Technology And Gadget News Tech-Point.Info

Medea Vodka’s Programmable LED Bottle Display Knows How To Say “When”

Sean Fallon — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:16:30 +0000

But it doesn’t know when to say “when”—that part is up to you. The gimicky LED display is programmable for messages up to 255 characters in length, and will scroll for approximately 40 hours before the battery runs out. The way I see it, Medea should have taken it a step further and launched a twitter [...]

How Journalists are Using Social Media for Real Results

Brenna Ehrlich — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:12:31 +0000

The Real Results series is supported by Gist, an online service that helps you build stronger relationships. By connecting your inbox to the web,…

New Money Going To Venture Funds Down 31 Percent In First Quarter

Erick Schonfeld — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 16:53:11 +0000

Venture capital firms are having their own problems raising new money from limited partners. Capital inflows in the first quarter were down 31 percent annually to $3.6 billion in the U.S., according to the National Venture Capital Association. Venture funds were also down 11 percent from the fourth quarter. Only 32 funds were able to raise money in the first quarter, down from 44 last quarter and 57 a year ago. Only 5 new funds were launched, with the vast majority of the money going to established funds, including Battery Ventures and Oak Investment Partners. Both raised new $750 million funds.

25 Startups That Will Be Shaping The Next Web

Robin Wauters — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 16:52:58 +0000

April promises to be quite the busy month for European startups that are preparing to launch on stage. As Mike Butcher wrote earlier today, GeeknRolla will be rocking London on April 20, with a host of great speakers and fledgling tech companies dying to show off their stuff. A week after that, I'll be attending the fifth edition of The Next Web conference, an annual event held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Live from Microsoft’s Project Pink Unveiling

Greg Kumparak — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 16:43:35 +0000

Another day, another liveblog. We're live in San Francisco, where Microsoft's mobile team is expected to finally pull back the curtains on their long rumored, oft-leaked Project Pink. We're expecting them to unveil at least two new pieces of hardware today (previously known as "Turtle" and "Pure"), though we're not sure if they'll be running Windows Phone 7 or... something else. The show is scheduled to begin at 10:00 A.M sharp. We're in our seats, batteries charged and WiFi pumping -- join us after the jump for our up-to-the-minute liveblog.

Predator With Nunchucks Lamp Table

Sean Fallon — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 16:40:29 +0000

I realize you have a lot of choices when it comes to Predator nunchuck lamp tables, but if you can only pick one—make it his version from ProMech. Also available carrying a sword, spear and laser gun. Product Page (£180 or $277 via Latemag)

Google Docs Gets More Realtime; Adds Google Drawings To The Mix

Erick Schonfeld — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:58:32 +0000

Slowly but surely, Google keeps trying to chip away at Microsoft's core Office productivity suite with Google Docs, its free online word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation software. Today, Google Drawing is being added to the mix and Google Docs and Spreadsheets is getting a major realtime update. Both are being announced at Google's Atmosphere event. Google Drawings is not really a drawing app, it's more of an online whiteboard. The app is designed to help people visualize ideas through flow charts, diagrams, and stencils. There is a chat window where participants can chime in. Images can be imported and moved around. But sadly there is no freehand drawing option. The real news, though, is that Google Docs and Spreadsheets is getting more realtime.

Twitter Launches A New Guide For Media Organizations

Jason Kincaid — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:43:53 +0000

Twitter has just launched a new site called Twitter Media, where it's offering media organizations and journalists some case studies and guidelines to better connect with their Twitter fans. Alongside the new portal, Twitter has also launched an official Twitter Media account. The site has the description, "Knowledge and tools to help you use Twitter to transform media, entertainment, and journalism." at the top, then gets right down to business with a series of blog posts. The first details how the Oxygen network used Twitter and other networks to hold a "social viewing party" as an episode was broadcast, which helped boost ratings 92%. (As a control the network only did this on the East Coast; the West Coast, which didn't hold a "viewing party", only saw a 14% increase in ratings over the previous season of the show).

AppsFire Hands Out iPhone / iPad App Star Awards (Videos of the Winners)

Robin Wauters — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:40:31 +0000

Freshly funded mobile app discovery startup AppsFire has handed out some App Star Awards to a number of developers of unlaunched iPhone / iPad applications this morning at the 360iDev conference in San Jose, California. This was the second edition of the App Star Awards - the first one was held at the Le Web conference in Paris last year (check out the winners of the first edition).

Magnetic Accelerator Cannon: Where Physics Meets Physical Comedy

Sean Fallon — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:02:48 +0000

This simple device uses the power of strong magnets to propel balls of steel at fantastic speeds. Speaking of steel balls, you will need ‘em should you ever find yourself standing in the wrong place at the wrong time around this thing. Product Page ($30)

Congrats To Our Dawn of The Dreadfuls Winners!

Sean Fallon — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:02:36 +0000

Congrats to Arthur Mahler and Lucy Twitchell, the winners of our Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls contest. Soon they will be immersed in a world of 19th century manners, morals and zombie mayhem.

