Category: News

We held the Crunchies, the awards that honor the year’s achievements in technology, on Friday in San Francisco. The awards were co-hosted by TechCrunch, GigaOm, and VentureBeat, who also selected the nominees, but the ultimate winners were chosen by the readers who voted at the Crunchies website.

Here’s a list of the nominees, with the winners highlighted. You can see Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Best Overall Startup winner Facebook, receiving his award and a bottle of Vitamin water (don’t ask me, I was in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show) from VentureBeat editor Matt Marshall in the photo above, as well as Zynga’s Mark Pincus, triumphantly brandishing his CEO of the Year award in the photo below.

Best Technology Achievement:
Backblaze
Bing (Microsoft)
Chrome OS (Google) (Winner)
Google Wave (Runner Up)
PuSH
Silverlight (Microsoft)

Best Internet Application:
Animoto
Dropbox (Winner)
Groupon
MOG All Access
Posterous
Yelp (Runner Up)

Best Social App:
Aardvark
Brizzly
DailyBooth (Runner Up)
Farmville(Winner)
SocialVibe
StockTwits

Best Bootstrapped Startup:
atebits (Tweetie)
Shoes of Prey
Tinychat (Winner)
Wildfire Interactive (Runner Up)
wizehive
Wufoo

Best Mobile Application:
foursquare (Winner)
Google Voice
Gowalla (Runner Up)
Kindle for iPhone
Skies of Glory
Tonchidot

Best International:
Amiando
Jolicloud
Playfish (Runner Up)
Spotify (Winner)
TweetDeck
vente-privee.com

Best Time Sink Application:
Canabalt
Civilization Revolution (iPhone)
DailyBooth (Winner)
I Am T-Pain
Pandora (Runner Up)
Zoosk

Best Design:
Animoto (Winner)
Brizzly
Chrome (Google)
Clicker
Facebook Mobile (Runner Up)
Threadsy

Best Enterprise:
Amazon Web Services
Atlassian (Runner Up)
Azure (Microsoft)
Chatter (Salesforce)
Google Docs/Office (Winner)
Yext

Best CleanTech:
CalStar Products
Locust Storage
Picarro
Sappphire Energy (Runner Up)
Sun Run (Winner)
Tendril

Best New Gadget:
Apple Magic Mouse (Runner Up)
Barnes & Noble nook (Winner)
litl webbookMotorola Droid
Sonos S5
Zune HD

Best Tech PR:
Brew Media Relations
LaunchSquad
OutCast Communications (Runner Up)
PerkettPR
Spark (Winner)
SutherlandGold Group

Best Angel:
Betaworks
Chris Sacca (Lowercase Capital)
Jeff Clavier (SoftTechVC)
Ron Conway (SV Angel) (Winner)
Y-Combinator (Runner Up)
Yossi Vardi

Best VC Firm:
Accel Partners (Winner)
Charles River Ventures
Benchmark Capital
Greylock Partners (Runner Up)
Sequoia Capital
True Ventures
Union Square Ventures

Founder Of The Year:
Aaron Patzer (Mint) (Winner)
Elon Musk (Tesla)
Jack Dorsey (Square)
Jeremy Stoppelman & Russ Simmons (Yelp) (Runner Up)
John Borthwick (Betaworks)
Omar Hamoui (AdMob)

CEO Of The Year:
Josh Silverman (Skype) (Runner Up)
Marc Benioff (Salesforce)
Mark Pincus (Zynga) (Winner)
Neil Young (ngmoco)
Richard Rosenblatt (Demand Media)
Tony Hsieh (Zappos)

Best New Startup Or Product Of 2009:
Aardvark (Runner Up)
Bing (Microsoft) (Winner)
Foursquare
Hunch
Milo
Spotify

Best Overall Startup Or Product Of 2009:
Android (Google)
Facebook (Winner)
LinkedIn
ngmoco
Twitter (Runner Up)
Zynga

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The Stanford women’s swimming and diving team started its winter season off with a big home win against Pacific on Saturday, beating the Tigers by a final score of 154-97. The team’s dual meet record now stands at 4-0 as it looks to go undefeated in dual meets for the second consecutive season. Stanford has lost only one dual meet since 2006, going 31-1 in that span.

As expected, the Cardinal was able to dominate Pacific despite lingering fatigue from holiday training, sweeping all 16 events. The Tigers put up little resistance, placing no higher than fourth in 10 events.

