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An American iPhone In Paris
Dec 14, 7:17AM
For the past 10 days, I've been in Paris. A few of us were there to cover the LeWeb conference, which was great, but I decided to stick around for a little while longer as I heard the city is amazing. Spoiler alert: it is. But I wasn't on vacation, I was working. I had all my tech with me — including the best travel computer ever, the new MacBook Air, and even this thing. And, of course, my iPhone. But there was something peculiar about my iPhone in Paris. It actually worked. Like it was supposed to. All the time. And it doesn't take a genius to figure out why: there is no AT&T in Paris.
Google, These Aren't Really The Best Answers For Users. They Are The Best Answers For You.
Dec 14, 4:50AM
Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal ran an article pointing out how Google is increasingly favoring its own properties, in search results over natural results to outside sites which previously commanded the top spots. This practice is especially noticeable with Google Places and local results, but there are other examples as well from product and mortgage search to health search. We've seen these spats before, particularly between Google and Yelp. Citysearch and Tripadvisor are also taking a traffic hit, it seems. Google responded yesterday with a post on its public policy blog titled "Local Search: It's all about the best answers for users." Yeah, right. Don't kid yourself. It's all about what is best for Google. How else do you explain the preponderance of Google Places listings in local search results for queries such as "NY Chiropractor" (see screenshot) or "NYC spa"? In each case the top 7 links after the paid ads are businesses which just happen to have a Google Places page. 
With Chrome, Google Is Moving Towards Deeper Location Integration
Dec 14, 3:56AM
It should be pretty clear by now that Google is taking location very seriously. The original launch of Latitude in early 2009 was just a first step. Now they have robust APIs, Google Places, and key executive Marissa Mayer is now in charge of these and various related projects. And earlier today they finally rolled out a Latitude iPhone app. But if a fairly small tweak to Chrome is any indication, Google means to go deeper still. More specifically, Chromium, the open source browser on which Chrome is based, just recently received a new experimental feature hidden behind a flag (meaning you have to explicitly enable it). In the latest builds of Chromium version 10, you'll see an option called "Experimental location features". Apparently, when switched on, this allows the browser to run "experimental extensions to the geolocation feature."
Wu vs. Lacy Round Three: Is the Enemy of an Open Web Apple or Is it Apps and Flips?
Dec 14, 1:20AM
Last week, Tim Wu challenged me to another, longer debate about the future of the Web. His new book, The Master Switch, argues that every time there is a major communications innovation, a handful of big companies find a way to close it off, keeping the future spoils for themselves. That hurts incremental innovation and ultimately hurts consumer choice in the name of convenience and low-prices. His book is about all the ways the Web is no different from, say, radio and the telegraph and old Hollywood studios. I've argued the Web is different because of technological reasons, community reasons, and capitalization reasons. Because of the way startups are financed this time around, there is more money on the side of the Web staying open than there is in closing it. In this longer debate on bloggingheads.tv, Wu raises a few good counter arguments that concern him about the industry's future. And they hit home because they are two things I worry about too: Silicon Valley's increasing reliance on acquisitions for exits and apps running on top of platforms like the iPhone and Facebook for distribution. We also talk about the distinction between the computer Web and the mobile Web when it comes to openness. The whole debate is below.
Staying Safe Online This Holiday Season
Dec 13, 11:59PM
Given the recent rash of hacks, let's talk a little about staying safe this holiday. You probably don't need this guide, so pass it on to someone who does, like your brother-in-law, dad, or parole officer. Online safety and security is no laughing matter and this holiday thousands of us will wake up to empty bank accounts and zeroed PayPal balances if we're not careful. What's worse, your family will probably turn to you as the de facto Christmas Dinner IT guy so you'll have to spent most of the 24th killing malware and spyware. To that end, here are a few tips and tricks to help you and yours through the season. Give the Gift of Linux - The best thing you can do for your non-computer-savvy relative or friend is install Linux. Before you laugh, hear me out. Linux is great if all you're doing is surfing the Internet and maybe writing some documents. Everything else, including photo sharing, is all cloud-based now anyway. Best of all, you won't have to spend hours deleting junk out of the browser cache and you can do it all remotely via a VNC or an SSH connection. What more could you ask for?
Betabrand's 'Privates' Underwear Promises To Block TSA Employees From Seeing Your Scanned Junk
Dec 13, 11:39PM
There's been no shortage of outrage over the TSA's "naked" body scanners, which have been compared to virtual strip searches. For those of you who want to protect your private parts from being ogled by TSA employees, crowdsourced online retail site Betabrand is now offering a scanner-proof undergarment, aptly called "Privates." The brainchild of Stephen Russell, the founder and chairman of surveillance search engine and facial recognition company, 3VR Security; Privates essentially distorts the shapes seen in airport body scanners. The garment fuzzes out a traveler's privates using body scanner resistant materials. But Russell says that the pattern isn't so dense that it will get you pulled out of line, writing that the "effect is much like wearing a loose sheer piece of clothing."
