Bowdoin College - Member News

Bill Gates/Jerry Seinfeld Commercial #2: I Remain Confused

I'm starting to feel bad for Microsoft PR, who've been tasked with defending these Microsoft ads featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. I just didn't connect with the first ad, which barely mentioned Microsoft and didn't do much to tell me why I should like their products in a competitive market. The second ad, which aired tonight, was more of the same. The setting is a normal family. Gates and Seinfeld are staying with them to connect with "real people." The idea is to show that Microsoft has connected with "over a billion people." Bill and Jerry explain: Bill: Why are we doing this again? Jerry: Why bill? Because as we discussed, you and i are a little out of it. You're living in some kinda moon house hovering over Seattle like the mothership. I've got so many cars I get stuck in my own traffic. We need to connect with real people.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/12/2008

Evan Williams Gives Day After Notes On TechCrunch50 Companies

Twitter cofounder Evan Williams (pictured right, with Tim O'Reilly) will certainly be invited back as an expert panelist at next year's TechCrunch50 conference. in addition to taking a half day to judge nine of the launching startups, he wrote a long blog post today with his "day after" notes, saying "I find most of the implications of a product or company, if it's really interesting, aren't immediately obvious. You need to have some time to sit with it." It's amazing how much time the experts spend thinking about and talking about the startups they see present. We are very lucky to get them.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/12/2008

Big Fish Games Raises $83.3 Million For Casual Game Distribution

Big Fish Games, an online portal for both online and downloadable computer games, has closed an $83.3 million funding round led by Balderton Capital, General Catalyst Partners, and Salmon River Capital. Big Fish Games was originally founded in 2002 as a game development studio, but gradually expanded its focus as it began distributing games created by other developers. The site now has partnerships with over 500 developers and says that their games see over one million daily downloads. The site also features a collection of online browser-based games as well as a basic social network.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/12/2008

TC50: TrueCar May Keep Car Dealers More Honest

TrueCar joins GoodGuide in helping consumers obtain more information about the products they buy - information that sellers don't necessarily want them to have. In TrueCar's case, that information is simple yet elusive: just how much you should pay for a new car. TrueCar aggregates data from a variety of (mostly unnamed) sources to determine how much money other people have paid for new cars around the country. It then places its findings at your disposal so you can determine whether or not that dealership down the street is offering you a good deal. The outcome, hopefully, is that you save not only hundreds and possibly thousands on your new car but the time it would have taken to comparison shop as well.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/12/2008

That Google Chrome Comic Book Is Up To $340 On Ebay (And We’re Selling One Too)

When Google launched their Chrome browser last week they introduced it via a comic book created by Scott McCloud. Only a few physical copies of the book were created (I've asked Google for the exact number). An electronic version was published by Google here It was a certainty that a few of the comic books would show up on eBay eventually. There are so few of them that an actual market isn't likely to self-create. But the one that we found has been noticed, and as of this evening was bid up to AU $426, or about US $ 340. The auction ends in three hours, so bid now if you want it (they'll ship to Australia, Europe, United States, Canada, New Zealand). We have two copies of the book, and we're going to sell one for charity. If you want it, comment below with the price you are willing to pay in US$. Highest bidder gets it (use your real email and be prepared to respond quickly), and if you want us to we'll mention your site in our post on the winner. We'll donate all the proceeds to Dono...

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/12/2008

TC50(DemoPit): watchMEmelt, A Video-Centric Weightloss Community

Obesity rates have reached epidemic levels in many countries, with an estimated 32% of American adults considered obese. Every year, many of them try countless new dieting fads, exercise regimens, and questionable dietary supplements, but their motivation often sputters out as they see slow results. In the last few years, many of these determined individuals have turned to YouTube to share their weightloss journeys with their peers, who often respond with heartfelt and supportive comments. But YouTube doesn't offer a dedicated community for the weightloss crowd, so its functionality is limited. WatchMEmelt, a TC50 DemoPit company that launches tomorrow, is looking to fill this niche with a community site dedicated to helping users chronicle their weight-loss efforts.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/11/2008

