Kwilfaey.wordpress

Confirmed January 27th 2010 Apple event

kwilfaey — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:12:30 +0000

The email invitations to the apple event of the year have been sent out and on January 27th, the next Apple event will be held. Will we see the release of iPhone 4.0? New macbooks? Or even the rumoured apple tablet? We’ll find out on January 27th.

‘Odeo releases twttr’- TechCrunch’s first post on twitter

kwilfaey — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 20:11:58 +0000

Twitter is the greatest micro-blogging site we have, and I’m addicted to it. By now, there aren’t just twitter clients for almost every browser, but there are a billion smartphone twitter clients. Twitter is everywhere, and everyone is on twitter. But here is the first TechCrunch post, by Michael Arrington on the micro-blogging text messaging service twttr!

‘Odeo released a new service today called Twttr, which is a sort of “group send” SMS application. Each person controls their own network of friends. When any of them send a text message to “40404,” all of his or her friends see the message via sms. This launched officially today, and a few select insiders were playing with the service at the Valleyschwag party in San Francisco last night.

People are using it to send messages like “Cleaning my apartment” and “Hungry”. You can also add friends via text message, nudge friends, etc. It

really a social network around text messaging – and is very similar to another service called Dodgeball.

Users can also post and view messages on the Twttr website, turn off text messages from certain people, turn off messages altogether, etc. There is also a status widget available that can be placed on a website.

I like the service although I was not able to sign up for it myself (someone added me at the same time I tried to register directly, the result was lockout of my phone number). I’ve been playing around with someone else’s account until I can figure out how to get my number sorted out.

There is also a privacy issue with Twttr. Every user has a public page that shows all of their messages. Messages from that person’s extended network are also public. I imagine most users are not going to want to have all of their Twttr messages published on a public website.

If this was a new startup, a one or two person shop, I’d give it a thumbs up for innovation and good execution on a simple but viral idea.

But the fact that this is coming from Odeo makes me wonder – what is this company doing to make their core offering compelling? How do their shareholders feel about side projects like Twttr when their primary product line is, besides the excellent design, a total snoozer?’

And one of the first couple of comments says: ‘I think this is the dumbest thing ever! Who would want all their personal text messages on a public website for anyone to read and track?’

Answer: The millions of people who twitter receives every week!

Kwilfaey @kwilfaey on twitter

Surprisingly, a pixel is NOT a chocolate bar!

kwilfaey — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 12:50:49 +0000

According to a recent survey by Lewis PR, 20% of 1000 British people interviewed thought that Steve Jobs, famous Apple CEO, was a footballer! And no, it doesn’t stop there! 10% of people interviewed apparently thought he was a Trade Union worker!

Bill Gates did slightly better, but 5% of those interviewed thought that he was a comedian or great train robber of the 60′s. Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the internet, was, according to 5% of those asked, the first astronaut in space.

4% believed that phishing was a method of angling used by eskimos.

72% said that they use facebook reguarly, with ‘just’ 11% not knowing what the term ‘social networking’ means. 11% couldn’t name a social networking site and 12% could not name a single social networking site.

This is meant to be the modern age of technology, but if 1 in 5 British people think that the CEO of Apple is a footballer, we really are in trouble. Watch the video below for some reactions to basic technology questions, including an old man who thinks that a pixel is a type of chocolate bar.

Kwilfaey (follow @Kwilfaey on twitter)

World of…Papercraft

kwilfaey — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:04:31 +0000

An MMORPG as large as World of warcraft is obviously going to have fan art, websites, comics, merchandise, and more. But here are some interesting photos of papercraft (not origami) of stuff in WoW.

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Full post and more pictures

The iPhone is still on top- touchscreen performance tests

kwilfaey — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:55:03 +0000

I’ve always loved the iPhones brilliant touchscreen experience. But with new phones such as the Motorola Droid, HTC Droid Eris, and Google Nexus One, it is possible that it will be equalled, perhaps even beaten. A report by MOTO includes the performance of some of the top four smartphones on the market, including Google’s new Nexus one. click the above link for a video of the testing. I can not guarantee that these results are 100% accurate (testing was done manually and it seems that a 1st gen iPhone was used) but here are the results.

Kwilfaey

@kwilfaey on twitter

CrunchGear’s hands on with new 2 in 1 netbook/tablet Lenovo U1

kwilfaey — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 16:22:28 +0000

Crunchgear got a hands on with the new Lenovo U1, a netbook with a removable tablet screen. Luckily for us all, they filmed it. Tablet PCs are the future, and will be the hot new technology of this year. However, with the ‘Apple iSlate’ (an unconfirmed Apple tablet that will run on iPhone or Mac OS) rumoured to be being released later this month, I doubt that windows, Linux, and even android, tablets will have much of an effect until we see what Apple have been secretly working on (that’s if they’ve actually been working on something- though that’s very likely). Anyway, here is the video.

Possible problems with this 2 in 1 netbook/tablet include the fact that it is a bit slow, the keyboard isn’t perfect and viewing things horizontally isn’t great. However, hopefully these problems will be dealt with before it is released later this year.

Kwilfaey.

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Crunchies 2010 winners

kwilfaey — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:34:01 +0000

The Crunchies awards of 2010, as every year by TechCrunch, were a great event. Here are the winners (Facebook won overall startup product) :

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best VC Firm:
Accel Partners (Winner)
Charles River Ventures
Benchmark Capital
Greylock Partners
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)
John Borthwick (Betaworks)
Omar Hamoui (AdMob)

CEO Of The Year:
Josh Silverman (Skype)
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
Bing (Microsoft) (Winner)
Foursquare
Hunch
Milo
Spotify

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

CES brings us awesome TVs!

kwilfaey — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 10:48:55 +0000

Internet TVs, 3D TVs, Skype TVs, you name it, we’ll be getting it in the next year. Here is a VERY short video featuring a great samsung TV.

Kwilfaey

The wiimote killer

kwilfaey — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 12:10:53 +0000

I don’t know whos this is but its not mine.

Supposed cost of making the apple tablet for apple- $350?

kwilfaey — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:25:28 +0000

According to Fidacaro, the apple tablet, which could sell for around $1000 might cost as little as $350 to make. This is obviously not very accurate, as apple haven’t even confirmed the tablet yet, let alone its price, but the below sums of money are interesting.

Kwilfaey