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Meet The Wii U Gamepad, Nintendo's Answer To Gaming On The iPad
Jun 03, 10:33PM
Details are still just mainly technical, but Nintendo just took the wraps off the final version of the Wii U's controller, now named Gamepad. This came during Nintendo's somewhat surprising pre-E3 press conference. The controller itself looks somewhat similar to the prototype unit Nintendo unveiled at last year's E3. This pre-briefing speaks to the confidence of Nintendo. These sort of details are generally reserved for Nintendo's big E3 event. It's sort of brilliant, really. The last few years Microsoft has generally kicked off the festivities with the first major press conference of the show. But just a few days ago, Nintendo announced today's online press conference, effectively stealing a bit of Microsoft's E3 swagger with the announcement of the Wii U hardware prior to the start of the trade show. Now that the Wii U hardware has been unveiled, Nintendo can spend even more time during its Tuesday morning press extravaganza showing off the games. Brilliant.Mobile And Local Ads: The Publisher Perspective
Jun 03, 9:20PM
Editor's note: Location is key to monetizing mobile ads, ThinkNear chief executive Eli Portnoy wrote in a guest post for us yesterday. Now James Hritz weighs in with some further thoughts on the matter, focusing on how app publishers view the matter. He's a veteran monetization specialist who worked at Fox for years, and is now the Vice President of monetization at Tunewiki. Interesting and thoughtful mobile monetization article by Eli Portnoy. Sure, Eli speaks a lot of truth about the current state of advertising in mobile and for advertisers, geo-targeted local ads seems like nirvana. The real challenge is going to be for mobile publishers and the nature of their inventory.As Facebook Puns Dominate News Headlines Worldwide, One Man Is Fighting Back
Jun 03, 7:55PM
"Where are Facebook's friends? Stock slide deepens," the Associated Press wondered recently. "Facebook's flotation: more pokes than likes," The Guardian quipped. "Status change for Facebook's IPO?," MSNBC questioned. After all the awful Facebook puns in headlines over the last few weeks, TechCrunch couldn't hold back any longer -- "After Years Of Flirting, Facebook And Apple Set To Achieve Relationship Status In iOS 6." But do not fear, dear readers. A champion has emerged to hold the perpetrators accountable. And you may know him.iCade Mobile, The Gaming Adapter For iPhone, Now Shipping
Jun 03, 7:41PM
Good news, everybody! The iCade Mobile, a Bluetooth case that slides around your iPhone, allowing you to play games using a trackpad and read buttons, is now shipping for $80. The iCade Core, an arcade joystick for the iPad, is also shipping. It costs $100. Announced a few months ago, folks have been waiting breathlessly to play Megaworm with a trackpad. The devices should be available at ThinkGeek and you can check them out here. You can check out the Core here.Pocket God's Other Success: Digital Comics
Jun 03, 7:10PM
Pocket God is best-known as a hit game for iOS and other smartphone platforms, but Dave Castelnuovo, head of developer Bolt Creative, says the story and characters have been embraced in another medium, too — namely, comic books. Ape Entertainment started publishing the Pocket God comic series (both in print and on iOS) in August 2010, with a total of 16 issues so far, plus a digital-only series featuring bonus content. All told, the series has sold more than 600,000 digital copies, Castelnuovo says, with issue number one seeing more than 200,000 sales.Appsplit Is Crowdfunding For Apps
Jun 03, 6:40PM
If Appsplit is any indication, either crowdfunding is the future of everything or there's a crowdfunding gold rush. I'm going to bet it's a little of both. This new service allows programmers to crowdfund their projects. Why not use Kickstarter, you ask? Beats me, but here's what's up. Appsplit is first and foremost a place to put your app campaigns. You tell folks what you're building ("An app that tells you what time it is in Fiji."), how you want to be funded (an "Open" project allows folks to keep the money even if the project isn't funded), and how much you need. You then do a little marketing, tell your friends, and you've got an app.Hot Android To-Do List App, Any.DO, Comes To iOS And Web
Jun 03, 4:00PM
