Ajax Girl

Skype is great, but it’s also kind of a pain in the ass if you’re talking to someone that has a crappy microphone. And Skype realizes that, so it put its engineers to work on a “super-secret” project: A headset that anyone could use, anywhere.

And today the company unveiled the FREETALK Everyman headset, a USB super wideband audio headset. While first and foremost the goal was to ensure great call quality, Skype also notes that this headset is, “lightweight and folds flat so you can throw it in your bag with your laptop.”

This mach zehnder modulatorroadtest review gives a full overview of how it works. Their conclusion? It’s good, but the best part is the price: $22.88. Good-quality headsets usually cost much more than that.

Of course, this super-secret Skype project did not solve the problem of looking like a huge dork when you are wearing a headset talking to a computer screen, but it’s a start.

You can buy the FREETALK Everyman headset here.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/H1P2fD_9kcQ/

Facebook has fast become one of the leading photo sharing sites on the web, and now video, on the web. The social network already lets you upload photos via MMS or through Facebook apps on the iPhone, Blackberry and other mobile devices. Today, Facebook is giving users another way to share photos immediately— via email.

Facebook now lets you create a unique upload email address where you can send photos and videos from anywhere you have email access on your mobile device. When you attach a photo or video to an email, you can include the comment to the photo in the subject line of the email. But if there is more than one image or video attached to the email, the caption will apply to all the attachments.

Facebook says that your email provider determines the file size of how many videos and photos you can send in one email, but the social network doesn’t have any restrictions on how many images can be uploaded via one email. Images uploaded via the email will be placed in the “Mobile Upload” photo album (where photos from MMS and apps go) and will follow the privacy settings of that album, according to Facebook.

This sounds a lot like Flickr’s option to upload via email. Similar to Facebook, Flickr gives you a unique email address that you can use to add your photos to your Flickr photostream. This move shows how important photo and video sharing is to the social network, which saw 1 billion video views last month.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/1r2o7yjlEqU/

Microsoft’s newest version of its operating system, Windows 7, is finally in the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) stage, so the OS will soon be preloaded on new computers. Though not officially released yet, Windows 7 is expected to be a hit. For instance, after just eight hours on Amazon UK, Windows 7 pre-orders outpaced the total number of pre-orders for Vista over a period of 17 weeks.

According to Microsoft, Windows 7, which offers seven different versions of the OS, has undergone significant testing, quality assurance and validation required to get to the RTM stage. Independent software and hardware vendors will be able to download Windows 7 RTM as early as August 6th. Microsoft will be rolling out Windows 7 to other partners in mid to late August. Enterprise customers and developers will be able to download Windows 7 RTM in English starting on August 7, with additional language functionality for Windows 7 released shortly after.

For the plebes/consumers, Windows 7 will be in retail stores and shipping on new PCs starting October 22nd, which we already knew. After receiving an overwhelming response from beta testers, Microsoft is also offering a “family pack” for Windows 7 that will allow installation on up to 3 PCs. The company has also officially released the new version of Expression 3, the set of tools Microsoft offers for developers to build applications off of Silverlight.

Of course, the official RTM release of Windows 7 comes at a time when Microsoft’s stranglehold of the operating system is being challenged by the recent announcement of Google’s Chrome OS. Google is scheduled to release the open source code for Chrome OS later this year, which perhaps could conveniently fall around the October launch of Windows 7. The first Chrome OS computers won’t launch until next year. While Google says the Chrome OS is targeted towards netbooks at the moment, there is definite potential for Google’s OS to expand to the other types of computers, giving Microsoft something to mull over.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/t971zML8Nek/

News has just broken that Amazon.com has purchased hot ecommerce up-and-comer Zappos for 10 million Amazon shares or $880 million. (The Amazon release said it was $807 million, but that was based on a trailing 45-day estimate of its share price. Closing price today bumps the deal up to $880 million.) Zappos employees also will get $40 million in cash and restricted stock. In other words the deal is more like $920 million all told. And Zappos management will remain in place.

This is a great exit for Zappos’ investors, including Sequoia Capital and Venture Frogs, who put in about $60 million in seven rounds.

