Back in November of last year, the location-based social event service Hot Potato launched at our Realtime CrunchUp. Today, they've taken what was a solid service, and made it a lot better with a number of upgrades.
First and foremost, there is a new iPhone application that just went live in the App Store. With a completely revamped user interface, the app makes it easier than ever to find and participate in events. Perhaps more importantly, it makes it really easy to create new events ? and notably, the service has the nicest third-party Foursquare integration I've ever seen. When you click on the button to create an event, you can still manually enter a location, but if you happen to be around the venue, you can simply pick it from Foursquare's list of venues with the click of a button. This drastically simplifies the event creation process since the venue metadata is already there.More
It's getting tough to keep up with all of the location-related developments leading up to this year's SXSW, and they just keep coming. Tonight, on the eve of the event, Plancast has just had its iPhone application approved. The service, which we've previously described as a 'Foursquare for the future', allows you to tell your friends where you're planning to be as opposed to where you currently are (in other words, it lets you and your friends plan ahead). You can grab the new iPhone app here.
The application itself looks solid, and includes the core functionality you'll find on the Plancast website. The main view allows you to scroll through a list of your friends' upcoming events, and tapping on an event will show you where it is on a map and who else is going. At SXSW, where there are always many panels and parties going on, this can come in handy ? sometimes it's more practical to plan ahead than it is to walk across town when you notice a few of your friends are checking in somewhere. More
This morning Google announced a new Blue Dot feature on the mobile version of Google Product Search that shows whether a product is in-stock at nearby stores. This seems to pose a threat to startup Milo, which highlights local inventory in product search results both on the web and mobile devices. Milo's co-founder Ted Dziuba subsequently responded to our post with a Tweet that read "Google Product Search has availability for 5 retailers vs. Milo?s 49. Super cool web service, bro." At launch Google only has partnerships with Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and West Elm. Milo's list of merchants includes a range of retailers, from BestBuy and Nordstrom to Midwestern regional department store Blain's Farm and Fleet.
When we asked for an additional response, Milo sent this amazing set of pictures below. Milo's Palo Alto office's are located at 165 University Avenue, in the same space as Google's first office back in 1999. Look closely at the picture and you may even see a few of the famous faces from Google's original team. The building itself is legendary in Silicon Valley and has also housed PayPal. Here's a 2007 New York Times article detailing the building's history and apparent lucky karma. The picture of the Google employees was given to Milo by one of its investors. More
Most people in the world hear Hewlett-Packard and think "printers." And who can blame them? Since the relatively recent emphasis on the "HP" instead of "Hewlett-Packard," and the general consumer move away from printers, HP hasn't really done anything noteworthy — well, other than thrive despite the decline of the business in which they made their fortune. It's like the old joke about the bricklayer and the sheep — but instead of drowning their sorrows in gin, HP is drowning them in money in an effort to rebrand the company. To that end, they've created a series of ads with the questionable tagline "Let's Do Amazing."
It's not much of a time investment: a few 30-second spots with Flight of the Conchords' Rhys Darby bumbling around some professionals who appreciate what HP does. Won't you join me for a look?More
Apple has set the standard that once every year they will release a new version of the iPhone. It stands to reason that this year will be no different, with a new model likely coming sometime this summer. But arguably just as important as Apple's hardware refresh is the accompanying software refresh that comes with it as well. And that's why it shouldn't be surprising at all that whispers of iPhone OS 4.0 are starting to grow. But this year, the timeline appears a bit off.
As AppleInsider reported today, iPhone OS 4.0 is likely to deliver multitasking support. If true, that will make it perhaps the most important OS upgrade for the platform yet. However, in reporting the news, AppleInsider also notes that the software, "remains under development and reportedly has a quite 'way to go' before it's ready for prime time." Looking back at the iPhone OS SDK history you'll notice a constant: Apple has released the beta builds in March the past two years. We're already well into March this year, and so far, no word about Apple being close to doing the same.More
As I've made abundantly clear over the past several days, just about every service that has anything to do with location is launching something at the SXSW festival which starts tomorrow in Austin, Texas. Don't believe me, here's a small sampling (Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, Whrrl, Plancast, Brizzly, Twitter). So, how are you going to wrap your head around all this location data? SimpleGeo has an awesome way.
