Snippets Of Internet Show: 2011

Virgin Mobile Revives $20 Broadband2Go Plan

Yeesh! It seems like Virgin Mobile changes up their Broadband2Go plans about as often as I change pants*.

First they launched a $40 Unlimited plan, and got rid of almost all of their lesser plans. Then they bailed on the $40 plan, and introduced a whacky 10-day-or-100 MB plan for $10 a pop. Then they introduced a new, unlimited-ish (speeds are throttled after 2.5 GB) plan for $50 a month.

The latest change, just coming in today: 20 bucks a month now gets you 500 MB. If that sounds like a deal to you, be sure to hop on it quick — for all we know, they’ll ditch this one in a month or two.

Google Confirms Android Security Glitch, Rolls Out Server-Side Patch

Many of you, I’m sure, weren’t too pleased to hear yesterday’s news that 99 percent of Android phones are susceptible to impersonation attacks. The bad news: Google has confirmed that the problem does exist. The good news: Google is also fixing the problem, starting today, and it shouldn’t require any action on your part.

Read The Rest

Sprint’s Network Is Back On Track After Last Night’s SMS, Voice Issues

Apparently, Sprint’s network was down for the count last night, as people from different regions of the country experienced difficulty sending MMS and SMS messages. Some even had trouble getting voice calls to go through. According to Sprint, the Washington, DC area also had a voice disruption last night, which was unrelated to the SMS issues.

Read The Rest

Apple Low-Balls 2011 Q2 iPhone 4 Shipment Volume

Last quarter, we collectively purchased 18.6 million iPhone 4s. As of right now, there are an estimated 1.5 million to 2 million iPhone 4s left out there, sitting on retailer and carrier shelves, waiting for a new owner like a puppy in a window. Maybe the rather hefty chunk of iPhone 4 inventory pushed Apple to lower its Q2 shipment volume from 20 million units to 17.5 to 18 million units, but I’m secretly hoping this figure has something to do with the launch of the next-gen iPhone, maybe as soon as September of this year if rumors prove true.

Read The Rest

The iPhone 4 Tops Handset Sales Ranking In Japan

The world’s most advanced mobile nation, Japan, sees more than 100 different cell phones each year. Market research firm Gfk Japan [JP] has analyzed which the best-selling models in the first quarter of this year were and recently published its findings in the form of a top 10 chart.

And according to Gfk, in terms of units sold, the iPhone 4 has been the most popular cell phone in Japan between January and March this year. Only 2 of the top 10 are feature phones (which is not really that surprising anymore), the rest are iPhones And Android handsets.

Here’s the full top 10 (feature phones in italic):

iPhone 4（16GB）

iPhone 4（32GB）

Samsung Galaxy S

Toshiba REGZA Phone T-01C

Sharp IS03

Sharp LYNX 3D SH-03C

Toshiba IS04

Panasonic P-07B

Sony Ericsson Xperia arc SO-01C

Kyocera Kantan Keitai K005

Via IT Media [JP]

Droid X2 Is Hitting VZW May 19th For $199

The Droid X2 launch saga is finally over. Verizon just made it known that the Droid X2, you know, the successor to the Droid X, will hit its online stores on May 19 for the $199 with a two-year blood oath; VZW stores will get it May 26th.

The device hits with same specs that previously leaked: 4.3-inch qHD screen, dual-core 1GHz, 8MP cam, HDMI-out, and Android 2.3. Interestingly enough, battery life wasn’t mentioned in the presser, which, as a Droid X owner, I’m very curious how the dual-core CPU will affect the life. My Droid X can make it through a solid day of use with a couple of bars to spare.

Read The Rest

PayPal Android App To Get Photo-Based Check Depositing Today

Back in October of last year, PayPal tucked a fancy new trick into their iPhone app: Photo-based Check Depositing (or, as they call it, “Mobile Check Capture”.) You know the idea: snap a picture of a check’s front and back, the money automagically appears in your account, and you’ve saved yourself a trip to the ATM (and, more importantly, avoided going out into that nasty, nasty sunlight.)

