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Gnome Switches Nautilus Back To Browser ModeAn anonymous reader writes "In one of the ( Do the developers actually use their own software?) decisions in the Linux Desktop World , back in 2004 Gnome switched to the 'Spatial' view by default with their Nautilus file manager opening a new window with each new folder viewed. Many derided the decision as poor design or as being different for the sake of being different. Well, after five long years the Gnome powers that be have decided to switch back to browser mode."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 25 Dec 2009 | 3:12 am Panasonic Develops High-Capacity Lithium-Ion Battery Cells - RTT News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 25 Dec 2009 | 2:24 am Best iPod Touch and iPhone Games: 2009 Buyer's Guide - Touch Arcade
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 25 Dec 2009 | 2:18 am China defends role at CopenhagenChina has defended its role at this month's climate change talks in Copenhagen, saying Premier Wen Jiabao played a key part in sealing an accord, after critics blamed Beijing for blocking...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 25 Dec 2009 | 1:57 am Tracking Santa's travels - Appeal-Democrat
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 25 Dec 2009 | 1:33 am Merry Christmas and Happy HolidaysMay your 2010 be full of peace, joy and great photographs!Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 25 Dec 2009 | 1:16 am Texas County Will Use Twitter To Publish Drunk Drivers' Namesalphadogg contributes this snippet from Network World: "If you get busted for drunk driving in Montgomery County, Texas, this holiday season, your neighbors may hear about it on Twitter. That's because the local district attorney's office has decided to publish the names of those charged with driving while intoxicated between Christmas and New Year's Eve. County Vehicular Crimes Prosecutor Warren Diepraam came up with the idea as a way of discouraging residents from getting behind the wheel while drunk. 'It's not a magic bullet that's going to end DWIs, but it's something to make people think twice before they get behind the wheel of a car and drive while they're intoxicated,' he said."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Gizmodo | 24 Dec 2009 | 11:00 pm China Blames Online Games for Drugs, Murder, Teen Pregnancy
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 Washington Post | Apple stock soars to all-time high Los Angeles Times Santa arrived early for Apple Inc. shareholders: The stock surged $6.94, or 3.4%, on Thursday to close at a record high of $209.04. That topped the previous closing high of $207 on Nov. 17. The buzz continues to build about the company's ... Apple stockholders get record high for Christmas Approaching January, Apple Tablet Rumors Run Wild Apple stock at all-time high on tablet rumor |
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
At our Realtime CrunchUp in November, Bazaar Labs showed off their iPhone application Flixup, which scans Twitter to create aggregate scores for movies. Tonight, just in time for the busy Christmas movie-going season, they’re launching the website for the service.
The website works just like the app. The main page shows the “Top Movies” based on the amount of talk on Twitter. For example, right now Avatar leads the pack by far. Flixup’s Buzz meter also shows if the talk about the movie is positive (green), neutral (yellow), or negative (red). Avatar is not only being talked about the most, but it’s also very clearly green, which is impressive (it’s definitely worth seeing if you missed our screening of last week).
And just like the iPhone app, Flixup works better if you sign in with your Twitter account (via OAuth). If you’re signed in, when you click on a movie title, you can see the conversations about the movie on Twitter that your contacts are having. You can also click to see all the conversations on Twitter about the movie. And you can rate the movie (on a 1 to 5 scale) or say if you’re interested in seeing it or not and tweet all that out with the click of a button.
On the individual movie pages you can also get additional details about the film and see its trailer. And Flixup features its Rotten Tomatoes score as well. This is appropriate since when the iPhone app was previewed, we called it the “Rotten Tomatoes for Twitter movie talk.”
You can find Flixup’s free iPhone application in the App Store here.
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Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile
Much research has been conducted in order to find out whether or not cell phones pose a serious risk to a person’s health. While no reports have concluded with a definitive answers, many believe cell phones do cause some sort of health problem, whether it be cancer or brain damage. In any event, San Francisco officials, especially Mayor Gavin Newsom, are trying to lobby a bill that would require all manufacturers to display how much electromagnetic radiation the mobile device emits as well as the possibility of brain cancer from cell phone usage. The ordinance would require only the stores to display such information, but a similar proposed Maine bill is looking to require pertinent information to be displayed on the actual phone itself.
Some see the idea of San Francisco attempting to pass such a bill as necessary and a positive step for the government. However, there are many skeptics who believe the government is inserting their influence in places that do not need it. CTIA, a trade group ran by several major cell phone industries, is against the San Francisco bill on the basis that concrete scientific evidence needs to surface first, before any government action should be taken. Unfortunately for cell phone manufacturers in San Francisco, if such a bill does pass, there is a strong possibility that cell phone sales would decrease significantly because of parents worrying about their children using cell phones too much.
It will be interesting to see if any other cities or states try to pass similar bills in the future.
Via [LATimes]
Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Tell us. We want to know. I, for one, got nothing. Just beer. But it was an amazing beer called Stiegle.
There are a lot of Christmas classics, many of which are now but a click away, in a cavalcade of online video clips available from movies and television.
While I style myself as a Scrooge, each and every one gets to me right where it counts–most especially the first I posted below: Judy Garland at the peak of her promise, singing, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” in the movie, “Meet Me in St. Louis.”
Every time I hear it, all is right with Judy and with the world
Which it wasn’t and it’s not, but the clip will make you believe it for a moment.
So, have yourself a Merry little Festivus now, and enjoy four others too:
“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
“It’s a Wonderful Life” (colorized version, last scenes)
“How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (not the Jim Carrey horror show):
“The Brady Bunch” (Christmas minisode)
“Seinfeld” (”Festivus” episode)
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
At the Eiffel Tower's official web site, you can check out scans of the original blueprints created by Gustave Eiffel in preparation for the 1889 World's Fair. The famous tower in Paris was the source of much controversy (many thought its skeletal design ruined the classical cityscape) and remained the tallest structure in the world until the Chrysler Building in 1930.