Elon Musk, SolarCity Donate Power System To Gulf Coast Disaster Relief Group
Dec 13, 10:41PM
Serial tech entrepreneur and investor, Elon Musk, and SolarCity— providers of solar power system and energy efficiency design, financing, installation and related services— donated a solar power generating system to the Hurricane Katrina- and BP Oil Spill-effected community of Coden, Alabama the company announced today. The system consists of solar panel arrays attached to a battery back-up system that will allow the South Bay Communities Alliance (SBCA) Hurricane Response Center to produce its own power, reduce its cost of operations and maintain power in the event of an outage. The system, newly up and running...
eBay Posted Record $13M In Gross Mobile Sales Yesterday; Up 165 Percent
Dec 13, 10:31PM
eBay is setting records in terms of mobile sales this holiday season, announcing that yesterday was the marketplace's biggest shopping day ever via mobile phones in terms of gross merchandise value (also known as GMV, the total sales dollar value for merchandise sold through eBay). eBay mobile GMV grew by 127 percent to $5 million in the U.S. and 165 percent globally to $13 million on Sunday, Dec. 12 from the same Sunday last year. In the U.S., eBay mobile GMV was up 38 percent on what eBay is now referring to as "Mobile Sunday," compared to sales on Cyber Monday this year. In terms of which products performed the best in terms of volume of sales, clothing and accessories topped the list followed by Cars & Trucks and Jewelry & Accessories. 
Google Latitude Finally Comes To The iPhone, Touts 9 Million Active Users
Dec 13, 10:13PM
It seems that whenever there's a discussion around mobile location services, Google Latitude is treated as an also-ran. Foursquare and Facebook Places have been getting most of the buzz, and there's also plenty of news around SCVNGR and Gowalla. Latitude, which launched in February 2009, rarely make headlines. But starting today, we'll probably start hearing a bit more about Google's location-based service. It's just launched a full-featured, native application for the iPhone that includes support for background location monitoring — marking the first time that the application has been available for the iPhone in a form that wasn't severely crippled. Note that this was spotted in Japan's App Store a few days ago — obviously that was a mistake in the buildup to today's launch.
Google Bought Stealthy Mobile Payments Startup Zetawire
Dec 13, 9:58PM
Lately, Google has been showing off Android phones with NFC chips in them that can power mobile payments. The newest Android, the Nexus S, is the first to ship with an NFC (near field communications) chip, and the technology could be the key to getting into mobile payments. These are the same chips in some credit cards today. It turns out that Google got some of its NFC expertise from a Toronto-based startup it acquired called ZetaWire, according to information uncovered by tech analysts at the 451 Group. A notice from Zetawire's law firm, Fenwick and West, mentioned the acquisition. The price was not disclosed, but it was likely very small, with only 2 to 4 employees. The deal may have actually occurred as long as a year ago, but was never reported.
When Will China's Internet Giants Open the Acquisition Wallet? (TCTV)
Dec 13, 8:32PM
The biggest difference between the Internet scenes in Silicon Valley and China this year? We're all still asking when Facebook will go public, while Chinese companies are filing left and right. Part of this is an investor demand to get a chunk of that 400 million person strong and growing Chinese Internet market. But part of this is cultural. American Internet entrepreneurs are more likely to want to sell their companies these days. But in China, it's like the late 1990s: Success equals an IPO. On the other side of the bargaining table, American companies like to buy technology, engineers and potential competitors and aren't afraid to potentially overpay to get what they want. Chinese Internet companies have the cash and the stock currency: Tencent is the third largest Internet company in the world by market cap and Baidu is the fifth. But so far, they've been loathe to do big acquisitions that would dilute the corporate culture. That has to change at some point... doesn't it? We ask DCM's Ruby Lu about the implications of this IPO-only culture, especially the talent war it's creating among big companies and startups in China's hotspots. Video below.
Google Mobile Searches Grew 130 Percent In Q3
Dec 13, 8:11PM
As more and more consumers use their phones for both business and product search and purchasing, mobile ad formats for retailers are becoming a more compelling way to connect with these users. Today, Google is bringing its seller ratings ad format to the mobile platform, allowing searchers using Google on the mobile web to see ratings of merchants within a search ad. Another interesting tidbit from the post—Google Mobile searches were up 130 percent year-over-year in Q3 of 2010. Similar to seller ratings for web-based search ads, the mobile format allows advertisers to include a rating for a business. Seller Ratings are aggregated from merchant review sites and Google says the the extension will only show when a merchant's online store has a rating of four or more stars and includes at least 30 reviews. 
