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  • Apple Filming Next-Gen iPhone Commercials Directed By “American Beauty” Director

    John Brownlee: According to Engadget, the next iPhone commercial will be directed by American Beauty director (and mawkish paper bag enthusiast) Sam Mendes will be helming the commercials for the next iPhone, which is being referred to as Mammoth / N90 internally… presumably to keep the actual name of the next iPhone (the only aspect…

    John Brownlee:

    According to Engadget, the next iPhone commercial will be directed by American Beauty director (and mawkish paper bag enthusiast) Sam Mendes will be helming the commercials for the next iPhone, which is being referred to as Mammoth / N90 internally… presumably to keep the actual name of the next iPhone (the only aspect of the device not yet revealed by leaks) underwraps until WWDC.

    It would be naive to assume the only thing we don’t know about the next iPhone is the name, naive bordering on down right stupid.

  • New “Drastically Simplified” Facebook Privacy Controls Start Rolling Out Tomorrow

    MG Siegler: On stage today at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York City, Facebook’s vice president of product Chris Coxannounced that starting tomorrow, Facebook will be rolling out “drastically simplified” and improved privacy controls. He didn’t give any details, but did suggest that they should alleviate some of the recent privacy problems Facebook has faced. Maybe they…

    MG Siegler:

    On stage today at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York City, Facebook’s vice president of product Chris Coxannounced that starting tomorrow, Facebook will be rolling out “drastically simplified” and improved privacy controls. He didn’t give any details, but did suggest that they should alleviate some of the recent privacy problems Facebook has faced.

    Maybe they should try this.

  • Dell Streak Tablet Coming This Summer

    Ian Paul: As expected, the Dell Streak will have a 5-inch WVGA touchscreen, Qualcomm’s 1-GHz Snapdragon Processor, 2 GB internal storage, maximum 32GB of external SD storage, 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, and a front-facing camera for video chat. The Streak will also have 3G, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 2.1 connectivity. One problem: as…

    Ian Paul:

    As expected, the Dell Streak will have a 5-inch WVGA touchscreen, Qualcomm’s 1-GHz Snapdragon Processor, 2 GB internal storage, maximum 32GB of external SD storage, 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, and a front-facing camera for video chat. The Streak will also have 3G, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 2.1 connectivity.

    One problem: as far as I know you can only store apps on internal memory when you use Android. Which would limit this tablet to only 2gb worth of apps. Whereas iPads have no less than 16gb. This matters when you consider that some iPad games are 100+ mbs.

  • .CO Hopes One Letter Less Is More

    Ryan Singel: The country code for Colombia, .co, is making itself available to the public in June and is marketing itself as a high-end top level domain with the cachet of .com without all the problems of getting a decent name. That difficulty is perhaps most evident in the fact that every possible combination of…

    Ryan Singel:

    The country code for Colombia, .co, is making itself available to the public in June and is marketing itself as a high-end top level domain with the cachet of .com without all the problems of getting a decent name. That difficulty is perhaps most evident in the fact that every possible combination of four-letter .com domain names has long been registered, and even a decent five letter .com domain name can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

  • Wal-Mart slashes iPhone price to $97

    That is on a 16gb 3GS, not 3G, 3GS that currently is $199.

    That is on a 16gb 3GS, not 3G, 3GS that currently is $199.

  • The Top 10 Cities With the Best Broadband

    Stacey Higginbotham: Ookla, the three-year-old company based in Seattle that’s behind the online speed service, introduced a broadband index today that tabulates the results from the more than 1 million speed tests done each day around the world. The global broadband speed is 7.69 Mbps while the U.S. speeds average out at 10.12 Mbps.

    Stacey Higginbotham:

    Ookla, the three-year-old company based in Seattle that’s behind the online speed service, introduced a broadband index today that tabulates the results from the more than 1 million speed tests done each day around the world. The global broadband speed is 7.69 Mbps while the U.S. speeds average out at 10.12 Mbps.

  • Facebook’s Culture Problem May Be Fatal

    Yep another Facebook post from Bruce Nussbaum: Facebook is wildly successful because its founder matched new social media technology to a deep Western cultural longing — the adolescent desire for connection to other adolescents in their own private space. There they can be free to design their personal identities without adult supervision. Think digital tree…

    Yep another Facebook post from Bruce Nussbaum:

    Facebook is wildly successful because its founder matched new social media technology to a deep Western cultural longing — the adolescent desire for connection to other adolescents in their own private space. There they can be free to design their personal identities without adult supervision. Think digital tree house. Generation Y accepted Facebook as a free gift and proceeded to connect, express, and visualize the embarrassing aspects of their young lives.

  • Soluto Figures Out What’s Bogging Down Your PC (And Tells You How To Fix It)

    Jason Kincaid: The same can often seem true of a brand new computer — after that lightning-quick first boot or two, PCs have the nasty habit of gradually bogging down until that new quad core processor doesn’t seem much faster than the last one you had. Let me save you even more time: go here.

