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The Top 100 Networked Venture Capitalists
Do venture investors with the biggest and best networks end up producing the best returns? An academic paper from a few years ago by Yael Hochberg, Alexander Ljungqvist, and Yang Lu titled “Whom You Know Matters: Venture Capital Networks and Investment Performance” (embedded at the bottom of this post) suggests that is the case. They looked at historic venture returns and found that “better-networked VC firms experience significantly better fund performance,” as measured by how many of the companies in their portfolios exited via an IPO or acquisition. A venture firm’s network in the study was defined as being made up of all the other venture firms who co-invested with it in funding rounds. The more co-investors a venture firm has, the better its network. The better its network, the better its overall returns. The correlation between the size of a venture firm’s network and its returns may have something to do with better access to deal flow, talent, advisers, potential customers, and potential exits. If this is true, then who are the most connected venture firms and angel investors today? Vijay Dondeti, a graduate student in bioinformatics, applied the analysis in the Hochberg paper to about 2,700 investors in CrunchBase who participated in over 3,300 startup funding rounds between 2006 and 2008. He scored each investor based on how well connected they are to other investors as well as how well-connected their co-investors are to other investors. “In summary,” says Dondeti, “to get a high score, you need to co-invest often with others that also co-invest often.” So which venture investors have the best networks? Here are the top 10: 1. Draper Fisher Jurvetson Draper Fisher Jurvetson takes the top spot. Will its returns beat everyone else’s, or is it just that its spray-and-pray investing strategy gives it an advantage in this type of ranking system? Top-tier firms such as Sequoia, Accel, Kleiner Perkins, and Benchmark also score highly, as does First Round Capital and angel investor Ron Conway. Other individual investors a little further down the list include Reid Hoffman (No. 18) and Marc Andreessen (no. 31). Below is a ranking of the Top 100, or you can review the entire data set for all 2,700 investors here. (Image: Flickr/Steve Jurveston)
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: TechCrunch | 27 Jun 2009 | 12:40 pm Filipino inmates in `Thriller' video stage tribute (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 27 Jun 2009 | 12:40 pm UNESCO puts two sites on endangered listUNESCO has put two natural sites, a coral reef in Belize and a national park in Colombia, on its list of endangered world heritage, a statement issued Saturday said. The UN cultural...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 Jun 2009 | 12:25 pm The Internet Helps Iran Silence ActivistsHugh Pickens writes "Over the last couple of weeks, those who believe in the transformative power of technology to battle an oppressive state have pointed to Iran as a test case. However, as Farhad Manjoo writes on Slate, the real conclusion about news now coming out of Iran is that for regimes bent on survival, electronic dissent is easier to suppress than organizing methods of the past. Using a system installed last year, built in part by Nokia and Siemens, the government routes all digital traffic in the country through a single choke point, using the capabilities of deep packet inspection to monitor every e-mail, tweet, blog post, and possibly even every phone call placed in Iran. 'Compare that with East Germany, in which the Stasi managed to tap, at most, about 100,000 phone lines — a gargantuan task that required 2,000 full-time technicians to monitor the calls,' writes Manjoo. The effects of this control have been seen over the past couple days, with only a few harrowing pictures and videos getting through Iran's closed net. For most citizens, posting videos and even tweeting eyewitness accounts remains fraught with peril, and the same tools that activists use can be used by the government to spread disinformation. The government is also using crowdsourcing by posting pictures of protesters and asking citizens for help in identifying the activists. 'If you think about it, that's no surprise,' writes Manjoo. 'Who said that only the good guys get to use the power of the Web to their advantage?'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 27 Jun 2009 | 12:16 pm Confirmed: Glam Media Shares (Some) Details On Twitter Ad Network PlansYesterday we posted about Glam Media contacting Twitter app developers concerning an upcoming 'Twitter-powered ad network', and requested more information from CEO Samir Arora as the e-mail we were forwarded...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Jun 2009 | 11:55 am Confirmed: Glam Media Shares (Some) Details On Twitter Ad Network Plans
He came through earlier this morning to confirm the accuracy of the scoop, and also provided a statement from his team in order to shed more light on the imminent initiative. As we suggested, the new solution is tied to GlamApps, the company’s application platform. Arora tells us:
Yep, that’s still vague. Hopefully we’ll have a better understanding of what Glam Media is trying to accomplish when they share more details about the project next month. We didn’t really ask, but Arora also shared some statistics about the current reach of the Glam network. He claims Glam Media currently boasts over 1,000 publishers with 6,000 editors/journalists/bloggers reaching 56 million unique users a month in the United States. That’s one big vertical.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: TechCrunch | 27 Jun 2009 | 11:55 am Guatemalan fears a tweet will make him a jailbird (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 27 Jun 2009 | 11:50 am Federal Judge Rules In Favor Of Ex-IBM InsiderA request by IBM Corp that its former chief of mergers and acquisitions David Johnson be legally banned from going to work for Dell Inc over concerns that he could disclose company secrets has been declined by a federal judge. In response, IBM has filed a lawsuit claiming that Mr.