Yes, I know, you probably didn’t even think about a walkman in a long time; and most likely it’s been a real while since you’ve seen one, but Sony’s is -NOT- celebrating the release of their first Walkman 30 years ago.

Sony is still trying to make a revolutionary product release that they didn’t have particulary since the first portable audio player hit the market. They are having a rough year (first annual loss balance in 14 years) and they don’t have so great expectations for next year either. Most of the hopes are placed in PlayStation 3 (mainly based on two things, the release of the slim version and waiting for the blu-ray to become a real home standard), and also the portable new console PSP Go!

Getting back to the walkman’s story, here’s a quick and funny image that a friend of mine sent me today:

Internet video startup Myka has launched its Linux based set top Bittorrent box. The Myka set top box comes in 80 GB, 160 GB, and 500 GB high-definition versions. The boxes themselves are equipped with a built-in Bittorrent client which supports most of the video and audio formats.

The video below gives a very quick look at Myka’s playback quality, and includes an ever-so-brief look at its support for iTunes HD:

1. Download Purplera1n for Windows (works only on Windows Vist & Xp)

2. You must have installed iTunes 8.2. if you don’t have iTunes 8.2 then download iTunes 8.2 from here

3. Connect your iPhone 3GS 3.0 to computer

4. Double Click & Start Purplera1n

5. Click “make it ra1n”.

6. Wait. On bootup, run Freeze, the purplera1n installer app

7. Follow onscreen instructions to complete jailbreak

Mac version of Purplera1n coming soon

Advertising for the big companies look Google, Sony and Dell never stray far from the ‘Hello. We love you. Buy our stuff’ protocol that we all have come to recognize. However, old Billy Gates had another trick up his sleeve when it came to Internet Explorer 8.

It’s a husbands/boyfriends worst night mare. Your significant other borrows your laptop for a few ticks only to discover Internet history that you’re not exactly too proud off. The word embarrassment comes to mind. Internet Explorer 8 now offers a feature called Private Browsing which stops your internet history being recorded for all to see.

Microsoft is the first company to really give this a go and especially to market it as one of the main features. Perhaps desperate times call for desperate measures when Joe soap with a computer seems to be rolling out new browsers every day.

It’s the way Microsoft are selling this feature that’s the real charm. They couldn’t exactly just throw it out there without the entire world raising an eyebrow. So they’ve gone and raised our eyebrows for use with this memorable ye informative video. It’s intended for online use only and as such won’t make it onto out TVs. However, just a few hours ago the video was removed from the official website. This points to second thoughts by Microsoft. Check it out below.

Over at digital music store CDBaby they have been making a lot of changes recently. Since the sale of the company the site itself has been going through a lot of changes. A while ago CDBaby announced to their community that they will be updating their website which is long overdue and here are early pictures of what it is going to look like.

Disclosure: Im CEO of Insomnia which owns and operates RouteNote a digital music distributor.

If you are a geek blogger like me, you would know that the having a good ranking within the most important search engines it is a big deal if you are trying to promote your blog. KPMRS (Keyword Position Monitoring Report Service) can help you with that by monitoring constantly the page rank you have with Google, Yahoo and Bing.

How to use it is very simple, you don’t even have to be registered to receive any result, you can query and get some instant results about your site and a special keyword. The free registration can also give you: Email Alerts (when position changes or when a competitor has passed you); weekly reports; and monitor for Google’s Page Rank and Alexa.

Here’s a query about my blog with a keyword that I know I have a good ranking about it:

It is pretty cool to have these results and see the differences between the search engines; and of course will be very helpful to you if you are setting up your business to evaluate the status of popularity.

Google and Yahoo! Are the two main search engines in the West. The two have been around long enough for everyone to use them instinctively without much regard to competitors. Seriously, if you want to know something you either Google it or…uh, ‘Yahoo!’ it.

Now, Yahoo! have released an ad-on of their Delicious affiliate site for Google’s Chrome Internet browser. This is one of the first updates to become available since Google first released Chrome. Up until recently the browser was considered by many developers and programmers to be unstable and unsuitable to develop add-ons for.

Google call these new ad-ons ‘extensions’ are now growing in popularity. However, many are still hopeful of Google releasing more powerful ad-blockers.

Yahoo!’s Delicious extensions allows the user to log in and post their bookmarks and comments. This is considered very basics in comparison as to what’s available in Mozilla and internet Explorer but it is a step in the right direction – it’s also a very ‘tongue-in-cheek’ move by Yahoo; beating Google at their own game.

