Google ha da poco rilasciato il nuovo redesign di Google Reader che riprende le linee e stile generale introdotto prima su Google+ e quindi su tutti gli altri suoi prodotti.

A me in generale questo nuovo stile piace molto, minimale, bianco e nero, accenti colorati nei posti giusti… è ok.

Non fosse però che stanno facendo un uso eccessivo dello “spazio bianco” che senz’altro aiuta la leggibilità, ma in questo caso uccide gli spazi del sito: su Google Reader lo spazio verticale usato di base è folle, si è lasciato al contenuto veramente troppo poco spazio e su risoluzioni medio basse rimane praticamente mezza pagina per il contenuto, è inaccettabile.

Ecco quindi arrivare in nostro aiuto Stylish, una comodissima estensione per Firefox e per Chrome che ci permette di modificare i CSS di un sito, sostituendoli o integrandoli con nuovi fatti ad hoc.

- Stylish per Firefox
- Stylish per Chrome

Una volta installato Stylish sul nostro browser preferito ecco che potremo aggiungere uno stile personalizzato per Google Reader, ne stanno arrivando svariati, ma quello che uso io è per ora il più compatto:

- Google Reader+ Minimal

Si perde la ricerca, ma a me interessa poco visto che non la uso mai… il risultato sarà un Google Reader bello compatto e molto più incentrato sul contenuto invece che sull’interfaccia.

Continue reading Nikon D300s travels to the edge of space, survives to share the results

Nikon D300s travels to the edge of space, survives to share the results originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 23 Oct 2011 14:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Steve Jobs was the ultimate showman. As such, it should be no surprise that he realized the power of following up a great performance with an encore. But unlike many musicians who treat encores as a given add-on for each show, Jobs seemed to recognize that encores are much more powerful if they’re used judiciously. The Steve Jobs encore was the “One more thing…” He didn’t use it all the time, and because of that, when he did, it would whip the audience into a frenzy.

Following his passing, the question now turns to what Jobs was working on in his final days. Surely, the master showman has something to present us with even though he’s no longer around to show it off, right? After he stepped down as CEO in August, I made the case that his final “One more thing…” was actually Apple itself. That his last great product was actually a self-sustaining company that could continue to pump out innovation even after he’s gone. Hopefully that will be the case. But it’s sure starting to look like he may have had a few tangible “One last thing…” products up his sleeve as well.

In the weeks following his death, reports have been popping up that he was working on a few new things, perhaps even up to the day before his passing on October 5. One of these projects is said to be the iPhone 5 (or whatever it will be called). This isn’t the iPhone 4S, but rather a completely redesigned version of the phone. If you believe the report by CNet’s Brooke Crothers, Jobs was not very involved in the 4S itself because he was focusing his time on the 5. Crothers goes so far as to say this was Jobs’ “last big project”.

Considering the iPhone is Apple’s key product now (at least in terms of revenue), certainly one final version revamped by Jobs himself would be a worthy final project. But Jobs clearly loved to transform different industries with his new innovations. The iPhone 5 probably doesn’t fit that bill — he already disrupted that industry. Further, other reports now suggest Jobs had his hands in other things in his final months.

Jobs’ upcoming biography is the source for a lot of this new information. Even though the book won’t be out until Monday, several tidbits have leaked out over the past few days. Consider that sentence a verbose SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!

Another potential “One more thing…” for Jobs is apparently digital textbooks for the iPad. “Mr. Jobs’s biographer Walter Isaacson says in the book that Mr. Jobs viewed textbooks as the next business he wanted to transform,” Damon Darlin and Nick Wingfield reveal on The New York Times’ Bit blog. Jobs apparently went as far as having meetings with publishers about partnering with Apple to make this happen. And he was thinking about ways of circumventing state certification requirements (a tricky issue in the textbook market).

Revolutionizing textbooks may seem a bit ho-hum by Jobs’ standards, but it’s pretty clear that Jobs was passionate about the U.S. education system, and felt this country was falling behind. While digital textbooks may not have the sex appeal of the iPad itself, something of that nature could ultimately prove to be the most disruptive in the long run.

And then there’s the big one.

For years, there have been rumors of Apple working on a television. Not the current Apple TV, mind you — an actual television set. Once the Apple tablet became a reality with the iPad unveiling in 2010, the Apple television took over as the new mythical invention that everyone loves to contemplate. I’m guilty of this as well. A number of times, I’ve laid out why I think the television space is the next major market Apple will go after. Why? Simple. It’s extremely ripe for disruption.

But others have long disagreed. Most skeptics point to the fact that the television hardware market is rife with issues like very low margins, long product cycles, tough distribution, and an all-powerful industry (cable) that essentially makes the hardware their bitch. There are many good points being made. Of course, many of these things were previously said about the mobile phone industry, and even the PC industry before that. And most of these things are exactly what make the market so ready for disruption.

It would be a challenge, no doubt. But it’s the type of challenge that Apple under Jobs seemed to live for. And conquering such challenges is exactly why Apple has thrived.

So it’s not surprising for me to hear that Apple does indeed have plans in the television space. “The new biography on Steve Jobs has a major product reveal: Apple may drop a full-fledged television,” Hayley Tsukayama reports for The Washington Post. She calls this “Jobs’s final plan” — funny how many of these there seem to be, no?

Here’s the key part:

“He very much wanted to do for television sets what he had done for computers, music players, and phones: make them simple and elegant,” Isaacson wrote.

Isaacson continued: “‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,’ he told me. ‘It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.’ No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. ‘It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.’”

“I finally cracked it.” No four words have ever made me more excited.

Apparently, the biography doesn’t dive into any further details about the project. Quite frankly, while the fact that Apple is working in the space isn’t surprising, it is surprising that Jobs would say anything about it. Almost nothing has leaked out of the company with regard to the project. In fact, the only thing I’ve ever heard thrown around is a reference to a project codenamed “Sphere”. That’s it.

Considering how big the market is, and the amount of disruption that the television has brought not just to technology but various fields like entertainment and information, an Apple television would certainly seem to be a fitting last “One more thing…” for Jobs. Television is a core technology that touches billions, but it really hasn’t been fundamentally rethought in decades. Sure, the picture has gotten better and the content more expansive, but we’re now forced to interact with it through crappy cable boxes and remotes that I would call Fisher Price-esque — except that it would be a huge insult to Fisher Price.

So that’s what I’m hoping for from Jobs’ final “One more thing…” A new iPhone is and will be awesome. Re-imagined textbooks sound great and potentially very important. But I want Apple in my living room disrupting the stale status quo. There’s a reason that Apple refers to the current Apple TV as a “hobby” — it’s just a foot in the door to ensure that it doesn’t close as they work on something much bigger. The real product will see Jobs transform another massive industry — only this time he’ll do it posthumously.

One final rabbit out of one final hat from the master showman.

[image: flickr/ssoosay]

This morning Facebook announced Timeline, a crazy (and kind of creepy) omnibus look at everything that has ever happened in your Facebook lifespan. It’s like a story book of your life — or at least the online, documented parts.

Facebook said that Timeline would be on the way for everyone sometime in the coming weeks… which is great and all, for everyone else. You’re the type of person who reads TechCrunch, and are thus likely the type of person who likes their new and shiny things right now.

That’s okay. We can make it happen.

Fortunately, enabling Timeline a bit early isn’t too difficult — but it’s not at all straight forward, either.

You see, Facebook is enabling Timeline early for open graph developers. You, too, can be an open graph developer — even if you’re just looking to dabble.

A few things to note:
- You probably don’t want to do this unless you’re actually a developer. Expect bugs.
- Only you will see your timeline at first (unless you decide otherwise), but it will automatically go public after a few days. My timeline was automatically hard-set to go public on September 29th.
- It seems that if you login into Facebook on another machine, Timeline gets disabled automatically on all of your machines. With that said, it seems you can get back to your timeline (but ONLY after following the steps below) by navigating to http://www.facebook.com/YOURUSERNAMEHERE?sk=timeline
- You’ll need to have a “verified” account for one of the steps, which means you need a credit card or phone number attached to the account.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Log into Facebook

2. Enable developer mode, if you haven’t already. To do this, type “developer” into the Facebook search box, click the first result (it should be an app made by Facebook with a few hundred thousand users), and add the app.

3. Jump into the developer app (if Facebook doesn’t put you there automatically, it should be in your left-hand tool bar)

4. Create a new app (don’t worry — you wont actually be submitting this for anyone else to see/use). Give your shiny new app any display name and namespace you see fit. Read through and agree to the Platform Privacy agreement. This is the step you need to be verified for.

5. Ensure you’re in your new app’s main settings screen. You should see your app’s name near the top of the page

6. Look for the “Open Graph” header, and click the “Get Started using open graph” link.

Create a test action for your app, like “read” a “book”, or “eat” a “sandwich”

7. This should drop you into an action type configuration page. Change a few of the default settings (I changed the past tense of “read” to “redd” — again, only you can see this unless you try and submit your application to the public directory), and click through all three pages of settings

8. Wait 2-3 minutes

9. Go back to your Facebook homescreen. An invite to try Timeline should be waiting at the top of the page

And you’re done! We’ve seen this work quite a few times now, so it should work without a hitch for just about anyone.

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Self-taught mixed media artist based in NJ. My work is void of personal meaning, rather I passionately focuses on the emotional contrast of victory, redemption, and hope despite imminent tragedy, judgement, and ultimate annihilation.

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The Pen Type A (suggestive of a type B, but that doesn’t exist yet) is a stainless steel pen that uses Hi-Tec-C cartridges, apparently well-respected in the pen world (not a small world, as it turns out). The body is a single piece of steel and the cap unscrews using a dime or similarly sized torquing device. It comes with a case that doubles as a ruler, also stainless steel. I have to tell you, this is my pen.

Unfortunately I have been robbed of the pleasure of helping these guys meet their funding level, since they’ve raised over five times their original $2500 goal. On the bright side, that means they’ll soon be available for purchase. And here comes the other shoe: this pen will cost $99 once it’s in the wild. I guess that’s why quite a few people (2/3rds of their funding, in fact) comes from the $50 level, at which point in addition to a warm fuzzy feeling, you get a pen!

There’s still time to “donate.” Head over to Kickstarter and check out the gear. Congrats to the Pen Type A crew, I look forward to seeing these things around.