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 27 Jun 2009 | 11:49 am Jackson’s Death Sparks Unprecedented Album SalesIn the wake of pop legend Michael Jackson’s death, retail sales of his albums and videos have predictably gone through the roof, with both traditional and online retailers selling out of Jackson products at a rate that industry insider’s call “stunning.”After the news of Jackson’s death broke on Thursday, Amazon.com VP Bill Carr said that the website was flooded with fans looking to snatch-up any morsel of media connected to the larger-than-life pop icon. Within a matter of minutes the online merchant had sold out of every Michael Jackson and Jackson 5 CD in their catalogue, Carr said.Albums from Jackson’s repertoire constituted a prodigious sixty percent of Amazon’s total music orders placed on Thursday, while their Friday figures showed the King of Pop’s CD’s filling all 10 slots in websites “Bestsellers in Music” list.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 27 Jun 2009 | 11:42 am Incredible Freeze Frames - Perfectly-Timed Photography Collection (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) This is a nice, cheery and random posting of some incredibly-timed photography. This collection features images caught at exactly the right moment. From exploding bikes to flying baseball...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Jun 2009 | 11:09 am Koinup Has Group Hosting SL6B Content/RecommendationsIf you're looking for more a place to upload and view screenshots and video from Second Life's Six Birthday installations, virtual world social network Koinup (an NWN partner) has a group devoted to exactly...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Jun 2009 | 11:04 am Review: Palm Pre Smartphone Mostly Pleases - InformationWeek
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 27 Jun 2009 | 11:00 am Jackson death was twittered, texted and FacebookedNews of Jackson's death generated the most tweets per second since Barack Obama was elected president, and more than twice the normal tweets per second from the moment the story broke. Philly.com reports...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Jun 2009 | 10:50 am Quirky Poptography - Jaimie Warren's Sugary Surrealism Rocks (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) 'Sugary surreal' and 'pop' are words I would use to describe the work of Jaimie Warren, an all-around creative type who also performs on stage. I really love Jaimie Warren's work--it...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Jun 2009 | 10:49 am Russia Faces Mobile Phone Shortage Due to Customs Clamp-DownRussia is facing a possible shortage of mobile phones following a clamp-down instigated by the Federal Customs Service. The Moscow Times reports via Cellular News. Under new rules, a policy of randomly...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Jun 2009 | 10:45 am Russia PM invites Shell in Sakhalin 3 and 4 projectsMOSCOW, June 27 (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin invited Royal Dutch Shell to participate in Sakhalin-3 and Sakhalin-4 projects at a meeting with Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer on...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 Jun 2009 | 10:45 am Moonwalking Birds - TeeFury Pays Tribute to Michael Jackson(TrendHunter.com) The well-known t-shirt company TeeFury has designed this In Memory tee to commemorate the life of Michael Jackson. In Memory features a picture of their bird logo doing the moonwalk...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Jun 2009 | 10:29 am NWN in Japanese : SL...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Jun 2009 | 10:17 am Doodled Tattoos - Whimsical Ink Designs From Lionel Fahy (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) I have been discovering so many cool tattoo artists at the moment--it is so exciting. Lionel Fahy is the latest artist on my list; I am totally enchanted by his work. For a start, Trust...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Jun 2009 | 10:09 am Text-Message Service Fields Flood of Jackson QueriesIn the wake of the sudden death of pop icon Michael Jackson one thing is clear: Fans cant get enough of him, writes New York Times Bits blog. Celebrations, vigils and synchronized moonwalks are being...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Jun 2009 | 9:51 am Sanofi drug may increase cancer risk, studies find* Patients told to stay on treatment, consider options * Sanofi stands behind safety profile of LantusSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 Jun 2009 | 9:38 am PBG eyes 25 pct in Polish rival for $15.4 mln-paperWARSAW, June 27 (Reuters) - Polish builder PBG wants to buy 25 percent of its local rival Energomontaz-Poludnie for 50 million zlotys ($15.43 million), PBG Chief Executive Jerzy Wisniewski was quoted...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 Jun 2009 | 9:17 am Alternative Energy Policies a Boon For Inflatable Electric CarBrian Stretch writes with a story about the Mini Utility Vehicle prototype from XP Vehicles, an electric car that is partly inflatable. The recent struggles of the auto industry and a political climate that supports the development of alternative energy vehicles have given the car a better chance at actually hitting the market. Quoting: "Building a car takes many years and tens to hundreds of millions of dollars traditionally. XP is able to cut a lot of the costs and timeframe because its car has 70 percent less parts than a regular car, and the company is using novel materials that require simpler factory devices, and production and manufacturing processes that lower the cost to deploy. ... The seat is inflatable, the dashboard is inflatable, and the internal structure and carrying racks are inflatable, or a mesh suspension. Instead of requiring six-axis robots, XP uses radio frequency welders that look like giant waffle irons. The factory equipment is much less expensive and the car simply has less parts that could fail. The motors are built into the rear wheels in most XP prototypes. The first cars to reach the market will have two rear hub motors and a motor controller, that's it."