Around the Web 5.18.09: OpenTable's IPO, the Internet's secret passwords, Twitter and small businesses

Food from the Kogi BBQ truck is sold with the help of Twitter. Credit: inuyaki.com via Flickr

-- Those "secret questions" you answer to help you remember the password to your 8 million Internet accounts might not be so secret after all. Technology Review

-- New phones and operating systems have cellphone makers hoping for a big summer. NYT

-- Small businesses that use Twitter often have good results, boosting daily sales at one pizza joint 15%. Ad Age

-- Facebook apps might make more money than Facebook in 2009. Silicon Alley Insider

-- OpenTable goes public this week, in one of the first Silicon Valley IPOs in a loooong time. BoomTown

-- People spend more time on social networks than they do e-mailing. NYT

-- Soldiers are using online dating sites to meet members of the opposite sex, sometimes while stationed abroad. USA Today

-- Workers at Chinese search engine Baidu decide to end a strike for now. PaidContent

-- Google's Eric Schmidt gave the commencement address at Carnegie Mellon on Sunday. TechCrunch

-- The San Francisco Giants are experimenting with a site that changes the prices of tickets based on demand. NYT

-- Alana Semuels

Is Palm's new wireless charger really wireless?

When will we break free of wires forever?. Credit: XWRN via Flickr

If you're like the typical geek, you probably spend a decent amount of time on your couch with your cellphone plugged into one wall socket, your computer plugged into another, your iPod plugged into your computer and your camera plugged in somewhere else. Mamma Mia!

Wouldn't it be nice if someone super smart figured out a way to charge devices without all those wires, much in the same way that Bluetooth technology allows you to talk on your phone from across the room?

There are a number of companies that will tell you -- in press releases and photos -- that they've come up with such a device. One of the big selling points of the Palm Pre, the new wunderphone coming out soon, is that it can charge "wirelessly" with a new Touchstone wireless charger. Photos show a wire-free charger where you can just set down your phone and it will magically be charged.

Impressive, sure: Palm is apparently the first cellphone company making a big push on inductive chargers, which are the same kind that charge electric toothbrushes. But beware the word "wireless." Although the photos don't show it, the Touchstone still has to be plugged into a wall, and the phone has to be touching the charging dock. So if you were envisioning some sort of charger that would give more juice to your phone as you walked around the room -- or even entered the bathroom -- your dream is dashed for now. You're still wedded to the wall.

Same with the Case-Mate FUEL for the Blackberry Bold and iPod, a carrying case and phone charger which shouted out to me from my e-mail inbox this morning, "You can now avoid being tethered to the wall when your battery's down to one bar." Well, kind of. The FUEL is not a charger, per se, but an extra battery pack powered by a rechargeable lithium polymer battery.

So will we ever be able to break our cords to wall outlets and roam freely around while still charging our devices?

Yes, says John Shearer, the founder of Powercast, a Pittsburgh company that is working on a technology that sends power wirelessly to low-power devices. As phones require less and less power, he said, the technology is getting more powerful. He doesn't see the technology becoming mainstream for another five years, however.

"It takes a long time for big companies to adopt new technology," he said. Cellphone makers, for instance, have to build phones that can use this type of charging. Currently, he said, you couldn't just go to a store and buy this type of charger to work on any devices.

In the meantime, Shearer said, other wireless chargers will have to do. As long as you realize they're not truly wireless, no matter what the pictures show.

"Don't believe those photo-shopped photos," he said.

-- Alana Semuels

Google fails, people panic

Google fails, the world panics. Credit: star5112 via Flickr.

Imagine your 20 favorite people. Now imagine that three of them had their hands chopped off. Aaaargh!

That's kind of what happened to, well, the world this morning when Google went down or performed excruciatingly slowly for 14% of users. People panicked. They tried to figure out what was going on. They complained. Even in German!

If you still can't imagine three of your 20 friends missing their hands, maybe this chart will illuminate the situation. Traffic from the top 10 North American Internet service providers to Google networks fell off a cliff, showing that if people can't Google, they're not as interested in the Web.

Thankfully, Google restored its services after just an hour or so, blaming Asia for the outage.

Imagine if you were trying to fly from New York to San Francisco, but your plane was routed through an airport in Asia. And a bunch of other planes were sent that way too, so your flight was backed up and your journey took much longer than expected. That's basically what happened to some of our users today for about an hour, starting at 7:48 am Pacific time.

The blog post by Urs Hoelzle apologized for the outage, reassuring addicted Google users that "all planes are back on schedule now."

