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With Speeksy, Facebook Users Can Meet New People (Just Don’t Call It “Online Dating!”)
techcrunch.com
How do you meet new people in today’s digital age, without over-exposing yourself the creeps, trolls and spammers? The answer, perhaps, is build a social service on top of Facebook, leveraging your network, your friends of friends and shared interests to form connections with people you don’t know. That’s what...
Twitter May Have 500M+ Users But Only 170M Are Active, 75% On Twitter's Own Clients
techcrunch.com
Yesterday Paris-based analytics firm Semiocast noted that Twitter had passed the 500 million user account mark, with some detail on how that is playing out on a country-by-country basis. Today, we have some numbers that spell out what that actually means in terms of active Twitter users. Paul Guyot, the...
YouTube Adds A “Play In 3D” Option Across Its Site
techcrunch.com
Last September, YouTube began offering new tools that allowed users to convert their uploaded 2D videos into 3D videos with just a click. That feature, which has been in beta testing, was available only to YouTube creators at the time. Today, YouTube is rolling out the beta to all of...
Oh, the places you'll go... with this shoulder-mounted telepresence robot (video)
www.engadget.com
In what's likely to be good news for mothers that just can't seem to cut the cord, a team of Japanese engineers from Yamagata University have crafted a tiny telepresence robot that mounts to your shoulder. Part of this year's IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, the unsettling...
Cute mini-robots compete for championship title, gladiator freedom (video)
www.engadget.com
If you thought a robot fighting championship just sounds like the plot for a Hugh Jackman vehicle, you'd be partly right. We'll tell you who does have the real steel though, the plucky fellas you see above. They're competing for this year's ROBO-ONE championship, an annual competition where humanoid...
Can’t they just tweet @Jack? Square sends copyright complaint to Twitter
thenextweb.com
This is hilarious. Square, the mobile payments company founded by Jack Dorsey, has sent a copyright infringement complaint to Twitter, the social networking company founded by Jack Dorsey (well spotted by the Guardian’s Josh Halliday). The complaint centers around the account @SquareRegister, which Square claims uses a trademarked name and...
Party Rockin’ On Facebook: Disrupt Winner Shaker Hits North America With Club 53 Launch
techcrunch.com
Sometimes you want to be out partying on a Friday night and simply can’t muster the energy. It happens. But last year at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco, a service launched that aimed to solve that problem, and the company ultimately won and took home the Disrupt Cup. That company is...
'Hologram-like' assistants coming to New York airports in July
www.theverge.com
You could get help setting off on your vacation from an unusual source this summer, courtesy of a new initiative announced by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Virtual customer representatives, described as "hologram-like avatars" by the Port Authority, will be tested in JFK's Terminal 5,...
This Sassy Little Robot Lets Your Friends Follow You Around With Telepresence
techcrunch.com
Although one could argue that Facetime and Skype are already nearly perfect telepresence systems, there’s definitely some value in having a jolly little robot sit on your shoulder and transmit, in real time, everything you see and hear to a friend far away. Right? Please say I’m right? This...
Hey Twitter, what happened to good old 140?
thenextweb.com
Remember when tweets were 140 characters of fun and a great avatar? Yeah, I remember those days too. Now it seems like Twitter is trying to pack as much as it can into a payload, or the associated data, of a single tweet. First there was the addition of retweet...
Silent Hill Revelation - trailer review
www.guardian.co.uk
Come on, how many times can you say you've seen Sean Bean's face in three glorious dimensions? That's right, none. Until now, that isReading this on mobile? Click hereAside from the cost and the gloom and the pain and the nausea, one of the reasons that 3D hasn't taken off...
Real-world beaming: The risk of avatar and robot crime
www.bbc.co.uk
Virtual visitors are coming - what if they commit crimes?...
Kippt Reinvents the Internet's Favorite Hobby: Sharing Links
www.readwriteweb.com
With its update on Monday, the link listing tool Kippt adds social features that make it a one-stop shop for practicing the Internet's favorite hobby: sharing interesting links. It helps you keep track of links you like, as well as find and follow people who share interesting things. You can easily share...
The Death of Social Proof
www.hunterwalk.com
Social proof is dying as a startup differentiation heuristic during fundraising. Why? A) Blame Angellist for an Advisor Bubble Every company I see has some roster of advisors and/or soft-circled seed investors already committed. It's gone from evidence of company traction to merely an execution step before hitting 'publish' on...
Twitter Transparency Report shows DMCA and government actions: US is biggest busybody
www.engadget.com
Twitter dispatched its first biannual Transparency Report -- revealing government requests for user info and content holdback along with DMCA takedown notices -- which spotlights the US as the most active by far. The company claimed it was aroused to action by Google, which has been doing it for...
