Category: Tech news

Is Hipstamatic, the iPhone photo app that was an early hit on the App Store, on the rocks? TechCrunch understands that Synthetic, makers of the app, has recently had to let go of much of its engineering staff, among others, as part of a wider restructuring as it looks for cash. A number of public tweets (embedded below) also point to people leaving.

The news comes as a surprise, given that Synthetic says that it has been profitable since the second week after it launched. It is projected to make $22 million this year (from $10 million in 2011). Contacted for a response to the news, a spokesperson confirmed that Hipstatmatic is restructuring but nothing more: ”Business is moving forward as usual, and we’re heads down focused on making beautiful, creative and fun products for our community and the world.” The company to date has never had VC backing.

TechCrunch has been told from a reliable source that among those who are no longer at the company are Jon Wight (iOS Engineer), Justin Williams (iOS Engineer), and Stuart Norrie (designer), who were all let go today with severance. Kevin Smith (iOS/Rails Engineer) left on his own earlier in the week. In fact, our source says that apart from the “core team,” everyone (including the office manager, and the social media manager) is being let go. There are some who work there on contract who may be exempt from this move.

Hipstamatic’s app costs $1.99 to download. More recently the company, founded by graphic designers, has launched other products like this iPad magazine.

As a paid app, Hipstamatic competes against a number of free and freemium apps that offer many of the same features of taking photos, applying filters and then sharing these pictures. Instagram is perhaps the most prominent of these. Ironically, before Instagram got gazumped by Facebook, it had struck a landmark deal with Synthetic for Hipstamatic photos to get imported into people’s Instagram feeds — the first deal of its kind. Pre- any news of Instagram getting acquired, the move hinted at possible business models that involved printing and other services that Hipstamatic offers to its users, which Instagram did not.

Hipstamatic currently has 4 million users, but it’s not clear how fast that number has grown, and whether it is picking up users now as quickly as it was in its earlier days. Hipstamatic may have had a blockbuster amount of downloads in its early days, and it may have been hard to sustain that. And as you go down the App Store charts, it gets harder and harder to be seen. It’s a slippery slope.

It’s a busy day in the mobile payments world and it’s about to get busier: according to the New York Times, Braintree, the startup that powers the credit card payments systems of companies like OpenTable, Fab.com, AirBnB and Uber, just acquired Venmo, a social payments platform make and share payments your friends, for $26.2 million. Venmo’s investors include Accel Partners, Greycroft Partners, RRE Ventures, betaworks, Founder Collective, Dave Morin, Sam Lessin, Dustin Moskovitz,VaynerMedia and Lerer Ventures. The company raised a $1.2 million seed round in 2010 and a Series A round in August 2011. The service only opened its door to the public in March 2012 and has been growing quickly ever since.

According to the New York Times’ Janna Wortham, Venmo’s team will continue to work from its New York offices and will not relocate to Braintree’s headquarters in Chicago. The Venmo will continue to develop its current service. Wortham also notes that Braintree CEO Bill Ready “hopes that Venmo’s established footing among the early adopter tech crowd will help foster its adoption and gain an edge against other payment processing start-ups, such as Stripe and Dashlane.”

Just a few weeks ago, Venmo launched its redesigned app with a focus on its new “news feed of payments.” At the time, Venmo co-founder Andrew Kortina told our own Josh Constine that he believed Venmo’s social approach to payments would “succeed where apps like Blippy that automatically shared your credit card charges failed” because the company’s focus is on payments to friends which “naturally involve a social experience.” That company says it is currently processing about $10 million every month.

Braintree itself raised about $34 million from Accel Partners in June 2011. At that time, Braintree founder Bryan Johnson noted that his company was “growing, profitable and bootstrapped.” By September 2011, Braintree was already processing about $8 million worth of transactions every day.

To say Samsung’s latest compact system camera offering is “feature-packed” seems like an enormous understatement. The new NX210, the company’s latest mirrorless interchangeable-lens model, inherits the 20-megapixel APS-C CMOS image sensor from its brother, the NX200, which was introduced less than nine months ago. However, the NX210 has been outfitted with a bunch of upgrades: quicker continuous shooting (claimed 8fps over the NX200′s 7fps), an optional cable release, an external microphone and — the biggie — Wi-Fi connectivity that enables speedy photo and video sharing either to the web or to your smartphone.

The look and feel of the 210 is identical to the 200. It’s edgy, determined and purpose-built. It lacks the smooth rounded corners typical of the average point-and-shoot. The wave-like bulge that makes up the grip is both gracefully executed and very comfortable. It juts forward just enough to give your hand plenty of purchase without detracting from the aesthetic essence of the piece. The controls on the top and back of the body are clean and simple. The video “go” button is perfectly placed for right-thumb access. The software interface is one of the best in the compact system camera space, and it’s easily seen through the bright and punchy 3-inch AMOLED screen. The display is clear at almost any angle, and it’s even easy to read in bright sun.

