CrunchGear |  |
- Japan Video Game Charts: Bestsellers In First Half Of 2011, This Week Topped By LA Noire
- The Odd, Dual-Screen gScreen Laptop Is Actually Shipping
- SupportSpace Lands $12M For Remote Technical Support Services
- Case Study: How Piracy Destroys App Profits
- Google News Badges? We Don’t Need No Stinking Google News Badges
- iOS, RIM Mobile Ad Impressions Pick Up In Q2 As Android Growth Levels Off
- Japan Earthquake Pushes Sony Ericsson To A Q2 Loss; Smartphones Account For 70 Percent Of Sales
- Daily Crunch: Smart Home
- DoAT Quickly Adds Google+ Sharing From The iPhone In A Clever Way
- Nintendo DS Still Outselling 3DS Two To One
- “Like A Toothbrush”: Larry Page Live-Google+’s His Own Earnings Call
- Groupon Releases New S-1, Adds 11 Underwriters Including JP Morgan And Allen & Co.
- Shelby.tv Raises $1.5 Million To Give You Personalized Channels Of Online Video
- It’s Plick: Somebody Call Mattel And Get This Guy An Interview (Video)
- Larry Page On Android Patent Problems: “There Hasn’t Been Any Slow Down”
- Sprint Slashes Nexus S 4G Price To $99.99 On-Contract
- Google Android Now On 130M Total Devices, With 6B App Downloads
- Larry Page: “I Think About Our Products In Three Separate Categories”
- Sony NEX-7 Prototype Shown In Leaked Picture
- Larry Page On Google+: Over 10 Million Users, 1 Billion Items Being Shared Per Day
- Android Now Seeing 550,000 Activations Per Day
- The Chrome Niko Is A Weather-Proof Camera Bag
- Google Back On Track In Q2, Beats The Street With Over $9 Billion In Revenue
- ShowWX Projector Gets HDMI Option
- More Tickets To Our 6th Annual Summer Party At August Capital Are On Sale Now
| Japan Video Game Charts: Bestsellers In First Half Of 2011, This Week Topped By LA Noire Posted: 15 Jul 2011 04:43 AM PDT It’s the middle of the year, and the Famitsu [JP], Japan’s (and probably the world’s) biggest video game magazine, decided it’s a good time to release the top 10 of the best-selling video games in Japan in the first half of this year, apart from a list of the top selling titles this week. Top 10 of the best selling games in Japan in the first half of 2011: 1. Monster Hunter Portable 3rd (PSP, Capcom): 968,269 units As you can see, the list includes only games made by Japanese companies. But in the same issue, the Famitsu shows the top 10 of the best selling video games in Japan this week, too. And this list is topped by Rockstar’s L.A. Noire and includes titles by other foreign game developers (on 2, 3, 4, and 9). Last month, the Famitsu gave L.A. Noire an almost perfect score of 39/40. 1. L.A. Noire (PS3, Take-Two): 58,436 units        
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| The Odd, Dual-Screen gScreen Laptop Is Actually Shipping Posted: 15 Jul 2011 04:21 AM PDT A few years ago I met a stockbroker who was telling me that someone should make a laptop with two screens so he could trade while on vacation. While I was slightly disturbed by his dedication to capitalism, I’m proud to say that his dream has been fulfilled. We first talked about the gScreen Spacebook a few years ago and now the Alaskan company is actually going to start shipping their massive, two-inch-thick laptop to the masses. The screens are each 17 inches and the laptop is fairly standard with optical drive, three USB ports, and GeForce GTS 250M GPU. It starts at $2,400 for an Intel Core i5-560M although there’s some kind of 50% off pre-order price right now, bringing it down to $1,200. If you need a dual screen like the aforementioned stockbroker, this may be your easiest choice. However, I’d recommend hiring a Sherpa to carry this around for you because this thing looks like a monster.        