21 Islands and archipelagos
10 Ship chains
6 Bridge-cities
6 Red Sea [Biblical partings-of-the-water]
5 Bridges suspended with air ballons
4 Tensile structures
4 Funiculars
4 Tightropes
3 Rainbows
3 Markets
3 Airships
2 Underwater bridges
2 Roller coasters
2 Tunnels
1 No bridge
1 Geoengineering
1 Shopping mall
1 Zebra crossing
1 New continent
1 Swimming Pool

BIG has designed a 1000 EURO bill and a corresponding 1000 AFRO bill as a first proposal for a United African Currency—the AFRO.
The two bills portray the proposed connection across the Gibraltar Strait linking Europe and Africa. The bridge is conceived as an inhabited overpass uniting Euro-African typologies—such as Firenze’s Ponte Vecchio and Le Corbusier's Obus Plan for Algiers—into an intercontinental hybrid of city and infrastructure. The investment in concrete and steel doubles as load-bearing structure for living and working spaces for the many immigrants anticipated over the next decades, and will help establish the bridge itself as a bicontinental city in its own right.
The EURO bill draws on the current design template, emphasizing architecture as the common denominator between the various European cultures.
The AFRO combines great African landmarks—in this case, the bridge—with great African people of recent history who have contributed significantly to making a free united Africa a possibility.

Submitted by: djempuiw
Posted at: 2011-07-16 04:49:48
See full post and comment: http://9gag.com/gag/168803

I suppose they all thought they were all getting in on a gold rush of sorts. But the sameness of the various offerings has caused many a consumer’s eyes to glaze over in the aisles of Best Buy. It’s no wonder they end up going with an iPad when the other options try so pathetically to get consumers to care about trivial differences in hardware, and make vague promises of improvements coming down the line, over which they have no real control.

At the same time, a few companies have been bold enough to depart from the pattern enough that you can distinguish their product without squinting. But are these non-traditional designs going to galvanize an indifferent market or are they too much, too early?

Convertible Tablets

I just read a fairly reasonable article suggesting that these convertibles, like Asus’ Transformer, are going to be a big hit. The main points, for those too busy to look: they’re getting slim enough to be worth a look, the software is maturing to the point where it doesn’t feel sloppy, and there is an increasing number of people who can’t decide between a tablet and a laptop. Naturally they’ll choose the hybrid.

While there’s something to this, I don’t think it points to adoption at large. If you look at usage patterns of things like the iPad, you see a huge amount of browsing, video-watching, casual gaming. Email, too, but as typing on touch-keyboards is a pain, it’s mainly checking, nothing serious. The point is that even the early adopters (and make no mistake, even the 20 million iPads sold are to early adopters) are interested in consumption, not creation. The tablet is a window to content, but it’s one-way glass.

True, convertible tablets make it easier to type. But compared to any $500 laptop, a tablet isn’t going to perform nearly as many tasks that make the keyboard necessary. You’ll be able to do email better, and type web addresses more quickly, but is there enterprise software, financial management stuff, serious word processing and editing to be done on them? Not yet, and I suspect not for some time.

Windows 8 is the biggest arrow in the convertibles’ quiver. A lot depends on Microsoft making that extremely promising start turn into something people really want to use. A rich interface with the ease of use of a tablet plus the power of a full-on PC isn’t an easy task, but Microsoft realizes they need this one to be a hit or they’re out of the tablet game forever. If convertibles become popular, it won’t be because of the reasons suggested above, but because Microsoft made them popular. Because Apple, Google, Asus, Acer, and the rest sure as hell aren’t going to do it.

Dual-screen Tablets

Courier, Courier, where art thou, Courier? O most promising of pre-iPad devices. If you’re reading this, you probably remember Microsoft’s star-cross’d Courier project, which broke out of its incubator early and was the darling of the blogging world for a few months. It showed imagination, good design, and a willingness to take risks. So it came as no surprise when it was peremptorily buried by Ballmer. Since then, we haven’t really had a dual-screen tablet to get excited about — but that doesn’t mean the form factor is fundamentally barren.

The Kno springs to mind as an example of something done partially right. Intended as a replacement for bulky, heavy, expensive textbooks, the Kno is a bulky, heavy, expensive tablet. But I don’t do it justice: it really is a very savvy piece of work and, though its size and cost ended up killing it, shows that a ground-up approach and unique brand can do wonders for product visibility. An on-stage demo at TechCrunch Disrupt helps as well. But if anything, it was always type of device that sells units in the tens of thousands, not the tens of millions.

More recently we’ve seen some rather strange designs like the Iconia Touchbook, which end up being more like the worst of both worlds. Sony’s S2, which we just had a hands-on with today, seems more promising, but we’ll look more closely at it in the gaming tablets section below.

The issue here seems to be a technical one rather than a design one. The bezel width, weight, and cost of two separate displays mean that the tablet wouldn’t be able to compete in form or price. Plus, the lack of optimized apps for two screens means the benefits are extremely limited. When the technical issues are solved and a thin, foldable device no longer makes unacceptable compromises, then the software will follow. Until then, no chance.

Gaming Tablets

Companies have been going out of their way to laud the gaming prowess of their particular brand. Never mind that they’re all just shilling for Nvidia’s Tegra team (with the exception of Apple, whose A5 seems to be a genuine departure from the norm). And to tell the truth, the last year or so has seen these low-power chips in phones and tablets go from anemic weaklings to true modern 3D powerhouses. The poster child for this would be the Unreal Engine and Infinity Blade.

But can a tablet get away with truly focusing on a gaming experience? Sony is making that bet with the Playstation-branded S1 and S2 tablets, which will have exclusive access to certain Sony content, though the quality of that content is far from guaranteed (think PS1 titles at first). And the serious gamers, to whom this tablet would presumably be marketed, are not easy to woo away from their platform of choice. The Vita and 3DS are more on their minds.

The problem of control rears its head immediately. While tablets are great for certain types of games, they’re just awful for others. The most popular “real” games in the world right now are shooters, and despite what fanboys will tell you, they control terribly on tablets. Accessories like the Fling joystick help, but there is no standard control overlay and settings vary greatly between titles.

The thing is that any gaming experience exclusive to a tablet isn’t likely to be exclusive to a gaming tablet. It’s just going to be something like Plants vs. Zombies or Angry Birds: best played on a tablet but not limited to some sort of special gaming setup. That may change in the future as gaming leaves the casual sector on tablets and we start seeing more tablets in the hands of mainstream gamers, but in the meantime the benefits of a so-called gaming tablet are illusory.

Rugged/Field Tablets

We’ve written a few times about how the iPad has gained a following in the medical and education establishments, among others. This is primarily the result of being first to market, and a magnet for specialized apps. But there has always been a market for hardened devices, the Panasonic Toughbook line being perhaps the most familiar. The military has been making noises recently regarding the need for a good standard smartphone or tablet, as well, and you better believe they need more than brushed aluminum and Gorilla Glass. My Otterbox is nice, but it’s no flak jacket.

Once things have leveled out a bit, I expect that iOS will lose favor in these situations — Google is pushing extensibility on Android for just this purpose, and of course Windows 8 includes Microsoft’s famous/infamous backwards compatibility. Laugh it up, but when your hospital has records going back to Windows 3.1 days and you just want things to work without hiring a team to modernize your whole operation, Windows starts looking more attractive.

Unfortunately, ruggedness comes at a cost, and although consumers might like the idea of a waterproof phone like the Defy, there’s no way they’ll pay the premium for Mil-spec hardening of their around-the-house tablet.

Stylus-powered Tablets

Steve Jobs’ disdain for the stylus was wise in that it led to a very focused finger-optimized phone OS, but unwise in that it summarily dismisses the benefits of pen input. It’s true that you lose them, they’re kind of weird to hold, and they disconnect you from the interface. But it’s also true that they provide far greater precision, they allow for quick and complicated gestures, multiple “click” types, and a number of other things — things which were admittedly totally inapplicable to the iPhone.

I recently reviewed the HTC Flyer. Spoiler alert: I didn’t like it. Or rather, I felt like it was an interesting evolutionary step that should probably have just been kept in the labs. I felt the potential, but I also felt the extreme difficulty in designing an interface that’s accessible to both touch and pen. Yet the Courier (at least in its demo videos) seemed to show that if you worked at it enough, you could make it work.

If tablets are to be used by the creative and enterprise class of users (as opposed to the consuming class), they will likely need stylus support. Fingertips are great for touching icons, but they’re not so good for circling individual words, editing photos and video, and so on. There’s a huge amount of sophisticated interpretation that goes into determining where your blob of a thumb is touching the screen, and the stylus changes the whole interface metaphor.

I’d expect a well-done niche product before a consumer breakout — a creation-oriented tablet, perhaps a collaboration between two big names like Wacom and Sony, or even Adobe. It could double as a stylus surface for another computer (like a Bamboo), but work independently as well, and be provided with a few powerful tools for interfacing with standard MIDI, video, tethering, and paint programs.

Windows 8 shows up again here: a stylus is a tolerable replacement for a mouse when the interface is done right. Windows 7 integrated some touch controls, but they were more concessions than true tools. Microsoft’s handwriting recognition is excellent, though, and if they’re able to combine their Surface, Metro, and Windows IP successfully, you could see a seriously versatile piece of hardware come out in mid-2012.

The time is not yet right

The conclusion here seems to be that large-scale market penetration and hardware limitations are the most serious barriers to variant tablets gaining traction. Demand isn’t great enough that you can make a successful niche product. There’s a bit of a chicken-egg problem here, since you can’t make a niche product without a niche, but the niche won’t exist until you make a product for it — but all that’s needed to solve that is a little time. As tablets grow from a 20-30 million unit market to a 100 million unit market, you’ll start seeing natural fragmentation in the user base, and not just in who wants 3G or 64 gigs.

The difference will be like the difference you see in computers and laptops: people who just want a laptop, and people who want a laptop that does X and not necessarily Y. The stratification of that market is well-known and prices have solidified around the $500, $750, $1000, and $1600-2000 marks. Pricing won’t have nearly such a large spread with tablets, but in a year or two, $250 will buy you a basic Android tablet, $500 will buy you a deluxe one or an iPad, and $750 will buy you a specialty device like a stylus, dual-screen, high-res screen, and so on. Professionals will gladly pay good money for a full-HD screen, real stylus interface, and enough power to use as an on-site editing device for photos or video.

Timing is anybody’s guess, and it depends on a lot of things. Will Amazon push Android over the top for e-readers? Will Apple release a super-high-resolution iPad Pro? Or will Samsung? Will OEMs grow some dignity and stop making chintzy tablets with identical specs? Or will Apple diversify and proliferate? Whatever the case is, until people get their heads around what a tablet is for and how it fits into the existing ecosystem, you’re not going to see these interesting but immature form factors do anything but sit on shelves and excite idle praise from tech writers. You can expect quite a few dead-end launches, but you can also expect (if you’re charitable) that companies like HTC and Sony just might learn something from them and reuse those ideas when the time is right.

