Two weeks after laying off 30 percent of his employees, Jaxtr CEO Konstantin Guericke finds himself out of a job. He is being replaced by vice president of engineering Bahman Koohestani (former CTO at Cyworld and Orbitz), who will be acting as “interim” CEO. Jaxtr offers VoIP calls to both your regular and mobile phone. Its last round was a $10 million Series B in June. Investors include Lehman Brothers Venture Capital (yup, they’re still around), August Capital, Mangrove, Mayfield, DFJ, and angels Ron Conway and Reid Hoffman. (Guericke was part of the founding team at LinkedIn). The company is obviously going through a rough time, but Koohestani still spins it as a “very healthy” business. He offers the following partial stats:
Two weeks after laying off 30 percent of his employees, Jaxtr CEO Konstantin Guericke finds himself out of a job. He is being replaced by vice president of engineering Bahman Koohestani (former CTO at Cyworld and Orbitz), who will be acting as “interim” CEO.
Jaxtr offers VoIP calls to both your regular and mobile phone. Its last round was a $10 million Series B in June. Investors include Lehman Brothers Venture Capital (yup, they are still around), August Capital, Mangrove, Mayfield, DFJ, and angels Ron Conway and Reid Hoffman. (Guericke was part of the founding team at LinkedIn).
The company is obviously going through a rough time, but Koohestani still spins it as a “very healthy” business. He offers the following partial stats:
On average paying members go through $10 worth of jax calling credits in just nine days, leading to strong repeat purchase behavior where now 68 percent of our minutes are now paid for and we’re seeing a strong commitment to buy premium memberships. 43 percent of our new buyers opt for a premium membership. This is a predictable revenue stream, which is subscription-based.
That’s great that such a high percentage of Jaxtr’s phone minutes are being paid for. The unanswered question, unfortunately, is whether the amount Jaxtr charges covers its costs.
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By Jonathan Kimak In some parts of North America it has already begun to snow. And while the bitter chill might not be fun, snowball fights always are. And now you can gain a technological advantage in the backyard, the biggest advantage since the ice ball. The snowball launcher can form 3 snowballs in its chambers and […]
By Jonathan Kimak
In some parts of North America it has already begun to snow. And while the bitter chill might not be fun, snowball fights always are. And now you can gain a technological advantage in the backyard, the biggest advantage since the ice ball.
The snowball launcher can form 3 snowballs in its chambers and then using a slingshot can fire the balls up to 50 feet away. No batteries, so the fast flying and long range snowballs can go on as long as you can.
You can get one for $30.
It might not be most noble of additions to winter sports equipment but it still looks neat. Personally I’m looking forward to someone inventing a snowzooka.
By Ian Chiu For road warriors going on a business a trip, the second most important thing other than a notebook is a mobile mouse, which can greatly affect productivity. Having said that, Microsoft has had numerous laptop mice over the years that are both functional and portable, but none of them is more eye […]
By Ian Chiu
For road warriors going on a business a trip, the second most important thing other than a notebook is a mobile mouse, which can greatly affect productivity. Having stated that, Microsoft has had numerous laptop mice over the years that are both functional and portable, but none of them is more eye catching as the Arc Mouse. The aptly-named Arc sports a hinged semicircular shape that allows it to shut to almost half-size for travel, and to unfold to a full-sized mouse. The mini USB dongle is also hidden in a crevice on the underside of the folding wing, which becomes the mouse’s palm rest.
After Everything USB spent almost two weeks with the Arc, surfing the web and checking emails, they found the mouse to be spot-on for most tasks while preventing fatigue. The rubberized sides also allow you to get a good grip since the surface of the Arc is in gloss paint with a glass-smooth finish. In the end, while there are certainly some minor flaws in usability and set-up, the Arc mobile mouse is praised as “an excellent travel companion” that’s well worth the price.