Keen On… Tim Ferriss: How To Turn Your Body Into A Startup (TCTV)
Dec 13, 8:07PM
Tim Ferriss is one of the world's leading transcenders of limitations. Best known as the author of the 2007 monstrously successful self-help guide The 4-Hour Workweek, a #1 New York Times and #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller that has accumulated over 1000 reviews on Amazon, the Princeton-educated and globe-trotting Ferriss is also a legendary bodybuilder, life hacker and re-inventor of the physical self. According to Ferriss, modern man is driven by two great fears: 1) Too much email. 2) Getting fat. So it's no great surprise that Ferriss' follow-up to The 4-Hour Workweek is The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman, which is released tomorrow. While his first book was a guide to overcoming too much email, Ferris' latest work is a guide to overcoming the limitations of the physical body. It's a hacking guide to the body – a book which encourages us to treat our bodies as entrepreneurial start-ups that require continual innovation and reinvention in order to fully realize ourselves and, of course, lose weight. Video ahead.
12 Days Of Christmas: Kobo E-Reader And E-Books
Dec 13, 8:03PM
We're kicking off our 12 days of giveaways with an e-reader from Kobo. You might have seen our first review, or our more recent one; it's a bare-bones, straightforward little e-reading device that is now graced with onboard w-ifi and a store for magazines and newspapers. And we've got one with your name on it for our first daily giveaway. All you need to do is leave a comment below mentioning your favorite non-existent piece of tech from a book you love. For example: I love the thumper from Dune, the device the sand people use to attract and distract the sand worms. When global warming renders this world a sandy hell, I'll be the first to market this must-have accessory. I AM THE KWISATZ HADERACH!
UserVoice Brings Its Customer Feedback Service To Facebook Pages
Dec 13, 7:22PM
Earlier this year, Get Satisfaction launched a Facebook application that brought the popular customer support service to the world's most popular social network. Today, competitor UserVoice is launching an application of its own that offers many of the same benefits. The app will allow businesses to poll users on which features they'd like to see implemented and ask if they've had any issues — with the data getting relayed back to the business's UserVoice web presence in real-time. The appeal of these Facebook applications is obvious: brands and businesses are investing significant resources into developing their Facebook pages as a way to interact with their customers. If they want to get customer feedback on upcoming features or offer user support, it makes sense to do it directly from this same Facebook Page rather than redirect them to another site.
TechCrunch TRON LEGACY Screenings In New York And San Francisco
Dec 13, 6:27PM
Longtime TechCrunch readers know we like to have movie screenings on opening day for cool science fiction type blockbusters. Sometimes we get into legal trouble, but let us worry about that. It always works out in the end. TRON LEGACY officially opens this Friday, December 17. We've reserved and prepaid two big theaters for the 3-D version of the movie, one in New York (470 seats) and one in San Francisco (404 seats). Movies in both locations start at 11:15 pm (EST or PST, depending on the theater) Thursday night, December 16. Want to go? We're releasing tickets starting right now. Click for details.
Glam Signals Its Social Aspirations With A Key Hire
Dec 13, 6:24PM
Glam Media is one of the largest publishing and advertising networks on the Web, with a total reach of 90 million people a month in the U.S. Over the past six months, it's launched a brand-targeted ad serving platform, Glam Adapt, and branched out from its singular focus on women's sites to include men's sports sites as well. Its next big push will be into social, and it starts today with the key hire of Ryan Stern as vice president of Glam Social Communities, a new business for Glam. Stern was previously VP of publishing at FoodBuzz, a network of more than 16,000 food blogs. Her job at Glam will be to oversee a new content authoring system and convince 10,000 to 100,000 bloggers and video creators to start submitting their posts and videos into the system. In a sense, this system will be similar to AOL's Seed, except that it will feed both Glam's owned-and-operated sites and independent niche publishers who are part of its ad network. 