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 27 Jun 2009 | 9:13 am Companies appeal to China to drop Web filter planGlobal business groups have made an unusual direct appeal to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to scrap an order for PC makers to supply controversial Internet filtering software, citing security...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 Jun 2009 | 8:47 am Companies appeal to China to drop Web filter plan (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 27 Jun 2009 | 8:47 am Myths about Canadian healthcareRhonda Hackett, a Canadian expat clinical psychologist living in the US, has an editorial in the Denver Post with a good round-up of myths and truths about Canadian health care. I've lived under the Canadian, US, British and Costa Rican health care systems and of the four, I believe that the Canadian one functions best (I'd rank them Canadian, British, Costa Rican and US). My experience with all four includes routine and urgent care. I've had firsthand experience of pre-and post-natal care in Canada, the US and the UK; I've also seen the Canadian, US and UK palliative care system in action.On the other hand, I believe that the UK system of caring for elderly people is better than the others; Costa Ricans have better services for rural people; and the US has a better culture of retail service (outside of healthcare) than anywhere else I've lived. Myth: Taxes in Canada are extremely high, mostly because of national health care.Debunking Canadian health care myths (via Digg) Source: Boing Boing | 27 Jun 2009 | 8:08 am Companies appeal to China to drop Web filter plan - The Associated Press
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 27 Jun 2009 | 8:01 am Abstinence doesn't work for IT or for teensI wrote my latest Guardian column after hearing security experts lament, for the nth time, that sensitive systems like MRI machines, defense-contractor computers, and so on should never be connected to the Internet, and when these are compromised by spies, malware or worms, it's the fault of bad network policy.I realized that this lament was like the one you hear from people who bemoan kids having sex and getting pregnant or catching diseases, "If they'd just abstain..." Abstinence programs don't work -- not in IT, and not for teens' sex: Every time a state secret disappears from an internet-connected PC, every time a hospital computer reboots itself in the middle of a surgical procedure because it has just downloaded the latest patch, every time an MRI machine gets infected with an internet worm, I hear security experts declaiming, "Those computers should never be connected to the internet!" and shaking their heads at the foolish users and the foolish IT department that gave rise to a situation where sensitive functions were being executed on a computer connected to the seething, malware-haunted public internet.Like teenagers, computers are built to hook up Source: Boing Boing | 27 Jun 2009 | 7:47 am Fake receipt printing serviceFalseExpense will mail you an envelope full of fake receipts, suitable for submitting for reimbursement or deducting from your taxes, "FOR NOVELTY USE ONLY". Bruce Schneier notes, "I've heard of sites where you give them a range of dates and a city, and they give you a full set of receipts for a trip to that city: airfare, hotel, meals, everything -- but I can't find a website."fake receipts, free templates for store receipts, print fake receipts (via Schneier) Source: Boing Boing | 27 Jun 2009 | 7:26 am Apple kills Routesy app, my iPhone gets less useful - VentureBeat
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 27 Jun 2009 | 7:08 am Daily Crunch: All Good Things Edition
I like my iPhones the way I like my marshmallows: golden brown
Source: CrunchGear | 27 Jun 2009 | 7:00 am The State of Video Game PhysicsThe Guardian's games blog convened a panel of engineers and other experts to talk about the current state of video game physics. A great deal of research is currently going on to make better use of multiple cores so that advanced physics tools and engines can take advantage of all the processing power available in modern computers. Many of those tools are being put to work these days to find more realistic ways of breaking things, and game developers are trying to wrap their heads around destructible environments. Mike Enoch, lead coder at Ruffian Games, said, "This idea of simulating interactions and constructing the game world similar to how you would construct the real world generates more emergent gameplay, where the game plays out in a unique way for each player, and the player can come up with solutions to problems that the designer might not have thought of." Another area that still sees a lot of attention is making game characters more human, in terms of moving and looking as realistic as possible, as well as how a game's AI perceives what's happening. "The problem is not necessarily in having the most advanced path-finding technique with large-scale awareness; we need to have more micro behaviors, with a proper physics awareness of the environment," said software engineer George Torres.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 27 Jun 2009 | 6:10 am UPDATE 1-Takeda fails to get U.S. approval for diabetes drugTOKYO, June 27 (Reuters) - Takeda Pharmaceutical , Japan's largest drugmaker, said on Saturday a key diabetes drug had failed to get approval from U.S. regulators who had asked for additional safety tests,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 Jun 2009 | 6:03 am The King is Dead: Lefsetz on the passing of Michael JacksonThey're saying on BBC radio right now that when news of his death started to hit late Thursday, so many search queries for "Michael Jackson" were hitting Google and other search engines, the flood was perceived at first as a malicious automated attack. Above: my own personal favorite. Below, words from music industry writer Bob Lefsetz (Twitter, blog) on the passing today of one of the most important pop culture figures of our time.
He missed his childhood and now he's gonna miss his old age.Read the entire post by Bob Lefsetz here.
