Founded by Dave Morin, the co-inventor of Facebook Connect, Sean Fanning, the co-inventor of Napster, and Dustin Mierau, the co-inventor of Macster, Path has some serious street cred when it comes to social and sharing. What’s more, there was the impressive list of investors backing the photo-sharing app in November of last year, and the sizable series A follow-on investment led by Kleiner Perkins in February.

At about the same time, Google reportedly tried to buy the startup for $100 million+, to which Path collectively said “no, thank you”. The Google acquisition offer was likely a play at scooping up an impressive, design-oriented team and a high-profile former Facebooker would have been a nice addition.

Yet, though Path may have been showing Zynga-like engagement early on, the question has been whether or not Path could scale and find user adoption before it ran out of money. Those questions have continued to be hurled at Path, but today CEO Dave Morin put some of the speculation to rest, announcing from the stage at The Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco that the app is nearing 1 million users.

For those unfamiliar, Path is designed to help people share moments from their lives in context and in small, tight circles of friends and family. Path focuses (and will only continue to do more so) on one’s “trusted relationships”, which is why users are only able to share with 150 people — at most.

It’s a sharing model that many victims of Facebook’s sometimes complicated privacy settings and trend of over-sharing can get very excited about; however, Google+ is really trying to do the same thing and will provide some serious competition for Path going forward, whether the founders want to acknowledge that or not. Over the last 90 days, 3.4 billion photos have been uploaded to Google+, and Vic Gundotra and Sergey Brin both said from the stage today that Google’s social network is designed to be more like interacting socially in real life. You don’t share everything with everyone.

Of course, Path is all about the mobile sharing experience. And when Path 2 arrives sometime in the not-so-distant future, you can count on the new version continuing to privilege simplicity, intimacy, and ease of sharing. On stage today, Morin said that mobile users find themselves in many moments, where they want to talk to loved ones or family members about first dates, injuries, etc., and that these kind of moments are not always appropriate for Twitter or Facebook shares.

Thus, the startup wants to be the alternative path to mobile sharing. Privacy and intimacy first and foremost. But Path 2 better have some exciting new features, because Google+ will only continue to add integration with Google Apps, work in APIs, spread further across mobile, and at that point, Path may be in trouble.

Greylock VC and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman talked about his Web 3.0 idea (Big Data quel surprise) here at Web 2.0 about the implementation layer on top of this data. When asked by moderator John Battelle what he thought about his own investment (and what some might consider a competitor) Facebook, Hoffman said, “Not everything has to be social,” he said “Facebook has a lot of huge things to do,” the interest lies in figuring out how to do that.

Hoffman then listed the current prominent “social” platforms, “Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter … and a fourth thing.” He expressed the most hope about the fourth thing, “It’s the creation of he new things that’s stunning and different and interesting.”

Hoffman was steadfast in his idea that LinkedIn is a one of the cool kids. When Information Week’s David Carr prefaced asking Hoffman a question by, “LinkedIn is for old people,” Hoffman snapped back wittily, “Like the people that would give you a job?”

Carr went on to argue that young people already have established a social identity on Facebook, and have no need to join linkedIn. “We actually do reach a younger demographic,” Hoffman responded, citing statistics he couldn’t reveal. What he could reveal? That the social network is now adding “2 members per second.”

“My daughter is on LinkedIn …,” the next person in the Q&A told Hoffman, reinforcing his point.

Remember that 3D TV bundle that Sony announced at E3? Well, it’s finally arriving. A little later than we’d hoped, but at least it’s out in time for the holidays.

According to the Playstation Blog, the 32″ TV should be generally available on November 13th. They also answer a busload of questions about the TV, in case you were curious about the inputs, 3D glasses, and so on.

It’s too late to get a copy of Resistance 3 with your pre-order, which is too bad because I’ve heard good things about the game. You will get a copy of Motorstorm: Apocalypse, however.

The display comes with a pair of 3D glasses and an HDMI cable. It seems like a pretty solid TV for a dorm room or small apartment; Sony TVs are generally pretty solid and this one is probably a good performer as well. I’m happy with my six-year-old Dell monitor, but you might like this thing, what with its 240Hz and built-in speakers. Plus, with that shape, you can hold your hands up from a distance and pretend it’s a Vita.

Gallery: Lytro camera hands-on

Continue reading Lytro camera hands-on (video)

Lytro camera hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Oct 2011 19:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Playstation 3D Display hits shelves November 13, Sony answers your burning questions

Playstation 3D Display hits shelves November 13, Sony answers your burning questions originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.