[via Gizmodo]
Source: Boing Boing | 24 Dec 2009 | 3:04 pm
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
It’s almost the night before Christmas, which means that many of you are doing something other than looking at the Web right now. And those of you who are on the Web probably aren’t looking for something terribly heavy to ingest.
Fair enough. We’ll start up again in a couple of days. In the meantime, please enjoy your holiday. And if you’re an Animal fan, you’ll want to keep your eyes open around the three-minute mark here:
About 10 days ago, there was a post in this column about interest by News Corp. and its MySpace unit in Flixster, the popular social networking site for movies.
Titled “MySpace and News Corp. Eye Flixster (But for What?), I wrote:
Whether this is an acquisition or more of a larger partnership deal with News Corp. digital entertainment sites is unclear. Several sources said a purchase was a possibility, while others talked about a more complex deal that did not necessarily mean a purchase.
Sources said any such deal is not imminent, but that News Corp. (NWS) itself has been conducting extensive due diligence on the San Francisco-based Flixster, part of a plan to combine it with Rotten Tomatoes, another News Corp.-owned site run by its IGN Entertainment division.
Well, BoomTown did more gumshoeing and it is indeed shaping up to be a very complex deal, acccording to many sources I spoke with, centered on Rotten Tomatoes merging with Flixster, in exchange for a stake in the combined independent company by News Corp.
Flixster has attracted a huge audience–upward of 50 million–who trade all kinds of recommendations, ratings, news and even post user-generated movie reviews on its Web site and via widgets on social networking sites, mostly on Facebook.
Founded in 2006 by CEO Joe Greenstein and CTO Saran Chari, Flixster has raised $7 million in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Pinnacle Ventures, as well as garnering an angel investment from Silicon Valley entrepreneur and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.
Rotten Tomatoes features mostly premium content, including professional reviews, trailer videos and news. It has community feature that is just in beta, so it would be a nice fit with Flixster.
In addition, in a separate but related deal, the resulting company could then have its social, user-generated and premium content threaded throughout MySpace, which is in the midst of transforming itself from a social networking site and into a social media site for music and other kinds of entertainment.
Several sources noted that this deal being contemplated is typical of the overall strategy at News Corp., which has been targeting digital units, which are not an obvious fit inside the company any longer, for sale or other disposition.
In fact, the deal is not unlike one News Corp. did recently, flipping photo-sharing Photobucket into mobile photo service Ontela, with the media giant holding a large equity position in the the new entity.
The possibility of interlinking of MySpace and the combined social movie site is interesting and also yet another signal of one of the new strategies of MySpace, as one source described it, “playing on other platforms.”
For example, it recently announced it was adding its data stream into real-time search results on Google (GOOG).
And, it seems dead obvious that MySpace is likely to adopt Facebook Connect sooner than later, perhaps beginning with a smaller implementation early next year.
Focusing less on Facebook, which has long surpassed the once high-flying MySpace as the top-of-mind social network, MySpace is likely to value the massive cross-distribution for its much richer media content.
But that’s not all for MySpace, said several sources, all of whom noted it would be rolling out a range of significant design and other feature initiatives over the next 45 to 60 days.
They are all aimed by its news managers at juicing MySpace’s prospects, which have declined over the last several years, as have both revenues and engagement with consumers.
“This is not a rocket-ship ride to the moon,” said one person with knowledge of the situation. “It’s building again step by step.”
A Flixster spokesman declined to comment, as did News Corp. I am awaiting a call back from MySpace’s spokeswoman, but she is stuck in a security line at the airport.
Happy holidays, anyway, Dani!
(Full disclosure: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)
AP - Apple Inc. shares hit an all-time high Thursday after a published report suggested the intensely scrutinized yet secretive company may be getting ready for a major product announcement.
This Christmas tree in London is made out of recycled bicycle wheels, donated by a non-profit that ships bike parts to Africa to help with health care transportation in rural areas. A neat idea executed by a cool architecture firm, even though I don't think it really looks like a Christmas tree.
[Architects Journal via Inhabitat]
Source: Boing Boing | 24 Dec 2009 | 1:44 pm
Section: Web
Thanks to a recent survey, which was done by Harris Interactive we are able to confirm some details that most of us already knew—adults spend lots of time online. Of course, that is not to poke fun at the survey, in reality it shows some interesting statistics.
Just to begin with, the survey pooled 2,029 adults and was figured as time online, but not including time spent using email.
As for what it is telling us, well just to start, the average adult now spends roughly 13 hours per week in cyberspace. And of those surveyed, 14% admit to spending 24 hours or more online. Personally, I would estimate my use at more than 30. That said, its likely much higher, but that comes with my job.
On the flip side, 20% of those surveyed claim to be spending less than two hours per week online. I could not imagine that, myself, I most likely have them beaten before they even wake up on a Monday morning, and sadly that would just be the start of my day and week.
Furthermore, those that are between 30 and 39 are said to be the current highest at around 18 hours per week. Of course, that is closely followed by 25-29 and also 40-49 which are both averaging 17 hours per week.
So what about you, are you in that category (like myself) where you are online more than offline.
Read [Harris Interactive] Via [TechCrunch] Image credit:
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
As “Fashion 2.0″ sites continue to innovate, the social component of these style-focused sites becomes an important tool for viral growth. Weardrobe, a site focused on capturing and sharing the street style of web users, was recently acquired by Like.com And we’ve written about Polyvore, the startup lets web shoppers pull their favorite items any online store and mix and match to create personalized outfits online. Users can then share their creations on the site and can then buy the items shown. The site is seeing rapid growth, with over 6 million unique visitors per month thanks to new branding efforts and the launch of Facebook Connect.