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 27 Jun 2009 | 5:15 am News Sites Falter as Traffic Spikes After Jackson's Death (PC World)PC World - Michael Jackson's death on Thursday caused a spike in visits to news Web sites that affected the performance and availability of some of the biggest ones, according to Web monitoring company Keynote Systems.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 27 Jun 2009 | 5:00 am Sony eyes cellphone/game gear hybrid - Nikkei (Reuters)Reuters - Sony Corp is considering developing a cellphone-game gear hybrid in a bid to better compete with Apple Inc's highly popular iPod and iPhone, the Nikkei business daily said on Saturday.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 27 Jun 2009 | 4:59 am Sony eyes cellphone/game gear hybrid - NikkeiTOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp is considering developing a cellphone-game gear hybrid in a bid to better compete with Apple Inc's highly popular iPod and iPhone, the Nikkei business daily saidSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 Jun 2009 | 4:59 am Canadian software helps Iranian dissidents connect (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 27 Jun 2009 | 4:54 am DOJ Pushes Probe of Oracle-Sun Deal Beyond Deadline (PC World)PC World - The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) needs more time to examine Oracle's proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems beyond an initial review period, Oracle said Friday.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 27 Jun 2009 | 4:40 am Michael Jackson Death Spurs Spam, Viruses - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 27 Jun 2009 | 4:38 am U.S. asks Takeda for more tests on diabetes drugTOKYO, June 27 (Reuters) - Takeda Pharmaceutical , Japan's largest drugmaker, said on Saturday it has been told by U.S. regulators to conduct additional safety tests for a key diabetes drug awaiting approval...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 Jun 2009 | 4:19 am Unique Auction Site Swoopo Expands To Canada, Testing ‘Buy It Now’
For those that aren’t familiar with Swoopo, here’s how it works: the site uses a unique pricing model that invites you to purchase virtual “bids” for 75 cents, which can then be used to bid on goods ranging from video games to high-end televisions. Whenever you bid on an item, its price increases by fifteen cents and an extra 20 seconds are tacked on to the duration of the auction. Oftentimes items wind up selling substantially below their market value, but this lower price comes with some risk: if you bid on an item, you don’t get that 75 cent bid back when the auction concludes. Even if the item winds up selling below its normal market price, Swoopo can make money from these bids (the site does sometimes lose money on an auction, but relies on the proceeds of other auctions to cover them).
It’s definitely a departure from traditional auction sites like eBay, and after navigating through the flashy site it’s easy to see why it might be a bit more fun. Sure, there’s always a chance that you’ll throw away a few dollars on lost bids, which will be enough to put some people off, but you also have the potential to score a TV for a fraction of its typical retail price (of course, dozens or even hundreds of bidders might be competing against you). To help take some of the risk out of bidding, the site is experimenting with a ‘buy it now’ feature (apparently only on its German site for now), which allows you to apply the cost of your bids towards purchasing a product outright for its normal market value. You won’t be able to get the low auction price, but you’re not throwing away the cost of those bids, either, which should be enough to drive even more bidding. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: TechCrunch | 27 Jun 2009 | 4:09 am Emigrating To a Freer Country?puroresu writes "I currently reside in the UK. In recent years I've seen privacy, free expression and civil liberties steadily eroded, and I can't see anything changing for the better any time soon. With people being banned from the UK for expressing (admittedly reprehensible) opinions, the continuing efforts to implement mandatory ID cards and the prospect of a Conservative government in the near future, I'm seriously considering emigrating to a less restrictive country. Which countries would you recommend in terms of freedom and privacy? Distance is not an issue, though a reasonable level of stability and provision of public services would be a bonus."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 27 Jun 2009 | 4:09 am App Roundup: games, games and more games
There are more than 10,000 games on the App Store, according to Apptism. That’s 20% of all apps released on the store: how the hell do you decide which one to buy? We can’t help you there, but we can keep serving you up reviews of recently released games so you can decide for yourself. We spent the week fumbling around with 5 of them: Tradewinds 2, Castle Of Magic, Archon, Jungle Bloxx, and Pocket Gold. Read on for our impressions
If you have an app worth checking out, shoot us an e-mail at gaganATcrunchgearDOTcom (with the obvious substitutions in place, of course). Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: MobileCrunch | 27 Jun 2009 | 4:02 am Explosive Driver Hammers High HandicapsWant to hit awe-inspiring drives and lower your handicap? Welcome to the club. The R9 uses a generous amount of tech to create a driver that will do all of that, and then some.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 27 Jun 2009 | 4:00 am NASA Wants Your Ideas for Digitizing Rocket Scientist's NotesNASA is asking the public for ideas for the best way to digitize the typed and hand written notes of NASA rocket scientist, and former German army scientist, Wernher von Braun.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 27 Jun 2009 | 4:00 am Top 10 Raw Deals for GamersSome of these schemes might make sense to a money-hungry executive, but they screw over the people whose opinions actually matter: the ones who buy videogames.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 27 Jun 2009 | 4:00 am 10 Best Prison BreaksTower of London (1597)
Libby Prison (1864)
Lake County Jail (1934)
Auschwitz (1944)
Stalag Luft III (1944)
Colditz Castle (1945)
Alcatraz (1962)
Imrali (1974)
Pretoria Prison (1979)
Luynes and Grasse Prisons (2001, 2003, 2007)
Source: Wired Top Stories | 27 Jun 2009 | 4:00 am Explosive Driver Hammers High HandicapsWant to hit awe-inspiring drives and lower your handicap? Welcome to the club. The R9 uses a generous amount of tech to create a driver that will do all of that, and then some.