Since this feature was rolled out, we’re told they’ve been seeing right around a million bucks per month come in via this route — and yet, the iPhone app has thus far been the only version to get it.

That ends today, it seems. Later this morning, PayPal will be announcing and releasing a new version of their Android app, complete with Mobile Check Capture. Oh, and for all the folks out there who can just never seem to find enough on-device storage space: this latest build also supports “Move To SD Card”. Take that, having-to-go-outside!

Intel Promises x86-based Phones In 2012

During investment presentations, Intel CEO Paul Otellini admitted that the company’s old strategy for mobile needed a makeover, but was optimistic about their prospects come 2012.

Read The Rest

Samsung “Hawk” (Exhibit 4G) Landing In T-Mobile Territory June 8

June 8 is to T-Mobile as May 26 is to Verizon. Three Android phones, one carrier, all launching on the same day. What was once referred to as the Samsung Hawk, now the Samsung Exhibit 4G, is set to hit T-Mo shelves on June 8, along with the HTC Sensation 4G and the Samsung Gravity Touch 2.

Read The Rest

LG Revolution May Join Verizon’s Xperia Play, Droid X2 in May 26 Launch

May 26 is shaping up to be a hectic day over at Verizon, as the carrier has seemingly planned a device-launch hat trick for a week from Thursday. The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is already confirmed for a May 26 release, and current rumors suggest that the Motorola Droid X2 will hit shelves that day, too. Now, a leaked photo of Best Buy inventory information suggests that the retailer will receive its LG Revolution supply on May 25.

Read The Rest

Confirmed -Yahoo Buys Advertising Platform 5to1 For $28 Million

Yahoo has just announced that it will be acquiring advertising platform 5to1 for $28 million. We originally broke the news of the acquisition last week.

5to1 first launched at TechCrunch50 in September 2009, and raised around $13 million in various rounds of funding. The startup is an online advertising alliance consisting of major media publishers. Built on a proprietary publisher-controlled platform, 5to1 offers advertisers premium inventory at mass scale.

The dual 7-inch screen Android tablet that NEC introduced during CES earlier this year is finally ready to ship (in Japan, at least). The company today announced [JP] that it’s now called LifeTouch W, and that it’s scheduled to hit stores over here sometime next month.

Read The Rest

“Super Hi-Vision”: Sharp Prototypes 85-Inch TV With Insane Resolution [Update: Video]

Can you imagine owning a TV with 16 times the resolution of HDTV (or, in other words, about the same resolution as IMAX)? That’s 7,680×4,320 pixels, and today Sharp (in cooperation with Japanese national TV broadcaster NHK) showed a 85-inch LCD TV boasting that spec, also known as Ultra HDTV or Super Hi-Vision.

Read The Rest

Plizy iPad App Could Be A Flipboard-meets-Pandora For Video

Plizy is an interesting new startup which wants to bring personalized video content to the iPad [iTunes link] the company has also announced a $1.2m angel funding round from undisclosed investors.

Plizy wants users to discover, share and watching online video based on your social graph, history, and interests. It sounds like a few other startups we could mention, and competitors might best be described as ShowYou or Pandora. In fact, there is an element here of “Flipboard meets Pandora” for video.

Looking for a transistor or a relay? Or possibly an oscilloscope? More than likely you’ll end up at Octopart, a vintage Y Combinator startup that launched in 2007.

The company is a search engine for electronic parts, allowing users to navigate through a taxonomy of structured stuff, or just do a plain old parts name/number search. Once you find what you’re looking for, Octopart will show you a variety of distributors who sell the part and their prices, along with a link to go buy it. Here’s the most searched item on the site.

The company is small, but growing and profitable. While the company won’t disclose revenues, about $10 million a year in commerce flows through their site, they estimate (meaning end purchases at distributors via referrals from them). Octopart generates revenue from those referrals, and through display ads on their site.And it has a great story of how it got here.

The photo-sharing space continues to heat up, and continues to leave dominant player in the space Flickr in the dust innovation wise. If one thing’s becoming clear, it’s that it must be really painful to work at Yahoo and have any sort of passion for good product design.