Do you feel like you need a website and you have no money to create one? And you are not a developer nor a web designer to do it yourself? Well I’m pretty sure that the your next step should with Moogoo.

Moogoo is the quick choice to take when it comes to design easy and very acceptable websites and it only takes a few moments to complete. You will have several options to add different type of functionality to your site, so it won’t be the same static content. Besides doing all the design work, you can find more features:

• Free option available and with interesting features.
• Payed option includes the completeme management of the website.
• Registered domain names supported. That means if you have your own domain name, like mycompany.com, you will have support to migrate the website to your own domain without having any type of problems.
• Features that you can use in your website: News, photo albums, blogs, events, quick polls, statistics, search engine, etc.
• Web base e-mail option available.

To check on more features available, check this link.

As an important note, the payed versions are two: Personal ($4.99) and Business ($14.99). Not bad, right?

Back in February we did a quick review about a new web service called Stimator. Stimator is a real website valuation estimator.

There are six major factors involved in the calculation:

• Top Level Domain – Stimator take in account the strength of a TLD.
• Financial - It uses Yahoo Finance to get all data needed to perform the variations of the financial market.
• Real Sells – The service was built to delivery real results (at least the most possible ones). The math used to determinate a website value was study using real website sells such as: Sedo, Sitepoint Marketplace etc.
• Web Factors – Stimator collects information from the website itself and from several major sources during the calculation stages before presenting the final estimated result.
• Estimation - The calculations are made to give what is called the “economic value”.
• Observations - The main mission is to avaliate domains and sub-domains. After each calculation, Stimator presents a report with the main relevant factors that it can extract from the examination. This factors will give the users an idea of how the site is performing.

11th February 2009 = Crenk.com = $17,351

2nd July 2009 = Crenk.com = $1,657,315

The Wall Street Journal reports that Dell has been developing a Mobile Internet Device (MID) based on Google’s Android operating system. The device is reportedly slightly larger than Apple’s iPod touch, with which Dell’s offering would presumably compete in many respects should it eventually be released.

Another person who was briefed on the company’s plans said Dell may begin selling the device later this year, though this person said the plan could be delayed or scrapped entirely.

The development effort is one of the first experiments by a big-name PC maker in a nascent category of products known as mobile Internet devices, or MIDs,which are designed to fill a perceived gap between mobile phones and laptop computers.

Dell is expected to use ARM processors for the new device, the same platform that powers the iPhone and iPod touch. Back in 2003, Dell introduced its “Dell DJ” music players to compete with the iPod, but the line was discontinued by the end of 2006.

Aviary has just launched Screen Capture Talon that can let you capture any webpage from any browser, by simply putting Aviary.com/ in front of the URL. You can capture a page at different resolutions or to only capture a portion of the page as well.

After capturing the page, you can edit it, add simple markup to it and save it to your desktop.

Aero Snap is a new feature which has been added to Windows 7, but its is also supported for both Windows XP and Vista. Aero Snap is a simple tool that allows the user to drag and drop any window to the top of your screen to maximise it or take it to the left or right to snap it to the side and re-size by 50 per cent.

Aero Snap is free and you can download it here.

Have you ever wanted to turn your Ubuntu system into a Mac? Im not exactly too sure why you would want to do this in the first place, but over at MakeTechEasier they have a great article on how to do this.

If you want to change this

into

Skype have been a busy bunch recently in this dead summer heat; buzzing around releasing this and that.

A few months ago, Skype 4.0 graced our desktops throwing new updates our way. These included a new, more attractive interface and better interactivity. However, they held back. Basic features such as the contacts list and calling functions were upgraded but they decided to leave the fuzzy warm extras for later when we had all begun to forget their previous efforts.

Now Skype have made two great leaps in the world of Windows. Firstly, they have updated Skype for computers by allowing you to access multiple contact lists in applications and e-mail providers such as Outlook, AOL, Gmail and Yahoo! Mail. They have also added ‘Screen Sharing’ which allows you to share a portion or all of what’s on your screen to the person you’re chatting with. They have also released a fresh Skype for Windows Mobile OS allowing you to chat for free on devices such as the Samsung i900.

Then, they marched right on over to Apple, booted in the front door and were asked to wait while the Apple big boys took a look at Skype 1.1 on the iPhone. Much to the relief of the Skype boys sitting in reception getting rather bored with the long wait, Skype was eventually approved for the iPhone and is now available to download as an app.

Now, you can access your Skype voicemail on your iPhone and sent SMS from Skype. The program was also spruced up considerably to be a easier on the eye and boasts multilingual capabilities ranging from French to Polish to Traditional Chinese.

