Last year, Foursquare was called the break-out mobile app of the conference by more than one tech journalist.

This year, a new contender has appeared - Austin's native Gowalla. And Brightkite is still hanging on to the LBS community,

Which do you use now? And when your attention is at a premium during one of the year's most popular geek conferences, which app or apps will you use to collect badges, connect with friends, and find out where the party really is?

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Gowalla's main weakness might be that they haven't yet developed an Android or Blackberry application. WordPress Bible author Aaron Brazell noted that while many see the iPhone as the "Jesus phone," that doesn't change the fact that "any company who has a business model built around... iPhone is nucking futs."

While many of us use the mobile version of the site and patiently wait for a native app for non-iPhone devices, Foursquare's been our go-to check-in service for quite some time. And their response to us on Twitter suggests they may see themselves as a comfortable incumbent at this point.

Both of the services we've mentioned also have special, built-in incentives for users at SXSW. Gowalla in particular has announced an interesting promotion. For their flagship "Tiki Room" event, the app will "be scattering hundreds of Tiki Room Digital VIP Passes around downtown Austin. The only way to get yours is to check in with Gowalla at other Austin venues and SXSW events."

Last year, Foursquare also had special badges for SXSW, such as "Panel Nerd", "Karaoke RV" and "Porky" (for BBQ lovers, in particular). They even made a custom badge for attendees of Digg's party and Diggnation live show.

And while Brightkite may not have the game mechanics and rewards of other apps, it does give us the ability to upload photos in addition to text when checking into various locations - a tool we've found very handy when screening new venues for ambience.

So, which app or apps will you be using during SXSW? Vote in the poll, and let us know the "why" of your choice in the comments.

Picnik just announced that it has been been acquired by Google. While the details surrounding the acquisition are still somewhat murky, the Picnik team just announced the acquisition on the company's blog. Picnik currently has 20 employees and, according to its own data, "millions of visitors every month." The company offers a free service as well as paid accounts and a number of third-party services, including Box.net and Flickr, use Picnik's API to offer the company's services to their customers. According to the company's announcement, the service will remain online and unchanged for the time being. The price of the acquisition has not been disclosed.

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What Will Happen to Picnik?

For Google, this acquisition would make a lot of sense. After all, with Picasa Web Albums, Google offers one of the most popular online photo sharing sites and while it offers some basic editing features, it doesn't offer anything close to Picnik's feature set. Picasa, too, is one of the few Google services that still relies heavily on a desktop client and as Google continues to push its online services, it's only natural for Google to want to offer a better online photo editor as well. Indeed, according to Google own announcement, the company will work "hard on integration and new features."

The Picnik team will move to Google's Seattle offices and judging from the announcement, there will be no changes in the company's management and engineering time.

What about Picnik's Relationship with Flickr?

Picnik has a close partnership with Yahoo's Flickr, where it is the default photo editor. It will be interesting to see if Flickr plans to make any changes to this agreement in the near future. In today's announcement, Google notes that it plans to continue to support "all existing Picnik partners so that users will continue to be able to add their photos from other photo sharing sites, make edits in the cloud and then save and share to all relevant networks."

We have asked Flickr for a statement and will update this post once we hear from them.

Not getting Twitter updates today? It’s not just you — a number of users have reported the same, with blogger Dave Winer saying his Twitter account has been stalled for eight hours.

Popular Twitter app TweetDeck added, “Apparently Twitter is having problems: No Twitter timeline updates for several hours for many users,” linking to a post by TheNextWeb that reported the same.

A Twitter search for “Twitter timeline“, meanwhile, confirms that the issue is affecting a number of users.

Are you having Twitter timeline issues today? Let us know in the comments.

Tags: timeline, twitter

This past week it seems Twitter was all about entertainment, with Justin Bieber, the Olympics, and the Jonas Brothers on the tips of everyone’s fingers.

