Monthly Archives: October 2009
100 OF THE NERDIEST HALLOWEEN COSTUMES
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays because it really brings out the creativity in all of us. We see people walking around dressed like vampires, doctors, nurses, wolves, politicians, and superheroes. The most creative costumes I have seen are by far the ones that belong to the geeks on this list.
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Categories Halloween, Lists
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Pennsylvania Middle Schoolers Trained To Sing Bing Goes The Internet
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) decided to take Jonathan Mann’s Bing jingle and teach it to a bunch of middle school students in Pennsylvania. Mann won a $500 content that Microsoft held for creating a song about Bing. TechCrunch’s MG Siegler criticized the song so Mann retaliated by making a song about the editor.
Mann sent the below video to TechCrunch with the e-mail message:
I literally cried a little bit when I saw this video. On the one hand I’m happy I was able to provide some kids with an excuse not to do school work for a few hours. On the other hand, not sure how I feel about these kids being indoctrinated into the cult of, well, whatever. It’s kinda creepy. But on the other-other hand, the kids do look damn happy. So…oh well?
Hopefully the students at Keith Valley Middle School get some sort of compensation for synchronized singing and dancing Microsoft services. Especially because the school cheerleading instructor spent about 12 days teaching 6th graders the dance.
Categories Microsoft Bing, Microsoft Corporation
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Zazzle Being Sued Over Custom Twilight Gear
Zazzle is an online retail company where users can customize apparel, mugs, postage, cards, etc. Zazzle is now being sued by Summit Entertainment, the company behind the licensing rights for the Twilight series. A lot of tweens have used Zazzle to make Twilight gear and this clearly did not make Summit happy whatsoever. This is why Summit is suing Zazzle.
While Zazzle themselves aren’t the ones that decide the design, they still are the ones that customize the goods. Summit claimed trademark violation and defamation.
In November 2008 Zazzle was sent a cease-and-desist letter, but the company continued to sell the items. Summit said that this is considered “willful” infringement. Summit is seeking punitive damages, injunction, and accounting damages.
Categories Summit Entertainment, Zazzle
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Over 500,000 Users Are On Google Voice Every Day
Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has been having some success with Google Voice. The service has about 1.42 million users and 570,000 of them use it every single day. The numbers were revealed in an FCC document filed by Google and discovered by BusinessWeek.
The same document revealed Google’s plans to expand the Voice service abroad. Google Voice allows users to have a universal number that forwards to a person’s mobile phone, work phone, or home phone. Google Voice was developed through the acquisition of GrandCentral. Google supposedly payed close to $50 million for GrandCentral in July 2007.
Categories Google, Google Voice, GrandCentral
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Addiction Recovery Social Network OneRecovery Raises $1.49 Million
OneRecovery is an addiction recovery social network that has raised $1.49 million in funding. The funding round was discovered in an SEC filing by SoCalTech. The $1.49 million round of funding was part of a $2.5 million fund-raising round. OneRecovery is led by David Metzler. Metzler is a former VC with Mission Ventures and also previously worked as an investment banker at CIBC World Markets. Metzler himself almost died from drugs and alcohol which is the reason why he started OneRecovery.
Categories CIBC World Markets, David Metzler, Mission Ventures, OneRecovery
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Intel Capital Portfolio Company Enjoyor Technology Group Goes IPO
“We congratulate Enjoyor on its IPO and support the launch of the Growth Enterprise Market,” stated Intel Capital President and EVP Arvind Sodhani. “We see the emergence of a liquid and thriving domestic Chinese equity market such as GEM as critical and essential for growth and emergence of successful innovative technology companies in our portfolio like Enjoyor.”
Yesterday Enjoyor Technology Group went public on the China Growth Enterprise Market. Intel Capital’s investment was made about 8 months ago. Intel signed a 3 year business collaboration deal as part of the investment. Enjoyor is helping Intel push their Atom processors in the areas of digital health-care in China too.
Intel Capital put in about $7.5 billion in companies since 1991. The $7.5 billion were spread across about 1,000 companies in about 45 countries. Of those 1,000 companies, 168 have gone public and 212 have been acquired or merged.
Categories Arvind Sodhani, Intel, Intel Capital
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Tesla Gets A $28.8 Million California Tax Break
Tesla Motors seems to be getting their way lately. A lawsuit has been dropped. The company made a profit this past July. The U.S. Department of Energy and Daimler both invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the company. On top of all this luck, the state of California decided to give Tesla a $28.8 million tax break.
The tax break was made by the California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority. The break will save Tesla taxes on $320 million worth of equipment according to VentureBeat.
Categories Tesla Motors
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Ford and Univ. of Michigan Partnering On Cloud Project
Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) and The University of Michigan are now working together on a project that involves bringing cloud systems to cars. The service would be an add-on to Microsoft and Ford’s partnership on the Sync system. Sync is an in-car communications and entertainment system. Sync allows you to command your car to perform certain tasks using your voice.
The project between The U of M and Ford has the code-name American Journey 2.0. This will give U of M students the opportunity to work with a development operating system that could possibly benefit future Ford customers. “Already with Sync we have proven that we can access information in the cloud,” stated Ford head of infotronics Venkatesh Prasad. The infotronics division at Ford is part of the Research & Advanced Engineering department. “This research gives us the opportunity to harness the power of student innovation to explore beyond those capabilities and develop what’s next. We want the students to get creative and develop ways to responsibly connect the car to communicate and share with the outside world.”
“What excites me about this project is that it gives our students the opportunity to unleash their creativity using cutting-edge technologies that connect the vehicle and the cloud,” added U of M associate professor Dr. Jason Flinn.
American Journey 2.0 will be divided into two phases. The first phase involves testing and attempting to break the system by running several applications. During the second phase, an in-vehicle connectivity platform will be built.
After the platform is done, a competition will be held. The judges of the competition include representatives from Microsoft, Ford, the U of M, Maker Faire, and several others. The winning application developers will install their software in a Ford Fiesta at the Maker Faire DIY convention.
Apple iPhone Comes To China Without WiFi
The Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone is now available in China through the China Unicom telecommunications company. The problem with the iPhone in China is that there isn’t any built in WiFi. Apple did this in order to comply with a government regulation. In China the iPhone costs between 4,999 yuan ($730) to 6,999 yuan ($1,025).
Given the high price in China, it seems unlikely that the phone will be as big of a hit there as it was in America. That seems unfortunate considering that the iPhone is manufactured in Shenzhen. WiFi was banned by the Chinese government in order to replace it with WAPI technology. WAPI stands for WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure. WAPI was rejected by the ISO and was one of the reasons for a U.S. and China Trade dispute.
“We are talking with Apple and expect the problem to be solved by the end of this year,” stated Unicom spokesman Yi Difei. Do you think that this will hinder people in China from buying the device?
Categories Apple Inc., Apple iPhone, China Unicom, iPhone, Yi Difei
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Dog Spends $62.50 On Greg Stroke’s Xbox Account. Yup You Read It Right.
Greg Stroke entered his credit card into Xbox Live so that he does not have to enter it every time into system. One morning Stroke and his girlfriend woke up the next day and found a chewed up controller. It turns out that his dog chewed up the controller to the point that 5,000 Xbox points were purchased for $62.50. It turns out that Microsoft made it so easy to buy games that even a dog could do it. “I just wish they’d make it a little harder to purchase points,” said Stroke.
Categories Greg Stroke, Microsoft Xbox 360, Microsoft Xbox LIVE, Xbox Live
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