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| SupportSpace Lands $12M For Remote Technical Support Services Posted: 15 Jul 2011 04:17 AM PDT SupportSpace, which helps companies provide remote technical support with a range of customer service solutions and a network of ‘experts’, has raised $12 million in funding from Gemini, BRM and Emergence Capital. The round brings the startup’s total funding raised to nearly $37 million. Founded in 2006 by Doron Elgressy (president) and Yair Grindlinger (CEO), SupportSpace enables companies like software/hardware vendors and retailers to offer remote tech support services to consumers through a so-called ‘Virtual Expert Network’ which empowers independent experts to provide tech support services to consumers on a range of connected devices, on their own terms. SupportSpace supports thousands of customers on a daily basis and claims to deliver over 5 million minutes of service per month. The company currently employs 75 people in the United States and Israel and claims to have revenues of “tens of millions of dollars”. One of the companies they have partnered with is retail giant Best Buy, in an effort to boost the remote tech services business of GeekSquad (a subsidiary of Best Buy), enabling customers to purchase remote tech service products and service plans online or at BestBuy's 1,100+ stores. Other customers include Panda Security, Check Point Software and Lavasoft. (Via The Marker – in Hebrew)        
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| Case Study: How Piracy Destroys App Profits Posted: 15 Jul 2011 03:50 AM PDT The folks at GAMEized were proud. They had produced a great iOS soccer (football) game called FingerKicks, built it with full HD support, and waited with bated breath as soccer fans in country after country began to pick up on the title. But things weren’t looking very good. According to Apple’s own sales data, first day sales hit $97 while day after day they saw lower and lower sales. Things leveled off and rather than depend on Apple’s numbers they decided to check out the Game Center leaderboard. To their astonishment, suddenly 5,000 people picked up the game over the weekend. They were over the moon. Even at 99 cents, 5,000 players meant a nice chunk of change. They waited for Apple’s official sales numbers and realized the sad truth: only 160 purchases were registered that weekend. Their app was on the “featured” page of the popular pirate collection, AppTrackr, which is part of Hackulo.us, a major player on the “cracked apps scene.” With AppTrackr and an app called Installous (available on jailbroken iOS devices), users can grab almost any app for free, including FingerKicks. “Apple apparently has no functional counter-piracy safeguards in place on their Game Center – essentially permitting users to play pirated software on their Game Center without any fear of reprisals or consequence,” they wrote. We’re obviously dealing with two competing worldviews. On the one hand, we can say be neckbeard about it and say “Information Wants To Be Free, DRM Is Bad, Fight the Power, Free As In Beard” and on the other hand we can say that the folks at GAMEized would eventually like to eat. We can also say that the folks who won’t pay 99 cents for soccer game are scum, but that’s neither here nor there. Platforms like Steam have consistently proven that easy payment gateways are a boon for any digital industry and to work around those paywalls in order to save a buck is abhorrent. The guys at GAMEized clearly love the iOS platform. They write:
While “reciprocation of devotion” is a little much to ask for a faceless corporation, maybe Apple could try and reduce the level of piracy? It is my hope that folks like the guys at GAMEized and other devs will look past Apple’s short-sightedness and keep producing quality games and I also hope Apple steps up their game and attempts to ameliorate this problem, even by allowing producers to sense jailbroken devices and to ask users to pony up. I, for one, bought FingerKicks even though I’ll probably never play it. As much as I don’t like soccer, I don’t like small devs being fleeced even more.        