Our friends at What The Trend have provided an overview of the most tweeted topics this past week. Because this is a topical list, hashtag memes and games have been omitted from the chart.

For the avid tweeter, it may come as no surprise that the young Canadian pop star Justin Bieber continued to trend this week, hitting the top spot. With all eyes on Vancouver these past two weeks, the Olympics ranked high as fans continued to cheer their nation’s teams and discuss NBC’s coverage of the games in the U.S.

Continuing in entertainment, pop singers The Jonas Brothers rose in the ranks this week thanks to a campaign by Chilean and Argentinian fans urging the group to visit their countries. And the new Martin Scorcese film Shutter Island starring Leonardo DiCaprio has scored big points with fans and critics alike.

Rounding out the set was plenty of discussion of Tiger Woods’ public apology for his marital infidelity on February 19th, a surge of support from fans of the South Korean band Super Junior, and a lot of chatter about Twitter itself as it was been plagued by more phishing attacks in the last few days.

You can check past Twitter trends in our Top Twitter Topics section as well as read more about this past week’s trends on What The Trend.

Top Twitter Trends This Week 2/21 – 2/27

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Tags: social media, Top Twitter Topics, trends, twitter, twitter trends, What The Trend

Alex van Someren is a “Dealmaker” with the Global Entrepreneur Programme at the department of UK Trade and Investment. A serial entrepreneur specialising in IT software and hardware product development businesses, he’s had two exits through IPOs and is now Entrepreneur in Residence at Judge Business School. Below, he answers our recent guest post which attacked the way UK business regulation authorities treat small but fast-moving startup businesses in the same way as regular, slow-moving ones.

Azeem Azhar’s article about UK small business bureaucracy doesn’t tally with my own experience running businesses in the UK. In fact, from what other entrepreneurs are telling me it’s a lot easier here than in most developed countries.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

7 Ways to Encourage More Blog Commenting

Continue reading HTC Desire's Sense UI ported to Droid; HTC, Motorola cringe

HTC Desire's Sense UI ported to Droid; HTC, Motorola cringe originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Over the past few days we've watched app after app after app become a casualty in Apple's gradual clean up of the App Store—a ban on nearly all titillating apps. Apple executive Phil Schiller finally explains what happened:

It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see.

As those women ignore the existence of parental controls, Schiller continues to explain that Apple "obviously care[s] about developers, but in the end ha[s] to put the needs of the kids and parents first." Somehow that's supposed to help us understand why Sports Illustrated's and FHM's apps remain in the App Store:

When asked about the Sports Illustrated app, Mr. Schiller said Apple took the source and intent of an app into consideration. "The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format," he said.

So the lesson is that as long as your parents and grandparents recognize the brand, it's acceptable wanking material? Or is it that if enough mums complain about fart apps then those too will be purged from the App Store?

As we've said before:

What's sad about this is that in Apple's early years, it was somewhat of a counterpoint to corporate computing for suits, by suits. They were supposed to make computers for people, by real humans. Founded by a man who asked potential employees when they lost their virginity as part of an interview. Today we have a company that has baby music in its commercials, like we're all 10 year old idiots who have never heard the word fuck—let alone have fucked—and need to be protected from little programs that may have breasts in them.

Then again, Steve Jobs knows his legacy and it isn't sex apps. It's great hardware and software.

But why the hell can't gadget porn and real porn coexist? [NYT via Tech Crunch]

Microsoft has several other botnets in its crosshairs, and believes it can use the same legal tactic against them that it deployed last week to strike at the Waledac botnet's command-and-control centers.

EMC is expanding its security consulting services to help enterprises tackle the complexities of securing their data and complying with regulations in virtualized computing environments.

Rosalie Marshall, Computing, Tuesday 23 February 2010 at 11:58:00

Rosalie Marshall recounts two incidents that call into question the privacy settings on networking sites

Two of my closest online friends have disappointed me. Privacy hiccups by both Facebook and Google have recently brought collisions in work and social worlds.

