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Apple Removes WikiLeaks App From App Store
Dec 21, 7:38AM
Looks like an unofficial iPhone and iPad app that let you view WikiLeaks content and follow the WikiLeaks Twitter account on the go has been removed from the app store tonight. The app used to be available here. 
Weather Driving You Nuts? Wthr.in Is A Quick Way To Keep Updated
Dec 21, 3:04AM
So it's been raining for almost two years here on the West Coast and it, for lack of a better term, sucks. But you know what's making Noah's Ark part deux just a teensy, eensy bit better? Whtr.in, a newly launched minimalist site that uses geo-location to serve up information about the weather around you. Built by Artur Kisiolek, the site automatically gives you information for your location coordinates, allows you to search by location name as well plugging your zip code into the URL and also includes a list of top international cities you can immediately drag into your browser bookmarks or iPhone homescreen.
2010 In Review: Toys, Lots And Lots Of Toys
Dec 21, 3:02AM
Sorry, we like toys around here and we don't care what you think. Tonka trucks, robotic spiders and portable gaming systems should make everyone smile. These things are just for young kids anymore. Just think about the rage you can unleash on your office with a motorized Nerf gun. CrunchGear saw plenty of new toys in 2010 but the following video reviews were our favorite. Join us on a look back at the year's best toy videos.
Tap Tap Revenge 4 Surges To #1 On The App Store With 25,000 Downloads Per Hour
Dec 21, 2:25AM
Last night around 11PM, Tapulous released the latest version of what is one of the App Store's most popular franchises of all time: Tap Tap Revenge 4. 18 hours later, it became the top application in the App Store, marking the sixth time Tapulous has held the #1 spot since the App Store launched in summer 2008 (TTR1, TTR2, TTR3 as a paid app, then again as a free app, TTR3 Boost , and TTR 4). Tapulous founder Bart Decrem says that this game launch has been "twice as fast, and twice as big" as TTR 3 was in the same time span. The launch of Tap Tap Revenge 4 comes around six months after the company was acquired by Disney for an undisclosed sum. Decrem, who now serves as SVP and General Manager for Disney Mobile, says that the game is seeing around 25,000 downloads per hour right now, which is on par with what it saw on Christmas day last year (app downloads see a major spike on Christmas as people try out their new iPhones and iPod touches, so expect this number to surge even higher this year). 
Paul Adams, Googler Whose Presentation Foretold 'Facebook Groups,' Heads To Facebook
Dec 21, 1:09AM
Earlier today Google User Experience Lead Paul Adams, whose much discussed slideshow revealed the gaps in the way Facebook's social graph represented human relationships, announced he will be heading to Facebook in January. Adams had worked on the Google UX team for over four years. Adams' impressive "Real Life Social Network" slideshow, which got over 400K views, 1799 Facebook shares and was the subject of ample press coverage, hinted at how a company could successfully foray into the social market by taking advantage of the fact that humans are a part of multiple social groups.
Brazilian Startup DeskMetrics Raises Seed Round For Desktop Software Analytics
Dec 21, 12:34AM
Brazilian startup DeskMetrics, which offers tools and analytics services to help developers track how their customers are using native desktop applications, has closed a $200,000 seed round from a group of regional angel investors (the startup isn't disclosing the names of the investors involved). DeskMetrics launched in October, offering developers a set of native components they could integrate into their desktop software to perform advanced analytics tracking. It's a lot like a web analytics service for the desktop — with these components integrated, developers can tell when users have installed or uninstalled an app, and even which buttons they're clicking within an application.
The Kno Starts Shipping Tomorrow
Dec 21, 12:33AM
You probably remember the Kno, either from the original announcement or the demo at TechCrunch Disrupt. The monster 14.1" screens set it apart from every other tablet on the market, and the customized Ubuntu OS makes it potentially more versatile as well. The impressive technical specs had me doubting whether this device would ever actually see the light of day, or just languish in development hell until the funding ran out. They've defied my expectations, however, and are actually beginning to ship to their first pre-order customers (though many are having to wait until mid-January, and are canceling their orders). The version I got to play with was pretty much final, though I haven't had the pleasure of hefting the (in)famous dual-display version, which I expect will turn out to be an albatross around the company's neck.