Strong performances from senior co-captain Elaine Breeden, junior Liz Smith and sophomore Betsy Webb headlined the Cardinal’s win. Each swimmer notched three wins in the meet, including relay events.

The trio and junior co-captain Kate Dwelley started the day by winning the 200-yard medley relay, posting a time of 1 minute, 43.61 seconds. Other Cardinal relay teams came in second, third, fourth and sixth.

Breeden went on to win the 200 butterfly and the 200 individual medley, posting times of 2:01.24 and 2:05.89, respectively. She won both events by four-second margins.

Webb won the 50 freestyle in 23.23, and Smith took the 500 free in 4:44.29. These two, Dwelley and sophomore Sam Woodward won the day’s final event, the 200 free relay, with a B-standard time of 1:33.29.

Senior co-captain Julia Smit, who broke two world records in England over winter break, also turned in a strong performance. She posted B-standard times in the 100 backstroke and the 100 free, going 55.07 and 48.97, respectively.

The Stanford freshmen were also impressive — freshmen Andi Murez and Natalie Durant each won events. Murez took the 200 free in 1:51.41, and Durant won the 200 backstroke in 2:02.84. Other freshmen swimmers placed well in numerous events and were key parts of Cardinal relay teams.

Despite this strong showing, there is still a need for improvement for these swimmers.

“The freshmen can step it up and contribute to the team more, including myself,” said freshman Megan Fischer-Colbrie, who placed second in the 100 backstroke and third in the 200 back. “We can do a better job helping the team score points.”

Other winners for the Card were juniors Angela Duckworth (1,000 free) and Kerry Kraemer (100 breast), sophomore Jamie Bruce (200 breast) and senior Stefanie Sutton (100 fly).

Stanford’s diving team also won its two events, the one-meter and three-meter platform.

In the end, the meet was little more than a warm-up for the Cardinal as it heads into Pacific-10 Conference competition. Next weekend, the diving team will head south to the Bruin Diving Invitational in Westwood, Calif., and the Card will duel Arizona State and No. 2 Arizona in two dual meets on Jan. 22 and Jan. 23.

“[The meet] was like a dress rehearsal for the bigger meets to come,” Fischer-Colbrie said. “Right now, it’s not about the team’s end result, but more about making sure we’re doing the right things to race well.”

It’s that time of the year again, where we round up all the gadgets we found on the CES show floor that help us to reset our gauge for bad ideas and hardware. Following in 2009’s footsteps, there seemed to be much less crap this year than before. Still, we’re here to recognize those souls who strive harder than most to hit that point of mediocrity — pick your favorite below, then rest easy knowing that you live in a world that accepts the existence of all kinds of products, no matter how miserable.

The nominees

Crapgadget Crapdown, CES 2010: the best of the worst originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Jan 2010 02:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Fitness, Fit Family Guy

When asking if you should listen to music while running, the answer is, “it depends.”

And what it most depends on is how serious you are. If you’re the competitive type who is training for a race, and perhaps chasing a personal best, then listening to music can be a bad idea. If you’re like the majority of the population and need some righteous tunes to distract you from the fact that it’s cold/hot/dark/humid/raining, or you are tired/sweaty/bored/sore/hungover, then jam those headphones in your ears and crank it loud.

On second thought, don’t crank it too loud. You’ll go deaf.

Blasting the tunes creates what is called a dissociative state; it distracts you from all the aforementioned unpleasantness to make the entire running experience more enjoyable. I’ll admit that I’m bummed if I’m out for a run and the battery in my iPod dies.

Continue reading Tune In or Tune Out? How Music Affects Running Performance

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Today’s twin goals of keeping fit while doing something good for the planet by creating electricity without any pollution come together in a product that has been around for over ten years – The Pedal-A-Watt Stationary Bicycle Generator. Use your bicycle along with the Pedal-A-Watt Stand (it takes 15 seconds to drop your […]
Posted in: Human Power, Pedal Power

Last night, the Stanford men’s volleyball team had its final tune-up before the regular season begins, hosting a team of past men’s volleyball players in an alumni match at Maples Pavilion. The alumni team showed up to play and gave the varsity starters three close sets, although the current team came out on top. In the fourth set, the alumni, including 2009 graduate Jarod Keller at libero, 1985 All-American Craig Lauchner and three-time All-American Dan Hanan (1988-1990), added current player Gus Ellis and beat the Stanford second team.

