010 08:17 AM PDT
But just because it’s not as big or a pricey as Apple’s other new toys, don’t think Apple loves it any less. In fact, when I spoke to Apple today about their new products, they made sure to dedicate some time to talking all about this new battery charger. Apple says it’s proud of its new “sleek and very compact” battery charger because they managed to take a product that other companies have been doing for a while and perfect it. “The honest truth is that most [manufacturers] don’t care about these,” an Apple representative told me. This allowed Apple to come in and create a product that performs ten times better than the industry average, they say. What they mean by this is that their battery charger uses only 30 milliwatts when it completes a charge cycle thanks to sensors — many other draw 300 or more milliwatts in the same setting. “We’ve engineering these chargers to have the lowest power vampire draw of any AA chargers,” Apple says. Vampire draw. Nice. Apple is selling this charger for $29 but that comes with 6 rechargeable AA NiMH batteries. “These are very long shelf-life batteries,” I was told. Apple’s website claim they can last up to 10 years. “No more late night trips to Walgreens,” an Apple representative joked. So why six? Apple envisions people using two of them in their wireless keyboards, two in their Magic Mouse or new Magic Trackpad, and then two that will remain in the charger in case the others run out. No word on the margins Apple is seeing on these bad boys.      
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| 37signals Buys Campfire iPhone App Ember Posted: 27 Jul 2010 08:03 AM PDT
37signals founder Jason Fried says that Ember’s iPhone app, which was developed by app developer Overcommitted, lets you chat, view transcripts, jump between rooms, share pictures in a Campfire chat. The app caught Fried’s eye earlier this year and the company decided to buy the developer and re-launch Ember as Campfire for the iPhone. The app, which was priced at $9.99, is now free. 37signals also develops Basecamp, a project management and collaboration application; Highrise, a contact management platform; and Backpack, and information organization application.      
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| Collaborative Mapping Startup CloudMade Lands $12.3 Million From Greylock Posted: 27 Jul 2010 07:55 AM PDT
CloudMade's platform allows third parties to create applications with stylized and customized map tiles, fully featured turn-by-turn navigation, in-app advertising, local search and data sets relevant to thousands of consumer activities. CloudMade distributes its collaborative mapping, package maps, geo services and advertising to developers and businesses; its main customers are mobile developers, OEMs and network operators. Some of the 12,000-plus developers using CloudMade’s API include Skobbler, OffMaps, Geocaching, Trails, Ride the City, GayCities, Dopplr and MotionX GPS. The startup uses data from partnership with OpenStreetMap (OSM), a wiki map of the world that has over 250,000 users worldwide (and is adding 3,500 new users per week), making over 7,000 edits per hour. CloudMade’s CEO Juha Christensen likens the relationship between his company and OSM to that of the Mozilla Corporation and the non-profit arm Mozilla Foundation. In fact, OpenStreetMap founder Steve Coast works at CloudMade. The company will use the funding to attempt to build the world's most comprehensive map and geo database, and serve this data to developers, device manufacturers and mobile Christensen believes that collaborative mapping will do to the mapping industry what Wikipedia did to encyclopedias. Of course, the startup faces competition in space, including Google. But CloudMade has built a loyal base of developers and OpenStreetMap seems to have no lack of participation from the crowd, making its data incredibly valuable.      
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| Dude-Centric Video Network Break Media Moves Into 3D Programming Posted: 27 Jul 2010 07:55 AM PDT
Break Media's has nine branded properties, which include Break.com, MadeMan, Chickipedia, Cage Potato, Holy Taco, Screen Junkies, and All Left Turns, and also operates an ad network. While the Break’s CEO CEO, Keith Richman says that there isn’t a wealth of 3D content on the web at the moment, he believes that demand will steadily increase and wants to get into the game early. Break’s original content that it will be created in-house includes X3D, an extreme sports series with skateboarding, Motocross, BMX, and MMA videos; Scare3D, a horror series that presents the viewer with a new frightening scenario each week; and Life in 3D, a series that takes a unique look at everyday objects and surroundings and exposes them in all their 3D glory. And Break will be also incorporating 3D video into the advertising products it offers through its in-house ad server, Apex. Richman says that the 3D video offering will also give advertisers another way to create innovative campaigns to attract clicks. But will people look to their computers for web 3D programming? 3D games have certainly taken off. It’s unclear if it will actually gain traction, especially if 4D catches on. Break Media recently acquired gaming site FileFront and launched a campaign to upload more UGC to its video platform. The media network also launched a new Twitter-focused web show, called Tweet Boxx.      