-- Alana Semuels

Around the Web 5.13.09: Intel gets fined, Verizon dumps phone lines, Twitter changes reply system

Intel gets slapped with a record fine. Credit: Axel Buhrmann via Flickr

-- European regulators fine Intel $1.45 billion for trying to discourage customers from working with competitor AMD. LAT

-- AT&T speaks on its decision to remove 3G streaming capability from the iPhone SlingPlayer app. Engadget

-- Verizon sells 15% of its residential and small business phone lines to Frontier so it can focus on bigger cities. Silicon Alley Insider

-- Women's blog network BlogHer raises $7 million despite difficult times for fundraising. PaidContent

-- Google unveils new features at a big event it calls Searchology. LAT

-- After Kanye West complains, Twitter removes a fake account under his name. Silicon Alley Insider

-- France adopts a plan to kick people off the Internet if they are found to pirate content three times. NYT

-- Twitter changes its reply system after new users are confused. TechCrunch

-- Our obsession with gadgets could triple the world's electronic bills in the next two decades. Silicon Alley Insider

-- Love the Star Trek movie? Check out where parts were filmed in these exotic California locations. Wired

-- Alana Semuels

Get your tongue off that cellphone! It's covered in bacteria

Is this bacteria on your phone? Credit: kaibara87 via Flickr

Well, it's official. It's probably not a good idea to lick your cellphone.

Those of you who are paused in mid-lick, angrily wondering what kind of scientific data we have to back this up, beware: a consultant over at KTLA found that 10 out of 11 phones in its newsroom had bacteria all over them.

OK, OK, maybe you like bacteria. But the consultant, Dennis Ironi, found enough staphylococcus, micrococcus and bacillus to potentially make you sick. All three are rather nasty-looking under a microscope, and species of each can cause food poisoning and other illnesses.

Ironi says the bacteria are often transmitted when you let other people use your phone, because obviously other people are less clean that you are.

According to KTLA, a recent study in Britain found that cellphones were dirtier, germ-wise, than toilets and the bottom of your shoe. (Just to be safe, you probably shouldn't lick the toilet or the bottom of your shoe either.)

And if you're going to start licking your keyboard now that cellphones, shoes and toilets are off limits, just know that environmental expert Michael Andrew says that you touch about 10 million bacteria every time you put your hands on your desk. So don't lick that either.

-- Alana Semuels

 

L.A. tech event Twiistup sold to a private investor

Twiistup is a big bash for L.A.'s tech community. Credit: Mike Macadaan via Flickr

It helped software developers find jobs, attracted investors to Los Angeles and once featured a giant talking pickle.

Now Twiistup, the event created by entrepreneur Mike Macadaan to showcase the L.A. tech community, has been sold to an undisclosed private investor so it can further expand. Tech communities in places such as Colorado, Florida and Switzerland have written Macadaan asking for his help in creating a Twiistup of their own.

“It’s really helped unify the community,” Macadaan said. “Now we want to expand the energy and excitement here to another level.”

Twiistup, which launched in February 2007, showcases promising start-ups at a twice-annual bash that has been a change from more conventional technology meet-up events. Each iteration attracted more people, eventually drawing visitors from San Francisco, New York and London. At one Twiistup, a giant pickle ran through the room as a surprise. At another, blogger Perez Hilton dropped in to say hello. Each event featured alcohol, music and, of course, networking.

“I hear all the time about people getting their dream jobs there, people meeting investors who would give them a round of funding,” Macadaan said.

It also united a growing Los Angeles tech community, drawing more attention to the entrepreneurial activity going on here. The investor hopes to tap into that excitement, Macadaan said. He declined to disclose the price.

"Other communities look to us as role models" for how to create a vibrant tech scene, said Nicole Jordan, a Twiistup community consultant. That's partially because of the grass-roots popularity of Twiistup, she said, which often sells out weeks in advance.

Twiistup showoffs, which are start-ups selected to set up booths at the event and talk about their companies, have included YellowBot, Goodreads.com and Meebo. One, a company called Mint, later won a $50,000 award from tech blog TechCrunch for being the best presenting company at a start-up event.

Los Angeles entrepreneur Francisco Dao will now run day-to-day operations of Twiistup. Macadaan said he's planning to focus more on Tsavo Media, a Santa Monica start-up founded by MySpace's new chief operating officer, Mike Jones.

-- Alana Semuels

Amazon unveils the Kindle DX [UPDATED]

The Kindle DX. Credit: Amazon.

Now you can read newspapers, textbooks and PDFs -- all for just $489!

That's because Amazon.com unveiled the third iteration of Kindle, its digital book reader, at a press conference in New York today helmed by CEO Jeff Bezos. Called Kindle DX, the device features a 9.7-inch screen, compared with 6 inches in the previous model, and the capability to store 3,500 books, up from the previous model's 1,500.

Being a digital bookworm doesn't come cheap, though. The $489 price tag is quite a bit higher than that of the $359 Kindle 2. The Kindle DX costs more than some netbook computers and as much as some big-screen TVs.