Note: We are aware that many of the links in this article are dead at the moment due to some technical difficulties related to the redesign. They should be functional soon.

Submitted by: 6e66
Posted at: 2011-07-13 04:42:55
See full post and comment: http://9gag.com/gag/165883

Whispers about this started a little while ago, but it appears the rumors are true: EA is acquiring casual game developer PopCap Games for $650 million cash plus another $100 million in stock and incentives.

That's a huge deal, and surprisingly cheap, given that PopCap's value has been estimated as high as $1 billion. PopCap of course made its name on casual PC games like Bejeweled and Plants vs. Zombies, but in recent years those titles have become mobile juggernauts, and the iOS platform is currently the company's crown jewel.

EA also has been working hard on the mobile front (recently acquiring iOS developer Firemint, among a few other big deals), so combining PopCap's library and talent for casual gaming with EA's marketing and distribution arms should make the two a lot of money going forward.

PopCap's CEO says it plans to work with EA to "scale our games and services to deliver more social, mobile, casual fun to an even bigger, global audience." As for us, we're just hoping Plants vs. Zombies 2 is somewhere in those plans. Oh and Bejeweled 3 for iOS please. And more stuff from the 4th and Battery mini-studio, too. More of everything, really -- thanks!

EA buying PopCap Games for $750 million originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 12 Jul 2011 16:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Besides a faster processor and Thunderbolt support, the next generation MacBook Air models may also include a backlit keyboard. This feature was present on the first MacBook Air model introduced in 2008 and dropped from the 2010 line. This removal was widely criticized by Mac owners accustomed to the backlit keyboard of their MacBook Pro.

The new 2011 Air models may be introduced in the next few weeks either at the same time or shortly after OS X Lion is introduced. Apple reportedly has 400,000 units sitting in a warehouse waiting for the Lion to be finalized and installed on the hardware.

New MacBook Airs reportedly to feature backlit keyboards originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 12 Jul 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Mini Space Invaders arcade cabinet big on nostalgia, small in size

Mini Space Invaders arcade cabinet big on nostalgia, small in size originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Jul 2011 17:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Visualized: Growing up in arcades originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Eye-Fi Direct Mode is here, turns tablets and smartphones into must-have camera accessories originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple sues Samsung: here's the deal originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple is not only tweaking its App Store rankings to downrank pay-per-install applications, it may be actively banning these applications from the App Store. According to Tapjoy, several developers within their network are receiving rejection notices from Apple because their applications feature a pay-per-install promotion.

This cross-application promotion lets users buy virtual in-app goods by downloading other applications instead of sending a payment. This practice has been criticized because it artificially boosts the download counts of applications. Users download these advertised applications because they want something for free, not because the app is desirable.

Tapjoy claims these incentive-based downloads are not directly prohibited by Apple's developers guidelines, but believes Apple is applying section 3.10 to apps within its network. Section 3.10 of Apple's developer agreement states:

Developers who attempt to manipulate or cheat the user reviews or chart ranking in the App Store with fake or paid reviews, or any other inappropriate methods will be removed from the iOS Developer Program

Tapjoy defends its pay-per-install model by claiming the system is misunderstood. It acknowledges that campaigns may boost the downloads of some participating developers, but the overall model is beneficial to users, advertisers, and developers. Tapjoy supports the recent changes to Apple's ranking algorithm and is asking Apple to reconsider its unofficial ban on pay-per-install applications.

Apple banning pay-per-install apps from the App Store says Tapjoy originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In 1999, Fanning and Parker introduced the world to Napster. Their music sharing service was absolutely culture changing and ushered in a new wave of excitement about the web. Now, over a decade later, they’re back at it. And the new project is nothing if not interesting. Think: Chatroulette — but done right.

We previously broke the news that Fanning had raised a small amount of money last year for the project. But we had basically no idea what it was. At the time, the name was “Supyo”, and that may still end up being the name. But we’re also hearing talk of using the name “Yo” or some other variation. (Note: supyo.com is clearly not their website, so don’t bother with it — try this one.)

Since then, other details have become more clear. That includes some big potential funding — and one of the investors is someone we know very well: Michael Arrington. More on that below.

Supyo is essentially a web-based video chat service that aims to connect like-minded people, we’ve learned. Again, it’s sort of like Chatroulette but without some of the problems that service faced.

Both Fanning and Parker were previously involved in Chatroulette, hoping to help founder Andrey Ternovskiy turn it into the next big thing. That never happened. But Fanning and Parker never gave up on the core concept.

Parker talked a bit about why he thinks “live” is the next big movement in social at last year’s Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe. “No one has nailed live,” he said at the time, noting that Chatroulette was the most interesting play in the space. He went on to say that live video was what he was spending most of his time thinking about these days.

While it was Fanning who initially started the work on Supyo, we hear that Parker has since been brought on as an executive, devoting a good chunk of his time to the project. (But it’s important to note that his main job remains being a partner with Founders Fund.) While Napster ended in a flurry of lawsuits, Fanning followed it up with Snowcap and Rupture which gained success and were eventually acquired. He also helped start Path, but hasn’t been involved in the day-to-day there in a while. Meanwhile Parker, of course, found massive success at Facebook.

While much has been made about Parker’s past antics (made most famous by a certain Academy Award-winning movie he was a character in), everything he touches basically turns to gold.

The rest of the details about Supyo are still pretty scarce. We know location is a big element of it, as are algorithms to match users up with the right chat partners — and to avoid the “penis problem” that Chatroulette had. There is still likely to be an anonymous component to it, but if you’re a jackass, people can mark you as such. And if enough do, you’ll be stuck talking only to other jackasses. Or so we hear.

It’s said to be a completely browser-based experience right now.

In terms of the funding, given Parker’s involvement, it should be no surprise that Founders Fund is said to be leading a big new round. They’re teaming with a bunch of angels to raise around $10 million $5 million, we’ve heard.

And then there’s that other aspect. In digging into this story, we heard that a man by the name of “Arrington” is involved. Yes, that one. When confronted, he squirmed for a bit but eventually acknowledged his involvement. In fact, he’s the only one willing to confirm involvement at this point, but even he won’t spill more juicy details yet.

Stay tuned for more, I’m sure.

Update: We previously stated that the team was raising around $10 million, we’ve now heard that it’s closer to $5 million and could be a little less — that’s still being worked out, sources say.

The company has also put up a temporary splash page at this URL.

Flurry, a mobile analytics service, combined its mobile application data with published data from the NPD group and others, to show that Android and iOS captured a growing portion of the video game market share in 2010. According to the firm's analysis, iOS and Android game sales increased from 5% in 2009 to 8% in 2010 and revenue increased from US$500 million to $800 million in that same yearly period. Flurry claims that mobile game revenue in 2010 surpassed the estimated $700 million earned from PC game sales.

Looking closer at the figures, iOS and Android game sales took a chunk out of portable game sales. When compared to the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable, Android and iOS market share almost doubled from 19% in 2009 to 34% in 2010. At the same time, Nintendo DS market share fell a whopping 13 percentage points from 70% down to 57%.

Before you begin to declare the death of portable gaming, remember this is one metric and one company's analysis. We need to wait a bit longer to see how these figures fluctuate in the upcoming years before we shelves our Nintendo 3DS as a collector's item.

iOS and Android gained video game market share in 2010 originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 15 Apr 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading New York City marks April 16th as Foursquare Day, Mayor feeling good about his chances

New York City marks April 16th as Foursquare Day, Mayor feeling good about his chances originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Adobe finds another 'critical' flaw in Flash, Steve Jobs smiles smugly originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Jobs turned them down, but he saw enough in Google to see that it could be a success; he offered to mentor the two founders, going so far as to provide them with access to his closest advisers. After Jobs declined the Google CEO position, Brin and Page chose Eric Schmidt as CEO, and Schmidt also later joined Apple's board of directors. That's when things quickly took a turn for the worse.

As Levy states in the book, Jobs was "furious" when he visited Google's Mountain View headquarters and saw that the Android OS sported iOS features like pinch to zoom, among others. Shortly after that visit, Jobs told an Apple town hall meeting what he really thought of Google: "We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake: they want to kill the iPhone. We won't let them [...] This don't be evil mantra? It's bullshit."

The book also states that after Jobs found out about Android's similarities to iOS, he felt betrayed enough to somehow keep the development of the iPad hidden from Eric Schmidt while he was still a board member of Apple.

[via The Daily Mail]

Steve Jobs was top choice for Google CEO originally appeared on TUAW on Sat, 09 Apr 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

You see, back when I was a child, our community had a couple of thriving local video stores that were the source of pretty much endless enjoyment for me. Then Blockbuster came along. By then, the company was already a mega-chain of blue and gold awnings that decorated much of the country. They had inventory that simply could not be matched. Unsurprisingly, they crushed the local video stores.

This happened all over the country for years. Goliath didn’t just beat David, he obliterated him simply by showing up — and then danced on his grave while entertaining his children.

You’d think the sheer momentum of such a behemoth would make them unbeatable. And yet, here we are. Earlier today came word that Dish Network was buying Blockbuster’s assets out of bankruptcy court for around $230 million — in cash. This is the same company that Viacom once paid $8.4 billion for (and later spun them off in their own multi-billion dollar IPO). The fall from grace is almost unbelievable.

But it’s actually not if you’ve been following Blockbuster over the past several years. And their tale could end up being a great cautionary one for today’s current crop of giants. And more importantly, it might serve as a point of inspiration for startups going up against a seemingly unbeatable giant.

Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc. All of these guys may seem unbeatable. If they’re investing resources into a space, you might as well not even try, right? But that’s exactly what Reed Hastings did in 1998 when he started Netflix. He was simply a disgruntled Blockbuster customers who was sick of the ridiculous late fees and thought he could do better with a new approach to movie rentals.

Blockbuster undoubtedly laughed at Netflix at the time. In fact, two years later, Blockbuster could have bought Netflix for just $50 million — quite literally pocket change for a company that had held a $5 billion IPO the year prior. Blockbuster refused all such offers, as Fast Company’s excellent rundown of the best Blockbuster gaffes reminds us.

Instead, Blockbuster put a huge investment into Enron (their broadband services subsidiary). You can’t make this stuff up.

It wasn’t until 2004 — six years after Netflix launched — that Blockbuster realized it needed to enter the online DVD rental-by-mail space. By then, Netflix was already turning a profit and Redbox had just launched. Blockbuster was already dead — they just didn’t realize it yet.

It’s such a great example of a company resting on its laurels and getting blindsided. But it’s hardly even fair to call it a “blindsiding”. Blockbuster probably could have done dozens of things to counter the rise of Netflix in that initial six year space. They were either simply too arrogant, too slow, too stupid, or all of the above to make a move.

