http://www.greyblogs.com Tue, 07 Sep 2010 23:01:59 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 http://www.greyblogs.com/get-used-to-%e2%80%9c3d%e2%80%9d-tvs-%e2%80%93-they%e2%80%99re-here-to-stay/ http://www.greyblogs.com/get-used-to-%e2%80%9c3d%e2%80%9d-tvs-%e2%80%93-they%e2%80%99re-here-to-stay/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 23:01:59 +0000 Devin Coldewey http://techcrunch.com/?p=216649 We've seen a lot of TVs announced before and during IFA this year. That makes sense — it's a consumer electronics show, after all. And I guarantee that most if not all of those sets will have their 3D capability touted. It's a dangerous move, since so many consumers are wary of 3D — not enough content, bulky glasses, headaches, and so on. So there's been some grumbling: why are they including 3D on TVs when nobody wants it? It's really pretty simple: adding 3D capability to a TV is trivial. It's a freebie feature they get to charge for.]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/get-used-to-%e2%80%9c3d%e2%80%9d-tvs-%e2%80%93-they%e2%80%99re-here-to-stay/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/mozilla-labs-vaguely-announces-web-based-gaming-initiative/ http://www.greyblogs.com/mozilla-labs-vaguely-announces-web-based-gaming-initiative/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:49:51 +0000 Jason Kincaid http://techcrunch.com/?p=216609 Earlier today Mozilla Labs — the R&D arm of the company behind Firefox — announced that it was launching a new Gaming section focused on fostering games built on modern Open Web technologies. And to kick things off, it's inviting developers to take part in a contest to develop the best games for the Open Web. At least, it's inviting them to look forward to a competition that will begin later this month (the logistics haven't been announced). The contest itself isn't out of the norm — Mozilla Labs runs challenges every two months for its various projects. But the long-term vision for this new Games project is extremely vague at this point. The main site for the Gaming section states that Mozilla is looking to "help establish the Open Web as the platform for gaming across all your Internet connected devices", but it doesn't really get into how it will do that. ]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/mozilla-labs-vaguely-announces-web-based-gaming-initiative/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/leaked-video-of-ie9-in-action-shows-minimalist-ui/ http://www.greyblogs.com/leaked-video-of-ie9-in-action-shows-minimalist-ui/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:28:18 +0000 Erick Schonfeld http://techcrunch.com/?p=216636 The video above just hit YouTube showing Microsoft's upcoming Internet Explorer 9 in action. Unlike previous previews, this one shows what appears to be the full UI and chrome around the browser. There is not much to look at because the UI is extremely minimal, getting out of the way of the Websites it is supposed to showcase. There isn't even much of a toolbar up top. There are forward and back buttons, an address bar, and three buttons to the right, which appear to be a home button, a favorites icon, and an arrow which presumably opens up other menu options. The frame is semi-transparent, and the soundless video depicts some IE9 demos which have been seen before which show off the speed of the hardware-accelerated browser. ]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/leaked-video-of-ie9-in-action-shows-minimalist-ui/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/sign-up-now-for-the-techcrunch-disrupt-hackathon/ http://www.greyblogs.com/sign-up-now-for-the-techcrunch-disrupt-hackathon/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:22:40 +0000 Andy Brett http://techcrunch.com/?p=216618 The fall edition of TechCrunch Disrupt is fast approaching - less than three weeks to go before the conference kicks off on September 27th. As part of the New York event we held an overnight hackathon immediately beforehand, organized by hackers extraordinaire Daniel Raffel, Chad Dickerson, and Tarikh Korula, and it was, without a doubt, a smashing success. Over 300 participants built some really incredible projects: one team built a sword-wielding robot (Mr. Stabby as he was affectionately known); another team modified eye tracking software to let you play Mario Brothers with your eyes. One team kept building their idea after the Hackathon ended and has secured a nice chunk of money to turn it into a company. Naturally, we'll be doing this again at Disrupt San Francisco. We've got some great judges lined up, including Joshua Schachter, moot, and Dean Hovey. Tons of you have been emailing us asking when you could sign up for a slot - and we have good news. Signups are now open! Head on over now, and check out all the details below. ]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/sign-up-now-for-the-techcrunch-disrupt-hackathon/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/google%e2%80%99s-kinetic-logo-apparently-has-to-do-with-their-big-search-event-tomorrow/ http://www.greyblogs.com/google%e2%80%99s-kinetic-logo-apparently-has-to-do-with-their-big-search-event-tomorrow/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:59:03 +0000 MG Siegler http://techcrunch.com/?p=216617 By now, you've likely noticed the interesting, kinetic logo Google has had