Author: Serkadis

As “Fashion 2.0″ sites continue to innovate, the social component of these style-focused sites becomes an important tool for viral growth. Weardrobe, a site focused on capturing and sharing the street style of web users, was recently acquired by Like.com And we’ve written about Polyvore, the startup lets web shoppers pull their favorite items any online store and mix and match to create personalized outfits online. Users can then share their creations on the site and can then buy the items shown. The site is seeing rapid growth, with over 6 million unique visitors per month thanks to new branding efforts and the launch of Facebook Connect.

Polyvore’s virtual styling tool allows people to mix and match products from any online store to create fashion collages, called “sets,” and collections that can then be embedded in other sites. Armed with $7 million in funding, Polyvore has recently forged partnerships with brands like Calvin Klein, Barney’s, Lancome, Zappos Marc Jacobs, and the Gap to create branded collages that the Polyvore community of users can then share and buy from. Many of these brands use Polyvore’s technology to create contests for users.The startup collects revenue in these partnerships and also sees returns from affiliate fees when users buy

And users can now share their branded “sets” via Facebook and Twitter, serving as social advertisements for designers and fashion companies. Polyvore says 30,000 sets are created daily on the site. Launched in 2007, the startup just raised $5.6 million in funding.

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SCVNGR, the platform that lets you build location-based games compatible with any mobile phone, is on a roll. The company has just raised $4 million from Google Ventures, with participation from existing investor Highland Capital. Google Ventures’ Rich Miner will be taking a board seat. The news comes just over a week after we learned that SCVNGR is cash flow positive, with over $1 million in revenue in its first full year in business.

While mobile location based games like Foursquare and Gowalla are getting a lot of attention right now, SCVNGR has quietly managed to establish a very nice niche market for itself. SCVNGR makes a platform that allows companies, schools, and other organizations to build their own location-based scavenger hunts. Dozens of major universities have used the service at campus orientations, while major companies have used it for team building exercises. The platform has been used by over 400 clients including Princeton, Yale, MetLife, and HSBC, and has a whopping 91% client repeat rate.

SCVNGR is also expanding very quickly. In the eleven days since we last wrote about them, they hired six new people. They are currently doubling the company’s size from 20 to 40 employees, filling roles in everything from mobile application development to sales.

Oh, and there’s one other impressive thing about the startup: SCVNGR closed its funding round on CEO Seth Priebatsch’s twenty-first birthday.

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With the vast number of devices coming out running multiple OSes, OEMs have started making their own app store like creations (Samsung has a WM marketplace, Motorola has an Android one, and there are more). This will inevitably make the centralised app stores less effective as developers can submit to one or other marketplace, leading to generally smaller marketplaces.

With the iPhone, it’s a completely different matter. There is only one device, only one OS and only one marketplace. This locks everything down, and developers have to use the central marketplace, so it thrives. WM and Android lead to more options, but is this choice ultimately going to lead to the downfall of the marketplaces?

Windows Marketplace for Mobile started at a disadvantage, WM has supported software installation well before the marketplace concept, and so channels for releasing software have built up before, and it takes a considerable amount of time and effort to move applications from the alternatives to the central marketplace.

Which would you prefer? A central marketplace developers have to use, or a lot of choice for developers and users?

Phonearena have published their full review of the LG eXpo. Saying its not your typical Windows Mobile handset, they were content with the design, but noted the resistive screen had poor outdoor visibility.

They liked the S-class interface, finding it fast and responsive.  They were less happy with the picture quality, saying pictures tended to be over-exposed, but that photo capture was near instantaneous. 

Video playback was smooth, even for higher resolutions, but the phone unfortunately  lacked DIVX support.

The pico-projector is of course the smartphone’s standout feature.  PhoneArena complained of a bluish tint to the projection, but they felt it did not take away from the allure of the feature.

Phone call quality was good, but the battery did not last a full working day, meaning a charger would need to be kept nearby.

Scoring the device a solid 8.5/10 they concluded:

Conclusion:
LG did a wonderful job in disassociating itself from the sour after taste that left us with the LG INCITE. They’ve clearly reworked their designs and managed to produce a worthy Windows Mobile smartphone that will aim to please a wide range of users with its impressive lists of features. Not only does the S-Class interface make its US debut on the eXpo, but it adds a lot of visual flare that we haven’t seen stateside to make it a refreshing option for users consistently seeing either TouchFLO 3D or TouchWiz dominating the scene. Finally, the implementation of the pico projector opens up a plethora of implications that can cater to a whole new list of needs. The X in eXpo marks the spot where LG clearly differentiates itself in being a prominent figure in the Windows Mobile landscape.

Read their full review here.

As in previous years, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs’ salary this year was $1, but that doesn’t seem to be hindering his ability to amass serious wealth. Jobs is now worth at least a billion dollars in Apple stock alone, thanks to that company’s healthy gains in the stock market this year.

