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Posts Tagged ‘wwdc’

gdgt, the new consumer electronics site founded by Peter Rojas and Ryan Block that was first announced in September, hasn’t even launched yet. But it’s already managing to to draw millions of viewers for its coverage of major events, like Apple’s WWDC keynote on Monday, which saw 4.7 million views in less than two hours.

Of course, gdgt’s coverage was no match for that of our own CrunchGear’s, but for the site to already be attracting such a sizable audience is an impressive feat. The small team managed to handle the huge traffic spike using Rackspace’s Cloud services.

The impressive traffic stats aren’t much of a surprise: Rojas and Block have built up large followings during their time running Engadget and Gizmodo, two of the most popular gadget blogs. Up until now gdgt has primarily consisted of weekly podcasts from Rojas and Block, and we still don’t know what form the final site will take. It sounds like we’ll find out soon though — tucked away at the end of the WWDC live blog is a note that gdgt will finally be launching in the next few weeks.

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Yahoo! is releasing their tested source code used to help power its sites and products, called Hadoop. Hadoop is free Java software framework born out of an open-source implementation of Google’s published computing infrastructure and fostered within the Apache Software Foundation. Yahoo made the announcement at the second annual Hadoop Summit today in Santa Clara, California, which was co-sponsored by other cloud computing vendors Amazon Web Services, Cloudera, IBM, and Sun Microsystems.

Yahoo! has been the primary developer and investor to Apache’s Hadoop. In 2006, Hadoop founder Doug Cutting joined Yahoo to lead the project of developing the open-source software. Hadoop now provides the framework for many Yahoo properties including Yahoo Search, Yahoo Mail, and several content and ad services. Hadoop runs on more than 25,000 servers and analyzes billions of Web pages.

Apple’s Quicktime has a new logo, and it’s very silvery! This photo comes to us by way of either John or Greg, who are currently in San Francisco for WWDC . Remember: the keynote starts at 1pm EDT.

Here is the original: 
WWDC 2009: Apple’s Quicktime has a new logo!

We’re here in Moscone and ready to rock. Watch this space for upcoming coverage and live streaming from the convention center. What will we see from Apple

Read more from the original source:
WWDC 2009 CrunchGear Liveblog

We were going to do a roundup of all those rumors, things we know, things we don’t know, etc, but then we thought: “Why don’t we make some nachos?” So we did.

Here is the original:
WWDC rumor bingo is go!

WWDC is next week and the Internet gods are saying that there is a new iPhone coming. This screenshot from UK’s Carphone Warehouse hints that they might be right and the new iPhone will come in 16GB and 32GB flavors, with a white model available for both options.

Read the original here: 
Screenshot hints at 16GB & 32GB iPhone V3

Hey, Mike .

Original post:
Mattel Mindflex game available for pre-order

The Palm Pre’s official launch date is set to be unveiled tomorrow in the Wall Street Journal. But it looks like the New York Times may have one-upped its rival with a story today giving a launch window for the device. While it doesn’t give an exact date, NYT reports that Sprint will be released in the first week of June, citing people briefed with the company’s plans.

And the story goes on to say that Apple could launch a new iPhone on June 8 (the WWDC keynote), which would be “just a few days” after the Pre’s launch. While earlier rumors had the device launching on June 7, the day before WWDC, newer reports have suggested the date could be June 5 — that seems more in line with the “few days” statement, though it’s possible NYT doesn’t know the exact date.

Score another one for the iPhone. Yahoo is abandoning its mobile apps for the Blackberry and other smartphones in order to focus more on its recently relaunched iPhone app. For every other phone, it is concentrating development efforts around the mobile browser experience. People applying for the Blackberry app, which is still in beta, are receiving a notice (reproduced below) stating that “Yahoo has decided to cease development” of the app on May 20th. Yahoo Mobile now only has eyes for the iPhone. Rather than create a million apps for every other phone, it is standardizing on delivering the same experience through the mobile browser.

A Yahoo spokesperson confirms:

We are reprioritizing some products to help us better deliver the best possible experiences to consumers on mobile. To streamline our services, we will not develop Yahoo! Mobile for smartphones to focus our efforts on mobilizing Yahoo!, improving Yahoo! Mobile for web and Yahoo! Mobile for iPhone as well as developing new and engaging experiences for consumers, partners and advertisers.

We currently have mobile products that reach hundreds of different devices (including Blackberry), and we continue to expand that comprehensive list.

The company announced a revamped Yahoo Mobile in February, and rolled it out in April with a new iPhone app and browser support for more than 300 devices. Yahoo Mobile now combines mobile search, your email, IM, and social messaging streams, and personalized Yahoo content such as news, sports, stocks, and RSS feeds.

Standardizing on the mobile browser certainly makes economic sense. When it comes to developing apps, Yahoo needs to pick a platform and it is clearly going with the iPhone. Every other phone will have to do with the mobile browser for now. (Although, Yahoo says it will develop apps for other platforms when it sees enough demand). While Yahoo is putting a lot of effort into making the mobile browser experience more app-like, it will still never be as fully-functioning as a customized mobile app. There is nothing wrong with betting on the mobile browser. But just last March during a briefing I had with Adam Taggart, head of product marketing for Yahoo Mobile, when I asked whether Yahoo was leaning more towards distribution through apps or mobile browsers, he replied:

We are embracing both, apps and browser. We as Yahoo are all about ubiquity. We have a renewed appreciation for the browser because they are getting materially better, but you can always do more with an app on your phone. In the immediate time frame you will see a lot more standalone vertical apps coming out of Yahoo.

He positioned the other smartphone apps as a way to address people with Blackberies and other Web-capable phones who have iPhone envy. Here is how he positioned the smartphone apps which Yahoo is now abandoning:

The smartphone app is a way to turn your smartphone into an iPhone at no additional cost, if you are envying the iPhone.

The Blackberry app actually included some features not found in the iPhone app, such as a socially aware address book which could pull contacts from the phone’s native address book and merge that with your Facebook friends, IM buddies, or other contacts on the Web. Don’t expect that feature to come to a mobile browser anytime soon.

Here is the text of the email sent to interested beta testers:

Yahoo! has decided to cease development of the Yahoo! Mobile smartphone app
effective Wednesday, May 20th. So you will not be provided access to the
beta program for this product.

For the time being, we will be focusing our efforts on the newly-launched
Yahoo! Mobile experience for browsers (available at new.m.yahoo.com) and
for the iPhone (available via the Apple App Store).

We really want to thank you for your interest in being a beta tester. The
feedback we receive during these programs is extremely helpful in improving
the customer experience across all of Yahoo!s mobile products.

In the meantime, stay tuned for more exciting new mobile product releases
from Yahoo!. Theres a lot coming and we want to hear your feedback!

Many thanks,
The Yahoo! Mobile team

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When it’s a Schiller -note! Apple has confirmed that the 10am keynote on June 8 at WWDC will be led by Philip Schiller, the corporeal form that Apple now takes when it needs to leave the astral plane and speak to us humans. Fun fact: Did you know that Apple is really run by a spiritual energy field so bright and blinding that Apple engineers have to wear special “sensory suits” in order to enter the special lead-lined conference room in Cupertino where they present their new ideas to the “the one whose name is the death of stars and the giver of life to all that lives?” Apple Worldwide Developers Conference to Kick Off with Keynote Address on Monday, June 8 CUPERTINO, California—May 13, 2009—Apple® will kick off its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote address on Monday, June 8 at 10:00 a.m. A team of Apple executives, led by Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will deliver the keynote

More:
When is a Steve-note not a Steve-note?