That’s why it’s impressive that Google is making such big changes to the company right now, when they’re arguably at the peak of their power. Their not resting on their laurels. Hundreds of challengers are gunning for them in a number of areas, and the co-founders apparently saw the company slipping a bit — as did some of the rest of us — and decided to proactively make some bold moves, all of which we haven’t likely seen yet.

That’s pretty much the opposite of Blockbuster towards the end of their run. You had a CEO defiantly declaring that Netflix was no real threat. The best quote: ”I’ve been frankly confused by this fascination that everybody has with Netflix …Netflix doesn’t really have or do anything that we can’t or don’t already do ourselves.”

This was a guy, Jim Keyes, who had just attempted to take over Circuit City, thinking that would solve Blockbuster’s problems — more retail stores. A few months later, Circuit City went belly up. The fact that Blockbuster didn’t end up buying them probably saved them from the same fate for the remaining two years of life.

Later, Blockbuster’s head of digital strategy had another money quote in a sit-down with Fast Company. “We’re strategically better positioned than almost anybody out there. Never in my wildest dreams would I have aimed this high,” he said indicating that they could still beat Netflix.

The famed former Iraqi Information Minister couldn’t say this stuff with a straight face.

So if you’re out there working on a startup in a space owned by a giant, just remember that nothing lasts forever. Even the biggest companies eventually grow complacent and get taken down. There are angles and new ideas all over the place that they simply cannot (or will not) see around their egos and wads of cash.

They will snooze and they will lose. Every night used to be a great night to make it a Blockbuster night.

[top photo: flickr/trebomb]

That itself isn’t that remarkable; I’m sure a lot of iPad users have experienced the same thing by now. What is a little remarkable it is that I’m a heavy, heavy computer user. As in pretty much every hour I’m awake. And I used to think the iPad could never fully break me of that. Future generations? Sure. But not me. Now I’m starting to sway the other way.

On a deeper level, I’m realizing something else: the iPad (and iPhone) is changing the fundamentals of computing for me.

Since I’ve been back from my trip, I’ve started using my traditional computers extensively again because I have to for work. (There’s still no denying that a laptop or desktop are far better for typing than an iPad.) But I’m finding myself continually confused when I go to use the trackpad. I swipe my fingers up expecting a page to scroll down and yet it doesn’t.

I’m trying to interact with a Mac as if it’s an iPad.

It’s actually pretty frustrating. I keep doing it. It’s like my brain is locked in. I’m someone who has had an iPad for a year, but I’ve never used it for days in a row without touching a computer like I just did this weekend. And it seems to have re-wired my brain.

The good news is that help is on the way. OS X Lion, the latest version of Apple’s Mac operating system launching this summer, actually reverses the scrolling mechanism. This means that when you swipe two fingers up on a long web page, it goes down, and vice versa. Again, it’s like the iPad/iPhone, not the way it has been on the Mac.

Among developers who are testing OS X Lion right now, this switch is driving some of them absolutely nuts (though it apparently is changeable in the settings). That’s understandable, it’s changing something we’ve all gotten used to over the years. It’s also may seem a bit odd because you’re not directly manipulating a screen as you are on the iPad/iPhone.

I’m in the opposite camp. I think Apple is genius for making this switch. Why? Because eventually most people that use Macs will have come to the systems by way of iOS devices. And they’ll be going through exactly what I’m going through now — only it will be much worse.

OS X Lion represents a transition. We’re moving from the “point & click” to the “flick & swipe”, as I’ve previously written about. But I’m not sure I realized just how big of a change some of these interactions would be at the time. They’re big and important because computing as we know it is changing.

And this matters not only to the next generations of computer users, but also to current computers users. There will be backlash to some of these changes — hell, there already has been. As much as people love the idea of future technology, they hate change. And that’s especially true if something is so ingrained that it requires a re-wiring of your brain.

But if my experience is any proof, that re-wiring is a lot simpler than it would seem to be. It’s not just the trackpad issue, I also find myself constantly trying to touch my MacBook screen after using the iPad for an extended period of time. These are more natural methods of computing. It’s the way it should be. It’s the way it should have always been. The technology just wasn’t there yet.

Now it is.

[photo: flickr/open exhibits]

(Editor’s note: This is the third installment in a series about the late stage, secondary investing craze sweeping the venture capital business. For the first two installments go here and here.)

On May 26, 2009 Mike sat down with Yuri Milner, Mark Zuckerberg and a Flipcam to talk about the then-scandalous $200 million investment DST made in Facebook, at a price that valued the company at about $10 billion. The camera-work is Blair-Witch-Project-like at best. You can barely hear the audio,  and Zuckerberg can’t for the life of him figure out whether to look at the camera or Mike. It doesn’t really matter because, just after he asks, Mike proceeds to cut off half his face anyway.

But shoddy production aside, this may have been one of the most pivotal moments TechCrunch has ever captured on camera.

We didn’t know it at the time, but this was something more than an unexpected investment by an unheard of investor in a seemingly overhyped social network. It was a moment we’d been waiting for for more than a decade. Something we’d been obsessing about. It was the moment when a Web startup fundamentally broke all the normal rules of gravity that govern all Web startups. It was the moment that would eventually spawn a new, unchartered frenzy of late stage dealmaking. In my opinion, it was nothing short of the Web 2.0 generation’s answer to “the Netscape moment.”

THE. NETSCAPE. MOMENT. Anyone who was in the Valley in the 1990s likely hears dramatic music when they read those words. It refers to Netscape’s 1995 IPO, when an 18-month-old company that wasn’t yet profitable electrified the public markets generating one of the biggest first day stock pops in history. It wasn’t just the dream team of the Svengali-like Jim Clark, king of the geeks Marc Andreessen and the operationally rigorous Jim Barksdale. It wasn’t just that Netscape stood at the forefront of a multi-billion wave of Internet creativity that would transform nearly every industry and the lives of the billion people online today. And it wasn’t just that Netscape was a better business then than people like to remember, doubling revenues quarter-over-quarter.

It was also Netscape’s timing: The IPO coincided with a greater democratization of stock market investing. It wasn’t the banks– it was the everyday retail investors flooding brokerages to buy a piece of a product they loved that caused the stock to pop so dramatically. And Andreessen was a symbol to every hacker or geek that you could move to Silicon Valley and build something huge (and get rich) in a matter of months– something that had never been possible in business before.

Put the two together and there was an irresistible new reality where a smart idea posting dramatic growth that a huge number of consumers loved could now operate by new company formation and liquidity rules. Was it any wonder a flood of new companies followed? Of course, everyone knows the inevitable happened next: Greed and latecomers pushed things too far, and we ended up with a dramatic crash that psychologically much of the Valley is still reeling from. (Don’t believe me? How many times this week have you read an alarmist report about whether or not the Dot Com Bubble is back?)

It didn’t take long for nostalgia over Netscape’s IPO to set in. One of the biggest stories when I first moved to the Valley was the hotly anticipated IPO of Loudcloud, Andreessen’s second company. It was the fall of 2000 and the IPO market had ground to a halt. But there were still plenty of people who believed it was only the frothiest companies that would die and that, after a pause, the new economy would keep surging. Quarterly venture capital investments were still increasing, launch parties were still held, and the Red Herring was still as thick as a phone book.

As times got worse, everyone needed something concrete to pin their hopes on, and for many that became the Loudcloud IPO. Afterall, Andreessen had changed the markets once, why couldn’t he do it again? The story that rang across CNBC, the Wall Street Journal and countless other media organizations: Could the Loudcloud IPO be the new Netscape moment?

It wasn’t. And yet, the press still yearns. Since then there have been no fewer than 10 million Google mentions of the phrase, as the press and analysts have predicted that each impending liquidity event by an outperforming company lead by a charismatic CEO would be the thing to get the broader public markets moving again.

Would Salesforce.com be the Netscape Moment?

Would Google be the Netscape Moment?

Would Tesla be CleanTech’s Netscape Moment?

Each IPO above has been newsworthy and an industry milestone in its own right, but each has fallen short of the Netscape yardstick. Here’s a spoiler alert: When LinkedIn becomes the first social network to file later this year, no doubt the same story will be written, and LinkedIn won’t produce a Netscape moment either.

As each IPO fails to be the next Netscape, more expectations pile onto the IPO everyone really wants to see: Facebook. Since 2007, stock “experts” have been reading tea leaves to predict its imminent arrival, and even today every move the company makes is pinned to speculation that the IPO is coming soon, nevermind executives take every opportunity to say there are no immediate plans for one. Facebook has a young wonder-geek CEO. Facebook is growing a fast rate. Facebook has 650 million users, who no doubt will produce a strong retail pop. Couldn’t Facebook be it? The obsession is palpable.

Of course none of these things will be the next Netscape moment, because Netscape has already happened. Crash-aside, the new rules created by the Netscape IPO are still pretty much the rules high-growth startups play by today. It’s no longer shocking that a 20-something kid could move to the Valley and build a billion-dollar world changing company. We’ve seen it dozens of times– in good economic times and bad. And it’s no longer shocking that an Internet company can grow very fast because of quick product cycles and a huge market of 1 billion people these companies can reach. These trends have developed and intensified, but today they are the norm.

In our obsessive zeal to witness the next Netscape Moment, I submit we missed it.

As a business reporter, the Netscape moment wasn’t so pivotal because it was an initial public offering; it was pivotal because of what it represented. It was pivotal because of the impact that it had on entrepreneurs– allowing them to build companies based on a set of new rules, not the old rules that had been defined for them. It was about a company not only disrupting an industry, but disrupting the laws of gravity associated with being a startup itself.

Just as Netscape proved you didn’t have to be profitable or fully-baked to go public, Facebook has proved the inverse: That you don’t have to go public to get liquidity for investors, a huge marketing event, and cash to acquire competitors and keep growing. That you don’t have to go public just because the playbook says so. One was about pushing a wave of companies to surge towards an IPO faster; the other has been about giving permission to a wave of companies to put off the IPO as long as possible– but the two have been equally dramatic changes that have impacted the broader economy. Netscape gave Wall Street and investors a new high growth industry to pour money into; Facebook– starting with that first DST deal– has deprived the market of it. But because we were so conditioned to view the next pivotal moment in startup economics as an IPO, we continually saw these secondary deals as something leading up to that pivotal moment– not as the pivotal moment that changed everything itself.