This isn’t just one of those times when companies say the management will stay and the company will be run independently. People close to the company say Zappos has long struggled with its desire to build a company for the long term and pressures to deliver a return for investors. This deal appears to be the best of both worlds. The way it’s described to employees, it’s less an acquisition and more a swap in shareholders.

I’m digging around for details now but here’s a video Jeff Bezos did that just went to Zappos employees. The post by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is here. In a letter to employees he writes:

We plan to continue to run Zappos the way we have always run Zappos — continuing to do what we believe is best for our brand, our culture, and our business. From a practical point of view, it will be as if we are switching out our current shareholders and board of directors for a new one, even though the technical legal structure may be different.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Xwz3ckUc8e4/

Google Maps is an incredibly useful tool for searching for pretty much anything in a specific geographic area, but I used to find it annoying that I would have to conduct multiple, separate searches in Google Maps for various items along a route or point of interest. Now Google has added a feature that lets you conduct multiple searches within one search for directions.

This feature lets you add visual layers to a particular map as you add more search parameters. So let’s say you are searching for a particular route to get from one destination to another. You can now search for several restaurants and bars within that route. As you conduct multiple searches, you’ll see a blue bar at the bottom of the left side of the Maps page. You can click on it to expand the widget, which will list the searches that you have made. You can also turn searches on or off by clicking on the box to the side of each search. And each search is color coded, so you know which is which.

Google also recently added another helpful feature to its Maps product—the What’s Here option. If you right-click somewhere on a map, it will bring up a menu with a bunch of options, including “What’s here?” Google will then show you information about what is actually at the location you’re pointing at.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/NFkh30diheU/

We’ve confirmed from multiple sources that San Francisco/Seattle based music service iLike, which has been profitable since 2008, is raising new capital in an unusual transaction designed to push out Ticketmaster, an investor since 2006.

The company has raised a total of $16.5 million from the founders, Scott Banister, Bob Pittman, Vinod Khosla and Ticketmaster to date. But their last round of funding was in 2006, where Ticketmaster put the bulk of the capital in via a third round of financing that valued the company at a whopping $53.2 million.

In Q4 2008 Ticketmaster wrote down a number of their venture investments, including a $5.8 million charge for iLike. Internally, they valued that $13.3 million investment at just $7.5 million.

Now, we’ve confirmed, the founding team plus a new investor is offering to buy out all or some of Ticketmaster’s stake in the company. Founders Ali Partovi, Hadi Partovi and Nat Brown, all with significant personal fortunes, will invest part of the new round, with the new investor taking the rest.

The company isn’t commenting on this story.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/-P9WEvNfC1U/

After years of uncertainty and talk of shutting down, Internet streaming radio finally got the break it needed a few weeks ago. SoundExchange, the group responsible for setting the listening rates being charged to the Internet radio services, agreed to cut its proposed rate hikes in exchange for trade-offs such as a higher guaranteed rate. The most visible company affected by this Pandora, but it’s hardly the only one. One company we spoke to, Wowza Media, tells us it started seeing a jump in interest in its Flash-based streaming solution for content providers in anticipation of such a deal.

Technically, Wowza is a Flash media server company. That means that it competes with the likes of Adobe and Microsoft to offer up streaming media solutions for all types on content, including streaming Internet radio. While the company has long seen success in this field outside of the U.S., where the royalty rates aren’t as imposing, it was a tough sell in the U.S. with the rates being proposed. But with the new deal in place, the company sees a whole new range of possibilities.

Wowza, which has over 25,000 licenses around the world, notes that a lot of online radio is still being served through the likes of software like WinAmp. But it sees a clear trend towards doing everything with Flash, as the installed base is something like 98% just through the web browser. And it says it can easily convert stations that were going through solutions like WinAmp to be done in Flash. The hope is obviously that there will be more successful web radio services like Pandora — which is, of course, easier said than done.