The Cardinal, which is ranked No. 3 in the American Volleyball Coaches Association preseason poll, starts the season Friday, Jan. 15 against No. 12 Hawaii. Stanford, which had an excellent fall season, looks to kick its season off the right way, while Hawaii is looking for another upset to add to its victory last week over No. 1 USC in the championship of the Outrigger Hotels Invitational. Stanford is led by senior Evan Romero, Stanford’s career leader in kills with 1,295, along with returning All-American brothers Kawika and Erik Shoji. Senior setter Kawika recorded 1,394 assists last season to facilitate the offense, while sophomore libero Erik helped anchor the team’s defense with 447 digs.

The match against Hawaii begins 7 p.m. on Friday in Maples Pavilion.

First it was Mark Mangino. Then Mike Leach. And finally Jim Leavitt.

What do they all have in common? They are — were — all college football coaches who have been fired in the past month for using various forms of discipline deemed too severe by their respective universities.

That isn’t all they have in common, however. Mangino, Leach and Leavitt were three of the most lauded coaches in the nation the past few seasons having all resurrected previously decrepit football programs at Kansas, Texas Tech and South Florida, respectively.

I have been a sports fan my entire life and can say unequivocally that, after racking my brain, I cannot come up with a similar firing in any sport from the past.

Sure, there was Bob Knight getting fired from Indiana for hitting players — among other transgressions — but those actions were on video tape, and sometimes on national television. As was Ohio State’s coach, Woody Hayes, punching Clemson’s Charlie Bauman in the jaw.

What happened with Mangino, Leach and Leavitt happened behind closed doors (pun intended, Mr. Leach).

What I’m getting at here is that the world has changed. Actions that were formerly O.K. are no longer acceptable today. I know that not everything that is longstanding is necessarily a good thing, but in this case the change signals something deeper permeating through American society. Simply put, people are getting soft.

There are an abundance of factors that likely contribute to banning of good-ol’ fashioned discipline.

Media technology is obviously one factor. Things that previously did not garner national attention can be heard by anyone and everyone on Twitter five minutes after they happen, or communicated via Facebook for the entire world to see. Or, in the Leach case, a cell phone camera was all that was needed to make Mike Leach’s treatment of a concussed Adam James a national story.

Another factor is the growing fear of liability. Universities are strapped for cash, and while football brings in millions of dollars, the fear of getting sued hangs over the head of every university president and athletic director.

That said, Mark Mangino, the 2007 National Coach of the Year, a coach who doubled his school’s bowl wins during his tenure and led them to their first BCS bowl win, was fired for his alleged verbal abuse of players.

He wasn’t accused of hitting anyone (although grabbing was mentioned), so basically he was fired for being a jerk. Somewhere, Bear Bryant is rolling over in his grave.

I think what administrators must be forgetting is that this is football. It is a violent game that teaches players to literally hit their opponent, and it requires massive amounts of adrenaline to be successful.

Coaches spend hundreds of hours molding these young men’s bodies, teaching them to be aggressive, to want to inflict pain on opponents. Somewhere in that tangled web of testosterone and shoulder pads, there is going to be some yelling, and every once in a while, someone is going to get grabbed — or even hit. So be it.

The nature of the game teaches players to be obedient, but in a world where young people are allowed more and more freedom at increasingly younger ages, obedience can be hard to come by.

So, when a player with a concussion shows up to practice with sunglasses on and complains about the light, a coach locking him in a dark place does not seem too illogical. Maybe the illogical part was doing it to the son of an ESPN broadcaster, as ESPN is right at the center of the media boom.

In no way is this column intended to promote or condone coaches’ abusing players — there have to be limits as to what is allowed and what isn’t — but I do believe that when a coach is charged with controlling and molding the lives of 100-plus college athletes, there has to be some leeway provided.

I don’t know where Mangino, Leach and Leavitt will land, but all three are brilliant football minds that deserve to be employed somewhere. Unfortunately, I think it will be a while until any of them has a job again.

Daniel Bohm thinks the abuse he allegedly “doesn’t condone” is part of football. Tell him you’d like to lock him in a small, dark closet at bohmd “at” stanford.edu.

Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger has called it quits with Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton after two years of dating.

In a joint statement issued Sunday, the 25-year-old racing driver and the pop singer, 31, said they are ending their romance to focus on their careers.

