Hi there!
Here's the latest feed from TechCrunch.
Add feeds@feed2email.net to your contact list to make sure you receive all your emails
Make sure to visit feed2email.net to get more feeds sent to your inbox.
To find out which feeds you are subscribed to, or to get further help, just reply to this email.
Google's Internal Chrome OS Netbooks Codenamed "Mario" And "Andretti"?
Nov 26, 4:10AM
So, it appears that the first Chrome OS netbooks are set to launch in the next few weeks. And it now appears that the first ones will be Google-branded versions, built by a third-party manufacturer. And you can be sure that Google is already testing these internally, as they do this for basically all of their products leading up to launch. And a few more hints about them may reside in the Chromium issue tracker. For several months, Google has been internally testing Chrome OS on a wide variety of netbooks. These have included Asus Eee machines, Lenovo machines, Dell machines, and a few others. How do I know? Because they're often listed under "Type of computer" in bug reports. But more interesting has been the numerous references to "dogfood" machines. "Dogfooding" is the name given to the process of internally testing your own product. Again, Google has been doing this for months.
Inevitable! Google Chrome Extension Exports Your Facebook Contacts
Nov 25, 11:56PM
Last time we checked in on the Facebook/Google slapfight, Facebook had removed the option to import your contacts from Gmail and was still holding strong on the whole "denying contact info access to Google" rigamarole that started the fight in the first place. Up until now many no other choice but to use Yahoo Mail if they wanted to mass export their Friends data from Facebook into Google. Well Happy Thanksgiving data reciprocity fans! A third party developer has decided to build "Facebook Doesn't Own My Friends," a Chrome extension that lets you easily export your Facebook Friends' contact information.
Google VP: Chrome OS Coming To Tablets & TVs; Windows And Sys Admins Going Down
Nov 25, 10:44PM
Chrome OS draws near. Last night brought perhaps the more surefire sign yet: Google is openly talking to The New York Times about it. Perhaps that is in response to rumors that it was being delayed into next year. While details are still scant, NYT reports that before the end of the year, Google will release a lightweight netbook running Chrome OS. It will likely be branded as a Google product, but built by a third-party, similar to what the search giant did with their Nexus One phone, says the report. This is in line with what we've heard and were told recently. While a full-scale roll out of Chrome OS has likely been pushed into 2011, Google is still saying that they will release something before the end of the year. Based on messages in the open source Chromium forums, it would seem that this will be a beta version of the OS. One that yes, will be running on their own device that they're currently dogfood testing (testing within the company).
Puralytics CEO On Cleaning Water With Light, Winning The Cleantech Open
Nov 25, 8:56PM
The Cleantech Open— a prestigious annual competition for U.S. tech startups that protect, restore, and reduce the negative impact of humans on the environment— announced its 2010 winners this week. Puralytics, a clean water startup from Beaverton, Oregon, took first prize. The Puralytics team invented and sells a nanotechnology-based, photochemical water purification system that, in comparison to other available systems, can purify water more quickly, remove more impurities from it, and requires less electricity to do so. With 15 percent of the world's total estimated 6.5 billion population lacking freshwater enough to live a healthy life today, companies with promising water technology are in demand, and could help abate a global water and humanitarian crisis. 
Can Anything Stop The Facebook Juggernaut?
Nov 25, 7:37PM
So. Facebook. $35 billion valuation; 600 million users; 25% of all US Web traffic — and all that with fewer employees than Google has job openings. The inventor of the World Wide Web recently warned that the web may be endangered by Facebook's colossal walled garden. A Google engineer was recently paid $3.5 million to not jump ship to work there. Facebook seems an unstoppable juggernaut. And I kind of want them to die. Not because of their policies. They've been reasonably sensitive to their users' wants, and willing to admit when they were wrong (remember Facebook Beacon?) There have been worrying signs of late, for example, their two-faced attitude towards data portability and their trademarking of the word "Face", but I don't (yet) object to what they do. I dislike Facebook because they're mediocre. They have a platform and opportunity unlike anyone else, ever—and what have they done with it? Nothing. None of their so-called innovations are actually even remotely so. Copying Twitter was smart, but hardly new; ditto Foursquare. They called Facebook Groups an innovation; it's a basic feature they should have implemented years ago. Now they're laughably trying to claim that integrating email into their messaging system is a world-shaking revolution.