The latest example of this comes from Flickr designer Timoni West, who has publicly criticized the service on her personal blog, in a post called “The Most Important Page On Flickr.” In the post Timoni links to the Flickr contacts page and breaks down what’s wrong with it, namely that on a micro-level that there is no chronological way to sort photos, the thumbnail size is too small and there’s no way to see all of a user’s recent photos without visiting their profile.

With regard to their cloud music offering, it looks like Apple is now just about ready to rock and roll. It would seem that this is now coming together even faster than they anticipated. And that may be thanks to two unlikely sources: Google and Amazon.

CNet’s Greg Sandoval is reporting tonight that Apple has signed an agreement with music label EMI to offer its music through Apple’s upcoming new cloud music service. This means that Apple now has agreements in place with two of the four major labels (Warner signed last month). And Sandoval believes that deals with the remaining two, Sony and Universal, could be wrapped up as early as next week. Again, rock and roll.

With those deals in place, it means that Apple will be free to launch their cloud service anytime they please. And while we had heard the initial plan was to do so at their annual music event in the early fall, Apple could indeed move the launch up to WWDC in early June (just a few weeks from now). We haven’t heard anything definitive about this either way, but you can bet that Apple is thinking about it.

Twitter has just announced that it will be drilling down on the third party app permissions, and will be taking away automatic OAuth access to Direct Messages for apps that need it. As of today Twitter clients that need access your direct messages will ask you for permission to access them. Apps that no longer need access will no longer have access.

Zynga is continuing its shopping spree today with the acquisition of social game developer DNA Games, marking its 14th acquisition in the past 12 months. It’s important to note that this is an actual acquisition of both the talent and company, as opposed to the recent ‘acq-hires’ Zynga has been making in the past few months. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
DNA Games was founded in 2009 by a trio of former execs from SEM firm Bazaar Advertising (including Jon Lee and Shaun Haase), which was acquired by AzoogleAds in 2007. Since 2009, the gaming startup has developed a number of hit social games on Facebook, including Casino City, Slot City and Bar World.

TurningArt, a startup that aims bring a Netflix-like model to the art world, has secured $750,000 in seed funding led by NextView Ventures with participation from Niraj Shah, Steve Conine, Thomas Lehrman, and Will Herman.

Launched in August 2010, TurningArt allows customers to rotate prints of contemporary artists in their home or office for as little as $9.99 per month. Similar to the way you pick movies on your Netflix account, customers can build a queue of artwork they’d like ‘rent’, and TurningArt will then ship that artwork at their preferred frequency.

Cognitive Match has raised $6 million from new investor Antrak Capital and previous backer Dawn Capital. The round brings total funding raised by the company to over $10 million.

The funding announcement coincides with recent moves for Cognitive Match CEO Alex Kelleher and the company’s SVP of Global Sales, Mike Harris, who both relocated from London to New York.

ou may be tired of hearing about task managers, but Producteev is a task management service worth writing home about. Few people enjoy using complicated product, task or CRM managers, so Producteev has built a solution with a user-friendly interface that is channel agnostic, and even adds a bit of gaming mechanics. Producteev is a workable alternative to solutions like Basecamp, though the space will surely be keeping a close eye on Dustin Moskovitz’s Asana.

Over the past couple of years covering Google, there’s one seemingly simple question that comes up again and again, that Google just can’t seem to answer. Why isn’t Chrome a part of Android?

Read the wrong way, that could seem like a deep question. But it almost never means “why isn’t Chrome OS simply merged with Android?” or the like. Most of the time, it’s simply a question wondering why Google’s very popular web browser is not a part of their very popular mobile operating system? After all, that OS has a browser (the aptly-named “Browser”), but it’s not Chrome. Why not?

One of many things that make Y Combinator special: They hold regular “office hours” with startups where entrepreneurs can get advice on any topic, from business strategy to design issues.

What we talk about at office hours also depends on the startup and where we are in the cycle. Usually we talk about whatever is the most urgent question right now. Sometimes, especially early on, the most urgent question is to figure out what the most urgent question should be. That’s less trivial than it sounds; we spend a lot of time telling founders what not to worry about.