Opera Now 100 Million Strong (Half On Mobile)

Leena Rao — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:40:53 +0000

Browser maker Opera Software is announcing a milestone today: 100 million people are now using Opera's browsers. Interestingly, half of the audience are using the mobile version of Opera's Browser, Opera Mini. As of March 2010, 50 million unique active users were browsing on Opera's desktop offering on Windows, Mac and Linux computers and 50 million people were using Opera's mobile browser. While user growth of Opera's desktop offering has increased over 30 percent from last year, Opera Mini is growing much faster in terms of usage. In February, Opera Mini saw a 145 percent increase in users from the previous year. And Opera Mini's growth is steady. Each month, the conclusion is always the same: mobile web usage around the world keeps on growing and growing. Clearly, the most significant growth is taking place in Opera's mobile offering.

Whose Twitter Followers Are Dumber? [Apps]

Brenna Ehrlich — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:23:58 +0000

Ever wonder who’s more stupid: Justin Bieber’s followers or Ashton Kutcher’s? Well, wonder no more — there’s a new app in town that will gauge Twitter idiocy for you.
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GoGoStat Competes With Ping To Sync Your Social Networks

Leena Rao — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:15:13 +0000

Managing your multiple different social network streams and accounts can be a time consuming task for some. A number of startups aim to help you publish to multiple social networks at the same time including Ping.fm and HelloTxt. GoGoStat Sync, a startup developed by a number of ex-Microsoft employees is hoping to make the syncing of social network a bit easier today by allowing users to organize and update their profiles on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Flickr. We have 1000 GoGoStat Sync invites for TechCrunch readers. To enable an invite, click here and enter the code "39F34F94." On GoGoStat Sync, you can synchronize contacts and photos across multiple social media sites, publish status updates across sites, and sync address books with social networks and email accounts. Similar to other syncing applications, users can decide which social networks to automatically sync updates to. For example, you can automatically send tweets to Facebook and MySpace as status updates.

Han Solo Carbonite Soap: Wash Off That Holy Crap!

Sean Fallon — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:07:03 +0000

This Han Solo carbonite soap is awesome. In fact, I suggest you buy two when Luxury Lane restocks. One to keep and one to rub sensually all over your body—dwelling a little longer on the nipples and crotch. Han will be free in no time. Product Page ($6.50 via Geekleetist via The Awesomer)

British scientists discover deep-sea volcanoes in Caribbean

Alaska — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:54:55 +0000

British scientists have discovered new undersea volcanic vents over half a mile deeper than those found in previous locations.

The vents -- found 3.1 miles deep in the Cayman Trough -- are known as 'black smokers' and expel superheated water into the ocean creating a unique habitat for many types of deep-sea creatures. The discoveries have forced scientists to rethink traditional held values of what can survive in such extreme circumstances.

From their ship, the team, made up of several scientists from the University of Southampton as well as researchers from other institutions worldwide, used a remotely controlled deep-sea diving vehicle to survey the Caribbean Sea floor where they found spires of copper and iron ore channelling scalding water into the ocean from under the sea floor.

NachoFoto Launches Realtime Image Search Portal

Leena Rao — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:50:21 +0000

A new realtime search engine is launching today but this portal is focused solely on images. Startup NachoFoto is launching a realtime image search engine that helps users find the latest images related to current events. NachoFoto will autosuggest search terms for you, but the site only indexes photo related to current or trending topics on the web. The site will crawl the web and blogs (but not Flickr or other photo sharing sites) for images related to current topics.

Best Buy Officially Selling Nook reader

John Biggs — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:10:36 +0000

Barnes & Noble and Best Buy have teamed up to sell B&N's Nook ereader on April 18, just as we predicted. As the press release states, this is just in time for Mother's/Father's Day, graduation, and the Feasts of St. Apollonius the Apologist and St. Wicterp. The Nook will cost $259.99 and will be available in Best Buy stores. As you recall, the Nook has generated quite a bit of buzz but folks across the country have had trouble finding them in the wild. By selling them in Best Buy, B&N is at least assured of a relatively larger audience of tech-savvy consumers walking past its displays. However, because Best Buy is also selling the iPad, I suspect those same consumers will find the Nook - heck, even the Kindle - a hard sell after eying Apple's latest creation. As we mentioned before, Kindle and Nook are excellent ereaders with great battery life. However, I'm concerned that smaller, cheaper ereaders, some without eink screens, will be taking their share of this sub-$300 market from Amazon and B&N.

Korea’s NHN Buys Japanese Portal Livedoor For $68 Million

Serkan Toto — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:10:21 +0000

Big news from the Asian Internet industry today: Korea's web behemoth NHN has sealed a $68 million deal to acquire major Japanese Internet service provider Livedoor from parent company LDH Corp. (whose stakeholders include Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs). LDH also plans to pay a dividend of $32 million ahead of its sale to NHN. LDH's main asset is the eponymous portal service whose 30 million unique users per month make it one of the biggest in Japan (it's ranked No. 7 on Alexa Japan). LDH, formerly known as Livedoor Holdings, delisted in April 2006 in the wake of an accounting fraud scandal. It's still embroiled in post-scandal lawsuits filed by Livedoor shareholders.

ZoomSafer Raises $1 Million, Could Be Your Next Personal Safe Driving Assistant

Robin Wauters — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 12:58:09 +0000

ZoomSafer, developer of safe driving software for mobile phones, has raised an additional $1 million round of financing from SugarOak Holdings. Daniel Baker, CEO of SugarOak Holdings, has joined the company's board of directors as part of the funding deal. Zoomsafer markets what it refers to as a "personal safe driving assistant", software for mobile phones that aims to prevent distracted driving.