For stills, the best shooting option has always been RAW — it harvests all the image data available from the sensor and allows the user to make the bulk of the creative choices after the fact. Unfortunately, RAW image processing is a bit problematic for the NX210. Not that it can’t do it, it’s just that the processor is ponderously slow. If you’re going to be making extensive use of the camera’s built-in Wi-Fi sharing options, or you’re not inclined to muck about with your pics too much, then JPEG should be your default.

The NX210 is workman-like in delivering sharp and detailed stills at ISO 1600 and below. When the ISO jumps to 3200 and above, however, Samsung’s strong noise reduction algorithms stomp on detail and sharpness.

There’s a nice hidden focus feature when you flip to “manual” on the lens barrel: a slight twist of the focus ring boosts the display’s magnification by 5x for accurate focus and then switches back to normal perspective when the shutter button is depressed slightly. It’ll surprise you the first few times, but this feature is more than a little handy both for stills and video.

Samsung claims the NX210 will shoot eight frames per second in continuous AF mode. However, I was hard pressed to get that many because the AF often struggled with moving images and panning. This is not so much the camera’s fault because, like other compacts, the NX210 utilizes a phase detection auto focus (AF) system that rivals DSLRs in speed and accuracy. Actually, it rivals DSLRs under most circumstances, but not when it’s required to follow quick action and achieve consistently sharp images.

While it’s compelling enough as a picture-taking machine, an extra selling point for general consumers is the camera’s capabilities as a picture-sharing machine. Samsung has loaded the NX210 with Wi-Fi connectivity and on-board web sharing options.

It’s awfully easy to e-mail pics and videos to anyone, and you can also upload directly to Facebook, Picasa, YouTube and Photobucket. Samsung has also created two smartphone apps called MobileLink and Remote Viewfinder. The MobileLink app provides instant sharing of images and videos to your phone, and the Remote Viewfinder app offers a remote shutter release and timer, as well as resolution and flash adjustments. Both are functions you’ll adopt quickly. There are versions of each app for iOS and Android.

Like most of its competitors in this realm, the NX210 makes pleasing video. It’ll produce five flavors, ranging from full 1080p (16:9) to the lightweight, web-friendly 640×480 or 320×260 varieties. Samsung layers in a little extra by offering all-manual video controls and options for quick playback and slow-mo.

Samsung’s designers have made one glaring omission to the NX210′s control center: direct access to flash adjustments. Normally positioned at 3, 6, 9 or 12 around the circular Smart Dial, Samsung has chosen to bury the flash function’s controls in a menu that takes a minimum (if you really know the camera) of five clicks to find. That thumb/menu dance equals lots of wasted time and potentially lost photo opportunities. It seems insignificant, but the inability to easily change the flash settings and adjust its intensity on the fly definitely hamstrings this camera.

Save for the flash adjustment blunder and the high-ISO softness, the NX210 does most of what you could ask for in a mirrorless interchangeable compact — it makes good stills and video, it’s easy to hold, and it has a tack-sharp and crisp (even in the sun) OLED screen with a software interface that is truly easy on the brain.

To do better in the interchangeable compact realm, you’re going to have to spend a fair bit more for the likes of the Olympus OM-D EM-5, a Sony NEX or Lumix GX series — none of which have Wi-Fi. So in spite of its flaws, and especially if you’re the “social” type, the NX210 is an excellent camera for showing off more of your life in living color.

WIRED Solidly built metal casing. Design is both aesthetically pleasing and very comfortable to shoot with. The 18-55mm kit lens is optically stabilized for better images at slower shutter speeds. In manual focus mode, LED display automatically zooms to the focus point so you can achieve a more accurate focus. Lots of smart filters and a good panorama shooting mode.

TIRED No built-in flash. No flash control button, so you’ve got to use the function button and then scroll to the flash icon to change or adjust the flash output. Slow RAW processing. The Wi-Fi functionality would benefit from a touchscreen. Android apps aren’t compatible with many phones and tablets.

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Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

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In early 2010, when Nintendo’s DSi handheld game machine was racking up record-breaking sales, the Kyoto gamemaker introduced an unexpected new model, the DSi XL. It was a classic example of Nintendo zigging where others zagged; as its competitors raced to make handheld gaming smaller and smaller, Nintendo increased its screens to giant size, sacrificing pure portability to create a more impressive gaming experience and a larger touch-screen input area.

Back then — ages ago, in videogame industry terms — Nintendo was introducing the DSi XL as an optional new form factor for a platform that was already incredibly popular. The 3DS XL, which will arrive in the U.S. on August 19 at a price of $200, is being released into a less friendly marketplace, one in which smartphones and tablets are sucking up players’ — and game developers’ — attention.

This time, the XL model doesn’t just need to supplement the existing 3DS, it needs to redefine the platform. And it might just do that.

When Nintendo introduced the revolutionary Game Boy in 1989, its portability alone made it unique: If you wanted to play games without a TV, you needed one. These days, practically everyone carries around a portable gaming device in their pocket or purse at all times. Why would they need to carry two?

