Thursday, September 23, 2010

This Week in iPad Episode 25



Cold Open
Today on This Week in iPad, we're celebrating our 25th episode with an amazing giveaway! We'll chat with Cyril Moutran creator of the Friendly FaceBook app, and to VLC or not to VLC. Coming up, on This Week in iPad

Intro
We are having an incredible giveaway for the 25th episode. We're going to give away an iPad!!! Stay tuned to the end to see how to win.

Ad

You have a lot of options when you want to buy or transfer your domain. Some of them are purposefully convoluted and confusing, and even try to trick you into making additional purchases of features you don't need. Hover wants to change all that. It's simple, neat, clean, and it's trying to make purchasing a domain EASIER. The prices are clearly labeled and don't change, and there are even helpful video tutorials on the front page to help you make decisions that are best for you. It's a division of Tucows, one of the most trusted technology companies in history, which has been helping Internet users since 1994. They don't have a "hold" system at Hover HQ. If you call them, the phone rings until someone picks it up and talks to you! Also, private registration is included in the price, they're the only registrar offering that. And you can create your own nameservers and A records.
To check it out, and buy your first domain, go to http://twi.hover.com
Also, thank them on twitter @hover.

VLC

Open source video player VLC recently released an app for the iPad.
Jacob: Although it worked for every video he tried, it is a bit buggy. VLC for Mac OS 10 has always been had these problems, but as the team continues to improve the app, this will work itself out. Two main complaints: It's much too bare-bones, and adding files can only be done in iTunes.
Lon: It is buggy but a larger problem is that if you raise/lower the volume button, the screen doesn't indicate what you've done. Also after trying to play The Goonies the video played wonderfully, but the audio did not. Also, there's blurriness and distortion like the AVI file is broken, even when it isn't. Right now, the CineXPlayer is a better app. It does have a few things that are a bit annoying, key among them the intro music, but that said, all the movies have worked.

Ad

Use promo code TWI5 and get a 5% added bonus on the trade-in value of your items. The code applies to all products but media (Movies and Games) and may be used once per customer. The average customer makes more than $100 every time they gazelle their gadgets. Nearly 100,000 people have used Gazelle to safely rid themselves of unwanted gadgets; and earn some cash while doing it. Also you can check them out on Twitter @gazelle_com.

Interview
Lon and Jacob interview Cyril Moutran, creator of the Friendly FaceBook app.
[SIDE NOTE] The pen Cyril uses is a Pogo Stylus. [/SIDE NOTE]

Ad

PressReader from NewspaperDirect is the ONLY app that brings over 1500 full-content newspapers and magazines from 90 countries in 47 languages to your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. For a limited time, download the PressReader app and get your first 7 newspapers FREE!
With PressReader, you can:
Download entire papers
Set up auto-downloads
Zoom in and out, and jump to a specific section
Search
Only $29.99 a month for unlimited downloads!

News
RIM Set to launch iPad competitor
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal Research in Motion is set to release a blackberry based tablet as early as next week. Also they are not using the ill fated BlackBerry 6 operating system. Jacob's take: Meh.

Information Architecture releases new app
This company is going with the approach that to write well, the key is focus. With that in mind, they recently released an app that tries to strip the unnecessary bells and whistles commonly found in apps today. Lon likes it. Jacob will try it and review it further next week.

Sports Illustrated doesn't do portrait mode!?!
The most recent release of the SI for iPad app does not allow users to view content in portrait mode. If you decide to try it, the app will put a window up, asking you to reorient the iPad. For it's part, SI is blaming Apple saying that if they could offer subscriptions like the wanted to, they could hire more developers, and include more features in the app.

Brushes creates an amazing picture


Turn your iPad into an Etch A Sketch
The fine folks at HeadCase have teamed up with Ohio art to create an iPad case that resembles the classic Etch A Sketch. No word yet if it can draw misshapen stairs or lopsided circles. Further updates as events warrant.

[SIDE NOTE] Lon uses the ZooGue case for his iPad. [/SIDE NOTE]

Planet of the Apps

Productivity and task management apps

Things for iPad
Based on the philosophy behind Getting things done, this app is a must have for Jacob.
iThoughtsHD
Responding to a viewer request, Lon is looking at iThoughtsHD a "mind mapping" app from the fine folks at iThoughts this app allows you to create and edit virual Mind Maps.

WIN AN IPAD!!!
If you'd like to win an iPad, simply tweet a thank you to one of our sponsors @hover, @gazelle_com, @pressdisplay with the hashtag #TWiiP so we can find you.
Finally This week in iPad has been searching for a new blogger. If you like what you see here please email the show and tell them you'd like me as the blogger for This Week in iPad. See you next Thursday!

