Monthly Archives: December 2009
Balloon Boy Parents Gets Hit With $42,000 Fine And Is Going To Jail
Richard Heene and Mayumi Heene, the parents of the “balloon boy” Falcon Heene are going to prison. Richard and Mayumi will not be able to profit from the balloon media frenzy for the next 4 years. Richard and Mayumi will also have to pay $42,000 which will go towards the police. The Heene family lawyer, David Lane said that the couple is not ready to pay the money just yet.
“Let’s see the bills,” stated David Lane in an interview with The Denver Post. “They’re not paying anything until they see some receipts.” The Heenes temporarily had the world believing that their 6 year old son Falcon was trapped in a flying balloon. Richard Heene will go to jail for 90 days including 60 days of work release. Richard and Mayumi both pleaded guilty to charges to manipulating the media.
Categories David Lane, Falcon Heene, Mayumi Heene, Richard Heene
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Mall of America Sends Out Tweets About Christmas Parking Situation
The Mall of America is using Twitter to tweet about parking lot information. This would be useful for last minute shoppers buying Christmas presents. And as you are all aware, this year will be huge for Christmas spending. This past Cyber Monday, consumers spent about $595 million just online. The Mall of America Twitter account has about 1,900 followers and was launched on December 19. The Mall of America sends out tweets at about one per hour from 9:30AM-5:30PM up until January 1.
Categories Mall of America, Twitter
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Rumor: Apple Tablet On The Way Next Month
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is rumored to be launching a tablet or a higher resolution mobile device next month. Apparently Apple has been telling application developers to get ready to demo applications with a bigger size soon. “They’ve told select developers that as long as they build their apps to support full screen resolution — rather than a fixed 320×480 — their apps should run just fine,” stated a source with The Business Insider.
The new Apple device won’t go on sale until later than January, probably March. This way other application developers can prepare their applications for larger screen sizes. Boy Genius Report said that Apple is 100% likely to announce a 7″ tablet in January.
Categories Apple Inc.
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BlackBerry Messenger Glitch Causes Massive Disruption, Update Immediately Released
There are not a lot of happy Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM) customers right now. BlackBerry just had a massive disruption that was caused by a BlackBerry Messenger update. Another update was immediately released to alleviate further disruptions. When the disruption took place yesterday around 6:30PM, there were thousands of tweets and Facebook status messages being sent out in the form of a complaint. Some of the messages said “I survived the BlackBerry Apocalypse.”
BlackBerry users still had access to voice services and text messages, but BBM did not work for many users. Below is a statement that Research In Motion sent out to BlackBerry users (via CrackBerry):
RIM Statement – December 23rd
A service interruption occurred Tuesday that affected BlackBerry customers in the Americas. Message delivery was delayed or intermittent during the service interruption. Phone service and SMS services on BlackBerry smartphones were unaffected. Root cause is currently under review, but based on preliminary analysis, it currently appears that the issue stemmed from a flaw in two recently released versions of BlackBerry Messenger (versions 5.0.0.55 and 5.0.0.56) that caused an unanticipated database issue within the BlackBerry infrastructure. RIM has taken corrective action to restore service.
RIM has also provided a new version of BlackBerry Messenger (version 5.0.0.57) and is encouraging anyone who downloaded or upgraded BlackBerry Messenger since December 14th to upgrade to this latest version which resolves the issue. RIM continues to monitor its systems to maintain normal service levels and apologizes for any inconvenience to customers.
BE SURE TO UPGRADE to the latest version of BlackBerry Messenger. You can grab it by visiting blackberry.com/messenger from your BlackBerry’s web browser or from BlackBerry App World.
Categories BlackBerry, Research In Motion, RIM
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3Crowd Technologies Receives Funding From Storm, Greenwich, Kevin Rose, and Jay Adelson
3Crowd Technologies announced that they have funding from Storm Ventures, Greenwich Technology Associates, Kevin Rose (Digg.com founder), and Jay Adelson (Digg.com CEO). 3Crowd was founded by Barrett Lyon, co-founder and former CTO of BitGravity. 3Crowd is in stealth mode, but the company claims to change crowdsourcing. The funding amount is in the form of a convertible note and it is unknown how much is involved.
Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson were customers of BitGravity for Revision3.com which is how the two know Lyon. Revision3 is a video service that Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson founded together that hosts shows such as DiggNation and The Totally Rad Show.