Google Ramps Up Mobile Search With My Location

Google on Thursday announced that it has used its Gears Geolocation API to make searching for businesses and locales in your area easier on Windows Mobile devices. According to the company, Search with My Location approximates your location based on Cell ID technology already employed by Google Maps and returns businesses in that area. If you're looking to find the best Italian restaurants in your area, you can input "Italian restaurants" into the Search field, and it will return a list of Italian restaurants around your location. But it goes beyond businesses and restaurants. Google said that if you want to know the forecast where you are, simply type in "weather" and it will return the weather for your area.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/11/2008

iPhones Continue to Hammer Networks

iPhone use in the epicenter of the technology world is on the rise, according to research released by Meraki Thursday. According to the company, which is creating Free the Net, a free wireless network in San Francisco, it has witnessed a significant uptick in iPhone usage as it continues to roll out its service. Of the 150,000 devices that have used Free the Net, the iPhone accounts for nearly 20 percent. At its lowest point months ago, the iPhone accounted for just 6 percent of all the devices connecting the network.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/11/2008

Cuil’s VP Product Bails Out A Month After Launch

Louis Monier, Cuil's VP Product, quietly resigned from the newly launched search engine last week, we've heard from a reliable source. This is a big blow to the troubled search engine - Monier was recruited away from Google a year ago, where he was working on advanced search products. Prior to Google he was the head of search at eBay and was the cofounder and CTO of AltaVista. He is widely considered to be the father of Internet search.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/11/2008

Nokia’s Ovi Improved With PIM Sync, File Sharing

Nokia's Ovi service was originally a simple photo-sharing system that took emailed, uploaded, and MMSed images from your phone or computer and put them online. Fair enough. Now, however, Nokia is adding some compelling features to the online suite to make it considerably more usable for personal and enterprise PIM and file sharing purposes.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/11/2008

RIM Turns to Microsoft For Search

Microsoft and RIM announced today that they have struck a deal that will see all BlackBerry smartphones running Microsoft Live Search. The deal's specifics weren't released, but Microsoft's ability to bring Live Search to the BlackBerry is a major development in the mobile space and could prove troublesome for Google, which is currently providing the iPhone with its search and will feature Google Search in upcoming Android-based devices.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/11/2008

Amazon Is Getting Into the Alcohol Business

Amazon has again announced that it will start selling US-produced wine to its American customers by the beginning of October. But before you start getting excited about buying wine online, there's one catch: it will only be available to people in about 26 states due to interstate regulations, but the company is working with New Vine Logistics, a firm that specializes in interstate transactions, to avoid any legal issues that may arise in the process and attempt to increase the distribution of wine as time goes on.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/11/2008

TC50: Iamnews Emerges From The DemoPit To Win People’s Choice

The last company to present yesterday at TechCrunch50 was picked by the audience from the more than 100 additional companies vying for attention in our DemoPit. Every attendee got three TC50 poker chips that they could give to a DemoPit company each day, and the one with the most chips at the end of the conference became our 52nd finalist. This year's winner was Iamnews, a crowdsourced newsroom with ambitions to one day take on AP and Reuters. Iamnews is a news assignment hub for blogs and news Websites. It is a tool for crowdsourcing news. A blog or any Web publisher can use it to solicit submissions from citizen journalists—videos, photos, links, Twitters, notes, or full articles The Web publisher then takes all the submissions and pulls together the best ones to create a post or article..

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/11/2008

MySpace Will Allow Direct Uploads, But Is It Too Late?

MySpace yesterday announced that it would allow users to finally upload videos directly to the site. According to the company, users can hook up a camcorder, go to MySpace TV, and click the "Record" button to record a video to the site on-the-fly. The company thinks it may be on to something with its new direct upload feature, though. MySpace claims the videos can be embedded in member profiles, comments, and bulletins quickly, making it an ideal solution for those who want immediate gratification and want friends to see the video as soon as possible. MySpace was ostensibly quick to forget that YouTube and other competitors have had this feature for a while and failed to mention that although it upgraded file size limits to 512MB, YouTube's limit hovers at 1GB. This may not sound like much of a difference on either front, but it begs the question of whether or not MySpace is properly positioned to capitalize on the growing video market.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/11/2008

TC50 (Demopit): Firefox Extension Deckkr Wants To Simplify Web Browsing

At TechCrunch50, there were a number of promising web companies, which didn't make the cut as TechCrunch50 finalists, but were chosen as DemoPit participants instead. One of these companies, which I thought was especially noteworthy, is called Mulodo, a web start-up based out of Tokyo. Mulodo showcased Deckkr, a Firefox extension that makes it possible to get around the web without having to open and switch between different tabs or windows.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/11/2008

