techcrunch

Microsoft Recruits Student Bloggers With Free Software And Trips To Conferences

2009-12-15T22:05:00.000-08:00

We’ve confirmed with Microsoft that the tech giant has launched a new program, called Student Insiders, to enlist college students to blog about Microsoft products. In return, the Microsoft “Student Insider” will be able to attend Microsoft conferences, such as Microsoft’s developer conference, PDC, and others and then write about their experiences and the products. The student will get all expenses paid to attend conferences as well as receive free training on Microsoft products. Student Insiders are expected to cover 15 events or topics a year, with at least “500 engagements per event/topic.”
It appears that Microsoft will try to recruit students with “established blogs” to write about a wide variety of Microsoft products. The advertisement we received focused on getting students to review Microsoft’s Expression Studio, a design and development software.
This program is different than Microsoft’s Student Partners program, which is a program student evangelists of Microsoft products. Microsoft also launched a program, called DreamSpark, last year that gave students free developer software. Google has a similar program to the Student Partners program, called Google Student Ambassadors.

Microsoft is seeking a knowledgeable, charismatic, and motivated student to become a Student Insider to blog about the new Expression Studio.
Microsoft is a multinational computer technology corporation specializing in the development and manufacturing of software for computing devices. Microsoft Expression Studio opens up a new world of creative possibility. Its professional design tools give you the freedom to make your vision real—whether you’re designing for standards-based Web sites, rich desktop experiences, or Silverlight.
The purpose of this position is to introduce the world to Microsoft’s Expression Studio by a person who is most likely to understand the full range of its capabilities: you. You will use your existing blog to discuss various tips, tricks and advantages with the Expression Studio. In addition to being trained on the software by the experts at Microsoft, you will get to attend high-profile technology conferences, such as MIX10: March 15-17th, 2010 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
Key responsibilities:
· Using your existing blog to blog about Microsoft Expression Studio
· Attending exclusive technology conferences as a representative of Microsoft, such as the MIX10 conference, March 15 – 17 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas
· Acting as a peer influencer to introduce people to the benefits of Microsoft’s products
Amazing benefits:
· Entrance into exclusive and high profile technology conferences with all expenses paid
· Training by industry experts
· Invaluable resume building experience
· The title of Student Insider, denoting knowledge and expertise in technology
· Additional products and incentives
What you need to know:
· There is only one Student Insider position for the Expression Studio campaign
· The campaign will kick-off as soon in just a few short weeks
· Student Insiders are expected to cover 15 events/topics a year (selected by Microsoft) with at least 500 engagements per event/topic

Bing Goes The iPhone. Still Great For Porn.

2009-12-15T22:03:00.000-08:00

Since the dawn of Bing, it’s been exceptionally good at one thing: Finding porn. Its new iPhone app, which launched tonight in the App Store, is no different.
By default, the app has a Safe Search setting of “Moderate.” Searching for “porn” this way yields several promising results. However, with just two clicks, any kids can turn off safe search and off they go! The porn results are nothing, if not impressive.
I love this for two reasons: 1) The app is rated 4+, yet it’s super simple to gain access to hardcore porn in a few clicks. This continues to highlight Apple’s hypocrisy when it comes to the App Store. Apps that allow you to lift up Asian schoolgirl’s outfits are just fine. Apps that make satirical references to public figures are banned. And now, apps that gives you hardcore porn at your fingertips are rated 4+. Sure, this content in on the web, and not in the app itself, but to a viewer, what’s the difference? 2) Bing continues to be a great resource for porn.
To be fair, Google’s iPhone app also allows you to search for porn. But, 1) It’s not as easy to search for just images with the Google app (image search is a plus for the Bing app) 2) the results are much less hardcore, and 3) It’s much less obvious as to how to turn off the safe search settings.
All that said, the Bing app is actually quite nice. The voice search feature (just like Google’s on the iPhone) works quite well. The app also features the standard Bing daily images complete with hover-over factoids. It also has a nice overlay on the main screen to easily search for Movies, Maps, Businesses, News, Direction, and yes Images. Find the app in the App Store here. It’s a free download.
Both images below taken on a search for “porn” with safe search turned off. As you can see, Bing returns many more great results. Badda Bing.

Twitter’s Geolocation API Appears To Be Live. But Most Of You Are Lost.

2009-10-01T11:51:00.000-07:00

I noticed something interesting tonight. In the new build of Tweetie 2 (not out yet), a bunch of little red location markers started appearing next to tweets in my stream. Knowing that this new version was built using Twitter’s new Geolocation APIs, I inquired if this mean they had been turned on. Sure enough, they have, developer Loren Brichter just confirmed after talking to Twitter.

But there’s a slight problem. Apparently, the reason these geotags are showing up for all tweets (even those not actually geotagged) is that the documentation was a little unclear on how to handle non-geotagged tweets, Brichter says. The result is that every single tweet is tagged with a location somewhere just off the coast of Africa, south of Ghana. Either this is Atlantis, the Island from Lost, or we have a problem. [Update on the location below]

Brichter is aware of the issue and has already resolved it, and has resubmitted Tweetie 2 to the App Store for approval. Since no one officially has Tweetie 2 yet, this probably doesn’t affect you at all. But you have to wonder if other Twitter app developers were confused by this as well. If so, we could see a lot of apps with some wonky geolocation data.

Twitter hasn’t yet responded to my request for more information. It’s not clear if they meant to turn this on tonight. We do know that they had originally planned to launch it last week at the Twitter Conference in LA, but it wasn’t quite ready yet.

Earlier today, Twitter announced the new Lists feature, which will also feature an API. And of course, everyone is waiting for the Retweet API as well.

Update: As our apparently geography major readers have informed me, the area just off the coast of Ghana is lat/long 0,0. This makes sense — there is no location data attached to these tweets, so apparently they default to 0,0.

Zuckerberg Moves Up The Forbes 400 List. Net Worth Now $2 Billion

2009-10-01T11:49:00.000-07:00

Forbes today released their annual 400 richest Americans list — no surprise, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is on it at number 158. His net worth is $2 billion, one-fifth of Facebook’s $10 billion valuation.

