HTC Radar 4G with Windows Phone Mango confirmed for T-Mobile on Nov. 2
T-Mobile will offer the HTC Radar 4G, the carrier’s first smartphone to run the next generation of Windows Phone 7 OS, starting Nov. 2nd, the company announced today.
The Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system has an uphill battle ahead of it this holiday season, with fierce competition from the brand-new Apple iPhone 4S and Google Android devices such as the Galaxy Nexus and Motorola Droid Razr. Several research firms like IDC and Gartner have … Continue Reading
Google Fiber is bringing its super fast Internet to Europe next
Google is eyeing Europe as a possible location for building a high-speed fiber network, according to a Google executive’s statements.
Google Senior Vice President David Drummond said at a French Industry Ministry meeting Friday the company was “looking very closely” at building an experimental, Google Fiber-like project somewhere in Europe, MarketWatch reported.
Google Fiber is one of Google’s many projects focusing on creating a faster Internet. Most of Google’s speed-oriented projects are on the developer … Continue Reading
Startup’s simple solution for stupid sites: An About.me for businesses (invites)
Entrepreneur Arianna O’Dell couldn’t stop wondering why no one else had thought of it before: An About.me website generator for small businesses.
So she decided to build out that idea with co-founder Ludo Antonov, and a few weeks later, JustAbout.co is sending out its first batches of beta invitations (you can get yours below, but we’re making you read all the way to the bottom).
“All business owners are stressed and always have a lot … Continue Reading
Siri breaks out of the virtual world to pour you a beer (video)
iPhone 4S voice assistant Siri can talk, find restaurants, recite closing stock prices, and might be a good listener if you’re lonely. But now it’s breaking out of her aluminosilicate glass and stainless steel mold (see: asking Siri what it’s wearing) and moving into the physical world — to pour you a beer.
When Siri arrived, Matt Reed, developer at Nashville marketing agency Redpepperland, realized it could be used for more than just virtual-world tasks. … Continue Reading
Who gets hurt if Groupon collapses
Daily deals site Groupon is launching its IPO roadshow this week and is seeking a $10 billion valuation for the company, less than half of what was rumored when the company first filed to go public in June. That’s a big haircut.
With the recent turmoil in the markets, it’s a terrible time to bring a new offering to market. But Groupon may have no choice: based on the numbers we’ve seen from the company … Continue Reading
Google+ is everywhere: First Reader, now Blogger, soon everything else
Google+ social features are coming to Blogger, the company’s web-based blogging software. Soon, Blogger users will be able to replace their profiles with their Google+ profiles, and that’s just the beginning.
Last week, Google+ social features popped up on Google Reader, the company’s RSS parsing product.
Google is gradually integrating Google+ features into all its web products. We heard it at Google’s Mountain View campus last week from the Google+ team, and it’s fast becoming … Continue Reading
How to make the web touchable: developing for a tablet interface
For publishers and brands the tablet device is the new interface of the web. As tablets continue to invade the marketplace, both will have to provide a tailored interface for users. Below are a few concepts on how to approach building tablet experiences for the web.
Simply put, it is time to rethink everything you know about how users want to consume digital content as we evolve from click driven graphical user interface (GUI) to … Continue Reading
Activision debuts Modern Warfare 3 launch trailer
Activision has released a new launch trailer for its first person shooter game Modern Warfare 3.
Modern Warfare 3, the next game in the Call of Duty series, will hit shelves November 8. The game features new multi-player modes, new weapons and proficiencies, 16 new maps and much more. As VentureBeat reporter Dean Takahashi points out, it’s a big improvement over last year’s multiplayer for Call of Duty Black Ops.
The timing of the trailer … Continue Reading
Amazon could sell 5M Kindle Fires during holiday shopping season
Amazon is expected to sell as many as 5 million of its new Kindle Fire tablets before the end of 2011.
JPMorgan analyst Douglas Anmuth stated in a research note he thinks the e-commerce company can move 5 million of the Android-based units during Q4.
The 7-inch color, touchscreen, email-fetching, app-running, web-browsing gadget sells for $199, making it the perfect downmarket competitor to the iPad 2, which starts at $499.
And for gift-giving holiday shoppers, … Continue Reading
Grovo now lets you wrangle friends and family to learn about the web
Web training site Grovo has quickly become one of the best ways to learn about new services on the Internet. It offers video lessons on web apps and services, and today it’s adding a slew of new features, including collaborative learning, better personalization, and other upgrades.