Are You In A Foodpickle This Thanksgiving? Get Your Cooking Qs Answered In Realtime.
Nov 25, 7:22PM
As everyone is getting their turkeys into the oven and putting the finishing touches on Thanksgiving Day meals, a lot of questions come up. What should the internal temperature of a turkey be to know it is done? How many mashed sweet potatoes would make 3 cups? How do I soften hardened brown sugar? The answers (165 degrees, 3, and microwave it) can be found on Foodpickle, a crowdsourced Q&A section of the foodie site Food52. You can ask a question on Foodpickle itself, or tweet it to @foodpickle. Answers are tweeted back at you. Foodpickle also accepts text messages to 803-380-FOOD (3663). And if you are lucky, your question might even be answered by food writer Amanda Hesser. 
TechCrunch Scores An Interview With Santa Claus. And Yes, His Epic Beard Is Real.
Nov 25, 6:34PM
I've come across quite a few Santa Claus imposters in my time. Most of them were easy to spot: there's the funky smell that has more in common with aftershave than cookies; the squeaky voice that would make any reindeer snicker; or, most often, the fake beard that looks like a giant cotton ball and droops in all the wrong places. But last Tuesday, I met the real Santa. Big as a house. Able to list off a dozen varieties of cookies in one breath. Six foot, eleventy-three inches tall. Smelled like candy canes. And a voice that was somehow both jolly and booming at the same time. So, of course, we grabbed a camera and asked him what makes St. Nick tick. Be sure to stay tuned until he discusses the tension between real and 'designer'-bearded Santas.
Gillmor Gang 11.25.10 (TCTV)
Nov 25, 6:29PM
The Gillmor Gang almost didn't happen today, as technical problems tormented the hastily assembled pre-holiday hoedown. Will Kinect save Microsoft? No, says Robert Scoble. Will Facebook and Apple destroy our freedom as they capture our identities and lock us behind a pay wall of our own choosing? Yes, says identity leader Dick Hardt. Gillmor had other ideas, but spent much of his time below decks trying to wrangle Kevin Marks' up and down Skype connection. This is a long show, about as long as it takes to set up Apple TV and the new iOS version 4.2 on a chain of iDevices, but in the end something about it works. Enjoy while you're waiting for the turkey to cook, and a Happy Thanksgiving from the Gang. Video Ahead
An iPhone App For Your Business For Just $39 A Month? Bizness Apps Raises Funding
Nov 25, 4:06PM
Bizness Apps CEO Andrew Gazdecki checked in to tell us that they've joined the admittedly very crowded market of DIY iPhone app development platforms, but says they can do it from start to finish for just $39 a month, obviously a highly competitive price. The fledgling company has just scored an undisclosed round of seed funding from two angel investors, namely Build.com CEO Chris Friedland (see his reasons for investing here) and founder and CEO of Collegescheduler.com Robert Strazzarino.
Google Studies How Consumers Shop For Laptops, Netbooks, E-Readers And Tablets
Nov 25, 3:10PM
As the holiday shopping season gets into full swing, Google has released a study examining how consumers shop for laptops, netbooks, e-readers and tablets. The search giant interviewed around 4,000 respondents and used analysis of clickstream data from Compete's 2 million US internet users. We've embedded the study below but here are some of the findings that we found most interesting from the report. In terms of interest, new devices like tablets and e-readers are getting attention in terms of searches on the web. In terms of unique visitors to each category, tablets saw 1328% growth and eReaders saw 114 percent growth. Netbook's visitors dropped by 50 percent and laptops dropped by 9 percent.
A Look At Windows Phone 7 Marketplace's Catalog, App Prices (Distimo Report)
Nov 25, 1:25PM
App store analytics provider Distimo took its monthly look at the world of mobile application stores, and this time zoomed in on the differences between Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 Marketplace and Windows Marketplace for Mobile (6.x). For you information, Distimo gathered data on all major app stores, but the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace data specifically was collected from 1 November until 22 November 2010, in the United States only (the store launched at the end of October 2010).