“They have decided to go their separate ways. They want to focus fully on their careers and will remain close friends,” a statement from the couple’s spokesperson confirmed.

The Laxman is probably the ugliest pair of eyewear we have ever seen, but they do much more than make a terrible fashion statement. It is a mind relaxation product that attempts to soothe your stress, give you increased energy, allow for deeper sleep, and increase concentration. Depending on your brainwave output the Laxman will work to get you into a different and healthier state of mind. The Laxman has MP3 compatibility so you can listen to your tunes as you relax, a mini-SD card slot, and 22 pre-set sessions to shift you into another state of consciousness. The Laxman Light & Sound Mind Machine retails for a whopping $649, so you’ll certainly need some soothing after you’ve purchased it.

Wild Discovery Becomes the First Lebanese Network of Travel Agencies to Offset … PR Newswire (press release) … affiliated to Johnny R. Saade Holdings, is the first Lebanese travel agency to offset its greenhouse gas emissions and thus, becomes carbon Neutral. … and more »

The BMW DesignworksUSA Singapore, Los Angeles and Munich studios worked together on developing the new three ranges of earphones that were revealed at the CES exhibition held in Las Vegas last week. Moreover, the CX 680 even received an International CES Innovations Design and Engineering Awards Honoree title.

Earphones are expected to provide top-quality sound on the move and at the same time have an excellent finish quality, explained Maurice Quarré, Head of Product Management C… (read more)

When a giant nation with giant energy needs like China says it’s going to smarten up its electric grid, U.S. technology companies — not surprisingly — take note. Witness General Electric’s announcement that it’s partnering with the City of Yangzhou, China, to build a smart grid “demonstration center” in the city of 4 million, with the […]

The newly founded Stricker PolyRec Company (www.stricker-polyrec.de) has recently launched a large-scale plant for size-reducing, agglomerating and refining engineering plastics waste.
Especially such materials that need a particularly inoffensive treatment such as PET, PA and PC films, nonwovens, filaments, fibres and other plastics can be recycled with this plant in an economic way and without any or with only the slightest thermal degradation or IV drop.
The end product is an agglomerate with excellent flow properties and a high bulk density, free from fines by sifting and screening. The granule size of the end product can vary according to the customer’s specification.

Stricker PolyRec opted for the plastcompactor concept developed by HERBOLD MECKESHEIM GmbH (www.Herbold.com) since it best met the high quality requirements. Due to the short residence time and the special slight sintering process preventing the material from melting, voluminous materials with poor flowing properties can be turned into a 100 % reusable resource.
One example among many is the treatment of PET bottles transformed into clean but badly flowing flat flakes after washing, separation and drying. With the help of the plastcompacting procedure used by Stricker PolyRec, these flakes are not only turned into a material with excellent flow properties, appropriate for a trouble-free gravimetrical dosing for film production lines. In one production step, PET is at the same time completely crystallized.

The heart core of the new plant at Stricker PolyRec is the HERBOLD-Plastcompactor
HV 70 with a 250 kW main drive as well as a fully automatic system control in order to guarantee an unchanging quality.

HERBOLD Meckesheim GmbH designed, developed and delivered this turn-key plant. Special emphasis was given to a universal application of the machine and a quick material change due to an easy access for cleaning.

Egbert Schmidt, the managing director of Stricker PolyRec, was quoted as saying:
“HERBOLD MECKESHEIM presented a convincing concept with a good price-performance ratio. In close cooperation with the manufacturer we succeeded in developing the optimal plant configuration, so we are well prepared for forthcoming recycling problems in accordance with market requirements.”

Agglomeration is also a toll service Stricker PolyRec offers to companies wishing to reuse their plastic waste for their own production.

Herbold Meckesheim GmbH

January 2010. Medit Inc offers industrial fiberscope sets with free 24W Metal Halide Light source and light guide. Now if you purchase any of Medit industrial fiberscopes FI series you will have free powerful Metal Halide light source with more than 50 000 Lux of light power. The whole set includes a fiberscope with diameter of probe from 4 mm to 8 mm and length 1350 or 1850 mm with 2- or 4-way articulation, Metal Halide light source, light guide and packed into a carrying case.
The offer is limited!

Please contact for more information [email protected]

Following its recent merger with the Viaflo Corporation – INTEGRA Biosciences AG has announced that from 1st January 2010 the companies will adopt the new corporate brand – INTEGRA.