Source: Gizmodo | 27 Jun 2009 | 3:00 am Sony Vaio Signature Collection
I mock Sony only to be reminded that the leviathan has its charms. Check out the Vaio Signature Collection, a lineup of fancied-up editions of its laptops. Alongside my favorite (the Vaio TT Kaleidoscope, above), there are three particularly remarkable items: • A limited edition faux-crocodile skin laptop that is just $800. Via Sony Insider
Source: Gizmodo | 27 Jun 2009 | 2:20 am AT&T's Bad Math Strikes MythBusters' Savageetherlad writes "MythBusters' Adam Savage got a bill charging him $11,000 for 'a few hours' of Web surfing while in Canada, using his AT&T USB Mercury modem. AT&T gave him a quote on the data rate: '.015 cents, or a penny and a half, per kb.' Looks like AT&T didn't learn from Verizon's inability to do math. AT&T is also claiming Savage downloaded over 9 GB, which he calls 'frakking impossible.' Savage's huge following on twitter got him a speedy response by AT&T."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Gizmodo | 27 Jun 2009 | 1:20 am Rumor: 16GB Zune HD to cost 10-20% less than comparable iPod
Honestly, a modest little store here and there with Microsoft hardware and a few partners could be a nice PR move for those guys. But I digress… Rumor also has it that a 64GB version is planned for later in the game. Wow, that will be expensive. A note to Microsoft: you can’t have your device be the budget and luxury choice. [via Ars Technica]
Source: Gizmodo | 27 Jun 2009 | 1:00 am Google Mistakes Michael Jackson’s Death For an “Automated Attack” [MediaMemo]One last Michael Jackson Web traffic story: Google (GOOG) says it received so many search queries with the late singer’s name on Thursday that it thought it was being targeted by an “automated attack.” Which meant that some visitors looking for Jackson info on Google News got an error message for about 25 minutes yesterday. Google also offers up this graph to give you a sense of the traffic spike it got from Jackson-searchers. It’s impressive, but without metrics it’s sort of hard to gauge what it really means — just like the chart that Google provided about query volume during Barack Obama’s inauguration. (Click to enlarge.) Source: All Things Digital | 27 Jun 2009 | 12:48 am I like my iPhones the way I like my marshmallows: golden brown
There are two explanations for the above images: A: The iPhone 3GS gets really damn hot. Actually, I think we can consider A to be given, so it’s really a matter of whether B is true or whether A is just more true than we hope. The discoloration seems to be in the shape of the battery, so it looks like there’s a problem when power draw is too high for too long — and considering the 3GS has more RAM and a faster processor than the already-gets-hot 3G, that can’t be too hard to do. Luckily, Apple will almost certainly replace it if this happens. Anybody else seen this? Check your phones… [via Engadget and others]
Source: Gizmodo | 27 Jun 2009 | 12:40 am Swiss team unveils prototype for sun-powered plane - The Associated Press
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 27 Jun 2009 | 12:38 am Zero pre-orders reported by UK retailers for PSP Go
Today, UK retailers Chips and Grainger Games reported zero pre-orders for the transparently overpriced gaming machine, despite soliciting them. If ever there should be a "Sony death spiral" drinking game, I propose the following rules: • Every time Sony releases a conspicuously overpriced gadget, down a bottle of sherry. • Every time Sony releases something that lacks a critical feature because that part of Sony isn't responsible for gadgets with that kind of feature, drink a bottle of sherry. • Every time Sony allows its brand to be used on a baffling, faintly offensive advertisement, down a bottle of sherry. • Every time an uplifting profile of Sir Howard Stringer and his quest to restore Sony's fortunes is published, down a glass of sherry. Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 27 Jun 2009 | 12:35 am Apple iPhone 3GS Overheating Reports
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 New York Times | HTC Hero Finds a Killer App in Flash PC World Things are getting exciting in the mobile phone arena. First we get the beefed-up iPhone 3GS, and now we have a new Android phone. Up until now Android had no killer app to challenge the iPhone with. The newest HTC phone has Flash 9 capability with ... HTC's Sense UI headed to other current Android phones First US peek at HTC Hero phone with Sense interface Android This Week: A Hero Rides Into Town |
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Remember all those stories about Web sites buckling under the weight of all that Michael Jackson traffic? Here’s the flip side, now being promoted by those same Web sites: Look at all of our Michael Jackson traffic!
I’ve seen stories touting big traffic spikes at Time Warner’s TMZ (TWX), which broke the story; Wikipedia, which apparently was flooded with Wikipedians squabbling over the details of Jackson’s demise; and Gawker, which lives for this sort of thing. At some point, the man-bites-dog story will be a site that doesn’t report a huge spike in Jackson traffic.
In any case, here’s the latest one I’ve seen: Yahoo (YHOO) boasting that Jackson’s demise has been its good fortune. Here’s the data, per Yahoo PR:
Yahoo! News:
· Yahoo! News set a record in unique visitors with 16.4 million UV’s in a day. Our previous record was on election day when we had 15.1 million visitors.
· Yahoo! News had 4 million visitors come to the site between 3-4 pm, setting an hourly record.
· Yahoo! News recorded 175 million page views yesterday, our 4th highest day after the Inauguration and Hurricane Ike.Front Page:
· On our front page, the story “Michael Jackson rushed to hospital” was the highest clicking story in our history. It generated a whopping 800,000 clicks within 10 minutes and news of his death saw 560,000 clicks in 10 minutes. Also, the news area on our front page experienced five times the amount of traffic it normally receives.Yahoo! Music
· Yahoo! Music’s blog post on Michael Jackson has generated 21K comments in under a day.
