Flip owned 35% of the camcorder market, which it took over in just a few years. It was incredibly popular, and still is, selling heavily on Amazon. Then it was bought by Cisco, and now they’re taking the technology and shutting down the company, and in the process, killing off the next great Flip product, FlipLive.
Why? Because Flip’s new product was going to cost them a fortune.
Giving in to pressure from state Attorneys General in Illinois, Connecticut and Missouri, Craigslist has agreed to remove the Erotic Services section from its Web site. In its place will be a yet-unnamed adult section with more rigorous staff monitoring. The old section already required credit card verification due to an agreement with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and 40 state Attorneys General, and used a phone verification system before that. Those measure didn’t stop the pressure, with a lawsuit come from a Chicago sheriff’s department and possibly further legal action from South Carolina. Craigslist hasn’t spoken yet about the changes, but Illinois Attorney General Lisa Maddigan said Craigslist staff will hand-monitor each posting to the new section. Changes are set to take place within a week. I must admit I haven’t visited the Erotic Services section of Craigslist (honest!), but I imagine the innuendo will get pretty ridiculous from here on. [via Ars Technica]
In the war for smartphone operating system supremacy, Google’s Android has earned another recruit. Samsung’s I7500 will be the first smartphone from a major worldwide cell phone manufacturer. The 3.2-inch AMOLED touchscreen is good for viewing all sorts of Google services, such as Gmail, YouTube and Google Maps, along with apps from the Android Market. Other features include HSDPA and Wi-Fi support, a 5-megapixel camera, GPS and 8 GB of storage, plus a Micro SD slot for up to 32 GB more space. The I7500 is coming to major European markets in June, with no official word on a US release. However, Crave notes that the smartphone’s supported bands are compatible with T-Mobile’s 3G network. Perhaps a US announcement isn’t far behind. [via Akihabara News]
If you’re like us (see: hopelessly addicted to Twitter, Facebook, et. al.), you’re always on to the next big thing as it happens. Hey, that’s why you read the YouCrave magazines to begin with– to stay up to date on the latest in lifestyle, gadgets, design, movies and music. So if you’re the Twitter-minded, an avid FaceBooker or prefer to stick with email or RSS, we’ve got an update for ya. Earlier today, we launched a combined twitter account for all the YouCrave websites. So if you want the latest news from us as it breaks, follow YouCrave on twitter for all the best, breaking news in one place. How else can you stay up-to-date? Here are the dirty details…
Stay tuned here for the full on-site experience, but feel free to use any of the tools above to stay up-to-date on all the YouCrave happenings. Enjoy your weekend, say hello when you add us on Twitter and FaceBook!
[special thanks to hongkiat.com for the twitter image tools, head over for great tools and tutorials for photoshop!]
You know what people love to do on the Internet? Pay for written content. If you disagree — and you probably do — Journalism Online is looking to change your mind with its muscle. The startup, headed by a few media industry executives, wants to be a one-stop shop for online news, ending the flow of free content by getting enough newspapers to sign on. The problem is, it only works if virtually everyone takes part or enacts a pay wall of their own. And then there’s still competition from blogs and Web sites that do their own reporting (the very thought!). I love newspapers — used to work for one — but this has fail written all over it. [Journalism Online and Ars Technica]
St. Patrick’s Day Weekend is upon us. That means green beer, green rivers and green clothing (on everyone who is NOT Irish). For some, it means drinking too much and dressing up like a clown, for others– a good celebration amongst friends in respect to St. Patrick and the Irish-American Tradition. We’ve celebrated many, many a St. Pat’s in the streets of Chicago, where friends and family stumble drunkenly toward the Mecca of our heritage– the Irish Pub. Will we see you there, GearCravers? Let us know, we’ll be happy to buy you a pint of the black stuff… or my name isn’t Michael Seamus Payne.
Oh boy, more fanboy fuel. A month after Sony boasted of 50 million worldwide sales for its Playstation Portable handheld, Nintendo laid out the smackdown statistic of 100 million global sales for the rival DS. The dual screen device launched in late 2004, but it’s been on a steady diet of 30 million sales per year since the trimmer DS Lite arrived in March 2006. The question is, how long until the DS reaches a plateau? At this rate, we’re looking at 200 million in 2012, maybe faster if the DSi is a huge hit when it drops next month. That’s a lot of people thinking they’re getting smarter with Brain Age. [Nintendo via Engadget]
Google unveiled another killer app today in Google Voice, a VoIP suite that, like most of its other apps, costs nothing. Some might recognize the call forwarding features as the resurrection of GrandCentral, which Google purchased in July 2007 and closed to new sign-ups shortly thereafter to inegrate with Google’s own systems. Google Voice adds plenty of new features. High on the list is free calls to all U.S. numbers (international calls incur a fee), but the voicemail transcript and drag-and-drop conference call creation tools are nice as well. Other features include SMS sending and receiving, voicemail screening and personalized greetings. The service is available now for existing GrandCentral users, with support for the masses coming later this month. I’m stoked. [Google Voice via GigaOM]
Solving budget crises at the local level may not be so complicated after all, if the French Gendarmerie Nationale police force is any indication. By switching to open source software, such as the Ubuntu operating system and OpenOffice instead of Windows and Microsoft Office, the force has saved roughly €50 million since 2004. The best quote comes from Lt. Colonel Xavier Guimard: “Moving from Microsoft XP to Vista would not have brought us many advantages and Microsoft said it would require training of users,” he said. “Moving from XP to Ubuntu, however, proved very easy. The two biggest differences are the icons and the games. Games are not our priority.” But what about those sweet, sweet icons? No matter, the department says its budget dropped by 70 percent by switching to open source, and it’s obviously an approach they’d like to continue in the future. The entire organization should be running on Linux by 2015. My editor, an open source junkie, is probably ecstatic. [via Ars Technica]
