Patricia Velásquez Jennifer Morrison Adrianne Palicki Amanda Righetti Michelle Branch
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Speaking of? sex toys with Ethan Imboden from Jimmyjane [TCTV]
Vibrating sex toys have been around for over a century, starting out as crude�steam powered devices and now resembling something very cool that you might pick up at an Apple store. Sex toys have been the source of giggles, controversy, pleasure and up until the last 5 years, were not a mainstream product. They were devices you bought and had shipped in unmarked brown packaging or slipped into a toy store late at night to buy, but were not something you'd ever imagine picking up at Nordstrom or your local Wal-Mart. Millions of men and women use them every day and yet, it isn't something we talk about much. Considering there's a lot of tech that go into these devices these days, I think it is a topic worth exploring and definitely something we should no longer be ashamed of.
Anna Friel Monica Bellucci Minki van der Westhuizen Katharine Towne Malia Jones
Microsoft beats estimates, but not Apple in third quarter earnings
Microsoft today posted its earnings results for the third quarter of financial year 2011. It was a strong quarter, with revenue of $16.43 billion, up 13 percent year-on-year; operating income of $5.71 billion, up 10 percent year on year; and net income of $5.2 billion, up 31 percent over the same period last year. Earnings per share were 61�, an increase of 36 percent.
The big success story of the quarter was Entertainment and Devices Division, the group that includes Xbox 360, Xbox Live, and Windows Phone. Continued voracious demand for the Kinect controller saw that division boost its revenue by 60 percent year on year. Though the division was keen to boast of selling 2.4 million Kinects during the period, it was silent on the matter of Windows Phone sales.
Microsoft Business Division was another strong performer, seeing revenue growth of 21 percent year-over-year driven by Office 2010, the fastest-selling version of Office of all time, and its SharePoint, Exchange, Lync, and Dynamics CRM products.
Server and Tools had a successful quarter too, with revenue up 11 percent, on the back of significant business adoption of Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008 R2, and Systems Center. Online Services increased revenue by 14 percent, and increased losses by 2 percent.
In spite of Windows 7's continued strong sales, the Windows and Windows Live division's revenue dropped by 4 percent, with the company citing prevailing PC trends as the reason for this decrease.
The company's guidance for next quarter is that Windows and Windows Live and Online Services will increase revenue in-line with growth in the PC and advertising markets, respectively, with Business Division, Server and Tools, and Entertainment and Devices expected to increase revenue by mid-to-high single-digit, low double-digit, and 25 percent, respectively.
Overall, it was a strong quarter for the company, beating analyst estimates for both revenue (estimated at $16.2 billion), and earnings per share (estimated at 56�). Strong results, but not as strong as Apple, which posted a net income of $5.99 billion for the quarter.
These results mean that Apple has at last bested Microsoft not merely in terms of market capitalization, but also in terms of profitability—a result unimaginable a decade ago. This quarter's figures are testament both to Apple's substantial success in conquering new markets—media players, smartphones, and tablets—and, in parallel, Microsoft's consistent inability to match its rival in those same markets.
Read the comments on this post
Brody Dalle Taryn Manning Nikki Cox Carla Gugino Ana Hickmann
Jack Dorsey Shares Some Big Square Numbers: 341,688 Readers Shipped, $137M Total Flow
Square founder and CEO Jack Dorsey just tweeted a photo of the company's internal dashboard, and, aside from looking very sexy, it's boasting some impressive numbers. Among them: Square has shipped 341,688 of its card readers to date and has 332,483 activated users. As Dorsey's tweet points out, Square is also showing some very impressive growth: on March 2, Square was processing $1 million per day. Now, less than two months later, it's doubled that, with $2 million in processed payments today (and there's still some time left on the clock). 
Exploring the Acer Iconia Tab W500?s Dockable Goodness
Life is filled with important choices. Chocolate or vanilla? Ketchup or mustard? Heads or tails? Choice is awesome ? it?s what makes life interesting & personal.
You know what?s even more awesome than choice? Not having to choose. That?s exactly the concept behind the new Acer Iconia Tab W500. Rather than having to choose between a slate PC or a traditional laptop, the W500 gives you the convenience of both via a powerful slate PC that ?docks? into a portable, attachable keyboard. It?s an interesting, unique take on multi-touch computing.
