Apple loses father of Mac OS X Bertrand Serlet

Apple announced today that Bertrand Serlet, Senior Vice President of Mac Software Engineering, would be leaving the company.

Since joining the company in 1997, Serlet has played a critical role in developing Apple’s operating system, Mac OS X. Although not as well known by the general public as Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Serlet was considered a key figure inside of Apple.

Sertlet’s departure may indicate a diminishing role for Apple’s desktop operating system as the … Continue Reading

Firefox 4 blows away Internet Explorer 9 with first day downloads

As if you needed a reminder that the next browser wars have begun, Mozilla’s Firefox 4 browser managed to double Internet Explorer 9’s first day downloads in less than 24 hours, CNet reports.

CNet noted that Firefox 4 had 4.7 million downloads a few hours before the end of the browser’s first day of release, compared to IE9’s 2.3 million downloads. At the time of this post, Firefox 4 had just surpassed 7 million downloads, … Continue Reading

Tapjoy will help mobile and social developers self-publish their apps

Mobile and social developers will have a new route to get their games and apps published through a new program being launched today by Tapjoy.

The goal is to create an alternative distribution model that preserves the creativity and independence of small developers but allows them access to vast markets at the same time.

Tapjoy has an existing platform that developers use to make money from games or apps. With a variety of monetization options,  … Continue Reading

Amimon raises $15M for wireless home video transfer

Amimon said today it has raised $15 million in funding for its wireless home networking technology, which is becoming increasingly useful in the age of smartphones and tablets. The investment anticipates a sea of video and other data flowing from one device to another in the homes of the future.

Herzlia, Israel-based Amimon makes semiconductor chips that serve as the brains of wireless home networking equipment, which transfers data at high speeds from one part … Continue Reading

Luxury clothier J. Hilburn launches e-commerce to help guys get hip

J. Hilburn, a company that sells custom men’s clothing, today launched an e-commerce platform where it will now begin offering all its high-end custom dress shirts and luxury menswear online.

Although consumers could previously buy some products directly from the company’s website, beginning today they’ll be able to see all of the company’s clothing line online. The Dallas, Texas-based startup’s full product line had previously been available only through the company’s more than 800 personal … Continue Reading

Are Google’s efforts to build a universal library in trouble?

Google’s long-gestating, long-contested plans to make the world’s books available in Google Book Search just hit a big obstacle when a New York court rejected the settlement between the search giant and a number of authors and publishers.

Google first settled in 2008, with the company agreeing to pay $125 million and create a royalty system in Book Search governed by an independent rights registry. In exchange, Google would receive permission to showcase longer excerpts … Continue Reading

Publishers back Inkling's iPad textbooks

iPad textbook startup Inkling just announced that it has won financial backing from the two biggest names in the textbook business — McGraw-Hill and Pearson.

Founder and chief executive Matt MacInnis said Inkling’s goal involves using the content of an existing textbook as a skeleton, then “casting off the shackles of the book” and adding interactive and multimedia content that could only work on the iPad. We first covered Inkling right after the announcement of … Continue Reading

Grockit hires strategy exec as ed-tech turfwar heats up

The classroom is no place for fighting. Unless it’s between education startups.

In a move that signals an aggressive expansion into the online learning platform market, social learning startup Grockit is hiring Rusty Greiff as chief strategy and development officer. Greiff (pictured) has worked in test-prep and education technology companies for 15 years and had a hand in launching the AmeriCorps program for the Clinton Administration. He also oversaw national educational and technology advocacy campaigns … Continue Reading

Verizon promises LTE 4G in 147 US cities by year end

Verizon Wireless isn’t slowing down with its plan to cover America in glorious LTE 4G technology: the carrier announced today that it will bring LTE to 59 more markets, making for a grand total of “at least” 147 cities covered by the end of 2011.

That’s a pretty ambitious goal for Verizon. Sprint had only 67 markets covered with its WiMax 4G network by the end of 2010, and AT&T has yet to launch its … Continue Reading

Crowdsourcing startup Microtask gets gamers to do some real work

A crowdsourcing startup, Microtask, is ripping crowdsourced labor into even smaller pieces. Microtask’s automated platform splits dull, repetitive tasks into tiny pieces and distributes them over the Internet.