I can’t wait to see what those worker bees at Skype will release next; with any luck they’ll take advantage of growing 3G video capabilities.

The world over there is a common word that we all understand when it comes to virtual messages…spam! That same concept can be related to the countless pieces of junk mail we receive in our snail mail boxes. In an attempt to curb physical mail, Zumbox was created as a way to save paper and go greener.

Zumbox is a virtual mailbox that is accessible from anywhere in the world, and all your mail can be directed to this. No major warehouses needed with hundreds of scanners, it simply takes your mail from teh database that your mail is created in and sends the file directly to your account. You can browse your mail just like you would browse it in your home after checking your mailbox.

It’s a great idea, and I’m completely behind it, but the one drawback is immersion. This concept would have to be fully accepted for Zumbox to saturate the market and reduce 100% of all physical mail. Still it’s a great start and I encourage you to at least input your address. The service is free, it’s easy, accessible, and leaves less of an imprint on the planet then all the junkmail you receive. With special filters, reduced junk mail, checking your “mail” may actually be fun again…save for the bills.

Entrepreneurs and start-ups alike are prime candidates for branding opportunities. Existing companies looking at changing their appearance, their direction, or product/service may also be looking for a way to change their existing branding, and what’s quicker than instant?

Nothing.

BrandStack is the quickest way to get your new logo and start building your brand. The depository has hundreds of designs, but along with the logos, you also get domain names pre-registered for you along with other additions that will get your business off the ground instantly.

Previously known as Incspring, Brandstack is literally stacking the layers of possibilities to make your endeavors as profitable and successful as possible. Founder Wes Wilson is always looking for designers who want to upload their extra logos to the site and further expand what it has to offer. A definite most for those looking to purchase and build, and designers looking to sell their extra or new designed logos.

Give BrandStack a try and take the stress of the creative process off your shoulders and start with the real details that will help build your company for your customers.

…perhaps not entirely true, we’re on our way to making this a reality thanks to the mobile app Trapster. From time to time many of us find ourselves hurrying from one place to another. Crenk does not support breaking the law, but if you find yourself going over the speed limit, knowing where the speed traps are can really save you some dollars and grief.

Naturally all of the speed traps must be reported by other users. With a click of a button or a phone call to the number given, everyone’s app can be updated within a matter of minutes all will be notified of where the speed trap is and avoid or adjust speed if necessary.

I’d really love to hear if this app has saved you from getting a ticket, or what your thoughts are if you have used it. Be sure to let us know!

Reuters reports that ten top mobile phone manufacturers, including Apple, have agreed to adopt the Micro-USB connector standard for smartphone chargers in the European Union. The shift, planned to begin next year, will allow smartphones from the companies, which control 90% of the market, to use the same charging cables. Apple currently uses a proprietary dock connector compatible with both the iPhone and iPod touch.

The chargers will be usable only for data-enabled phones, which have more capability than just standard calls and SMS texts. Data-enabled phones are expected to account for almost half of all new mobile handset purchases in 2010.

The Commission hopes that as people discard their old handsets, within three to four years all data-enabled phones in Europe will be using standardized chargers.

The plan also calls for new phones to be sold with Micro-USB chargers for a period of time before ultimately selling phones and chargers separately in order to allow customers who already own chargers to continue using their existing ones. While the agreement extends only to European phones, it is expected that the standard will make its way into phones around the world as companies attempt to keep their design and manufacturing costs streamlined.

A couple of days ago we reported that Firefox 3.5 will be released on June 30th. Here is the official release!

Windows: http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.5&os=win&lang=en-US

Mac OS X: http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.5&os=osx&lang=en-US

Linux: http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.5&os=linux&lang=en-US

As far as I can tell there is only one site that can still predict accurately your future page rank from Google. Their used to be iwebtool but that has stopped working and Page Rank Prediction is the only one standing.

The site itself is very simple, its just a box in which users can input their urls and then the predictor accurately predicts what your new page rank is going to be at the next update.

Page Rank Prediction is predicting that Crenk will be a page rank 5 at the next update, which is great news for us if it is true. Only time will tell and we are expecting to see a new page rank update in the next few days.

One user on a French forum posted that the overheating is “Unbearable” and the “phone much be shut down” as soon as it switches to EDGE instead of 3G or GPS is in use.

Indeed, it seems like things are heating up over the new iPhone but not in a good way. Reports are springing up all over the internet of people having a scorching hot iPhones in their pockets, seeing red traces around the lithium battery and even fearing the device may catch on fire.