Studies have shown [PDF] that a significant amount of mobile gameplay takes place in the home: On the couch, in bed, on the toilet. I would not be surprised to find that those numbers are significantly larger for 3DS. And if that’s the case, the supersized XL is designed much more appropriately for the way gamers are going to use it. Screw fitting it in your pocket: What’s important is the giant screen, the more comfortable grip and the longer battery life afforded by the larger device.

When I reviewed the 3DS in early 2011, it felt like a downgrade from the DSi XL I had been using for the previous year. The screens on the 3DS were smaller than what I was used to and the stylus pen wasn’t as comfortable. XL fixes that. The big new screens, nearly twice the size of the originals, make the games look even better. If you were disappointed by the way that games from the original DS hardware were either blurry or miniature on 3DS depending on your screen settings, they look much better now.

The classic Game Boy games that you can download from the 3DS’ eShop look especially good when you force them to boot into the 1:1 pixel-exact display mode (hold down the Start button when you start the games up).

The 3DS’ stylus pen was crammed into a tiny space on the top left of the machine, meaning you had to reach around awkwardly and fumble blindly to remove it. On the XL, the solid-body stylus — the same size as the DSi XL’s but a little shorter than the extended telescoping stylus from the original 3DS — is conveniently located on the right-hand side. I just wish it included the giant Sharpie-size stylus pen that came with the DSi XL.

There are a few other little tweaks. The “3-D volume” slider that changes the strength of the 3-D effect can now be clicked off, meaning that you won’t accidentally turn the 3-D on unless you really want to. And the Select, Home and Start buttons underneath the screen are now sculptured buttons instead of hard-to-press membranes.

Unlike Sony’s PlayStation Vita, which uses expensive proprietary memory cards and does not include one in the box, 3DS XL comes with a 4GB SD card pre-installed, double the size of the one included with the original model. That’s especially helpful since Nintendo is going to start selling its retail cartridge games as direct downloads, beginning with the launch of New Super Mario Bros. 2 on the same day the XL hits stores.

If you are upgrading from an original 3DS, make sure to use the “System Transfer” software immediately to move all of your downloaded games and other data to the new system. The process can be done without an internet connection and requires a lot of waiting, but it’s the only way to get everything moved over since Nintendo has no online account system that allows for cloud saves or changing content authorizations.

Nintendo says that the 3DS XL has 3.5 to 6.5 hours of battery life, versus the original 3DS’ 3 to 5 hours. That doesn’t sound like much of an improvement on paper. But in practice, I have found that the XL doesn’t constantly run out of battery and ask me to recharge it nearly as much as its little brother.

Ultimately the only real problem with the 3DS XL is that it’s still built on a platform that seems hopelessly backward in today’s gaming market. I do not join with the chorus of those saying Nintendo should give up on making top-flight games and start cranking out Angry Birds clones for smartphones. But the anemic content library slated for the rest of the year shows that 3DS still has a ways to go before it’s where it should be.

More comfortable and convenient to play in the home, 3DS XL is a big step along that journey.

WIRED Colossal-size screens make old and new games look their best. Larger form factor and battery life make a more comfortable, convenient experience. Double the included memory.

TIRED Games still cost $40 each. Still no account system. Still waiting for Nintendo to unleash the floodgates of cheap digital content instead of trickling out zero to three games a week.

Samsung’s newest tablet, the Galaxy Note 10.1, comes with a small stylus called the S Pen. Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

When Samsung first introduced the Galaxy Note in late 2011, the company floated the idea that the funny device with the 5.3-inch screen and a stylus wasn’t a phone or a tablet, but something in between. At the time, Samsung claimed it had launched an entirely new class of device, the premiere entry in the “Note” category.

Once we actually got our hands on the Note however, the marketing speak evaporated and it was clear that the Galaxy Note was indeed just a big phone and a few gimmicky apps engineered to take advantage of the stylus. While we didn’t think highly of the Note (we gave it a 5 out of 10) the massive handset went on to sell millions of units worldwide.

Less than a year later, Samsung has delivered a second Note. But this isn’t a phone, nor a “phablet.” Rather, Samsung has taken the Note’s proven DNA and embiggened it to create the Galaxy Note 10.1, a Wi-Fi-only, Android 4.0 tablet with a 10.1-inch screen and a stylus. It also ships with some specialized apps for drawing and taking notes that have been optimized to work with the pen-like appendage.

The Note 10.1 is available this week, starting at $500 for the model with 16GB of storage, and $550 for the 32GB model.

It arrives at a time when Samsung is in desperate need of some momentum within its tablet line-up. In 2011, shortly after the Galaxy line of Android tablets launched, Samsung reported it sold more than 2 million units worldwide. But it has since come to light, according to documents from the Apple vs. Samsung patent trial, that the company only sold 339,000 Galaxy tablets in the U.S. — the largest market for tablets by a wide margin — during that time: 262,000 in Q4 2010 and 77,000 in Q1 2011. Newer sales data from the first half of 2012 is more promising, but Samsung is still far, far behind Apple in the tablet market, with a 9.6 percent market share compared to Apple’s 68.2 percent.