    Jason Kincaid:

    The same can often seem true of a brand new computer — after that lightning-quick first boot or two, PCs have the nasty habit of gradually bogging down until that new quad core processor doesn’t seem much faster than the last one you had.

    Let me save you even more time: go here.

  • Yankee Stadium bans the iPad

    Christina Warren: According to Apple’s latest commercial, “iPad goes anywhere” — anywhere, that is, except for Yankee Stadium. This has Jeter written all over it.

    Christina Warren:

    According to Apple’s latest commercial, “iPad goes anywhere” — anywhere, that is, except for Yankee Stadium.

    This has Jeter written all over it.

  • Ignite Seattle 10 Speaker List

    Should be a fun event held: Ignite Seattle 10 June 14th at 7pm King Cat Theatre 2130 6th Avenue, Seattle, Washington 98121 Admission is $5.00 at the door. 21+ Only Come out and attend if you are in Seattle.

    Should be a fun event held:

    Ignite Seattle 10
    June 14th at 7pm

    King Cat Theatre
    2130 6th Avenue,
    Seattle, Washington 98121

    Admission is $5.00 at the door.
    21+ Only

    Come out and attend if you are in Seattle.

  • The NYT About to Give Up Its Most Visited Pages

    Felix Salmon: The NYT can claim only some of the credit for its dominance of the business blogosphere: this was a battle that the WSJ and FT surrendered early on, ceding the field to the Gray Lady. But now that the NYT has this enviable position, one would think that it would be trying to…

    Felix Salmon:

    The NYT can claim only some of the credit for its dominance of the business blogosphere: this was a battle that the WSJ and FT surrendered early on, ceding the field to the Gray Lady. But now that the NYT has this enviable position, one would think that it would be trying to capitalize on it as much as possible, rather than spending an inordinate amount of management time and Carlos Slim’s money putting together a paywall which risks sending all that high-value traffic elsewhere. (Like Reuters.com, for instance.)

    I have been saying that paywalls are a bad thing, well they are.

  • Perspective: A Flash Reality Check

    When the iPhone was launched it was heavily criticized for not including the ability to play Adobe’s Flash content, fast forward 3 years now and the iPhone is facing the same criticisms. Does it really matter if a mobile device can play flash, does it even really matter if a computer can play flash? I…

    When the iPhone was launched it was heavily criticized for not including the ability to play Adobe’s Flash content, fast forward 3 years now and the iPhone is facing the same criticisms. Does it really matter if a mobile device can play flash, does it even really matter if a computer can play flash? I think you will be surprised to learn that, no for the most part it doesn’t matter, and in the coming months it will matter even less.

    2007 the iPhone was launched, it was also the day that Flash started to fade into irrelevance. A bold statement, but am I wrong? Most major video streaming sites (exception to Hulu) now serve their Flash video to iPhones using different encoding methods (even some Porn sites do this now – so I hear), or with a custom app (ABC, YouTube). That leaves just a few types of websites that have not optimized for non-flash devices, mainly Clothing, Games and Restaurants.

    I think we can all agree with the advent of UrbanSpoon we don’t need to frequent restaurant websites, and we can get by just fine without some clothing sites on our non-flash devices. That just leaves one major type of element that you cannot view on these non-flash devices: slideshows. Most photographers are still using Flash based slideshows, as they are the easiest for them to build.

    So without flash here is what you truly cannot do:
    – Watch Hulu (which you can’t do even with Flash on mobile devices)
    – Shop at some clothing retailers
    – View slideshows that are made in flash
    Also
    – See any punch the monkey ads
    – Play Flash Games

    Are you beginning to see why I don’t see the importance of Flash?

    If you are like many of my friends and are annoyingly using the excuse that you are waiting for Flash on the iPhone before you buy one do a little test on your computer. There are flash blocking plugins for most web browsers (or you can just disable Flash in the browser), get one and use it for a week. My guess is that other than YouTube you will never miss out on content, and remember you can view YouTube on the iPhone no problem.

    As for the inability to play Flash based games, well the iPhone/iPad have far superior games that can leverage the touch interface. So why you would want to play Flash based games instead is beyond me.

  • MySpace Turns to New Design, Ad Push to Revive Fortunes

    Liz Gannes: Hirschorn graded the duo’s progress so far a B+ “given the situation.” Jones said that the site has 120 million global unique users, same as when they started — and contrary to measures claiming that usage has dropped. Because same as when we started is always what you want to have happen in…

    Liz Gannes:

    Hirschorn graded the duo’s progress so far a B+ “given the situation.” Jones said that the site has 120 million global unique users, same as when they started — and contrary to measures claiming that usage has dropped.