Facebook and DST won’t comment on the record about things like this– particularly since it involves IPO specualtion– so the natural people to talk to are the two guys who have been in the middle of it all: Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. Andreessen was the co-founder of Netscape and the Mark Zuckerberg before Mark Zuckerberg. He was the reason Loudcloud had so much hype. And he’s not only on Facebook’s board, his and Horowitz’s firm has been one of the most aggressive investors in the Web 2.0 late-stage frenzy DST sparked. Horowitz gets fewer headlines, but he was a manager at Netscape, the co-founder and CEO of Loudcloud and the co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz too.

When I mentioned this story to Andreessen at a dinner party a few weeks ago, I could see the involuntary facial tick as his smile faded. He was polite, but his face said: “You’re not actually asking me about the Netscape moment? You must know me well enough to know how much I’ll hate that.” Indeed. I do. There’s a reason I quickly added: “HEAR ME OUT!” I sat down with Horowitz this week for his take and I saw the same look momentarily cross his face– the fleeting desire to throw me out of his offices for bringing up such a silly, overused press gimmick that they’ve been asked about thousands of times. It’s the only thing worse than asking if the current wave of frothy valuations are “ANOTHER TECH BUBBLE.” It’s the same look I give when someone asks me if China is the next Silicon Valley. Um… for starters, one of those is a huge country with a billion people surging out of poverty, and one is a 50-mile stretch in California full of millionaires…

Both Andreessen and Horowitz granted the dramatic change prompted by both the DST and Netscape deals – but to them, DST’s investment in Facebook was still just a precursor to a potential IPO. They argue what was so revolutionary from within Netscape was the retail pop– the sense of every rabid user owning a piece of the company and that reinforcing the marketing of the company itself. “It was one big feedback loop,” Horowitz says.

Granted, just like a comparison of 2011 to 1999 is inane, so too are there huge flaws with my comparison. As Andreessen likes to say, “There are no ‘nexts’.” To call Facebook the next Google misunderstands what each company has built. Predicting the next industry changing moment is like predicting the next industry changing technology– by definition it’s something we can’t envision before it happens. And that’s why we didn’t realize at the time just how transformative that DST-Facebook deal would be.

In the Milner-Zuckerberg video above, Mike asks a few times why the company would raise this much money when it didn’t need the cash and why Milner would invest so much without a board seat. Zuckerberg says, “We have no plans to use this money immediately and we may never use it. We may use it to make an acquisition or to open up data centers, if some strategic option makes itself available, and now we might be able to do it whereas otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to, that’s the option value that we gain through this investment.” Was he being cryptic? Maybe. More likely, even he didn’t realize the flood of follow-on secondary opportunities the deal with unleash allowing Facebook to put off an IPO for years without hurting the company’s growth.

Some more parallels jumped out at me, the more I thought about the two moments:

Both had key enablers from outside the establishment. In the late 1990s four San Francisco-based boutique investment banks were the first to spot the potential of small tech IPOs that could get huge. The incumbent Wall Street vets missed it completely, obsessed with playing the old-economy game. This time around it was DST that was the outsider to the establishment who spotted an opportunity that all the billions of dollars in Silicon Valley was ignoring: Facebook couldn’t go public, and it needed money and liquidity.

The deal was reviled at the time and DST was deemed to be paying an outrageous price for such a speculative company– the same thing that’s been said at every Facebook valuation, by the way. But pretty soon everyone around the company warmed to the idea: With Facebook’s earliest investors using these secondary deals to lock in returns, Facebook’s earliest employees using them as a pseudo-IPO, major firms like Kleiner Perkins, Elevation Partners and Andreessen Horowitz using them to manage to get a pre-IPO chunk of the company, and of course, Facebook using them to put off going public, but still get the benefits.

Just as the boutique investment banks spotted an inflection point in the market to break the traditional rules that the establishment initially mocked and then jumped all over, so too did DST spot an inflection point in the market, broke traditional rules, was mocked and then billions of dollars and many of the biggest names changed their strategies to follow.

The Macro-Economic and Cultural Backdrop. The impact of each of these moments was about so much more than the companies themselves, and that’s what makes them different from, say, Google’s IPO which was a huge moment in tech, but didn’t have much of a macro-economic impact beyond Google, Google investors and Google millionaires. Netscape’s IPO came at a point in time that it represented a catalyzing of the birth of the modern startup, the birth of the Internet and the impact of a truly democratized stock market. The latter was continually goosed by CNBC and only become more pronounced with the birth of subsequent companies like eTrade and Ameritrade. The role so many individuals played in the bubble was what made the crash so devastating.

Likewise, Facebook’s reluctance to go public is wrapped up in a lot of bigger macro trends that have been more than a decade in the making. It’s not so much the psychological impact of the Dot Com Bubble, Mark Zuckerberg has always been one of the few people in the Web 2.0 world immune to that. As he once told me, “I was in middle-school then.” It’s the transformation of what it means to be a public company. To many CEOs, the benefits– liquidity, marketing and a stock currency to purchase other companies– have been outstripped by mounting costs.

There are hard costs like Sarbanes Oxley compliance, but more problematic are things like Regulation Fair Disclosure, or ‘Reg FD’. It was created to make sure all shareholders got the same information at the same time, but in practice means a company can’t defend itself against rumors started by hedge funds without the dangerous precedent of issuing a press release to rebut every rumor. That’s augmented a new reality where gossip and perception drives a stock price, not the actual health of a company. Technology has also changed how quickly investors can trade in and out of stocks, giving the entire ecosystem an increasingly obsessive short-term mindset. And the separation between research and banking meant research had to tailor to brokerages, who mostly want reports about the large-cap companies. As a result, smaller companies that manage to go public wither and die with no one evangelizing them to investors.

These changes help explain why the concept of going public radically shifted from something companies couldn’t do fast enough in the Netscape era to something companies wanted to put off as long as possible in the Facebook era. Without these changes, we wouldn’t be seeing the explosion of late stage funding. DST’s investment in Facebook might have been singular secondary deal, because by the time the markets opened back up, companies like these would have just filed. The public markets are starving today– it’s these companies that are dragging their feet.

Coming into the Web 2.0 movement, the appeal of the IPO was gone. Founders had three choices they didn’t like if they were lucky enough to succeed: Suck it up and go public, hire a new CEO who wanted to deal with Wall Street, or sell the company before it got to that point. Mark Zuckerberg gave everyone a fourth option: Put off the IPO for years, until you have $1 billion in revenues and are so dominant you can operate by your own rules and continually do secondary rounds to give anyone who doesn’t like that strategy a way to get a return in the meantime.

While Google’s IPO didn’t have an immediate impact ala Netscape, there are roots in all of this that go back to Google. Google was the first company to dramatically stand up to the new unpleasant Wall Street reality, going public by dutch auction and announcing it would never give guidance among other non-traditional terms. Horowitz describes Googles IPO without words– by dramatically lifting his arms over his head, pulsing two middle fingers in the air and making a face like a headbanger. And Google paid the price: The stock didn’t have a dramatic Netscape-like pop. But over the next few years it soared from $85 a share to more than $700 a share.

That sent a powerful message to Greylock’s David Sze of how much growth you could still have in Internet companies after the IPO when you weren’t operating in the dot com bubble– especially now that more than a billion people are online. He says that insight was a big reason he invested in Facebook in 2006 at the then-outrageous $500 million valuation and why Greylock has increased its late stage appetite in general.

The Ripple Effect. Of course the biggest similarity is how both Netscape’s IPO and Facebook’s lack of an IPO have set a new model for others. In the case of Netscape, the floodgates opened wide. In the case of Facebook, it’s been far more measured in terms of the number of deals. Less than a dozen startups have raised these kinds of late-stage secondary mega deals, and the total activity on secondary markets is estimated to be less than $1 billion a year. But in the case of Facebook, the best companies have followed suit, and that matters because venture capital is a home run business where the top 5% of companies make 95% of returns. Anything they do, effects the entire industry and the absence of those companies from the public markets has a big opportunity-cost impact too.

Within Silicon Valley, the impact has been massive– dictating the investment strategies of some of the Valley’s biggest and best firms, and impacting lives of thousands of employees of Facebook, Zynga, Twitter and every other company doing these secondary deals. This much liquidity before an IPO was unheard of before that DST-Facebook deal, and we don’t yet understand the impact. I’ve argued before that it makes the rank-and-file Valley executives more short-term focused and more mercenary, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. Pre Facebook-DST, companies could hold onto the best and brightest employees up through the IPO and its trading lockups. Now, the churn out of companies happens before they even file to go public. And the appeal of getting pre-IPO shares in a company like Facebook is a lot more nuanced when a company is valued at double-digit billions and employees are given restricted stock units instead of options.

But you could argue the downside for a company’s ability to retain employees through an IPO is the Valley’s upside. In the case of Facebook, we’ve already seen a handful of promising companies developed from early employees who were able to cash in and leave. Usually “mafias” like these don’t start to bear fruit until a company is purchased in the case of PayPal or Netscape.

The big question with the ripple effect is whether things get pushed too far as they did post-Netscape moment. Netscape itself turned a profit quickly after it went public and had heathy revenue growth. While that IPO was speculative compared to what had come before it, it was boring and rational compared to what came next. So too are we already seeing the degradation of quality in late stage deals. There is only one Facebook, and while  Spotify was “only” valued at $1 billion in its recent DST deal, that’s ten times what Pandora– a company that has solved its legal issues with the RIAA– was valued at back in 2009. I don’t care how much smaller the price tag is, $1 billion for a company that can’t legally operate in the world’s largest Internet market despite two years of trying is a different risk profile than buying shares in Facebook at a $30 billion price. Facebook, after all, is already doing more than $1 billion in revenues, used by more than 650 million people and growing.

It’s not just macro-greed the Valley needs to worry about: It’s micro-greed. Last week, we reported a story about a Facebook employee named Michael Brown being fired for insider trading. We use those words, because we were told those were Facebook’s words to describe the internal rule he broke – and that fact wasn’t disputed by any of the sources we spoke with.

We didn’t take the allegation lightly. Contrary to suggestions from Brown’s friends and associates, before we wrote the story we talked to several people around the case including the employee’s attorney. Moments after the piece posted, we talked to the attorney again and later that night we spoke with Brown himself for more than an hour. We would have preferred to speak to Brown sooner, but his attorney denied our initial request. The content of those conversations was off the record and will remain off the record, but we updated the story with information gleaned during those conversations and remain comfortable that, on several points, we gave Brown the benefit of the doubt.

But the fact that so many people rushed to the employee’s defense without knowing the facts could be a worrying sign that others view what he did as rational and reasonable, and not equivalent to insider trading at a public company. Maybe it was an isolated incident and a naive mistake. Hopefully shining the light on it will show how serious such mistakes are. But one thing is clear: Even if companies act as swiftly as Facebook did in this case, if more employees view this behavior as acceptable, the Securities and Exchange Commission will come down on secondary markets like a hammer, effectively shutting down a new way to get liquidity as quickly as it started. Congress and the SEC already made IPOs an undesirable route, through well-meaning reforms that had unforeseen consequences.