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| After 6 Years, Apple Laying 30-Inch Display To Rest. New 27-Inch LED To Rule Supreme Posted: 27 Jul 2010 07:54 AM PDT
Apple is discontinuing both the 24-inch LED Cinema Display as well as the older 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Displays they had been selling. When asked why, an Apple representative said this new 27-inch version was seen as “ideal for the uses we see most people having.” It was also noted that the 27-inch model features 60 percent more pixels than the 24-inch one, and because of its 16×9 ratio, it actually has the same number of pixels horizontally (2560) as the older 30-inch model (though slightly less vertically: 1600 versus 1440). This latest display is also Apple’s first stand-alone display that uses the edge-to-edge glass now common in Apple’s iMac line (the previously 24-inch Cinema Display had a small silver bezel). The 27-inch also has a new, lower response time of 12ms. And at $999, the 27-inch Cinema Display is also only $100 more than the 24-inch was previously. Apple says that it will continue to sell the 24-inch model at a slightly discounted $799 price until supplies run out. Previously, the 30-inch Cinema HD Display was selling for $1,799 and that will continue until it runs out of stock as well. This move to one model is actually a move back to the way Apple originally sold its first Cinema Displays. When they first went on sale in 1999, there was one 22-inch model. It wasn’t until 2002 that a second, 23-inch model was introduced, and the following year brought a new 20-inch model (while the original 22-inch was discontinued). In June 2004, the 30-inch model was unveiled — basically the same one now being laid to rest. That monitor was always a bit tricky because it required a Dual Link DVI capable graphics card. These new LED Cinema Displays only need a Mini Display Port input. I asked Apple if the discontinuation of all other monitors meant we might see new, larger displays down the line. Specifically, I was wondering about the possibility that Apple could enter the HD television market. Not surprisingly, Apple wouldn’t comment on future roadmaps. For now, all we have in the 27-inch model.      
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| Stieg Larsson Is The First Author To Reach One Million Books Sold On The Amazon Kindle Store Posted: 27 Jul 2010 07:47 AM PDT
     
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| Lookout’s App Genome Project Identifies iPhone And Android App Security Threats Posted: 27 Jul 2010 07:46 AM PDT Lookout, a company that offers security data backup services for smartphones, is announcing the results of its App Genome Project, a continued effort to map and study mobile applications to identify security threats in the wild, and determine how apps are using users’ personal data. The App Genome Project has already scanned nearly 300,000 free applications, and fully mapped nearly 100,000 applications available in both Android Market and the App Store. Early findings show differences in the sensitive data that is typically accessed by Android and iPhone applications and a proliferation of third party code in applications across both platforms. For example, results found that Android applications are generally less likely than iPhone apps to be capable of accessing a person's contact list or retrieving their location, with 29% of free applications for Android having the ability to access a user's location, compared to 33% of free applications on iPhone. Of course, this isn’t a huge difference, but again, this is early data. Additionally, Lookout says that nearly twice as many free applications have the capability to access people's contact data on iPhone (14%) as compared to Android (8%). The App Genome Project also found that a large proportion of applications contain third-party code, which is used generally for advertising or analytics. The project found that 47% of free Android apps included third-party code, while that number is just 23% on iPhone. Lookout's web-based, cloud-connected application indentifies and block threats on a consumer's phone. Users simply download the software to a device, and it will act as a virus protector much like security software downloaded to a computer. Lookout, which just raised $11 million from Accel, Khosla and others, says the growth in smartphone adoption, mobile app downloads and increased consumer awareness of mobile security threats have helped make the offering a popular and necessary option for users. For now Lookout, which is on more than 400 mobile networks in 170 countries and recently topped one million users, is only available for BlackBerry, Android and Windows Mobile devices. Lookout has over 80% of its users on Android and BlackBerry with the remaining users on Windows Mobile. And 70% of users are in the US.      