(About 10% of the time we talk not about immediate problems but about the big vision for the company. You don’t have to be bound by this, but it’s good to have one. Some startups arrive with a big vision already, but most don’t. It’s a useful exercise to spend some time thinking about what the path would be from what a startup is doing now to a giant company, even if that’s not the current goal of the founders. Helping founders come up with these big visions is one of our strengths, because we’ve explored so much of the space of startup ideas that we know what’s over each hill.)

When you plan a vacation, you likely have a destination in mind. Location plays a considerable role in our travel plans, but really what makes or breaks a good vacation is what you do when you get there. Your trip to Hawaii last summer was enjoyable simply because you were in Hawaii and not at the office, but really what you remember is the scuba diving — and backpacking through volcanoes. These “travel activities” are essential to every travel experience and, perhaps unsurprisingly, have become a sizable business.

According to PhoCusWright report “When They Get There (and Why They Go)”, the U.S. travel activities market totalled $27 billion in 2009. Not only that, but more than $7 billion in activities were booked online in 2009, and the study predicts that, by 2012, the percentage of activities that will be arranged online will double.

Online retail spending reached $38 billion this quarter, up 12 percent from a $33.8 billion a year ago according to Comscore — Due to an increase in the number of buyers (7%), transactions per buy (9%) and tempered by a decline in spending per transaction (4%).

According to a ComScore report released today, nearly half of those orders included free shipping, at 47% versus 53% for Q’1 ’11, 49% versus 51% in Q’4 10 (the holiday season) and 41% versus 59% in Q3 ’10.

With the hoopla over the Nintendo 3DS dying down and the hard reality of the thing clear, it’s time to take stock and assess if the 3DS is right for you and/or your family. First off, I’ll say I’m a fan. It’s a wildly fascinating device and the 3D effects are amazing – when done correctly. I believe the 3DS has legs and will maintain sales at a steady clip over the next few years and I also think Nintendo has set a new level of interactivity and creativity in the creation of this new handheld. This isn’t just an upgraded DS, it’s a new handheld console.

Let’s go through a few reasons why the 3DS is worth picking up – and a few caveats before you buy.

I can imagine this post, titled “Facebook Testing Web Search Box At Top Of Site” was flying around Google’s cubicles today. Probably with a few expletives attached as commentary.

This certainly wouldn’t be unprecedented. They targeted Microsoft years ago with their online Office competitor, and Microsoft fired back with Bing and seems to be quite willing to invest billions of dollars for as long as it takes to grab search share from Google. Now Google is targeting Facebook with their social efforts. There’s no reason at all why Facebook wouldn’t go into search. For us users, it’s all good. Competition brings better products to the market at lower prices. And Google needs more competition in search.

But…phew! The screenshot that All Facebook got is a fake, or the result of third party software messing with a user’s browser (my guess is photoshop is the culprit). So take it down to DEFCON 2, Google, Facebook isn’t launching search just yet.

As an intelligent, tech-savvy reader of TechCrunch, you’re probably pretty good at spotting online scams — from Nigerian Princes to friends “stuck” in London, many of us have trained ourselves to mentally rule out any offer that seems too good to be true, especially when it includes words like “Easy Cash”. But there are still plenty of people who fall prey to online scammers.

Back in December 2009, Google filed suit against a number of scamming rings that were rampantly promoting sites promising “Easy Cash with Google” (of course, they offered nothing of the sort). Now the courts are siding with the search giant, ordering the rings to cease their behavior and to pay Google $1.6 million.

Motista an on-demand consumer intelligence solution for marketers, has raised $4.5 million in series A financing led by El Dorado Ventures. El Dorado Partner Tom Peterson will be joining Motista’s board of directors. Motista is not disclosing its total funding numbers, but the company was originally backed by founders Scott Magids and Alan Zorfas and several angel investors, who collectively invested several million dollars, according to Marketing Director Paula Cavagnaro.

Motista also announced that it will be bringing its headquarters to Silicon Valley, relocating operations from Maryland to San Mateo, CA.