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

This Week in Startups Episode 79



Cold Open
Today on This Week in Starups, we'll be doing the global startup meetup, that's right we'll be visiting 5 cities around the globe, including Sydney and Tokyo and we'll hear pitches from startups in each of those regions. Also we'll be covering Michael Arrington's angelgate, fact of fiction, and we're going to tell you how you can come to the Launch Conference, February 23,24. All this and more on This Week in Startups.

Opening
This is the third time we've hosted a global This Week in Startups. This all takes place if you go to www.meetup.com/startups. Meetup is a famous site for offline gatherings, they came to us with a piece of software and said "Use this software to coordinate events around the world." And we said "let's do one for startups." And this is the third time we're doing it. The first time we did this at the normal time. The second we did early to focus on western Europe, and this time we're going to Asia/Australia. We'll also have the Santa Monica winner here as well. *dogs go insane*

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Cities

Tokyo
The winning company: Gifteee. A way to send friends gifts via twitter. The recipient uses the tweet to redeem at a local store. The company is a part of the Open Network Lab
Jason Pitch: 8 Idea: 8 1/2

Ad
.CO is a new web domain that gives you a truly global, recognizable and credible option for branding your online presence. Over 500,000 .CO domains have been registered since the launch right here on This Week in Startups. And you can buy it right on Go Daddy. And if you are a fan of the show it is your giri, your sacred honor to thank the sponsors to let them know how much independent media means to you. We're going to pick someone at random who tweets "Thank you! @godaddy .co #TWiST" and Jason will pay for your .co domain name.

Melbourne
Tim McDougall pitches his company Clienteer Hub, a client based question and answer service.
Jason's take: Too many buzzwords. Pitch: 6-7
Lon: Pitch: 5 Idea: 7

San Juan
Luis J Almodóvar pitches a new kind of medical suture device.
Jason: Pitch: 10
Lon: Pitch: 10 Idea: 10

Santa Monica
Justin Kifer pitches Dealometer, a site focusing on mid range populations. They also source deals through the local community.

Sydney
Tom Horn pitches TingoTeams a company that allows companies to track employees on the go.
Jason Pitch 8.5 Idea: 9
Tyler Pitch 9 Idea: 9
Lon Pitch 9 Idea 9

Dallas
Megan Masoner pitches reFINEstyle and learns a very important lesson. Powerpoint is the devil. Show your product, don't rely on slides.
Jason Pitch: 8 Idea: 7-8
Lon Pitch:6-7 Idea: 7-8
Tyler Pitch: 4-5 Idea: 7-8

Boulder
Andy O'Dower pitches Beyond Credentials a recruitment site that specializes in helping academically successful students connect and network with potential employers.
Jason Pitch: 8.5 Idea: 8
Tyler Pitch: 8.5 Idea: 9

Salt Lake City
Raw Data pitches.
Jason Pitch: 8 Idea:8-9
Lon Pitch: 7-8
Tyler Pitch: 7-8 Idea: 8-9

The Best of all?
In a unanimous vote, TingoTeams was the best pitch of all. Congratulations to TingoTeams!

Thank you to:

Go Daddy
.CO
Ustream
NewTek and:
Justin.Tv for simulcasting our fine show with Ustream.
See you Friday!

Saturday, September 18, 2010

This Week in Mobile Episode 15



Cold Open
Today, join Ashley Esqueda and Michael Hobbs as they discuss new HTC phones, Nokiaworld, and interview Tak Fung the mind behind Mini Squadrons.

NEWS!

HTC announces Desire Z and Desire HD
HTC added two new phones to it's lineup with the Desire Z, a qwerty style flip phone and the Desire HD, a new version of the EVO. According to the Wall Street Journal HTC ranks fourth worldwide by market share with 8.3%

HTCSense.com offers cloud based backup
Another major news story from HTC concerns the ability to back up contacts and other info to the cloud. According to Android Central this will allow to locate their phone, ring it remotely even if the phone is set to vibrate, and remotely lock and wipe the phone.

Nokia crashes HTC event
Nokia, holding their NokiaWorld event the same time as HTC decided to crash the HTC event with balloons and "press survival kits"
And speaking of Nokia...

NokiaWorld!
Nokia held it's NokiaWorld event this week in London. Among other announcements, the company debuted a new line of phones.


The E7


The C7


And, The C6-01


Strangely missing from the event: any mention of MeeGo.

Windows Phone 7 video
A video has leaked around the net reportedly showing the new user interface of Windows Phone 7.



Apparantly it's going to be a panel within the phone.

Verizon to begin shipping Vcast on android phones
Verizon has plans to integrate it's Vcast store into andriod phones on it's network. According to PC World Verizon is currently accepting app submissions for the store which is rumored to debut on September 21. Ashley thinks it's just more bloatware.