Jobs is commonly called eccentric, and his compensation package is no different. In 2009, Apple said in a filing with the SEC that it reimbursed Jobs $4,000 for company travel on his $90 million Gulfstream jet. He did not receive reimbursement for any other common items, such as personal security, AP reports. The Gulfstream was a bonus he received in 1999.

The $4,000 is a lot less than what he normally expenses. Last year, Apple reimbursed Jobs $871,000. But he also took off about six months to get a liver transplant.

It’s not the salary, or the reimbursements that pays the bills for Jobs. He holds 5.5 million shares of Apple’s stock, however, has not sold a single share since he rejoined the company in 1997. In fiscal 2009, Apple’s stock gained about 42 percent, and as of Wednesday when the stock closed at $202.10, Jobs’ holdings were worth about $1.1 billion. That’s easily overshadowed by his stake in The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) As the largest single shareholder, his 7.4 percent is currently worth about $4.5 billion.

Boston-based SCVNGR has raised $4 million from Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Ventures and its existing investor Highland Capital to continue building out its location-based platform for mobile phones. As part of the investment, Google’s Rich Miner will sit on the board.

TechCrunch reports that the financing occurs just weeks after the company said it is cash flow positive and has more than $1 million in revenues during its first year in business. SCVNGR helps other companies build their own location-based services. For instance, dozens of major universities have used technology to give campus tours, and major companies use the scavenger hunt aspect for team-building exercises. SCVNGR will apparently need the cash for expansion. In the past 11 days, it has hired six new employees, which doubles the company’s staff to 40.

When INQ Mobile showed me a phone with a fast built-in Facebook app earlier this year, my immediate reaction was: “It’ll do Twitter, too, right?” Sure enough, the latest version does Twitter.

But it turns out that my enthusiasm puts me in a minority demographic. Americans asked by research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics what brands they would want on their mobile phone gave tweet-crazed San Franciscans a reality check: They placed Twitter just below MSN’s suite of Windows Live apps and far, far below Facebook.

I asked Strategy Analytics to take some time and come back with their explanation of why the two most popular social networks were so far apart in most consumers’ minds. Analyst Paul Brown says that despite Twitter’s hotness among Internet addicts and the media, we forget that it’s got only a fraction of Facebook’s user base.

“Twitter has approximately 55 millionusers, compared to around 325 million Facebook users,” he wrote me. “So while there is a high media buzz around Twitter, the number of users is considerably lower than either Facebook or MSN, thus the reason why desirability for Twitter is much lower.”

Why did MSN place just above Twitter? “For MSN, this was the whole suite of Windows Live services, including Windows Live Messenger and Hotmail,” Brown explained.

Hotmail, which has been around since before the first Internet boom, claims nearly 300 million users in 36 languages around the globe.

This shouldn’t be interpreted to mean that Twitter is not a mobile brand. It’s impressive that Twitter — and Pandora, too — placed above Amazon and CNN in the poll. But the real story is Facebook. The relative newcomer outranked Yahoo and nearly tied Google as the most desirable mobile service. Twitter, often spoken of in the same breath as Facebook, in reality has a long way to go to match it.

[Images: INQ Mobile and Strategy Analytics]

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Panasonic is charging into the green space headlong — first with deals to supply batteries for electric and hybrid vehicles — and now announcing that it will launch a massive lithium-ion storage battery capable of powering an average home for up to a week, the company says.

This is significant for two reasons. First, if home batteries like this one become commonplace, renewable sources of energy like rooftop solar and residential turbines could finally take off. The biggest roadblock to their adoption is that they are intermittent; reliable storage is needed to make them effective. Second, if affordable storage is achieved on the home-level, there might be less need for grid-scale storage, which is pricier and harder to accomplish.

The announcement is hastened by Panasonic’s acquisition of a more than 50 percent stake in Sanyo, making the company a battery manufacturing powerhouse that could trounce almost everyone else in the market, including A123Systems, Johnson Controls-Saft, Valence Technologies, and others. Becoming the earliest entrant into the home storage space would solidify its dominance.

Panasonic, which says it has already thoroughly tested this technology, plans to bundle its storage device with a home energy monitoring system that would allow users to view how much power they are using and how much it is costing them right on their television displays. This could make the company a major player in the smart grid arena as well.

Depending on how successful Panasonic is at marketing its household battery (and bringing down the cost), it could become a formidable competitor for fuel-cell makers like Clear Edge Power. Fuel cells also allow for low-emission operations, converting natural gas into electricity and recycled heat. But they don’t store electricity for use later, which is a major need for alternative energies to gain traction.