By Luke Anderson When I was a kid, I always enjoyed gifts that required me to assemble something. LEGOs and Erector Sets were always great, but one of my favorites was this DIY radio kit that I got. I don’t recall actually learning anything from it, except how to use a soldering iron (not very well, […]
By Luke Anderson
When I was a kid, I always enjoyed gifts that required me to assemble something. LEGOs and Erector Sets were always great, but one of my favorites was this DIY radio kit that I got. I don’t recall actually learning anything from it, except how to use a soldering iron (not very well, mind you). But at the end of the day, I had a working radio that picked up all of one station. Sure, it wasn’t practical for use, but I built a freaking radio with my own bare hands. I know that my younger self would have loved to build one of these Solar Powered Grasshoppers.
I doubt that this kit is quite as complicated as my radio, but once it is assembled, you’ll have a grasshopper that hops around, with a tiny help from the sun. At $11 a pop, I’m sure it would make a great little stocking stuffer.
It’s a wonder to me how San Francisco based Mechanical Zoo, a startup founded by Max Ventilla (Google corp dev), Nathan Stoll (Google News) and Damon Horowitz (Perspecta), has managed to keep its social search product called Aardvark mostly out of the press these last few months. Even as it spreads virally via friend invitations in the private beta. But that’s all going to end soon. The fifteen person company has raised $6 million in a highly anticipated venture capital financing led by August Capital. Additional investors include Baseline Ventures and a number of angels. The company’s first product, Aardvark, is a social search engine that lets users ask questions that are distributed to the social graph for a swift and presumably high quality answers. I’ve spoken with a handful of people who have been using the product for the last month or more - every one of them is wildly enthusiastic about it.
It’s a wonder to me how San Francisco based Mechanical Zoo, a startup founded by Max Ventilla (Google corp dev), Nathan Stoll (Google News) and Damon Horowitz (Perspecta), has managed to keep its social search product called Aardvark mostly out of the press these last few months. Even as it spreads virally via friend invitations in the private beta.
But that’s all going to end soon. The fifteen person company has raised $6 million (including an earlier angel round) in a highly anticipated venture capital financing led by August Capital. Additional investors include Baseline Ventures and a number of angels.
The company’s first product, Aardvark, is a social search engine that lets users ask questions that are distributed to the social graph for a quick and presumably high quality answers. I’ve spoken with a handful of people who have been using the product for the last month or more - every one of them is wildly enthusiastic about it.
The company won’t say when they’ll leave private beta. It’s clear that the quality of the user experience is based on having a number of real friends also using it, which means that private invitations is actually a perfect way to grow. So for now, if you want in to Aardvark, you’ve to know someone else who’s using the service (ok, it’s also on InviteShare, but that’s cheating).
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I’ve aimed a lot of criticism at human powered search engine ChaCha over the last couple of years. The service lets users ask questions, just like a normal search engine. But instead of a computer spitting out answers (see Google, etc.), real human beings answer instead. The ChaCha service was absurd in its original web version, which has since been discontinued. The mobile version is actually very useful, even though we questioned its scalability when it launched. New information from the company suggests they’re keeping costs low enough to make a business model out of it. More on that soon. Now about this image.
I’ve aimed a lot of criticism at human powered search engine ChaCha over the last couple of years. The service lets users ask questions, just like a normal search engine. But instead of a personal spitting out answers (see Google, etc.), real human beings answer instead.
The ChaCha service was absurd in its original web version, which has since been discontinued. The mobile version is actually very useful, even though we questioned its scalability when it launched. New information from the company suggests they’re keeping costs low enough to make a business model out of it. More on that soon.
Now about this image.
Some fairly funny answers occasionally come back from the human guides, who early on at least had to deal with a lot of prank queries. But none of the ones we’ve seen compare to the one to the right, which is a Digg favorite tonight. It describes the Eiffel Tower sexual position (yes, you learn something new every day) in response to a totally unrelated query about a Randy Newman show in Seattle.
I contacted the company about it and got the following message:
I appreciate your reaching out to me regarding this iPhone prank. We researched this as soon as it came to our attention and our logs indicate that the answer displayed was definitely to a question previously asked by this same user. So yes, this is a fake as this person is misrepresenting what actually occurred. They actually asked one question (to which the answer was sent) and then a second question shortly thereafter and then received the answer to the first question which, due to the way messages are threaded on an iPhone display, the answer is appearing below a different question than the one that was asked to spawn the answer that is displayed.