At 25, Zuckerberg is by far the youngest member of the Forbes 400 list. The next youngest person on the list is hedge fund operator John Arnold, who is 35. Last year, Zuckerberg debuted on the list at #321. His net worth at the time was $1.5 billion.

Zuckerberg started Facebook in his Harvard dorm room in 2004, and now Facebook is the third largest site on the internet. In May, Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies invested $200 million into Facebook, setting its $10 billion valuation.

Earlier this month, Facebook announced that they now have 300 million users and cash flow positive for the first time last quarter.

Cry Us A River: Timberlake Bails On His Own SF Party To Go Dress Up As Sean Parker

2009-10-01T11:48:00.000-07:00

So, Justin Timberlake was supposed to be at a party tomorrow night in San Francisco. The “special, private celebration” was in honor of the company Particle (which counts Timberlake as its lead investor), which recently launched its Robo.to service. Myself and fellow writers Jason Kincaid and Paul Carr were so excited that we’ve been gossiping about it all day in back-channel conversations. I believe Paul even bought a JT book for him to sign, earlier today. But sadly, Justin, is bailing on us.

It appears that like most celebrities, Timberlake came down with a case of the “scheduling conflict,” and had to fly back to L.A. (or stay there, not sure if he left or not) to go be a movie star. But we’ll forgive him this time because of the reason for his conflict: He needed to be on the set of The Social Network, yes, the Facebook movie.

But Paul has a brilliant back-up plan. Why doesn’t Particle get Sean Parker, the Facebook founder that Timberlake is portraying in the movie, to be Justin’s stand-in? Perfect, right? Of course, Parker may be busy, seeing as he has three or so jobs at the moment, the most recent of which is being a member of Yammer’s board.

Timberlake needs to understand that the real way to get rich — and I’m talking real rich — is to be a Silicon Valley star, not a movie star portraying a Silicon Valley star. Next time, JT, next time.

Twingly Channels: A Personalized, Social, Real-Time Memetracker

2009-10-01T11:46:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, we wrote about Swedish startup Twingly and its stealth memetracker Twingly Channels. Tonight, Twingly is launching in closed beta. In the past, Twingly has brought us a microblogging search tool, a search engine for blogs, and a global ranking system for blogs. Twingly Channels essentially lets users to create their own personalized real-time memetracker. To sign up for an invite, click here with the code “TechCrunch.”

As we wrote previously, Twingly is a mix between Digg and FriendFeed. Twingly Channels lets users to create their own personalized social memetracker by collecting feeds and search terms covering any topic or event into a channel they share with others. And the site has real-time functionality. Users can post links posted by users, content from RSS feeds, and real-time search results for terms from blogs and microblogs (i.e. Twitter). The resulting stream is filtered into a Friendfeed-like channel where people can comment on, like, or dislike incoming items.

Channels will be public by default, but to comment or subscribe you will need to sign up. Twingly will also employ a ranking system to filter content using a proprietary alogorithm. Every item coming into the channel is continuously ranked using links from blogs, Tweets, user comments and likes. The highest ranked items are shown in the Popular view. Twingly Channels can also be used by companies for brand tracking and social media monitoring and can be kept private for these purposes.

The site could be useful for aggregating RSS feeds, tracking specific content on blogs and microblogs and then sharing that content with others, all on one site. The blog/microblog search is powered by Twingly’s search engine which tracks close to 26 million blogs around the world. It’s similar in some ways to Streamy.

MySpace Music Launches Down Under: Now Live In Australia And New Zealand

2009-10-01T11:45:00.000-07:00

When it comes to free media streaming, the United States is flush with premium content from great sites like Hulu and MySpace Music. But aside from a handful of exceptions, the rest of the world is out of luck. Today, the balance changes a bit: MySpace has just launched its hugely popular MySpace Music service in Australia and New Zealand, bringing those regions unlimited streaming of songs and albums from all four major music labels, as well as many indies.

AU/NZ users will have access to the same features as the US site, including shareable playlists, artist activity feeds, and other social functionality. But there is at least one notable difference: while MySpace Music launched in the United States with Amazon as its partner for purchasing digital downloads, the AU/NZ version has teamed with Apple’s iTunes. MySpace wouldn’t comment on whether this is foreshadowing a larger partnership, but we may well see the Apple deal extend stateside. MySpace likely had an exclusive partnership with Amazon for the US launch, but it’s been a year (which may well have been the length of the deal), so it may soon be free to explore other options.

Since launching last fall, MySpace Music has been something of a bright spot for the otherwise faltering social network. The site has seen a tenfold growth in traffic since launching, with the US portal drawing 18.95 million users (it’s also the #1 site in time spent for the all important 18-34 demographic, though some of this can be attributed to the fact that users can leave it playing in the background). MySpace Music also recently rolled out a much improved homepage and has seen a number of exclusive releases.

Larry Ellison Still Hates “Cloud Computing Nonsense” (Video)

2009-10-01T11:43:00.000-07:00

According to Wikipedia, cloud computing is a paradigm of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. According to Larry Ellison, it’s nonsense and water vapor.

The chief executive of Oracle last week at the Churchill Club sat down with former Motorola CEO Ed Zander for a fireside chat about the future of the company he co-founded, the pending acquisition of Sun and the implications thereof, and the state of the economy in general.

Most amusing however, was his ranting on cloud computing, captured on video by TechPulse360. Of course, we’ve heard his refreshingly critical take of the buzzword du jour before, but he continues to make it a valid point:

Buzzd Is An iPhone App Built For Party Crashing

2009-10-01T11:39:00.000-07:00

A couple months ago, we wrote about SocialGreat, a cool service that uses Foursquare’s location APIs to determine the hot places that people are hanging out at. It’s a good idea, but it’s limited to Foursquare data [update below], which is still a relatively small service. Buzzd, on the other hand, pulls its data from Twitter and other Buzzd users, for a bigger picture of places that are hot.