In the Facebook case, I was teaching my dad how to use the social network. He wanted to practice uploading photos, so we tested adding family pictures to his account. Because his Facebook account had to be kept strictly for business use, we adapted the settings so only he would be able to see the photos. I reassured him it was secure by logging into my account and viewing his profile. See, I said, “the photo can’t be seen by anyone except you.”

A couple of weeks later, my editor asked me to cover the launch of a new photos dashboard Facebook had added to its homepage, which allows users to browse recent photos of all their friends from one page. To my dismay, the photo my dad did not want anyone to see was included in my dashboard feed.

I called Facebook and a member of its press team told me such errors had occurred when trialling the dashboard but should have been resolved by the time the development went public. A few weeks later, it appears fixed.

Google and my much depended-on Gmail account is the other site that lost my trust. As all Gmail users found when Google launched its new social network Buzz, the service had been automatically tied to their email accounts.

Buzz allows Gmail users to share real-time updates with their email contacts in a similar way to Twitter. However, unlike Twitter, Google pre-selected Gmail accounts its users would follow based on their most frequent contacts, and made all this information public.

My work and social worlds were merged and my boss could now know I talk to my boyfriend on Gmail more than I do some of my colleagues. Google has since fixed the problem and will now just suggest accounts Buzz users should follow.

Such stories are reminders to not rely on privacy settings offered by social networks and to not do things online you do not want people to see.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Find the Web Contrarian In You

If you're using the Professional or Ultimate version of Windows 7 and your PC supports hardware virtualization, you can check out our guide to setting up and using the official XP Mode in Windows 7, and we've also got you covered with a guide to using XP Mode on Windows 7 machines without hardware virtualization. If you don't fall into either of those categories, or you are using Windows Vista—or even XP, hit the link for the full walk-through tutorial.

As you guys know one of my largest blogs is called Daily Writing Tips. It was launched some months after DBT, with the goal of helping people improve their writing skills, and it has over 33,000 subscribers already.

Lately we have been adding a lot of great content there, and I recommend that you check it out if you are trying to write better. Here are some examples of articles you’ll find on the blog:

• The Writing Process
• 34 Writing Tips That Will Make You a Better Writer
• Creative Writing 101
• Comparative or Superlative?
• 30 Religious Terms You Should Know

Today we are also re-opening the Daily Writing Tips Forum officially. If you like to discuss about grammar, spelling, vocabulary and writing in general you should definitely join it.

A Swedish app called Recognizr lets you point your smartphone camera at someone and retrieve their online profiles via face recognition. You don't even have to know the person, unlike with competing apps.

The technology isn't quite stalker friendly yet; only people who have opted in can be recognized, and the code only runs on Android smartphones. But we figure it's only a matter of time before someone writes a no-holds-barred, recognize-anyone version for the massive iPhone platform, and makes a bundle in the process. After that happens, there will be no need to make up fake phone numbers for creeps in bars — the creeps will already have your contact info. Progress.

Apple files for Magic Trackpad trademark originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

You’ve probably already heard about Qualcomm’s MSM7x30 smartphone platform which was announced before, and now videos of it powering some demo devices have surfaced, and they certainly look impressive. Sporting the same guts as the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, this system-on-chip offers HDMI output and 720p video playback on the device, or an external HDTV. Check out the video below, and note the cool picture browser, which shows about 1,000 pictures at the same time, allowing you to zoom into each individual one effortlessly. If the videos are anything to go by, we certainly are looking forward to this platform making into smartphones in the near future. As mentioned, videos are available after the jump.

Permalink: Qualcomm MSM7x30 Smartphone Platform Demo On Video from Ubergizmo | RSS Sponsor: Win a Fellowes Microshred Paper Shredder!

New York, the city that never sleeps, may finally meet its match. TechCrunch is coming, and we’re bringing three days of non-stop conference and startup-competition energy, May 24-26.