UPDATE: Here’s some boasting from CBS’ Web group. Happy to keep adding to this if anyone else wants to beat their chest a bit.
· Since the news broke, Last.fm saw a huge surge in users streaming music tracks by Jackson. On average, users were streaming 43,000 Jackson tracks per hour. The Michael Jackson artist page has received heavy traffic with more than 30 page impressions per second as fans log on to pay their respects to the pop icon. The traffic for the artist page continues to increase, and the site continues to see more than 45 times the normal traffic.
· TheInsider.com reported record traffic for June 25, with an increase that was close to double compared to the previous week. Prior to yesterday, the record for high traffic was held on May 5 when the site shared revealing photos of former Miss California Carrie Prejean.
· Within 12 hours of the announcement, CBS.com saw 100% aggregate growth over the same day last year as fans turn to CBS.com for breaking news about the tragedy, as well as to link to CBSNews.com and THE EARLY SHOW for their streaming coverage.
· CBSNews.com traffic tripled during the hour in which Jackson’s death was officially announced (3 p.m. PACIFIC/6 p.m. EASTERN) on June 25 as people turned to the site to learn more about the circumstances involving his death.
And yes, this is the third Michael Jackson post I’ve written today. Which gives me an opportunity to embed a third Michael Jackson video. This one is the intro to the “Jackson 5ive” animated series from the 1970s, procured by our eagle-eyed Beth Callaghan. Enjoy.
[Image credit: Library of Congress]
There’s some buzz right now about the iPhone 3G S and other phones being capable of 720p recording, or perhaps even 1080p if they use the newest sensors. Wow! The future is here! 720p video built right into your phone! But here’s the thing: would you rather have HD video recording implemented very badly, as it must be with the limitations of mobile phones, or would you rather not have it at all and have space for more battery or RAM? Because there’s no way that video is going to be watchable.
Look, I’m excited about the prospect too, but consider that today’s compact camcorders like the Webbie, Zx1, and MinoHD produce only passable video, and it’s the only thing they do. the lens, sensor, and encoder are all going to be absolutely bargain bin. Everything that comprimises them is going to be worse on a mobile phone.
Due to space limitations, you’re going to have a crappy lens. No one expects any kind of serious glass on a mobile, but the reason no one really cares is because the images and video are bad to begin with and low resolution to boot. The more resolution you get, the more you’re going to see distortion, scratches, and so on.
The sensors used may be state of the art, but they’re also tiny. That means that the photosensitive wells are going to be small, crowded, and over-amplified to make up for the lack of light. This means you’re going to see lots of noise, bad color and smearing of details. A slow electronic shutter will mean weird, wobbly motion. Exposure will be spotty and low light performance will be murder.
Lastly, the encoder and space required are just not going to be enough. You don’t get good video quality and small file size, period — it’s still just not an option right now. Highly compressed video looks like crap out of the gate, and it looks even worse after you’ve edited and exported it. They’ll overcompensate for lack of keyframes and motion tracking by oversharpening. Don’t want to compress it too much? You’ve only got a maximum of 32GB of space and you probably want some room for, I don’t know, TV shows and music and stuff.
Someday we’ll have it, but right now the limitations on the technology are just too much. Trust me, if they enabled it right now on your 3G S, you’d switch back to 640×480.
She tried to wake him up (when she woke to find him urinating in the closet), but she said he pushed her out of his way. Scared he might hit her, she said, she grabbed a knife and held it up as he approached, cutting him. His injuries are believed to be non-life threatening."Man stabbed while sleepwalking"
Just like every other major Website, Google was inundated with people looking for news about Michael Jackson yesterday. Above is a chart showing the volume of search queries for the deceased pop star. Searches peaked right around 3 PM PDT, as people all over the world were trying to find out information about his passing.
More details on the Google blog.
Update:
Here’s a graph that was posted by the Facebook Data Team showing off the number of Michael Jackson-related status updates during the same time frame:
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A lot of us here at TechCrunch quite like Bing, Microsoft’s new search, sorry, discovery, no sorry, decision engine. For a number of queries it seems to provide better results than Google. But that doesn’t mean the public will start using it. And this video by College Humor I think lays out why.
“Bing helps you Google the best choice, faster. And shows related Googles right there on the results page. Bing knows what you like to Google.”
Gotta love the sub-caption too on the video page: “The easiest way to Google since Yahoo!”
[thanks Ian]
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It’s raining for perhaps the 900th day in a row here, so we might as we learn something while we’re all stuck inside all day illegally downloading Michael Jackson songs. The Amazon Kindle—I’m sure you’ve heard of it. What you might not know is that it represents perhaps the last piece of tech gadgetry that I actually enjoy. Well, would enjoy—at $350, it’s still a tad expensive for me. In any event, Fast Company has a fun cover story this month, written by an old professor of mine, about how Amazon is trying so, so hard to make e-books the new hot thing, just like how Apple did a few years ago with digital music downloads.