The company announced that it’s pulled in over 25,000 volunteers to help on it’s first major project to date, Digitalkoot (Finnish for Digital Volunteers — Microtask is based in Finland). The volunteers are helping to digitize the archives of the National Library of Finland by playing online … Continue Reading

Boingo's new app crowd-sources discovery of free wi-fi hotspots

Wireless hotspot provider Boingo Wireless announced today that it has launched a new version of its application that crowdsources discovery of powerful free Wi-Fi hotspots at the CTIA Wireless 2011 conference in Orlando, Fla.

Boingo Wireless operates around 211,000 wi-fi hotspots around the world — most of which are in Asia. In fact, only around 15 percent of its active hotspots are in the United States. The company has a number of recurring payment plans … Continue Reading

Hands on with the HTC Evo 3D (video)

HTC was around to show off its newest set of smartphones and tablets that it announced today at the CTIA Wireless 2011 conference. The HTC Evo 3D, which is able to shoot 3D video and can show 3D photos and play back 3D video, was among the phones the company released today.

Stereoscopic 3D is catching on in more phones as gadget makers try to outdo each other in a technological arms race, where what … Continue Reading

Brilig raises $1.8M to grow advertising data marketplace

Brilig, an advertising data marketplace, has raised $1.8 million in funding.

The company provides a platform for individuals and companies to buy and sell data. This allows sellers to profit from their data and gives buyers access to a library of sources to better target their online advertising.

Brilig says it’s the first open marketplace for this information, because other exchanges such as BlueKai and eXelate, parties operate anonymously. Currently Brilig is crowdsourced by thousands … Continue Reading

The next evolution of radar detection comes to Android

Android users need not fear the tyranny of speed traps and high-speed cameras at intersections much longer. Cobra Electronics announced the launch of an Android version of its iRadar app April 4 during the CTIA Wireless 2011 Showstoppers event.

The iRadar detection system represents a new level of evolution for radar detection devices, which work in conjunction with new mobile technologies.

Just like the iPhone version, iRadar for Android improves on the old radar detectors … Continue Reading

Wireless carriers say the future looks "pretty good"

Major wireless carriers are satisfied with their current progress in evolving their networks to meet the needs of increasingly data-hungry customers, according to top executives from Sprint, AT&T and Verizon who participated in a panel at the CTIA Wireless 2011 convention in Orlando, Fla.

However, those carrier road maps will become far more difficult to navigate through into the future unless more of the wireless spectrum is made available by the FCC. Such was the … Continue Reading

Y Combinator's best startups ever? Here are my favorites

Was the most recent class of startups incubated by Y Combinator the best group ever? That’s what Garry Tan told me, and he should know — he was a YC alumnus through his simple blogging startup Posterous, and now he’s back at the famous incubator as designer-in-residence.

It’s hard for me to fully endorse Tan’s claim, since I’m judging most of these companies on the barely-more-than-two-minute presentations they gave this afternoon at YC’s Demo Day. … Continue Reading

Intuit Collaboratory launches new challenge for mobile apps

Intuit announced today that it is continuing efforts to reach out to startups and other partners with a new challenge through its Intuit Collaboratory program.

The financial software company has been trying to boost its partnership and “open innovation” efforts in the past few years with programs like its annual Entrepreneur Day. It launched its “Collaboratory” website at the end of the last year, where companies and individuals can submit ideas that they want to … Continue Reading

Nuvixa cuts and pastes speakers into their own presentations

Have you ever wanted to be inside your own presentation? It’s not a crazy as it sounds, as a startup called Nuvixa lets you do just that.

It’s a creative example of taking a technology that was designed for motion-sensing video games and converting it so that it can spice up normally boring presentations, training sessions, educational videos or any other video communications.

Using the company’s upcoming StagePresence app, you can use Nuvixa to create … Continue Reading

RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook follows iPad pricing, coming April 19

Research in Motion has finally unveiled the launch details for its long-awaited BlackBerry PlayBook tablet: It will hit stores on April 19 and start at $499 for the 16 gigabyte version, the same price as the iPad 2.

RIM’s pricing makes the PlayBook the first real competitor to the iPad in terms of both pricing and features. Motorola’s Xoom Android tablet, which launched last month, is feature packed and offers 32 gigabytes of storage, but … Continue Reading