Vicarious.ly is a real-time location-based stream of information presented in a nice visual way. While the plan is to eventually launch one for many different cities around the U.S. and eventually the world, the first one is based around Austin, for SXSW. To make it, SimpleGeo partnered with BlockChalk, Brightkite, Bump Technologies, Flickr, Fwix, Foursquare, Gowalla, and Twitter to pull all of their location data and place it both in a constantly-updating stream, and put data points on a Google Map at the top of the page. These data points are represented by the logos of the various companies, so it's easy to follow visually.More
Last November, MSNBC acquired the Twitter account @breakingnews, which was started as a basic newswire by Michael van Poppel and gradually grew to 1.4 million followers (it's now up to over 1.6 million). A month later, MSNBC announced that it had acquired BreakingNews.com, which has become a web portal for the online newswire. And today, it's managed to complete the trifecta: MSNBC has just launched a Facebook Page at Facebook.com/BreakingNews.
MSNBC spokesperson Gina Stikes says that the new Facebook account will only send updates for the biggest stories to break (you can still use its other feeds if you want to receive every story to come from the service). The page is obviously still quite new (it only has 645 fans right now), but you can expect that the grow quickly.More
Aol launched Lifestream, a social aggregator and publisher, as part of their AIM platform at TechCrunch50 Last Fall. Since then it has gained nearly 2 million users, say Aol. Based on that success Aol is now launching Lifestream as a standalone product at lifestream.aol.com.
Like Friendfeed, Lifestream aggregates a number of third party social networks - Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Foursquare, Delicious, Digg, Flickr, YouTube, etc., so if you follow a Lifestream user you'll see all of the content that user publishes on those networks, and Lifestream automatically pulls in content from people you already follow on those various social networks, so you don't have to create yet another new friend list. Lifestream isn't yet integrated with Google Buzz, but Aol says it may be coming soon.
Users can filter out content from specific networks if they like, on a per user or broad basis. A way to think about this - "noise cancellation for social networks."More
Google just launched a new feature on the mobile version of Google Product Search which could take local shopping search startup Milo out at the knees. Whenever you do a Google product search from a mobile phone, blue dots will appear next to items which are in-stock at nearby stores. The image at right is from a search I just did for "HDTVs." The blue dots are subtle, but they certainly distinguish those results. Google has partnerships with Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and West Elm to show local inventory, and it is inviting other merchants to apply to participate as well.
Highlighting local inventory in product search results is exactly what Milo does, although it works on the Web as well as mobile. Milo will have to try to keep one step ahead of Google now that its business has been targeted as a feature of Google Product search.More
In January, private company stock marketplace SecondMarketpublished data on private company stock sales that they helped complete in 2009. And February's report showed the transactions that took place in January, which showed a strong demand for consumer products and services startups. The majority of transactions in January were sales of Facebook stock. SecondMarket just released its February report, which you can download here.
Transactions more tripled in February, from $13 million in sales to $43.8 million in sales last month. A full 48% of the transactions were sales of Facebook stock, compared to 38% in January. And last month, we reported that sales are being completed for as high as $40 per share (or a $17.6 billion valuation). But we learned this week that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is in no rush to take the company public. LinkedIn took 18% of the transactions, and sales of both Twitter and Zynga stock were each 15% of the total. LifeLock rounded the group out with 4% of the total.More
An Irish American pastor in Boulder, Colorado has defended his decision not to allow a child of a lesbian couple to continue to attend Catholic school in his parish. The child is currently in pre-school there.
Thats right, The internet is among 237 individuals and organisations nominated for the prize, advocated by the Italian version of Wired magazine for advancing "dialogue, debate and consensus"
A 10-year effort by a scientist to develop transgenic rainbow trout with enhanced muscle growth has yielded fish with what have been described as six-pack abs and muscular shoulders that could provide a boost to the commercial aquaculture industry.
The 51-year-old McGill will soon face five separate trials involving each daughter. He's charged with 27 felonies, including sexual assault, lewdness, child endangerment, and criminal sexual contact.
We wanted to celebrate those stars who hit it big, took some time off and are back in action -- bigger than ever. Call it a comeback, because these 10 stars are shining brighter than ever.