We call it TechCrunch Disrupt because we want to debate what’s really changing in media and technology right now, what’s causing disruption and what we need to do about it to survive and thrive in real time.

Each morning, we’ll explore media and technology disruption themes through hosted panel discussions, keynotes, roundtable conversations and select product demonstrations. We’ll bring the experts, thought leaders, top entrepreneurs and business leaders and others together to talk about what’s next. And why. With lots of audience participation.

Each afternoon, we take our morning debate into the field. New startups and products will be unveiled and will compete for recognition and a top prize in the Startup Battlefield.

This is a tournament-style launch platform where startups demo their products and impress the audience and panel of experts over multiple rounds of competition. Everyone gets stage time to show their stuff, and plenty of direct feedback. But then they’ll jump into head to head competition with the other startups.

Experts and seasoned veterans will be brought in to mentor and judge startups on product, business models, team, design and usability and more. And the final round will put startups in the hot seat where some of the most successful entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and business executives will grill them in front of the audience and see how they perform. It’ll be a little bit like pitching a top VC, except it will be done live on stage in front of thousands. Audience voting as well as expert feedback will factor into final competition scores.

One startup will emerge the overall winner and take home a $50,000 cash prize. But all of the startups get an incredible launch event for their product, and priceless feedback from people who can really help. And, best of all, it’s free for startups to launch at TechCrunch Disrupt. Save those dollars for your product.

Applications open today (March 1) and will be reviewed on a rolling basis through midnight pst, Friday, March 26. There are no fees to apply or compete in the Startup Battlefield, and startups from around the world are welcome to submit for consideration. In fact, we go out of our way to help non-U.S. startups get the support they need during the application process to maximize their chances.

Where can you fit a battlefield in New York City, you ask? We found 100,000 square feet of space in the Soho-West Village neighborhood. We promise you haven’t been to a conference venue like this before. It’s actually an ex-Merrill Lynch office that’s available on short-term lease. It’s a perfect metaphor for disruption. And it gives us almost unlimited room for creativity, exhibits, lounges and demos. In typical TechCrunch style, save room for the after parties each night too.

Tickets to TechCrunch Disrupt are on sale now. Best rates are available through March 31.

Better to disrupt than be disrupted. Hope to see you there. More details will be coming on the Disrupt Blog.

The project, which will see SAP's Business Suite 7 rolled out companywide, is going to be conducted in phases, said Rob Enslin, president of SAP's North American division.

You may know that the company is working on something it calls Facebook Credits (it’s in beta). You can buy Facebook Credits with a credit card or Paypal, and then use these credits as a currency when buying virtual items from applications on the Facebook platform (Facebook apps). A number of apps already use it.

This move will let Facebook get a cut of the action of the in-app purchases of various Facebook apps such as Mafia Wars and Farmville (Facebook will take a massive 30% chunk). Great for them, and if the increased convenience and ease of use is enough to make users spend 30% more, it should be a good thing for developers as well.

Facebook Credits can only be used with Facebook applications, and this is all Facebook has been talking about, but you can’t help but think that this might be the first step in an even more ambitious direction.

Credits + Facebook Connect = Payment platform

Look at Facebook’s tendency over the last few years. It’s gone from being a small, walled garden to being increasingly focused on pushing its influence out into the rest of the web. Facebook Connect is a prime example of this, where you can use your Facebook login on third-party sites, which in turn get access to your Facebook information.

And in many ways it’s Facebook Connect that makes the potential of Facebook Credits so intriguing.

Couple Connect with Credits and you get a new payment option that could, if Facebook allows it, be used as a universal payment option on the internet. Facebook would act as the go-between between Facebook users and online stores and services.

Of course, Facebook wouldn’t be able to take a 30% cut of purchases outside of the Facebook platform, but they could take a small cut. Businesses have been built on less (Paypal, anyone?), and if you consider the huge user base that Facebook already has this could mean a big influx of money for the company.