Any.DO, the gorgeous to-do app for Android, has finally made its way to the iPhone and the web today. Developed by the team behind Taskos, one of the most popular to-do list applications on the Android Market, Any.DO launched last November backed by $1 million in angel funding, making a few iPhone users (ahem *clears throat*) jealous of something on Android for a change. Besides the basics of t0-do list management, the app supports gestures, auto-predictive text, and voice-to-text recognition, all of which are packaged in easy-to-use and attractive interface.Raising Money 101: It's a Selling Moment
Jun 03, 2:04PM
The recent Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman got me thinking about the differences between the pitches I hear from entrepreneurs, and why some succeed and others don't. Willy Loman's character did much to lower our society's already low opinion of sales and selling, but the fact remains that the concept, if not the actual act, of selling is a vital process in our economic system. For example, if you're an entrepreneur looking for financing, you are selling an idea to a buyer - usually a venture capitalist like me.For the Single Founder Who Can't Code
Jun 03, 9:00AM
Last summer when I started working on Undrip, I was in a tough spot. I grew up doing web and graphic design so I was a pretty good front-end developer and designer. But I knew nothing about back-end web development – loops, branches dictionaries or functions were all foreign concepts to me. I was a single founder who couldn't code. Against the Odds Every week I get emails from entrepreneurs seeking my advice asking how I did it before, and how I'm doing it now. They find themselves in similar situations in that they're looking to build a tech startup with little to no technical skills. They're frustrated by their inability to make forward progress and they usually either give up and fail, or outsource if they have some extra cash (which usually leads to failure). If you're a single founder who can't code, your chances for startup success are near zero. However, there's still a chance. And a chance is all you need.Monetizing Mobile Requires More Than Just Waiting For Ad Dollars
Jun 03, 2:24AM
Mary Meeker's presentation this week on mobile shone light on the mobile monetization problem and argued that "ad $ follow eyeballs, it just takes time." However, she failed to address the reason for the mobile monetization issue and missed the clear implications for anyone looking to seize the opportunity. Mobile is exploding. Over 100 million people in the US have smartphones, consumers are spending over 60 minutes a day consuming media on these devices, and people glance at their phone about 40 times a day. That is a massive and very active user base. You would think that advertisers would be rushing to take advantage of this untapped goldmine of an opportunity to reach consumers. However, as Meeker showed there is a huge discrepancy in the amount of time people spend on their phones and the number of advertising dollars allocated to mobile. The mis-equilibrium numbers vary, but estimates range between consumers spending 10% to 24% of their media time on mobile and advertisers putting only 0.5% to 1% of their budgets there.Inside StartX Stanford's Spring 2012 Demo Day [TCTV]
Jun 02, 11:30PM
StartX, the startup accelerator for Stanford University students, held its Spring 2012 Demo Day this past week at AOL headquarters in Palo Alto, California. Seven very diverse startups presented to a room of investors, media, and tech industry folks -- the latest batch of StartX startups range from a new method of doing DNA sequencing, to truly educational children's toys, to a new way for women to buy jewelry, and more. TechCrunch TV was there, and in the video embedded above you can see the general scene and also our interview with StartX's founder Cameron Teitelman. We also got six of the presenting companies to give TechCrunch their pitches directly...The Instagram Effect? Mobile Photo Sharing App PicPlz To Shut Down Permanently On July 3
Jun 02, 9:36PM
PicPlz, the mobile photo sharing app that is perhaps known best for being an early and direct competitor with Instagram, will shut down permanently on July 3. PicPlz delivered the news through a short post on its company blog as well as in a brief email to users that read:How Do Top Android Developers QA Test Their Apps?
