Apture Highlights brings richer browsing to any website

Apture, a startup that enriches the online reading experience with pop-up windows of extra content, is making its tool available to readers on any website today with Apture Highlights, a new browser extension.

In some ways, the core of the Apture product still looks the same as it did when I wrote about the San Francisco company two years ago. It still allows readers to see extra content (say a Wikipedia article or a YouTube … Continue Reading

Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 web browser stands up to iPhone and Android (video)

Microsoft certainly has a lot of catching up to do with Windows Phone 7 — its upcoming mobile platform. In particular, it’ll be interesting to see how its Internet Explorer 7 mobile browser will compare to Apple’s Mobile Safari and Android’s browser, both of which are based on the fast Webkit browser framework.

Thanks to mobile site PocketNow, we have the closest look at Windows Phone 7′s web browser yet, in the form of a … Continue Reading

Do game industry luminaries fear or welcome the arrival of digital distribution?

Digital distribution has arrived in the video game industry, just as it did for music and movies. Will it disrupt game companies as much as it did the other industries? Scott Steinberg’s latest mini documentary, The Future of Digital Distribution, delves into opinions about how streaming media, downloadable content, and cloud computing are radically changing the game industry.

The documentary includes interviews with Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, Electronic Arts creator Trip Hawkins, THQ chief executive … Continue Reading

Apple's iTunes U sees more than 300M downloads, offers 350,000 educational files

Apple reported today that iTunes U — its catalog of educational files on iTunes  — has topped 300 million downloads following a flurry of new content.

The section now offers more than 350,000 audio and video files from over 800 universities across the world. Most recently, schools from Japan, China, Mexico, Hong Kong, and Singapore have added content to the collection.

Currently, well-known schools like MIT, Harvard, Cambridge, and Oxford use iTunes U to make … Continue Reading

GameStop debuts a "store of the future" as online threat looms

The top brass of GameStop, the world’s biggest video game store chain, dedicated their new “store of the future” on a cool strip of Palo Alto, Calif., tonight in the heart of Silicon Valley, where the assumption is that the dinosaur-like retail game chain is about to be “Netflixed.”

That is, the technorati of Silicon Valley believe that brick-and-mortar video game stores — GameStop has more than 6,000 of them — are about to go … Continue Reading

Roxio brings 3D photo and movie creation to the masses with Creator 2011

Jumping on the 3D bandwagon, Roxio today announced the release of Creator 2011 — the latest entry in its flagship media creation suite, and the first widely available consumer software that lets users create 3D photos and videos.

Indeed, the company appears to be betting big on 3D. According to Roxio, it was the most requested feature among its customers in a recent survey. Roxio representatives demonstrated to me how easily Creator 2011 can turn … Continue Reading

Ukraine's Gameprom scores big with iPhone pinball

In the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, it’s not easy to get your hands on a pinball machine. Nor is it possible to get an Apple-approved iPhone, although you can get “jailbroken” phones, which run software that allows them to be used on any wireless network. That’s why the achievement of Sergey Volskiy (pictured top) is all the more impressive.

His iPhone game company, Gameprom, has created hit pinball games (including Pinball HD) on the iPhone and … Continue Reading

China to get Lich King add-on for World of Warcraft online game — almost two years late

Blizzard Entertainment and NetEase said today that they will be able to launch Wrath of the Lich King, the add-on expansion for World of Warcraft, in China on Aug. 31. That’s about 22 months after the expansion launched in the U.S. Still, the game is so popular in China that Blizzard will be able to pull in some healthy profits.

The delay is due to the regulatory and censorship process in China, where government agencies … Continue Reading

Roundup: Google Earth dives under the sea, Foursquare CEO disses ‘Places’ and more

Here’s the latest action:

Google under the sea — Google has updated its Google Earth offering for mobile devices running Android, allowing users to see maps of the oceans as well as land on their handsets.

EA raises eyebrows with Taliban game — Electronic Arts is getting a lot of flack for its forthcoming version of Medal of Honor for Sony PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, which allows gamers to play as the Taliban, … Continue Reading

Intel and Nokia launch joint research on mobile 3D virtual worlds

Smartphones have barely entered the 3D age, but Nokia and Intel are already racing ahead to do research on enabling 3D virtual worlds on mobile computing platforms.