The 10.1? Iconia Tab W500 goes on sale starting today for $549, and is loaded with a new AMD C-50 APU, 32GB of flash storage, and 2GB of RAM.
Look and Feel
Convertible PCs are nothing new ? ?swivel? style tablet PCs have been around for years, and more recently, we?ve seen newer, more consumer friendly convertible PCs like the Dell Inspiron duo. But the W500 is a completely new take on the concept. The core unit is a pure slate PC ? it?s a 10.1?, 2.15lb multi-touch unit running Windows 7. It?s crafted from capacitive glass and aluminum and feels solid to hold. It?s nicely ergonomic, too ? Acer did a very good job of using a weight, balance and thickness that is maneuverable enough to easily flip and move without feeling cheap or flimsy.
There?s a camera on the front and back of the unit for each photo-snapping and video chatting, and the unit has built in Dolby speakers which are surprisingly loud and clear despite their diminutive size. And of course, there?s a full complement of ports ? SD, USB, HDMI, and a headphone jack. Everything you need in a full PC.
The truly unique aspect of the W500 is the keyboard dock. First off, it magnetically attaches to the unit, so you?re never forced to juggle multiple pieces of equipment. It?s easy to pop off, but when securely seated the magnets are actually very strong ? I submitted the W500 to a highly technical ?shake test? (which involved my 2 year old rattling the thing around while standing on her bed) to see how much force it took to shake the pieces loose and found that while you can jostle them loose if you give it a good shake, it?s unlikely that it would just separate under normal circumstances. But just in case you?re paranoid, there is a physical lock that you can apply.
Docking the unit is very easy. Just pop open the connector USB port, slid the unit into place, and you?re done. In this mode, the W500 functions just like a normal laptop ? you can move the mouse with the integrated trackpoint, type comfortably, and take advantage of a few extra ports, like Ethernet and two additional USBs. The keyboard dock is pretty ergonomic and it was easy to type on, although the clickable mouse buttons are a bit awkwardly placed.
A word of caution when using the dock, though ? don?t try to close the W500 like a laptop! We?ve all been trained for 25 years to close a laptop a certain way, and when docked, the W500 feels just like a laptop, and as such, you?d naturally expect it to close like one. But you can?t; you must remove the slate unit from the dock first. This isn?t a big deal ? you can pop off the W500 from its dock with one hand ? but will take some getting used to.
The dock itself weighs about 1.5lbs, so altogether the unit + dock is less than 4lbs. Plenty light to carry with you all day.
Performance
The Acer Iconia Tab W500 is powered by AMD?s new C-50 APU. It?s not a particularly fast processor (WEI score of 2.8), but perfectly adequate to handle everyday computing tasks like browsing the web, checking mail. Data recall, even large items like my Outlook profile, was super-fast due to the use of on-the-board flash storage.
Here?s how it performed in my usual battery of fundamentals tests:
- Startup (cold boot to desktop): 38 seconds
- Shut down (No apps open, button press to power off): 14 seconds
- Sleep (lid close to power off): 2.5 seconds
- Wake (lid open to desktop): 1.5 seconds
Where the W500 really shines is with multimedia content. AMD?s new APUs are extremely powerful in the graphics department ? I had no trouble playing 1080p HD content, and could even play Crysis ? yes, the real version running DirectX 11 ? in full screen mode. That?s seriously impressive stuff from such a little computer.
Battery life was solid, running for about 4.5 hours before auto-hibernating.
Final Thoughts
The Acer Iconia Tab W500 is a very interesting and very useful take on the convertible PC. It really combines the best of both worlds ? a pure touch environment for casual gaming, web browsing, and watching TV and movies, and a type environment for writing mail, working with documents and other text-heavy scenarios. If you?re looking for a great touch experience, but also want the convenience to work in a more traditional way, check out the W500. It?s an excellent choice for people who don?t want to choose.
Have a question about these or any other PCs? Post a comment, hit me on Twitter, or Ask Ben Anything via email!
