Google promised that Chrome would be fast to launch and fast to load web pages, but people predicted it would fail with the arrival of its extensions. Well, the extensions are here (at least for some of us) and surprisingly they do not effect the browser's performance. And not only that, but playing with Google Chrome Extensions is like child's play, whether you've added a new extension, or deleted one, you won't need to restart your browser. Extensions are so easy to manage and use that once you have access to them, I'm sure you'll be looking forward to testing everything in this Cromeextensions Directory.This is what I basically did. I tried most of the extensions, then realized I'm not ready yet to ditch my beloved Firefox, and I'm guessing that you won't be either. On the other hand, there are some plugins that are worthy of a mention and from that list I've culled some cool ones to get you started. If you already have extensions enabled (lucky you), you are welcome to try the ones in this list. If Chrome is not allowing extensions for you just yet, try to upgrade to the developer's version (don't worry, all of your Chrome settings will be saved).
Earlier today we covered rumors that Apple was in talks to acquire streaming music service Lala. Now New York Times tech reporter Brad Stone has tweeted that it's a done deal. He writes, "Apple has acquired digital music startup Lala. Now updating our story". You can find the NYT story here.This could be bad news for Lala users. It's unlikely that the innovative deals negotiated by Lala will survive through the acquisition. For over a year, Lala users have been purchasing the rights to stream their music an unlimited number of times for ten cents per song. If the deals with the music labels go up in smoke, Lala may lose the right to stream those songs. In other words, all the money users have been spending on web songs may go down the drain. If the deals are nullified, hopefully Apple will renegotiate them to at least cover existing purchases until it releases its own streaming music service. We've reached out to Lala but have yet to hear back.
It has been a busy week for our former partners on the CrunchPad. The company has deleted their corporate blog, taken the time to hire a PR firm and schedule an event Monday morning to "give their side of the story." They still have not returned our calls or emails. But they have spoken to press, and say that their side of the story has two key elements. First, that none of this was a surprise and we knew they were likely to break ties with us. And second that TechCrunch hasn't done anything to help build the CrunchPad and therefore has no rights to the device.Both statements are completely untrue. Among other things, emails from Fusion Garage illustrate it.We aren't going to restate every detail of the story here, mostly because it's not all that interesting. But I will give a few highlights. And I've embedded letters sent from our law firm below to Fusion Garage as well as the ODM manufacturer, Pegatron. There are lots more details included in those letters.
This week's big story - unless you count news that matters outside the world of TechCrunch - is the End the CrunchPad. Killed, says Arrington, by 'greed, jealousy and miscommunication'. Basically the same things that killed Jesus, New Coke and Haley Joel Osment at the end of Pay It Forward.
We've had a chance to play SGN's Skies Of Glory WWII person-to-person dogfighting game for the iPhone. But now they've released this trailer for the game to really show off what they've built. Look for a launch date shortly.Video is below.
Our last Friday Giveaway was a Sonos S5 Wireless Music System. This week Kodak was kind enough to hand us a Zi8 pocket video camera, and one of you is going to have it in your hands shortly.CrunchGear's overview of the Zi8 is here. This is a Flip-like picked video camera that records in 1080p high definition. The device includes a SD/SDHC card slot for expandable storage. And the best feature is this - the Zi8 has an external microphone jack to help get decent audio into the device. Poor audio has plagued the Flip cameras.Here's how you can get the device:
Just a quick reminder that today is the last day to submit your nominations for our third annual Crunchies Awards. We've received over 100,000 nominations so far, but just in case you've forgotten, go here right now and add some more. You have until midnight PT tonight.Once all the nominations are in, the Crunchies Committee will choose five finalists per award category. From there, the popular voting will begin on December 21 and run through January 6, leading up to the live ceremony Friday, January 8, 2010 at 7:30 pm PT the Herbst Theater in San Francisco which we're pleased to be co-hosting with GigaOm and VentureBeat. The full rules are here.