Polyvore’s virtual styling tool allows people to mix and match products from any online store to create fashion collages, called “sets,” and collections that can then be embedded in other sites. Armed with $7 million in funding, Polyvore has recently forged partnerships with brands like Calvin Klein, Barney’s, Lancome, Zappos Marc Jacobs, and the Gap to create branded collages that the Polyvore community of users can then share and buy from. Many of these brands use Polyvore’s technology to create contests for users.The startup collects revenue in these partnerships and also sees returns from affiliate fees when users buy
And users can now share their branded “sets” via Facebook and Twitter, serving as social advertisements for designers and fashion companies. Polyvore says 30,000 sets are created daily on the site. Launched in 2007, the startup just raised $5.6 million in funding.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
SCVNGR, the platform that lets you build location-based games compatible with any mobile phone, is on a roll. The company has just raised $4 million from Google Ventures, with participation from existing investor Highland Capital. Google Ventures’ Rich Miner will be taking a board seat. The news comes just over a week after we learned that SCVNGR is cash flow positive, with over $1 million in revenue in its first full year in business.
While mobile location based games like Foursquare and Gowalla are getting a lot of attention right now, SCVNGR has quietly managed to establish a very nice niche market for itself. SCVNGR, which started in the DreamIt Ventures program back in 2008, makes a platform that allows companies, schools, and other organizations to build their own location-based scavenger hunts. Dozens of major universities have used the service at campus orientations, while major companies have used it for team building exercises. The platform has been used by over 400 clients including Princeton, Yale, MetLife, and HSBC, and has a whopping 91% client repeat rate.
SCVNGR is also expanding very quickly. In the eleven days since we last wrote about them, they hired six new people. They are currently doubling the company’s size from 20 to 40 employees, filling roles in everything from mobile application development to sales.
Oh, and there’s one other impressive thing about the startup: SCVNGR closed its funding round on CEO Seth Priebatsch’s twenty-first birthday.
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
 Thaindian.com | As DDoS Attacks Go, This One's a Dud PC World With all due respect to the affected holiday shoppers in Northern California, yesterday's distributed denial-of-service attack on Amazon, Wal-Mart, and other sites could've been much worse. Yesterday evening, those retailers' Web sites went down for ... Last-minute Amazon, Wal-Mart shoppers delayed by DDoS attack DDoS attack scrooges Amazon and others DDoS attack spikes Amazon traffic |
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Last summer, when Apple pulled third-party Google Voice applications from the App Store, one of them was VoiceCentral. Apple’s subsequent rejection of the official Google Voice app spurred an FCC investigation, but Google Voice never made it to the app store and none of the other apps ever made it back in.
Well, that’s not stopping the developers behind VoiceCentral. They are bringing back their app to the iPhone via the browser. They call it the Black Swan edition. You can get on a waiting list to be on the private beta here. The app is completely browser-based but has the look and feel of a regular app, complete with a dialer, list of transcribed voicemails, and SMS messages.
When you dial a number, Google Voice simply makes a call to your iPhone while simultaneously calling the number of the person you are trying to reach, so you still pay for the voice minutes. But the appeal of having Google Voice on your iPhone is the ability to read transcribed voicemails, or play them, and avoid SMS charges by texting through Google Voice. (You cannot yet do all of these things when you access Google Voice via the iPhone’s browser directly).
The downside is that it cannot access your contact list on your iPhone through the browser. Although, VoiceCentral mimics the look and feel of the iPhone contact manager, you have to export your contacts to Google Voice first and access them that way. Another limitation is that the audio plays through the speaker instead of through the earpiece, but if you are using a pair of earphones that is not a problem.
VoiceCentral will probably be a paid app, but Apple won’t get any of the revenues since it is simply a mobile Website. It even offers offline caching and takes advantage of the HTML5 features of mobile Safari. This could very well be the future of mobile apps. As mobile browsers become more capable, more and more developers are going to ask themselves why bother with the limitations of the App Store and be at the mercy of Apple’s whims? And it won’t just be developers like VoiceCentral who have no other choice.
Below is a promotional video which shows some of the features of VoiceCentral’s Black Swan app. Remember, this is all happening in the browser:
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By Yukari Iwatani Kane, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
If there is one complaint people have about their iPhones, it’s that the popular cellphone doesn’t have the option of a physical keyboard to type on. That has now changed, at least if you’ve “jailbroken” or modified your phone so it can download unauthorized software.
Matthias Ringwald, a doctoral candidate specializing in wireless sensor networks in Zurich, Switzerland, launched a piece of software called BTstack Keyboard, which will let users use Bluetooth-enabled keyboards with their iPhones. The software is available through the unauthorized app marketplace Cydia for $5.
IPhones rely on typing text using a virtual keyboard on the display screen, an attribute that does not appeal to some people. The handsets have Bluetooth capability–a popular way to connect peripheral devices–but so far Apple (AAPL) has only allowed it to be used to connect with other iPhones to play games or with certain accessories like headsets. Ringwald was one of the users frustrated by the limitation. He spent eight months developing the software before releasing it on Wednesday.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Nearly 62 years after researchers at Bell Labs demonstrated the first functional transistor, scientists say they have made another major breakthrough.
Researchers showed the first functional transistor made from a single molecule. The transistor, which has a benzene molecule attached to gold contacts, could behave just like a silicon transistor.
The molecule’s different energy states can be manipulated by varying the voltage applied to it through the contacts. And by manipulating the energy states, researchers were able to control the current passing through it.
The transistor, or semiconductor device that can amplify or switch electrical signals, was first developed to replace vacuum tubes. On Dec. 23, 1947, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain (who’d built on research by colleague William Shockley) showed a working transistor that was the culmination of more than a decade’s worth of effort.
Vacuum tubes were bulky and unreliable, and they consumed too much power. Silicon transistors addressed those problems and ushered in an era of compact, portable electronics.
Now molecular transistors could escalate the next step of developing nanomachines that would take just a few atoms to perform complex calculations, enabling massive parallel computers to be built.
The team, which includes researchers from Yale University and the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea, published their findings in the Dec. 24 issue of the journal Nature.
For about two decades — since Mark Reed, a professor of engineering and applied science at Yale, showed that individual molecules could be trapped between electrical contacts — researchers have been trying to create a functional molecular transistor.
Some of the challenges they have faced include being able to fabricate the electrical contacts on such small scales, identifying the molecules to use, and figuring out where to place them and how to connect them to the contacts.