Yammer Takes Top Prize At TechCrunch50

Three jam-packed days, and 52 startup demos later, we finally have a winner for this year's TechCrunch50. Every day, the presentations just seemed to get stronger and stronger. There were so many strong contenders this year that we are awarding five jury selection prizes, in addition to the top prize. But there must be a winner, and that winner is...Yammer. Yammer is Twitter with a business model. Created by an existing company, Geni, to scratch its own itch, Yammer takes the familiar Twitter messaging system and applies it to internal corporate communications. There is such a huge demand for this type of service that 10,000 people and 2,000 organizations signed up for the service the first day it launched on Monday. Anyone with a corporate email can sign up and follow other people in their company. But if a company ants to claim its users, and gain administrative control over them, they will have to pay. It’s a brilliant business model.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

Israel Makes Strong TC50 Showing

Israel seems to be the country with the single biggest foreign contingent at TC50 with no less than 6 of the 50 companies presenting on stage. Some more Israeli startups can be found in the demo pit, the exhibition space and just walking around the venue floor shopping for investors, customers and partners. Here is a round-up of the 6 Israeli companies that presented on stage:...

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

TC50: Footnote, A Social Network To Help Us Remember The Dead

In what was easily the most morbid presentation of our TechCrunch50 conference,we were introduced to a new kind of social network: Footnote, a place for dead people. Of course, the site isn't going to be filled with the interactions of the waking dead. Instead, it's meant as a social memory book, asking users to upload old photos, share stories, and fill in a timeline of their friend or family member's life. You can also tie profiles to each other, detailing how each person knew other members.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

TC50: GoPlanit Generates Your Travel Itinerary With One Click

There are countless travel sites available on the web that detail the best things to do in every major city on the planet. But with so many options, actually booking a trip is a major hassle: attractions may close on seemingly random days, or may require reservations weeks in advance. GoPlanit is a travel site that aims to simplify this process by generating your schedule for you. The site features a database of attractions that includes their operating hours as well as an estimate for how much time each will consume.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

TC50: GoodGuide Shines Light On The “Goodness” Of Consumer Products

Product transparency was a popular theme in the twelfth and last session of TechCrunch50, Research and Recommendations, with two companies in particular helping consumers make better purchasing decisions. The first, GoodGuide, was met with unanimous acclaim from the expert panel for its efforts to inform consumers of the social, environmental and health "goodness" of personal care products and the companies that produce them. The GoodGuide founders claim that 60 million Americans wish they had more information available to them about the products they buy. So they put together a team of scientists and technologists, and compiled product information from hundreds of sources, that could be used to shed light on the lesser known aspects of products and how they're made.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Comedy Is Ready For Its Close-up

First mentioned a few months ago as a way for Google to increase its video revenue and start its push for more professional content, Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy promised 50 mini-webisodes specifically designed for Google's Content Network and AdSense distribution. And now, the video series has launched on its own site, sethcomedy.com. The premise is simple: MacFarlane will create 50 shows for Google and illustrate pre-roll ads in his signature style. So far, there are two videos available on the site, which are also available on the "BK Channel" page on YouTube. The advertisements included in the shows are exclusively from Burger King (thus the BK Channel syndication) and there's no word if that will change in subsequent episodes.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

TC50: GoodRec, a Recommendation Engine for the Undecided

GoodRec is a web-based system for posting and finding recommendations from your friends and the world at large. The recommendations pop up on a map either in the browser or on a phone - specifically, in this case, the iPhone.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

TC50: Atmosphir, The Build-It-Yourself Gaming Platform

Atmosphir is a gaming platform and engine that allows users to easily create their own levels in a 3D world by painting basic elements into a three dimensional grid. After downloading a client application, users can play in their own levels, or they can visit the Atmosphir community website to play on any of the maps that have been uploaded by other users. The application is currently available in a limited beta with plans to release by the end of the year, and is available for both Mac and PC.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

TC50: Bojam Asks, Why Can’t We All Just Rock Together?

