[VALLEYWAG]
Dennis Crowley might be on top of the world now, but the Foursquare founder might want to tame his growing hubris. The CEO who called Google “hopeless” has been dissing Microsoft, too.
In a comment over at ReadWriteWeb, Microsoft’s Director of Social Engagements Mark Drapeau described how Crowley and his honchos thwarted his many attempts to open a dialog with the company. Drapeau wanted to discuss a partnership to create a Foursquare “badge” for a Microsoft event, but there’s no telling how far talks might have gone: Foursquare wouldn’t even let Microsoft into its office.
Crowley had time for other tech players.
Continue reading Tech’s Cocky Little ‘King’ Insults Microsoft
[VALLEYWAG]
The poster for Facebook film “The Social Network” neatly illustrates how Hollywood will try and turn an awkward young computer nerd into an exciting character worthy of a big-budget Hollywood drama: light him like a serial killer.
Of course, with star writer Aaron Sorkin and his all-star team involved, there’s not much point in painting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as he was: a pasty, reclusive fellow coding PHP all day, first in his Harvard dorm room, then out in a rented home in Silicon Valley. Better to make him out as
Continue reading Facebook’s Terrifying Nerd
 [SILICON VALLEY WATCHER]
The Singularity is a belief that our technology will inevitably collide with our biology, and that this will give us mastery over our mortality.
We will be able to cure diseases, stop our aging and also control our senses with augmented created experiences. The resolution of those augmented experiences would be indistinguishable from the natural world.
We will be able to create a reality that is indistinguishable from our “natural” reality. We will be able to choose the “matrix” as Hollywood knows it (Singularitans hate that term.)
Ashlee Vance in The New York Times wrote an interesting report [last week]. The
Continue reading Is the Singularity a Geek’s Version of the Rapture?
[DANNY WOOL, SV411]
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg probably won’t be visiting Pakistan soon. That country’s Deputy Attorney General is investigating his role in the recent Draw Muhammad contest that was hosted on the website, claiming that it violates Section 295-C of the Pakistani Penal Code, which states, “Use of derogatory remark etc, in respect of the Holy Prophet, whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also
Continue reading Mark Zuckerberg Faces Death Sentence in Pakistan
 [VALLEYWAG]
Remember Chatroulette? The crazy random videochat thing? Its founder wants to turn it into a more legitimate business, which means cutting down on the number of disgusting things one witnesses there. Can he do it? (Probably not.)
TechCrunch says that the rawness that drew millions to Chatroulette in the early days is beginning to scare them and—more importantly—investors away. Seems that Chatroulette is the one place on the Internet people aren’t looking for naked pictures.
So, Chatroulette’s founder, 17 year-old Russian Andrey Ternovskiy, has been trying to cut down on the number of penises. According to TechCrunch:
Look for feature changes soon that
Continue reading Chatroulette’s War On Penises
 [ZDNET]
I’ve known about Google’s plans to host a background image on its home page for quite some time. I generally ignored it, because one of my favorite things about Google is how simple the page is, and how quickly it loads.
I know, of course, that lots of people like to decorate and, so, lots of users are undoubtedly going to add pictures to their Google search page.
But a lot of us, given the option, won’t. Unfortunately, it’s not clear we’ll be given the option. Right now, you can’t turn off the butt-ugly background image Google is providing.
Separate from aesthetic preferences,
Continue reading Bing-Envy: The Death of Google?
[TECHCRUNCH]
Yahoo has just released some statistics for what they’re seeing from people doing searches with Yahoo on the iPad. The results are a little humorous.
According to this post, “the top searches over the last few weeks tended toward the thrifty and economical.” That seems a bit odd considering that the iPad is a $500 to $800+ device that, while possibly the future of computing, is hardly a must-have right now in tough economic times. eBay and Craigslist were at the top of shopping-related iPad searches followed by big discount retailers Walmart and Target, according to Yahoo’s data.
Other popular searches on
Continue reading Using iPads To Search For Bargains
[DANNY WOOL, SV411]
Lauren Rosenberg seems to be the kind of woman who follows instructions to the letter, common sense be damned. While in Utah recently, the Southern California woman attempted to walk from 96 Daly Street in Park City, to 1710 Prospector Avenue, also in Park City. To find her way, she turned to Google Maps. She did not note the site’s warning that walking directions are in beta mode, or more specifically, the warning to “Use caution—This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths.” True indeed. The highway that Google Maps suggested she walk along lacked both sidewalks
Continue reading Following Directions
[DANNY WOOL, SV411]
No wonder Apple is doing so well. The company reports that in the two months since it launched its new iPad, it has sold more than two million of them. And there are plenty more to sell too.
This weekend, Apple starting selling iPads in Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, and several other key markets. Nine more countries will be added in July, and even more by the end of the year, provided that the manufacturers can keep up with demand. Apple has already pushed back the launch of international sales because of high demand in the U.S.
Then
Continue reading Apple Sells Two Millionth iPad
 [DANNY WOOL, SV411.COM]
Steve Jobs once famously said: “Apple’s market share is bigger than BMW’s or Mercedes’s or Porsche’s in the automotive market. What’s wrong with being BMW or Mercedes?” But that was long ago. Today he could just have easily added any other company in any other market, except maybe Exxon—and we all know what the future of big oil is. Apple’s market capitalization has officially surpassed Microsoft, making it the second largest company in the world.
As TechCrunch points out, the turnaround came in the last five years, as Apple’s stock went up 550 percent. During that same time, Microsoft’s
Continue reading The Big Apple
|
|