21 year old makes amazing video

Transformers from repey815 on Vimeo.



The video has over 876,000 views so far.

Skyhook sues Google
Skyhook wireless has sued Google claiming that the company forced it's vendors to break existing contracts to use their location service.

Galaxy Tab Fail
According to reports reports the Samsung Galaxy Tab will not have voice capabilities in the US, unlike it's European counterpart. The device will be sold under all the major carriers but will require a two year contract for data.

iPad Stop-motion video
London based graphics firm Dentsu London used 3D modeling software to create long exposure photographs that then created a stop-motion video when the images are merged.



Windows Phone 7 keyboard demo
The fine folks at Pocket Now have a demo of the keyboard that Windows Phone 7 devices will use.


Bad autocorrect!

Epic Win, Epic Fail!
Engraved iPhone! This guy decided to engrave the underside of his iPhone. It only took 8 hours to do. And you think YOU have too much time...



Adobe admits major security flaw. Adobe posted a warning that it's flash player has a major security flaw. A fix is scheduled to be released on September 20. Guess Steve was right.

App of the Week!
MiniSquadron

Also available on Android and Palm

Interview
Ashley and Mike interview Tak Fung from Supermono.

Thank you
Tak Fung,
Supermono Studios,
And TriCaster
See you next week!

This Week in Startups Episode 78



Cold Open
Today on This Week in Startups, Jason interviews Alex Iskold, from GetGlue, Shira Lazar from CBS joins us for the news, and it's revenge of the frogs as Jason takes a Shark Tank call from Paris.

Intro
Today we have Alex Iskold, CEO of AdaptiveBlue live via Skype. If you'd like to be a guest on Shark Tank or Ask Jason, just email us with the details of your question, and Lon will get you on the air. *DISCLAIMER* Don't make it too promotional. If your question is "I'm starting this business, how successful will I be?" you won't get on the show. Ask an insightful question. The Startup Meetup is this tuesday at 8PM PST(4AM GMT) live from Mahalo HQ And if you want to host a meetup in your are just email Lon, the creative director at This Week In and he'll give you all the details.
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Shark Tank

This weeks Shark Tank is a company called Super Marmite the winners of the Paris startup meetup. The company offers people a way to crowdsource dinner by creating a marketplace for people to sell their cooking.
[Jason] Idea: 9 Pitch: 8-9
[Tyler] Idea: 9.5 Pitch: 8.5
[Chatroom] 7's and 8's

Ad


Trada
Trada CEO Neil Robertson was on Episode 47 and he has such a response that he sponsored the show. Trada is a crowdsourced pay per click marketplace that allows you to leverage the skills of more than 500 certified search experts. For every $1,000 you spend, Trada will throw in $100 with a limit of $300 for $3,000. and if you are a search engine expert looking to make a little $ on the side, click here to find out how. Go to trada.com and follow them on twitter @trada.

Interview

Jason interviews Alex Iskold from Get Glue

News

Shira Lazar, blog, Twitter reads the news this week.

Yahoo! announces 3 year plan
Yahoo! has announced a strategic plan to, among other things, grow to a billion unique visitors, for their current 622 million, and to grow revenue to $10 Billion from it's current $6.5 Billion. Jason's opinion: Show, don't tell.

Verizon will not sell Windows Phone 7 at launch
According to business week Verizon does not plan to sell phones loaded with the new Windows Phone 7 operating system, though they may do so in 2011. Microsoft refused to comment on what carriers will support the new OS or when it will debut. The last time Verizon and Microsoft worked together, the result was a disaster.

Fraudulent Groupon deals?
According to a story on techcrunch, coupon site Groupon has been hit by a person advertising photography services using stolen images and who did not have the ability to fullfill all the orders generated. Groupon CEO Andrew Mason has issued full refunds for people affected and published a blog post about the incident. Jason's take: This is not a bad problem to have and Andrew handled this like a pro.

Goodbye, Lalawag
Lalawag founder(and This Week in Social Media host) Sean Percival posted an update saying that he can't put the necessary time into the site since the birth of his daughter and is shutting it down. Lalawag was 2 years old.

ChaCha dumps T-Mobile
Mobile question and answer service ChaCha has reportedly threatened to discontinue support for T-mobile if the company implements a plan to charge companies sending large amounts of text messages on it's network. ChaCha currently has 15 million unique visitors each month and sends 2 million texts a day.

YouTube tests live streaming
YouTube recently tested a live streaming service called YouTube Live. Accoring to Cnet the test was limited to Monday and Tuesday but depending on how well it does, they could roll the feature out worldwide at a later date.

Impress your friends with insights from Tyler
The days of wishing you too could be insightful like Tyler are over thanks to this breakthrough website.