With Buzzd, which is launching its free iPhone app today, you simply load the program and it will bring up a list of venues close to you that are currently popular based on people talking about them on Twitter and Buzzd. It also uses some location data pulled from Twitter. Right now, that data is pulled from users’s Twitter profiles, so it is imprecise, but with the Geolocation API (which may be sort of live already) that will soon change.

If you click on a place, you can learn more about it, including how far away it is, its phone number, and a description of it. You can also see “buzzes” about it, meaning the things people are saying about a place on Twitter and in the Buzzd community. And you can “Buzz It,” meaning you can tell the community you are at a place and give a short description of what it is or why it’s good. And you can send that info to Twitter.

To do all of that, you have to create an account on Buzzd and sign-in, but one nice thing about the service is that you can see all of this data without ever creating an account. If you really don’t care about buzzing data yourself, you can simply use it passively.

There is certainly an upside to using data that is purely location-based, as it is with SocialGreat, but until location-based services truly take off, services with a lower barrier to entry, like Twitter, are going to have much more data to offer up. And you can clearly see that with Buzzd.

Buzzd has actually been around for a little while, but it has mainly existed on the mobile web and as an app on the BlackBerry. There’s a good reason for this: It was one of the original BlackBerry Partners Fund receipients. But the lure of the iPhone proved too strong, and after one meek attempt at an app, this new version of Buzzd looks like the real deal. It’s not a complex app, but it’s good for what it does.

Last month, the service had 500,000 active user over the web and its BlackBerry app, we’re told. Those numbers should undoubtedly jump with this new iPhone app. As it gains users, you can imagine them doing slightly more interesting things such as allowing users to say if a venue is good or bad, rather than just if they are there or not.

The business model will revolve around advertising, but the company is doing some interesting things in terms of striking deals with some locations to get their places featured.

You can find Buzzd here in the App Store. Again, it is a free download.

Update: We originally had said that SocialGreat only pulls in Foursquare data, but it now pulls in more, including data from Brightkite and GraffitiGeo. Still no Twitter data yet (the big source), but you can imagine that when Geolocation is ready, they may just do that.

Spotify extends playing offline to desktop – Are you getting this Apple?

2009-10-01T11:37:00.000-07:00

BREAKING: Well, look out iTunes. We’ve said previously that Spotify didn’t look like it was going to compete with the Apple iTunes Store. It’s streaming, freemium music service after all, not a download store.

It also recently launched an iPhone app that only subscribers can use.

But perhaps the hint of their strategy lay in the fact that on that app you could save playlists and tracks for offline playing (if, say, you were on a plane), though you can not access any kind of MP3 file for sharing of course.

All that changes today because later today Spotify will extend the ‘Offline mode’ that is available on Spotify Mobile and bringing it to the desktop version of Spotify.

Spotify Premium subscribers (£9.99-a-month or £120 annual subscription in the UK) will be able to select their playlists and set them to be ‘Available offline’. Those playlists will then be synced to your computer so it will be possible to listen to your playlists with no internet connection. Handy for the garden shed or the local park perhaps.

In addition to offline mode, Spotify has also added Paypal to the list of available payment methods this week for users in the UK. Spotify does not sell MP3s (you can download them via 7Digital, iTunes Store and Amazon MP3).

This move must surely now have completely new implications with its relationship to Apple iTunes. We’re not saying that Spotify is poised to kill off iTunes – far from it. iTunes is deeply ingrained in the mainstream consumer mind and Spotify is some wet behind the ears startup that, although popular, has done no mainstream marketing to date. In addition, users will be limited to how much music they can download to offline mode.

But this ability to play offline must surely change things. Streaming music services have not had much impact on Apple, if at all. Being able to play offline is a different ball-game altogether. Why buy and download masses of songs when you can shift your listening patterns to your tastes without bill shock, especially for that offline holiday.

The service is targetting a Q4 US launch.

Six Apart Opens Up TypePad APIs, Relaunches Pownce As TypePad Motion

2009-10-01T11:36:00.001-07:00

Blogging software pioneer Six Apart this morning announced that it’s debuting TypePad Cloud Platform, a new service that enables developers to use the service’s API to build social applications while leaving the storage, infrastructure and organization of the data that is core to such tools to TypePad’s so-called ’smart cloud’. Synchronously, Six Apart is introducing and open-sourcing TypePad Motion – the first application to launch on the new platform – as the phoenix rising from the ashes of Pownce (which the company picked up late last year).

This is an interesting move for a number of reasons. Let’s tackle TypePad Platform first and take a look at Six Apart’s forray into the community microblogging space afterwards.

TypePad Platform and Developer Program

The TypePad Platform will essentially enable developers to use structured social objects (think blogs, posts, comments, people, activities, groups and tags) to more easily build social applications on top of a cloud network. While this is obviously mostly a developer-oriented product, Six Apart CEO Chris Alden in a blog post wrote that this will also benefit bloggers, whether they’re part of a business or organization that uses TypePad for online publications or individual bloggers who share their life with a close circle of friends and family.

For larger publishers and online businesses, Alden writes, the TypePad Platform could be another alternative for them to incorporate blogs and social networking into their websites, thus offering an alternative to local software solutions or hosted SaaS solutions. Personal bloggers will ultimately benefit from more applications that enhance TypePad’s core functionality, he expects.

Starting today, interested programmers can head to the fresh TypePad Developer Program website to obtain an alpha version of the TypePad API for free, with commercial versions of the TypePad Platform set to debut later on. Time will tell if the initiative will end up creating an ecosystem of third-party developers much like rival Automattic has managed to assemble for WordPress over the years.

TypePad Motion

Six Apart recently added some Posterous-style microblogging flavor and real-time blogging capabilities to TypePad, but is now switching to full throttle with the launch of TypePad Motion. The new service is the inaugural open source app built by Six Apart developers for the new TypePad platform and incorporates many of the features of the late Pownce. It’s also reminiscent of Jaiku, Tumblr and the recently introduced Yahoo Meme service.