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| Google News Badges? We Don’t Need No Stinking Google News Badges Posted: 15 Jul 2011 03:13 AM PDT Whether you think gamification is the road that leads to a brighter future – or instead straight to the irreparable infantilization – of the Web, even the harshest of critics have to admit that there’s more to the concept than simply slapping some badges on a website, game or application, Foursquare-style. The more I read up on this new Google News Badges stuff, the more I think some people over at Mountain View didn’t quite get that particular message. Starting today, in the U.S. edition of Google News, users can earn more than 500 types of badges as they read articles about their favorite topics. As Google explains in its blog post:
Seriously, Google? That was the best you could come up with in terms of personalizing the user experience for Google News (and feeding the Google+ beast with more data about those users)? Or is this a half-baked attempt to get more people to turn on Web history, share their personal browsing behavior and generate more traffic and clicks for online publishing ‘partners’? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but come on, badges? I know they introduced Google Reader badges back in 2010, where you could earn points for every item you read on GReader, but at least that was an April Fools Joke. Google News Badges are not, puzzling enough, unless I’m reading the date wrong. Badges can be shared, as Google posits, so you can tell your friends about your news interests, “display your expertise, start a conversation or just plain brag about how well-read you are”. Hey that sort of sounds like Google Knol. Remember Google Knol? Yeah, me neither. Badges aren’t a bad idea per se, and I’m sure they work well for video games and whatnot, but news? They did something right though, by finally separating the Sci/Tech section into two distinct sections, a separation that should admittedly have been there since day one. But I would rather see them make some more obvious enhancements to the service to make for a smoother user experience, like improving the navigation when you search for multi-source news coverage on a given topic, the reduction – or dare I say complete removal – of duplicate or “rewritten” news articles, smarter clustering of related news items à la Techmeme, better integration with other products like Google Finance, Translate, Reader and YouTube, a more intelligent way of filtering articles based on the time of publication, less distinction between blogs and other online publications (now that the line has blurred so much and both the reporting process and the associated platforms have professionalized tremendously), a separate section for press releases, diversified news coverage and opinion pieces, and so on. Instead, we got badges.         
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| iOS, RIM Mobile Ad Impressions Pick Up In Q2 As Android Growth Levels Off Posted: 15 Jul 2011 02:45 AM PDT The largest remaining independent mobile ad network Millennial Media has released its monthly report on data from the second quarter of 2011, and unlike last month’s report, it looks like iOS and RIM are seeing a resurgence as Android growth levels off in terms of mobile ad impressions. According to Millennial, iOS impressions grew 18% quarter-over-quarter, whereas Android impressions grew 11% quarter-over-quarter. RIM impressions grew 29% quarter-over-quarter, Symbian impressions grew 13% quarter-over-quarter, and Windows Phone 7 impressions grew 31% quarter-over-quarter. In fact, according to Millennial’s data, Android saw the slowest growth out of all the smartphone platforms for mobile ad impressions. Millennial frequently takes a look at app development ranked by revenue on the network and in Q2, Android represented 41% of the Application Platform Mix, a 14% increase from quarter-to-quarter. iOS represented 49% of the app, and grew 12% quarter-over-quarter. By impression share, Android remained the leading OS on the network for the 7th consecutive month with a 54% impression share (but this was the same share as May), followed by iOS with a 26% impression share in June. RIM had 15% impression share, with Symbian and Windows Phone 7 trailing with 3% and 2% share, respectively. The iPhone continued to dominate Millennial’s network in June as the top mobile phone on the ad network with a 16% impression share in June. The closest Android phone was the original Motorola Droid at 2.95%. But the Android platform also had 16 of the top 20 mobile phones. By manufacturer Apple took the lead, representing 30% of the Top 15 Manufacturers impression share Smartphones made up 65% of all impressions on Millennial, and connected devices grew 13% month-over-month, and accounted for 18% of all impressions. It’s certainly interesting to see that Android’s growth is slowing. And that iOS is picking up. We’ll see if that trend continues into July and the third quarter. As for Millennial, it’s unclear whether the company, which is the largest independent mobile ad network remaining, will become a public company or will be acquired. The company raised $27.5 million in new funding a year ago, and is considering an IPO in the near future. Considering the growing number of tech companies going down that road, it’s certainly the right time for an IPO.