So Samsung is eager to earn some swagger with this release. But while the Galaxy Note 10.1 wears a different name that its Galaxy Tab predecessors, it’s still essentially the same tablet, offering largely the same experience, as the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 2 10.1.

The only real differentiators that separate the Note 10.1 from its Tab brethren are the S Pen stylus and Samsung’s suite of stylus-compatible apps. The S Pen uses Wacom’s conductive stylus technology to allow you to easily write and draw on screen, and also interact with websites and on-screen menus. If you hold the S Pen just above the display, you’ll see a small cursor floating around the screen, just like you’re moving a mouse. You maneuver the cursor into position, then actually bring the stylus to the screen with a tap. It’s very intuitive, and it’s easy to use for basic navigation, to scribble words or pictures, or to interact with an app. The S Pen requires no battery, and a raised button near the tip brings up contextual menus, just like the right-click of a mouse.

The stylus included with the Note 10.1 features 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity, up from 256 levels on the Note phone’s S Pen. It’s 4.5 inches long and slightly thinner than a no. 2 pencil, so it’s comfortable and natural to hold. Also, when the pen is near the screen, the display switches off the touch sensitivity, so you can rest your palm on the screen without interfering with the pen’s input. It’s not perfect — it didn’t always pick up my intended pen strokes, and drawing or writing on such a large, slick surface took some getting used to. But, without a doubt, using the S Pen on a tablet feels much more natural, much more “right” than using the stylus on the Note phone. Also, if you’re a Wacom devotee and you have a few stylii kicking around, they should work with this tablet, since the same technology is being used.

The Roomba 790 works on a variety of floor surfaces. Photos courtesy iRobot

Along with the zombie apocalypse, the robot uprising is a real fear among the people that populate the internet. Blame it on Terminator if you want, but in reality, the mass-produced robots that have entered our homes have yet to come close to even the comically inept Rosie the Robot from The Jetsons.

Instead of autonomous robots running our households and raising our children, we have Roomba. The utility robot from iRobot has been sweeping our floors for 10 years, and while the basic task it performs has remained the same, the famous vacuuming disk has gotten smarter. Not smart enough to take over the world, or even the family room, but smart enough to keep the floors clean. Or at least clean-ish.

The new Roomba 790 series is the latest vacuum out of iRobot. The base functionality of the device is better than previous versions — in my testing, the 790 gathered more dirt and animal hair than my older Roomba ever did.

My home is a mixed environment of rugs, hardwood and linoleum floors, all of which the little robot deftly transitioned without skimping on cleaning of any of the surfaces. A rug with a transition of approximately one inch took the Roomba a few minutes to navigate, but it climbed up the wall of knitted cloth and gave the rug a proper robo-vacuuming.

Like previous Roombas, the new cleaner can be scheduled to operate at any time seven days a week. The included remote is primarily used to schedule the Roomba’s cleanings, but if you’re interested in some fun, it can also be used to remotely control the robot to chase your pets around.

The unit ships with three of iRobot’s Virtual Wall Lighthouse modules. These are small IR beam transmitters that have two modes. The “Virtual Wall” mode will keep the Roomba out of a particular room or area, and the “Lighthouse” mode will force the Roomba to stay in a certain room until the entire area has been cleaned. They’re helpful for high-traffic areas or rooms with perpetually dirty floors, like kitchens.

iRobot notes the Roomba 790 is especially suited to picking up pet hair along with the other standard allergens and types of dirt. I was able to test the pet hair claim in particular, as we have two cats (though they shed like four). The Roomba did a better job picking up dirt and cat hair than my old Roomba Sage for Pets 4170 did when it was new, and that’s a model made specifically for pet owners.

However, a quick push of a Dyson vacuum over areas that had just been cleaned by the Roomba yielded more dust and hair. It wasn’t a huge amount. But while the surface grime had been whisked away, the deep-down dirt was still there. And there lies the issue with the Roomba, it does a serviceable job vacuuming the home. But, it doesn’t replace a main vacuum cleaner, it only supplements one.

The hefty $700 price tag comes with enough Roomba supplies to keep the little robot sucking up dirt for years. Extra brushes, filters, edging brushes and cleaning tools all come in a tiny briefcase. Unfortunately, $700 is too much to pay for a second vacuum for most and possibly a main vacuum for those with light-traffic homes without animals.

WIRED The vacuuming power of the latest Roomba surpasses its predecessors. The virtual lighthouse beacons keep the robot in the high-traffic rooms, or keep them out of forbidden zones. Too small to harm its human owners during a robot uprising.

TIRED Expensive for a second vacuum for all but the most ardent Roomba fans. I still can’t get my cat to sit on it while it cleans the house.

I’m sick of carrying multiple bags whenever I go on a big camping or hiking trip. Being a pro photographer, I carry several cameras and lenses with me everywhere, so I always end up with a normal backpack on my back, and a camera bag worn backwards on my chest. There’s no good way to carry clothes, food, camping gear and a photo rig without feeling like a donkey.