It’s up to the Valley to show restraint and make sure this is one way history doesn’t repeat itself this time.

WWDC. It’s like Christmas for OS X and iOS developers. Each year, they flock to San Francisco’s Moscone Center, anxiously awaiting the pair of gifts that Apple annually bestows: the new iPhone, and a bundle of new features on which they’ll build their next big thing.

If whispers and hearsay hold true, this year’s WWDC will only feature the latter; the iPhone 5, says the rumor mill, won’t be showing its face until Fall. Instead, this show is purportedly going to be all about iOS and OS X. While Apple doesn’t come right out and say it, it’s pretty safe to assume that by “iOS” they mean “iOS 5″.

Given that we’re writing about iOS on a regular basis and talking about it with readers and friends even more, we’ve got a pretty finely-tuned wishlist for iOS 5. We also happen to know that a heaping handful of Apple folk read TechCrunch regularly — and with the feature lock stage of iOS 5′s development cycle (wherein they absolutely refuse to add anything new and just focus on what they’ve already started) presumably riiiight around the corner, we figured there was no better time than now to put it out there.

Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>

Blogs. We all read them to get a sense of what is going on in the world, peeling back layers of the old world in which media was too scripted.

By definition, if you are reading this you read blogs. But should you actually write one if you’re a startup, an industry figure (lawyer, banker) or VC? Absolutely.

This is a post to help you figure out why you should write and what you should talk about.

1. Why
If you care about accessing customers, reaching an audience, communicating your vision, influencing people in your industry, marketing your services or just plain engaging in a dialog with others in your industry a blog is a great way to achieve this.

People often ask me why I started blogging. It really started simply enough. I was meeting regularly with entrepreneurs and offering (for better or for worse) advice on how to run a startup and how to raise venture capital from my experience in doing so at two companies. I was having the same conversations over-and-over again (JFDI, Don’t Roll Out the Red Carpet when Employees are on the Way Out the Door, Don’t Drink Your Own Kool Aid, etc) and I figured I might as well just write them up and make them available for future people who might be interested. I never really expected a big audience or ever thought about it.

I had been reading Brad Feld’s blog & Fred Wilson’s blog for a couple of years and found them very helpful to my thinking so I honestly just thought I was giving back to the community.

The results have been both unexpected and astounding. Within 2 years I was getting 400,000 views / month and had been voted the 2nd most respected VC in the country by an independent survey of entrepreneurs, The Funded and sentiment analysis. I know that I have not yet earned these kudos based on investment returns (although my partners have. GRP Partners last fund is the single best performing VC fund in the US (prequin data) for its vintage year). But it speaks volumes to what people want from our industry:

• transparency
• accessibility
• authenticity
• thought leadership
• advice

2. What

You wouldn’t. You shouldn’t.

Not only would it be less authentic but if you’re a startup it’s not immediately clear that other startup CEOs are your target market. They’re mine because I’m a VC. I care about having a steady stream of talented startup people who want to raise money thinking that they should talk to me in addition to the top others whom they’re targeting.

3. Where

You need a blog. Duh. If you’re a company and if hanging it off of your company website makes sense for the link traffic – go for it. If you’re head of marketing at a company and keeping a more generalized blog (in addition to your company blog) so that you can influence brands & agencies – it can be separate.

I chose for my blog to be independent of my firm, GRP Partners.  The reason is that I wanted to be free to say what I was thinking independently of my partners. My views don’t always represent theirs and vice-versa even though we’re pretty like-minded (we’ve worked together for 10+ years).  I chose a title that represented a brand that I wanted to emphasize – Both Sides of the Table. I chose it because I thought it would represent who I am – mostly an entrepreneur but somebody with investment chops. I wanted to differentiate.

So. People keep asking me, “why would you write on TechCrunch?” I guess I would have thought it was obvious. Apparently not. People say, “aren’t you driving traffic away from your own blog?”

Facts:

• I don’t really care about total page views or uniques other than as a measure of whether I’m improving. I don’t sell ads.
• I DO care about “share of mind,” which means that I want fish in the pond where the people whom I want to speak with hang out. I know a certain number hit my blog. But I’m not so arrogant (or successful) as to think they come all the time. So I take my show on the road. If I can write about a topic for which I’m passionate about and double or triple the number of people who read it – that’s gold dust. That’s why I never stopped anybody from taking my feed and republishing.
• As it happens, since I began writing at TechCrunch my viewership has continued to go up, not down. I always publish on my own blog the day after it runs on TC. I want the historical post there. A large number of readers on my site get it from Feedburner or newsletter feed.
• I also get a lot of inbound links from writing here. I try to make any inbound links to my blog authentic to the story. But each story has driven 1,000′s of views.
• The majority of my traffic still comes from Twitter. TC posts = more Twitter followers = more conversion when I do write on my own blog = more Feedburner / newsletter subs = more traffic. It’s an ecosystem. Simple.

So once you have a blog, a voice and a small following – don’t be shy about writing some guest posts for target blogs. Remember – for you that’s likely not TC – it’s the place your community hangs out.

4. How

Be authentic. Don’t try to sound too smart or too funny.  Just be yourself.  People will see who you are in your words.  If you try to make everything too perfect you’ll never hit publish.  If you try to sound too intelligent you’ll likely be boring as shit.  Most blogs are.  I hate reading blow hards who try to sound like they’re smarter than the rest of us. Be open and transparent.  Get inside your reader’s minds.  Try to think about what they would want to know from you.  In fact, ask them!

Don’t be offensive – it’s never worth it to offend great masses of people.  But that doesn’t mean sitting on the fence.  I have a point of view and I’m sure sometimes it rankles.  But I try to be respectful about it.  Sitting on the fence on all issues is also pretty boring.  And don’t blog drunk.  Or at least don’t hit publish ;-) Mostly, have fun.  If you can’t do that you won’t last very long.

How do I get started? First, you’ll need a platform.  I use WordPress.  Some people swear by SquareSpace. There are the new tools like Tumblr and Posterous.  I’ve played with both and they’re pretty cool. They’re more light weight and easier to use. Importantly, they’re more social. It’s much easier to build an audience in social blogging platforms the way you do in Twitter or Facebook.  T

hen  you need to decide whether to use the “hosted” version or the “installed” version.  At least that’s true in WordPress.  The advantage of the hosted version is that it’s easier to get started.  The disadvantage is that you can’t install a lot of additional tools that use Javascript. I started with the hosted version and then migrated to an installed version so I could use Google Analytics and some other products.

You then need a URL.  It’s true you can be something like msuster.typepad.com but that’s kind of lame so I wouldn’t recommend it.  Just get a real URL.  I think it’s important to think about what image you want to portray when you pick your URL name.  It doesn’t need to be short.  You’re not trying to build a consumer website.  My website is a pretty long URL but people manage to find it.  Much of my traffic is through referring websites and/or social media. Some search. What are YOU trying to convey?  What will be your unique positioning?  Don’t just write a carbon copy of what somebody else is doing.  That’s boring.

So I wrote a post, now what? Don’t blow your load on your first post.  Slice it up enough to do many posts.  I think most blogs are between 600-1000 words / post.  Once you’re written a few posts don’t try to make the flood gates open at once.  Slowly build your audience.  Make it organic.  If you write good content and consistently you’ll build an audience over time.

The number one thing that kills 95% of blogs is that they do 5 or 6 posts in rapid succession and then peter out. It’s lame to go to a blog where this happens. And then 8 months later they do the obligatory post saying, “OK, I’m going to be more committed to blogging now!” and then another 4 months go by. If you’re really not going to write that often at least don’t put dates on your posts.

But if you write good stuff, but in an effort and keep going – it’s a marathon – you will see results over time.

How do I build an audience? If you build it, will they come? No. A blog post is just like a product. First it needs to be good. And then you need to market it. It doesn’t just happen. You should be subtle about how you market it, but market it nonetheless. If you’re too squeamish to ask for help in promoting it or to do so yourself then you’ll never build an audience (you’ll also likely not make it as an entrepreneur. Sorry. But that’s true.)

The obvious starting point is to email a few friends and let them know you have a new blog.  Don’t be overbearing – just an email saying, “wanted to let you know about my new blog.”  I also recommend you put a link to it under your email signature (in a color other than black).  You also should have it be what your Twitter bio links to.

Every time I write a post I send it out on Twitter.  I try to send out the Twitter link when more people are online.  Over time I’ve found out that I get better clicks at 8.30-9.30am Mon-Fri so that’s when I Tweet a lot of my stuff.  I’ll frequently send two Tweets – East Coast & West Coast. If you want to know why I’ve outlined it here.  Not everybody sees the first one.  Social media is ephemeral.

Because I’ve built my Twitter following slowly but steadily and authentically over time I get very high click-through rates (and thus a high Klout score – currently 74). I get about 4% CTR (click-through rate) on every Tweet in the AM) and it’s actually higher because if I assume only 33% of my followers on online the CTR is closer to 12%.  Interestingly if I had sent one Tweet at 5.30am (to get East Coast time) and another at 8.30am I get 4% CTR both times. So it’s hard to argue you shouldn’t Tweet twice if you have a geographically distributed following.

How do I know my stats? I use awe.sm (disclosure, I’m an investor) which is the best tool I know of for tracking: each individual share behavior (it creates unique URLs for each Tweet) plus it also separates out Tweets from Facebook shares, from “Retweets” that come from somebody clicking on my blog, etc. It also tracks who Tweeted the link so you will know who your most influential social followers are.

Make sure your blog has Tweetmeme or similar to make it easier for readers to Retweet.  Also, make sure to sign up with Feedburner.  That way people who want to get your blog by RSS and/or email can do so. Make sure your blog also has a Follow Me on Twitter button so people who find you can easily follow you.

5. When

People often ask how I blog so much and don’t think they can do it themselves. If you write about something for which you’re both knowledgeable and passionate I’ll bet you can pump out more than you think.

I usually blog at 10pm or on airplane flights. I never blog at work. Like you, I don’t have the time. I have board meetings, company pitches, internal partner meetings, etc. Hell, I often can’t even get to email during the day. So it comes out of TV time, which means I’m not missing anything. Occasionally if I really want to blog and I have a date or too much work I just set my alarm for 5.30am. Yup. It’s not that hard if you make a commitment to it.

What would it mean to you and your business if you could: increase your inbound traffic, enhance your company & personal brand, meet new influential people who suddenly know who you are. If you want these things they are available to you for the cost of some time & effort.