up today. While there is still no official word from the search giant as to exactly what it means, they are letting out some hints. And based on those hints, a good guess seems to be that the logo has to do with what they'll announce at their big search event being held in San Francisco's MOMA tomorrow morning. Earlier today, Google tweeted out: "Boisterous doodle today. Maybe it's excited about the week ahead..." Meanwhile, a Google representative told Search Engine Roundtable that "today's doodle is not related to a birthday but is fast, fun and interactive, just the way we think search should be." This led the blog to speculate that three things may be announced tomorrow: AJAX-powered search results, 30 results per page, and streaming results as you type. In the case of AJAX and streaming, Google has been testing both of these (in the AJAX case, since early 2009).]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/google%e2%80%99s-kinetic-logo-apparently-has-to-do-with-their-big-search-event-tomorrow/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/eric-schmidt-%e2%80%9cwe-know-where-you-are-we-know-what-you-like%e2%80%9d/ http://www.greyblogs.com/eric-schmidt-%e2%80%9cwe-know-where-you-are-we-know-what-you-like%e2%80%9d/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:56:44 +0000 Alexia Tsotsis http://techcrunch.com/?p=216588 During a keynote at the IFA in Berlin, Eric Schmidt topped off presentations on Voice Powered Search, Street View Search and Google TV by emphasizing how much Google values being fast and that current technological advancements are nearing the realm of science fiction, or what he called, "The age of augmented humanity." The IFA stands for International Funkausstellung, which roughly translates to International Radio Exhibition. In a press release, IFA Director Jens Heithecker explained the interesting choice of  keynote speaker.]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/eric-schmidt-%e2%80%9cwe-know-where-you-are-we-know-what-you-like%e2%80%9d/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/michelle-obama-program-blames-sony-playstation-for-making-america%e2%80%99s-children-fat/ http://www.greyblogs.com/michelle-obama-program-blames-sony-playstation-for-making-america%e2%80%99s-children-fat/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:27:59 +0000 Nicholas Deleon http://techcrunch.com/?p=216591 Consuming more calories than you use makes you fat. That's a fact, Jack. Figuring out where these calories come from, OK, that's a noble endeavor, but let's not pretend there's anything secret going on here. Like, you see this graphic here? It's the winner of some Michelle Obama-headed design contest to help folks figure out how to best fight childhood obesity. And you'll see the PlayStation completely demonized, as if Sony itself is somehow responsible for little kids packing on the pounds.]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/michelle-obama-program-blames-sony-playstation-for-making-america%e2%80%99s-children-fat/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/hp-confirms-it-is-suing-mark-hurd-for-potential-leakage-of-trade-secrets-to-oracle/ http://www.greyblogs.com/hp-confirms-it-is-suing-mark-hurd-for-potential-leakage-of-trade-secrets-to-oracle/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:17:29 +0000 MG Siegler http://techcrunch.com/?p=216572 It seems like only yesterday that Oracle announced it was hiring former HP CEO Mark Hurd to be a Co-President and member of the Board -- that's because it was just yesterday. And now just one day later, we have a lawsuit filed by HP to block such a maneuver by Oracle. In confirming the lawsuit in a brief blog post today, HP's official corporate blog highlights what they see as the key issue here: trade secrets and confidential information. HP even included a link to the full complaint that they've posted on Scribd (embed below). Here's the key nugget:]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/hp-confirms-it-is-suing-mark-hurd-for-potential-leakage-of-trade-secrets-to-oracle/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/we-make-our-turkish-celebrity-gossip-tv-show-debut-thanks-to-the-facebook-song/ http://www.greyblogs.com/we-make-our-turkish-celebrity-gossip-tv-show-debut-thanks-to-the-facebook-song/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:53:17 +0000 MG Siegler http://techcrunch.com/?p=216550 At TechCrunch, we're obviously no strangers to having our reports cited in the mainstream media from time to time. But one latest example is particularly awesome. A couple weeks ago, we mentioned the excellent Facebook music video by Turkish pop star Ismail YK. Apparently, that story led to an entire segment on a Turkish celebrity gossip show, as Turkish TechCrunch reader Arda Kutsal (and editor of Turkish Web 2.0 site Webrazzi) pointed out. Kutsal was even able to find the clip of the segment on YouTube. If you cut to about 1:40 in you'll see and hear a massive amount about TechCrunch and myself. Though, if you're like me and can't understand Turkish, you'll probably understand little else. Still, very cool.]