“There were a lot of technological advances and understanding we built up over many years to make this happen,” says Reed.
Despite the significance of the latest breakthrough, practical applications such as smaller and faster molecular computers could be decades away, says Reed.
“We’re not about to create the next generation of integrated circuits,” he says. “But after many years of work gearing up to this, we have fulfilled a decade-long quest and shown that molecules can act as transistors.”
Photo: A benzene molecule can be manipulated to act as a traditional transistor
Courtesy: Hyunwook Song and Takhee Lee
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Section: Web, Web 2.0 / Social Networking
Most people believe that we are putting ourselves out in the open and making it very easy to be found with the use of social networks like Facebook and Twitter. That may be true for some, if not a lot, but that statement does not seem to be holding true for everyone, or at least for one prison escapee from the UK.
That man is Craig ‘Lazie’ Lynch, who right from the start of his Facebook profile is showing you that he may not be all there. Coming with a bold profile picture in which he is well, flipping the bird and his little blurb about himself which reads “life is what you make it, live fast, die young” he seems to be making a big effort to taunt those who are chasing and looking for him.
You see, Craig escaped from Hollesley Bay Prison in Suffolk, England back in September and has since been on the run. Of course, that does not seem to be stopping him from living. At current Craig Lynch has nearly 1200 Facebook friends and is showing off where he is and where he has been. Even showing off the parties he attends and the dinners that he eats. You know, just like most other people that frequent Facebook.
Unfortunately, at least in this instance, his updates do not seem to be helping the police find him.
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
After Wednesday’s barrage of Apple tablet rumors from media outlets big and small, Wired.com is convinced the long-awaited product will see the light of day in 2010. But there is one more thing.
New York Times writer Nick Bilton adds to the rumor frenzy with two sound bites from Apple staff.
“I can’t really say anything, but, let’s just say Steve is extremely happy with the new tablet,” a current senior Apple employee is quoted in Bilton’s post.
Bilton also cites a recently departed Apple employee who said, “You will be very surprised how you interact with the new tablet.”
Intriguing, especially the second quote. Just how could the interaction method surprise us? In August 2008, a 52-page patent filed by Apple described how a touchscreen tablet might work. The patent described a device that would be able to detect simultaneous touches and gestures from two hands. But that hardly sounds like it would be surprising.
Interestingly, AppleInsider spotted a new patent application that was appeared this week in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s database. Filed by Apple, the patent application is titled “Keystroke tactility arrangement on a smooth touch surface.” It describes a tactile-feedback mechanism for a touch surface keyboard to create physical bumps for the user to feel the keys:
One approach is to provide tactile feedback mechanisms, such as dots, bars, or other shapes on all or many keys. In another embodiment, an articulating frame may be provided that extends when the surface is being used in a typing mode and retracts when the surface is used in some other mode, e.g., a pointing mode. The articulating frame may provide key edge ridges that define the boundaries of the key regions or may provide tactile feedback mechanisms within the key regions. The articulating frame may also be configured to cause concave depressions similar to mechanical key caps in the surface. In another embodiment, a rigid, non-articulating frame may be provided beneath the surface. A user will then feel higher resistance when pressing away from the key centers, but will feel a softer resistance at the key center.
Could that be the big surprise? It would certainly be a welcome addition to eliminate the need to stare at the keyboard while typing. And one could imagine it would be a crucial feature on a touchscreen device with a bigger screen.
See Also:
Photo illustration: Wired.com reader Gluepet
It’s been a long drought for IPOs, but venture capitalists and tech entrepreneurs are hopeful that 2010 will be the year they rain down on the Valley once gain. Earlier this year, a handful of IPOs trickled out, such as OpenTable, Rackspace, and A123Systems. But what people are really waiting for is another Netscape moment—an iconic IPO which will whet investor’s appetites and open the floodgates for others to follow.
Below is our list of the top ten IPO candidates for 2010 in the technology industry (and, no, it doesn’t include Twitter). I conducted an informal survey of some top VCs and angel investors. These are the names whispered about the most in the Valley and other tech circles. The hope is that the economy will swing back and the public markets will become receptive to IPOs, especially towards the second half of the year. The stock market in general is finding its legs already. The S&P 500 is up 24 percent this year. If the bull market continues, that will be good for the prospects of seeing these potential IPOs. And if it doesn’t, there’s always M&A.
1. Facebook. Total raised: $716 million.
If there is one company which everyone is looking towards for a new Netscape moment, it is Facebook. The company can pretty much go public any time it wants. It is already the fourth largest site in the U.S. and the world. Its last private common stock sale valued the company at $11 billion, which may or may not be rational. The key to a large public valuation will be whether Facebook can figure out how to turn all of that attention into advertising dollars. So far it is said to be on track to beat its $550 million revenue projections from earlier this year. A Facebook IPO would certainly create a halo effect for other tech offerings. Even if it doesn’t go out in 2010, the prospect that it might could still help other companies go public as hungry investors grab what they can get.
2. Zynga. Total raised: $219 million.
Social game developer Zynga is on a tear, with more than 230 million people a month actively playing its games such as FarmVille, PetVille, and Texas HoldeEm Poker. The company just raised a whopping $180 million round. It is believed to be Facebook’s largest advertiser and pulling in at least $250 million in revenues on its own. But it is also at the center of the Scamville controversy over how it makes some of its money from scammy offers. If it can convince investors it has cleaned up its act, they will gobble up an IPO.
3. LinkedIn. Total raised: $103 million.
The other social network, LinkedIn is like the enterprise version of Facebook. It is where business gets done and people find jobs. LAst year alone it raised about $75 million at a $1 billion valuation. Founder Reid Hoffman has spoken repeatedly about LinkedIn’s ability to IPO. Earlier this year, he recruited former Yahoo exec Jeff Weiner to be CEO and is spending more time himself as a venture capitalist, which has always been his sideline.