LS9 Raises $30 Million More To Replace Petroleum- With Plant-Based Fuel And Chemicals
Dec 21, 12:15AM
A new SEC filing revealed that LS9 — a biotechnology startup turning plant-based materials into fuel and chemicals for use within traditional petroleum-based systems — has raised a series D investment of $30 million. The round was led by BlackRock and joined by all of LS9's previous investors: Flagship Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and CTTV Investments LLC, the venture capital arm of Chevron Technology Ventures LLC, according to a company spokesperson. 
Is Google In A Dream World? If So, Just How Close To Limbo Are They?
Dec 21, 12:14AM
"Well dreams, they feel real while we're in them, right? It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange." Cobb's quote from Inception reminds me of something. Something going on right now, seemingly all around us. It doesn't feel like a dream, but increasingly, I'm not so sure. Something just isn't right. And I believe it's Google that is doing the dreaming. Yesterday brought news that Google was asking partners to delay large-scale unveilings of Google TV products at the upcoming CES due to concerns about the overall reaction to the current products already on the market. Obviously, despite some Sony spin, that's not good news.
Internal AOL Email Announcing About.Me Acquisition
Dec 20, 11:43PM
We're part of the AOL family here at TechCrunch, but they don't trust us with much actual information. We don't get the emails sent out to all employees, for example. So when I get my hands on one I certainly don't feel bad about posting it here. Here's the email to all AOL staff (except us) from executive Brad Garlinghouse announcing the About.Me acquisition from earlier today.
Adobe Has Its First $1 Billion Quarter, Revenue Up 33%
Dec 20, 11:04PM
Software maker Adobe has once again posted record revenue results this quarter, surpassing the $1 billion milestone for the first time. Adobe revenue for the fourth quarter of 2010 was $1.008 billion versus $757.3 million reported for the fourth quarter of 2009 and $990.3 million reported in the third quarter of 2010. This signifies a 33% growth from last year. 
Keen On… 2010: Monkeys Riding on the Backs of Pigs, Third Waves, & Self-Driving Cars (TCTV)
Dec 20, 10:27PM
It's that time of year again. 2010 is almost toast and it's now time to figure out what just happened. So what were the most important developments in tech this year? Was it the rise of Groupon, Foursquare, and Twitter, the demise of Yahoo and Chatroulette, or Google's self-driving car and the viral YouTube video of a monkey riding on the back of a pig? And who better to figure out 2010 than two of Techcrunch's most authoritative writers – co-editor Erick Schonfeld and prolific new recruit, the writer Alexia Tsotsis. For all their stylistic differences, Erick and Alexia agreed on much about 2010 – especially Yahoo's demise and the rise and rise and rise of Facebook & Mark Zuckerberg. Where they parted ways, however, was over the historic significance of pig-riding monkeys and self-driving cars. Video ahead.
Amid Photo App Gold Rush, iPhone App Of The Year, Hipstamatic, Moves To San Francisco
Dec 20, 9:38PM
Synthetic Corp, the company behind the hit iPhone app, Hipstamatic, has had a very good year. Not only was their paid app one of the best-selling apps of the year, Apple bestowed the "App of the Year" crown on it a few weeks ago. And now they're closing out the year with one more big piece of news: they're relocating to San Francisco. The company has actually bought an entire two-story building in San Francisco's SoMa district (where TechCrunch is also located), CEO Lucas Allen Buick tells us. Apparently, there is some money in this apps business. The plan is to use the building, located here, as both a worldwide headquarters and a retail/gallery space where events will be held for their community.
AOL Acquires Personal Profile Startup About.Me
Dec 20, 9:02PM
Personal profile startup About.me launched publicly, oh, all of four days ago. And, boom. Today AOL (our parent company), will announce that they've acquired the company. It will become part of the consumer applications group, led by AOL exec Brad Garlinghouse. Making About.Me a sister company to TechCrunch. Frankly I'm a little surprised by the acquisition. More details and interview with the CEO below.