Earlier this week, Microsoft showed off the Twitter functionality it's building into the newest version of Bing Maps. The feature shows tweets on a map. But that requires the new Bing Maps beta, which requires Silverlight. If you prefer to use Google Maps, you can also easily see geolocated tweets on your maps thanks to tweet stream RSS feeds that include geolocation data in them.Simply load up Google Maps, grab the Twitter feed of anyone who checks-in and tags their location, and insert that URL into the search box on Maps. On the map, you'll see a collection of blue markers indicating where the tweets were sent from (here's an example). Clicking on any of these markers brings up the tweet itself in a bubble overlay. And in the left side column, you'll see the a timeline of the geolocated tweets.
Given the flurry of reports last summer about the Yahoo/Microsoft search deal, it would have been reasonable to assume that the two parties had actually completed their negotiations. As it turns out, the details of the deal had yet to be worked out. Today, Yahoo and Microsoft have issued a joint statement announcing that they've "finalized and executed the definitive Search and Advertising Services and Sales Agreement and License Agreement." From the release:"Microsoft and Yahoo! believe that this deal will create a sustainable and more compelling alternative in search that can provide consumers, advertisers and publishers real choice, better value, and more innovation."Yahoo! and Microsoft welcome the broad support the deal has received from key players in the advertising industry and remain hopeful that the closing of the transaction can occur in early 2010."
We've heard of people getting upset when their picture shows up on Google Street View (the street-level picture you can zoom into from Google Maps). For this reason, Google blurs out people's faces for privacy. Others have protested Google coming down their street to photograph their house (cough, Paul McCartney). But can Google Street View also be used as a marketing vehicle?Nate Heagy thinks so. He went to great lengths to follow a Google Street View vehicle and anticipate its movements so that he could set up a sign in its path and start playing a guitar so that he could promote his band, Fear Salesman. Well, he is now on Google Street View. Heagy explains how he executed his bold plan:
A lot has been made recently about the gaming elements of location-based social networks. Services like Foursquare and Gowalla allow users to compete for things like mayorships, badges, and virtual goods. Now Loopt is getting in on the fun, and taking it more literally into the real world.The Loopt Holiday Scavenger Crawl is exactly what it sounds like: It's a scavenger hunt during the holidays. But it's also a bit more. As everyone knows, the holidays for many are also about a fair amount of drinking, so Loopt is mixing a pub crawl into the mix as well. The plan is to have this take place in three different cities: Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco at various dates in December and early January.
Bloomberg is reporting that Apple is "in talks to acquire online music service Lala, according to two people familiar with the matter."The shoe fits. Back when Lala launched I described it as an iTunes in the cloud — something that we believe Apple will inevitably launch. Apple is certainly building a lot of data center capacity for something. We've been huge fans of Lala since its launch in October (you can see our extensive coverage here. The site uses an innovative 'web song' model that lets you buy albums for very cheap (10 cents per song) that you can then stream as many times as you'd like.
Today was supposed to be a joyous day in my apartment. As of yesterday, my new Apple iMac was to be delivered at some point this afternoon. But alas, it was not to be. But the reason why is a truly great WTF moment. Apparently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has to approve its delivery to me.Well, to be more specific, either the FDA or the Department of AG/PPQ has to approve it, according to UPS. Seeing as the FDA having anything to say about my computer makes no sense, I decided to check what the latter department was. Apparently, it's the Department of Agriculture. Again, WTF?
That didn't take long. Less than half an hour ago we broke the news that Google was in the process of acquiring AppJet, the startup behind the powerful real-time document editor EtherPad. The official EtherPad blog has just been updated confirming the news.As we reported earlier, we're hearing that the acquisition price was in the low eight figures. The EtherPad post also says that they will be joining the Google Wave team, which is based out of Australia. CEO Aaron Iba, President & Chief Scientist David Greenspan, CTO J.D. Zamfirescu, and COO Daniel Clemens are all making the trip down under.