Desktop music-mixing software like GarageBand has liberated musicians from the sound studio. Now Bojam wants to liberate them from the constraints of geography or the isolation of their rooms. Bojam is a Web-based sound studio that lets musicians practice playing music, find other musicians around the world to jam with, and lay down tracks together on the same song. Bojam is a fully functional music mixer. You can adjust the volume on each track or add effects like distortion and reverb. CEO Andrew Greenstein claims that Bojam has "all the advanced features you would find in a studio recording mixer, but all on your browser." During the demo at TechCrunch50, he showed how a drummer in LA, a bassist in Tel Aviv, and a keyboardist in Tokyo recorded a song together on Bojam. (Unfortunately, the song they chose was Toto's "Africa").

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

TC50: Birdpost and Closet Couture, Two Social Networks for Birds

The first two companies to present at this afternoon's Vertical Social Networking session proved that niche social networks can be exciting, even for people outside of their respective niches. On paper, a social network for bird watchers sounds like a joke. But the founders of Birdpost wowed the TechCrunch50 audience by presenting not only a very well-designed site but one that thoroughly addressed a real problem for certain people, that of locating rare birds. Like Wikipedia, Birdpost intends to unleash knowledge traditionally locked up in the heads of a small group of experts. While in the case of bird watching the group is highly focused, the founders insist that 45 million Americans would actually be interested in their knowledge.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

TC50: Exit Strategies, M&A Uncovered

TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde led a panel today with some of the biggest names in mergers and acquisitions, who have collectively been involved in deals totaling billions of dollars. Included on the panel were Michael Marquez (EVP of Corporate Development at CBS), David Lawee (Head of Corporate Development at Google), and Ted Wang (Partner at Fenwick & West LLP). Heather is also a M&A expert, as she was SVP Mergers & Acquisitions at Fox Interactive Media prior to joining TechCrunch. Below are our notes on the panel:...

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

TC50: Shattered Reality Brings Agile Development to MMORPGs

Shattered Reality has released Kaos War, a multi-player game with absolute transparency and social network design functionality which allows the players - not a bunch of overpaid and overfed game designers - create future expansion packs and levels based on player requests.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

TC50: Causecast, One Stop Philanthropy Shop

Causecast.com is a philanthropic site that brings a number of major figures in politics and entertainment together to pitch and bring attention to 10 non-profit companies a month.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

Marissa Mayer Clarifies: Search Is Only 10% Done, Not 90%

I spoke to Google's Marissa Mayer at TechCrunch50 on Monday (a little after she we celebrated Google's 10th birthday with cupcakes) and asked her about the search is "90-95%" solved story over the weekend. She said she'd be posting a clarification on the Google blog. That clarification just went up, here. In the original article, published in the LA Times, Marissa says search is "90 to 95%" solved: Search is an unsolved problem. We have a good 90 to 95% of the solution, but there is a lot to go in the remaining 10%. How do we monetize new forms of content as they come online such as video, maps and books. How do we help content providers transition their businesses online and build healthy businesses. Today Marissa clarifies, suggesting that her real point is that the first 90% of the search problem is solved, but that was the easy part. The last 10% will actually be 90% of the real work, she says, and it will take decades or longer to complete it. She also compares search today to t...

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

TC50: Scoble Declares That VideoSurf “Doesn’t Suck”

Video search is an unsolved problem. VideoSurf applies hardcore computer vision technology to this problem and finds relevant results beyond what may already be available to text-based search methods. In the demo at TechCrunch50, the startup showed how you might want to search for a scene in the show Entourage. You can drill down to the show, and then are presented with thumbnails of all of the characters, left to right at the top of the screen by level of importance. By clicking on a character, you get all the scenes in which that character appears, as well as related scenes.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

Google Trounces Web Video Competitors With 5 Billion Views

comScore on Wednesday announced its latest data showing July 2008 Web video views. And although everyone expected Google to beat up on its competitors, the company did so in convincing fashion by serving nearly half of all the videos viewed online during the month. According to the figures, over 11 billion videos were viewed in July. Of that 11 billion, Google accounted for about 5 billion and its closest competitor, Fox Interactive (headlined by MySpace TV), only managed 445 million views. Microsoft rounded out the top three by serving almost 283 million videos.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

TC50: Grockit, The Multiplayer Learning Game That’s Better Than Any Practice Test

Grockit, the mysterious online learning site that has been operating in stealth for the past year and has raised a total of over $10 million, has finally revealed itself to the public, and it doesn't disappoint. The site calls itself a "Massively Multi Player Online Learning Game", taking gaming concepts that have made World of Warcraft a massive hit and applying it to what amounts to an online SAT study group.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

Will WebMD Lose Its Stranglehold Over Health Information?