Another bonus for Facebook: information

There is one more thing to consider if Facebook ends up following this path. One of the most valuable commodities these days is information (it’s what Google is made of), and being a proxy for purchases would give Facebook very valuable information.

Facebook already knows a lot about you, but being able to know what kind of purchases you make could potentially help Facebook serve you ads in a more efficient manner. Are you buying flowers online? Well, let’s serve you ads from florists! More effective ad targeting would ultimately lead to even more money rolling into Facebook’s coffers.

Of course, considering the massive backlash after Beacon a while back, Facebook would have to tread very carefully here and carefully consider the privacy implications.

What do you think?

Are we headed towards a new internet currency, one resting on the shoulders of the Facebook platform?

A simple credit system like this might not be ideal for large purchases, but great for micro transactions and smaller payments. It could be very convenient. For example, you could use Facebook Credits to pay for online content, when you shop books at Amazon.com, or order a pizza online.

So here’s a question: Would you use it?

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

As JJ's son said—and as we've seen with his sick wife, on whom he personally performed a biopsy—JJ likes to think of himself as a doctor. I have a feeling that Roquet is just a front for JJ's own experimental fertility treatments. Did you notice how Adaleen said that she has the "uterus of a woman half [her] age"? It's likely that JJ may have performed a uterus transplant on Adaleen. (Could it be Wanda's uterus!?) Or, he might just be injecting her with hCG, which could lead to a false positive in a pregnancy test. It also could be why Adaleen is feeling so much "energy and vitality," as hCG has also been used as a weight-loss drug, suppressing appetites, and causing stored fat to provide energy for the body.

Additionally, hCG has been linked to cancer, and JJ's early testing of the hormone may be what has made his other wife sick.


Wanda is clearly horrified at the news of Adaleen's pregnancy. Perhaps JJ forced Wanda to have a hysterectomy as one of the terms of his blackmail regarding Roman's murder. Whatever happened, it definitely involves something reprehensible…like incest? A lack of fingernails—like JJ has—has been linked to incest within polygamist communities. Could JJ be having a baby with Wanda's eggs and his sperm inside of Adaleen? I'm trying to think of what his motives for something like this would be, and all I could come up with his that he wants to prove that he can "work miracles" in an attempt to seize the prophecy from Albie.


Desperate in her attempt to get pregnant, Nicki visited Roquet at his clinic. Do you think that JJ will perform some sort of fucked-up IVF treatment on Nicki, impregnating her with his child to gain some kind of leverage with Bill over the UEB trust? It's all so complicated!


And though Bill's troubles in Mexico were supposed to be suspenseful, they were mostly boring, except for this part, when his mother chopped off Hollis Green's arm.

Filed under: Mozilla, Browsers

Early work on Firefox's new Javascript engine nets big speed gains originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 27 Feb 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Yes indeed, another week has just packed up, pulled on her cap and slunk out the door. We’re busy doing exactly the same thing ourselves. But just before we do so, here’s a hearty thanks to the current CMSWire sponsors (follow them on Twitter). It’s you who have kept our wheels turning and the keyboards merrily clacking. We are thankful.

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• Gilbane Group — Conferences, reports, webinars, consulting and more. Gilbane keeps the industry talking, meeting and informed.
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• Kapow Technolgoies — Tools for automating content migration tasks.
• Open Text — Realize the full power of SharePoint enterprise content management via Open Text integration.
• Percussion — The Percussion CM System empowers enterprise marketers to create, manage and optimize content across multiple channels.
• Quest Software — Smart systems management software for SharePoint.
• SDL Tridion — Enterprise web content management for multi-lingual and multi-national organizations.
• Sitecore — Enterprise grade web content management with a strong eye towards .NET friendly tools and APIs.
• Siteworx — A full service interactive agency, Siteworx designs scalable systems for human interaction.
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• …and of course dear old uncle Google

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On 01/03/10 At 04:56 PM

"Microsoft's Aaron Woodman just pulled off a little surprise here at The Engadget Show: he brought out LG's Windows Phone 7 Series pre-production prototype! The QWERTY slider is the first branded Windows Phone 7 Series device the world's ever seen"

5 MP Camera! Flash! 3.5 mm Jack! And more pictures available over on Engadget's site. And while I like the look of the front, I'm not too crazy about the keypad's buttons. Thoughts?