       
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| Japan Earthquake Pushes Sony Ericsson To A Q2 Loss; Smartphones Account For 70 Percent Of Sales Posted: 15 Jul 2011 01:11 AM PDT Sony Ericsson released its quarterly earnings this morning, reporting a surprise loss for Q2 2011 and declining sales. The earthquake that hit Japan earlier this year has a lot to do with the slump, as it had a major effect on the company’s supply chain. The quarter ended in a net loss of €50 million (roughly $70.5 million), compared to a net income of €12 million ($17 million) in the same quarter in the previous year, and €11 million ($15.5 million) in the last quarter. Sony Ericsson estimates that the impact of earthquake-related constraints on its product portfolio was close to 1.5 million units, with most of the effect in the early part of the second quarter of the year. Total units shipped during the quarter were 7.6 million, a 31 percent decrease year- on-year. The average price per handset also fell, from €160 to €156. Sales for the quarter were nearly €1,2 billion (roughly $1.7 billion), a 32 percent decrease year-on-year. Loss before taxes for the quarter was €42 million ($59 million), compared to an income before taxes of €31 million ($43.7 million) for the same quarter in the previous year, due to lower volume. On another note: smartphone sales accounted for more than 70 percent of Sony Ericsson’s total sales during the quarter. The company says it has shipped more than 16 million Android-powered Xperia smartphones to date. The company estimates that its share in the global Android-based smartphone market during the quarter was approximately 11 percent in volume as well as in value.        
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| DoAT Quickly Adds Google+ Sharing From The iPhone In A Clever Way Posted: 15 Jul 2011 12:48 AM PDT When DoAT (aka Do@) launched at TechCrunch Disrupt in May, their unique take on search and mobile apps earned rave reviews. Unsurprisingly, they were selected by the judges to be a finalist. And they continue to stay ahead of the curve, by quickly embracing Google+. The latest version of their iPhone app, which just went live in the App Store, supports sharing of content from within their app to Google’s new social network. How is this possible since Google hasn’t yet exposed APIs for people to play with? DoAT is wisely using the mobile web version of Google+ for the sharing. When you find a page you want to share, you simply hit the G+ icon and a web browser will open within the DoAT app and the name of the page you’re sharing plus a link will automatically be inserted. It also notes that it’s being shared from the iPhone via DoAT — nothing wrong with a little marketing for being first to implement the nifty feature. The @social area of DoAT now also includes Google+ as the second option, right after Facebook. This G+ share button within DoAT is likely the first from the iPhone. But others around the web have been hacking together buttons and setting up accounts just for sharing to Google’s new network, even without Google’s official support. The lure of 10 million+ users — all of which are new, and many of which still seem highly active — seems too good to pass up. The new version of DoAT comes with a few other interface enhancements as well which make it easier to get started. You can find DoAT in the App Store here.        
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| Nintendo DS Still Outselling 3DS Two To One Posted: 14 Jul 2011 06:21 PM PDT It’s probably too much to expect that a more expensive new handheld would immediately unseat its predecessor, but I doubt Nintendo is too happy that consumers are buying more than twice as many DSes as 3DSes. At the same time, selling over half a million handhelds in a month isn’t exactly bad news either. According to a Nintendo press release:
Good for them! The fact is that while the 3DS is a compelling system, its cost and the lack of killer games for it mean that uptake is bound to be on the slow side — compared to the DS, which has a library of megahits stretching back years. That said, Ocarina of Time 3D is actually quite a blockbuster despite the small user base:
A slightly confusing way of saying that it’s the second-best selling game that’s only available on one system. #1? InFamous 2 for the PS3, believe it or not.        