The service is already live here, so I played around with it a little and found that it was far from anything remotely spectacular in terms of functionality or wealth of features. You log on with your Typepad account and add text (no character limit, links, photos, online videos and audio) to your Motion profile. Other community members can subscribe to your new blog and comment much like any other microblogging / lifestreaming service. That’s about it, although the open-source aspect is interesting for the future.

Six Apart says the TypePad Motion app evolved from the Pownce codebase & community. It’s written in Python using the Django framework (GitHub). An example of a customized Motion blog is this showcase for the Future of Web Apps conference where the above announcements were made today.

A leader playing a good hand by broadening and diversifying its product line, or too little, too late? What’s your take?

Google Adds New Options To Make Search More Timely, Less Spammy, And More Personal

2009-10-01T11:34:00.000-07:00

Maybe it has something to do with competition from Bing, but all of a sudden Google is really interested in guided search. Last May, it launched search options in the left-hand column of the results page which let you filter results by type, time, and other criteria. Today, Google is adding a new set of options geared at making results more timely, newsy, and personal. It also lets you filter out commercial results when you are not in a shopping mood.

The new options include the ability to see results from only the past hour (that’s so near-realtime) or for a specific date range. You can also filter for results only from news, blog, or book search. (Basically, these options bring some of Google’s standalone search verticals into the main search experience).

Then there’s the spam filter. You can “fewer shopping sites” or “more shopping sites.” When you choose more shopping sites, product prices appear up top. And if you are trying to go back to something you’ve already seen but can’t remember exactly where it was, you can personalize results by seeing only sites you’ve already visited. Or you can choose to only see new sites, and make the search more of a discovery tool. (You need to be signed in and have Web History enabled for these last two options to work).

Most searches on Bing also bring up a set of guided options on the left. But whereas Google is choosing to apply a set of search options consistently across all queries, Bing takes more of customized approach based on what you are searching for. For instance, it usually shows related searches to your query and lets you filter by type of search as well (shopping, local, image, video). The search options change on the fly depending on the search.

Which approach do you like better—consistent categories (Google) or customized categories (Bing)?

More Evidence That Apple Really Did Reject Google Voice

2009-09-20T20:36:00.000-07:00

At this point there shouldn’t be any doubt in anyone’s mind that Apple’s response to the FCC over its ban of Google Voice was rife with half-truths and some complete falsehoods. One claim that’s entered the limelight again is Apple’s statement that it hadn’t actually rejected Google Voice, but that it was still “pondering” it. Yesterday Google released its full, unedited response to the FCC inquiry, and the newly revealed content directly contradicts Apple’s statement multiple times, explicitly stating that the application was rejected.

Apple struck back with a statement that it didn’t agree with Google and that “Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application and we continue to discuss it with Google”. We’ve heard that Google actually has a screenshot displaying its rejection notice, but we may not even need that to show (once again) that Apple isn’t being honest.

In its letter to the FCC Apple says that “contrary to published reports, Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application, and continues to study it”. It then goes on to describe its issues with Google Voice, which include fears of confusing users and replacing the iPhone’s core functionality (for a moment let’s ignore the fact that Apple’s description is totally disingenuous). Apple closes out this description with “The following applications also fall into this category”, and then lists the three third party Google Voice apps that were yanked from the App Store.

Presumably the applications in “this category” are all being pondered over too, and have not been rejected, right? But that’s simply not the case. Riverturn Inc, the developer behind the VoiceCentral application that was listed in Apple’s FCC response, has sent us a screenshot of its ‘rejection’ status that is quite clear.

Of course, this is all semantic hairsplitting — a neverending “pondering” status is exactly the same thing as a rejection — and Apple isn’t fooling anyone with it.

U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra Visits Silicon Valley To Talk Tech And Innovation With The Woz

2009-09-20T20:29:00.000-07:00

Today, Aneesh Chopra, US Chief Technology Officer and Associate Director for Technology for the White House, spoke at a forum held by TiE, an entrepreneurship organization based in Silicon Valley. Chopra was joined by a panel of Silicon Valley execs and VCs, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Chopra made his debut to Silicon Valley a few weeks ago at the Churchill Club, addressing the future of innovation and Federal investments in technology.

Chopra outlined the Federal government’s technology agenda, calling attention to the challenges the government faces. He says that in terms of innovation, the U.S. has a lot of room for improvement. The government recently did a survey of where countries rank as innovators over the past decade. The U.S. ranked dead last in the rate at which innovation sped up over the past ten years, according to Chopra’s data. In the area of e-government options, the U.S. ranked last as well.

The role of the US CTO is to invest in innovation, including smart and secure infrastructure (i.e. cybersecurity, broadband access), and increase R&D collaboration by focusing on university and entrepreneurship for new product developments. The Federal government spends $150 billion on research dollars in universities—Chopra wants to make sure these investments are efficient. Chopra says that post-doctoral fellows are particularly useful to helping with innovation and suggests that businesses begin fellowship opportunities for innovation. He is also promoting innovation around other priorities in the government’s agenda, such as health care, education and the smart grid.

Heath care IT is an issue that’ particularly high on the agenda, with Chopra working to implement regulatory framework, open data standards, and an ecosystem for continued product innovation in the space. The smart grid is also a concern for the US CTO, and is helping accelerate energy efficiency initiatives and ensure that cybersecurity is at a high level.

And one of Chopra’s primary roles is to develop an open government initiative, which will implement government platforms that will be transparent and collaborative (i.e. Data.gov). For example, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service launched a new customer service that lets applicants get updates on the status of applications online and via e-mail and text messages.

Steve Wozniak thinks that its important to harvest intelligence; he suggests that the government should do this via games. The Woz also highlighted the importance of cyber security and technology in education, concluding that “education is being shafted.”

Twitter Closing New Venture Round At $1 Billion Valuation

2009-09-18T23:04:00.000-07:00

Fast growing startup Twitter will soon be joining a select group of startups with private venture round valuations of $1 billion, we’ve heard from multiple sources. CEO Evan Williams disclosed the round to employees at a recent all hands meeting.

The company will raise around $50 million, we’ve heard, although the final amount of the raise is apparently not yet locked down.