Yelp Brings Scrumptious Photos To The iPad
Dec 20, 8:48PM
Yelp, which has one of the most popular apps on the iPhone, today is finally available on the iPad (iTunes link). The iPad version is built for browsing, with a double-pane experience—lists and search results on the left, profiles, maps, and photos on the right. As you scroll down each listing, the larger window on the right fills with a more detailed drill-down. But what is really different about the iPad version is how it handles photos. For every local search, you can view results as a list, on a map, or as a grid of photos. The photo view is especially helpful for restaurant searches, allowing you to pick a place to eat based on how good the food looks. Even in list-mode, when you click on a photo in a profile, it expands to take up the whole righthand window. Photos are uploaded by both Yelp users and the businesses themselves. 
Envaulted Is A Cashback Program On Steroids
Dec 20, 8:45PM
Cashback programs have notoriously fallen flat with users, as evidenced by Bing Cashback's demise. Envaulted is hoping to bring new life to the cashback program as a next-generation rewards network. It's sort of like Blippy meets Bing Cashback. You register your credit card on the site, and Envaulted will sign you up with a 1 percent flat cashback program. Once you accrue $10, you can request a check once a month, no strings attached. You simple spend freely on your card and the startup will send you a check. It almost sounds too good to be true.
After Nearly A Year Of Delays, WakeMate Is Finally Shipping
Dec 20, 7:48PM
If ever there was a case of a startup demonstrating the kind of hurdles involved with producing hardware, it's WakeMate. We first wrote about the Y Combinator-funded startup over a year ago, which promises to help you kiss your groggy mornings goodbye with the help of a special wristband device that beams data about your sleeping habits to your Bluetooth-enabled smartphone. The company initially planned for a shipdate of January 2010, but it's since slipped multiple times after being plagued with problems. Finally, this weekend, WakeMate announced that it's fulfilling all pre-orders and that they should arrive very shortly (you can get overnight shipping if you want it by Christmas Eve). There's one caveat — WakeMate says it can't fulfill its international orders just yet because of "certification and shipping logistics", which it will need some extra time to deal with. But this is still huge news for the startup given how many times it's run into glitches and seen its release date slip over the last year, resulting in plenty of frustrated customers.
Claim: We Don't Need Net Neutrality Because The Internet Isn't 'Broken'
Dec 20, 7:05PM
Reading Drudge and the Wall Street Journal this morning had me concerned that Julius Genachowski, the FCC chairman, was going to smash my modem into tiny pieces with a +2 mace in the name of flexing regulatory muscle. Hardly. It's true that the FCC will vote tomorrow whether or not to implement some sort of Net Neutrality regime, but considering that it's already stated what it means to accomplish with the vote, I don't understand why folks are so upset. But, I'm willing to listen.
Gmail's Holiday Gift: Another Year Of Free Calling To The U.S. And Canada
Dec 20, 6:47PM
I own an iPhone. I live in San Francisco. As such, it's basically a total crapshoot as to whether or not I'll be able to make a phone call in the city. Skype had always been a pretty good back-up solution, but an even better one came a few months ago: Gmail Calling. And now Google has just extended the free period of the feature through 2011. Yes, through next year. Gmail Calling is great because it exists fully in the browser in an app that I always have open anyway: Gmail. If you use gChat, it's right below your status message marked with a phone icon and the words "Call phone". Hitting this launches a dialpad window within Gmail (similar to a chat window) and you can call any number in the U.S. or Canada for free. In my experience, the call quality and reliability have been excellent.
Zynga Debuts First Mobile Web Browser Game Mafia Wars Atlantic City
Dec 20, 6:27PM
It's no secret that Zynga is making a big bet on mobile, recently acquiring mobile app developer Newtoy, and launching native Farmville apps for the iPad and iPhone. In fact, as of earlier this month, Farmville for the iPhone had seen 7 million downloads with 10 million people per month accesing Zynga on a mobile device. Today, Zynga is debuting its first game designed for the mobile web: Mafia Wars Atlantic City. According to the company, the game was built in HTML5 and has been designed specifically to be used on a browser-based smart phone or device including the iPad, iPhone, Android, Blackberry and WebOS devices. Mafia Wars Atlantic City is available by pointing your mobile web browser to M.MafiaWars.com or at GetJar. 