Emilie de Ravin Tara Reed Avril Lavigne Bridget Moynahan Noureen DeWulf
Windows Thin PC Community Technology Preview (CTP)
Windows Thin PC (WinTPC) is a smaller footprint version of Windows 7 that allows customers to repurpose existing PCs as thin clients without requiring the VDA license to access VDI desktops. WinTPC replaces WinFLP. In addition, WinTPC will offer:
- Rich VDI experience through support for RemoteFX
- Improved end point security by denying certain disk writes via filters
- Enterprise-grade management support through System Center
https://connect.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/program6810
Send via e-mail
Submit to Digg
Add to Live Favorites
Amanda Bynes Ana Ivanovi Jessica Cauffiel Emmanuelle Vaugier Sarah Silverman
Stolen Camera Finder Uses Metadata To Locate Your Property
This is a cool idea, though it requires a little luck to work. The gist is that you upload a picture to the site, it examines the EXIF data and looks for the serial number, then checks the web for photos with an identical SN. If your camera is lost or stolen, there’s a chance [...]
Kristin Cavallari Brittany Murphy Britney Spears Amanda Swisten Scarlett Chorvat
Looking for a drinking fountain? There will soon be an app for that
You're in a new city and enjoying the sights on foot, public transportation, or bicycle. You're also one of those staunch travelers who packs your own drinking water. And not the plastic, over-the-counter, bottled stuff, either. No, you carry your H2O in your own container. But you are constantly frustrated by the scarcity of public drinking fountains in many urban places in the United States.
What you'd really like is a click-and-go online source for where the nearest public water cooler is. The good news is that there's a Android application for that. It's a collaborative app called WeTap, being developed by Google and the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California. The driving force behind the idea is Dr. Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, and author of Bottled and Sold: The Story of Our Obsession with Bottled Water.
Read the comments on this post
Natasha Bedingfield Audrina Patridge Simone Mütherthies Carrie Underwood Rosario Dawson
Nokia Siemens Closes $975M Acquisition Of Motorola Solutions? Wireless Network Assets
Nokia Siemens has closed the acquisition of the wireless network infrastructure assets of Motorola Solutions today. The company reports that it paid $975 million in cash for the assets and approximately 6900 employees will transfer to Nokia Siemens Network from Motorola. The finalization of the deal come after China regulators approved the acquisition a last week. The full release is paste below. As of April 30 2011, the company says that responsibility for supporting customers of Motorola Solutions? GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, WiMAX and LTE products and services transfers to Nokia Siemens Networks. Part of the approval is due to the fact that Motorola reached an agreement with Chinese manufacturer Huawei over a pending patent lawsuit relating to the assets being acquired. In January, Huawei filed a lawsuit to prevent Motorola from giving Nokia Siemens Huawei's IP information. 
Carla Gugino Ana Hickmann Mischa Barton Jamie Lynn Sigler Stacy Keibler
Onavo?s Guy Rosen Plans To Disrupt Data Roaming (TCTV)
Onavo, as we just reported, is a magical iPhone app which literally shrinks the data your phone uses and thus your roaming data bill when you are travelling. It launches today and I caught up with CEO and co-founder Guy Rosen at The Next Web conference in Amsterdam.
Ivanka Trump Blake Lively Christina Applegate Shana Hiatt Tara Conner
Friday, April 29, 2011
Amazon's lengthy cloud outage shows the danger of complexity
Reddit, Foursquare, and Quora were among the many sites that went down recently due to a prolonged outage of Amazon's cloud services. On Thursday April 21, Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) went offline, leaving the many Web and database servers depending on that storage broken. Not until Easter Sunday (April 24) was service restored to all users. Amazon has now published a lengthy description describing what went wrong, and why the failure was both so catastrophic and so lengthy.
Amazon has cloud computing data centers in five locations around the world; Virginia, Northern California, Ireland, Singapore, and Tokyo. Within each region, services are divided into what the company calls Availability Zones: physically and logically separate groups of computers. This design allows customers to pick a level of redundancy that they feel is most appropriate; hosting in multiple regions provides the most robustness, but at the highest cost. Hosting in multiple Availability Zones within the same region is cheaper, and guards against problems affecting any one zone.
Read the comments on this post
Ashley Greene April Scott Mia Kirshner Elisabeth Röhm Lily Allen
Kinect + Windows: New & Amazing Experiences through NUI
Steve Clayton today has posted today on the Official Microsoft Blog about bringing Kinect to Windows with a SDK that will be available later this spring. He talks about how we believe this SDK will enable developers in the academic research and enthusiast communities to create new and amazing experiences on the PC through natural user interfaces (NUI). As Steve puts it, these experiences will ?transform our relationship with computers?. Steve?s post includes the below video that shows off some of those experiences which we demonstrated at MIX a few weeks ago.