Founded in 2007, Motista aims to develop consumer data and connection metrics in an effort to provide marketers with more intelligent ways to help brands reach their customers. Which is basically another way of saying that the startup surveys and collects data on consumer habits, allowing your business to learn more about what kind of products your customers are buying and why — as well as how to better target them.

Finally.

For quite some time now, Android developers have been waiting for the arrival of an in-app payment and billing system. Originally, Google said this was coming last year, but it was delayed by Christmas — or something. A few weeks later, Google showed off how it would work, but noted that it wouldn’t be available until this spring. Well, it’s finally just about here.

As is noted on the Android Developers blog today, Google has just opened up testing of the In-App Billing system. Writes Google:

Last July, after months of rumors and leaked screenshots, Facebook launched a Q&A product called Questions. At the time, I said it had the potential to be “massive”: with 500 million (now 600 million) users, the site had the chance to take on Q&A sites like Yahoo Answers, which can be a huge source of traffic. And it was also directly taking on Quora, the buzzed-about startup that has a contentious relationship with Facebook, in part because it was founded by former Facebook CTO Adam D’Angelo and engineer/manager Charlie Cheever.

But Questions never took off. Facebook has limited access to the product to a small percentage of users, and over the last few months we’ve gotten several tips that the product wasn’t really getting traction. Today comes news that seems to confirm those rumors: Facebook has just announced a revamped version of Questions that has very little in common with the original product. And it’s no longer any threat to Quora.

Yuri Milner, founder of Moscow-based venture firm DST, has purchased quite a home in Silicon Valley, say multiple sources. The 25,000 square foot home, built just a few years ago, sits on a tidy 11 acres. The price? $70 million.

For personal reasons we aren’t going to print the address. But we’ve heard that Milner isn’t there much anyway and has no immediate plans to move to the U.S.

It seems like just yesterday that I was writing about Chrome 11′s awesome new ability to let you speak to the browser by way of HTML5. In fact, it was just yesterday. But that hasn’t stopped a team from coming up with a Chrome extension to get it to work in search boxes across the web.

Speechify is an extension that Dugley Labs churned out in record speed yesterday. With it, many of the search boxes you visit on the web gain the little microphone icon that when clicked, allows you to speak your search. It works on Google, Bing, YouTube, Hulu — a ton of sites. And it works well.

Google TV Product Lead Brittany Bohnet has just announced that she’s leaving Google after four years to try her luck as an entrepreneur, presumably as a co-founder of an as of yet un-named startup.

At Google Bohnet was a Product Marketing Manager who worked on products like Maps, Earth and iGoogle, but most recently Google TV. Before Google Bohnet worked in PR at Apple as well as Marketing at Tiny Pictures. Bohnet has also been a founder before, being the CEO of Median Media which was a PR consulting company for Silicon Valley startups.

$41 million. From Sequoia Capital, Bain Capital, and Silicon Valley Bank. Pre-launch.

That’s how much a brand new startup called Color has to work with. Your eyebrows should already be raised, and here’s something to keep them fixed there: this is the most money Sequoia has ever invested in a pre-launch startup. Or, as the Color team put it, “That’s more than they gave Google.”

But the founding team goes a long way toward explaining it. Headed by Bill Nguyen — who sold Lala to Apple in late 2009 — the company has attracted a wealth of talent. It has seven founders including Nguyen and company president Peter Pham, who previously founded BillShrink. And its chief of product is DJ Patil, who was previously LinkedIn’s chief scientist.

So what exactly is Color?

YouTube Now Helps You Make Movies…Without A Camera

By now you’re undoubtedly familiar with the incredible amount of footage that’s uploaded to YouTube — the current count is 35 hours of video uploaded every minute. And with video cameras integrated into smartphones, tablets, and computers these days (not to mention dedicated video cameras) it’s easier than ever to record that content. Unfortunately, there are still plenty of people who simply don’t have access to recording equipment. Today, YouTube is looking to do something about that.