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/we-make-our-turkish-celebrity-gossip-tv-show-debut-thanks-to-the-facebook-song/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/new-webos-shots-show-off-services-default-apps-for-filetypes/ http://www.greyblogs.com/new-webos-shots-show-off-services-default-apps-for-filetypes/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:33:57 +0000 Devin Coldewey http://www.mobilecrunch.com/?p=37511 http://www.greyblogs.com/new-webos-shots-show-off-services-default-apps-for-filetypes/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/as-digg-struggles-vp-of-engineering-is-shown-the-door/ http://www.greyblogs.com/as-digg-struggles-vp-of-engineering-is-shown-the-door/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:24:31 +0000 Erick Schonfeld http://techcrunch.com/?p=216538 Ever since Digg launched its new site design, it's been plagued with all kinds of trouble, not least of which is that it keeps going down. The problems with the new architecture are so bad that VP of Engineering John Quinn is now gone, we've confirmed with sources close to Digg. In a Diggnation video today, CEO Kevin Rose explained some of the technical issues the site is dealing with and why it can't simply roll back to the previous architecture. The new version of Digg, v4, is based on a distributed database called Cassandra, which replaced the MySQL database the site ran on before. Cassandra is very advanced—it is supposed to be faster and scale better—but perhaps it is still too experimental. Or maybe it's just the way Digg implemented it (Twitter uses Cassandra, although not for its main data store, as does Facebook in places, but it obviously is not as battle-tested as it needs to be). Every engineer at Digg is currently just trying to keep the site up and running. ]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/as-digg-struggles-vp-of-engineering-is-shown-the-door/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/this-friday-fred-wilson-answers-your-questions/ http://www.greyblogs.com/this-friday-fred-wilson-answers-your-questions/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:50:14 +0000 Sarah Lacy http://techcrunch.com/?p=216532 So far most of our shows on TechCrunchTV have been about bringing you news, analysis and interviews of some of Silicon Valley's most powerful and interesting personalities. But starting this Friday, we're going to get you, dear readers, into the mix-- or at least your questions. We're launching a new weekly show called "Ask a VC" until we think of something more clever or punny. (Paging, Dr. Carr to the newsroom...) Here's how it'll work: You email any question you want to askavc(at)techcrunch(dot)com. We cull through those questions and pick the most unique or most frequently asked or most interesting ones and Friday morning, we get a well-known VC on Skype and we ask away. Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures is going first this Friday. Wilson has some of the hottest companies in his portfolio including Twitter, Zynga and Etsy. Email any questions you have for him now! We'll try to get through as many as we can. The idea is that millions of entrepreneurs who read TechCrunch around the world don't always have access to pick these guys' brains, and we want to give you that chance. Ask questions about advice, the market, his portfolio, his blog-- anything you want. And watch Friday afternoon to see if we picked your question.]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/this-friday-fred-wilson-answers-your-questions/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/gift-card-marketplace-cardpool-introduces-instant-redemption-attracts-super-angels/ http://www.greyblogs.com/gift-card-marketplace-cardpool-introduces-instant-redemption-attracts-super-angels/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:26:38 +0000 Evelyn Rusli http://techcrunch.com/?p=216287 There is no shortage of gift card marketplaces on the web, with startups like Cardpool, Gift Card Rescue, and Plastic Jungle all promising to rescue your unused credits or sell discounted cards. However, these sites typically require buyers to wait several days for the physical arrival of their gift cards, frustrating users who want to use credits immediately for online purchases. Cardpool, a Y-Combinator startup founded by Anson Tsai (formerly of Anywhere.FM) and Timothy Wong, is trying to change that. Starting this morning, Cardpool will give current members the option to purchase instant redemption gift cards. While the site will still send the physical card via snail mail, a user gets immediate access to the card's codes for online use. ]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/gift-card-marketplace-cardpool-introduces-instant-redemption-attracts-super-angels/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/us-to-get-the-electric-mitsubishi-i-miev-in-2011/ http://www.greyblogs.com/us-to-get-the-electric-mitsubishi-i-miev-in-2011/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:09:37 +0000 John Biggs http://techcrunch.com/?p=216529 Will 2011 be the Year of the Electric Car? Mitsubishi just announced that they will sell an upgraded i-MiEV for less than $30,000 sans the $7,500 federal tax credit complete with improved standard features and better interior. Take that, Nissan Leaf. The tiny car - it looks like a Fiat Siecento - obviously is aimed at the Smart car set and folks who may not need to go far in their twee little car.]