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| “Like A Toothbrush”: Larry Page Live-Google+’s His Own Earnings Call Posted: 14 Jul 2011 03:06 PM PDT Today, during the earnings call about Google’s great Q2 2011 results, CEO Larry Page kicked things off. While this was technically his first full quarter as CEO, he got some flak during the last earnings call for only saying a few sentences. This time, he went much further, even sticking around for the Q&A session. He also did something really cool: as he was on the call, he posted all of his opening remarks to Google+. Yes, he live-Google+’d his own call. Talk about eating your own dog food. Awesome. We’ve already posted on some of the key numbers Page shared: the financials, Android activations & numbers, and Google+ numbers. But there were a few other interesting tidbits in his remarks. Namely, he’s clearly enjoying the early success Google+ is seeing. He also believes his re-organization of the company is already paying off (though we can’t see all of the benefits of it yet). And he wants to make it very clear that his leadership of Google will be fiscally responsible. When talking about some of the “speculative” projects that Google is working on (such as driverless cars), Page notes, “we're very careful stewards of shareholder money — we're not betting the farm on this stuff.” He goes on to say that they also don’t do things they don’t think could be massive opportunities. “All of us at Google want to create services that people across the world use twice a day — just like a toothbrush!” Here were the key takeaways from Page’s remarks in his own words:
       
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| Groupon Releases New S-1, Adds 11 Underwriters Including JP Morgan And Allen & Co. Posted: 14 Jul 2011 02:53 PM PDT Groupon has filed new S-1 from for its IPO where it is looking to raise at least $750 million. What’s changed from the last one filed on June 2nd? Well according to Bloomberg’s Emily Chang, the daily deals site has added new underwriters Williams, RBC, Loop, Citadel, JPMorgan, Allen & Co, BofA, Citi, Barclays and Deutsche in addition to previous underwriters Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse. As first reported by the Chicago Tribune, the filing also interestingly enough asks investors to ignore co-founder Eric Lefkosky’s remarks that Groupon was “wildly profitable.” From the S-1:
Business Insider has also discovered that Groupon has included some wording that emphasizes their losses, for example, “We had net income of $21,000 for the second quarter of 2009 as compared to a net loss of $102.7 million for the first quarter of 2011.” Seems like media pressure and fear of regulators has gotten to someone over at Groupon HQ.        
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| Shelby.tv Raises $1.5 Million To Give You Personalized Channels Of Online Video Posted: 14 Jul 2011 02:45 PM PDT Just glancing at YouTube’s growth numbers, it doesn’t take a genius like me to figure out that people are spending more time watching video on the web — and that online video is going to increasingly eat away at the amount of time they spend watching cable. But while the web has plenty of benefits (like on-demand content), good old-fashioned television has some nice perks too, like the fact that you can sit down and watch and endless stream of content with almost no effort involved. Shelby.tv is a startup that thinks you can have the best of both worlds — it creates a no-hassle stream of video content based on the links your friends have shared on Facebook and Twitter, resulting in content that’s both effortless and (probably) relevant to what you’re interested in. The company was a member of the first TechStars NYC class and has just raised a $1.5 million funding round led by Avalon Ventures, with Avalon’s Rich Levandov and Brady Bohrmann joining the board. In addition to Avalon, the round included the following angel investors: Tim Draper [DFJ], Mike Lazerow [Buddy Media], Dave Morgan [Simulmedia/Tacoda], Jerry Colonna [formerly with Flatiron Partners], Mike Yavonditte [Hashable/Quigo], Charles Smith [extension.fm], Bobby Yazdani [Saba], George Kliavkoff [Manilla/Hearst], Allen Morgan [formerly with Mayfield]. CEO Reece Pacheco says that the service is still in a private alpha so the company doesn’t have much product news at this point, but we’ll let you know once it does (he adds that the company is hiring with the new funding). Shelby.tv will have plenty of competition, as there are a number of startups looking to offer personalized streams of online video, including Deja, Frequency, and Plitzy. And YouTube itself also has products like YouTube LeanBack — and integration with Google TV — that aim to make the viewing experience more like television. But just as the audience for television is massive, the audience for web-based video services will eventually be very large as well, which means that’s room for multiple winners.        
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| It’s Plick: Somebody Call Mattel And Get This Guy An Interview (Video) Posted: 14 Jul 2011 02:43 PM PDT What is it you ask? Plick (as in Programmable by clicking your fingers) is a set of connectable, interactive components that can be attached to ordinary objects and transform them into interactive gadgets. The components include an engine, distance sensor, LED lamp, battery pack and microphone. Just as the name suggests, you can program or activate the individual component’s behaviors by clicking your fingers in certain patterns or by using by the included distance sensor. However, the core of the concept revolves around the conductive rubber bands that connect the components together and allow you to “Plick-i-tize” (you like that…I just made it up) any small household object. For example, the block above becomes a car. Neat! According to the literature at creator Gabriel Paciornik’s informational website, the rubber bands are the key feature and were also the most challenging design obstacle to overcome in developing this project.