The article, Amazon Taps Its Inner Apple, may be a bit too “inside” for the person whose involvement with tech begins and ends with looking at blurry photos of the latest Android phone, or for people who wouldn’t read a book if you’d promise them great riches, so let me briefly say:
• Amazon wants to be Apple circa 2003. It wants to make e-books as important to Amazon as digital music became to Apple. It wants to get to the point where it can tell famous authors, “Look, don’t bother signing that old-fashioned contract with Big Publisher. Give us the book exclusively, and we’ll give you far greater royalties than Big Publisher could ever hope to. And we’ll make it cheaper for your fans to buy. Win-win-win.”
• Apple’s rumored multi-touch tablet could totally wreck Amazon’s plans. Would you rather buy a Kindle, which is at best an e-book reader with a few online capabilities tacked on for good measure (reading blogs, for example), or would rather buy a full-color Apple tablet, one with a, let’s say, 10-inch multi-touch screen, full compatibility with all that stuff you’ve bought from iTunes over the years, and gives you the “feeling” of owning an Apple product?
• The whole idea of e-books may be flawed; books will evolve. No longer is publishing a several hundred-page book about Sherman’s March to the Sea (I’m reading that now, and it’s tremendous) the only thing authors (and their publishers) can expect to do. There’s got to be interactive features, multimedia razzmatazz, etc.
And so on. Again, it’s a long read if all you’re used to is 300-word blog posts or two-sentence message board threads, but it’s worth the effort if you’re “into” the Kindle at all.
Yup, still raining. How about Apple or Amazon invent a weather machine of some sort? That’d be handy.
Joshua Foer is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Joshua is a freelance science journalist and the co-founder of the Atlas Obscura: A Compendium of the World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica, with Dylan Thuras.
User curiosity_nl recently added the Bottle-Ship Museum in Enkhuizen, Holland to the Atlas Obscura. It sounds like a place I'd like to visit:
This tiny museum is said to hold the world's largest collection of bottle ships--over 750 of them. An incredible variety of miniature boats--rescue boats, whaling ships, steamships, and modern dredgers--have been stuffed into every variety of bottle, from the tiniest light bulb to a 30-liter wine jug. Magnifying glasses are available where needed. On occasion, there are demonstrations of how to build bottle ships.
Shown above is a model of the Half Moon, the ship Henry Hudson was sailing when he discovered Hudson Bay and the Hudson River. It's builder, Ralph Preston, estimates that it took about 500 hours to assemble.
 Boston Globe | ICANN Names Security Expert As CEO InformationWeek Rod Beckstrom, former director of the US National Cybersecurity Center, faces demands to make the US organization into an international body. By Antone Gonsalves The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers named Rod Beckstrom, ... ICANN names new CEO ICANN's New Leader A Renaissance Man ICANN appoints former cybersecurity chief as new boss |
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
(Download MP4 / Watch on YouTube)
A spectacularly campy "Scopitone" music number featuring Joi Lansing from 1965 which appears to be a cautionary tale about the perils of online dating, or spiders, or both.
Scopitones were basically 1960s video jukeboxes. As Pesco blogged earlier this year on Boing Boing, "Scopitones and Cineboxes were first introduced in Europe in 1959-1960 and came to the US a few years later. The coin-operated machines were quite popular but were swept into the dustbin of dead media by the 1970s."
More required reading, if you're interested in the history of these primordial music video jukeboxen:
* Scopitone Archive
* Wikipedia entry
* NPR: Rise and Fall of the Scopitone Jukebox
* Scopitone of the Day
The video comes to us as a special courtesy of Oddball Film + Video, a San Francisco stock footage company that maintains a truly amazing and extensive archive of weird old moving images. They do regular screenings in San Francisco.
Where to Find Boing Boing Video: boingboingvideo.com. RSS feed for new episodes here, subscribe on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are blog post archives for Boing Boing Video.
(Thanks to Boing Boing's video hosting partner Episodic, and to Robert Chehoski and Stephen Parr of Oddball Film + Video)
Apparently there is a single guy who is intimately acquainted with the internal doings of both Microsoft and Sony. Double agent? Contractor? Seducer? Nobody knows but Ars Technica, who enjoy exclusive access to his oracular expectorations. Er, his tech predictions. It looks like both the PS3 and 360 are due for a price drop, via the Tetris effect, which I have just now invented. It’s where products are stacked on top of each other, and once you score on the bottom, that row of products disappears and is replaced by the one above it. Apple does it year after year with the iPhone, and now it looks like console makers are about to do it again as well.
360 Elites will be replacing the Pro at the $300 level, after Pro inventory has been reduced via bundle deals. Makes sense, especially when you consider that a new 360 offering (with Project Natal) will be coming out in 2010, taking up that premium slot.
As for the PS3, we all know it’s been due for a price drop for a long time,if not since launch, and now with that slim PS3 on the way, it’s time to crush the prices a bit and get rid of the bottom row. The mole didn’t give any specifics, but I’m guessing they’ll be phasing out the lower-end system and replacing it at around that price with the 160GB version.
Of course, we get rumors like this all the time, but this guy is supposed to have a pretty good track record. We can’t count on Microsoft and Sony to confirm anything (since deception is their natural state), and we can also ignore anything they say in the negative, since they blatantly lie about that stuff too. Might it actually be time for me to move up from my Dreamcast to a current console?
