According to Reuters, Google has been in talks with Verizon Wireless about the possible implementation of the Google phone. No one knows what the “Google Phone” means, as theories run from an actual phone developed by Google to a phone running Google based software supporting their Adwords product. This article says its all […]

T-Mobile announced their latest and greatest phone a few days ago. Called the T-Mobile Shadow, it’s exclusively available from T-Mobile and it apparently “strikes a unique balance of design and functionality so you can easily share life’s fun moments with those who matter most.” Let’s just wait until the review is in, shall […]

These guys originally brought us the Beerbelly. If you caught us on Fox New Boston just a year ago then you’d know this. Now they’re bringing us a device the actually enhances one’s figure - the beer belly makes you look fat - all the while providing 25oz or 750ml of concealed liquid. […]

 By Daniel O’Malley
 
Did you rob a granny for the cash to buy an iPhone?  
Earlier this week apple announced that 250,000 of their iPhones went to unlockers out of the 1.4 million they’ve sold so far. In an attempt to make all their buyers “authentic” Apple has decided to restrict methods of payment to just […]

This is one of the most intriguing Web 2.0 apps I’ve ever seen, hands down. What is it? Simple. It’s a 3d Avatar represented version of your email. It apparently works with any email system including web based email, such as GMAIL (aka POP mail). Comes in two […]

This one was just too cool to pass up. The new Airbus A380 is absolutely massive. It can hold a whopping 800+ people if stacked with just economy seats. Who would opt for that lay out, especially if you’re trying to drive brand allegiance and equity. That’s why you install a […]

Yesterday Mobile Voip service provider Yeigo announced their new software release (Yeigo 2.1) in style by revealing their brand spanking new website. The website has a fresh new design sporting a nifty flash slider featuring Yeigo’s highlited functionality and offerings.

Also announced, Yeigo lite, a slimmed down version of Yeigo 2.1 with features like staying in touch with your contacts and portability to various instant messengers like MSN, Gtalk, ICQ and AIM.

Here’s some words from their blog -

At 00:33 this morning, we brought the new Yeigo.com international site online. Codenamed Lina, the site was built to be the launch vehicle of the Yeigo 2.1 Edition application.

Yeigo 2.1 Edition - Featured Highlights:

• Improved efficiency to make your data & your battery go further.
• Best voice quality, ever.
• Improved interface design.
• An assortment of new and unique features, which we will unveil in the days to come.
• New access point management makes switching simple.

Other Yeigo news

You can view the demo here

Microsoft has won the fight to be Facebook’s new investor and advertising partner, beating Google in some heated negotiations and getting a stake in the company. Microsoft has not bought Facebook, but it now owns 1.6%-2% of the fastest rising social network, paying $240 million for the stake and setting Facebook’s value at $15 billion.

Under the $15 billion valuation, other investors in Facebook now have some idea how much their stakes are worth. The New York Times explains:

The Microsoft investment throws the value of the holdings of Facebook investors into the stratosphere. Mark Zuckerberg, the 23-year-old Facebook founder who dropped out of Harvard to build the company, owns a 20 percent share which is now valued at $3 billion. Accel Partners, the venture capital firm that invested $12.7 million in May 2005 and owns 11 percent of Facebook, now holds stock worth $1.65 billion.

The two companies will work together on new forms of advertising, including data from Facebook.

Among things this money will be spent on: Facebook expects to hire a lot more engineers, doubling the number of employees to over 700 next year. Microsoft on the other hand gets a piece of what is going to be essentially the biggest people search engine on the planet.

So what does this all mean to me? Well as a facebook app developer, it means there will be much better monetization options coming, more robust infrastructure, and a lot more money flowing into the facebook eco-system. The Facebook economy has just had a major booster shot.

[Via TechCrunch]

More Facebook News

Bandwidth blog has been tipped off from an internal source that South Africa’s internet giant, 24.com, has stepped into the social networking realm with their latest offering, Laaik.it. By recreating a popular US web 2.0 concept with South African flavour, Laaik.it has followed in the footsteps of the popular US based Digg.com just like another local social news startup Muti. Laaik.it allows you to submit, rate and discuss news submitted by you or other members of the community. This has proved to be a popular concept in one of the world’s biggest internet markets - the states - invented by American web entrepreneur Kevin Rose from Digg.com. Social news sites have handed the homepage editing capabilities to the members of its community compared to older more traditional news portals that have a hand full of editors that control what content is shown on the homepage. With sites like Muti and Laaik the users can decide what news hits the homepage by voting stories up or down. This concept is based on the wisdom of crowds theory which believes that eventually the masses will decide what news is good and whats not.

Laaik.it, the brain child of 24 executives, Elan Lohmann and Alistair Fairweather, has been themed with some local flava with its name deriving from an Afrikaans term and clever use of the Italian domain name (.it). They have combined elements from Digg and popular bookmarking site delicious creating a social news platform that can be used in different ways. When submitting a story to Laaik.it you can select from a few categories (they will be adding more soon) and select the content type e.g. Blog post, Image, video or News article. This adds a welcome dimension to content filtering as you can now select just to view blog posts and then filter them by Popular, Upcoming or ‘Virgin’ links - which I presume are stories with no votes whatsoever besides the automatic authors vote. From there you can again filter the content with options such as stories submitted in the past 24 hours, past 7 days and the past 30 days. Rounding off the functionality is the ability to search all the links submitted (powered by 24.com search offcourse) and tags on the homepage featuring keywords submitted to the site. To use the new service you need to create a 24.com account which you can then use to login to Laaik.it and any of the other properties in the 24 network.

Will Laaik.it be the Muti killer? Likely not as Muti has a loyal cult blogger following - but Media24 does capture about 60% of the SA internet audience so with a few carefully placed links on their other web properties and some editorials in their arsenal of newspapers and magazines the site can (will) gain some serious traction and out rank Muti with regards to traffic. I think its great for local innovation and competition that the likes of 24.com are getting involved in niche social networking markets as their portfolio of web properties features mostly traditional web 1.0 news portals.

I had a few words with Elan about their latest project and he had these interesting thoughts -

We believe that SN platforms like Facebook are very hard to compete with but social Media such as Digg is an easier area to challenge because we are sure we can provide MUCH more local relevance than a Digg can. You won’t see a headline about SA winning RWC on the Digg, Reddit or Stumble Upon front pages?

The interesting challenge is going to be if our local competitors like MG, IOL, iafrica, Times etc will be willing to add the laaik.it button? They are all adding Digg, Muti, Reddit buttons etc - Hard to see how they cannot add us.. we want to see content from everywhere on the site. We are not trying to create a walled garden for Media24. That’s NB.

Here is their site description -

Laaik.it is a social news and bookmarking service that lets you decide which issues and stories are important (those you “laaik”) and which aren’t worth your time (those you “dislaaik”). As you and thousands of other users “laaik” and “dislaaik” stories, a community driven picture of the day’s (and week’s and month’s) news emerges.

Here is a site screen shot -

Laaik.it is still in public beta so if you find some bugs forward your feedback to 24.com or post your thoughts below and let me know what you think?

www.laaik.it

It really is true!
What’s that you say? I can’t hear you over the AudioEngine A2s!
I said the ‘Audioengine A2’s are a clear representation of good things do come in small sizes’.
I won’t dispute that the price tag ($199) is a little steep for a pair of computer or book shelf […]