4. Glam Media. Total raised: $125 million.
Glam Media is one of the fastest growing ad networks and collection of fashion- and women-oriented sites. At a time when traditional media and women’s magazines are suffering, Glam is saw display advertising revenues across its network up more than 50 percent in 2009. CEO Samir Arora expects the company to be profitable in the fourth quarter, and is recruiting executives with big-company experience. Ad networks which dominate their niche are an easy lay-up for investors.
5. Demand Media. Total raised: $355 million.
Demand Media is another LA-based company, started by former MySpace chairman Richard Rosenblatt. Demand Media owns a collection of sites such as eHow, Livestrong, and countless niche sites. It also owns domain name registrar eNom, which generates a lot of its cash. Demand Media is a content mill, churning out articles and videos for its niche sites like Golflink.com and Trails.com cheaply and quickly in response to what people are searching for. It may not be sexy, but it is lucrative enough that potential acquirers are sniffing around and AOL’s Tim Armstrong is looking to copy and improve on the niche content model.
6. Gilt Groupe. Total raised: $48 million.
Gilt is a private online shopping club for luxury goods. Its revenues are reportedly around $200 million this year, and expected to more than double next year. IPO talk is already in the air. Gilt’s counterpart in Europe, Ventee-Privée, is rumored to be in acquisition talks with Amazon for around $3 billion. And Kleiner Perkins just invested in One Kings Lane, another private shopping club based in England.
7. Etsy. Total raised: $31.6 million.
Another niche e-commerce play could be Etsy, the Brooklyn-based marketplace for handcrafted goods. Sellers on Etsy are on track to trade $200 million worth of goods on the maretplace this year, double from last year. Founder Rob Kalin recently took over again as CEO and says the company is now profitable. Etsy will never be as big as eBay, but its focus means that can become a the alternative eBay for buyers and sellers of high-quality, custom-designed apparel, furniture, and other goods.
8. Yelp. Total raised: $31 million.
Yelp was nearly acquired by Google for around $500 million before the deal broke down last week. The fast-rising local reviews site now might try the public markets instead. The company already has 300 employees and is becoming a powerhouse in the online advertising for local businesses, which is an area of growth every major Web company wants to participate in. Already the IPO filings are starting to come in, with ReachLocal filing to raise $100 million for its local ad network.
9. Tesla Motors Total raised: $783 million.
Why would you invest in GM IPO if you could invest in Tesla instead? Silicon Valley’s electric car company is expected to hit the public markets. Building a car company takes massive amounts of capital, and Tesla has raised nearly $800 million so far. Most of that comes in the form of government loans, such as the $465 million it received as part of the government’s $25 billion bailout of the U.S. auto industry. A lot of the capital also comes from partner Daimler, and billionaire founder Elon Musk. But, hey, at least Tesla is profitable, which is saying a lot for a car maker.
10. Skype Total raised: $69 million
Despite all the drama surrounding eBay’s recent sale of Skype to a group of private investors including Silver Lake Partners and Andreessen Horowitz for $2.75 billion, the deal got done. Skype is already a major Internet brand, with more than 500 million users of its Internet calling, IM, and video communications service, and $185 million in quarterly revenues. Before eBay found its buyers, it was very publicly pursuing the IPO route. And given that eBay retains a 30 percent stake in Skype, that is still an option if its growth continues apace.
Runner’s Up: The ten names above are the most likely to go public if the markets open up. Other companies which might tap the public markets include Associated Content, Brightcove, Digg, StumbleUpon, LiveOps, Workday, MerchantCircle, ExactTarget, Chegg, and Rearden Commerce. Most informed observers do not expect a Twitter IPO next year. It is too early. The company just raised $100 million, and still needs to figures out its business model. Maybe in 2011.
Which of these companies do you think is most likely to IPO? Which ones would you invest in?
Photo credit: Flickr/David Paul Ohmer
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One of the highlights is a story explaining how nuclear power—remember, this is only five months after Hiroshima and Nagasaki—could be harnessed peacefully, to produce energy in America. The piece includes diagrams showing how a nuclear generator might be designed. Fun for comparing with the cutaways of modern nuclear reactors that Cory posted last week.
Also neat:
Popular Science, December 1945
Thumbnail image from Flickr user x-ray delta one, via CC
Apple corporate laptop sales set to increase despite Windows 7 debut Apple Insider Apple laptop sales hit a new high in planned corporate sales in November, despite the release of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system, a new survey has found. ChangeWave's latest corporate IT spending survey shows that 10 percent of ... High Windows 7 satisfaction spurs corporate IT spending Report: Windows 7 hasn't hurt the Mac Apple Corporate Sales Could Be On The Way Up |
AP - Dianne Lynch wanted to give the students of Stephens College a break from the constant digital communication that pervades their generation. So she asked them to put their phones and computers away and revive the 176-year-old school's dormant tradition of vespers services.
By Don Clark, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Gary Shapiro is quick to admit that last year’s Consumer Electronics Show–held during the darkest days of the recession–was pretty depressing. But his enthusiasm has recovered.
“I’m more excited about this CES than any in the 28 years I’ve been attending the show,” says Shapiro, president and chief executive of the Consumer Electronics Association, which organizes the event.
One reason is the contrasting activity in the months leading up to this year’s show, which is scheduled for January 7-10 in Las Vegas. Last fall, as the magnitude of the meltdown became apparent, many companies cut back on the number of employees they send to the show or pulled out entirely.
This fall, Shapiro says, the pattern reversed, as exhibitors and attendees have signed up at an accelerating rate. “We blew through all our goals for the last five months,” he says.
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Seiko's legendary talking pyramid clock returns in updated form, featuring LED lighting and sharp corners. It's Japan-only for the moment. [via CrunchGear]Bloom boxes are fuel cells that create electricity using a variety of energy sources. Powered by natural gas, they could produce cleaner power for Western homes. Running on plant waste, they could bring grid-less power to developing countries. And they could also be used as storage/backup for solar and wind generation.
Joel Johnson's little sister made him this cute Tetris-themed pillowcase for Christmas. [Joel's flickr]
I’m not really sure if that’s something a lot of gadget freaks were waiting for, but here we go: TDK has found a cost-effective way to tint touchscreens. The company claims it can add color to transparent electrode sheets that serve as the basis of those screens. In the future, electrode sheets will be available in 13 colors, including red, green, blue, aquamarine, purple and black hues.