And what a project it was. In fact, Plick was the culmination of Gabriel’s final assignment as an Industrial Design student in Shenkar College of Engineering and Design (in partnership with the miLab of the IDC Hertzlia). So if you were counting on ordering this bad boy for your desk or for your “40-Year-Old-Virgin” style toy lab/basement, you’ll either have to contact Gabriel directly, or help him get hired at a reputable toy maker soon. Oh, and I hope he got an A++++++         
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| Larry Page On Android Patent Problems: “There Hasn’t Been Any Slow Down” Posted: 14 Jul 2011 02:29 PM PDT During the earnings call after Google announced their Q2 2011 earnings today, a question was asked about the patent issues surrounding Google right now. Specifically, Android is under assault from Oracle as well as Microsoft and Apple. This is happening because Google only has roughly 700 patents, and they recently lost a bid to gain Nortel’s 6,000+ patents — with those going to, who else, Microsoft and Apple, among others. So what is Google going to do? “Obviously, we have a lot of IP in progress — not only what has been issued,” Google CEO Larry Page said, clearly trying to say that Google is pushing forward on patents by continuing to do their own innovation (as opposed to buying patents). “Android is on a tear,” Page continued. He reiterated many of the massive numbers he shared earlier in the call — 550,000 Android activations a day, etc. He pointed to the 231 carrier partners and 78 open handset alliance partners that Google has — so far, they don’t appear to be scared of the patent issue. “Depsite the efforts of some of our competitors, there hasn’t been any slow down,” Page said. “We’re really committed to Android,” he continued before qualifying that: “We will support it in a cost-effective manner.” Reading into that, the statement seems to suggest that Google did not feel bidding over $4.5 billion on the Nortel patents was worth it. Some would disagree. “Sometimes coveted objects are worth what people are willing to pay for, not necessarily what the algorithm says they are worth,” paidContent’s Tom Krazit wrote last week. But this is clearly Google’s strategy right now. They’ll push forward on their own IP and scoop up other patents when it’s cost-effective. But will that strategy be good enough? That remains the big question that simply remains unanswered.        
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| Sprint Slashes Nexus S 4G Price To $99.99 On-Contract Posted: 14 Jul 2011 02:24 PM PDT Fast, good, or cheap. Most of the time products can only manage to nab two of those three qualities, but with the recent price cut from Sprint it looks like Google's Nexus S 4G is pulling a hat trick. Fast? 4G WiMAX speeds — ‘nuf said. Good? The specs (which I'll delve into below) speak for themselves. And cheap? Well, it's tough to call a Benjamin "cheap" but at $99 on-contract, it's still half the price that the Nexus S 4G launched with. As for those promised specs: The Nexus S 4G's most impressive feature would be its NFC chip, which puts the Google phone a step ahead of competitors as the shift to NFC ubiquity becomes more and more fast-paced. Other specs include a 1GHz processor under the hood, Android 2.3 Gingerbread running the show, a 4-inch 480×800 Super AMOLED contoured display, and a 5-megapixel shooter. Of course, the only downside to this deal is that if you're a true Nexus fan, you may want to hold out for the next model. Speculation suggests it’s already on its way, and may be called the Nexus Prime. Then again, speculation may be a bit flaky to pass up this deal. Your call. [via Phone Arena]        
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| Google Android Now On 130M Total Devices, With 6B App Downloads Posted: 14 Jul 2011 02:17 PM PDT Today during Google’s Second Quarter earnings call a lot of focus was put on the success of Google Android, which was put in Larry Page’s successful consumer products category. How successful is Android exactly? Well the operating system is now on 130 million total devices, with six billion app installs from the Android Market. The last time Google announced device stats for Android it was 100 million at i/o. Apple was at 200 million devices as of WWDC. Android is now seeing 550K activations a day, up from the 500K number Google mobile VP Andy Rubin announced 16 days ago, growing at 4.4% week over week according to Rubin.        