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/us-to-get-the-electric-mitsubishi-i-miev-in-2011/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/google-voice-now-sending-out-missed-call-alerts-via-e-mail/ http://www.greyblogs.com/google-voice-now-sending-out-missed-call-alerts-via-e-mail/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:04:17 +0000 Greg Kumparak http://www.mobilecrunch.com/?p=37506 http://www.greyblogs.com/google-voice-now-sending-out-missed-call-alerts-via-e-mail/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/google-ready-to-slurp-up-more-yahoo-users-with-openid-sign-ups/ http://www.greyblogs.com/google-ready-to-slurp-up-more-yahoo-users-with-openid-sign-ups/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:53:01 +0000 Erick Schonfeld http://techcrunch.com/?p=216517 Google just made it easier for people with Yahoo accounts to sign up for a Google account. With one click, you can now use your Yahoo credentials to sign up for a Google account such as Gmail, Google Docs, Google Reader, or even AdWords. The one-click sign-up is done using OpenID, which both Google and Yahoo support. It also uses the OAuth authentication method quickly becoming the standard across the Web (it is the same one Twitter uses with third party apps and sites). The idea is that instead of signing in with your Yahoo ID, and then clicking off to your Yahoo mail to click on a verification link, a button just takes you to a sign-in page on Yahoo, which verifies your account to Google, and then sends you back. It is a much more civilized way to sign into a site using an existing ID. Google first combined OpenID and OAuth back in January, 2009 with Plaxo on a test basis.]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/google-ready-to-slurp-up-more-yahoo-users-with-openid-sign-ups/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/super-angel-v-vc-smackdown-part-2-are-super-angels-just-a-phase-tctv/ http://www.greyblogs.com/super-angel-v-vc-smackdown-part-2-are-super-angels-just-a-phase-tctv/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:51:12 +0000 Sarah Lacy http://techcrunch.com/?p=216515 So let me get this straight, you call yourself an angel, but you're investing limited partners' money...doesn't that just make you a small, early-stage VC? And if you're successful, don't you just raise a bigger fund and hire more partners, looking a lot more like an early stage VC? In day two of our David v. David/ Super Angel v. VC SMACKDOWN, even Dave McClure admits "Super Angel" is a flawed term. But he insists there's still a difference between what he does and what David Hornik does as a partner for August Capital. And, he insists it's a better way to make money and the future of investing in the consumer Internet. We also tackle the thorny topic of "value add." Can an investor who doesn't have operating experience really add value to a startup, and is "worked at Google" or "worked at PayPal" equal operating experience to starting, running and exiting a successful company? In old days, angels were known for deeply mentoring their portfolio companies, but how do you mentor when you're investing in 500 startups?]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/super-angel-v-vc-smackdown-part-2-are-super-angels-just-a-phase-tctv/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/samsung-fascinate-galaxy-s-finally-hitting-verizon-on-september-9th/ http://www.greyblogs.com/samsung-fascinate-galaxy-s-finally-hitting-verizon-on-september-9th/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:09:10 +0000 Greg Kumparak http://www.mobilecrunch.com/?p=37503 Finally! The smartphone that everyone has been waiting for Verizon to get their own version of finally has an official launch date on Big Red. Erm, not that smartphone.]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/samsung-fascinate-galaxy-s-finally-hitting-verizon-on-september-9th/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/online-workers-doing-fine-odesk-passes-one-million-hours-a-month/ http://www.greyblogs.com/online-workers-doing-fine-odesk-passes-one-million-hours-a-month/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:51:15 +0000 Erick Schonfeld http://techcrunch.com/?p=216496 http://www.greyblogs.com/online-workers-doing-fine-odesk-passes-one-million-hours-a-month/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/tc-disrupt-graduate-videogenie-is-seeing-early-success-with-its-video-platform/ http://www.greyblogs.com/tc-disrupt-graduate-videogenie-is-seeing-early-success-with-its-video-platform/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:50:31 +0000 Robin Wauters http://techcrunch.com/?p=215976 Launched at TechCrunch Disrupt NY a couple of months ago, VideoGenie is on a roll, says founder and CEO Justin Nassiri. VideoGenie essentially aims to transform the way consumers and brands connect through video by making it super easy for marketers to collect, review and deploy unscripted video customer testimonials.]