Twitter raised $35+ million earlier this year in a round led by Benchmark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners. That round valued the company at $250 million.

The company has raised a total of around $55 million to date, and sources tell us they have approximately $30 million left in the bank.

Update: A source tells us that New York based Insight Venture Partners is the primary investor in this round.

The Perfect App To Start Your Weekend Off With A Drink – Or Several Drinks. Fast.

2009-09-18T23:02:00.000-07:00

I love the fact that Power Music Hour, a new app for the iPhone, never once mentions drinking in its App Store page description. But anyone who has been to college in the past decade will know exactly what this app is for: A drinking game.

A “Power Hour” is a game in which you must drink one shot of beer every minute for an hour (there are variations). Yes, that’s 60 shots of beer. Yes, that will get you very, very drunk. But again, this app never once mentions drinking in its description, and instead implies that it may just be fun to listen to music for a minute at a time. I love it.

Then I dove into the App Store and looked at some other “Power Hour” apps — there are a ton of them. And hilariously, none seem to mention drinking at all. One, Hour of Power, has a description that even reads as follows:

Ever needed a one minute timer to pace yourself while listening to music? With Hour of Power, you can play one minute of any artists, albums, songs, or playlists from your iPod.

When exercising, you can use your music to tell you when to switch weights or activities. When jogging, you can use it to tell you when to change speeds.

Exercising? Jogging? Ha!

We all know what these apps are for, even if they found a rather brilliant loophole in Apple’s App approval system: Simply create a drinking game app, don’t mention the drinking part, and you’ll get a nice 4+ rating, rather than a much more restrictive one (or possibly even rejection).

But we’re going to focus on Power Music Hour because at least they were honest in their email to us about the app:

Howdy TechCrunchers,

Hope you’re all having a lovely week, but in case you’re not we’d like to give you the opportunity to forget all those blog posts you were meaning to post and take a sec to check out our new app, the perfect companion to a 30-rack and an office full of writers.

Let us kindly introduce Power Music Hour, the best (if not first) power hour application for the iPhone & iPod Touch.

So take a load off, grab your favorite drink(s), and enjoy yourself. Hey, your lunch break is an hour long, right?

The app itself is great as a Power Hour app. It takes the music that on your iPhone or iPod touch and cycles through it in 60-second intervals (you can also make it longer or shorter). There is then an audible “ding” when that minute is up, and the song changes.

Back in the day, we used to have to use a stop watch to do Power Hours, this is much, much better!

Find Power Music Hour in the App Store here. It is $0.99. Please drink responsibly. Or, please listen to music for a minute at a time responsibly. While jogging. Or whatever.

WeddingWire’s iPhone App Lets You Plan Your Wedding On The Go

2009-09-18T22:58:00.000-07:00

Planning a wedding can be an incredibly stressful process (I know from experience-I just got married a few weeks ago). WeddingWire, an online wedding planning platform and vendor directory, is launching an new version of its app to let brides (and grooms) plan their weddings with the help of their iPhone.

The previous version of WeddingWire’s app just let you see lists of vendors in your area. The new app is a lightweight version of WeddingWire’s site that will sync with your account on the planning platform’s site. Once you log-in to the app with your WeddingWire account, you can keep track of to-do items in your planning list, access your customized budget tool, and find local wedding vendors and reviews.

The review feature is key, sort of serving like a Yelp for weddings vendors. You can see reviews of a vendor then create a to-do item in your planning checklist to follow up with that vendor at a later date. Surprisingly, there aren’t as many wedding planning apps in the app store as I though there would be. Other wedding planning apps include Bride Guide, and iWedding but both are paid apps. WeddingWire’s app is free. The Knot, which is one of the more popular wedding planning sites on the web, has an iPhone app that simply lets you get advice for their experts but doesn’t recreate the planning experience from the site on your device.

Google Releases A Nuke. Apple Won’t Win This Fight.

2009-09-18T22:54:00.000-07:00

Well, something clearly broke down behind the scenes in the ongoing Apple/Google negotiations over Google Voice on the iPhone, because Google released one of two nukes it has been holding back. In a letter to the FCC today, Google disclosed previously unpublished information about Apple’s rejection of their Google Voice application.

There’s no longer any question – either Google or Apple is flat out lying to the FCC:

Apple: “Contrary to published reports, Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application, and continues to study it.”

Google: “Apple representatives informed Google that the Google Voice application was rejected because Apple believed the application duplicated the core dialer functionality of the iPhone”

Our position is that Apple is the one full of it, which we stated way before this new information from Google. And it isn’t just he said/she said – Apple’s story doesn’t add up.

But Apple is standing firm, and even today told press that they haven’t rejected the Google Voice application, despite what Google says.

This doesn’t end here. As we’ve speculated, Apple will capitulate and accept the application with a few minor tweaks to save face. Because if they don’t we’ve heard Google has yet another nuke waiting on the sidelines – a screen shot of the actual rejection notice via the iPhone developers admin with the formal rejection. At that point, Apple will no longer be able to rely on nuances and misdirection. The FCC and everyone else will know that they lied in a government investigation.

We’re offering a free TechCrunch tshirt to any Google employee that forwards that screenshot to us. No questions asked.

Facebook Crosses 300 Million Users. Oh Yeah, And They Just Went Cash Flow Positive.Facebook Crosses 300 Million Users. Oh Yeah, And They Just Went Cas

2009-09-18T05:50:00.000-07:00

Facebook has two very big pieces of news that they announced today at TechCrunch50. The first: They have crossed 300 million users worldwide now, extending their lead as the biggest social network. The second: They are now cash flow positive. Yes, from this point forward, Facebook is making money.

300 million is the obvious big news. But really, it was always just a matter of time before Facebook was going to hit the milestone. They hit 250 million back in July. Really, the much bigger news is the second item.

Back in April, we noted that while the company has been EBITDA profitable for several quarters in a row, they weren’t expecting to go cash flow positive on an operating basis until 2010. Back in 2008, there was roughly a $200 million gap between Facebook being cash flow positive and their EBITDA numbers. So why was it going to take another 2 years to close that gap? It’s likely because Facebook has been spending a lot of money over the past couple years on things like servers, but accounting rules allowed them to spread those costs over time. But the amount of money they’re pulling in has either eclipsed those costs earlier than expected or it isn’t spending as much. (Equipment spending for big storage servers tend to be lumpy).