Panasonic, which scored a deal to supply batteries to Tesla Motors in October, has already successfully pushed automotive battery makers out of the market, like Imara, which shuttered earlier this month. Valence, being kept afloat by a new contract with Smith Electric Vehicles, could be next if it doesn’t move fast. In any case, it will have a head start, with Panasonic’s storage system not hitting stores until 2011.

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Always wanted your own Enterprise? Now you can own your personal Star Trek space ship but then as a webcam that you can have on your PC or Mac.

The webcam can be clipped on to your screen with the Star Trek Badge and connects to a USB port.

Great for video chatting in MSN, Skype, iChat an much more.

Check out the Star Trek Webcam

Filed under: Software

I have used a lot of productivity apps on my Mac and my iPhone. I wound up using Things every day because, for me, it struck the perfect balance of features and flexibility. Now three lucky winners will get a chance to see the Mac-iPhone sync, the keyboard shortcuts and the excellent tagging features in Things. As you can see in the picture, I keep the Things app [iTunes Link]handy on my iPhone as well — it is an excellent complement to the desktop application.

Here’s a pro tip for Things if you use MailPlane (an excellent Gmail front end for your Mac): Select some text in an email, press Shift-Ctrl-Option-Command-P (yeah, that’s a lot of keys) and the HUD will pop up with a link to the email and the selected text in the notes section. As I loathe Mail.app for serious work, this has been a huge productivity booster. Google’s task tool simply isn’t up to par either.

OK, the rules are the same as always: US-only (sorry, promo code thing), 18 and up, only one entry per person (we’ll check!) and three winners. To enter just leave a comment below telling us how you “get things done” right now, and whether or not it’s working for you. Good luck!

• Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older.
• To enter leave a comment telling us what you use to stay organized/productive and if it works for you.
• The comment must be left before Wednesday, December 30, 2009, 11:59PM Eastern Standard Time.
• You may enter only once.
• Three winners will be selected in a random drawing.
• Prizes: One copy of Things for Mac (Value: US$49.95 and one promo code for Things for iPhone ($9.99).
• Click Here for complete Official Rules.

TUAWWin a copy of Things for Mac and iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Software, Switchers, Mac 101, Snow Leopard

The video shows hints about keyboard shortcuts (such as using the Command key on a Mac instead of the Control key on a PC), and using Command-Option-Escape on a Mac to force-quit an application, much like Control-Alt-Delete does on Windows. There’s also tips on using the mouse on a Mac, and using the trackpad to perform gestures to get around your laptop.

Switchers are also going to need help on controlling windows; closing and minimizing controls, of course, are on the top left of windows on a Mac, much like the buttons on the top right of a window on Windows. There’s also tips on the differences and how to adjust to similar features and applications on a Mac, like the differences between Windows Explorer and the Finder on the Mac, and what parallels there are between other bundled applications. Finally, there’s also tips on which web browser to use, how to eject a disc, and where to go for help.

If you’ve got a friend or family member who’s new to Mac OS X, it’s something they should check out to help get used to using the Mac. Of course, right after that, the next step is to read through our library of Mac 101 tips and tricks for novice Mac users.

TUAWMac 101: AllThingsD delivers a video guide for Mac novices originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Motorsports, Coupe, Performance, Porsche

Porsche test pilot and all-around legend Walter Röhrl will be competing in next year’s Nürburgring 24-Hour race for the first time in 17 years. His weapon of choice for the event: the 2010 Porsche GT3 RS. That’s the rear-wheel drive one with the 450 horsepower 3.8-liter that runs up to 8,500 RPM. The one with the track-specific, lightweight lithium-ion battery and dynamic engine mounts. The one that did the Kessel Run ‘Ring in 12 parsecs 7:33 in light traffic.

Röhrl says the street-legal production car is the closest thing to a race car he’s ever driven, so he wants to find out what it can ultimately do from gun-to-flag. It probably won’t hand comeuppance to the four-liter, $494,000 GT3 RSR, but with the same horsepower as the dedicated racer we figure Röhrl plans to keep it close.

[Source: Paul Tan]

Walter Röhrl entering the Nürburgring 24 Hours in a bone stock Porsche GT3 RS originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google’s Android Market growth has not been as fast or furious as Apple’s App Store, however, as more Android handsets are sold, that’s expected to change.

In fact, the Android Market may have as many as 150,000 apps by the end of 2010, according to Flurry, a mobile-application analytics firm, which merged with Pinch Media yesterday. In November, Apple said it had around 100,000 apps for the iPhone, which completely overshadows the 12,000 Android apps in existence. In an interview with Bloomberg, Flurry CEO Simon Khalaf said: “A lot of developers have come onto the Android platform” because of efforts by Verizon Wireless, Motorola (NYSE: MOT) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) to promote the system.”

Flurry estimates that while Google will have between 100,000 and as many as 150,000 by the end of 2010, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) could have 300,000. A handful of recent examples of applications that have moved from the iPhone to Android include: Evernote, CitySearch and Photobucket.