Rumors are back suggesting Revolution Health is looking to merge with another company. Only this time, it's with another health information portal: Everyday Health. And together, the companies believe they can finally supplant WebMD as the most trafficked site in that space. According to the Washington Post, the companies are still engaging in negotiations and no firm plans have been agreed upon yet. But if an agreement is struck, they will move fast to get the deal done.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

TC50: Fotonauts Is a Gorgeous Photopedia

Jean-Marie Huillot wants to create "a Wikipedia of pictures," a Photopedia, if you will. The former CTO of NeXT and Apple's Applications Division launched Fotonauts today at TechCrunch50. Fotonauts helps photographers organize, upload, synchronize, and share their photos. But it does more than that. It adds data from Wikipedia, Google Maps, and other places to photo albums and then publishes those albums as Web pages with one click of a button. You can add photos from your desktop or the various existing photo-sharing services such as Flickr and Picasa or add Creative Commons photos taken by other people to each album. There is also a social element in that you can follow other "fotonauts" or specific Web albums via an event stream.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

TC50: Gazopa Searches for Images Similar To Other Images

Image search engine Gazopa is the third TechCrunch50 company from Japan (following Opentrace and Sekai Camera). Michael Arrington introduced the Hitachi-backed service with a warning to judge Bradley Horowitz from Google, saying: "Brad, you're gonna hate the next company, seriously" (a tongue-in-cheek statement since Horowitz got his PhD in graphics and image processing). Gazopa uses proprietary image analytics technology to extract information such as color and shape from images. It then identifies similar pictures from a pool of about 50 million different images found around the web.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

TC50: Playce Lets You Play in Real Places

Playce is a social gaming platform that actually lets you play games in real geographical locations with graphics quality that blows away most web-based games. Because the game is completely online, whenever you want to start playing you simply select a game and connect. There are no downloads and the geography and graphics are phenomenal.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

TC50: Akoha Makes the World a Better Place

Games for the Oprah crowd is how Akoha co-founder Austin Hill describes his online gaming system. The system uses "mission cards" that friends pass to each other along with a mission i.e. give someone a book or buy someone a meal. You then register that card and perform the mission. Using clever social networking tools you can see how your missions effect others, compete against friends, and generally do nice things for people.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

Yahoo Brings a Social Address Book to the iPhone

Yahoo on Wednesday announced that it will bring its oneConnect social address book application to Apple's App Store to work on both the iPhone and iPod touch. Yahoo's oneConnect application lets users integrate contacts, send instant messages or SMS messages, and view their friends' latest activity on social networks. What's most compelling about oneConnect is that it doesn't bog you down in solely Yahoo software. Instead, the service supports AOL Instant Messenger along with Yahoo Messenger, and support for social networks like Facebook and MySpace.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

Day Two TechCrunch50 Recap: We Have Internet!

Day two at TechCrunch50: Awesome. None of the day one problems with the Internet access, thank God. The celebrities had left the stage. It was all about the startups on stage and in the demopit. Day two sessions included Collaboration, Finance & Statistics, Mobile and Language/Platform Tools. At least two startups had standing ovations: Swype (virtual keyboard input) and Tonchidot (real world tagging via iPhone). The Ustream feed was lively as well. In addition to an average of 1,000 people in the room at any given time, another 3,100 on average were watching on Ustream. That's a lot of people watching each company launch.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

TechCrunch50 LiveStream: Day 3

We'll be streaming TechCrunch50 here Monday through Wednesday so everyone can see the conference's demos for themselves as they happen. You can also find our written coverage of the conference here and coverage from other news outlets below. Update: All the companies have presented. The winner will be announced later tonight.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

Ex-Googlers’ Video Platform Ooyala Launches Powerful Analytics Software

Ooyala, a video platform founded by two seasoned Google veterans, has launched a powerful new analytics backend for its service that it calls Backlot Analytics. The new analytics software allows content providers to get an extremely detailed data on their users' viewing behaviors, helping them tweak their ad placement and future content selection. Backlot Analytics will be available as a native application in Adobe AIR, and will also work in the browser.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

TC50: Devunity Offers Browser-Based Collaborative Coding

Devunity is a collaborative coding platform that allows developers to simultaneous view and modify code on their browser without having to download a client. The service has built-in support for a number of popular APIs, allowing users to simply click on one of the options to generate the relevant framework in their code. After developing a program on Devunity, the platform will suggest a number of cloud-based services like Google's App Engine for deployment (though users will be free to use their own servers). Devunity will be free for open source projects, but plans to charge for private programs (the company hopes to lure developers in this way).