The site has just launched a new portal at YouTube.com/create where you can design your own video clips using GoAnimate, Stupeflix, or Xtranormal, each of which lets you ‘build’ custom videos featuring virtual avatars, custom speech, and more.

The search wars have officially arrived! That’s right folks, Google’s ongoing quest to make its search results more impervious to spammers has become an infographic, which basically is a badge of honor for any tech bitchmeme.

Closet and not so closet SEO nerds can follow the above flowchart tracing Google’s storied path, from getting rejected by Excite@Home in favor of current Demand Media honcho’s iMail through the chutes and ladders of its algorithmic spam chase to the company’s most recent attempts to quell the rising influence of content farms like um, Demand Media.

Poll Pigeon is a web site where polls can be taken or created and shared. It needs a sign up with an email id or can be connected through Twitter or Facebook. This gives the access to take a poll or create a poll and share it.

After signing up, go to create a poll tabs and create a poll. There is a question bar to add the question. There is an option of uploading an image. The options can range from two to twenty. To add more options there is an add answer icon. Finally there is a choice of language and category, under addition information to promote your poll. My created poll tab has the polls you have created.

There are categories under which the polls are placed. While creating polls, there is an option of what category the poll might possibly belong. These categories include celebs, Disney, fashion, politics, sports, technology and random (those which do not belong to any particular category).

To vote on these polls, click on the tab that interests you the most and pick a poll and vote. There are ‘pigeon points’ to bid for your poll to be promoted to 235,000 followers. It gives 1 Pigeon Point for every poll you take (max 200 per day) and 1 Pigeon Point for every person that takes one of your polls (max 200 per day). These pigeon points can be bought through Paypal or credit card. Poll Pigeon is fun to spend sometime taking and making polls.

Drunk On Licensing Fees And Patents, Microsoft Has Become A Joke

Earlier today, it was revealed that Microsoft was suing yet another company for infringing on their patents. The target this time? Barnes & Noble. Yes, Microsoft is suing a book chain. Why? Because they claim the Nook e-reader (which runs Google’s Android OS) copies status bars from Windows CE. Or something. If you’ll excuse my bluntness, it’s all a bunch of bullshit.

Devin has a good overview on CrunchGear of what the patents in question actually are. The whole thing is laughable. And everyone knows that except one party: Microsoft. The company has become completely drunk on their patents and subsequent lame lawsuits. And as a result, they’re quickly losing the hearts and minds of just about everyone that doesn’t work in Redmond.

Ever since Xobni launched at the first TechCrunch 40, it’s been about Outlook and then Blackberry. But those of us who use Gmail also want to make our inboxes smarter. Today, Xobni is launching aprivate beta for Gmail, and will soon also launch iPhone and Android apps. The first 100 readers to sign up for the Gmail beta will get in (use the code XOBNI-TC100).

The Gmail app comes in the form of a browser extension for either Chrome or Firefox (Safari and IE will come later). Once you install it, a Xobni sidebar appears in your Gmail Inbox. Once you allow it to index your contacts and hook it up to your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts, it starts to show you all sorts of relationship data. Contact search in the Xobni box is hella fast, much faster than searching in the Gmail search box (but only for contacts, it does not index the entire text of your messages).

Heyzap, a monetization and distribution platform for online casual games, announced today that it’s going mobile. Launching a social discovery application for mobile games on Android, the startup will be bringing the 1.6 million users it has already accumulated on its social gaming platform over to mobile.
The company aims to build on its foray into social gaming last year, when it announced a partnership with fifteen social game developers, like Aeria Games, Game Duell, and TheBroth, to name a few. Using Facebook connect, the partnership made the developers’ games available on the 450,000 sites across the Web that had already integrated HeyZap’s platform. Social networking sites and tools Ning and myYearbook are among the sites that host Heyzap games.

The evidence is mounting that Android phones are surging past the iPhone in terms of subscribers and now mobile ad impressions, at least in the U.S. A new report put out this morning by mobile ad network InMobi shows that mobile ad impressions on Android devices eclipsed Apple’s iOS devices in January, representing 37 percent of all U.S. mobile ad impressions on its network versus 23 percent for the iPhone.