Elmar Morscher, CEO of Integra Biosciences recently stated, “The recent merger between Integra Biosciences AG of Switzerland and Viaflo Corporation of the US has created a strong corporate entity that develops, manufactures, sells and services a wide variety of innovative laboratory products to over ninety countries. The focal point of the combined worldwide business is liquid handling solutions; both represented as instrumentation and consumables designed primarily for the life sciences marketplace. The wide range of complimentary products produced by the two companies, along with numerous exciting new product additions planned for 2010, will be repositioned under the new corporate brand INTEGRA. The INTEGRA brand will replace existing brands within the combined businesses and will represent a clear direction of a company that has merged the best of the old with a singular and simple goal of producing new innovative and high value liquid handling products for the future.”

To introduce the new INTEGRA brand – a new website incorporating the complete range of INTEGRA Biosciences AG and Viaflo products has been launched. Located at www.integra-biosciences.com the site uses a design format that is rapidly downloaded by web search engines and provides visitors with direct access to a major source of valuable information and news. Intuitively structured, the site provides easy and rapid access to an expanding applications database, scientific reports bibliography and the latest news on technological and product developments. Further information on the company, its products, representatives around the world and hints and tips is also given.

When I first decided to try out Windows 7 on my Dell Mini, I made the big mistake of putting Windows 7 ultimate on it. Boy did that run like molasses! It was so painful, I promptly went right back to running Bauer-Puntu (Which runs like a well oiled machine on netbooks by the way).

A little while later my friend asked me why I didn’t put Windows 7 Starter on my netbook, after all, that is the version that is designed for netbooks. If you haven’t heard of Windows 7 Starter Edition, here is the description from Wikipedia:

[Windows 7 Starter is] the least-featured edition of Windows 7; the Windows Aero theme is not included, and it isn’t available in a 64-bit variant. The desktop wallpaper, and Visual Style (Windows 7 Basic) is also not user-changeable, although third party software such as Stardock MyColors can allow these changes to be made. This edition is available pre-installed on computers through system integrators or computer manufacturers.

Stardock MyColors? Yes, you can change your wallpaper with it, as well as the entire theme. What if you want to keep your netbook running light? Then you probably don’t want to change the theme, you just want to change the wallpaper. I found a free utility that does simply that! It is called Starter Wallpaper Changer. To use it, find a jpg wallpaper you like, then run Starter Wallpaper Changer as administrator. Select your jpg file, and change. Then log off, and log back in. Simple!

I first tried changing the registry, but it kept reverting back. I also tried replacing the wallpaper image Microsoft uses, but that just made my wallpaper black. That is what led me to Starter Wallpaper Changer.

Do you have Windows 7 Starter edition? Did you figure out a different way to change the wallpaper? Know of any other tricks on Windows 7? Let us know in the comments!

Filed under: Morning Scoop

Each morning, we dish out a few links we love.

Who’s going follow in Kirstie and Valerie’s footsteps to become the new face of Jenny Craig? Why, it’s none other than pleasantly plump Jason Alexander, better known as neurotic George Costanza.

Forget the au naturel look — studies show that wearing lots of heavy eye make-up actually has health benefits.

Suspect you might be texting too much? You’re probably right — texting-related injuries are up in a big way all across the world.

Looking to lose a few? Experts have banded together to give you this pretty obvious piece of advice: Just eat less.

Got a case of the January blues? Get thee to a gym — exercise will help!

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Join us for an excellent networking opportunity and to learn about the newest releases and capabilities of Pro/Engineer and CFD simulation tools.

Ready to make the jump from Guitar Hero plastic guitar to a real one? Gambridge Z-1 enables players to learn guitar techniques while playing video games or by using a vary of guitar learning software. The Gambridge Z-1 supports all major music video games on either a console or PC. It has line-out for headphones, amplifiers, and HiFi Systems. It also has a full fretted neck for real guitar playing. The guitar design itself is extremely sexy and will take the notion of rhythm games to a whole new level. Pricing and availability TBD.

The long anticipated transition from the current generation Focus to what Ford promises to be a revival of the Ford Focus success can be now previewed at the 2010 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in the form of the 2011 Focus or, as Ford calls it, the next generation Focus.

With some design cues inspired from those used on the Fiesta (Ford’s kinetic design philosophy) and with two versions (four-door sedan and five-door hatchback), the Focus will be launched at the … (read more)