But getting Internet radio streaming companies to come aboard and use its Flash streaming solution is just the first step the company envisions. Its service has also been extended over the years to provide solutions for Quicktime, Silverlight, and a host of other formats. This means even more opportunities to reach other kinds of devices, such as the iPhone, for example. As we all know, the iPhone doesn’t play Flash content, but it does play Quicktime files. The way YouTube and some others get their Flash content on the iPhone is to covert it to H.264 to play in Quicktime. That’s a solution Wowza offers as well.

Expect to see a lot more interest in Internet radio with the new royalty deal in place. And that, in turn, should lead to some other interesting opportunities for companies.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/8S2karZxT3U/

The end game for many social investing sites is to create their own investment management products that link member’s brokerage accounts to the trading data generated by the top portfolios on each site. Today, Covestor is the first major social investing site to launch a stock trading product. It is called Covestor Investment Management (CVIM).

Covestor had to become an SEC-registered investment adviser (like competitor kaChing did last December, although kaChing still has yet to launch an investment product). Covestor has seeded CVIM with ten of the top traders on its site, representing a variety of investment styles from growth to value to market timing. Most are amateurs, but there are a couple registered investment advisers and one accountant in there. You can see their portfolios on Covestor, but the ones they trade on CVIM are different and you get only an aggregate view of their returns and top holdings. Once you subscribe to them, you get a full detailed view.

What Covestor is actually selling is investment data. Each of the ten “portfolio managers” are trading for their own accounts. They never hold any of your money. CVIM merely links their trading data to a brokerage account you set up either with TD Ameritrade or Interactive Brokers. You select which accounts you want to follow, and CVIM automatically instructs the linked brokerage account to mimic the trades in proportional amounts. Covestor charges a management fee of about 1.5 percent of your assets being managed, or $12.50 per month (whichever is greater), which it splits with the investors being tracked. You also end up paying the fees for each trade to your brokerage (up to $17 per trade).

Covestor CEO Perry Blacher argues that at least you know exactly what you are paying and that this can turn out to be less than investing in a mutual or hedge fund:

With a mutual fund or hedge fund you absolutely pay per trade. It is another transparency issue. The mutual fund does pay commissions, they pay fees to the broker that sells stock to them it is just you don’t know how much commission they paid as it is reflected in your own performance. In other words they may have bought a stock at $11.25 but it will appear as if it were bought at $11.13. They wrap the commission into the cost of the security/securities.

In the end, nobody is going to care about the fees. It is the performance of each portfolio that matters. I’m not convinced that really good amateur investors can do any better than professional investors. Over time, they nearly all get beaten by the S&P 500. If you take a look at how each of the ten Covestor “model managers is doing, some are beating the S&P 500 this month, but none are beating it over the past three months. I’d definitely want to see some outperformance before I put any money behind these guys. But I like the fact that Covestor is leveling the playing field for smart investors to virtually manage funds and compete with the institutional establishment.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/2VhmNb5r8mA/

This is a video featuring Kevin Spacey. He’s a man who gets paid millions of dollars to pretend to be other men, for entertainment. And here he is on the “Late Show With David Letterman” trying to explain Twitter, the pulse of the planet, to Mr. Letterman.

Key points to remember: Twitter is free; you type with your thumbs; it’s “a waste of time.”

Mr. Spacey: “And now, I’ll get, in about an hour, lots and lots of people saying ‘hi’ back.”
Mr. Letterman: “That really is a miracle.”

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/KsdUO0d6iQQ/

Sometimes I’m looking for a word to describe a certain kind of company. One that’s small and cares about quality and is trying to do something great for a few customers instead of trying to mass produce crap in order to maximize profit. A company like Coudal Partners or Zingerman’s.

The word that usually seems to fit best is boutique. But that never seems quite right. Boutique has connotations. It conjures up fashion. Something that’s precious and hoity-toity. And it seems exclusionary too. Like it’s just for the elites or something. If someone said, “We should go with a boutique agency”…it would make me roll my eyes a bit. (And why do we always have to go French on this stuff?)

We need a new word. Something that conveys the ideas of that first paragraph without the pretentious baggage of the second paragraph.

Small is too generic. Indie has other connotations. QOQ (Quality Over Quantity) is kinda accurate but a silly acronym. Any suggestions?

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1807-seeking-a-less-pretentious-boutique