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/tc-disrupt-graduate-videogenie-is-seeing-early-success-with-its-video-platform/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/htc-holding-a-big-party-on-september-15-android-tablets-in-the-offing/ http://www.greyblogs.com/htc-holding-a-big-party-on-september-15-android-tablets-in-the-offing/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:30:00 +0000 John Biggs http://www.mobilecrunch.com/?p=37498 http://www.greyblogs.com/htc-holding-a-big-party-on-september-15-android-tablets-in-the-offing/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/my6sense-brings-personalized-content-ranking-app-to-android-phones/ http://www.greyblogs.com/my6sense-brings-personalized-content-ranking-app-to-android-phones/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 14:59:09 +0000 Leena Rao http://techcrunch.com/?p=216168 We've been hearing a lot of buzz around my6sense, a digital intuition iPhone app. The app imports RSS feeds and social streams, and senses what you like to read based on your own behavior, surfacing the most interesting content to you from your streams. And the Israeli-startup just recruited well-known tech blogger and consultant Louis Gray as its VP of marketing. Today, the startup is bringing its personalized content app to Android phones with a new app and is adding support for Google Buzz. Once you sign in with your Twitter, Facebook, Buzz, and Google Reader accounts, my6sense will serve the content in your social streams in one interface. Using the company's 'digital intuition' technology, the app will analyze which types of content and sources you click on the most and then auctomatically surface similar content as you interact with the app. ]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/my6sense-brings-personalized-content-ranking-app-to-android-phones/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/speakertext-automates-and-crowdsources-video-transcripts-100-beta-invites/ http://www.greyblogs.com/speakertext-automates-and-crowdsources-video-transcripts-100-beta-invites/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 14:20:16 +0000 Erick Schonfeld http://techcrunch.com/?p=216433 One of the big problems with video on the Web is that other than the title, description and some meta tags, it is mostly invisible to Google and other search engines. One way to make video more SEO-friendly is to add transcriptions, but that can get expensive. An angel-funded startup called SpeakerText is (re)launching today with a very clever way to automate the transcription process and attach the full transcript as part of the video player in a drop down window. You can see an example of how this works below. And if you publish a lot of videos and want to try it out yourself, we have 100 beta invites (use the code: techcrunch). Once a video is transcribed, it appears in a collapsible window below each player. Not only is all the text visible to search engines, and thus should help drive more search traffic to individual videos, but the text is all time-stamped. So you can click on any sentence and it will jump to that point in the video. Anytime somebody cuts and pastes a portion of the transcript in a blog or other site, a link back to that point in the video is also included. The startup tried doing a Flash wrapper before for the YouTube player. It completely reworked its technology into what it is now calling the SpeakerBar that is more of a transcript plug-in that detects any video on your site that has a matching plug-in. SpeakerText works with video players from YouTube, Brightcove, and Blip.tv, and there is also a WordPress plug-in. ]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/speakertext-automates-and-crowdsources-video-transcripts-100-beta-invites/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/eyeing-the-enterprise-skype-certifies-it-consultants-in-the-u-s/ http://www.greyblogs.com/eyeing-the-enterprise-skype-certifies-it-consultants-in-the-u-s/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 14:19:37 +0000 Leena Rao http://techcrunch.com/?p=216461 As Skype looks to build out revenue streams following its IPO, the company has been launching programs targeting enterprise customers. Last week, Skype launched Skype Connect, which is a way for business’ employees to make domestic and international calls using regular office telephones. Today, Skype is unveiling its Skype Channel Partner Program that allows partners in the United States to sell endorsed IT support for Skype's enterprise products. The program will train Channel Partners in sales and marketing, customer tracking and reporting tools, as well as support and account management from Skype. Once trained and certified by Skype, Skype Channel Partners can provide their own consulting, installation, configuration, maintenance and support services to business customers who want to use Skype’s business offerings, including the Skype Business Client, Skype Manager and Skype Connect.]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/eyeing-the-enterprise-skype-certifies-it-consultants-in-the-u-s/feed/ 0 http://www.greyblogs.com/samsung-considering-android-powered-hdtvs-to-compete-with-sony-and-apple/ http://www.greyblogs.com/samsung-considering-android-powered-hdtvs-to-compete-with-sony-and-apple/#comments Tue, 07 Sep 2010 14:17:00 +0000 Matt Burns http://techcrunch.com/?p=216459 HDTVs are the next consumer electronic battlefield and Samsung is apparently testing out Android on its sets in order to step up their offering in response to the latest from Sony, Apple and others. Currently, Samsung is the world's leader in HDTVs sold but there's a shake-up looming and Samsung no doubt wants to retain its title. Android may or may not be the answer. ]]> http://www.greyblogs.com/samsung-considering-android-powered-hdtvs-to-compete-with-sony-and-apple/feed/ 0