Android’s share jumped a full 21 percentage points since InMobi’s last report in October, 2010. (Android actually passed the iPhone for the first time in December). The iPhone’s overall share of mobile ad impressions actually dropped 1.3 percent.

“These are post-PC devices, that need to be even easier to use than a PC.”

That was Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ closing remark as he left the stage having just announced the iPad 2 at an event today in San Francisco. And that comment really summed up the vibe of the entire event. When Jobs was on stage, he made it very clear over and over again that the iPad competition out there just doesn’t seem to get it.

And the iPad 2 is really a bet directly related to that. Apple kicked things off by noting that the iPad 2 was about much more than “marginal improvements”, but the reality is that this is what many people writing about the event will see when they look at the iPad 2. And part of that is Apple’s fault: they go out of their way not give much in terms of specs.

Google was originally set to debut in-app payments support for Android in the fourth quarter of 2010, and recently said that the launch would be delayed until the end of this quarter. Be that as it may, the company is set to launch another much-anticipated (at least by many app developers or publishers) Web-based in-app transactions product in May 2011. (see updates below)

Jambool, the company behind a virtual monetization platform dubbed ‘Social Gold’ that was acquired by Google last August, this morning started sending the following email to users:

(After the jump) Read More

In Two Years, Most Of You Will Be Reading TechCrunch From An Apple Device

In February of 2007, 83.24 percent of users visiting TechCrunch did so from a Windows machine. One year later, in February 2008, the stranglehold remained firm at 80.44 percent. In February 2009, the number was at 74.04 percent. Last year, it was 61.59 percent. And this year? The number of people visiting our site from Windows machines dipped to 53.84 percent.

The writing is on the wall.

Look at those numbers again for a second. In four years, Windows share among TechCrunch readers has fallen 30 percentage points. That’s incredible.

Earlier this month Google launched the web version of Android Market, which lets you purchase applications from your web browser and have them beamed directly to your phone or tablet (it’s very slick). Now, Google has some good news for you bibliophiles out there: The Xoom’s Android Market application includes Google Books, and now the web version does too. You can find it right here.

Buying a book on Android Market works just the same as buying an app — you click on the price (or the ‘free’ label), choose a method of payment, and your new book will show up the next time you fire up the Books application on your Android device.

Today brings two different news items from two huge companies both related to the same thing: check-ins. This morning, All Facebook found an area of Facebook’s site pointing to the ability to check-in to events. And just now, Google has pushed an update to their Latitude iPhone app to allow users to check-in for the first time also. Is a new check-in war brewing?

Well, yes and no.

Neither of these updates today by themselves are huge — just yet. Facebook has had the ability to check-in via their Places service for several months now (though the feature is still rolling out worldwide). Google, meanwhile, added check-ins to Latitude on Android this past February (and noted that it would be coming for the iPhone too). But both of the subtle updates today point to big things.

The Onion: Facebook “Is Truly A Dream Come True For The CIA” (Video)

You did know that Facebook is a ‘massive online surveillance program run by the CIA,” right? And that Mark Zuckerberg is a CIA agent codenamed the Overlord? Just watch the Onion video above. It explains the whole thing.

I especially like the Congressional “testimony” from the deputy CIA director:

After years of secretly monitoring the public, we were astounded so many people would willingly publicize where they live, their religious and political views, an alphabetized list of all their friends, personal emails addresses, phone numbers, hundreds of photos of themselves, and even status updates about what they were doing moment to moment. It is truly a dream come true for the CIA.

Confirmed: Facebook Acquires Snaptu (For An Estimated $60 – $70 Million)

According to several Israeli business newspapers (TheMarker, Calcalist) Facebook has acquired Snaptu for an estimated $60 – $70 million, although some reports peg the price lower, at around $40 million.

Update: a Snaptu executive has confirmed the acquisition to our friend Orli Yakuel, but declined to discuss the purchase price or other terms of the deal.

Update 2: and the confirmation is up on Snaptu’s blog. The acquisition is apparently expected to close within a few weeks.

Open Source For You

Linux Users News Updates

Tech Cocktail