So in the end this was a bit of a trick apparently used to misrepresent what happened in order to get some laughs – which appears to be working as this is getting some serious play across the Web!
Ok that sounds more than reasonable. But when I go to the URL in the image, it shows the question and answer linked (see below). I understand how text messages back and forth can get out of order, but not how the wrong answer can be linked to the wrong question in ChaCha’s own database. I also note the guide was on the job for one whole day before this happened. I’ve emailed the company for further clarification.
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Online tv/film site Hulu launched a year ago today, and boy did we’ve to eat crow. We provided almost constant criticism of the site since it was announced in March 2007 (no name, billion dollar valuation, name translation issues, trademark absurdity, etc.). But despite a slightly bumpy launch, we had to admit that they did an outstanding job. And today I have the ability to safely state I spend more time watching Hulu than I do my standard home cable connection. The site continues to grow rapidly. In August they’d over 100 million video streams. Last month, according to Nielsen, they streamed 142 million videos, a 42% month over month increase. 72,000 reviews and 14,000 forum posts have been left of the site, and the company states they’ve received 50,000 feedback emails.
The site continues to grow rapidly. In August they’d over 100 million video streams. Last month, according to Nielsen, they streamed 142 million videos, a 42% month over month increase. 72,000 reviews and 14,000 forum posts have been left of the site, and the company states they’ve received 50,000 feedback emails.
The site now has 110 content providers (including NBC Universal, FOX, Sony Pictures Television, MGM Studios, Comedy Central, Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, PBS, FX, Sundance Channel and the Sci Fi Channel), up from 40 at launch. TV titles have increased from 90 to more than 1,000. And there are now 400 movies on Hulu - there were just 10 a year ago.
Hulu also has 30 distribution partners taking their video content, including MSN, Yahoo, AOL, MySpace, Facebook, Slide, MyYearbook, IMDb, TV.com and TVGuide.
Hulu also states they’ve been mentioned in 25,000 blog posts and 4,000 other articles, and have been tweeted 40,000 times since April.
In other words, I was wrong. Hulu rocks. Despite ridiculous odds, the company was able to pull off a joint venture between two humongous parent media companies and provide users with a compelling, sexy product. The only thing I have the ability to really criticize is the continued lack of international availability, which is a licensing issue beyond their control.
Happy birthday, Hulu. Please add HBO soon.
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By Andrew Liszewski Hey kids! Instead of having to charter a boat, rent expensive diving equipment and risk the bends in order to spend an afternoon playing Jacques Cousteau make-believe, you can now have a similar underwater experience in the comfort of your own aquarium. In fact you don’t even have to get wet, since this […]
By Andrew Liszewski
Hey kids! Instead of having to charter a boat, rent expensive diving equipment and risk the bends in order to spend an afternoon playing Jacques Cousteau make-believe, you can now have a similar underwater experience in the comfort of your own aquarium. In fact you don’t even have to get wet, since this Aqua Eye underwater video camera has 2 meters of cable (plus an extra 3 meters of video cable) allowing you to explore the depths of your aquarium while you’re parked on the couch in front of the Television.
The tiny camera head features 4 LED lights on the lens to illuminate the darkest corners of the sunken castles and pirate ships at the bottom of your tank, and the generous 2.7 megapixel CMOS sensor will grant you to see every terrified detail on your fishes’ faces as you harass them in their own domain. That’s right! No longer are you only limited to making their lives miserable by tapping on the glass walls of their cramped prison.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the $180 price tag is worth the approximately 45 seconds of entertainment you can have with this camera in your aquarium. Unless you decide to re-purpose it for ‘what’s clogging the drain?’ duty afterwards.