This gallery aims to show what life could be like if Pokemon really did exist in the real world, and it?s taken a hell of a lot of awesome photoshop to paint that picture.
Half a century ago, thousands of pregnant women in 46 countries took a drug for morning sickness that would later be discovered to cause severe malformations in developing fetuses. Worldwide, roughly 10,000 affected children nicknamed "thalidomide babies" were born with multiple defects, including the characteristic shortened upper limbs (a condition known as phocomelia, Greek for "seal limbs"), before the drug was discontinued in 1961 after four years on the market.
An electric insulator, in the simplest terms, blocks the flow of electric current. So it would be a bit counterintuitive, to say the least, if a current on one side of an insulator could produce voltage on the other. [More]
African crop yields wither, along with the Amazon rainforest; Himalayan glaciers disappear by 2035. These are the erroneous predictions ascribed to the most recent report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)--a document reviewed by some 2,500 scientists and other experts as well as vetted by more than 190 countries. So does the fact that a few errors crept into a more than 3,000 page report merit a revision of IPCC processes? [More]
The forward momentum of medical progress is manifest, it could be argued, in the $50 billion spent in 2008 on pharmaceutical research and development in the quest to bring new drugs to market. But little scientific or governmental infrastructure exists to ensure that each new treatment is actually an improvement over existing therapies--and to tease out what therapies are best for which patients. [More]
Every 30 minutes, all of the blood in our bodies is filtered through two fist-size kidneys. But diseases such as diabetes can cause them to fail, leading to a build-up of chemicals in the blood that without dialysis (mechanical blood filtration) or a kidney transplant would be fatal. And the wait for a new kidney can be long, unless someone you know is willing to give one of theirs to you. [More]
WASHINGTON--Every second, our bodies capture carbon dioxide in our tissues, transport it via the blood, and dump it in the lungs from where it is exhaled. This unconscious process is yet another way humans contribute to the accumulation of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere--albeit in a minuscule volume compared with burning fossil fuels . The key to this metabolic process is an enzyme called carbonic anhydrase and it's efficiency at capturing and releasing CO2 is what human engineers want to mimic at the power plant scale. [More]
Spotting a disease in its earliest stages can help to facilitate its treatment greatly, yet telltale clues are often hidden at a scale too small to study accurately. This hindrance has some researchers looking for ways to use high-powered atomic force microscopes (AFMs) to study individual molecules for disease markers [More]
Outnumbering our human cells by about 10 to one, the many minuscule microbes that live in and on our bodies are a big part of crucial everyday functions. The lion's share live in the intestinal tract, where they help fend off bad bacteria and aid in digesting our dinners. But as scientists use genetics to uncover what microbes are actually present and what they're doing in there, they are discovering that the bugs play an even larger role in human health than previously suspected--and perhaps at times exerting more influence than human genes themselves. [More]
Earth's robust magnetic field protects the planet and its inhabitants from the full brunt of the solar wind, a torrent of charged particles that on less shielded planets such as Venus and Mars has over the ages stripped away water reserves and degraded their upper atmospheres. Unraveling the timeline for the emergence of that magnetic field and the mechanism that generates it--a dynamo of convective fluid in Earth's outer core--can help constrain the early history of the planet, including the interplay of geologic, atmospheric and astronomical processes that rendered the world habitable. [More]
Although any T. Rex –enthralled kid will tell you that a gigantic asteroid wiped the dinosaurs off the planet, scientists have always regarded this impact theory as a hypothesis subject to revision based on further evidence gathered from around the globe. Other possible causes, such as volcanism and smaller, multiple asteroid strikes, never actually went away, and over the years researchers raised important points that did not fully jibe with a history-changing celestial impact near the Yucatan peninsula one awful day some 65.5 million years ago. [More]
Shortly after the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, the new organization sent 100 photographers out to document the human and natural environments. After a lively few years, the Documerica project was canceled and the photos were archived. Now, this incredible portrait of America in the mid-1970s is making its way onto Flickr.
Minnesota seeks to distinguish itself in the increasingly reality TV-esque race to convince Google to build a high-speed fiber optic network there with a video featuring junior US Senator (and former comedian) Al Franken. It's funny stuff, but also serious business as Google shakes up the notoriously uncompetitive ISP business just by showing up.