Undoubtedly, projects like Haystack, which aim to cut the costs of sharing photo storage on Facebook have helped quite a bit. Aside from being the biggest social network, Facebook is also the largest photo-sharing site as well.

Twitter Rolls Out Some Design Tweaks For Web App

2009-09-18T05:47:00.000-07:00

Twitter is currently rolling out a couple of design tweaks for its web version.

The most apparent change is noticeable when you go to a user’s profile page. Instead of just a ‘Follow’ button under the person’s username, you’ll now get a newly designed follow button next to another button that allows you to follow, public message (or privately when he or she follows you back) or block the person in one click. Also, when you do a search for a popular trending topic, there’s a chance you’ll see a short explanation above the results about why it is trending (coming from WhatTheTrend.com). See an example for a search on ‘Jay-Z’ below. Finally, the default avatar that new users are assigned when they sign up without uploading a proper profile pic has been changed to something, well, better.

Slowly but surely, we’re seeing Twitter’s design when logged in change to one that inches closer to its recently launched new homepage, which was largely centered around search and trending topics.

Skype Sniffing Around Web Chat Startups

2009-09-18T05:37:00.000-07:00

Skype has been in the news a lot lately. Over the past six months, rumors swirled that the peer-to-peer telephony service provider was going to be bought back from eBay by its original founders, to be spun off as a separate company and then IPO, and ultimately to be sold to an investor group (which was confirmed at the beginning of this month). Now Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis through their Joltid holding are suing eBay and the new buyers over copyright issues centered around core p2p technology used in Skype product which they have developed and own.

The rumors just won’t stop.

This time, however, it’s about the company’s product strategy rather than its general fate. A well-placed source tells me Skype management is actively shopping around for companies that provide web-based communication services such as browser-based calling and video chats.

To date, Skype has focused on desktop and mobile software to handle peer-to-peer based calling over the Internet. This is not surprising, because when Skype first started back in 2003 bandwidth costs were a an order of magnitude higher than they are today and desktop apps were the only way to go if they were ever going to make a decent profit from Internet-based telephony. But with bandwidth prices decreasing worldwide at a fast rate, it makes a lot of sense for Skype to at least consider moving into web applications and claim their ground. The fastest way to do that would be to pick up a startup with proven technology and early traction in that field, like TokBox, PalTalk or Tinychat.

Here’s another reason Skype might be looking at web-based communication service providers. What if eBay/Skype cannot develop a workaround that would allow them to continue the service without using the Joltid-owned source code powering its core peer-to-peer engine? It’s conceivable that might drive the company to consider purchasing companies with similar or related Web-based technology to speed up its move away from the litigation threat hanging over them.

Of course, companies talk to one another all the time and as far as we know there haven’t been any official acquisition offers from Skype at this point. But they’re definitely looking.

9 things you'll love about Snow Leopard

2009-08-22T05:16:00.000-07:00

Steve Jobs first announced Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) was in development at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in 2008. It was a chance for Apple to take stock of where it was with OS X. There would be no major innovations, but plenty of refinements: it would install quicker, take up less disk space, and the user experience would be improved through Apple's attention to detail.

Fast forward to WWDC 2009, and the version of Snow Leopard being prepared has everything Apple promised, and more. Refinement rather than revolution, then, is the watchword for Snow Leopard. We've picked out our top nine of those elegant tweaks and finesses – plus a few more for good measure – to show you what Apple's latest big cat has to offer.

1. Improved Finder

So many of the improvements in Snow Leopard are under the skin, but because they affect the parts of the operating system we use most, we'll experience real, long-term benefits when we use them. Take Finder, for instance.

We use the Finder every time we use our Mac, so doesn't it make sense to rewrite its underlying code to optimise it for the latest technologies, such as 64-bit processing? Well, that's exactly what Apple has done with Snow Leopard.

In a direct comparison with Leopard, Snow Leopard's Finder does seem a little more eager to respond; it's only a matter of milliseconds to be sure, but an improvement nonetheless.

Improvements have also been made when it comes to ejecting external drives and optical discs. For instance, if you inadvertently leave a file from one of your disks open, you no longer see the cryptic error message that says: "The disk...is in use by another application". In Snow Leopard, Finder actually tells you what application it is, and advises you to quit it.

2. Smarter QuickTime X

Like Finder, QuickTime in Snow Leopard has been optimised to take full advantage of 64-bit.

In addition, it now uses the capabilities of the Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphics processor (found in such Macs as the MacBook, MacBook Pro and Mac mini) to decode videos compressed using the H.264 standard.

This in turn frees up the main processor in your Mac for other tasks. As of Snow Leopard, QuickTime Player also reaches version X. Not only does it launch quicker than before (Apple claims up to 2.8 times faster), but it looks different – very different.

Gone is the brushed aluminium skin, and in comes a slick, minimalist interface with media controls (play, pause, fast forward, and so on) that fade out of view when you don't need them. And that's not all: need to make a training video for your colleagues on a hot new application? No problem: choose File > New Screen Recording and do it!

You can even perform basic video editing using the Trim feature (in the Edit menu), and upload your video directly to iTunes, your MobileMe Gallery or YouTube.

3. Polished Preview

We've said before that Preview is the hidden gem of Mac OS X. Starting out as a humble image viewer, its feature set now goes way beyond showing previews of printed pages. For instance, have you ever tried to copy and paste text from a PDF into a word processor and found that the PDF's formatting gave you more work than if you'd just retyped the whole thing?

Well, no more: Apple has added a little bit of artificial intelligence to recognise that, say, the text in your PDF is arranged in columns. It enables you to select what you need.

What if you want to annotate your PDF before you send it to your colleagues? No problem: click Annotate in Preview's toolbar, and a comprehensive set of annotation tools appears along the bottom of the application window, enabling you to add callout arrows, text boxes and highlights to make your point.

