First Piece of Mozilla’s Web Apps Project Arrives, But Can it Outfox Chrome?
At great long last, Mozilla has revealed the first developer release of their Web Apps Project, which aims to build the infrastructure for an open web app ecosystem. Back in May of 2010, Google announced plans for what would become the Chrome Web Store. Mozilla responded immediately with plans for its own web store, now known as the Web Apps Project. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Google was first to th
6 Successful SXSW Startup Launch Stories
As part of this year’s SXSWi, Mashable presents the Mashable SXSWi House, featuring private events, open houses, meet-and-greet opportunities and two nights of parties. Learn more here and register for public events on Eventbrite.Startups vie for a chance to be part of the SXSW Accelerator competition for the opportunity it brings — 41% of the companies that have participated in the first two c
Guest Post: Bernanke’s Unstoppable, Self Reinforcing Feedback-Loop
Submitted by Davos Sherman OkstBernanke’s Unstoppable, Self Reinforcing Feedback-Loop Our economic death spiral into the Second Great Depression Wracked up by both parties over many decades our debt has evolved into a yearly deficit that can no longer be serviced with tax revenue and borrowing. To avoid default Ben Bernanke chose to mo
Ditto: The Social App For What You Should Be Doing
Think about Foursquare right now. You can tell everyone what you’re currently doing, but there’s no good mechanism for planning something to do or for getting a recommendation for something to do. Sure, you could use “shouts” that way. But no one does. It’s an aspect of realtime that doesn’t really work. Enter Ditto, a new service in the space. Ditto is an iPhone app in the location space that goe
A Deep Walkthru For Silver Manipulation - Redux
Now that silver continues hitting nominal high after high (except of course for the record price hit during the Hunt Bros period), and there is a very distinct possibility we may see an unprecedented melt up in the price of silver to over triple digits for a variety of previously discussed factors, here is a post we produced a year earlier, courtesy of a "deep insider" which dissects with exquisit
Guest Post: Prove Mayans Right: Address Structural Economic Problems With Chicanery
Submitted by Davis Sherman Okst of Financial SenseProve Mayans Right: Address Structural Economic Problems With Chicanery (Part 2 of 2)Monetizing Governmental Debt AKA Money Printing or in Bernanke’s Vernacular - Quantitative EasingHere are some realities on Quantitive Easing: If Bernanke stopped QE, the United States of America would default, the government would close down, there would be mass
Unity Technologies Expands 3-D Dev Support for Android
Games on Android are poised to become more robust with advanced 3-D graphics thanks to Unity Technologies, which is expanding its support for the platform. The company announced today it is releasing Unity for Android, its 3-D game engine that will allow developers to easily port over and create robust games for Android devices. It comes at an opportune time as hardware manufacturers roll out a sl
Smashing Email Newsletter Turns One Year Old: Comment and Win!
As most of you may already know, every second Tuesday of a month we send out an email newsletter to our subscribers (over 50,000 at the moment). Every newsletter issue contains exclusive, short articles that present recent design techniques, freebies as well as useful resources and tools. We work hard to make every issue special and useful, interesting and entertaining, and therefore your feed
Futuristic Kiosk Spits Out Cash for Recycled Electronics
Imagine stopping by your neighborhood retailer, offloading an old cell phone or laptop via an in-store kiosk and picking up cash for your device, just as you would get cash for coins through Coinstar or rent and return a RedBox DVD.It’s a futuristic idea with tangible value that startup ecoATM is already making a reality.ecoATM, a San Diego-based startup, has roughly 15 kiosks scattered through
Forrester: E-Commerce To Reach Nearly $300 Billion in U.S. by 2015
After a healthy 12.6% increase to $176.2 billion in 2010, U.S. online retail sales are expected to reach $278.9 billion in 2015.Online shopping will continue to cannibalize in-store shopping as consumers become more familiar and begin, in many cases, to prefer the convenience of online shopping, Forrester says.Increased Internet connectivity via devices like smartphones, tablets and game consol
TinyCo Raises $18 Million From Andreessen Horowitz For Mobile Gaming
My, how things change. A few years ago, anyone proposing that Facebook games would turn into a wildly profitable multi-billion dollar industry would probably be met with some pretty strange looks. Yet now market-leader Zynga has a higher valuation than Electronic Arts. Some might say the gold rush has passed, and that the entrenched players are going to be impossible to beat, but now a new wave o
OpenFeint Releases New Version Of Freemium Game Development Suite OFX
Last year, AuroraFeint launched the private beta of OpenFeint X (OFX), which offers indie developers the ability to create Zynga-like free-to-play games including microtransactions and virtual goods. Last December OFX exited private beta and today, OpenFeint is releasing a new version of the suite, OFX 2.0. With OFX, developers can create Farmville-like iOS games with a chat wall where players ca
Google’s Wizard Of Oz Search Algorithm And The Threat Of Facebook Search
Google search is powered by algorithms. Computers slice and dice data looking for signals that a web page is more or less interesting than other web pages for a given query. PageRank is a big part of this, where Google looks at inbound links to a site as well as the text relevant to that link. But Google also uses lots of other signals to determine the relevance of a web page. They have to, becaus
You — Not Your Competitors — Define Your Destiny