The main selling point here is to match the body of a given device with its touch screen.
Electrode sheets used in touch screens are made of a thin film of indium tin oxide. TDK says they produce these sheets by adding an adhesive layer to a resin film substrate, resulting in a film that can be placed down evenly. Organic pigments mixed in with the adhesive are used to color the sheets in a second step. TDK says they tested 50 kinds of pigments before getting a compound that’s color-stable and durable.
The company plans to start delivering samples and to begin mass production by April next year. Their sheets are not only suitable for cell phones or other portable gadgets but also for large screens, for example those of notebooks.
Via Nikkei [registration required, paid subscription]
Section: Gadgets / Other, Green
The main reason the I am not really interested in the Barnes & Noble nook is due to the fact that I have locked myself into the Amazon world in terms of ebook purchases. Of course, that is due to the DRM that comes with the Kindle ebook purchases. Honestly, its something that I have come to accept, but at the same time it would be nice to have the option to take my paid for, and legal content to a competing device.
That said, it looks like that may be one step closer to happening, but like many early hacks this one sounds better than in may actually be in real world settings.
Anyway, just recently, some Israeli hackers cracked the DRM that comes with those Kindle ebooks. And before anyone gets super excited, this is not yet available for anyone and everyone to use and enjoy. That and, in reality you are not really removing the DRM from the ebook, but more specifically you are removing the text from the ebook and converting that text into a PDF file that you can read on other devices.
So, while its not yet the perfect hack, it does seem to be off to a nice start. I wonder when we will see the next software update for the Kindle that will patch this exploit.
Read [Hacking.org.il] Via [BGR]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Plenty of Web folks–me included–hollered loudly when Facebook overhauled its privacy policy this month. But the Web is made for shouting, so that makes it pretty hard to get a sense of how most people really feel.
For instance: Do advertisers, an increasingly important part of Facebook’s constituency, care about this stuff? I’ve been looking for signs that the network’s changes have made them skittish, a la the Beacon debacle of 2007. But so far, I haven’t seen anything.
That’s because there isn’t anything, says Mike Lazerow.
Lazerow runs Buddy Media, a start-up that makes most of its money helping big companies–from Bud Light to AMD (AMD) to the Twilight movie franchise–create and maintain “fan pages” on Facebook. These companies in turn spend lots of money advertising their pages to Facebook users and are now generating a substantial part of the network’s revenue. And Lazerow says none of the 125 brands he’s working with on Facebook have uttered a peep to him about the privacy changes so far.
“I know for sure that advertisers don’t care,” he tells me in the video interview embedded below.
The caveat here is that Lazerow isn’t a neutral observer: His company is pretty much dependent on advertisers embracing Facebook. Still, if marketers are worried, they’re expressing that very, very quietly.
Our discussion of Facebook’s privacy problem–or lack of a problem–kicks in around the nine-minute market of this clip. We spent the rest of our time talking about Buddy Media’s business, which Facebook more or less kick-started less than a year ago when it allowed brands to create their own fan pages.
To me, the economy tethered to fan pages seems based on a sort of circular logic: Brands are told they should create the pages–which are essentially what we used to call “Web sites”–so that they can advertise the pages on Facebook so they can drive people to use the pages.
But marketers seem to have embraced the idea, which is big news for Facebook, as well as entrepreneurs like Lazerow.
FROM GAMERTELL - Come to gamertell to get the coupon code to get a whopping 50% off all the digital download games through Ubisoft’s online store…
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I’m not an RC gadget expert, but modding static model kits of space ships so that they’re water-proof and can be RC-controlled to make them then “fly underwater” seems like a very, very geeky thing to do to me. Take this 1/350 scale replica of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A space ship from Star Trek, for example.
Some person [JP] in Yokosuka, Japan, bought the static kit and transformed it into a space ship that can move and be RC-controlled underwater. The people belonging to the “underground” circle of these self-made gadgets call themselves “Aqua Modelers” and meet up on a regular basis [IT] to exchange ideas and show off their works each year. The last one apparently just took place a couple of days ago.
See the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A in action in the video below:
Another example of the aqua model craziness can be seen in this video where we see an awesome 1/350 scale replica of the Space Battleship Yamato floating around underwater:
Unfortunately, these models aren’t for sale.
Via Modellismo Hobby Media [IT]
Thanks to Francesco Fondi for the tip!
A few weeks ago, BoomTown motored down to Silicon Valley, to the Redwood City, Calif., HQ of Zazzle, the online site that lets users order a variety of custom products by using a special (and patented) printing technology.
I went to talk to the Beaver brothers–Jeff and Bobby, who founded the company with their father, who is CEO, way back before the first Web 1.0 bubble burst in 1999–about recent changes, including finding more ways to slap custom designs on more products and recent international expansion.
Funded to the tune of $46 million by Kleiner Perkins and Sherpalo Ventures, Zazzle’s profitable business essentially remains pretty straightforward: A customer can pick from both branded and user-generated designs for a variety of items, such as T-shirts, shoes, skateboards and more.
Zazzle also offers a marketplace, under a commission structure, for those who do contribute designs.
But in the video below, the pair talk about the more intriguing and more innovative idea of making pretty much every retail product completely customizable and available on demand.
It’s an interesting idea, to be sure, and probably inevitable.
Here’s the video of the interview, as well as a tour of Zazzle’s offices:
Funny story on Dutch business blog Sprout this morning: Soocial, an Amsterdam-based digital contact management startup, talks about its quarrels with actor and singer David Hasselhoff.
Here’s how the story started: Soocial, an angel investor-backed startup that provides a simple but powerful contact synchronization service for both the Web and mobile phones, figured ‘hassle-free address book management’ fit its core product perfectly as a description when it was founded about two years ago.
As a gimmick, they associated the baseline with the freedom-looking Knight Rider and Baywatch actor and started using images and footage of the Hoff as part of their marketing message (see video below).