One user said “I have a black 32 GB 3GS and recently I experienced overheating when I was using GPS. Every time I use GPS it somehow overheats, however mild it may be. But in a region where 3G is out of reach and phone switches to Edge, the overheating is unbearable. You must shut down the phone”

For what is now the most well-known smart phone in the world, Apple needs to resolve these complaints about their lead product quickly. When things like this occurred with other manufacturers such as Dell and Toshiba due to overheating caused by Lithium batteries the companies were highly embarrassed, lost sales and had to write checks amounting to tens of millions to fund a gigantic recall of the faulty products in question.

So far, from what I can see it is the GPS, Internet and Battery that are having the blame placed on them. Others are also saying that the root cause of it all (if indeed this is as widespread of a problem as it’s made out to be) is that the new OS on the 3G S has poor power management.

Whatever the cause, Apple better hop to it to smooth this one over quick to either fix the problem or assure customers that no such problem exists. If this catches onto the mainstream consumer radar iPhone 3G S sales may plummet.

It has been confirmed by the guys at The Pirate Bay that they are in the process of selling their site. Gaming company Global Gaming Factory X is in the process of acquiring The Pirate bay for $7.8 million (SEK 60 million). The acquisition is scheduled to be completed by August and will see the site launch new business models to compensate content providers and copyright owners.

The story was broken by Torrentfreak and they are going to keep updating everyone once new information comes to light.

Global Gaming Factory X will not just acquire The Pirate Bay site but they will also acquire the file-sharing technology company Peerialism. Global Gaming Factory X claims to have the biggest network of internet cafés and gaming centers in the world, so this technology will be a great addition to their company.

Global Gaming Factory X is also very interested in changing The Pirate Bay’s business model which will allow the compensation to the content providers and copyright owners.

“We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site,” said Hans Pandeya, CEO Global Gaming Factory X.

“The Pirate Bay is a site that is among the top 100 most visited Internet sites in the world. However, in order to live on, The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary,” said Pandeya.

File-sharing technology company Peerialism will also be acquired by Global Gaming Factory X for a total of SEK 100 million, of which at least SEK 50 million will be in cash.

I find the amount of $7.8 million to be a little low, based upon The Pirate Bay having similar traffic numbers to Mininova which have 727 million pageviews per month. If each pageview could be monetized at $1.00 CPM (per 1000 views), then The Pirate Bay would be making $727,000 per month.

For Crenk Bing is now the third most popular search engine in terms of traffic. However, about a month or so ago I actually submitted our site to be added to the Bing search engine. Since this time we have seen a slight increase in traffic and our site has been indexed properly, but we still aren’t even appearing for the results we should appear for.

For example our own site name Crenk, you would think we would appear as the first result obviously. However, we still dont even appear in the results at all, even after being properly indexed by Bing.

Last Friday I treated myself to a new 17″ MacBook Pro (that’s a story for another post though!) One thing that always puts me off is as soon as I buy one a new one comes out, so I thought I would be safe buying a couple of weeks after the WWDC when it was upgraded. Of course the other big news at the WWDC was the upcoming official release of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard due to be released in September.

It made me think, do I have to pay the full price to upgrade my OS even though it’s not far away and I’ve just spent a small fortune in the Apple store?

So a bit of poking around on the Apple website came up with an interesting page (one I might add that is not well linked to!)

UK – http://www.apple.com/uk/macosx/uptodate/
US – http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/

So the deal is simple if you bought a new Mac on or after June 8th you get a special upgrade price! $9.95 USD and £7.95 GBP (gotta love Apples currency conversions!) You have to claim within 60 days of purchase and before December 26th 2009 but it seems well worth it.

You can apply at the above links pay by credit/debit card and it will be shipped upon release. Makes a nice change for Apple to do something nice seeing as they charged me £20 to buy a Mini-Display Port to DVI adaptor!!!!

There have been a lot of people reporting about the Pirate Bay’s new video site, Techcrunch UK, Mashable and Boy Genius, but the story was broken by the leading site in the Torrent space, TorrentFreak.

The basics of the story are as follows, the Pirate Bay team has continued developing its video streaming site – which will open up to the public within 5 years. On The Video Bay users can share video clips without having to worry about getting them taken offline due to copyright violations, true Pirate Bay-style.

The Pirate Bay team themselves announced about 2 years ago that they were working on a video streaming site, but we had no idea when we would actually see something. Pirate Bay Spokesman Peter Sunde agreed that it might take a while before the site goes live and told us that “it will be done when it’s done, in the future, in like a year or five.”