Founder and Editor of Crenk. Im CEO of Insomnia Ltd which owns and operates RouteNote (Digital Music Distributor), Adphilia (Site Representation Firm) and Black and White Music (Music Recording Studio).
I dont know why but obviously some people think that their iPhone looks tacky with their Giorgio Armani suit. Thus, you can now purchase your own Giorgio Armani branded mobile phone.
The phone itself is branded in bronze and currently costs 700 Euros, plus it comes running Windows Mobile 6.5 which im not too sure is a good thing.
Giorgio Armani have partnered with Samsung to produce the phone and it features a 3.5 inch AMOLED screen, 8 GB of storage, a 5 megapixel camera and built-in GPS. Still, if you’re a business-minded millionaire (think “new money” vs. “old money”), WinMo’s built-in productivity tools, such as Word and Excel, will keep you connected to work even when you’re hobnobbing at high-class social events. Armani, in a statement, said the phone is “perfect for today’s managers.”
It has been rumored that EA is just about acquire or has already acquired Playfish. Playfish is a Facebook game developer who produces some of the most popular games on the Facebook platform. The acquisition is rumored to be around $250 million.
This year it is expected that Playfish will have $75 million in revenues from advertising combined with virtual goods sales. Another leading social games company, Zynga, is slated to report revenues upwards of $200 million for 2009.
Although the free-to-play with microtransactions business model has been huge in the Asian video gaming industry for some time now, it’s been slow to make it over to Western shores. This year casual and social gaming companies using that business model have attracted massive numbers of players and revenue to match, unsettling the traditional video game industry.
Beyond the current revenue potential, EA could see further gains from using its muscle to more widely advertise Playfish’s game roster — which includes hugely popular Facebook titles Restaurant City, Pet Society, World Challenge, and Who Has the Biggest Brain.
Previously here at Crenk we announced the Spottt launch as well as the fact that Spottt wasnt really moving. Spottt is an advertising exchange for small sites. Basically the site used a widget on your site and it gave the sites reciprocal traffic on other sites that were also using the widget.
Allen Stern has reported that Spottt has been offline for the past few days and it doesn’t seem like the service is coming back online any time soon. I think this is headed straight to the deadpool!
Spottt was launched and owned by the team over at Adbrite. If you are from Adbrite it would be great to hear the news about Spottt.
Microsoft has launched Windows Mobile 6.5, but their new TV ad campaign doesn’t emphasis the new version number, its more focused on just advertising “buy a Windows phone”.
Seattle blog TechFlash says the ad is a flop, calling it “downright strange” and lacking the impact of the successful Laptop Hunter series:
Am I missing something here? I’ve watched it three times now, and still don’t think it resonates. We’ve actually been impressed with Microsoft’s “Laptop Hunters” ad campaign — which appears to be making inroads against Apple — as well as some of the more recent Windows 7 ads. But this one is just downright strange.
I have to agree with TechFlash. I dont think the ad is focusing on the right areas, it seems as though they are just focusing on the fact that Windows mobile has apps for all Microsoft products and others.
However, dont they understand that the pretty much all other phones have the basic applications the average users wants on their phones (Facebook, Twitter, etc), and they are focused more on the business market with the Microsoft Office apps, but that market is dominated at the moment by Apple and RIM.
Yamaha has made a great looking clock radio that I might actually even think about purchasing. The Yamaha TSX-W80 has a great retro design with a wireless iPod/iPhone cradle. Charge your iPhone or iPod with the dock on top, or attach it to that “AirWired” wireless cradle for convenient remote operation.
There’s no pricing announced yet; it’s expected to ship in Japan in December, but that might take longer to reach these shores.
These days there seems to be an iPhone application for practically everything! Well thats what the ads tell me anyways.
The Seattle Woodland Park Zoo has launched what it is calling a first-of-its-kind iPhone application, one which uses the device’s GPS functionality to track your movements as you watch penguins, pythons and pole cats.
The 99 cent app also supports a good cause too, since money will go toward animal care, conservation and education programs.
Here are some of the features:
–GPS-enabled zoo map with “Near Me” recommendations for animal exhibits, play areas, concession stands and restrooms.
–Daily schedule of zoo activities including zookeeper talks and children’s programs.
–“Friend Finder” to locate other iPhone users in your party on zoo grounds.