Filed under: Cellular, Business

Now a new proposal aims to take things to the next level and send a payload of item-type specific action options along with every piece of content that gets shot across the internet. A loose body of innovators from some of the biggest social networking companies online have begun discussing an addition to the Activity Streams standard format called an Action Stream.

Sponsor

Earlier this month social software designer Adrian Chan offered up a proposal for what he called Action Streams.

Action streams would not only share status/activity update meta-data but also permit updates to function as actions. For example, an invitation update posted in twitter could be accepted in Buzz. The vision for action streams thus involves a distributed and decentralized ecosystem of coupled action posts, rendered by third party stream clients and within participating social networks.

This idea was added tonight to the Activity Streams wiki where it will be discussed by the community building the Activity Streams format. The standard types of actions that can be taken in regard to content items of the same categories on Amazon and Facebook were listed as prior art. The discussion has just begun, and data interoperability isn't something that everyone at big social networks agrees is in their best short-term interests. These idea are exciting and are supported by a substantial number of people, though.

The Activity Streams discussion is participated in by engineers from companies like Google, Facebook, Nokia, Yahoo and others. Chris Messina, who joined Google in January, is one of the key voices, and semantic web builder Monica Keller, who left MySpace for Facebook last month, appears to be taking an even more active role in the effort than she had before.

If Activity Streams with Actions can be implemented effectively, that would mean not only that you could participate in any social network you choose and still read messages from outside that network - you could also interact with them from those other networks as well. RSVP to Facebook event invites, tag yourself in photos, etc. without visiting Facebook, but from within whichever social network won your heart through its superior features or design.

You could interact with your friends on Google Buzz from inside Facebook, or from a social network that doesn't even exist yet. More and better social networks would spring into existence because the ability to see and interact with friends would no longer be a scarce resource hoarded by the biggest social networks.

If you think social networking is a world-changing phenomenon today, imagine what it might be like if interoperable social networks sprung up like wildflowers. It's one thing to make content available in a standard format - but making some basic actions transmittable and standardized would make the prospect of communication across networks all the more real and powerful. That could mean an environment ripe for innovation and a better experience every day for users.

Filed under: iPhone

TUAWNew patent hints at iPhone camera gesture control originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Tom Young, Computing, Wednesday 24 February 2010 at 16:10:00

Aim is to make changes proposed by new legislation clearer to the public

The UK Parliament is trialling a new way of publishing proposed legislation on its web site that should make it easier for the public to understand the impact of new laws.

Until now, bills have been posted online as they appear before the house – as straight legal text divorced from notes and the existing laws they intend to change.

But parliamentary authorities have now published an experimental version of the Digital Economy Bill that has explanatory notes, and links to clauses in previous legislation that would be amended, interwoven into the text.

This will make it easier to understand what the legislation proposes and the potential impact of any changes, say authorities.

“This latest version allows you to move from the clauses of the bill to the section of the Act the clause will affect,” says a statement from the parliamentary web team.

“We have also made improvements to the layout of the interwoven bill and included explanatory notes. You now have the option to display relevant explanatory text below or alongside each clause of the bill.”

Last year, the House of Commons published the Equality Bill in a trial format, with the text and explanatory notes interwoven, and received positive feedback on the development.

The move follows the recommendations of the House of Commons Procedure committee, which said the change would make it easier for legislators and the public to navigate the text of a bill.