Open multiple PDFs and you can view them all in a single window (like a contact sheet in Photoshop), allowing for a quick comparison. And it doesn't stop there: you can now scan images directly into Preview, adding yet another tool to what's already a Swiss Army Knife of an app.

4. Refined Address Book and iCal

For another example of the 'refinement rather than revolution' policy adopted by Apple for Snow Leopard, look no further than Address Book. The Sharing and LDAP options in Preferences are now combined into a single Accounts pane, which now allows you to set up syncing with Google as well as Yahoo and MobileMe.

For Google Contacts users, this is a welcome recognition by Apple that there are online contact managers other then MobileMe; though, of course, this option has previously been available to iPhone users. We set up syncing with MobileMe and (separately) with Google, and found the syncing experience pretty seamless.

All you need to do is enter your email address and password, and everything is done for you. There was a bit of a glitch when we tried syncing with Google, which left our contacts without an email address listed in Address Book as No Name, but other than that we were impressed.

The big news when it comes to syncing, however, is Snow Leopard's built-in support for Microsoft's Exchange Server 2007.

5. Better screen grabbing

Whether you're emailing a technical support helpdesk or helping out a Mac newbie it's great to be able to take a few shots of your Mac's screen by simply hitting Cmd + Shift + 3. But how often have you looked forlornly for that one grab that makes your point succinctly, only to find it mingling with others labelled Picture...?

No more: Snow Leopard labels your grabs with the date and time they were taken, making it much simpler to find the one you want. While we're on the subject of refinements, we'd have liked to have seen an option here to change the default target folder for screenshots. Saving multiple grabs to the Desktop makes for a lot of clutter, unless you move each one in turn as you take them.

Luckily, there are applications such as the free TinkerTool that lets you make this change. The equivalent Terminal command also still works in Snow Leopard. And don't forget, you needn't stop at still images: with QuickTime X you can record all the activities taking place on your screen and edit them into a training video.

6. More refined Stacks options

The changes made to Stacks are a prime example of Apple's strategy of refinement rather than revolution for Snow Leopard. Stacks is the feature – introduced as one of the '200 innovations' in Leopard – that enables you to click on a folder in the Dock and see your files expand, fan-like, so that you can pick out the one you need. Which is great, unless you have a large number of files to choose from.

Even if you choose to have your Stack open as a grid or a list (which you can do by clicking and holding on the Stack icon, then choosing the appropriate option), you might still see a message that there are more files to view in Finder. Open that same Stack in Snow Leopard and you'll see that things are different: by the simple addition of a scrollbar to the open Stack, Apple has made the feature much more useable.

And the refinements don't stop there: if there's a folder nested inside your main Stack, it will also open as a Stack rather than switching to a Finder window. And you'll find a handy back arrow in the top-left corner of your open Stack so that you can easily find your way back where you came from.

7. Exposé is now in the Dock

Exposé allows you to view all the open windows in the current application, or across the whole system, with a single keystroke. All those keystrokes, however, can be time-consuming if you need to switch to a different application before using Exposé on the new app's open windows.

What if you know which application you need to switch to? Wouldn't it be great to switch applications and use Exposé at the same time? Well, now you can. With Exposé now, simply click and hold an app's icon in the Dock and all open windows in that application will separate, enabling you to switch windows. And press Tab while Exposé is active in order to move to the next application in the Dock and activate Exposé on that.Application windows are spring-loaded, so you can drag and drop items between them.

8. Access all areas

More often than not, Macs have been the choice of those who need assistance with their hearing or vision, and Snow Leopard builds on that history with a powerful set of enhanced features. VoiceOver is Mac OS X's built-in screen reader, speaking text and commands for partially sighted users. This now has a better startup tutorial with practical examples.

VoiceOver now allows you to fine-tune the speaking voice's settings, including speed, pitch and intonation. Also for partially sighted users, Snow Leopard introduces a feature called Braille mirroring. This enables multiple USB Braille displays to be connected to one computer simultaneously. This is a highly practical for classroom settings, where different students are likely to have different makes and models of Braille display.

Snow Leopard includes the drivers for more than 40 different models of Braille reader, including Bluetooth displays. More new accessibility features include Quick Nav. This uses arrow key combinations to move the VoiceOver cursor so you can control a Mac using one hand. Move up, down, left, and right by pressing the arrow keys individually, or press the up and down arrows together to press a button or click a web link.

9. New System Preferences tools

Again, there are lots of thoughtful little touches in Snow Leopard's System Preferences, though no huge surprises. One really nice touch is the inclusion of new mapping technologies in the Time Zone option of the Date & Time preference pane. This uses Core Location technology, that makes use of Wi-Fi hotspots to set your time zone automatically – perfect for the forgetful globetrotter.

In Security > General, if you've set up a password to wake your Mac from Sleep mode, you can now set a time delay of between five seconds and four hours before you need to enter your password. The International pane in System Preferences is also gone now, replaced by Language & Text. This is, admittedly, almost the same as Leopard's International, but with the addition of a Text pane.

This is similar to the useful AutoCorrect feature that's in Microsoft Word, enabling you to set up custom shortcuts for your most commonly used words and phrases for use in applications such as Mail, TextEdit and iChat. In order to set this feature up in the relevant application, however, you'll first need to go to Edit > Substitutions > Text Replacement.

Oh yes, and just for good measure, you can now shuffle through a selection of your favourite screensaver pictures by choosing the Screen Saver option in the Desktop & Screen Saver pane.

Google accused over Android Skype app block

2009-08-22T05:14:00.000-07:00

Hits back, saying no one has made a proper VoIP app yet anyway

We've already documented the predictable battle between Apple and Google over the bar on getting a Google Voice application onto the iPhone, so it's with no small sense of interest that we discover Google accused of hypocrisy on its own Android platform.

According to a USA Today story, Google tried to block Skype - like Google Voice, a way to avoid expensive carrier fees for phone calls - from its Android Market earlier this year.

Dodgy dealing?