The key to your health may be the feedback loop that a lot of new health data-gathering gadgets can create. It's like a game where your stats are the score, and a better score means better health.
A co-conspirator in the TJX hack was sentenced Thursday to 3 years and 10 months in prison for laundering money on behalf of TJX hacker Albert Gonzalez.
After a second jury is hopelessly deadlocked, hate blogger Hal Turner is granted a another mistrial in the government's quest to imprison him on accusations he threatened to "kill" judges.
A Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the future of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter finds the next-generation stealth aircraft years behind schedule and soaring over budget.
This is a guest post from Gregor Schauer, who has worked in tech in Silicon Valley since 2000. Gregor has also recently spent 2 years in equity research at JMP Securities and Jefferies, covering the Internet sector and enterprise software. You can follow him on Twitter here. Disclosure: Gregor owns Apple and Google shares.
One of the more curious things about the patent infringement lawsuit that Apple filed against HTC is why it didn't file one against Palm first. There had already been a lot of speculation about Apple suing Palm, but virtually no one saw them taking on HTC first. Interestingly, an unintended consequence of this lawsuit is that it potentially increases the value of Palm's patent portfolio, and strengthens the case for them to be acquired.
So what is the market valuing Palm at? After the huge smack on the head that the stock got after the company's recent miserable revenue guidance, it's $759 million for WebOS + all of Palm's patents + their existing business. This is the enterprise value of the company, or what the company would cost to an acquirer if it was purchased for its current market value. (Though, a buyer will likely have to pay a premium.)
This is a report from our premium subscription research service The Internet Analyst. The service is currently in free beta. To sign up, please submit your name and email address here.
We've heard from a number of industry executives that serious M&A discussions in the social gaming space have heated up since Electronic Arts' (EA) acquisition of Playfish for about $400 million in late 2009 (including earnouts). The companies seriously looking at social gaming acquisitions are not just big console gaming companies like EA or Activision, they include big media companies like Viacom and Asian companies as well.
We see a few drivers of the increased activity:
Virtual goods continue to generate exponential revenue growth rates in the US and are on fire in 2010.
Low barriers to entry and inexpensive marketing opportunities have given less-capitalized private companies such a large head start it makes sense for larger competitors to just buy them (and their experienced teams) versus funding competing products internally.
This is a report from our premium subscription research service The Internet Analyst. The service is currently in free beta. To sign up, please submit your name and email address here.
Mobile commerce represents a significant opportunity - 90% of Americans own a cell-phone but only 7% of them have conducted a transaction on their phone, according to Nielsen. This, despite technology that makes it increasingly easy to buy goods on your phone: we tested one company's offerings on our phone and it was surprisingly straightforward with minimal steps.
Still, calls to companies and executives in the industry indicate that while mobile commerce experienced exponential growth off of a small base in 2009, it is still years from being a ubiquitous, mass-market industry. For this report we focus on the sale of physical goods via mobile phones, not virtual goods, and include both remote commerce (buying goods on mobile websites) and mobile payments (paying for goods with your phone). Specifically:
Revenue growth spiked beginning in mid-2009 for retailers with mobile offerings.
Smaller retailers are now helping drive industry growth in addition to the largest ones.
Near Field Communications could enable the industry to scale to ubiquity, but all the stakeholders need to support this and we're likely years from that happening.
Updated to reflect a second source saying there was smoke, but no fire.
We just got a call from a source at BusinessWeek who says everyone is evacuating the office.
Not because Bloomberg is cleaning house today, which it is, but because there's a fire on the 43rd floor of the McGraw Hill building where BusinessWeek operates.
Beginning Thursday, latte addicts who visit Starbucks outlets can get more than just a caffeine fix. They will also be rewarded on Foursquare with a barista badge.
Here in the Valley, there’s a weird awe of Google. It reminds me of the awe that Apple once had when I was there — as a place where the best and brightest go to work. I’ve heard that Intel had that cachet before Apple and some people are now suggesting that Twitter is the “new Google”.
The awe is often evident in specific stories about Google’s gourmet cafeterias. This benefit gets discussed after people visit Google. I find it amusing to read notes from well-regarded analysts and reports, people who can afford a $10 salad, as they tweet about getting the free food. And they go on to talk about Google with reverence that’s somehow tied to the free food.