Thanks to:
DNAmail
Trada
tricaster

Friday, September 17, 2010

This week in iPad episode 24



Cold Open:

Today on This Week in iPad, we'll be talking with Brett and Eileen Rounsaville of Rounsa iPad Cases, Lon will review the hot new game Rocketeer-HD and what do you get when you cross light painting, stop motion animation, and the iPad? Besides an awesome concept for a new Tim Burton movie? We'll find out today, on This Week in iPad.

Intro:

This week in iPad is looking for a new blogger. The former blogger Matthew Paulson can no longer do it due to time constraints, but we thank him for his efforts. If you would like to blog for This Week in iPad, email the show with a link to your blog.

Ad:

PressReader
PressReader from NewspaperDirect is the ONLY app that brings over 1500 full-content newspapers and magazines from 90 countries in 47 languages to your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. For a limited time, download the PressReader app and get your first 7 newspapers FREE!
With PressReader, you can:
Download entire papers
Set up auto-downloads
Zoom in and out, and jump to a specific section
Search
Only $29.99 a month for unlimited downloads!

Rocketeer-HD Review

Rocketeer HD is a physics based game akin to Osmos. In the game you launch Rocketeers to a warp using various planets gravity to assist you.
Pros:
Easy to play, you get the hang of the game quickly.
No penalty for loss. You won't start the whole game over if you don't succeed.
Lots of gameplay. 80 levels to beat.
Cons:
Repetitive. After 8-10 levels they all seem the same.

Jacob reviews Worms HD the classic turn based game where you kill the opponent.
Pros:
Classic gameplay including elements from the old game including the Ninja Rope.
Cons:
A bit hard to play with the iPad interface. Also the UI needs to be cleaned up a bit.

Ad

Hover

You have a lot of options when you want to buy or transfer your domain. Some of them are purposefully convoluted and confusing, and even try to trick you into making additional purchases of features you don't need.
Hover wants to change all that. It's simple, neat, clean, and it's trying to make purchasing a domain EASIER, not more challenging. The prices are clearly labeled and don't change, and there are even helpful video tutorials on the front page to help you make decisions that are best for you.
It's a division of Tucows, one of the most trusted technology companies in history, which has been helping Internet users since 1994. That was before Lon was even online! They don't have a "hold" system at Hover HQ. If you call them, the phone rings until someone picks it up and talks to you! Also, private registration is included in the price, they're the only registrar offering that. And you can create your own nameservers and A records.
To check it out, and buy your first domain, go to http://twi.hover.com! Try them out at 10% off. Use the code “twiip” at checkout.


Interview
Lon and Jacob find out the story behind Rounsa.

Ad

Gazelle.com

Use promo code TWI5 and get a 5% added bonus on the trade-in value of your items. The code applies to all products but media (Movies and Games) and may be used once per customer.
- Average customer makes more than $100 every time they gazelle their gadgets
- Nearly 100,000 people have used Gazelle to safely rid themselves of unwanted gadgets; and earn some cash while doing it.



News

Amazon has a new Kindle Ad. An unusually self satisfied young lady is asked how she can read outdoors given the glare. Video below.



Awesome collection of iPad cases. Following the theme of iPad cases Lon found a blog post detailing several unique cases from around the internet.

Light Painting A film company in London used several iPad's and long exposure film to create a stop motion animated video. The results are amazing.



Apple is finally ready for newspaper subscriptions
According to the San Jose Mercury News, Apple may finally be ready to embrace newspaper subscriptions. According to the story, has agreed to provide an opt-in function for subscribers to allow Apple to share with publishers their information, which includes vital data that news organizations use to attract advertisers.

Twitter reveals their latest site redesign and it looks just like Twitter for iPad.

Twitter revealed a brand new site design that looks surprisingly like Twitter for iPad.

Next week
Tune in to see Cyril Moutran creator of the Friendly FaceBook app as well as a new Planet of the Apps where they'll review task management and productivity apps. Also we need your feedback, email us if you'd like to host a this week in iPad meetup in your town. We did one early on and we're curious if you'd like us to do another. Thank you for your time and join us next week for this week in iPad.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

How to NMLL your iPhone

The following is a way to display your signal strength in decibel meters (dBm.) This will accomplish the same thing on an iPhone that holding the alt key and pressing NMLL will on a blackberry. In order to do this, you'll need to run iOS 4.1:


• Go to phone > keypad.
• Dial *3001#12345#*
• Tap call.
• You're now in "Field Test Mode" iPhone should show dBm instead of bars.
• To keep the display, simply force quit the app (Hold sleep wake button until it shows the swipe bar to power down. Then hold the home button until the app disappears.)
• To return to bars, tap numbers.


This is the best shortcut I've seen since the screenshot. Have fun with it. :)