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| Microsoft Releases Power Counter for Green Consumers Posted: 27 Jul 2010 06:44 AM PDT Always on the cutting edge of “stuff that goes onto your power meter in the basement and you forget about” technology, Microsoft and Blue Line Innovations have teamed up to release the Hohm PowerCost Monitor and WiFi Gateway. The device sticks to your power meter and reads the actual usag (N.B. it may not work on some older meters) and then transmits it to your Windows PC. The kit presumably forces you to change your habits by showing you just how much power you’re using at any one time.      
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| Yahoo: comScore Underreported Our U.S. Page Views By 1 Billion Last June Posted: 27 Jul 2010 06:17 AM PDT Yahoo just put out a press release calling out comScore for seriously underreporting the site’s U.S. page views and duration metrics in its June report. Yahoo says an error skewed the numbers in the June 2010 publication pretty badly – the company claims comScore underreported its U.S. page views by more than one billion and its duration metrics by more than 850 million minutes. Based on the corrected numbers, on a month-over-month basis, Yahoo!'s U.S. page views were down 4.7 percent versus the reported 7.4 percent, Yahoo says. For the record: comScore hasn’t given any statements regarding the alleged error yet, but Yahoo says the measurement company is committed to issuing the correct numbers in the company's next data release. The Internet company adds that it saw itself forced to make the statement today due the sheer size of the error. I like how the press release is titled to make it seem comScore is actually the one stepping forward with a statement: “comScore Reports Error in Yahoo! June Page View and Duration Metrics”. It’s the details. Chief exec Carol Bartz also had some passive-agressive words for the company to spare:
Update: comScore EVP Linda Boland Abraham has now commented on Yahoo’s press release via the company blog:
Just two weeks ago comScore, in its June video metrix stats, which included data on online video ad impressions, erred as well. ComScore claimed Americans viewed more than 4.3 billion video ads in June, with Hulu generating the highest number of ad views at 566 million while Google Sites (including YouTube) only accounted for 200 million ad views. However, comScore's data was only for streaming-video advertising and did not include other types of video monetization, such as overlays, branded players, matching banner ads, homepage ads, and so on.      
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| Apple On The Defensive: Jailbreaking Your iPhone May Be legal But It’ll Still Void Your Warranty Posted: 27 Jul 2010 06:15 AM PDT
     
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| Apple Outs A 27-inch, 16:9 Cinema Display Posted: 27 Jul 2010 06:07 AM PDT
     
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| GameStop Acquires Social Gaming Site Kongregate Posted: 27 Jul 2010 05:49 AM PDT Video game and software retailer GameStop is buying Kongregate, a social gaming destination and community site for gamers. The purchase price was not disclosed, but the transaction is expected to close within a week, subject to customary closing conditions. Kongregate co-founders (and brother and sister) Jim and Emily Greer will retain ownership over the site, as the company will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of GameStop and keep its San Francisco offices. Oh, and nice rickroll there at the end, Jim. Founded in 2007, Kongregate currently boasts 10 million monthly players who spend approximately 23 million hours per month on the site. GameStop is acquiring the site to become the “gaming aggregator of choice”, according to the press release. GameStop also acquired a gaming site called Jolt Online late last year. Kongregate shares revenue from advertising and virtual goods directly with over 8,500 developers who have uploaded games to the site. All games on the site are free to play, but Kongregate also features a virtual currency called kreds, which can be used to unlock additional features in some games. The company raised $9 million from investors like Greylock Partners, Bezos Expeditions and a group of angel investors led by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman. You can see how the community responds to the news in this forum post.      