Turns out Hasselhoff wasn’t all too pleased with the unauthorized use of his image, prompting him to have his lawyers send a cease and desist letter to the fledgling company. The message was clear: Soocial was to remove all images of David Hasselhoff from its website, videos and business cards or legal action would ensue.
First, the startup tried to stall the process by delaying any response to letters or e-mail that was sent to them, and (unsuccessfully) attempted to make personal contact with the celebrity more than once. They ended up getting Hasselhoff’s agent excited by planting the idea of producing official endorsement videos for Soocial, featuring the actor, in his head.
The initial excitement ebbed away rather swiftly when the agent learned that Soocial wasn’t able to actually pay for those videos: he wanted $250,000, close to the total of capital that has been injected into the startup by angel investors to date.
Soocial didn’t give up and instead took it up a notch: they offered Hasselhoff equity in the company in exchange for a potential endorsement, and tried to sweeten the deal by playing the card of much-needed positive publicity that would ensue should the actor support a small, innovative company.
The Hoff didn’t bite, and Soocial stopped using unlicensed material for marketing purposes.
Guess it just wasn’t worth the hassle.
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Section: Communications, Cellular Providers, Mobile
Verizon told the FCC that it had to charge higher than normal Early Termination Fees because it spends so much money promoting new phones and strengthening its network. Nice try, Big Red, but there’s one FCC Commissioner who is definitely not buying that line of thought. Mignon Clyburn, one of five FCC commissioners looking into Verizon’s $350 ETF and accusations that it bills people for accidentally launching Internet service has released a statement that calls Verizon’s response “unsatisfying and, in some cases, troubling.”
Clyburn rejects Verizon’s defense of its ETF that still charges customers $120 to break a contract with only one remaining month. The commissioner wasn’t too happy about the explanation for those fees, saying, “No longer is the claim that ETF’s are tied solely to the true cost of the wireless device; rather, they are now also used [to] foot the bill for ‘advertising costs, commissions for sales personnel, and store costs.’” She notes that carriers already charge “high monthly fees,” so it’s difficult to believe the public is served by large ETF’s like Verizon’s hefty penalty.
Clyburn also didn’t accept Verizon’s denial that it charges customers who accidentally launch their Internet service. Though Verizon responded that it only charges people who navigates beyond the homepage of their browsers, Clyburn claims that recent stories in the press tell a very different story.
The statement reflects only the opinion of Clyburn and not the FCC, but it spells bad news for Verizon. The carrier enters this FCC review process with at least one guaranteed adversary who has trouble accepting its defense to high fees. Clyburn’s comments show that she is against excessive ETF’s, and signaled that she “looks forward to exploring this issue in greater depth with my colleagues in the New Year.” I wonder if Verizon is asking Santa for a friendlier response from the other 4 members of the FCC commission.
Full Story » | Written by Andrew Kameka for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Bah, humbug! Hackers spent part of Wednesday attacking Neustar, the DNS provider that helps link some of the Web’s biggest Web sites to consumers, and ended up disrupting big retailers like Amazon (AMZN) and Wal-Mart (WMT) for more an hour.
In addition to the obvious pain this brings to last-minute Christmas shoppers and the e-commerce sites that rely on them, the attack had a larger effect: Many Web 2.0 companies that rely on Amazon’s cloud computing services to power their sites were also disrupted during the attack.
That said, the incident seems resolved now, and assuming we don’t see any catastrophes in the last few hours before Christmas, e-commerce companies are going to end up doing pretty well during this holiday season. ComScore (SCOR) estimates that sales are up four percent this year.
Despite all the obsession with the Web in this column, the big Hollywood movies opening around the holidays grab all the attention–and justifiably.
While new computers and game players are among the top-selling gifts, giant crowds of consumers have still descended and will be flocking to cineplexes across the country yesterday, today, tomorrow on Christmas Day, and throughout the weekend.
And from the first box office reports, it looks like “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” is besting sci-fi blockbuster “Avatar.”
Yes, pretty crude special effects–at least from what I saw in the first “Alvin” movie multiple times with my kids–and very charming chipmunks have earned almost $20 million so far, while the James Cameron-helmed story about a heroic blue-skinned indigenous tribe at risk is at $16 million.
Nonetheless, tech-heavy “Avatar” has done about $243 million at the box office worldwide since it opened last weekend, so it should not feel too bad about being beaten this weekend by a trio of singing rodents.
Here are videos of the competing trailers:
[Full disclosure: Both top two movies this weekend are from 20th Century Fox, which is owned by News Corp. News Corp. (NWS) also owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.]
By Joann S. Lublin, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Cristóbal Conde knows adversity. His family fled Chile following a 1973 coup because his father, a university professor, feared the new military rulers. On Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Conde was visiting an investor on the 32nd floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center, but escaped unhurt.
So the 49-year-old CEO of SunGard Data Systems Inc. is not rattled by the recession. He says he’s more concerned about how the information-technology company will fare during an economic recovery.
In mid-2008, he told lieutenants to minimize layoffs of programmers, so SunGard could continue to generate new products. Mr. Conde says the costly bet contributed to SunGard’s sharply higher net loss for the first nine months of this year.
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Clear Channel Radio already had mobile applications for iPhone, BlackBerry and Chumby devices, but today it’s adding an Android version to the line-up.
Not that there’s a lack of decent radio streaming applications on well, any platform these days, but here goes: Clear Channel Radio’s iheartradio app gives users free access to some 350 American radio stations, including a couple of artist-hosted stations from the likes of Christina Aguilera, Megadeth, Eagles and Weezer.
The app also enables you to get ‘frequently updated’ traffic reports for large markets including New York, L.A., Chicago, San Francisco and Houston.
Like its iPhone / iPod Touch sister, the iheartradio app for Android can be configured to automatically start playing a specific station upon launch, includes artwork and lyrics and also enables users to tag songs for purchase on iTunes.
To download the free app, simply log on to Android Market from your handset (Android v1.5 or higher).