Jun 02, 9:32PM
A couple weeks ago I ran this post showing how one Hong Kong developer, Animoca, tests its Android games. The company, which has had more than 70 million downloads, tests every one of their apps on about 400 different devices. The photo above is from their headquarters and is just a taste of all the Android phones and tablets they use. Needless to say, that post pissed Android fanboys off. Some commenters said it intimidated would-be developers, who might get scared off by Android fragmentation and the perception that you have to support hundreds of devices, screen sizes and densities and versions of the OS. So, I asked around to see how other mobile game developers do quality assurance testing for Android. This is what I got:YouTube Scores A Solid Return On Its Video Development Fund
Jun 02, 8:10PM
My son recently tried to call one of our older relatives. He dialed the number and quickly hung up with a confused look on his face. I asked him what was wrong and he replied, "I don't know. There's something wrong with their phone, it kept beeping." I called the number and was amused to hear a landline busy signal, something my cell phone centric pre-teen had never encountered. My son is similarly unacquainted with cable TV. Other than the occasional NBA game, he consumes his video content via our iPad and Xbox. Most of his online viewing is spent on YouTube. He is not alone. Mark Suster, fellow venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur, has written extensively about YouTube's evolution from dogs-on-skateboards to its current status as an entertainment medium rivaling cable television networks. Mark provides an excellent primer regarding the future of Internet TV HERE.HTC Evo 4G LTE Review: I Can't See Why Not
Jun 02, 8:04PM
The Evo 4G LTE is a fine phone. There certainly aren't any glaring issues: Sense has been considerably streamlined, and it's really good at what it was made to do, which is entertain. The design language is a little loud, though maybe that's what it takes to shake things up in the land of Android. (LAndroid.) But unlike the Evos that have come before it, this latest iteration doesn't really bring any truly special features to the table. I mean, consider the name. It's the Evo 4G LTE, yet Sprint's 4G LTE network isn't set to go live for another month, at the very earliest. And even if that weren't the case, LTE is no longer a wow factor. It's a soon-to-be norm, which means that the Evo needs something more than fast data to be a big deal. Does it have what it takes? Let's find out together, yes?Dropcanvas Offers Up Free, Dead Simple File Sharing, But Can It Last?
Jun 02, 6:35PM
There's no shortage of robust, full-featured file storage and sharing services out there, but where do you turn when you want the quickest, simplest way to go? Crate costs money, JustBeamIt requires both users to be online at the same time, but newcomer Dropcanvas? They may be onto something. The beauty behind Dropcanvas is that it requires virtually no thought or effort to use properly. Upon navigating to the site, users are told to drag and drop a file onto the page. Once a file has been dragged onto the so-called "canvas" -- there's no set file size limit though canvases are capped at 5GB -- users are provided with a link to spread around and a share button for easy access to Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit.Cleveland-Based LaunchHouse Is Looking For A Few Good Ohio Start-Ups
Jun 02, 6:31PM
Cleveland, known to many as the "Land From Whence The Cleves Came," is rarely mentioned when you think of hotbeds of entrepreneurial energy. But yet it was the long time home to Harvey Pekar and does still have many local colleges, including Case Western Reserve, John Carroll, and Cleveland State. It is also home to Sherwin-Williams, Progressive Insurance, and now LaunchHouse. In other words, it's a city that's ready to make a few sweeping changes.Hands-On With The Romain Jerome Space Invaders Watch For High-End Gamers
Jun 02, 6:14PM
People keep asking, "Why would anyone of sane mind buy a $17,000 luxury watch with a Space Invader's theme?" If you are familiar with the Swiss watch brand Romain Jerome - you don't need an answer. They are the people that brought you pieces such as the Titanic DNA (with metal from the actual titanic), and the Moon Dust DNA (with yea... real dust the from moon and metal from spare parts of the Apollo XI). So a "luxury licensing" deal with Taito Japan isn't that odd.ApriPetit Is A Little Robot That Wants To Talk To You
Jun 02, 6:08PM
Robots are hard to talk to. They're not friendly, they're mostly made of plastic, and, as anyone who has tried to chat with a Roomba can attest, they are often dedicated to a single task. Luckily, there's ApriPetit. Toshiba's R&D department built ApriPetit as a successor to their larger ApriPoco. This little guy is about six inches tall and follows along to conversations by moving its slug-like body and eyes in ways that resemble proper conversation.Gillmor Gang: Beneath Blue Suburban Skies
Jun 02, 5:00PM
The Gillmor Gang — John Taschek, Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor — watches helplessly as robots briefly take over the show. As investors reel from the backwash of the Facebook IPO, Microsoft chooses the moment to start pushing Windows 8. The Gang is underwhelmed. Also: Missing Steve Jobs at the D conference, liner notes on the way to Spotify, and another round of Google Glasses from @scobleizer. The thing is, we want to give permission to be interrupted, not beg for restoration of a clear view. Even when we don't talk push notification, we do.If at any time you'd like to stop receiving these messages, just send an email to feeds_feedburner_com_techcrunch+unsubscribe-hmdtechnology=gmail.com@mail.feed2email.net.
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