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| The Apple iMac And Mac Pro Get CPU, GPU Bumps In Latest Refresh Posted: 27 Jul 2010 05:48 AM PDT
     
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| Voilà! Apple’s Magic Trackpad Appears. Multi-Touch On Any Mac For $69 Posted: 27 Jul 2010 05:40 AM PDT As you may have noticed, Apple’s online store has been down the past few hours. The reason? New products. Most people seemed to be aware that new Mac Pros and iMacs were coming, but something new was just released too. Meet: the Magic Trackpad. As anticipated last week thanks to an FCC filing (and rumored months before that), the Magic Trackpad is basically a trackpad that you would find on a MacBook or MacBook Pro reworked as its own stand-alone Bluetooth product. “Why should notebooks have all the fun?,” Apple notes. With the Magic Trackpad, you’ll be able to use all the same multi-touch gestures you’re used to on your MacBook on any Mac. It’s also the largest multi-touch trackpad out there, Apple says, as it has 80 percent more area than the trackpads found on the MacBook Pros. If placed alongside the Apple wireless keyboards, you’ll notice it’s the same basic size (just not as wide, obviously). The multi-touch gestures Apple is highlighting include the two-finger scroll, the three-finger swipe, and the two-finger rotate. There are a host of others as well, such as four-finger swipes up or down to trigger Expose. These are all things that MacBook Pro users will be well aware of. The entire thing is also clickable, just like a MacBook trackpad. In other words, you can ditch your mouse with this product, if you want to. Speaking of the mouse, the Magic Trackpad follows the release of Apple’s Magic Mouse, which brought some limited multi-touch functionality to Apple’s desktop machines. All of this is a part of Apple’s overall movement towards touch computing — it’s no coincidence that the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and all Macs now incorporate multi-touch to some degree. Apple clearly views this method of input as the future. Apple is selling the Magic Trackpad starting today for $69 — the same price as Magic Mouse. The trackpad runs on two AA batteries — and Apple has a new battery charger product for AA batteries being launched today also. Apple says that the thing should work for “months” at a time as it sense periods of inactivity and powers down. Thanks to its Bluetooth connection, you can use it up to 33 feet away from your machine — something which may be nice if you have one of the new Mac minis hooked up to your TV. Sadly, Magic Trackpad requires OS X Snow Leopard (10.6.4), presumably because of some of the newer multi-touch gestures built-in to the OS.      
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| LearnVest Launches Financial Bootcamp Programs To Keep Women Fiscally Fit Posted: 27 Jul 2010 04:55 AM PDT
LearnVest has a simple goal: to help women organize their finances and learn how to become financially savvy. It's kind of like an online version of financial planner Suze Orman blended with personal finance site Mint.com. Today, the startup is launching three online programs, called ‘bootcamps,’ to educate women on various financial subjects, including a Financial Basics Bootcamp, Cut Your Costs Bootcamp, and Investing Bootcamp. Instead of creating a book-like online experience, LearnVest is making email newsletters the foundation of the educational sessions. For example, the Investing Bootcamp, which costs users $7.99, teaches women how to make smart investing decisions and properly allocate their portfolios. For three weeks, women will receive daily emails with advice and actionable items that they can perform on LearnVest, making the newsletter interactive. For example, for the Financial Basics bootcamp, one of the daily actionable items is ‘Get Your Credit Score.’ Cut Your Costs Bootcamp topic range from Bootcamp topics range from ways to save on energy bills to exactly how to negotiate a lower cable bill. Learnvest will incorporate all of the information users complete and input in bootcamps into their LearnVest account. Alexa von Tobel, LearnVest’s CEO and founder, tells me that the idea is to encourage women to not only learn, but also motivate them to make actionable decisions about their accounts and finances at the same time. She chose a newsletter format because the ‘LearnVest woman’ simply doesn’t have time to read the same information in a book. Women are more inclined to read a daily tidbit in an email vs. sitting down with a book, says von Tobel. LearnVest held a pilot bootcamp in January and saw impressive results—8,000 people signed up for the basic financial bootcamp. With the new additions LearnVest expects to sign up a total of 40,000 participants. LearnVest plans to launch additional bootcamps in the future, including sessions realted to how to get a mortgage for a home. The integration between the bootcamp educational sessions and the user’s LearnVest profile is key to the success of the initiative. As we wrote in our initial review of LearnVest, the site will ask you a series of questions about your financial health (i.e. how much credit card debt do you have), you life stages (i.e. do you rent, are you planning a family soon, do you own a house) and your financial education level and will diagnose your financial health and give you a snapshot of what you need to learn and improve. LearnVest will create customized plans for you, depending on your goals, and allow you to chart off your improvements and achievements. Von Tobel says that LearnVest is steadily adding more female users flock to its site and is currently seeing 500K uniques per month. The next step is to take the site mobile, says von Tobel, and help women access LearnVest on the go.      