It would be cool if they added animal sounds, territorial ranges and other information about the animals. You can get an inside look at the app in this video:
Sony launched a trio of new systems, which includes its first touchscreen PC. The new VAIO L supports Window 7’s own multi-touch elements for scrolling and zooming through content without needing special software.
VAIO L features include:
$1,300 price tag
24 inches 1080p display
2.7 GHz Pentium dual core processor
4GB of RAM
320 GB hard drive
DVD writer and more.
Higher-end models scale up to a 2.66GHz Core 2 Quad, 6GB of RAM, 1TB of disk space, a Blu-ray drive and a GeForce GT 240M to better decode HD video.
Pre-orders start today and will ship sometime in November.
The iPhone currently isn’t very big in Japan, but that hasn’t stopped Nissan from developing an iPhone application for Yokohama City residents.
The app is called E1 Grand Prix and here is how it works: The app connects to your car’s On-Board Diagnostics (OBD), and extracts information in real-time to determine how efficiently you’re driving (you know, from a saving fuel perspective). Step on the gas and then break too much, and you’ll get a low score; accelerate just enough to coast to the corner before the light turns red, and you’ll get high marks. The app connects to your OBD via in-car mobile Wi-Fi, and then spits back your results on your iPhone screen and via e-mail. The results are also uploaded to an online site, where you essentially compete with other folks to be the most ‘eco-efficient’ driver — hence the ‘Grand Prix’ name).
Nissan is still yet to announce if they will be launching the application in locations all over the world, but im sure it is only a matter of time.
OMGICU is a new startup which users Twitter to keep track of what celebrities are in what towns at the moment. OMGICU currently keeps track of celebrities in New York and Los Angeles. Members regularly spot celebrities in their natural habitats. And when they do, they text us, and we tell you, in real-time, at omgicu.com or by sending texts or Twitter direct messages about the people and the places you care about.
Additionally, OMGICU has a pecking order of celebrities in which rates them according to popularity and sightings. Currently im not too sure why Tracy Morgan is at number 1!
Dell has revealed their new Dell Adamo XPS notebook which looks like it will overtake the MacBook Air as being the thinnest laptop in the market.
Unfortunately the device was only shown for a moment before it was tucked away with no other details provided at this time. It does however look like the unit uses a new way of flipping open which in turn allows Dell to thin out the overall design.
Once the specs on the Dell Adamo XPS are released we will have them all here on Crenk.
It has been reported over at MobileCrunch that Rock Band will soon be getting its own iPhone and iPod Touch version.
While wandering the halls of CTIA convention in San Diego today, we spotted a small kiosk dedicated to Rock Band Mobile. Sure enough, no iPhones in sight – just a couple of Verizon handsets. Above the kiosk, however, was an LCD screen endlessly looping through a demo reel of EA Mobile’s portfolio – and therein lied the gold. Right at the end of the reel, it pops up clear as day: Rock Band for iPhone and iPod Touch.
The screen only pops up for about half a second (we actually had to watch the reel loop through three times to get a good shot of it), so we didn’t see much in person that you aren’t in a photo. They’re obviously rolling with the same kinda-grungy, kinda-cartoony look and feel as they have on all of the other platforms. You can see just a smidgen of the game mechanics on the right; the notes flow down the fretboard in the same manner as all of the other games, with 4 guitar pick shaped buttons that I presume are pressed to trigger a note.
The first issue that pops into our head, here: Where does this leave Tapulous, with their Tap Tap Revenge series? Tap Tap Revenge already has a massive following on the platform, but it’s very similar to Rock Band. They’ve just launched Tap Tap Revenge 3, which banks heavily on premium content through In-App Purchase. After the success of the console series, the Rock Band name would likely carry a bit more weight with content/license owners than that of Tapulous/Tap Tap Revenge; are we about to see a content war, or will the two games roll together harmoniously?
Back in 1999 Yahoo purchased GeoCities for $3.65 billion, but today it has sent out a “final notice” warning GeoCities users that they are pulling the plug on the 26th October.
Yahoo currently is shutting down a lot of services which it seems as though previous CEO’s purchased for no real reason. Current Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz seems to have her head switch on and is focusing on Yahoo’s key business areas:
Homepage
Mail
Messenger
Everything “mobile”
Search
Media experiences across sports, news, finance, entertainment
“Yahoo’s goal is to be at the center of people’s online lives, and these efforts all support that,” says a source.