If you plan out what you want to write about in advance (create topics then to headings to structure your article. You’ll notice on this one I started with mine … Why, What, Where, How and then I later added When & What Next) then it’s really about writing.  Structure helps enormously.  If you need some help with the creative process read this.

I write for about 45 minutes to an hour in the first pass.  I usually then re-read, edit, spell check and add links.  This usually takes another 20-30 minutes.  I then always add an image.  I think this is a nice touch.  Just staring at text is a bit boring and I find that the image can add humor and/or drive people in.

6. What Next?

Then there’s comments.  You HAVE TO respond to comments.  Do yourself a favor and install Disqus. It makes a huge difference in driving a comment community.  If you want the details on why I covered it here.

First, it’s the most fun part of blogging.  It’s addicting like Twitter.  It’s where you exchange ideas with other people.  It’s where your community gets to know you.  It’s where you build loyalty and relationships.  I have met many people in person who were first commenters on my blog.  I find it frustrating if I leave comments on somebody’s blog and they never respond.  If somebody found your blog and took the time to comment then they’re like a customer who should be cherished. Responses to them are like customer retention. It’s also where you’ll learn. People will tell you when you’re full of shit.

Appendix: Traffic Hacks:

• Commenting on other blogs – you need to comment on other people’s blogs.  First, it is a place where your comment will often link back to your blog where it can drive traffic.  Occasionally, and not overtly, and only if relevant you can provide a comment with a link back to an article in your blog.  Don’t do this often, don’t be blatant and make sure it’s relevant.
• Linking to other blogs – For example, many people know that I love VentureHacks because it’s a great resource for entrepreneurs and I think that Babak Nivi is a star.  Notice I’ve linked to his website.  If he tracks his blog (which I’m sure he does) he’ll see this link.  If he has a Google Alert on his name (everyone does) then he’ll also get that.  Don’t be over the top gushing and creepy.  Be subtle.  Don’t overtly tell everyone you link to, “I linked to you, check out my article!”  Assume that over time if you write compelling content they’ll eventually check you out.
• Covering relevant people in your blog in an authentic way – If your blog covers topics in your industry it’s likely that you’ll be able to write about some people and companies that you want to be aware of your blog.  Don’t Tweet @ them telling them you covered them. Don’t email them saying you covered them. Just talk about their company. If you write good articles over time and do this often enough people will notice.
• Tweet support - What I did in the early days was to enlist Tweet support.  I would occasionally ask people that I was close with to retweet my posts.  I tried to mix it up in order to not ask the same people often.  I would send out emails with the Tweet text already written so that they just had to cut-and-paste.  As my blog started getting authentic traffic I stopped asking for this help very often.
• Guest authoring – Once you have a bit of credibility as a writer a great strategy to drive traffic is to write guest posts for relevant bloggers in your sphere of influence.   If you run BakeSpace and blog about food why not contact some of the local food blogs and see whether you could submit guest articles.  Most people are delighted to have the free content.  In return all you ask for are links back to your blog and to your Twitter account.  Slowly and surely these will add users, of which some will come back on a regular basis.

In addition of launching in the fall, TechCrunch's sources state that iOS 5 will be a "major revamp of the OS" that will include:

• an heavily cloud-based iOS, with several new services
• a "music locker" service to coincide with the introduction of new iPods
• a location service that focuses on finding friends and family members

TechCrunch also states Apple will first discuss many of iOS 5's cloud-based services at WWDC in June, and Mac OS X Lion will likely include integration with those cloud-based components.

Until Apple makes an announcement about iOS 5 nothing is certain, but if TechCrunch's sources are right about a "music locker" service, it would make sense to hold iOS 5 until the fall when new iPods are traditionally launched. The extended timeline would also give Apple the time to devote sufficient resources to completing work on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, which Apple has said will be released this summer.

Rumor: iOS 5 will be a 'major revamp,' won't debut until fall originally appeared on TUAW on Sat, 26 Mar 2011 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If our sources are right, this would break the pattern of Apple unveiling the latest iOS iteration in the early spring, leading up to a summer launch alongside new iPhone hardware. The spring timetable usually reserved for an iOS roadmap event is why some were hoping Apple may just rope the details into the iPad 2 event. When that didn’t happen, rumors quickly spread that there may be another event in April to talk iOS 5 (and MobileMe). But it’s looking like that will not be the case this year.

But it’s not all bad news. Here’s what we’re hearing right now:

• iOS 5 will launch in the fall and will be a major revamp of the OS.
• It could well be previewed at WWDC, it just won’t be released then.
• The iOS 5 launch is also likely to coincide with the release of a new type of iPad, which we previously reported on.
• The new iOS will be heavily built around the cloud, and we could see several new services launch from Apple that take advantage of this.
• Yes, one of those is very likely a “music locker” service. There is also a fall launch aim for this, during Apple’s annual music-themed event.
• But much of the cloud stuff will first be talked about at WWDC, Apple’s developer event which will take place in June.
• One of the new cloud service elements is likely a location service that focuses on finding friends and family members.
• As we said yesterday, OS X Lion is still on pace for a summer release — some of the new cloud components are likely to be baked into it as well.

So the next obvious question is where does this leave the iPhone 5? Again, the standard model for Apple has been to release a new iPhone alongside the new iOS version. We haven’t heard anything specifically about the iPhone with this news, but I would guess that it’s still on track for a WWDC unveiling and release shortly thereafter. If that’s the case, it will just be released with a version of iOS 4.X.

That’s all for now, more to come in the coming weeks, I’m sure.

[photo: flickr/vsz]

Gallery: ZTE Style S and LTE tablet hands-on

ZTE's Style S and LTE tablet coming to the US during the second half of the year originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Mar 2011 07:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Cut the Rope is still one of my favorite games on the App Store, and apparently the folks at the British Academy of Film and Television agree -- they've honored the game as the Best Handheld Game of 2010. It's actually quite an honor for Chillingo and developer ZeptoLab, as the game beat out presumably much bigger budgeted titles for the Nintendo DS and PSP, including the very big studio title God of War: Ghost of Sparta. It's definitely a nice indicator for the mobile gaming business that iOS and its associated developers have made a huge splash in the industry lately.

The BAFTAs are like the British Oscars, only our friends across the pond also honor video games and interactive entertainment. Here are all of the video game nominees and winners. Cut the Rope is the only one I recognize as an iOS-only title, though there are a few cross-platform titles on the list that made it as well. Congrats to Chillingo and ZeptoLab on the win.

Cut the Rope wins at BAFTAs originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 17 Mar 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Harman rolls out AKG GHS-1 gaming headset

Harman rolls out AKG GHS-1 gaming headset originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Mar 2011 21:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Harman rolls out AKG GHS-1 gaming headset

Harman rolls out AKG GHS-1 gaming headset originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Mar 2011 21:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

WebOS will be on 'every HP PC' shipping next year, says CEO originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Mar 2011 07:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Last night, I was browsing through story after story on the interwebs that hoped to help people decide on a tablet purchase by comparing the Motorola Xoom specifications with the iPad 2. From multitasking to chip speed to RAM, analysists attempted to find consumers the best possible value for the money.

And they completely missed the point.

When it comes to tablets, it's not about the specs. It's about user experience. It's about the way we use the device and how the device fits itself to the way we want to use it.

Continue reading Deciding on a tablet by comparing specs? You've missed the point

Deciding on a tablet by comparing specs? You've missed the point originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 03 Mar 2011 16:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple about to add Light Peak to Macs? originally appeared on TUAW on Sat, 19 Feb 2011 23:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

ZTE outed several new sets -- and a tablet -- at MWC 2011, so we went to grab some specs and pics of the Blade, Skate, and the Amigo (from left to right). The ZTE Skate is the top of the line product in this group with Android 2.3 -- though, the placard at the stand has been blanked out -- triple-band GSM, HSPA in 1900 / 2100Mhz range, a 4.3-inch WVGA capacitive display, 5 megapixel cam, and likely the smallest keyboard we've ever seen, seriously, have a peek at the gallery. The Blade, which as our favorite in the group, runs Android 2.2, is downgraded to a 3 megapixel camera, a 3.5-inch display, quad-band GSM and 900 / 2100Mhz HSPA. The Amigo -- what may be the lowliest as far as numbers are concerned -- still has decent specs such as a 3.2-inch display, triple band GSM, 1900 / 2100 HSPA, and a side-sliding QWERTY keypad. The Blade and Skate both have great build quality, the screens are really bright and easily seen, the Amigo appears a bit more washed out and the housing build quality feels very cheap. The Skate is definitely the winner in the bells and whistles category, but unless you can swap out the onscreen keyboard it would definitely get a pass -- and again, check out Joanna's finger modeling in the gallery for proof. Enjoy the giant glossy gallery.

Gallery: ZTE Amigo, Blade, and Skate hands-on

ZTE Amigo, Blade, and Skate hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 11:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Flash Player 10.2 now available, boosts video performance and drops PPC support

Flash Player 10.2 now available, boosts video performance and drops PPC support originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 09 Feb 2011 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Nokia, Microsoft announcing partnership next week, possibly involving Windows Phone 7? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Feb 2011 12:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Aava Mobile reportedly set to reveal Medfield-based Android / MeeGo phone at MWC originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Feb 2011 15:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

News Corp. set to unload Myspace? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Feb 2011 13:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

ThinkGeek's iCade gaming cabinet for iPad moves closer to reality originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Gallery: Samsung Sliding PC 7 Series hands-on

Gallery: Samsung Sliding PC 7 Series show floor hands-on

Continue reading Samsung Sliding PC 7 Series hands-on preview (video)

Samsung Sliding PC 7 Series hands-on preview (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 12:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Gallery: Samsung Series 9 hands-on

Continue reading Samsung Series 9 hands-on preview (video)

Samsung Series 9 hands-on preview (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 21:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Sparrow, a minimalist email program for Mac OS X, has been updated to beta version 7. This latest version includes several bug fixes including one that addresses the crashing problem plaguing Leopard users. Sparrow has also added several new features such as a progress bar, quick labels, Gmail shortcuts and support for plain text emails. The UI has been refreshed and now features an updated mail composition window and a new conversation view for your threaded messages.

Also included is a download-on-demand feature that lets users with a large volume of email limit synchronization between a Gmail account and the Sparrow client. When toggled on, this feature lets you clean out your mailbox online and then download only the most important messages on demand. As we reported earlier, Sparrow supports multiple Gmail accounts and support for other IMAP-based email accounts is expected in a future version.