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| Yahoo Japan To Use Google Search (And Not Bing) In The Future Posted: 27 Jul 2010 04:27 AM PDT
Yahoo Japan says the date the switch becomes effective has yet to be determined. Under the agreement, users of the service will be served both paid and algorithmic search results generated by Google technology on the backend (other contents, i.e. links to Yahoo Japan’s Q&A service, will remain in place). Before going for Yahoo Search Technology, Yahoo Japan actually used Google’s search engine from April 2001 to May 2004. Bing, whose Japanese version moved out of beta two weeks ago, won’t play a role for the time being, however. Yahoo in the US already issued a statement on the Yahoo Japan-Google pact, stressing the Tokyo office made the decision to go for Google as a separate entity and that it “does not impact the global rollout and implementation of the Yahoo! search alliance with Microsoft, except in the Japanese market.” For context, it’s worth noting that Yahoo Japan is not only Japan’s leading search engine but the country’s biggest website. Yahoo in the US actually owns just a stake of around 35% in Yahoo Japan, which is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange ($23 billion market cap). The majority owner (around 40%) is Tokyo-based technology juggernaut SoftBank. The Yahoo Japan-Google deal gives both companies a massive share of the Internet search market in the world’s third largest Internet nation (100 million web users). According to market research company NetRatings (Nielsen Online Japan), Yahoo Japan boasted around 2.5 billion search queries in June this year, clearly outpacing Google (1.6 billion). Microsoft Live/MSN/Bing commanded around 144 million of the total 4.9 billion search queries from Japanese home and office computers in that month.      
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| Seesmic Web Adds Desktop App-Like Abilities, Facebook And LinkedIn Support Posted: 27 Jul 2010 04:07 AM PDT If Brizzly wouldn’t be slower than molasses in January, I would have long deemed it my Twitter web client of choice (I don’t like running too many desktop clients if I can avoid it – switching tabs in my browser is much quicker). However, it is as slow as a tortoise, so I took a look at the new Twitter.com (testing inline media nowadays) and Seesmic Web for good measure as I tend to use the latter on my iPhone and Android phones. One thing the Web app has always lacked, is support for Facebook. However, there in the sidebar was the Facebook logo, along with that of LinkedIn and Foursquare. Turns out support for the latter was added last month, along with Ping.fm. The Facebook and LinkedIn integrations, to the best of my knowledge, are brand new. You can now see status updates and comment on them in separate Seesmic columns, and in the case of Facebook it also allows you to ‘like’ and email things so you can easily share stuff with your friends straight from the Web client. I also noticed that, at least in Google Chrome, there are desktop notifications that pop up when you receive direct messages or when someone mentions your username or replies to one of your tweets on Twitter. I’ve only had it for about an hour, and I’m already used to it. Who needs desktop applications anyway, when HTML5-enabled apps behave like this? Update: Seesmic just confirmed the new Web client on their blog. Aside from Facebook and LinkedIn account integration and HTML5 desktop notifications for Chrome, the new client also comes with a fresh design and new visual clues, as well as support for additional languages (Indonesian, Korean, Polish and Dutch).      
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| Listiki Offers A Smart Way Of Gathering Opinion Through Crowdsourced Lists Posted: 27 Jul 2010 02:56 AM PDT  Listiki (a portmanteau of the words "list" and "wiki") lets you crowdsource lists of, well, anything. This could be something as trivial as a list of the 'top ten horror movies' or something more self-serving like, I don't know, '5 must-read tech bloggers'. Lists can be as short or as long as you like and each item may also include a URL. But here's the clever bit: any list can, effectively, be cloned so that you can re-order items to your own taste (via drag 'n' drop) or even add, delete and/or replace them. Any changes made are interpreted in real time and ripple through to a 'master' list, aggregating the opinions of all contributors but without destroying your own version of the list. You can also, of course, view the original lists of other contributors to that subject. It's pretty neat.