If you're in the market for a netbook — the gimpy kittens of the laptop jungle — know this first: on the inside, they're all basically the same. Making the little differences all the more important! And yes, they do add up.
For our Battlemodo, we decided to look only at netbooks powered by Intel's Pine Trail (Atom N450) processor. Netbooks sporting older processors are a bit cheaper, but they're also a little slower and don't achieve the same impressive battery life as Pine Trail. And they've been reviewed to death elsewhere.
The review aims to help the U.N. climate change panel avoid the kinds of errors that have brought its work into question in recent months, officials said Wednesday.
For the first time, the complete, original manuscript of the theory of relativity, profoundly human and surprisingly moving to examine, has been put on display in Jerusalem.
When the software mogul Mitch Kapor won planning approval for his 10,000-square-foot house in Berkeley, Calif., neighbors were surprised that it will qualify as ?green.?
It's that give-it-to-the-government time of year again, and we want to hear about your favorite tools for making the taxman's sting a little less severe. More »
Our favorite text expansion app for OS X updates, the latest build of Chromium adds Aero Peek support for tabs, and the inventor of the cellphone prefers Android. More »
It's hard for a lot of us to separate our work and home lives under the best of circumstances. When you work from home it's even more difficult, but blogger Pat Flynn found a method that works for him. More »
Knowing that you're getting a federal tax refund is awesome, but the wait for it to land in your bank account or mailbox can be maddening. Finance blog Get Rich Slowly show us how to check the status of your refund anytime. More »
Having experience of an industry veteran is great, but appearing old and out of touch during a job interview is not. Follow these guidelines to avoid looking like a dinosaur. More »
Dear Lifehacker, I get bad customer service from companies time and again over the phone, and I'd like to record these calls so I have proof. I've also heard this might be illegal—are there any legal problems associated with this? More »
At last year's South by Southwest Interactive festival, I experienced shoulder burns, a perpetually dead laptop, frantic text messages, and very little sleep. This year, I'm planning on taking Lifehacker's own advice on travel tools and actually enjoying myself. Here's how. More »
We love seeing all the workspaces of Lifehacker readers, and a peek into a whole office is a special treat. Today's featured workspace is the offices of design studio 38one. More »
Brilliant single-use web utility x.minutes.at puts a timed limit on any browser tab with ease. Got five minutes to browse Lifehacker but don't want to let that five minutes turn into 20? Visit http://5.minutes.at/lifehacker.com. Rinse and repeat for any site. More »
There's an informal assumption that spinach and other leafy greens lose nutrients the longer they sit on grocery store shelves, and it's actually backwards. A plant physiologist in Texas says supermarket lighting actually boosts the vitamin content in your salad fixings. More »
Back in November of last year, the location-based social event service 
This morning Google 
Apple has set the standard that once every year they will release a new version of the iPhone. It stands to reason that this year will be no different, with a new model likely coming sometime this summer. But arguably just as important as Apple's hardware refresh is the accompanying software refresh that comes with it as well. And that's why it shouldn't be surprising at all that whispers of iPhone OS 4.0 are starting to grow. But this year, the timeline appears a bit off.
As 
As I've made abundantly clear over the past several days, just about every service that has anything to do with location is launching something at the SXSW festival which starts tomorrow in Austin, Texas. Don't believe me, here's a small sampling (
Last November, MSNBC 
Aol 
Google just launched a new feature on the mobile version of Google Product Search which could take local shopping search startup 
In January, private company stock marketplace 
This is a guest post from Gregor Schauer, who has worked in tech in Silicon Valley since 2000. Gregor has also recently spent 2 years in equity research at JMP Securities and Jefferies, covering the Internet sector and enterprise software. You can 
We've heard from a number of industry executives that serious M&A discussions in the social gaming space have heated up since 
Mobile commerce represents a significant opportunity - 90% of Americans own a cell-phone but only 7% of them have conducted a transaction on their phone, according to Nielsen. This, despite technology that makes it increasingly easy to buy goods on your phone: we tested one company's offerings on our phone and it was surprisingly straightforward with minimal steps. 
Updated to reflect a second source saying there was smoke, but no fire.
Nilofer Merchant is CEO and Chief Strategist of 