The two companies are announcing today a research center (pictured below) at the University of Oulu in Oulu, Finland, that will work on the technology required to make the mobile 3D virtual world possible.

Heikki Huomo, director of the university’s center for internet excellence, said in a press … Continue Reading

Nature Education's Scitable goes mobile to bring science education to all

Nature Education — the educational arm of Nature Publishing Group — launched a mobile version of its open-access science library Scitable today — bringing its extensive library of science articles and social networking features to any student, teacher, or researcher with a mobile device.

Mobile users are automatically directed to the appropriate mobile site for their device when they visit Scitable.com.

The site, which launched in January 2009, is a social network for science education … Continue Reading

Google app for iPhone and iPad adds push notifications

In the latest release of its Google Mobile app for the iPhone and iPad, Google has added the long-awaited ability to receive push notifications for Gmail and Google Calendar. You can download the update through Apple’s App Store.

To setup notifications, users enter their Google account credentials. After that, an alert comes through every time a new email is received or there is a pending Google Calendar event. Tapping “View” on an alert takes you … Continue Reading

AMD unveils its Bulldozer and Bobcat processors for future PCs

As Intel is busy moving into the software business with its $7.68 billion purchase of McAfee, Advanced Micro Devices is taking the wraps off its newest processor designs, Bulldozer and Bobcat, which it hopes will give a one-two punch at Intel’s core business.

At the Hot Chips conference today at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., AMD will describe its new processor cores, which are the brains of computer chips. AMD will take the cores … Continue Reading

Black & Decker shows its green thumb in PlantSense deal

PlantSense is going to get some big help from tool giant Black & Decker in selling its line of high-tech plant sensors. Among the new features this sensor will have is that it will chirp when it needs to be watered.

Black & Decker will launch a new line of PlantSense-based high-tech gardening tools under the Black & Decker brand name. That should help PlantSense, a San Francisco startup, get broader distribution for its web-based … Continue Reading

Chomp's iPhone app brings mobile search into modern age

Finally, it looks like searching for apps on your smartphone will go from a terrible experience to a pretty good one.

Chomp, a website that recommends mobile applications, has just launched an app for the iPhone that offers a nifty sort of search engine — one that matches modern mobile browsing habits.

Google’s model of search breaks down in mobile, because Google relies on links to evaluate a Web page’s relevance and credibility. Chomp recognizes … Continue Reading

Zimride raises $1.2M to fill your car's empty seats

Ride-sharing startup Zimride has raised a $1.2 million seed round of funding.

Zimride offers customizable tools to companies and universities that want to encourage carpooling. Users looking for or offering rides create profiles with information like favorite music, ride frequency, and location (you can hide your exact address), then search for matches within their organization. The service also integrates with Facebook.

Even though the San Francisco company just raised seed funding, it was actually founded … Continue Reading

Mac enterprise sales grow 50 percent in Q2

Growth of Apple’s Mac computer sales to enterprises soundly crushed that in the overall market in the second quarter of 2010, rising 50 from a year ago compared to 16 percent growth across the entire market.

The fastest growth was in sales to government organizations, which grew 201 percent year-over-year for the second quarter, followed by 103 percent growth in very large businesses, according to Fortune’s report on a research note from Needham & Company … Continue Reading

OnLive cuts a mafia deal that gamers won't be able to refuse

Online video game service OnLive scored a coup today by getting same-day access to Mafia II, a high-profile video game that goes on sale tonight at midnight.

Take-Two Interactive’s 2K Games will allow OnLive to make Mafia II available to its subscribers as a server-based online game starting today. Those who pay full price for Mafia II will be able to get another free game on OnLive (until Aug. 29).

OnLive enables the digital distribution … Continue Reading

'iMac Touch' patent uncovered in Europe

If a patent published recently in Europe is any indication, Apple is planning to build computers that combine touch screen capabilities of the iPad with traditional mouse and keyboard interfaces on the same device.

According to the blog PatentlyApple, the hybrid concept envisioned could mean that at one moment, consumers are running a typical iMac, but with one adjustment, can play famed iPad game “Angry Birds” straight on their 20-inch iMac display.

The crux of … Continue Reading