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| ZumoCast Is Like Cloud Storage Without The Cloud, Or The Cost Posted: 27 Jul 2010 02:44 AM PDT
A year and a half ago Y Combinator startup Zecter launched a cloud storage service called Zumodrive, with a twist – Zumodrive creates a drive on your device that is synced to the cloud. But instead of syncing those files with all of your other devices, Zumodrive tricks the file system into thinking those cloud-stored files are local, and streams them from the cloud when you open or access them. That makes it perfect for mobile devices with limited local storage. HP has tapped Zecter to provide cloud storage on netbook devices. And they have mobile apps for all the usual suspects. But that doesn’t solve the problem of storage costs. All the cloud storage startups are charging an arm and a leg for decent storage. 100 GB on ZumuDrive is $20/month, for example. Enter ZumoCast. Install it on your Mac or Windows computer and tell it what files to make available to the app. Then install it on your iPad or phone and stream those files directly from your main computer. In tests today it streamed high definition video seamlessly to my iPad over Wifi. It looked quite snappy, actually. CEO David Zhao says they use the same technology behind ZumoDrive to automatically adjust for bandwidth fluctuation, and transcoding on the fly means most file types, as long as they don’t have DRM, stream fine. It’s a great application for accessing home videos, music and pictures. And the application also allows you to locally store a file as well if you like, so you can watch a DVD rip originally on your home computer during a long flight. Best of all is the price – free. Zhao says eventually they’ll charge for additional services with a freemium product. The app is still in approval at Apple, but Zhao says he’ll let as many TechCrunch readers get the beta version as he can. Use this URL – http://www.zumocast.com/?i=techcrunch – to sign up.      
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| Digg Vs. Reddit: The Infographic Posted: 27 Jul 2010 02:37 AM PDT There’s always been a form of healthy rivalry between Reddit and Digg, and its respective user bases. I’m one of those indifferent people who think there’s plenty of room for multiple sites of the kind, and that these sites actually make each other stronger and better in their state of co-existence. Rising tide lifting all boats and all that. Nevertheless, I was keen on sharing an email from reader Harry Maugans, which we received moments ago:
Well Harry, we happen to think so too (click the image for a larger version). I’ll let the actual infographic do the rest of the talking:      
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| Zittrain: No Get Out Of Jail Free Card For Jailbreak Developers Posted: 27 Jul 2010 02:07 AM PDT There’s been much ado about DMCA’s latest ruling, particularly its “jailbreaking” provision, which allows users to run applications that are not approved by their phone maker (ahem, Apple). In less than 24 hours, hundreds have opined on the matter, some wondering what kind of Pandora’s box this ruling could unleash upon iPhone’s carefully manicured Garden of Eden. Take for instance, PC World’s Lance Ulanoff, who described an “open season on iPhone, AT&T and others,” a world where jailbreaking services banded, “together to create a business organization. They could sue Apple and AT&T, claiming the companies [were] undermining their ability to conduct business.” While the image of newly empowered developers taking pitchforks to Apple’s guarded ecosystem is a vivid one, Jon Zittrain, Harvard Law professor of internet law and the author of The Future Of The Internet And How To Stop It, doesn’t buy it. Video above. (For those who want a primer on DMCA, Zittrain provides a nice synopsis in the first three minutes of the interview, if you want to skip ahead go to the 2:40 mark.) He says the DMCA exemption is a key, symbolic victory for the open campaign— but in many ways, a legal paper tiger:
Thus, while consumers are in the clear (as least when it comes to copyright law– forget about your warranty) developers do not get an automatic get out of jail free card when they market and distribute jailbreaking services. If Zittrain was in Apple’s position, he would advise Steve Jobs to maintain the app store but open up the ecosystem to give users the option to “off-road.” Speaking more realistically; however, he predicts a real surge in jailbreaking could trigger an arms race between Apple and developers, a battle decided not in the courts but in the operating system: “If they’re gathered back at the lodge and trying to figure out how to respond to this, I’m not sure they’re going to be that dejected. They might just be like “All right, game on!” You guys want to hack the iPhone, we’ll try to brick it, if we detect it jailbroken in certain ways. So they certainly have their options. “      