Yahoo! Considering To Shut Down MyBlogLog
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) is considering the possibilities of shutting down MyBlogLog. MyBlogLog was basically a widget that occupied the sidebar of blogs to showcase which users most recently visited their website. The hype around MyBlogLog died down shortly after the Web 2.0 collapse. However Alexa.com reports MyBlogLog as being a top 2,000 website in the world so that indicates that there is a good number of active users left using the service even though there isn’t any more very popular blogs that still use the service.
MyBlogLog launched about 5 years ago and was acquired by Yahoo! in January 2007 for $10 million. Yahoo! did not end up doing much around MyBlogLog after acquiring the service. The only new additions made on MyBlogLog shortly after the acquisition was a bookmarklet for displaying recent bookmarks, Flickr pictures, tweets and LinkedIn information of MyBlogLog users.
“Frankly, it’s no secret within Yahoo! that we’re actively discussing the future of MyBlogLog. However, it’s also true that we have not made any final decisions at this point. Is a shutdown on the table? Sure, that’s an option. But there are other options as well,” stated Chris Yeh, head of Yahoo! Developer Network.
Pepsi Abandoning Super Bowl Advertising For Internet Ads
PepsiCo Inc. (NYSE:PBG) has made a major advertising decision. Rather than putting in the $2.5-$3 million pay check to place ads on Super Bowl, the company is launching a new online campaign. This is the first time that Pepsi will not advertise during the Super Bowl over the last 23 years.
However Frito-Lay, a subsidiary of Pepsi will continue to place ads on the Super Bowl. Last year Pepsi spent about $33 million on advertising on Super Bowl for Pepsi, Gatorade, and Cheetos. Of that $33 million, $15 million was just on the Pepsi beverage.
“In 2010, each of our beverage brands has a strategy and marketing platform that will be less about a singular event and more about a movement,” stated Pepsi Marketing spokeswoman Nicole Bradley.
Categories Nicole Bradley, Pepsi, PepsiCo Inc.
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MobGold Raises $12 Million From Fast Global Investments
MobGold is a mobile advertising and mobile transactions company. MobGold is based in China and the company has raised $12 million in Series B funding. The funding was provided by Fast Global Investments.
“MobGold has made huge strides over the past year to solidify its position as a leading mobile advertising company,” stated MobGold President and CEO Alan Chang in a press release. “Fast Global Investments’ venture in MobGold is strategically significant for the industry at large, and it validates the efforts we’ve made to make MobGold the thriving company it is today.”
Categories Alan Chang, Fast Global Investments, MobGold
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HP Handles Webcam Racism Claim Very Well [VIDEO]
Below is a viral video of a black male and a white female demonstrating how the facial recognition feature on HP’s webcams has a glitch. Apparently the webcam fails at recognizing the face of Desi (black male), but it works on Wanda (white female).
Rather than flipping out in response to the video, Hewlett Packard issued a politically correct statement pointing out what is wrong technically with the webcam.
Below is a full response from HP Community Manager Tony “Frosty” Welch:
Some of you may have seen or heard of a YouTube video in which the facial-tracking software didn’t work for a customer. We thank Desi, and the people who have seen and commented on his video, for bringing this subject to our attention.
We are working with our partners to learn more. The technology we use is built on standard algorithms that measure the difference in intensity of contrast between the eyes and the upper cheek and nose. We believe that the camera might have difficulty “seeing” contrast in conditions where there is insufficient foreground lighting. While we work on this, take a look here for more information on the impact of lighting on facial tracking software, and how to optimize your webcam experience: http://bit.ly/7HsZHD
And below is the video:
Categories Hewlett Packard, HP, Tony Welch
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Ford Working With Developers To Make A Sync Application Store
Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is working with developers to put together a prototype of what could be one of the first automotive application stores. The application store will utilize all forms of social media.
“While Facebook probably isn’t the best thing to be concentrating on while driving, what if an app existed that allowed you to update your Facebook status with your location during a road trip? Or what if you wanted your phone to read someone’s Twitter feed? It’s totally doable, and using Sync you’ll never have to touch your phone, let alone look away from the road,” wrote Autoblog editor Jonny Lieberman.
Another strategy Ford has to pursue while developing an application store is to convince developers that they should spend time making applications for cars. They need to make it fun and give them a financial motive. Ford Sync has open APIs and tested them with six computer science students at the University of Michigan to make two mobile phone based applications. One of the applications showcased by the students was called Follow Me.
Follow Me is an application that helps drivers following each other keep track of where they are at all times. Sometimes there are situations where you are following a car and it goes through a yellow light, while you get stuck at the red light. The Follow Me app makes it so that you don’t lose the other driver. Another application that was made by a developer uses Sync commands to play specific radio stations using voice commands, including custom radio stations on Pandora.