But it's a small price to pay for saving the newspaper industry, right? Amazon announced partnerships with the New York Times Co. and Washington Post Co. to deliver the New York Times, Boston Globe (if it's still around) and Washington Post on the Kindle DX to readers outside their subscription areas. They have to sign up for a long-term subscription to the newspapers to be eligible for the deal.

"We will extend our reach to our loyal readers who will more readily be able to enjoy their favorite newspapers," Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of the New York Times Co., said in a release.

Other new features include a PDF reader and auto-rotation so that the Kindle can be read in portrait or landscape mode. It's one-third of an inch thick and has 3.3 GB of memory. The device is expected to ship this summer.

Amazon also struck a deal with colleges including Princeton University and the University of Virginia to make Kindle DX available to students this fall. The new model is more suited for reading textbooks, Amazon says.

Updated, 12:10 p.m.: Here's the take on the Kindle DX by Carolyn Kellogg at the LA Times' books blog, Jacket Copy.

-- Alana Semuels

Around the Web 5.06.09: S.C. attorney general scolds Craigslist, Amazon reveals Kindle 3.0

The robot: your newest Facebook friend? Credit: peyri via Flickr.

-- South Carolina's attorney general tells Craigslist to remove prostitution ads or face criminal penalties. CNet

-- As expected, Amazon unveils its Kindle 3.0 at a news conference in New York. AllThingsD

-- The Sirius XM Radio iPhone app shows that satellite radio isn't just for cars anymore. WSJ

-- RIM's co-CEO wants his own NHL team, the Coyotes. Reuters

-- Free iPhone apps can still make money for their creators. TechCrunch

-- DailyCandy CEO Pete Sheinbaum leaves less than a year after he sells the business to Comcast. PaidContent

-- Librarians are worried that Google's settlement with publishers might make books too expensive. Ars Technica

-- The Pentagon might create a cyber-command that would protect its computer networks. Washington Post

-- A robot gets its own Facebook page to foster meaningful relationships with humans. Because so many meaningful relationships are developed over Facebook. BBC

-- Alana Semuels

Intel launches 'Sponsors of Tomorrow' ad campaign

Intel's new ad campaign seeks to make consumers more familiar with the brand. Credit: Intel.

You may not know it, but Intel pioneered the microprocessor, invented the USB standard and helped build Silicon Valley into the thriving tech powerhouse it is today.

You'll likely know all that and more soon enough: Intel is about to launch "Sponsors of Tomorrow," a massive advertising campaign in more than two dozen countries that seeks to make people more familiar with the chip maker's brand.

"We want people, when they decide they need a new laptop, to make sure they're going to look at Intel inside," said Nancy Bhagat, director of integrated marketing at Intel. She said the Santa Clara, Calif., company hopes consumers will be as insistent about Intel products in their electronics as people once were about NutraSweet in their diet drinks.

Intel says the campaign is its first to focus on its overall brand rather than specific processors or products. The ads will appear on TV, billboards, the Web and ...

BlackBerry Curve sales surge ahead of iPhone in first quarter

Customers liked the BlackBerry Curve in the first quarter. Credit: Marvin Kuo via Flickr

Apple, you've been temporarily unseated. Research In Motion's BlackBerry Curve was the best-selling consumer smartphone in the first quarter, according to industry research firm The NPD Group. Apple's iPhone came in second, but two other BlackBerry models -- the Storm and the Pearl -- were right behind, in third and fourth place.

RIM's consumer smartphone market share increased by 15% percent, to 50%, in the quarter, as Apple's share dropped by 10%.

NPD attributes the change in rankings to aggressive Verizon Wireless ad campaigns that pitched the BlackBerry Storm and a BOGO (that's buy one, get one) on BlackBerrys.

"The more familiar and less expensive Curve benefited from these giveaways and was able to leapfrog the iPhone, due to its broader availability on the four major U.S. national carriers," Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at NPD, said in a report.

A lesson there: It can be an advantage not to be tied to one carrier, especially if customers complain loudly about said carrier.

Palm probably doesn't want to hear that. It's set to launch the Pre, its answer to the iPhone, soon, potentially in two weeks. The Pre will be available exclusively on Sprint Nextel. Palm's share of the smartphone market declined 10% in the first quarter, according to NPD.

Of course, these rankings change all the time. The Curve could get more of a foothold because AT&T announced today the availability of a new BlackBerry Curve -- the 8900, which it says is the thinnest QWERTY BlackBerry keyboard yet and has a faster Internet connection.

But it's possible the iPhone could shoot back up again if Verizon Wireless gets the iPhone. Or maybe that will make it slip more. Or maybe everyone everywhere will buy the Pre, and there will be a new addition to the top five. It's anyone's game.

-- Alana Semuels