Instead of the full Skype application, owners of Android phones instead got Skype Lite, which sends calls not over Skype's potentially free VoIP network, but across the regular phone network at a cost.

The trickiness lies in how that came about - USA Today suggests it's due to some underhanded deal between Google and US Android carrier, T-Mobile. If it were true, it might make it look at least a little foolish in its tussle with Apple over Google Voice on the iPhone.

Clear and simple

However, Google has hit back to deny any suggestions of impropriety. Writing on the Public Policy Blog, Google VP Andy Rubin explained his side of the argument:

"Here are the facts, clear and simple: While the first generation of our Android software did not support full-featured VoIP applications due to technology limitations, we have worked through those limitations in subsequent versions of Android, and developers are now able to build and upload VoIP services."

No VoIP anyway

He goes on to brand USA Today as plain "wrong" and to add that, "at this point no software developer - including Skype - has implemented a complete VoIP application for Android."

So, in other words Google is all for users installing proper VoIP applications on Android and making free or cheap phone calls, but there's actually no way to do so anyway, so it doesn't really matter. Yet.

Twitter tells airlines people are not cattle

2009-08-22T05:13:00.000-07:00

Social networking used to give voice to customer complaints

Next time you have an unsatisfactory customer-service experience, instead of complaining to the company concerned, it might be beneficial to let it all out on Twitter.

That's the line of action being encouraged by consumer-rights groups fed up with some pretty shoddy treatment from big businesses.

Let it all out

Chief among the examples cited by Reuters this week is the approach taken to the notorious US airline industry by groups like FlyersRights.org.

While posting messages about bad experiences that read like elementary school graffiti - "Screw american airlines. Every plane has Been broken. Gah. So done", for example - may not seem useful, public venting does seem to be working.

Left to stew

FlyersRights founder Kate Hanni is meticulously documenting and tweeting reports of airlines abusing their hold over passengers in such matters as bumping them off flights and keeping entire plane-loads waiting on the runway overnight.

She explains: "It creates an awareness for people that these things are happening all the time. When I hear about a stranding event where someone is stranded right then, I tweet it."

So, it is useful...

On the back of such negative publicity, FlyersRights is pushing for US legislation to protect airline passengers from abuse. If successful, perhaps naysayers will then stop deriding Twitter as just another internet fad.

Via Reuters

11 ways Apple can kill Spotify on iPhone

2009-08-22T05:10:00.000-07:00

It could be the iPhone's killer app. Here's how to kill it

Everybody loves Spotify, and its impressive iPhone app is currently sitting on an Apple desk waiting to be rubber-stamped or rejected.

So what can Apple do to kill it? Could iTunes on the iPhone/iPod be better, and are there any Spotify tricks Apple should nick? Here are eleven ways Apple can beat the European upstart.

1. Start offering an iTunes subscription service

You know it, we know it, Steve Jobs knows it: the musical wind is changing, and in the not too distant future the idea of paying to own music will seem as quaint as having a giant handlebar moustache and travelling by Penny Farthing.

Apple's interested in hardware, not software, and a subscription service won't harm iPod or iPhone sales. Quite the opposite: we can easily imagine The Kids going crazy for an iPhone 3GS with an unlimited music subscription built into the monthly data plan.

2. Add wireless syncing to iTunes

Spotify's Wi-Fi synchronisation is very nifty, and it's something we've wanted to see the iPhone do since day one. And no, MobileMe doesn't count. Apple got rid of the dock ages ago. Surely it's time to get rid of the USB cable, too?

SYNCING FEELING: Syncing via Wi-Fi is an excellent idea, and we can't think of any reason why iTunes shouldn't do it

3. Stream everything in iTunes

Spotify's playlist is big, but at 6 million-odd tracks it's nowhere near as comprehensive as iTunes' selection of over ten million songs - and Spotify might not have permission to stream all of that catalogue, either: earlier this week, Spotify had to remove Bob Dylan's stuff until such time that it can prove it has the rights to stream his music.

4. Cache content

What makes Spotify on the iPhone so desirable is its caching: you can download playlists to your phone and cache all the songs, enabling you to play them back even when your iPhone's in airplane mode. A subscription version of iTunes could and should do the same.

5. Make offline available online

For those of us in places where 3G coverage ranges from patchy to completely non-existent, such as "pretty much anywhere that isn't a city", it'd be extremely handy to have an offline mode that works independently of our phones' cellular radios.

6. Tell the networks to get stuffed

Some iPhone apps are crippled for no other reason than phone operators don't like them - so for example Skype is Wi-Fi only. A streaming iTunes needs 3G connectivity to be worthwhile, and as Spotify's demonstrated you can deliver 3G streaming with excellent sound quality.

7. Go social

Unlike Spotify, iTunes is a one-person system. The iPhone's support for peer to peer networking makes Spotify-style playlist sharing perfectly possible, and of course in MobileMe Apple already has a solid data sharing system that iTunes could plug into.

8. Offer it to Americans

Spotify isn't available in the US yet, and that's an awfully big market. If Apple beats Spotify to the US, Spotify's going to have a hard time fighting back - assuming, that is, that record labels are willing to play ball. US labels aren't entirely happy about Apple's market dominance; will they really want to make Apple even more powerful?

9. Don't let anyone multitask

The iPhone OS won't let third-party applications multitask, and while that's attracted criticism it does mean Spotify is damaged, possibly fatally. The iPod app keeps playing when you do other things with your iPhone. The Spotify app can't.

APPLE ONLY: Here's something only Apple applications can do: keep on going when you're doing something else

10. Hang on a bit

Despite the hype, Spotify is losing massive amounts of money. As long as its investors are happy it'll keep going, but sooner or later they're going to expect to see a return on their investment. The internet is littered with the corpses of sites and services that simply ran out of money, and Spotify could turn out to be one of them.

11. Keep Spotify locked in the App Store approval dungeon, refusing to let anybody know whether it's going to be approved or not, thereby making other developers think twice about attempting to create anything vaguely musical for the iPod and iPhone - and keep on doing it until everyone at Spotify hurls themselves off a bridge in despair.

Apple wouldn't do that… would it?