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| Larry Page: “I Think About Our Products In Three Separate Categories” Posted: 14 Jul 2011 02:05 PM PDT Google has just released its earnings statements for Larry Page’s first quarter as CEO, to positive results, namely that Google set a revenue record at $9.03 billion for the quarter ended June 30, 2011. Page began the earnings call outlining the “substantially increased velocity” of his product-focused management team which has accomplished “a lot in 3 months” Page said. No kidding. He glowed over Google+’s encouraging numbers, with over one billion items shared a day, and over 10 million users. Perhaps to reassure shareholders on the viability of these new products and token experiments like self-driving cars, Page mused on the value of innovation, “When we started doing search people thought we were crazy,” he said. Page then essentially separated Google products into three categories: 1) Search ads and ad products. 2) Products with high consumer success like YouTube, Android, and Chrome. 3) New products like Google+ and Google’s local and Offers efforts. “We’re only at 1% of what is possible,” Page said. After asking rhetorically how these services will be monetized, Page explained that the toggling between the three is a precarious balance between short term and long term, with the eventual goal of creating services that people “use twice a day, like a toothbrush.” “We’re careful stewards of shareholder money,” he said. His notes, below:
       
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| Sony NEX-7 Prototype Shown In Leaked Picture Posted: 14 Jul 2011 02:02 PM PDT Sony’s NEX series of mirrorless cameras has gotten fairly positive reviews, and it appears Sony thinks there’s room at the top for a hotter model. The NEX-7 (big brother to the NEX-3 and NEX-5) appears to have leaked in this picture, though it’s clearly not final hardware. Observe, for instance, the rather non-traditional “OFF-NO” switch. It’s not just a pretty picture that leaked, though: some specs are on the table as well. That’s not an optical viewfinder there, which would make this an electronic rangefinder like a Leica or X100; it’s a 3-million dot (slightly more than 720p) OLED electronic viewfinder. Could be hot! The sensor is supposed to be an APS-C-sized one with 24 megapixels. The cool bit, though, is those dual dials on the top right corner. Shutter and aperture control? I certainly hope so. The pic was posted to this Italian forum; feel free to keep an eye on the thread for more info.        
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| Larry Page On Google+: Over 10 Million Users, 1 Billion Items Being Shared Per Day Posted: 14 Jul 2011 01:43 PM PDT Google CEO Larry Page headlined Google’s earnings call today and of course revealed some interesting statistics on Google’s most recent product, Google+. Page said the new management structure he implemented is “working together fabulously,” and helping complete Google’s goal of making “sharing on web like sharing in real life.” Page says that Google+ now has over 10 million users who have created profiles, and these users are sharing and receiving 1 billion items per day. Page explains that in particular, Circles, which allows users select and organize their Google+ contacts into groups, has been a popular feature of Google+ amongst users. Page shared these stats on Google+ as well. To put those figures in perspective, Google+ only launched two weeks ago. At 10 million users, the network has already accumulated 1.3 percent of Facebook’s 750 million users in two weeks. Google chairman Eric Schmidt had revealed last week that the network has millions of users, and also highlighted the traction of Circles. Google+ has been the search giant’s most aggressive social product yet, and clearly the network is seeing traction both in terms of engagement and users.        
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| Android Now Seeing 550,000 Activations Per Day Posted: 14 Jul 2011 01:42 PM PDT Fresh off the Google Q2 2011 Earnings Call, Larry Page has just disclosed that Android is now seeing 550,000 activations per day. That’s up from the 500,000 per day number Andy Rubin revealed in a tweet just sixteen days ago. Rubin also disclosed that Android was growing by around 4.4% week-over-week, an estimate which works quite well with these new numbers. This is up from the 350,000 activations per day back in Q1, and 160,000 activations per day way back in Q2 of last year. That’s huge.        