Director James Cameron On The Secrets of Making 3D Profitable [Live Video 10:40am PT]
techcrunch.com
James Cameron, the director of the just-released 3D version of the Titanic, as well as Aliens, Terminator, Avatar and so many other major blockbusters, is spilling some secrets today. He’s speaking at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas about how to make money making 3D movies. The...
In conversation: James Cameron shares his love for 3D
gigaom.com
James Cameron and his longtime partner Vince Pace have been working together on 3-D for years, but with their Cameron Pace Group, the two are hoping to revolutionize the 3-D video market. I got a chance to sit down with Cameron and Pace at the National Association of Broadcasters show...
DeNA shares rally 8.4% as company forecasts rebound in virtual currency revenue
www.insidemobileapps.com
Mobage operator DeNA said its net sales increased 16 percent year-over-year in its third quarter, rising to 34.2 billion yen ($448 million). While sales rose, net income declined by 25 percent over last year’s results, dropping from 8.1 billion yen ($106 million) to 6.08 billion yen ($79.2 million). Despite the decline...
Plug.dj Goes International, Does What Turntable.fm Can’t
pandodaily.com
Turntable.fm is pretty great as far as novel ideas go, but it also has a huge problem: It is only available in the United States. What about all of the billions of other people around the world who want to jam to some music with friends? Are we going...
Create an avatar and speak Japanese with NTT DoCoMo
reviews.cnet.com
Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo shows up in New Orleans with some of its latest technologies in tow. From the show CNET takes a closer look. [Read more]...
Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012 – review
www.guardian.co.uk
Xbox 360 Kinect; £29.99; cert 3+; UbisoftThe most important thing to realise about Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012 is that it's not a game. It's firmly aimed at people who want to exercise, so (unsurprisingly) I wouldn't recommend it if that's not on your agenda. It's not designed for having...
Twitter's Laying Eggs: Many Avatars Missing
techcrunch.com
Twitter’s having a rough day. It was down for nearly an hour earlier today, and now, many users are complaining that their Avatars have been replaced by an egg, the Avatar given to newcomers who have not yet uploaded their own picture. Naturally, users are tweeting in droves complaining, trying to...
Russian researchers want to replace your physical body with a holographic avatar
www.theverge.com
A social initiative called Russia 2045 wants to put an end to death by creating robots that can replace our physical bodies and store our personalities on artificial brains — and they believe it will happen in the next few decades. Led by Russian media mogul Dmitry Itskov, the...
Jury to hear No Doubt's case against Activision's Band Hero
news.cnet.com
Pop rock band's ongoing lawsuit against the video game company for its avatar-unlocking feature is set to go in front of a jury. [Read more]...
Japanese researchers develop robot that lets you sit on a friend's shoulder
www.theverge.com
Researchers at Japan's Yamagata University are developing a telepresence robot that sits on your shoulder and acts as an avatar for a friend's speech and actions. The MH-2, or "miniature humanoid" robot, will perch on your shoulder and allow you to share an experience with a friend, much like...
Reddit hires former Facebooker Yishan Wong as its new CEO
venturebeat.com
The man balancing a shoe on his head in the photo above is the new CEO of community news sharing site Reddit, which the company announced in a blog post today. Judging by the ridiculous verification photo and the colorful responses on his first submission to the site as...
Dyad is an overwhelming audiovisual thrill ride
arstechnica.com
Beautiful? Yes. Playable? Somewhat... Sony I've never taken hallucinogenic drugs. I've always kind of wanted to experience the type of transcendent, out-of-body experience I've heard other people describe when on them, but I've always been a little too concerned with the potential long-term effects on my brain chemistry. But...
What about Terminator 2?
allthingsd.com
If the Titanic happened does that mean Avatar happened??? –PRguitarman, via Twitter...
Online clothes-shopping: is an avatar the answer?
www.guardian.co.uk
Tesco now offers a 'virtual fitting-room' on Facebook that you can try clothes on. So what did our writer make of it?Here's the thing: I just don't get online clothes-shopping. DVDs, washing powder, large consignments of alcohol: I can see why it's easier to buy these online – but clothes?...
Martha Stewart guest stars in Zynga’s CastleVille social game
venturebeat.com
Social games are becoming a mass market medium. A clear sign of that today is Zynga’s announcement that Martha Stewart will make a guest appearance in the social game CastleVille. CastleVille has 26 million monthly active users and this is the first celebrity integration for the game starring Stewart. Players...
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