That’s why F-stop’s new Satori EXP is a lifesaver. The St. Louis-based company has created the perfect accessory for photographers who love to travel or spend a lot of time in the outdoors. The new bag, which starts at $360, is big and roomy, and allows for safe stowage of all the necessary camera gear as well as a few days’ worth of travel supplies.

Last month I tested the Satori EXP by taking it on a seven-mile hike up to a waterfall that sits at the base of several 13,000-foot peaks in the Pecos Wilderness outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was just a day hike, but in addition to hefty amount of gear — two Canon 5Ds, a flash and four lenses including a 70-200mm f2.8 — I was able to get two quarts of water, several layers of clothing, rain gear and my food to all fit comfortably into the 62-liter pack. And that was without much trying. Thanks to the bag’s well-designed system of exterior straps, I could have also carried whatever I needed to extend my stay: a sleeping bag, tent, ground pad and, if I was really feeling adventurous, a pair of skis and poles (and maybe even boots) to capitalize on the last remaining bits of snow.

In addition to creating a large, well-balanced bag, F-stop has designed some modular compartments that give you a range of organizational options. The company calls them ICUs, or Internal Camera Units — smaller, self-contained bags-within-the-bag that slip in and out, letting you decide how much of the total space within the backpack you want to dedicate to your camera gear.

F-stop sent me three different ICUs — the Pro ICU X-large, the Pro ICU Medium and the Shallow ICU Large. As you would expect, the Pro ICU X-Large holds a lot: its internal compartment is 6.5 inches deep, 10.6 inches wide and 18.1 inches tall. I stuffed it with several bodies, a 300mm f2.8 and several other lenses. The only drawback is that, due to its enormous size, it takes up most of the pack.

For my day hike, I decided to pack the Shallow ICU Large, which is only 4.3 inches deep, 10.6 inches wide and 13.4 inches tall. It held plenty, and saved enough room inside the bag to comfortably pack away all the clothes, food and additional stuff I needed for the hike.

To make sure you have easy access to your gear, the Satori EXP has a zippered panel that faces your back. Instead of having to rummage through the top of the bag to get to your camera, all you have to do is lay the bag down, open one zipper, and all your gear is right in front of you neatly organized within the ICU.

Even with the ICU packed to the gills, the Satori is exceedingly comfortable. I often forgot the bag was on my back because it was so stable. Like any large backpack, a good waist belt makes a huge difference, shifting the bulk of the load to your hips and away from your upper back and shoulders. The Satori EXP’s waist belt is comfortable, easily adjustable, and generous enough to fit many different body types. The various other straps and adjustable bits also go a long way in making sure the bag is snug and doesn’t rub you raw.

F-stop uses a lightweight, 330 nylon double-rip-stop material for the outer shell, which feels very durable. And the modular inserts provide extra padding and support, so I was confident that my cameras remained protected. Indeed, everything stayed safe and in place during all of my outdoor adventures.

One downside is the price: $360 for the pack alone, and the Pro ICUs range between $70 and $110 each. So the Satori EXP is not cheap, but neither is your camera gear. So if you consider your investment in your cameras and lenses to be a worthwhile one, you should feel the same about a pack such as this.

WIRED Every piece of your fancy gear will fit in this pack. Even the messiest person will feel organized with the ICU system. Well-designed and perfectly balanced on the body.

TIRED Materials feel durable, but the construction and finish give me pause — unlike a Toyota or a Honda, it might not last 20 years. Color choices are bland. It will dent your bank account.

All photos by Jakob Schiller/Wired

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Photo by Peter McCollough/Wired

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Ultrabooks may not be commodity computers yet, but that’s the path we seem to be going down, at least. Credit then is due to Toshiba, which is doing something unique with its Satellite U840W.

There’s no sense beating around the bush: It’s the screen that will immediately catch your eye when you crack open the machine’s lid. At 14.4 inches diagonally, it’s an odd overall size, but the real story is in its dimensions. With a 21:9 aspect ratio and 1792 x 768 pixels of resolution, it’s got the widest screen of any laptop I can remember — wider even than some of Sony’s niche oddities like the 8-inch P Series (1600 x 768 pixels).

Why would you want such a wide screen? I’m still working on that one, but as a veteran multi-window user, I found myself surprisedly enjoying the ability to clutter up the screen with lots of layers. You can actually watch a nearly full-size video on one side of the screen and still have room for IM and e-mail on the other. On a standard 16:9 widescreen laptop, that’s just not an option.

It helps that the screen quality is very high-grade, plenty bright and with lovely color reproduction. The LCD is backed up by ample specs — 1.7GHz Core i5, 6GB RAM, and 500GB hard drive with a 32GB SSD back. Performance on general applications is impressive, even exemplary, though with only integrated graphics, you won’t likely be gaming on one side of the screen and working on the other … unless we’re talking about Minesweeper.

Ports include HDMI, a full-size/flip-out Ethernet port, SD card reader, and three USB ports, all USB 3.0 and one which provides sleep-and-charge functionality. Battery life, at almost four hours, is better than I was expecting.