When I was a little boy, my grandfather gave me some advice: He suggested I always march to the rhythm of my own drum. While he said it made perfect sense for me to appreciate others and what they did, in the end what would make me unique was me. Of course, I was too little to quite understand what he meant. Soon thereafter, he passed away. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve started to appreciate his w
Download Boggle on iPhone and iPad Today for Free
If you enjoy playing Boggle (who doesn't?), The official Boggle game is free in the iOS App Store today. But it's only free for today, so get it while you can. [Boggle iPhone and Boggle iPad via Joystiq] More »
Why Online Marketers Should Not Track Children
This post reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily those of Mashable as a publication.James P. Steyer is CEO and Founder of Common Sense Media, a non-profit organization that provides education and tools for parents and kids about the media and technology in their lives. You can follow them on Twitter at @commonsensenews, on Facebook, and read reviews and advice at commonsense.or
New Startup Aims to “Make Paper Sexy” With Crowdsourced Designs
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.Name: ChirplyQuick Pitch: Chirply asks its community which user-submitted designs it should print.Genius Idea: We didn’t see it coming, but Chirply claims it has found a way to “make paper sexy
How Outfit7 Built A Toy App Powerhouse
While Angry Birds grabbed headlines last year, it wasn’t the only breakout mobile app success story. Slovenian start-up Outfit7 last year managed to quietly rack up more than 60 million downloads of its Talking Friends apps, led by its breakout hit Talking Tom Cat. The company, which is now up to about 72 million downloads, has built a fast-growing empire by side-stepping the mobile gaming market
Joystickers: For When You Wish Your iPhone (Temporarily) Had More Buttons
The iPhone is great for gaming… in some ways. The App Store as a distribution model? Fantastic. The finely-tuned development platform? Amazing! The lack of even a single physical face button beyond the one that exits the application? Ehhh, not so great. While most game developers have learned to make do in this frightfully buttonless world, there are some ideas that simply require buttons. This h
FTC To Examine Apple’s In-App Purchases… For Being Too Easy
No, the FTC hasn’t taken on Apple over its controversial 30% fee for subscription-based apps on the App Store. But, according to Cecilia Kang at the Washington Post, it is investigating whether the feature makes it too easy for children to purchase digital goods without realizing they’re spending real money (and without their parents’ permission). According to the report, Representative Ed Markey
Angry Birds Available For Windows On Intel AppUp Store
Oh, happy day! Angry Birds is now available for the PC. “But wait,” you say. “There’s no app store on Windows. How will I download it?” Don’t worry: Intel has you covered. The game, which costs $4.99, is available on the Intel AppUp store. The Intel AppUp store—silly name aside—is just that: an “app store” for Windows PCs. Read More
Minecraft for iOS confirmed, the hunt resumes for free time to squander
You know all of that time you've been wasting on Angry Birds HD? Looks like your flying friends may have company when it comes time to, um... kill time, as Markus Persson has confirmed to Gamasutra that an iOS port is "in the works." That means that an official Minecraft build will soon pop up in Apple's App Store, with iPhone and iPad versions hinted at. Aron Neiminen, a new recruit to the Mojang
10 Classy Cocktail Apps for Your iPhone
If you’re passionate about crazy cocktails like the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster, the Fuzzy Navel, or enjoy the odd Lady Godiva, then we have a treat for you.While the App Store is home to some pretty high-end cocktail recipe books aimed at bartending pros, we’ve found 10 free cocktail-themed iPhone apps that will have the average Jane or Joe making multi-colored liquor mixtures faster than they ca
GAEMS Xbox 360 traveling case gets sleek redesign, still won't help you spell correctly
The last rendition we saw of the GAEMS console-carrying case looked more like a giant lunch box than a solution to your portable gaming needs. If you're still interested in bringing your Xbox 360 on the road, the company has redesigned the case and it now supports the fat and slim versions of the 360 and even the PS3-skinny. What's new in this compact carrying case is the fact there's actually ro
10 Fascinating YouTube Facts That May Surprise You
YouTube is huge. Humongous, even. More video content is uploaded to YouTube in a 60 day period than the three major U.S. television networks created in 60 years.The average YouTube user spends between 15 and 25 minutes a day on the site, but how much do we know about the world’s largest video sharing website? Do you know what the most watched YouTube clip is? Can you name all three founders? Do
How an Imaginative Child Learning Software Startup Avoided Death by Retail
This post is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark as a new part of the Spark of Genius series that focuses on a new and innovative startup each day. Once a week, the program focuses on startups within the BizSpark program and what they’re doing to grow.In Washington, just a bicycle ride away from Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters, Margaret Johnson is working on her next iOS learning game for chil
5 Ways Mobile Will Transform Commerce
David Sims covers the payment and data sectors for O’Reilly Radar and is the author of “ePayments: Emerging Platforms, Embracing Mobile and Confronting Identity.”Given everything your smartphone does for you now, from mapping the skies to tracking your rides and delivering your website analytics, isn’t it a bit surprising how difficult it is to buy stuff with it? Mobile commerce — like flying c