BuildorPro Wants To Bring HTML/CSS Editing To The Cloud – We Have Invites
Nov 25, 11:45AM
Web designers have to deploy their finished work in a web browser so perhaps it makes sense to move the design tools themselves to the browser too. That's the thinking behind BuildorPro, which claims to be the first browser-based, web design and development environment with built in HTML/CSS tools. Or, for seasoned web designers out there, think Coda or Espresso but in the cloud. The app, from the London-based startup Buildor, is currently in closed invite-only Beta but we have 300 invites to give away.
4Chan Spoofs Wikipedia Founder's "Personal Appeal"
Nov 25, 11:39AM
Just when you thought it couldn't get any better than the Jimmy Wales Chrome extension, 4Chan founder Christopher Poole has taken the whole unintentionally hilarious Wikipedia donation thing one step further and done us a solid by posting a Wales-esque "Personal Appeal" banner at the top of his own site. Just go ahead and click on "Read Now." I. dare. you. 
Angry Birds Day, Dec 11 – Something Big Planned For London
Nov 25, 11:22AM
By now you will have heard about the first official Angry Birds Day when lovers of that crazy iPhone/Android game come together to celebrate the ongoing war between the birds and the pigs. However, well placed sources told us yesterday that something big was going down on that day, specifically in London's Trafalgar Square. Now, this is becoming a big venue to launch big games, especialy console games. Here's the spectacular Halo Reach launch with guys in JetPacks earlier this year. There is speculation that Angry Birds for Windows Phone 7 will be anounced on the day. There is also speculation that the game's developer, Rovio Mobile, will launch a games console version or that it will spin out a movie. Actually personally I think that maybe, just maybe, something different is going on. Here's why. 
Four Facebook Alternative Alternatives
Nov 25, 11:04AM
Now that Diaspora, which is building an open-source distributed social network, has launched in private alpha, I figured it'd be a good idea to remind you that there are several alternatives to that particular Facebook alternative, some of which have been around longer and in more advanced stages of development. Note that there may be more initiatives that I haven't heard of or simply didn't or forgot to mention, so this is by no means an exhaustive list. Also, all of these deserve a full review, so I refrained from making quick-and-dirty comparisons between all of them.
Stack Overflow Hits 10M Uniques, Boldly Goes Where No Q&A Site Has Gone Before
Nov 25, 10:26AM
It seems as though Q&A network Stack Overflow has put the $6 million in funding it received back in May to good use, crossing the 10 million unique monthly visits mark as of yesterday. While sites like Quora bank on the winning Q&A model being on one big monolithic site, Stack Overflow is showing success by carefully separating the Q&A game into different communities, launching 34 different sites on topics as diverse as Bicycling, Cooking and IT Security.
Zediva Streams You Movies From Actual DVD Players, Argues It's Legal
Nov 25, 7:57AM
New startup Zediva attempts to circumvent all the licensing hassles experienced by streaming video services like Netflix, iTunes and Hulu through operating more like a traditional movie rental store, except online. The catch? "We don't rent digital copies of a movie ..."
Want An iPod Nano Watch? So Does Everyone. Idea Poised To Be New Kickstarter King
Nov 25, 4:11AM
We've talked a lot about Diaspora, the open-source Facebook-alternative, in recent months. One of the reasons for that is the massive success they had raising money on the crowdsourced fund-raising site, Kickstarter. The project raised over $200,000 from nearly 6,500 backers in just 39 days. Now a new project has already blown that tally out of the water: an iPod nano-based multi-touch wristwatch. Scott Wilson, the founder of Chicago-based product and design studio, MINIMAL, set out with an idea: to create two watch enclosures for Apple's latest iPod nano. He wanted the TikTok to be a low-end model ($35) and the LunaTik to be high-end ($70). So he put his project on Kickstarter with a goal of raising $15,000. So how is he doing? Well, he's raised $341,895. And he still has 22 days to go.
When iPad 2 Hits, Will iPad 1 Go Cheap Or Extinct?
Nov 25, 3:04AM
With iOS 4.2 finally out in the wild, the iPad has effectively been rejuvenated. And there's no question that Apple is going to sell a massive amount of them during the Holiday shopping season. But what comes next? Well, the iPad 2, of course. You don't need to be an analyst looking for inside information to know that Apple has a pretty standard policy of refreshing their product lines about once a year. And with iOS devices, it's more or less clockwork. Since the iPad was released in early April last year, that's the most obvious target for when the iPad 2 will hit. But there's a side question that will go along with that launch: what will happen to the iPad 1? Will it go cheap? Or will it go extinct? 
