Welcome to our live coverage of Phil Schiller's MacWorld 2009 keynote. We are hoping and praying that the server holds out so we're not trying any special tricks this time - just good old fashioned blog posting. Click through to begin reading.
Who needs cable TV? Move Networks, which powers the Web video streaming for ABC, Fox, the Discovery Channel, and Animal Planet, streamed 180 million hours of premium video last year, 100 million of which it claims was in high-definition (at a resolution of 720p). With YouTube turning on an HD...
Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard Macbook Wheel, including the Hummingbird battery which can power the computer for a full 19 minutes. So simple. So perfect. I love The Onion.
Seems like widget distribution startup Clearspring is another victim of the economic meltdown forced to make some tough decisions. We heard rumors floating that the company laid off about 20% of its staff in early December, and we've now confirmed with Clearspring that several people have in fa...
Video recommendation engine ffwd has just released its completed API to developers, allowing them to incorporate some of the service's core functionality into their sites. Using the API, developers will be able to make calls to ffwd for video content, and will also be able to incorporate ffwd ...
With the launch of Skype integration, Truphone's mobile VoIP service is fast becoming a unified client for other VOIP and messaging services. As well as the ability to make low-cost calls over Wi-Fi or GSM networks and send cheap SMS, it is now supporting Skype and other messaging services via it...
Sling Media, the company behind the popular (and very cool) settop boxes that allow you to stream cable from your house to your computer, looks like it has outdone itself. At this week's Macworld the company will be showing off its upcoming iPhone application, which effectively gives iPhone ow...
One thing that didn't make a lot of sense about the 33 celebrity Twitter accounts hacked this morning - the messages left on the various accounts weren't consistent and were clearly written by different people with different agendas. Fox News got “Breaking: Bill O Riley is gay," and Rick Sanchez...
RipCode, a company that offers online video streaming and transcoding services, has closed a $12.5 million funding round led by Granite Ventures with participation from existing investors Hunt Ventures, El Dorado Ventures, Vesbridge Partners, and ATA Ventures. The company, which was founded in...
You hear about 3D printing here and there, but for the most part it's a bit irrelevant to the average person because fabrication is messy, difficult, and prohibitively expensive. Even dedicated DIYers have to get their stuff custom made. Hopefully that will all change with Shapeways, a new serv...
For those Web companies that comply by it, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is turning out to be their best friend. Last week, Universal Music Group (UMG) was denied a summary judgment by a Los Angeles court in its copyright infringement case against Veoh. (Court order embedded below). U...
Picasa, the popular free photo management software made by Google, has finally made its way to the Mac. The application has long been noticeably absent on the Macintosh - especially given the fact that it has been available for Linux (which typically lags behind Macs and Windows) since 2006. ...
After picking the wrong horse in the Presidential Election (where she might have become Secretary of the Treasury if John McCain had won), former eBay CEO Meg Whitman now looks to be laying the groundwork for a run at the governorship in California in 2010. (The current Governator, Arnold Schw...
The iPhone is the hottest platform around, leading some small-time developers to overnight riches and spawning over ten thousand apps in only a few months. But without knowledge of Objective-C or the intricacies of the iPhone SDK, many talented designers have no way of getting their wares onto...
Phishing attacks, which hit Twitter over the weekend, are a sign a service has arrived (Facebook has the same problem). But someone hacking into Twitter's internal admin tools and compromising 33 high profile accounts, including President Elect Barack Obama, has Twitter users freaking out about...
The Crunchies ceremony and party in San Francisco is just four days away. Who's going to win best startup of 2008? It's up to you. Just make sure you vote by Wednesday (we've extended the voting deadline by two days). We've got an awesome evening planned. The ceremony kicks off at 7:30 pm, Frida...
Just a friendly reminder that CrunchGear will be at Moscone tomorrow (1/6) for Phillip W. Schiller's very first keynote speech. Wait. MacWorld keynote? What? Isn't Jobs dead? Who the hell is Schiller? Where am I?!
Smarter-email startup Xobni has raised $7 million in a B round of financing from Cisco Systems and existing investors Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital, Baseline Ventures, and Atomico. Three of the four existing investors increased their ownership stakes in the company. But Cisco led the ro...
Two notes from Wall Street analysts came to my inbox today with top-ten predictions for what 2009 holds in store for the technology industry. J.P. Morgan's Imran Khan, for instance, predicts Yahoo and Microsoft will finally strike a search deal, video advertising on the Web isn't working, reta...
JPG magazine, which was declared dead less than a week ago, is most definitely for sale and it looks like a transaction will close shortly. Twenty or so potential buyers have expressed interest, say our sources, including Flickr (a natural fit because the photos published by JPG Magazine are s...
Three years ago when Web 2.0 began proliferating, Israeli startups used eSnips as the poster child for their case that a successful social network could be founded in Israel. Based on the criteria in those days, eSnips was in fact delivering: It was able to convince top tier VCs to buy into an...
Not much else to add but the Roku Netflix box will soon be able to stream 40,000 Amazon titles on demand, "enabling Roku customers for the first time to watch new release movies titles instantly." The movies cost as much as the do on Amazon and the box will simply connect to your online account a...
My guess is this has nothing to do with the phishing attacks that started on Twitter a couple of days ago. But a few minutes ago the official Fox News Twitter account posted "Breaking: Bill O Riley is gay" (referring to the host of the popular Fox show O'Reilly Factor), right after a legitimate...
After Steve Jobs pulled out of giving the keynote at this year's Macworld, there was rampant speculation once again about his health. The shares took a hit as investors began to worry about whether Jobs would be able to remain at the helm of the company. Despite an obvious distaste for talkin...
At the beginning of each year I traditionally publish a list of my favorite startups and products. This is the fourth year I've done this - previous lists: 2006, 2007, 2008. You guys get to pick the winners of the Crunchies - this list is all mine. This is a list of the products I tend to use da...