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| The Chrome Niko Is A Weather-Proof Camera Bag Posted: 14 Jul 2011 01:19 PM PDT Well-known bag maker Chrome has put out a new camera bag, called (for whatever reason) the Niko. It’s a slightly strange creature, somewhere between a shoulder bag and a backpack, but it looks pretty solid. The top section is your plain cargo compartment, for wipe cloths, snacks, and so on. Down below, you have a customizable compartment with a few organization pads that stick to one another with velcro. Looks like it might be a little packed in there if you like to keep the lens on your camera, but hey. It has waterproof truck tarp throughout an the nylon exterior is itself graded as weather-proof, so you can leave the umbrella at home. Costs $95, which seems pretty reasonable to me.         
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| Google Back On Track In Q2, Beats The Street With Over $9 Billion In Revenue Posted: 14 Jul 2011 01:10 PM PDT Google has just released their Q2 2011 numbers, and after a slightly-off Q1, it looks like Q2 is right back on track for the search giant. They beat the number the Street was expecting across the board. The key one being revenue: Google earned $9.03 billion for the quarter ended June 30, 2011 (a new record for quarterly revenue). The street had been expecting about $8.6 billion. The revenue numbers were up 32 percent over the year-ago period. As the chart above shows, the Google.com numbers were the real strength here. Google-owned sites generated $6.23 billion in revenues, accounting for 69 percent of total revenues. That was a 39 percent increase over the year ago period. Non-GAAP earnings-per-share (EPS) were $8.74, well above the $7.86 the Street was hoping for. Non-GAAP net income was $2.85 billion. A year ago, net income was $2.08 billion, and last quarter it was $2.3 billion. But not everything was entirely rosy. Google says that while the all important paid click numbers were up 18 percent versus a year ago, they were down 2 percent versus last quarter. Cost-per-click were up both on a yearly and quarterly basis. Meanwhile, Traffic Acquisition Costs (TAC) were once again over $2 billion for the quarter, but they continue to go lower as a percentage of advertising revenues. As of June 30, Google says they have $39.1 billion in cash in the bank (cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities). Net cash flow in Q2 was $3.52 billion. Google now has 28.768 full-time employees. That up from 26,316 last quarter. While the net headcount growth was similar to Q1 2011, Google says it does not include the 450 employees that were hired as a part of the ITA deal. Google even used the earnings release to quickly mention the newly-unveiled Google+ at the top. “I’m super excited about the amazing response to Google+ which lets you share just like in real life,” CEO Larry Page said. Find the slides below. More to come — the earnings call begins at 1:30 PM PT.        
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| ShowWX Projector Gets HDMI Option Posted: 14 Jul 2011 01:06 PM PDT I reviewed the ShowWX+ pico projector a while back and pronounced it admirably tiny but problematic image-wise. Whatever the case, though, more input options certainly can’t hurt. They’ve added an HDMI variant of the projector so that you don’t have to worry about carrying around the VGA adapter or anything like that. The original had an adapter for super-easy use with Apple’s 30-pin connector that worked great… if you had an iPhone or iPad. But if you didn’t… ehh, not so much. At any rate you can pre-order one for $369. Yeah, it’s pretty expensive, but it’s also one of the smallest and lightest pico projectors out there.        
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| More Tickets To Our 6th Annual Summer Party At August Capital Are On Sale Now Posted: 14 Jul 2011 01:02 PM PDT Update: Tickets are sold out. Stay tuned for our next set of tickets to be released next week. Our 6th annual summer party at August Capital is almost here! Today we are releasing our next set of 100 tickets. The party will be held on the beautiful and sunny Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park on July 29th from 5:30 – 10:00pm, following our Mobile First CrunchUp. You will see an amazing mix of startup demos, giveaways, drinks and much more. Tickets are $40 and sell out very quickly. If you would like to come, please act fast. If you aren’t able to purchase tickets today, stay tuned as we will release more tickets next week. Tickets are on sale here.
Unfortunately, our Mobile First CrunchUp is sold out. We still have a limited number of press passes available though. Contact me to request press pass consideration. Here are the logistics for the party. About the 6th Annual Summer Party at August Capital Sponsorships:        
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