Many developers have held back making apps for the Android platform because it was unclear how big of a market it would become. That won’t be much of a question in 2010. Next year, Forrester Research is estimating that Google Android will take 10 percent of the mobile device market due to “heavy industry support” from Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM), Verizon, Motorola, Google, and others, reports networkworld.com.

Rock Band is getting a little help from Sir Paul McCartney to usher in the New Year. A three-song track pack of live McCartney tracks has been announced for the game along with a second helping of country

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Last summer, when Apple pulled third-party Google Voice applications from the App Store, one of them was VoiceCentral. Apple’s subsequent rejection of the official Google Voice app spurred an FCC investigation, but Google Voice never made it to the app store and none of the other apps ever made it back in.

Well, that’s not stopping the developers behind VoiceCentral. They are bringing back their app to the iPhone via the browser. They call it the Black Swan edition. You can get on a waiting list to be on the private beta here. The app is completely browser-based but has the look and feel of a regular app, complete with a dialer, list of transcribed voicemails, and SMS messages.

When you dial a number, Google Voice simply makes a call to your iPhone while simultaneously calling the number of the person you are trying to reach, so you still pay for the voice minutes. But the appeal of having Google Voice on your iPhone is the ability to read transcribed voicemails, or play them, and avoid SMS charges by texting through Google Voice. (You cannot yet do all of these things when you access Google Voice via the iPhone’s browser directly).

The downside is that it cannot access your contact list on your iPhone through the browser. Although, VoiceCentral mimics the look and feel of the iPhone contact manager, you have to export your contacts to Google Voice first and access them that way. Another limitation is that the audio plays through the speaker instead of through the earpiece, but if you are using a pair of earphones that is not a problem.

VoiceCentral will probably be a paid app, but Apple won’t get any of the revenues since it is simply a mobile Website. It even offers offline caching and takes advantage of the HTML5 features of mobile Safari. This could very well be the future of mobile apps. As mobile browsers become more capable, more and more developers are going to ask themselves why bother with the limitations of the App Store and be at the mercy of Apple’s whims? And it won’t just be developers like VoiceCentral who have no other choice.

Below is a promotional video which shows some of the features of VoiceCentral’s Black Swan app. Remember, this is all happening in the browser:

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Sandia National Laboratories have unveiled their newest photovoltaic cells — glitter-sized particles made of crystalline silicon. The cells are made using common microelectronic and microelectromechanical systems techniques, and the results are pretty spectacular to behold. More interestingly, however, is the fact that they use 100 times less material in generating the same amount of energy as a regular solar cell.

Here comes the sun

Bacteria for better solar panels

Because of their size and shape, the cells are well-suited to unusual applications, and researchers envision mass-production of the cells for use on building-integrated tents or clothing, so campers (or military personnel) could recharge their cell phones on the go. Researchers also think that these particles will be inexpensive to produce, but there’s no word on when they’ll be ready for consumer application. We’ll keep you posted — but hit the source link for more a more detailed description.

Snowflake-shaped photovoltaic cells bring the holiday cheer originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One of my favorite Intel foibles to ridicule is the way that the company continues to stress Flash support as a rationale for x86 in handheld portables—x86, we’re told repeatedly, gives you “the full Internet experience,” by which Intel means, “you can run Flash on it.” This is supposed to make x86 a better option than ARM for portable CPUs, but the chipmaker doesn’t bother to mention that ARM Flash support is here as of Flash 10.1, making their favorite talking point inoperative.

With the arrival of Flash 10.1, ARM-based SoCs from vendors like NVIDIA can now offer “the full Internet experience,” so the company’s Tegra line competes with x86-based SoCs for Web-enabled design wins on pure price/performance/watt. But the Open Screen Project doesn’t just hurt Intel PR; it’s turning out to be a headache for NVIDIA PR, as well.

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By Yukari Iwatani Kane, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

If there is one complaint people have about their iPhones, it’s that the popular cellphone doesn’t have the option of a physical keyboard to type on. That has now changed, at least if you’ve “jailbroken” or modified your phone so it can download unauthorized software.

Matthias Ringwald, a doctoral candidate specializing in wireless sensor networks in Zurich, Switzerland, launched a piece of software called BTstack Keyboard, which will let users use Bluetooth-enabled keyboards with their iPhones. The software is available through the unauthorized app marketplace Cydia for $5.

IPhones rely on typing text using a virtual keyboard on the display screen, an attribute that does not appeal to some people. The handsets have Bluetooth capability–a popular way to connect peripheral devices–but so far Apple (AAPL) has only allowed it to be used to connect with other iPhones to play games or with certain accessories like headsets. Ringwald was one of the users frustrated by the limitation. He spent eight months developing the software before releasing it on Wednesday.

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