    Because same as when we started is always what you want to have happen in an emerging industry. (heavy sarcasm here people)

  • A Verizon reality check

    Marco Arment: This is Verizon we’re talking about. They might “save” us from some of AT&T’s problems, but they’ll bring their own. and: There would almost definitely be a Verizon Wireless logo somewhere on the iPhone’s case, probably on both the front and back. There may be separate Verizon music, video, and app store icons…

    Marco Arment:

    This is Verizon we’re talking about. They might “save” us from some of AT&T’s problems, but they’ll bring their own.

    and:

    There would almost definitely be a Verizon Wireless logo somewhere on the iPhone’s case, probably on both the front and back. There may be separate Verizon music, video, and app store icons that you can’t delete. At least one major feature may be disabled at Verizon’s request — say, turn-by-turn navigation — because they want to sell you their own version for an additional monthly fee. Verizon may want a cut of any iTunes or App Store revenue from on-device purchases, the cost of which Apple would probably happily pass along to either users or developers. (My guess: Developers.)

    Verizon has never been a better choice, so it has always confused me as to why people are so gung ho about it. I have the Verizon Mi-Fi and when it gets reception it is great, but AT&T has far better speed and reception – on my iPhone.

  • Report: Sprint May Also Land iPhone

    Completely unsubstantiated, and I really don’t see this happening. 4G standards are not stable enough yet and battery life on these devices are terrible. I would expect Apple to wait a while before going 4G wireless on the iPhone.

    Completely unsubstantiated, and I really don’t see this happening. 4G standards are not stable enough yet and battery life on these devices are terrible. I would expect Apple to wait a while before going 4G wireless on the iPhone.

  • Twitter Bans In-Stream Ads

    Frederic Lardinois: Twitter just announced that it will soon update its terms of service for developers and prohibit third-party advertising networks and developers from inserting ads into a user’s stream. This could mean the end of a number of third-party advertising networks like Ad.ly and 140 Proof, both of which created their businesses around in-stream…

    Frederic Lardinois:

    Twitter just announced that it will soon update its terms of service for developers and prohibit third-party advertising networks and developers from inserting ads into a user’s stream. This could mean the end of a number of third-party advertising networks like Ad.ly and 140 Proof, both of which created their businesses around in-stream ads. According to Twitter’s COO, Dick Costolo, the company decided to take this step in order to “preserve the unique user experience Twitter has created” and ensure the “long-term health and value of the platform.”

    This is going to cause a lot of trouble for free Twitter apps that make their money this way (especially with the free and excellent Twitter for iPhone that was just released).

    On another Twitter note check out MOMBO.com for live Twitter movie reviews.

  • Social Networks Capitalize on Facebook Privacy Fears

    Jenna Wortham: Pip.io is similar to Facebook and Twitter in that it allows its members to post status updates, send messages and connect with friends. But unlike its counterparts, the service allows its users to keep more of the information private. Don’t you worry, I am trying it now. [Updated: 5/24/10 at 10:21 AM] Pretty…

    Jenna Wortham:

    Pip.io is similar to Facebook and Twitter in that it allows its members to post status updates, send messages and connect with friends. But unlike its counterparts, the service allows its users to keep more of the information private.

    Don’t you worry, I am trying it now.

    [Updated: 5/24/10 at 10:21 AM] Pretty weak sauce right now.

  • Why you won’t quit Facebook

    Matthew Shaer: Unfortunately, if these haters ditch Facebook, they’re going to find a paucity of options. Where will they go? MySpace is pretty much dead, except as a music platform. Twitter is cool, but it doesn’t offer the same depth as Facebook. There’s Diaspora, but as of now, the site is just a dream rattling…

    Matthew Shaer:

    Unfortunately, if these haters ditch Facebook, they’re going to find a paucity of options. Where will they go? MySpace is pretty much dead, except as a music platform. Twitter is cool, but it doesn’t offer the same depth as Facebook. There’s Diaspora, but as of now, the site is just a dream rattling around in the heads of a few college students.

    I obviously disagree (except with the MySpace and Diaspora comments).

  • How To Jailbreak Your iPad

    I have not tried this in my iPad, but I have used Jailbreaks on my iPhone over the years. I have never sen much benefit as most good software now costs money even on jailbroken devices. Still if you do it, drop me a note and let me know how it went.

    I have not tried this in my iPad, but I have used Jailbreaks on my iPhone over the years. I have never sen much benefit as most good software now costs money even on jailbroken devices. Still if you do it, drop me a note and let me know how it went.

  • Steve Jobs on WWDC Announcements: ‘You Won’t Be Disappointed’

    My guess is that it is going to be mainly iPhone 4G and iPhone OS 4.0 stuff. I doubt there is any OS X news, but I would not be surprised if Macs get speed bumps across the board.

    My guess is that it is going to be mainly iPhone 4G and iPhone OS 4.0 stuff. I doubt there is any OS X news, but I would not be surprised if Macs get speed bumps across the board.