For more information on the Kinect for Windows SDK, click here. And you can click here to read more about Kinect for the Xbox 360.
Vinessa Shaw Rebecca Romijn Nadine Velazquez Pink Mila Kunis
AudioMicro Partners With Microsoft: Free Music, Sound Effects For Office 2010 Users
AudioMicro, a site where you can find royalty-free stock music and sound effects backed by DFJ Frontier and Fotolia, has struck a deal with Microsoft to provide music and sound effect files to Microsoft Office 2010 users worldwide. Under the terms of the licensing and distribution deal, Microsoft Office 2010 users are able to select from a hand-picked collection of over 1,500 music tracks and sound effects at Office.com to use with any Microsoft Office project.
Rosario Dawson Tricia Helfer Elena Lyons Brooke Burns Lena Headey
Must-Read Blog Posts of the Week
List of interesting blog posts from the Seattle Startup community on the last week:
Joe Chung/Xconomy Seattle
Since part of my job at Redstar Ventures is to meet as many entrepreneurs as possible who might want to co-found a startup with us, I?ve swilled plenty of...
Megan Muir/The Venture Alley
CONTRIBUTED BY Megan Muirmegan.muir@dlapiper.com � � Welcome to the Venture Spotlight, an occasional column in which�we will profile startups, VCs...
willcritchlow/SEOmoz Blog
<p>Posted by <a href="http://www.seomoz.org/users/profile/21379">willcritchlow</a></p><p>You might have seen some of...
Tim Getsch/CheckOutMyCards
I didn?t quite know what to expect today. I have never paid to get an item autographed before, but one of our rapidly growing consignors, SwagCards, recently...
Alison Clancy/LiquidPlanner
Here at LiquidPlanner, we love our nonprofit customers (and we mean it?Qualified 501(c)3 non-profit organizations receive a 50% discount on each seat...
John Cook/GeekWire
Groupon is pushing deeper into the mobile world today, gobbling up Seattle startup Pelago for an undisclosed price. Tricia Duryee at All Things D has more...
Meadow Creek Blog
What has your office business center done for you lately?� Other than provide you office space, internet service and a phone?� Probably not much...
Derek Johnson/The Derek Johnson
Are you an agency that is looking for a platform to launch and manage mobile campaigns for your clients? If so, today is your lucky day! I?m pleased to...
Joseph Sunga's Thoughts
When they tell you your experience is going to be a roller coaster at a startup, they aren?t lying. Today, we?re celebrating our 3 year anniversary of...
Matt Tronvig/Affiliate Tracking Blog
We really pride ourselves on the flexibility of HasOffers. We have to be flexible. You would be amazed at how many completely different business models we...
From Seattle 2.0
Marcelo Calbucci
Yes, we have some amazing finalists at the 2011 Seattle 2.0 Awards ; we have the phenomenal Mark Suster coming to speak; we have an A-List of attendees (some B-list as well); we?ll have...
Aaron Franklin
You know the saying that everyone gets 15 minutes of fame?�It also applies to startups.�Most startups will get one shot at attention; after that, they risk being old news.�So I?m confused when I...
Marcelo Calbucci
You can?t have a technology company without a technologist behind it. Most of the time the technologist behind those companies is someone with a technical background who brings mad development...
Marcelo Calbucci
It?s not easy being boss. There is a lot more glamour in TV, movies and the press than in reality. Recently there has been a flurry of CEOs blogging about the hardships and mental agony that goes...
Marcelo Calbucci
Just a few years ago, a clunky UI with bad typography, misaligned elements, mismatched colors and confused was actually fairly acceptable for consumers when using their software, website or mobile...
Marcelo Calbucci
This is certainly a controversial category amongst entrepreneurs. A few people are very passionate about creating long lasting companies, generating gobbles of cash and never sell it. However, it?s...
Marcelo Calbucci
Investors are a critical part of the tech startup ecosystem. A lot of businesses require more capital to execute than they could generate through their own cash-flow. Investors bet on ideas, the...
Matt Paulin
Some amazing irony happened recently.� As you know, my focus on this blog is; ideas, generating ideas, and talking about the properties of ideas.� I also run events through the Seattle Think Tank...
Janet Jackson Georgianna Robertson Reese Witherspoon Jordana Brewster Laetitia Casta
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)