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Argues Why The Short Sellers Are Wrong
Dec 20, 6:20PM
Netflix is one of the best performing stocks this year, up 225 percent year-to-date, with a $9.3 billion market cap. But it is also priced to perfection, with a lot of short sellers hoping to profit from its fall and antsy Wall Street analysts downgrading the stock. Today, CEO Reed Hastings defended Netflix's prospects in a very public, very detailed, and very unusual blog post on Seeking Alpha. The post was in response to a specific short seller, Whitney Tilson, who last week laid out his case against Netflix in another Seeking Alpha blog post. By addressing this one short seller, of course, Hastings is trying to address the market's jitters as a whole, and he does a pretty convincing job of it. Tilson raised a number of concerns, ranging from the recent resignation of Netflix's CFO to pressures on Netflix's margins to market saturation and increasing competition in streaming video. Hastings acknowledges that Tilson "only has to be right on one or two of these issues in 2011 for him to make money on his short of Netflix. . . . Odds are he is wrong on all of them, in my view."
Motorola Teases With The New "Buzz" Tablet
Dec 20, 5:37PM
CES 2011 is just around the corner and in a rare bit of intelligent marketing Motorola is showing off what appears to be a new tablet, probably called something like "Buzz," judging by the clever bee flitting around at the end. We knew a bit about the new tablet last summer, noting it would probably end up on Verizon and have something to do with FiOS. I suspect we'll see something with the Droid branding here with an expected launch date of Spring 2011. Could this be part of Verizon's big launch event at CES on Jan 6?
Bleacher Report Raises $10.5M; Now Fifth Largest Sports Site
Dec 20, 5:23PM
Bleacher Report is going to announce a new $10.5 million round of venture capital this morning and a lot of people reading this will probably say, "Bleacher-who?" Somehow Bleacher Report has pulled off two things you're not supposed to be able to pull off in Silicon Valley's Web scene. The first is keeping a low-profile while growing steadily in users and revenues. The second is building a serious sports challenger to the big portals and legacy news companies. Finally.
Cardpool Speeds Up Gift Card Selling By Removing The Snail Mail Option
Dec 20, 5:14PM
The gift card marketplace model has steadily evolved over the years, as Plastic Jungle, Cardpool and others compete to grab a piece of of the market. For example, Plastic Jungle is trying to partner with online retailers to power a payment portal in the checkout process that will allow shoppers to use a credit from a different store to make an online payment. Cardpool recently gave its members the option to purchase instant redemption gift cards, instead of waiting to receive them in the mail for use. Today Cardpool is launching another useful feature: the ability to sell a gift card online without having to mail it in via snail mail. Previously, in order to sell an unused gift card on Cardpool and other gift card marketplaces, you would need to mail the actual card in to receive money. Cardpool has developed a technology that allows users to enter the card number and pin number on the gift card and be able to sell the item immediately online. With this new program Cardpool will then mail you a check for the value of the card or you have the option to get an Amazon.com Gift Card or Facebook Credits for the value. to get an Amazon.com Gift Card or Facebook Credits for the value. 
Google: Over 4 Million Users Have Downloaded At Least One Marketplace App
Dec 20, 5:08PM
Google just put up a post with a few interesting details and statistics about how its recently launched Apps Marketplace is performing amongst Google Apps users. Google says that 4 million Google Apps users have at least one Marketplace app installed on their domains. While Google published a similar number four months ago, the search giant tells us that they haven't posted an updated number and is seeing "growth" in terms of users and downloads. Launched in March, the idea behind the marketplace was fairly simple—using a set of APIs, third-party apps could deeply integrate their products within Google Apps and offer these free or paid apps to the productivity suite's users. Google offers over 250 enterprise apps to users including Zoho, Socialwok, Aviary, Bantam Live and more.
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