For the last few weeks it hasn’t been unusual to see AT&T among Twitter’s trending topics — following its disappointing performance at WWDC and the activation issues with the iPhone last week, the carrier hasn’t exactly been garnering positive reactions from its legions of Twitter-using members. Today, it’s reached the top spot on Twitter once again, and, once again, AT&T is the target of waves of contempt.
The source of the recent flurry of AT&T tweets is Adam Savage of MythBusters fame, who tweets that for “a few hours of web surfing in Canada” he was charged a whopping $11,000. AT&T is apparently claiming that Savage managed to download 9 gigabytes in Canada using his USB data connection (which he calls “frakking impossible“). What’s worse, the customer service rep Savage was dealing with was apparently a bit loose with their decimal points, telling Savage that “data is charged at .015 cents, or a penny and a half, per kb”. Read that again — there’s a couple orders of magnitude difference there.
Now Twitter is in revolt. With over 50,000 followers Savage has a pretty loud voice, and his outraged tweets certainly resonate with a broad audience. In the end, he’ll probably get a pass from AT&T — nobody wants to mess with a man who blows things up for a living. But it’s clear that AT&T needs to work on letting its customers know when they’re spending exorbitant amounts of money on data charges. An AT&T spokesman says that any phone taken abroad that begins racking up excessive charges will automatically receive an SMS alert, but apparently there are no such mechanisms in place for members using the increasingly popular USB wireless connections.
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Chances are most of us have probably experienced being in the car while the driver is texting or responding to an email. If you have yet to experience it, let me tell you it can lead to some scary moments. Now there’s a study that can help cement those fears and maybe convince some people to stop texting or emailing while they’re driving.
The study comes out of Car and Driver magazine, who tested the theory by taking two drivers and gave them each a cell phone with full QWERTY keyboards (iPhone and Samsung Alias). They tested by making them travel at two speeds, 35 and 70 mph, and making them brake when a red light inside the car turned on. They were testing a control, a BAC of .08, and a texting scenario to determine how many extra feet they required to stop while drunk and texting. Turns out it required each driver 35 and 46 extra feet while drunk, compared to 9 and 70 feet while texting.
Granted the first (younger, in their 20s) didn’t need nearly as much distance as the older (30s) subject, but it’s still a significant measurement. Taking the average of the two drunk driving would be worse, but only by one foot, which is a bit scary.
While you might be able to scoff at the study or only having two subjects, even in those two there was a significant effect shown. Perhaps a larger study would be a good idea just to prove the theory, but as it stands it’s not the brightest idea to text while driving.
Read [InformationWeek]
Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
A couple of days ago we wrote about Facebook’s new Live Stream Box funtionality. Ustream was the first to offer a live video solution for users with Facebook Pages. But the sign up for the free option is limited, and the white-label version carries a one-time fee of $15,000. Enter Stickam. It’s offering live video via its StreamAPI service to anyone. And there’s no set up fee and no monthly fee. But it will still cost you.
The StreamAPI solution is pay-as-you-go, with live video costing you 45 cents a gigabyte. That includes support for HD video, customizable solutions (with no Flash knowledge required) and analytics. It’s a similar approach that Stickam takes with its regular StreamAPI product.
On this sample Facebook page, you can see live video of traffic in LA.
Find out more here.
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Yesterday we posted about 
The process is simple:
App #1: One of the safest things to do for game developers is port an existing PC hit onto the iPhone. That’s what 
App #2: Have you been hungry for a platformer like 
App #3: 
App #4: The iPhone’s touchscreen is simply perfect for engaging and interactive puzzle games, and 
App #5: Simple, touch-related games make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Why? They validate my decision to purchase an iPhone. 
48 percent of Americans would drop their mobile data service completely if they were driven to it by the souring economy. That’s the conclusion of 
As 
A few years ago, 
UK tech site T3 is doing its yearly gadget awards, powered by votes, and I think we need to make our presence felt. CG readers are a hardy bunch, kind of like techno-Vikings, and it is our prerogative to make sure our opinions are reflected in any and every online poll and discussion — especially British ones.
When you’ve just gotten laid off, the last thing you want to hear is that you can’t cash your last check because of one final payroll screwup. But that’s apparently exactly what’s going on over at MySpace, which 
Wikipedia editors have found themselves overwhelmed as scores of users log on to make edits to Michael Jackson’s Wikipedia page. His death was quickly reported on the site, but users continuously tried to delete the references and made comments, such as “He’s Not Dead” and “Unverified.” The references came soon after TMZ reported the death on their website around 2:00 PM yesterday.
Looks like the licensing nazi has struck again. The slick 
With the Palm Pre and iPhone 3GS in stores and the myTouch 3G, T-Mobile’s second Google (GOOG) Android phone, headed to market, is the Research in Motion (RIMM) product lineup beginning to look a bit dated? Which leads to another question: Has RIM’s success made it too complacent? 
Palm shares are 
Competition is integral for a healthy market, right? The 
Times are tough for Palm but not as bad as Wall Street expected, so the outlook is a bit rosy for the smartphone maker. Since the 