The developers behind Sparrow intend to bring the app to the Mac App Store when it opens on January 6 and are working on two versions of this email client -- a free, ad-supported version and a paid version without ads. The current beta 7 version already includes advertisements but these ads can be switched off in the Advanced panel of the preferences.

Performance of the app is solid and the design in simple, yet pleasing. It is so refreshing to use a client that is dedicated solely to email and does not try to be the hub for all your online personas. The beta is available for free from Sparrow's website, so you can check it out for yourself.

Sparrow for Mac beta 7 adds Gmail shortcuts, quick labeling, more originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 21 Dec 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Circa un mese fa a me e ai miei amici è venuta la “fotta” Litte Big Planet. Per chi non lo conoscesse (!!!), LBP è un platform un po’ fuori dagli schemi per Playstation 3 dove è possibile giocare fino in 4 giocatori contemporaneamente.

Non sto a raccontare quanto sia figo giocare a LBP in quattro. E’ totale. Il punto è un altro: per giocare in quattro è necessario avere quattro controller.. elementare direte voi.

Beh sarà anche elementare, ma avete mai controllato quanto costano i controller per la playstation 3 originali? Mediaworld li vende a 50 euro, altre catene a 60 euro.

Comprare 3 controller mi sarebbe quindi costato 180 euro: una spesa che non ha senso, mi ci compro una Wii con quei soldi

Ma ai tempi ancora non avevo neanche comprato il secondo controller e non sapevo quanto fosse figo LBP in multiplayer. Capito da Mediaworld e inevitabilmente faccio l’incauto, comincio con il comprare un secondo controller bianco (troppo bello!)

Mi ritrovo quindi con due controller e una spesa di 50 euro. Lo porto a casa e gioco a LBP con la mia ragazza. Folgorazione. Capolavoro. DEVO comprarne altri due e giocarci in quattro assolutamente.

Spendere altri 100/120 euro è però fuori questione: son troppi dai Antonio non fare la cazzata.

Cambio di scena: sono da Comet (una catena simile a Mediaworld) e vedo che Logitech produce controller compatibili per la PS3: figata! perché non ci ho pensato prima!

Logitech ne produce un modello con filo e uno senza, il primo ha pure un sistema assurdo di areazione che spara aria nelle mani mentre giochi (non sto scherzando) a 12 e rotti euro, il secondo ha un dongle usb per comunicare via wireless visto che la tecnologia che usano i controller wireless è proprietaria Sony e costa 25 euro. Con meno di 40 euro mi porto a casa i due gamepad che mi mancavano per averne finalmente quattro!

La sera (guarda caso) faccio “seratina amici” a casa e quando arrivano do la lieta novella: abbiamo quattro controller ragaz! scatenate l’inferno in Little Big Planet.

E invece no. NO. Perché [b]i controller Logitech per la Playstation 3 non vengono riconosciuti su Little Big Planet.[/b] Segnatevelo nella testa: LBP e probabilmente anche altri giochi vogliono solo controller originali Sony per giocare. Solo originali.

Mega delusione e 40 euro buttati al vento.. e giù tutti a dirmi “con quei soldi ti compravi un terzo controller originale!” e “hai voluto risparmiare?”, “pagliaccio!” e tutto il resto che vi lascio immaginare.. in realtà ne spedevo ancora di più (da Comet costano 60 euro gli originali!) ribatto io.. ma ormai l’EPIC FAIL è scritto nella pietra

Passa un’altra settimana e ricapito da Comet. Vedo il controller rosso originale Sony. Bellissimo. 60 euro. Lo compro. E’ inevitabile.

La sera giochiamo in tre a Little Big Planet: figata! ci passiamo i controller e riusciamo a giocare in quattro, ma mai contemporaneamente ovviamente. Tristezza.

Passa un’altra settimana e Bacco si presenta alla nostra solita seratina con un regalo di Natale speciale! mi ha regalato il quarto controller, l’ha preso blu! figata! grazie Bacco!

Ora ne abbiamo finalmente quattro cazzo.. spesa complessiva, sommando anche il FAIL dei due Logitech: 50+60+12+25+50 = 197 euro. Allucinante Incauto Acquisto Totale (AIAT! eheheh).

Ma non è finita qui. No.

Perché esattamente il giorno dopo ci contatta MiniInTheBox.com per chiederci se eravamo interessati a recensire i loro prodotti. Certo rispondo io, e vado a vedere cosa hanno in vendita.

La prima cosa che mi salta all’occhio è questo usb controller DUALSHOCK ricaricabile senza fili per ps3/playstation 3 che viene venduto a 20.14€ con spedizione gratuita per l’Italia!

Allucinante. Cazzo dici? vuoi dirmi che da questo sito mi porto a casa tre controller originali sony a 60€, spedizione inclusa? ma stiamo scherzando?

Guardo le foto. Sono identici agli originali, usano la tecnologia wireless integrata Sony quindi si comportano esattamente come i controller originali Sony, hanno gli stessi identici componenti e anche esteticamente sono assolutamente uguali.

L’unica differenza che vedo è che manca il logo “PS” sul tasto PS.. il resto? identico.

E allora ricontatto MiniInTheBox.com e gli dico che vorrei recensire quel controller. Gli chiedo se è vero che spediscono gratis in Italia e come si comportano per le spese doganali:

Assolutamente sì, spedizione gratuita su TUTTI i prodotti in tutto il mondo, Italia compresa! Per i dazi doganali, inviamo i prodotti via posta aerea per minimizzare il rischio di pagare dazi doganali, che non ti nego che esista, ma utilizzando la posta aerea (e non altre modaliltà come UPS) la probabilità di pagare è abbastanza bassa. Questo vale se ordini uno o pochi prodotti, certo che se sei un rivenditore che mi ordina 500 pezzi, posta aerea o meno, dai dazi doganali non ci scappi, e comunque in un caso così non utilizzeremmo la posta aerea per inviarti l’ordine.

Cazzo uomo allora inviami all’istante quel controller perché voglio proprio vedere se funziona o no! questa storia è una bomba cazzo.

Passano due settimane. Mi ero quasi scordato di questa storia.

Driin! Corriere per Antonio Moro.. ci sono 13 euro di dogana da pagare…

Pacco dalla Cina! paga paga che son troppo curioso!

Fatto sta che mi arriva il pacco con tutta una serie di prodotti da provare, la dogana me la sono cuccata probabilmente solo perché il pacco era piuttosto grosso, avessi ordinato solo il controller, come mi avevano preannunciato avrei quasi sicuramente evitato le spese doganali.. tant’é, non lo saprò mai o me lo direte voi se comprerete questo controller.

Insomma fatto sta che c’é anche il controller PS3 nello scatolone e lo tiro fuori per primo perché sono troppo curioso di vedere se questo controller è identico o no all’originale.

E’ identico. Persino il packaging è identico. In tutto e per tutto.

La sera lo porto a casa e provo subito a collegarlo alla mia PS3: funziona.

Funziona perfettamente. l’ho ricaricato e collegato alla PS3 istantaneamente. Little Big Planet lo riconosce come un controller originale Sony.. e, fidatevi.. se lo riconosce Little Big Planet vuol proprio dire che è identico a quelli Sony in tutto.

Me lo consigli? assolutamente si. Potessi tornare indietro avrei comprato istantaneamente tre di questi controller e con soli 60 euro avevo risolto il problema!

Per completezza di informazione voglio anche pubblicare la posizione ufficiale di Sony su questa questione:

Sony is putting out the word as a cautionary note to gamers that counterfeit PlayStation 3 game controllers have begun to appear in the wild. These PS3 controllers are said to be “identical” to a genuine PS3 controller and that it can be very difficult to tell the two apart.

According to Sony, the counterfeit product is also inferior to the original both in terms of quality and reliability, but guess what, there’s also a concern about safety. Sony has stated that these fake controllers are a risk to your physical health because in certain situations, these devices may “ignite or explode” resulting in property damage or physical injury.

Sony didn’t elaborate as to where these counterfeit products are coming from but of course their recommendation is that you buy a Sony approved wireless controller from any one of the many trusted retail stores that are in your local city.

via

Personalmente ora ho quattro controller originali e un fake controller. Se nei prossimi mesi mi esploderà in mano il fake.. state certi che lo verrete a sapere..

Nel frattempo ve ne consiglio a prescindere l’acquisto: anche doveste beccare le spese doganali per sfiga vi costerebbe comuque un terzo esatto del costo dell’equivalente marchiato Sony.

In questo caso Sony ti prende una mano prima vendendoti i controller ad un prezzo altissimo (in gran parte per rifarsi anche dei costi della PS3 come piattaforma).. dall’altra parte ti chiedono il giusto prezzo.. col rischio di perdere una mano dopo.. BOOM! a voi la scelta!

Questo è un cross post con Lega Nerd.

Nei prossimi giorni altre recensioni di altre assurdità che ci siamo fatti spedire da MiniInTheBox.com

Continue reading Viber VoIP iPhone app: 3G calling, no registration, and totally free

Viber VoIP iPhone app: 3G calling, no registration, and totally free originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Dec 2010 22:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

There's also a grandfather clause of sorts: if you create your Find My iPhone account on a qualified current-gen device, you can then use that same ID to enable FMI on any iOS 4.2 device, which allows you to stretch back to the 3GS, 3G and previous-gen iPod touch at least.

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The ability to remotely locate your iPhone is one of the most appreciated and sought-after features of Apple's MobileMe package. If you've been on a frantic Black Friday shopping spree, for example, and accidentally left your phone behind at an unknown store, you can quickly dial up Find my iPhone on your Mac to figure out where your errant smartphone is hiding.

Once you've upgraded your iPhone or iPad to iOS 4.2, however, you'll be able to use Find My iPhone for free with the iPhone 4, iPad, and 4th Gen iPod Touch.

To activate the feature, go to Settings. Select "Mail, Contacts, Calendars" and choose to Add an Account. Enter your existing Apple ID username and password, which is the same information you use to interact with iTunes.

Free use of Find My iPhone is a significant competitive advantage for iPhones and iPads. It's a handy feature which brings great peace of mind to its users. Hats off to Apple for making it available even outside the MobileMe account.

Find my iPhone to be free in iOS 4.2 for current-gen devices originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 22 Nov 2010 09:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Welcome to the TUAW Holiday Gift Guide! We've sorted the treasure from the junk and are serving up suggestions to make your holiday gift-giving a little easier.

Continue reading TUAW's Holiday Gift Guide: Toys for the Apple fan

TUAW's Holiday Gift Guide: Toys for the Apple fan originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 18 Nov 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Gallery: Boxee Box unboxing and hands-on

Continue reading Boxee Box review

Boxee Box review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.