The chassis material selection is interesting, with a textured and rubberized material on the entire bottom, on the palmrest, and on about a third of the lid. This makes the laptop very easy to grip and manipulate singlehandedly, and the brushed aluminum that makes up the rest of the lid makes for an interesting visual contrast. I do wonder a bit about how durable this rubberized material will be over time, as it seems prone to scuffing.

Size is a concern here, but though the U840W appears huge, it’s a bit of an optical illusion because it is so short from front to back. The width is actually the same as the typical 15.6-inch laptop, so it will still fit in most laptop bags, but at 3.7 pounds and 22mm thick, it’s quite a bit lighter than carriers of larger laptops will expect.

My only real complaints with the U840W are its input devices. The touchpad isn’t sensitive enough, and the keyboard is lackluster — not enough travel, mushy action, and with keys that are far too short vertically. I understand that the screen is ultra-wide and stubby short, but there’s no reason for the keyboard to feel the same way.

That may ultimately be a small complaint against the U840W. I was immediately prepared to dislike this machine for simply being “too different.” But after actually using it for a while, it eventually won me over like one of those three-legged puppies.

As an aside, the U840W has a sibling in the form of the Toshiba Satellite U840, a supposed “non-wide” version of the U840W with a 16:9, 14-inch display. Putting these two computers side by side, however, it’s clear they have virtually nothing in common — adopted siblings instead of fraternal twins. Though it weighs the same, the $880 U840 has none of the same design stylings and its ports are in different places. The two PCs have the same CPU and RAM configuration, but the U840 gives up two of its USB 3.0 ports for USB 2.0 ports, and its 500GB hard drive has only a 16GB SSD component. It runs about 10 percent slower on the whole and takes a few seconds longer to boot.

Bigger concerns abound, though: The screen is hopelessly dim and washed out, and the touchpad is utter junk — rattling around when you tap on it. The U840 isn’t just boring in comparison to the U840W, it’s actually unpleasant to use. Regardless of what you think about the U840W, give the U840 a pass. (U840 rating: 4)

WIRED Unique aspect ratio looks weird, but grows on you quickly. Great performance. Ruggedized design makes for easy toting. Very nice audio quality, courtesy of Harman Kardon speakers.

TIRED Touchpad misses too many taps. Crummy keyboard. Why no numeric keypad? Loud fan.

CakeStyle, a startup that delivers stylist-curated shipments of women’s fashion, announced that it has raised $1 million in seed funding.

Yes, CakeStyle is yet part of the growing wave of “subscribe to Box X” businesses, but with a personal touch. The company asks customers to provide “some basic information about what you currently wear, what you’d like to wear and your sizing” (either via email or phone). Then its stylists handpick a seasonal shipment of clothing and accessories from the company’s inventory, and they also include a video explaining the choices. Once the selection has arrived at your door, you can send back anything you don’t like, and you only pay for what you keep.

Customers can also meet stylists in person at the company’s showroom in Chicago’s River North neighborhood.

CakeStyle was founded in August 2011, and TechCrunch’s Leena Rao wrote about it a few months later. Leena said she enjoys shopping too much to embrace a service like this, but it could be a good fit for women who aren’t interested in or don’t have time to visit stores and keep on the latest fashions. CakeStyle has also been compared to Trunk Club, a startup providing a similar service for men. (Like CakeStyle, Trunk Club is based in Chicago.)

The new funding comes from Sandbox Industries’ Sandbox Advantage Fund. CakeStyle says the money will be used to increase brand awareness and bring its service “to more women across the country.”

Wikileaks‘ website is up again after over a week of denial of service attacks, though as of this writing I’m still seeing errors on the site. On its Twitter account Wikileaks credited CloudFlare, a company that provides a web security service, for helping the organization get its site back online.

Earlier this month Wikileaks resumed publishing e-mails acquired (yes, illegally) by the hacktivist group Anonymous from the private intelligence firm Stratfor Global Intelligence. The latest batch concern Trapwire, the sinister sounding surveillance product from private company called Abraxis. Trapwire collects video and other surveillance from multiple sources in a central location for analysis using facial recognition algorithms and other techniques (see here for more details).

Since around the time of the publication of the Trapwire e-mails the Wikileaks site has been bombarded by DOS attacks. A group calling itself Antileaks is taking credit and claims its actions were not motivated by the Trapwire e-mails specifically.

On Friday Wikileaks complained on Twitter that CloudFlare had preemptively blocked the organization from signing up. But the company responded from its Twitter account that it has a special process for signing up high traffic sites. CloudFlare CEO Matthew Prince told me that Wikileaks switched over to CloudFlare today and was back online within minutes.

CloudFlare, which debuted at TechCrunch Disrupt 2010, provides what Prince describes as a reverse proxy. Customers route their traffic through CloudFlare’s servers, which block illegitimate traffic, reducing the customers’ traffic load. In essence it serves as a cloud hosted firewall and traffic accelerator. He says the company handles roughly as much traffic as Yahoo, which puts it in a unique position to analyze traffic to determine what is and isn’t legitimate traffic. Many companies, governments agencies and non-profit organizations use the service to increase security and decrease spam.