The parliamentary web team is looking for feedback from the public and asking for recommendations on how the service could be improved with a view to publishing all bills in this way.

Authorities are running a wider scheme to make Parliament’s operations more accessible online, following pressure from social media groups.

The online version of Hansard, which records all parliamentary proceedings, is being changed to improve its layout and structure, to make it more interac tive, and to make it easier for third-party web sites to use the content.

And Parliament now has a much higher profile on social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter, which authorities hope will drive more people to the site.

Parliamentary committees and Commons debates have been available to watch online for more than five years. The parliament site received 11.1 million visits in 2009, 200,000 more than in 2008.

Filed under: Deals, Silver Lake Partners, Private equity

This post was written by DailyFinance contributor Sam Gustin.

Memo to would-be Silicon Valley moguls: do not double-cross a pair of highly litigious billionaires.

After weeks of back-and-forth legal jousting, the tech heavyweights fighting over Skype are set to announce a deal in which the founders of the popular Web-calling service would regain a stake in the company they sold to eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) in 2005 for $2.6 billion, according to Bloomberg. Nice trick.

The pact ends an at-times vicious soap opera replete with accusations of back-stabbing, dishonesty, and outright theft against Mike Volpi, the pair's one-time Golden Boy, who they believe double-crossed them. The legal circus held up eBay's proposed $2 billion sale of Skype to a consortium of private investors led by Silver Lake Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, the investment firm of Marc Andreessen, the billionaire co-founder of Netscape.

The pact ends an at-times vicious soap opera replete with accusations of back-stabbing, dishonesty, and outright theft against Mike Volpi, the pair's one-time Golden Boy, who they believe double-crossed them. The legal circus held up eBay's proposed $2 billion sale of Skype to a consortium of private investors led by Silver Lake Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, the investment firm of Marc Andreessen, the billionaire co-founder of Netscape.

Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who founded Skype before selling it to eBay three years ago, will assume an ownership stake in the company, alongside the consortium, according to the settlement.

The duo, who had asserted an intellectual property claim on Skype's technology, also will drop suits they filed against Skype, the consortium and a former top executive of theirs, as part of the deal.

For the past several months, the pair has sought to hold up eBay's sale of Skype to the consortium for $2 billion in cash. eBay would keep a 35% equity investment in Skype, and has maintained that it wants the deal, which values the company at $2.75 billion, to close before the end of the year.

When eBay bought the company, it hoped buyers and sellers would use the service to negotiate auctions on the site. But while Skype has become popular, it never integrated into eBay the way then-CEO Meg Whitman had hoped, and in 2007, the company wrote down Skype's value to $1.2 billion.

Zennstrom and Friis had sought an injunction against the sale, as well as statutory damages at an eye-popping rate of "more than $75 million daily." Additionally, in a barrage of lawsuits, they accused Volpi, the former chief executive officer of Internet TV service Joost -- which Zennstrom and Friis also founded -- of breaching his fiduciary duty by stealing confidential information in an effort to seal the eBay deal for the consortium.

The suits accused Volpi of lying, stealing and bad faith by gaffling confidential information for the consortium. Last summer, Volpi became a partner at Index Ventures -- a member of the consortium -- after leaving Joost as the chief executive. He remained as chairman of the startup, but Friis and Zennstrom kicked him to the curb after they found out about his alleged double dealing.

In one e-mail Zennstrom and Friis produced for the court, Volpi plotted the Skype bid with Danny Rimer, a partner at Index. Volpi's e-mail refers to various players involved with Skype, and Volpi's hope to remain chairman of the company.

"Could be cool," Volpi writes, according to the document. "J/N/Dyne will be very unhappy, but ... oh well."

J/N are Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, and Mark Dyne is a Los Angeles banker and former Skype board member.

Yeah, oh well. Although the deal may now go through, Volpi, a 42-year-old former Silicon Valley golden boy once rumored to be a possible successor to Cisco's John Chambers, has suffered serious damage to his reputation.