When it launched about a year ago, Grovo offered short video lessons that added up to courses around 15 to 20 minutes long. Since then the company has added … Continue Reading
How mobile payments can work for businesses
As the recent frenzy over the iPhone 4S attests, the appetite for mobile phones and applications is at an all-time high. Directly related to the surge of mobile devices is the growth of mobile payments as a viable form of payment. What are mobile payments? How do they work and how do they compare to traditional payment methods such as credit cards or newer options like PayPal?
Types of online payments
The current mobile payments … Continue Reading
WikiLeaks shuts down operations to protest “financial blockade” & focus on fundraising
WikiLeaks has suspended publishing of leaked documents to draw awareness to its precarious financial plight.
In many ways, it strikes us as a more dramatic version of NPR’s Pledge Week: If you support the organization financially, your regularly scheduled programs just might resume.
“We are forced to temporarily suspend publishing whilst we secure our economic survival,” reads the WikiLeaks homepage today. “We cannot allow giant U.S. finance companies to decide how the whole world votes … Continue Reading
How to know when to leave your startup
My third startup is Brazen Careerist.
When I started building the brand of Brazen Careerist around the year 2000, I talked about ideas like job hopping as a way to build a solid career, and I warned that generation Y’s entry into the workforce would be a total shock to employers. I was labeled a heretic and a moron.
But pretty quickly, people started thinking I was right. And I started making $15,000 a speech … Continue Reading
Square credit card readers coming to Wal-Mart & going mainstream
Square, the mobile payment system most often associated with small, hip, urban businesses, is coming to Wal-Mart.
That is to say, Wal-Mart won’t be using Square devices itself, but it will be selling them.
Square said it is signing up lots of new merchants these days — between 30,000 and 50,000 new merchants each month — and we’re sure having its mobile hardware available at such a ubiquitous retailer will only drive up the number … Continue Reading
Jailbreakers rejoice: Siri gets ported to the iPad
Just over a week after successfully porting Siri to the iPhone 4, developers have added the popular voice control feature to a jailbroken original iPad.
Siri is arguably the most interesting upgrade in the iPhone 4S. Siri is essentially a voice assistant that fits in your pocket. It allows users to ask it questions (like what’s the weather forecast), lets you update your calendar and email your contacts, and it even finds and recommends things … Continue Reading
Weak technology weighs down Groupon’s sinking ship
Groupon’s first technology product Groupon Now appears to be a stinking dud, according to data released on Sunday. The Groupon Now mobile app chalking up some very dour numbers, according to a new report compiled by Yipit, an industry performance tracker. The app has generated approximately $2.6 million in gross sales nationwide in the six months since its launch in May of 2011.
According to Yipit:
From its launch in May through September 30th, Now … Continue Reading
Apple updates MacBook Pro line, new processing and graphics guts
Apple‘s MacBook Pro laptop line received a small upgrade today in speed and storage, although it hasn’t gotten much attention given all the iPhone 4S release excitement.
Apple has continued to keep its laptops in fighting form with updates to its processing speed and graphics capabilities. These updates become increasingly important as competitors such as Dell’s XPS 14z try to take the computer on in form factor and speed.
We reported on rumors of a … Continue Reading
Apple analyst says the 50-inch “iTV” is coming soon
Senior research analyst Gene Munster says an Apple-made TV could be coming as soon as the end of 2012 or the beginning of 2013.
In a quote to Business Insider, the Piper Jaffray web expert said, “We believe Apple is investing in manufacturing facilities and securing supply for LCD displays. These displays could range from 3.5″ mobile displays to 50″ television displays.
“More recently, in September 2011, we met with a contact close to an … Continue Reading
Oracle puts down $1.5B for RightNow’s cloud-based sales force service
Oracle plans to acquire cloud-based sales force automation and customer service company RightNow for $1.5 billion, the company announced Monday morning.
The planned acquisition makes a ton a sense in light of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s announcement earlier this month to finally push Oracle into public cloud computing after many years of shunning cloud services. The Oracle Public Cloud will let its customers use Oracle apps direct from the Web or deploy native apps in … Continue Reading
Co-founder of voice assistant feature Siri leaves Apple
Co-founder of the impressive iPhone 4S voice control feature Siri, Dag Kittlaus, has left Apple.
Kittlaus is someone who’s likely to go down in Apple’s history as having made a big impact on the company and its products. Siri is easily the most recognizable addition to Apple’s latest iPhone. The feature allows users to ask the phone questions, alter personal calendars and even search for nearby restaurants — it’s basically a personal voice assistant you … Continue Reading