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| HTC To Sell HTC-Branded Android, Windows Mobile Smartphones In China Posted: 27 Jul 2010 01:56 AM PDT Taiwan-based phone manufacturer HTC has been selling smartphones in China under the name Dopod for many years, but this morning the company announced that it will soon start selling TD-SCDMA-based phones with the HTC brand actually attached to them. In a press release issued moments ago, the company said it has teamed up with carrier China Mobile to bring future HTC phones to market and formed a new distribution partnership with China’s largest electronics distributor, GOME Electrical Appliances. Initially coming to mainland China are HTC’s newly unveiled smartphones with the Sense user interface: The HTC Tianxi, Tianyi, Desire and Wildfire. The latter products are familiar high-end Android phones – they will be carried by mobile operator China Unicom – but this was the first I’d ever heard of the HTC Tianxi and HTC Tianyi. According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, those two new phones will are touch-screen models designed exclusively for China Mobile. One will apparently be a high-end model running Microsoft Windows Mobile OS (this one, perhaps?), the other a mid-priced device running Android. HTC reportedly expects the handsets will be available to consumers in September or October 2010. Last year, HTC shipped 12 million phones globally. North America accounts for 50 percent of its market share, Europe for 30 percent while 20 percent comes from the rest of the world. HTC says the move to introduce its proper brand in China is to enable it provide more after-sales service to consumers, but it’s undoubtedly also a strategy to protect itself from the fast-growing number of counterfeit HTC devices that are increasingly available on the Chinese market, as well as a way for the company to gear up for the battle against Research in Motion, Nokia and of course Apple, which isn’t yet selling the iPhone 4 in China although it introduced the iPhone 3GS in October 2009. If you’re interested in this market, you should read our recent guest post on why Android is poised to dominate in China. (Hat tip to Global Times)      
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| Why Clicking On Cows Brings Us Closer Together Posted: 26 Jul 2010 09:33 PM PDT A Facebook game about Facebook games was inevitable; Hence "Cow Clicker," a spoof Facebook app created by game theorist Ian Bogost in an attempt to distill the appeal of Zynga games like FarmVille, Mafia Wars and FrontierVille. Between Scamville, Mark Pincus’ “every horrible thing in the book” comments, and a particularly unfortunate speech at the GDC, 2010 is the year to hate on social games — viewed by many gaming industry developers to be simplistic derivatives requiring no talent or skill. Whether Zynga games are successful because they give users valuable social experiences or because they are, according Bogost’s fellow game theorist Jesper Juul, "brain hacks that exploit human psychology in order to make money," people will always be willing to play up the latter theory. The word “exploit” added to any article makes for great pageviews. As do extreme examples, like the case of the kid who ran up a $1,400 debt on his parents’ credit card trying to pimp out his farm. With both Zynga and another social gaming entity of a different kind, Foursquare, vying for a spot on tech’s A-list, I'm betting on Zynga — or at least aligning my bet with consumers to the return of an estimated $500 million (or more) in revenue this year. It’s hard to argue with that or the more macro level evidence that these things are universally beloved. While it's really easy to snub your nose at your cousin for posting [insert laughable Zynga update here] to your news feed, the force of 61 million monthly users is no laughable thing. Cow Clicker seems to be riding on the coattails of this popularity, as it’s up to 15,000 users in its first week. Bogost told TechCrunch:
Is Bogost hinting that we’re all all heading towards some kind of compulsive virtual dystopia? "Zynga et all are doing something subtler. It’s more like selling corn-sweetened processed foods, perhaps." Sweetened processed foods you can share with your friends. Both Zynga and Cow Clicker are in the business of selling status in pixels. Clicking on a cow or buying a pink tractor or spending real money on fake night vision goggles is now the digital version of “keeping up with the Joneses.”      
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| Don’t Get Excited About Google’s Mysterious Punch Just Yet Posted: 26 Jul 2010 08:11 PM PDT
In other words, Google is testing a new version of Docs, Spreadsheets, Presentations, or one of its other existing apps, and just needed something to call it. So what exactly is this new editor going to feature? It’s possible that Google is working to integrate DocVerse, the service it acquired in March that allows users to collaborate on Microsoft Office files. The software will give Google a bridge between native Microsoft Office clients and Google Docs, which will be a big deal. Or perhaps Punch could be the next version of Google’s Presentation app (note that the icons are quite similar).      
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The 
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Following the 
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No idea how this will fly in court, but here we go. 
The Cinema Display has always been a top-tier LCD monitor option and this new model is no different. The 27-inch sports an actually astonding 2560 x 1440 resolution – that’s 60% more pixels over the 24-inch model. Of course LED is tasked with the backlighting and connectivity is done though Mini DisplayPort connector. There’s also three rear-facing USB ports, stereo speakers and a built-in iSight located in the top bezel. The only downside, however, is the price. Yeah, all this fun doesn’t come cheap. 
Can’t say we didn’t see this coming. It seemed like each day there was another random source or sign that Apple was preparing to update the 
Personal finance site for women 
Earlier today Google Operating System 
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