"Even if we give Volpi the benefit of the doubt and assume he prevails on the legal issues, his actions and behavior are likely to put a considerable dent in his reputation," wrote San Jose Mercury News columnist Chris O'Brien. "Volpi seems to have grotesquely underestimated how upset the Joost founders would be. In case you're wondering, the answer appears to be: VERY ANGRY."

Too bad for him, Zennstrom and Friis may be thinking. After all, they felt burned by Volpi and sought to strike back against him. It's a cautionary tale for would-be Valley machers: don't mess with this pair.

Skype soap opera ends as founders set to regain stake ahead of $2B sale originally appeared on BloggingBuyouts on Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:50:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What’s a peripheral display? Something that provides basic information without distracting you from your primary task. It runs silently in the background and it’s there when you need to retrieve some glanceable information. You already use plenty of them every day: clocks, stock tickers, weather icons, unread email icons, etc. I currently use one app on my iPhone as a peripheral display: Flip Clock. I think we are soon going to see a lot more apps like this.

My perfect peripheral display app would come with a few basic widgets like a clock, calendar, stocks, weather, and access to photos on the iPad. The app could then offer upgrades (perhaps $2.99 each) for access to services like Flickr, Picasa, Twitter, Facebook, CNN (and other news sites), etc. The app could be free with the requirement that one of the widgets shows advertisements. A quick paid upgrade (perhaps $9.99) would remove the ads and offer a spot for another widget.

I’ve taken the liberty of mocking up in Photoshop what this app may look like using the iPad GUI. Below you can see a few basic widgets, a tweet that changes every few minutes, and a photo slideshow powered by Flickr. The tweet includes a link which when tapped should close this app and launch Safari. This applies to the other widgets too; tapping them should launch their corresponding apps. Interactivity makes this app better than any digital picture frame available.

There are tons of apps that provide basic information, but now they can be combined to take advantage of the larger screen.

Now that I’ve filled your head with ideas, go build it! Just think of me when you publish the app to the store. Also, let me know if you think this is a good idea.

In news that makes us long for the Chick Wicks era, Julianne Hough had dinner with none other than Dane Cook at Hollywood's Katsuya sushi restaurant Saturday.

The raunchy funnyman and the country cutie, who arrived seperately, left the celeb hot spot eatery in Dane's car, possibly continuing their night elsewhere.

We don't even wanna think about that.

Julianne was previously linked to Jared Followill since her split from Wicks. Guess that never panned out. Now she's back on the market ... or at least she was.

If these two are dating, do you think it's a good match or one you can't possibly see working? Is Dane Cook a step down or a huge step down for the dancer?

This is just wrong. [Photo: PacificCoastNewsOnline.com]

Filed under: Hardware, Software, iPhone, App Store

TUAWAdafruit shows off the Square dongle for credit card payments on the iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Filed under: Enterprise, Software

Parallels has announced a new version of Parallels Server for Mac called the Mac Bare Metal Edition. It's optimized to provide better performance for virtual machines running on an Xserve, and allows multiple, isolated virtual machines to run simultaneously on the same server. Using "hypervisor" server virtualization, system administrators can run, say, Snow Leopard Server, Windows 7 and Linux all at once.

In case you're curious, a hypervisor is a virtual machine monitor which directly controls the hardware ("bare metal") of the host machine without using device drivers from another operating system. At least, that's how I understand it.

A new utility, Parallels Virtual Automation, also provides an extended set of tools for managing, monitoring and maintaining virtual machines.

This is the first "bare metal" hypervisor for Intel-powered Apple machines, and it sounds pretty cool. I'm not in a position to try this out, but I'd welcome feedback from readers who get their hands on a copy and put it to the test. Single licenses of Parallels Server for Mac Bare Metal Edition are priced at US$1,248.75, and there's a trial download available.

TUAWParallels gets down to bare metal with new server software originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.