Was Youku a Chinese Internet Netscape Moment? (TCTV)
Dec 13, 5:50PM
A few weeks ago we flagged a growing trend of Chinese Internet companies going public on the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange and getting pretty good valuations. At the time I was surprised more people weren't paying attention-- especially given how few Internet IPOs we're having in the US and how much of the returns from those Chinese deals were flowing back to Silicon Valley. (At least on paper anyway.) All it took was Youku doubling in a first day pop to grab more mainstream attention and a flood of stories about a Chinese Web bubble. But it's not really that simple. While there seems to be plenty of appetite for Chinese companies on Wall Street, few are having the reception that Youku did. BitAuto, a site in the middle of China's explosive automobile growth, surprised a lot of experts when it didn't pop higher. So what makes the difference between a BitAuto which didn't pop as high as many expected and a Youku that popped much higher? And is this a bubble? We sat down via Skype with Ruby Lu to find out. 
Ex-Wikileaks Folks Start Openleaks, The Next-Generation Of Leaking
Dec 13, 5:47PM
That certainly didn't take long. The former number two at Wikileaks, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, has said that he will launch the next-generation of leaking software (I guess you'd call it software) in the "coming months." It's to be called Openleaks, and it will try to fix some of the problems associated with the Wikileaks model, namely centralization.
Former Googler Launches Disconnect, Browser Extension That Disables Third Party Data Tracking
Dec 13, 5:00PM
You remember Facebook Disconnect, the browser extension that allowed you to remove Facebook Connect functionality from websites? After 50K active users in two weeks and hitting the top 10 Google Chrome extensions, creator Brian Kennish has left his job at Google to focus on building Disconnect, a browser extension for Chrome and Rockmelt that disables multiple third party data tracking while browsing. In the same vein as Facebook Disconnect, Disconnect prevents major third parties like Digg, Facebook, Google, Twitter and Yahoo from gathering information (cookies) about the pages you go to and the searches you do.
2010: 'Twas The Year Of Mobile Apps, LBS And A Huge Surge In Data Traffic (Video)
Dec 13, 4:55PM
Hello, Internet. Industry group MobileFuture took about 2 minutes and 51 seconds to explain that 2010 was "the year mobile connected the world". Fortunately, they are sharing all this information freely by means of a video. The most apparent trends - which might be obvious to many of our readers but it's certainly nice to have them all lined up at once - are the fast-growing popularity of downloadable mobile applications (from 300 million in 2009 to 5 billion in 2010), and location-based, social networking and video sharing services in particular.
Bing Adds Natural Language To Flight Search
Dec 13, 4:45PM
Bing has just made a small improvement to travel search, adding the ability to add natural language queries to flight search. So instead of selecting your airport, destination, dates or other options to conduct a flight search, you can type in your parameters in the search box to retrieve results. For example, you could enter a search for "Flights from Chicago to SFO in January." In the results, Bing will include a pre-set Flight search section with possible dates, fare predictions, cheapest fares and more.
12 Days Of Christmas: Digital Storm Black OPS Assassin PC Gaming Rig
Dec 13, 4:24PM
Santa and his little elves at Digital Storm are busy assembling a spectacular gaming monster for one lucky CrunchGear reader's Christmas morning. We hear it's going to include an Intel Core i7 950, a bunch of RAM, and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 570 graphics card -- a computer that would normally cost over $2,200. It's going to be epic and it could all yours for just the price of a comment on this post.
The 12 Days Of Christmas Giveaway Extravaganza
Dec 13, 4:22PM
Happy holidays, dear readers! 'Tis the season to gather round family and friends in the spirit of giving; that's just what we're doing here. Over the next 12 days we're going to give away 12 fantastic gifts just because that's the least we can do for our loyal readers. There's no gimmick, no silly requirement, nothing special that you need to do to win any of the fantastic prizes. Just leave a comment in each of the posts and we'll pick a winner at random. We hope that these items will brighten your or perhaps someone else's holiday just a bit more. We've got a bunch of items to give away starting with a great ereader later today, but you know how the holidays work. There has to be something big from Santa. Well, kind and gentle readers, we've teamed up with the PC builder Digital Storm to giveaway a truly spectacular gaming PC with the winner being contacted and announced Christmas morning. This $2,284 Black Ops Assassin gaming rig packs a an Intel Core i7 950, 6GB DDR3 1600MHz Corsair memory, Blu-ray drive and a Nvidia GeForece GTX 570 1.2GB graphics card -- yeah, it's pretty great. This contest opens today with the winner will be contacted and announced Christmas morning.
Gilt Gives The Ultimate Auto Deal For Christmas: $10,000 Off A Jetta
Dec 13, 3:51PM
It looks like you'll soon be able to shop for cars on flash sales sites. Gilt Groupe has just announced a first-ever auto flash sale of a Volkswagen Jetta on the site. Beginning on Wednesday of this week, Gilt will sell 3 brand new 2011 Jettas to members at $5,995, which is down from a starting list price of $15,995. The company says the flash sale will take place over three days, signifying the first car sale on a flash sales site.
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