Prince says he isn’t too worried about government push back. “I spent a lot of time this weekend talking to our legal counsel,” he says. “We’re a network provider. We don’t host any content. Going after us is the equivalent of going after Comcast.”

And this isn’t the first time CloudFlare has helped keep a controversial site online. The company made headlines last year for providing its service to LulzSec, another hacktivist organization that endured extensive DOS attacks. “We throw ourselves in the way of DOS attacks because it makes our network more resilient,” Prince says. “It’s like strengthening your immune system.”

Prince says that he never received any government threats regarding LulzSec, but some customers complained about it. “We don’t discriminate against customers based on a political belief of what’s good or bad,” he says. “We try hard not to play censor.”

But he does say that if ordered by a court through due process of law the company would take down a customers’ site.

There was once probably a good reason for why Groupon needed to expand aggressively internationally when it did, buying up other daily deal operations, for fast, inorganic growth. But on today’s Q2 earnings call, those reasons didn’t really come up, with CEO Andrew Mason instead providing a lengthy explanation for why international, led by Europe, hasn’t been peforming very well for the company — growing by 31% while North America grew at twice that rate to 66%.

The reasons, Mason said, were threefold: in Europe (the bulk of Groupon’s intl business) the Groupon offers were too expensive for consumers; merchants weren’t as happy with the service; and because of integration issues, Groupon hasn’t been able to implement some of the technology it has developed to lure in more users. But on a wider level, he also noted that people on the street in Europe still don’t have much of a clue of what Groupon actually is.

Pricing. Mason noted that Groupon deals, and their prices, were being pitched at a level higher than in the U.S., and that this hasn’t matched up with how consumers are spending money at the moment in the region. (Pricing and current buying behavior was something also raised by Apple when it was explaining its muted performance in the region.)

Merchants. Businesses, meanwhile, seem to be facing a knock-on effect from those high prices. They’re finding that their products aren’t being purchased as quickly as before, or as Mason put it: “merchants simply weren’t seeing the same value as they are in the U.S.” This is making them disgruntled, so much so that in surveys Groupon receives satisfaction ratings that are 25% lower in Europe than it does in the U.S., he noted. Mason didn’t mention it on the call, but the regulatory investigations in countries like the UK, which pinpointed areas where Groupon needed to improve its communications with merchants (which it did), may have also had an impact on satisfaction rating.s

Tech. The third issue Mason cited was technology, specifically that Groupon hasn’t been “leveraging [its] technology in Europe.” What does that mean, exactly? Groupon doesn’t have as big a bag of tricks at its disposal to counterbalance the inevitable fact that eventually the novelty of basic daily deals will wear off. Deal personalization, for example, is “still in the early stages” in Europe. Similarly, the company’s mobile offerings are not as advanced, and the “deal bank” for searchable, unused deals that Groupon has developed are also on the slow train to the old world.

From the call, it sounded like the main reason Groupon hasn’t been rolling out this newer technology is because it can’t: different operations use different platforms, and integrating them has been a long process.

“We have different technology around the world, and we have a goal to integrate these, but anyone with a history of a project like that knows it’s not a one-quarter change,” said Mason.

Perhaps worryingly, the timeline for when this might happen is a little vague: “It would be foolish to speculate on how long the completion of that process will take,” he added. Meanwhile, Groupon continues to make gradual progress, with services like the deal bank getting introduced in Europe later this year.

There are other investments being made, too. Groupon last week announced a new global head of sales, Kal Raman, putting into place a key part of the management puzzle post the departure of the Samwer brothers (in place because of their connection to Citydeal, the Groupon acquisition that now forms the backbone of its European business). Mason also said that the company is shifting R&D resources to better service Europe.

But even while Groupon is addressing some of the tech, product and pricing gaps in Europe, it’s facing another issue that Mason mentioned anecdotally: the average person on the street doesn’t seem to know what Groupon is. “When our business developement people came over here to the U.S. they were surprised that the average person knew Groupon,” he said. That kind of instant awareness hasn’t hit Europe yet.

All of this leaves Groupon, at the moment, in a position that is the opposite of Facebook’s: Groupon still makes more revenues outside North America than it does within it (in Q2: $308 million for international; $260 million for N.A. on a total customer base of 38 million users) but U.S. growth at 66% is coming in more quickly than International and at this rate will overtake Europe in a couple of quarters.

Our report on Groupon’s earnings is here.

The ranters are out in force this afternoon about Red Hat announcing the preview of its OpenStack distribution. It’s like OpenStack inserted a lightning rod into my TweeetDeck stream.

OpenStack really pisses people off.  You either despise it or love it. And that’s why the open cloud effort will survive. Anything that polarizing is bound to make it in the end.

The news had been expected for some time that Red Hat would release its own distribution. But when the news came out today, it was like pundits and partisans posturing about a political road show.