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

AOL Pulls The Trigger: Direct Access To Competing Services On AOL.com

On Monday we posted a leaked screenshot showing a redesigned AOL homepage that included integration with third party email services (Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail), personalized bookmarks linking anywhere, integration with third party social networks (Facebook and MySpace) and a RSS reader. AOL is now rolling out some of these features. The major email competitors are all now included on the top right of the AOL.com home page, which reaches 105 million people worldwide each month (Comscore July 2008). The changes are described here in detail.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/10/2008

TC50: AlfaBetic Translates Your Blog For A Worldwide Audience, Free of Charge

AlfaBetic is a translation service that offers publishers a free way to have their content translated to ten of the web's most popular languages, which it says will expose them 842 million potential new readers. The service first runs text through a computer, which is similar to the web-based translation systems offered by Google Translate and a number of other sites. After generating this rough translation, AlfaBetic then presents the translated text to paid human translators, who ensure that everything makes sense. Alphabetic says that over time it will be able to reduce its costs by making the original automatic text more accurate using "statistical machine translation".

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/09/2008

Mark Cuban: “When I die, I want to come back as me”

To round out the day's schedule at TechCrunch50, Jason Calacanis interviewed Mark Cuban, the founder Broadcast.com, HDNet, and several other companies. He has also been an angel investor for several startups including SlideShare, Goowy, RedSwoosh, Box.net, Calacanis' own Weblogs, Inc and Mahalo. Below are our notes, which try to capture a fast-paced exchange that included Cuban's entrepreneurial advice as well as his experience running sports franchises (with emphasis, naturally, on the former).

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/09/2008

TC50: Postbox Takes On Outlook And Mac Mail With Smarter, Faster Email Client

Postbox is desktop email application that includes a host of features that led judge Tim O'Reilly to call it a "personal information management client." The company presented as part of today's session on Language & Communication Tools, and comes from an experienced team that includes Scott MacGregor, one of the original developers of Mozilla's Thunderbird Email client. And as soon as I get an invite, I'll be installing it.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/09/2008

TC50: Sekai Camera for Social Tagging on the iPhone

Sekai Camera (World Camera in Japanese) is an iPhone-exclusive social tagging service, developed by Tokyo-based mobile application provider Tonchidot. The presentation (and following Q&A) was pretty hard to understand because of the language barrier but Sekai Camera turned out to be a crowd-pleaser nonetheless.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/09/2008

TechCrunch50 Livestream: Day 2

Powered by Ustream We'll be streaming TechCrunch50 here Monday through Wednesday so everyone can see the conference's demos for themselves as they happen. You can also find our written coverage of the conference here and coverage from other news outlets below. Update: The current panel is Language & Communication Tools. The judges are Tim O'Reilly, Josh Kopelman, Evan Williams, and Om Malik.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/09/2008

TC50: Swype, Truly Gesture-based Data Entry

Swype is an amazing gesture-based data entry system that truly blew our collective minds at TC, CG, and MC. To type, you simply connect letters together using a stylus or finger and predictive text to pick letters and words out of seemingly unintelligible squiggles. Above is a video of two of the judges trying out the technology for the first time. (VC Josh Kopelman, who tries it first in the video, doesn't grok it quite as quickly as Twitter founder Evan Wiliams).

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/09/2008

Are Linux Programmers Getting Too Fat?

We generally frown on companies showing slides during a TechCrunch50 demo. But FitBit (which demoed its health activity monitoring device live as well) put up this slide to underscore its point that obesity is a growing problem. The slide shows how the distribution of T-shirt sizes at the Linux Symposium has shifted towards the XL and XXL side of the scale. I'm convinced. Linux programmers need FitBit.

from Mark Hendrickson on 09/09/2008