Update: the app seems to have disappeared from Android Market. Kinda puts a downer on the drum-banging efforts.
Update 2: And it’s back!
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FROM APPLETELL - Judging from the slew of Apple rumors centered around a possible Apple Tablet, it certainly appears as if one may actually exist in this coming year.
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About a year ago, JVC started selling headphones with wooden housing in Japan, claiming the superior sound quality they bring justify the high price ($730). And today the company announced the HA-FX700 [JP], earphones partly made of wood. And we have the same things coming with it again: JVC promising high sound quality and a relatively high price.
The earphones operate in a 6Hz to 26kHz frequency at 16Ω, feature an overpressure value of 104dB/mW and support a maximum input of 200mW (IEC). They weigh 9.6g and come with ear pieces sized at S/M/L. Technically, the HA-FX700 is based on the HP-FX500 JVC introduced back in 2007.
The updated version will hit Japanese stores in February next year, costing a whopping $330. Ask Geek Stuff 4 U or the Japan Trend Shop in case you live outside Japan and are interested in these earphones.
 BBC News | HP camera 'can't see' black faces BBC News A YouTube video suggesting that face recognition cameras installed in HP laptops cannot detect black faces has had over one million views. The short movie, uploaded earlier this month, features "Black Desi" and his colleague "White Wanda". ... Critics of HP Software Soften Their Stance Video Daily: HP webcams are 'racist' HP Investigates Claims of 'Racist' Computers |
Unless you live in what the Lady calls “Carpeted England”, where even the bathrooms have a thick mantle of Axminster ready to soak up smelly spills, you probably don’t have much use for a vacuum cleaner. A broom and a mop will do the trick just fine, and leave you in silence so you can enjoy some music along the way.
But if you are unlucky enough to have carpeted floors, you could at least do yourself the favor of sucking the filth out of them in some style, with this Electrolux/Toshiba collaboration, the Escargot. Weighing in at just shy of five pounds, the brushed metal machine can be slung over a shoulder for easy navigation of hallways, or just dragged by its handy handle. And its not just the size that is discreet — the Escargot puts out just 65dB of whine, which isn’t too much more than the superior brush/mop combo mentioned before.
In fact, the only confusing part about the Escargot (apart from making me wonder why you have carpets in your dirty house) is the name. Not only does it not look like a snail, we doubt it tastes anything like those wonderful, succulent creatures. $130.
Manufacturers page [Toshiba via Design Boom]
See Also:
Digitimes, a site which likes to predict the future of Apple hardware by keeping track of the components Apple orders from its suppliers, has a juicy tidbit regarding the iPhone camera. Not only has Apple, apparently, ordered 40-45 million camera units from OmniVision Technologies for 2010 (up from around 21 million for this year), but those camera-chips are packed with five million pixels apiece.
That Apple would be upgrading the camera in the inevitable summer iPhone announcement is not a surprise, but it’s good to see the camera being taken seriously after the neglect of the first two iPhones. Hopefully these five megapixels will be good pixels, and not the terribly noisy pixels like those found crammed shoulder to shoulder in my Samsung 5MP phonecam, squashed onto the sensor like Tokyo subway commuters at rush-hour.
This rumor points to one other interesting iPhone fact, too. Now that the handset has everything it needs, from 3G to GPS to a compass, what can Apple do to improve it? The iPhone is really about software now, so we don’t expect the hardware to change much at all, other than faster chips and a few visual flourishes to make last year’s model look like, well, last year’s model.
OmniVision orders for iPhone expected to rise significantly in 2010 [DigiTimes]
See Also:
Photo illustration: Charlie Sorrel
Publicly traded Zealous (OB:ZLUS), a fountain Valley, CA-based holding company which operates through its three subsidiaries, Zealous Interactive, Health and Wellness Partner and Zealous Holdings, has had a pretty rough year.
Zealous Holdings, the financial services arm of the company formerly known as Adult Entertainment Capital, was recently discontinued and is currently involved in Chapter 7 dissolution. In addition, the company is now desperately trying to sell off its Interactive unit to anyone who cares to take a look, in order to reduce the legacy debt that stems from the Holdings’ demise.
It’s so desperate, even, that it put out a press release this morning to announce that it is currently ‘in detailed talks with a major creditor and other parties’ about the sale of its online, media and marketing assets. The kind of thing a company would do if they were vying for attention from other suitors.
The assets of the Interactive unit include, according to the announcement, an adult portal and social network as well as its print and online publications and over 700 URLs and websites. I was unable to retrieve any names of these ventures, but I most certainly hope this isn’t Zealous Interactive’s official website.
And I also hope potential buyers know how to search the Web for more information about the company.
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The Hipstamatic, contrary to its name, isn’t a camera to be used whilst wearing tight pants, showing your underwear and doing elephant trunk skids on your fixed-gear track bike. Instead, it is an iPhone application which will apply all manner of image degrading, film-like effects to your pictures.
Hipstamatic is certainly not the only Lomo-fication application in the iTunes Store, but it is notable for its wonderful interface, which lets you choose from various films, add flash-gel effects and swap “lenses”. For instance, swapping lenses is done by swiping across the front of the camera body, and changing films is achieved by flipping the on-screen camera open and choosing which one to use. Thankfully the visual metaphor doesn’t continue as far as making you engage the sprocket-holes. When you are all set, you flip the camera back around and view the action through a tiny, low-contrast, on-screen “viewfinder”.
The app itself comes in at $2, and further effects packs can be bought from within. The Williamsburg (ho ho) pack, for example, comes with a Helga Viking lens, Pistil film and a three-pack of gels (shouldn’t that be a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon?) These bad puns are to be found throughout Hipstamatic, and spotting them is part of the fun.
Perhaps I will give this to myself as an early Christmas gift, to remind me of the plastic-lensed, light leaking camera that was part of the Starsky and Hutch kit I got for Christmas so many years ago.
Hipstamatic Application [Hipstamatic]
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Every day I troll SEC Form D Filings to discover new startups, fundings and investments. I put everything I find into