What is it about OpenStack that divides people? Here are my top five reasons, with assist from my friend and colleague Klint Finley:

• OpenStack is a threat. And when people are threatened they attack.
• OpenStack has had too much hype. Geeks don’t like hype.
• The battle has moved from vendors (Apple v. Microsoft) to the perception of what is open and what is closed.
• OpenStack is at once heartening and disappointing. Believers hope that OpenStack will become a federated environment. The disappointed see it nothing more than a fractured, industry coalition, controlled by large vendors such as Red Hat, Dell and Rackspace.
• OpenStack is entirely unique. It is a new model that is like other open movements but different, too. It is compared to the Linux movement. But it really is not like it at all. Linux was created by Linus Torvalds. He still has final say what goes into the Linux kernel. OpenStack was created by Rackspace and NASA. Technical working groups decide what to include in OpenStack releases.

But overall, I am reminded what Guy Kawasaki said about Apple. Make something that some people will love and forget about the rest.

And that’s exactly what OpenStack is doing. It appeals to a group of people who believe in it. And that’s all that matters.

It’s long been said that “I agree to the terms of service” is the biggest lie on the internet. And even if you do read them, many TOS are so ridden with legalese that you practically need to be a lawyer to understand them. Also, as I wrote in a gloomy post last weekend, users have no choice but either agree to the terms offered by a web app or simply not use the service at all.

But a new project called TOS;DR wants to change that. The site aims to give more power to users by summarizing terms of service, flagging potential issues and rating apps on a scale from A (the best) to E (the worst).

So far the only company with an E, the worst possible rating, is TwitPic, which reserves the rights to sell users’ photos to news agency without giving the photographer a cut.

Project lead Hugo Roy tells me that he considers Wikipedia to be an exemplary service, though it hasn’t been rated by TOS;DR. He says both Wikipedia’s short, clear summary of its TOS and its practice of soliciting feedback from users before a change in terms should be widely adopted as best practices for the web.

The project hatched about a year ago at the annual Chaos Communication Camp event in Berlin as an outgrowth of the Unhosted project, which is a system for building web apps that leave users in control of their data. Roy says the team was inspired in part by Creative Commons, which provides plain English summaries of each license it offers, as an influence on TOS;DR. The sites’ goals are to highlight issues in particular TOS, educate users about the importance the agreements they enter into with web companies and, eventually, to track and influence changes to TOS.

The ratings, which Roy explains are based on German energy efficiency ratings for appliances, still feel rough to me. For example, GitHub gets a C but the seemingly much worse Delicious gets a D. Still, it’s a good start. I like the idea of projects like Unhosted, which I’ve written about elsewhere, but activist users have had more success in pressuring companies like Dropbox and Facebook to change their TOS than getting users to defect to privacy centric systems like Diaspora.

Roy says the site wasn’t actually ready for launch but it started getting media attention in Germany and has now hit Hacker News a couple times, so the team isn’t keeping it a secret anymore. The plan is to officially launch at Campus Party 2012 later this month.

The sound booster Mac App called Boom will be releasing its Mountain Lion version on the Apple Store tomorrow. If you have ever wished you could raise the volume on your speakers higher than the maximum level that Apple allows (or to 11), you should check out the low-cost app Boom.

The app boosts the volume of Skype chats, Netflix movies, badly recorded YouTube videos, music, or any sound that comes out of your Mac speakers. It’s also useful in loud environments or when you want to just pump up the volume.

Boom, made by India-based Global Delight, already has a 4 rating on the Apple’s App Store for its earlier versions. The software was first released at Macworld 2011 and won a Best of Show Award. An earlier version of the software was Mountain Lion compatible, but some bugs have been fixed, and a notification feature added.

The app is very simple to install and use. Boom adds an extra volume control slider to the menu bar. The software also lets users create custom equalizer settings or use built-in presets, which helps with different kinds of source audio.

Boom uses a proprietary algorithm to boost quiet sounds up to 400% without apparent distortion. In addition to working on the system audio coming out of your Mac, you can also drop an audio file into the app to get a louder version.

Guruprasad Kamath, a manager at Boom, tells TechCrunch they would like to make a version for the Windows platform and work with OEMs. They also want to make an iOS version, but Kamath says they cannot capture system level audio on iOS yet. They are hoping Apple builds some frameworks to make it possible.

A Retina version is expected in 2 to 3 weeks.

There are some other apps, like Hear, which also boost audio levels, but Boom is cheaper at $6.99.

Boom is made by a team of 8 at Global Delight, a self-funded India-based developer. They also make the popular iPhone app Camera Plus, which has 18 million downloads. Camera Plus is different than the also popular Camera+, made by TapTapTap.

Boom is one way to make your Mac go to 11, by making 10 louder.

As Nigel Tufnel famously said in “This Is Spinal Tap,” when asked why his amps go to eleven, “You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You’re on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you’re on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there?” Marty DiBergi replies “Put it up to eleven” but asks “Why don’t you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?” Nigel doesn’t seem to get it and replies “These go to eleven.”

So does Boom.