By Evan Ackerman The sun is completely, like, hot, you know? And if you get enough bits of sunlight together in the same spot, you can do some pretty spectacular things with the resulting 2,400 degrees (Fahrenheit, I assume) of heat. Like melting a tidy tiny hole through a solid steel plate in mere seconds. If […]
By Evan Ackerman
The sun is completely, like, hot, you know? And if you get enough bits of sunlight together in the same spot, you can do some pretty spectacular things with the resulting 2,400 degrees (Fahrenheit, I assume) of heat. Like melting a tidy little hole through a solid steel plate in mere seconds. If they’d just hook up a Stirling Engine to this thing, our energy problems would be solved. And if not, well… It’d make a pretty badass death ray.
By Evan Ackerman The options at the moment for getting into orbit (or even sub-orbit) as a private citizen are somewhat limited. You can spend a week on the ISS (for $25 million), buy a seat on Virgin Galactic (for $200,000 pretty soon), or get there on a technicality in a MiG 31 (for about $27,500). […]
By Evan Ackerman
The options at the moment for getting into orbit (or even sub-orbit) as a private citizen are somewhat limited. You can spend a week on the ISS (for $25 million), purchase a seat on Virgin Galactic (for $200,000 pretty soon), or get there on a technicality in a MiG 31 (for about $27,500). Copenhagen Suborbitals is looking to break into this questionable market with their Hybrid Exo Atmospheric Transporter, which is a single person space capsule that sits on top of a ballistic missile.
This concept is about as awesomely old-school as it gets. Don’t believe me? They did it in Star Trek: First Contact. There’s no room for a seat; the passenger is stuffed into the nose of the missile in a standing position. This is done partly to save space and weight (the diameter of the launch car can be reduced), and partly to mitigate g-forces (they pulled the same trick in the Apollo lunar modules): oriented vertically, the human spine and legs make great shock absorbers. You do get a plexiglass window above you to look out of, and I envision the takeoff experience would be pretty spectacular. You also get a pressure suit, some modified SCUBA gear to keep you breathing, and an emergency parachute. And vomit bags. The restraint system won’t let you move at all, though, except for maybe slight sideways turns of the head. Obviously, this is not for the claustrophobic.
The booster underneath is going to be a custom made hybrid rocket, firing for 60 seconds with about 3 gravities of thrust, which is significantly less than many roller coasters, albeit for a longer period of time. Most healthy people should be fine, though. The booster has no guidance system at all; it’s got a guide rail on the launch tower and after that, nothing but static fins to keep it on course. After a one minute burn, the booster is jettisoned. The capsule continues upward to over 100 km of altitude, and then descends, using two sets of parachutes to make it safely back to the earth.
The cost for all this is unspecified, since the rocket is still in the development stage. It seems to be moving along nicely, though… After the jump, watch a test video of Copenhagen Suborbitals’ rocket engine.
Two weeks after laying off 30 percent of his employees, Jaxtr CEO Konstantin Guericke finds himself out of a job. He is being replaced by vice president of engineering Bahman Koohestani (former CTO at Cyworld and Orbitz), who will be acting as “interim” CEO. Jaxtr offers VoIP calls to both your regular and mobile phone. Its last round was a $10 million Series B in June. Investors include Lehman Brothers Venture Capital (yup, they’re still around), August Capital, Mangrove, Mayfield, DFJ, and angels Ron Conway and Reid Hoffman. (Guericke was part of the founding team at LinkedIn). The company is obviously going through a rough time, but Koohestani still spins it as a “very healthy” business. He offers the following partial stats:
It’s a wonder to me how San Francisco based 
I’ve aimed a lot of 
This concept is about as awesomely old-school as it gets. Don’t believe me? They did it in Star Trek: First Contact. There’s no room for a seat; the passenger is stuffed into the nose of the missile in a standing position. This is done partly to save space and weight (the diameter of the launch car can be reduced), and partly to mitigate g-forces (they pulled the same trick in the Apollo lunar modules): oriented vertically, the human spine and legs make great shock absorbers. You do get a plexiglass window above you to look out of, and I envision the takeoff experience would be pretty spectacular. You also get a pressure suit, some modified SCUBA gear to keep you breathing, and an emergency parachute. And vomit bags. The restraint system won’t let you move at all, though, except for maybe slight sideways turns of the head. Obviously, this is not for the claustrophobic.
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