Gather Raises $2.4 Million, Makes Demand Media-Esque Pivot
Nov 25, 1:38AM
Social news site Gather has raised another $2.4 million in funding this week, in order to pivot its core business and focus on being a content on demand platform for other publishers, like Demand Media. Gather currently allows to writers to submit content and generate ad revenue share based on pageviews and site engagement.
Academia.edu Launches A Directory Of 12,500 Academic Journals
Nov 25, 1:08AM
As any scientist can tell you, there are thousands of scholarly journals out there. Some, like Science and Nature, are broad in scope, covering everything from human genetics to space. Others, like the Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology, are a bit more specific. Unfortunately, the huge volume of research that gets published can made it tedious to keep track of the articles that are relevant to you. Academia.edu, a social network for researchers and other academics, thinks it has a fix. Now, journal articles aren't exactly hard to come by on the web. You can always search Google Scholar for whatever you're looking for, some universities offer their own search tools, and there are plenty of topic-specific sites that can help you find relevant material. The problem, according to Academia.edu founder Richard Price, is that this content and the communities around them are very fragmented. So Academia.edu built a directory of as many journals as it could find.
Did America Lose its Cleantech Mojo, or Did Brazil, Germany and China Just Get More? (TCTV)
Nov 24, 11:40PM
Nat Goldhaber of Claremont Creek Ventures thinks that 2011 will be the year of the cleantech IPO...finally. So does that mean that America hasn't totally lost the cleantech race after all? The most optimistic case is that we're in a clump of countries leading the pack. The glass-half-empty version: Politics, boneheaded legislation and our lousy capital markets will saddle America's culture of innovation, giving other surging hot spots a leg up. In the second part of our interview with Goldhaber, we talk about America's cleantech mojo.
Snaptu Doubles Userbase In 5 Months, Now Has 5.5 Million Active Accounts
Nov 24, 11:25PM
Snaptu, a Sequoia-backed company that offers a suite of smartphone-like applications that can be installed on more basic handsets, has hit another major milestone: it's now up to 20 million registered accounts, 5.5 million of which are active. And it's adding users very quickly — it was only last June that the company announced that it had 10 million registered users, 2.5 million of which were active. In other words, the company has doubled its user base in only five months. The company isn't showing any signs of slowing down, either. Snaptu reports that it's now adding 2.5 million new users a month — more than one a second — and that it's drawing 3.3 billion monthly page views. Snaptu says that 43% of its users are in Asia (including India), with 26% in North America and the rest split between Europe and South and Central America. 
Browser Extension Lets You "Like" Tweets
Nov 24, 11:00PM
It was inevitable, developer Jesse Stay has built a way "Like" tweets on the Twitter homepage. The winner of Kynetx's Facebook App contest, Stay's browser plugin uses Facebook's iframe code give you the option to "Like" in addition to "Retweet,""Favorite," and "Reply to" Tweets on Chrome, Internet Explorer or Firefox. The buttons show up when you hover over the tweet in your stream. Well if Twitter wasn't going to do it ...
Google's Advertiser Assistance Program (Part II: Video Ads)
Nov 24, 10:39PM
Well, this is interesting. Google's Advertising Assistance Program extends to video ads. Earlier today I published an investigative post about Google's relationship with Publicis and other large ad agencies and incentive programs whereby Google pays the ad agencies to use its advertising platform. That post focussed on the demand-side platforms (DSPs) and trading desks inside the ad agencies which sometimes are powered by Google technology under the covers. Well, it turns out that Google also offers ad agencies incentives to adopt its video and display ads. A reader who used to work at Google sent us a tip with some text from a PDF that was circulated to Google sales people back in 2009 detailing the "North America Display & Video Incentive Program." The handout basically lists some sales talking points, including some stats on the disparity between consumer online video viewing and the amount of advertising dollars going to video. Here is the part about the financial incentives:
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.
To stop all future emails from feed2email.net you can reply to this email with STOP in the subject line. Thanks
