Category: Tech news

Photo courtesy of Sharp Electronics Corporation

How elite is Sharp’s Elite Pro-60X5FD? So elite that you can’t just walk into your local big-box store and walk out with one. So elite that if you have to ask how much it costs, you can’t afford it. So elite that it doesn’t even say Sharp on the bezel; it says Elite.

With that kind of cred, you expect one damn good TV. And the Pro-60X5FD is that, with to-die-for black levels, glorious color, enough ports to fill two TVs, and just about every eyeball-pleasing extra technologists have invented. Only a couple of usability quirks stop this panel from achieving perfection.

The first thing you’re likely to notice about the 60-inch LED-backlit screen, aside from its room-commanding size, is that you can see yourself in it. The high-gloss glass reflects everything, which is not a problem when you’re in a dark room watching something bright, but distracts like crazy when there’s ambient light from lamps and windows.

Other TVs have a matte finish that helps reduce the glare. But perhaps the Elite’s mirror-like surface is the price you pay for the deepest blacks and most spot-on colors you’re likely to see in a home environment. Ye, gods, does this screen look sweet.

Likewise, the Elite rocks the best 3-D this side of the megaplex. A Blu-ray of Despicable Me, played on the blessedly 3-D-savvy PlayStation 3, resulted in Blown-Away Me. There’s even a 3-D-to-2-D conversion option that lets weary-eyed viewers downshift while others stick with all three D’s. However, while Sharp bundles two pairs of active-shutter glasses, the only sanctioned way to charge them is through the TV’s own USB port — and there’s only one. Weak.

Speaking of game consoles, Blu-ray players, and the like, you can connect up to five of them to the Elite’s seemingly endless array of HDMI inputs. Roku box optional, though: the Elite has a Netflix button right on its remote, and that’s just one of eight media apps accessible from its slick pop-up menu. Unfortunately, while the selection includes video heavyweights like Vudu and YouTube, it lacks heavierweights like Amazon and Hulu. And what’s with building in Napster but not Pandora? At least there’s DLNA support for streaming your own media libraries.

Even the fanciest HDTVs tend to have crummy speakers, but the Elite pairs two 15-watt cones with a 15-watt subwoofer, resulting in sound that’s pretty decent. In fact, big props to the Clear Voice menu option that boosts dialog volume. Of course, any home theater with a TV like this as the centerpiece is certain to have a comparably lavish surround-sound system, so this is practically superfluous hardware.

Sharp’s heavy, angular remote could use some sexing up, though it’s nicely balanced and can illuminate for easier nighttime clicking. Unfortunately, it’s surprisingly inconsistent at actually controlling the TV; it flat-out doesn’t work unless you point it straight at the center. Thinking I’d received a defective clicker, I asked Sharp for a replacement — and it was equally inept.

Another gripe: Some of the Elite’s AV modes produce the dreaded soap opera effect. You can always choose a different mode or manually tweak your way out of it, but this seems inexcusable in a TV with this pedigree.

Likewise, Sharp’s Intelligent Variable Contrast technology, which automatically adjusts brightness and backlighting depending on ambient light, can sometimes be spotted working its auto-dimming magic. It’s weird to see the picture shift slightly brighter or darker while you’re watching.

These are not deal-breakers by any means. Once you’ve wrangled the settings to your liking, you’re going to have the happiest eyeballs in the neighborhood. The Pro-60X5FD proves once and for all that being elitist has its advantages.

WIRED Transcendent color, exquisite 3-D. Black levels rival the inside of a cave at night. Menu system designed for people, not engineers. So … many … HDMI … inputs. Wi-Fi + Netflix = cord-cutter’s delight.

TIRED Glossy screen reflects more than a Tibetan monk. Apparently even a $6,000 TV can suffer from the soap-opera effect. Active-shutter 3-D glasses a hassle to charge. Weak selection of built-in apps, and no way to add more. Terrible remote reception. Only Richie Rich can afford it.

Photo: Greg Broom/Wired

Tumi’s new Tegra Lite suitcases boast outer shells made from a material also found in NFL pads and Nascar body panels. The thermoplastic composite, called Tegris, is made by weaving polypropylene yarn into sheets. It’s as moldable as carbon fiber yet more impact resistant, and it costs about one-tenth as much. Plus, it’s completely recyclable.

We took the largest case in the Tegra Lite line (the Extended Trip model, not the carry-on shown above) from San Francisco to Switzerland and back, through the baggage-handling badlands of JFK, and neither the suitcase nor our suits showed any signs of abuse.

WIRED Four omnidirectional wheels. TSA-compliant combo lock. Light weight won’t handicap you at check in.

TIRED Crazy expensive ($895 for the Extended Trip; other models $595 and up). Shell is very flexible in spots; be careful packing anything fragile.

• 

  Walmart Overnight Parking

  

  Technically, Walmart allows RV campers to stay overnight in parking lots where it’s not explicitly prohibited. This app IDs the lots as either “no” (red) or “maybe” (yellow) — no “yes” listings. In practice, that means you find a “maybe” Walmart, like we did in Pico Rivera, California, pull down the shades, and snuggle in for the night.

  WIRED Idling trucks off-loading product = white noise.

  TIRED Ugly interface. Too few user reviews.

  $2.99 (iOS, Android) | Walmart Overnight Parking

  
  





• Hotel Tonight

  

  Unlike TripAdvisor and Priceline, this app lists hotels for only about 40 major U.S. cities and airports, and it limits users to same-day bookings. But: better deals. The developer boasts up to 70 percent off advertised rates. In practice, most prices were only a few dollars cheaper than Priceline’s, but there were one or two options with much deeper discounts.

  WIRED Savings for poor planners. Gorgeous interface.

  TIRED Marginally cheaper than rivals, with fewer options.

  Free (iOS, Android) | Hotel Tonight

  
  
  





• CouchBug

  

  If you’re looking to stay at the wheelchair-accessible LA home of a French-speaking man under 35, CouchBug will provide four to choose from. It’s the app companion to Couchsurfing.org, the international crash-pad sensation. Searching within the app is straightforward, but you have to go to the website to update your profile.

  WIRED Free places to stay, worldwide.

  TIRED Can’t upload pics of your new bon ami in app. Name conjures visions of bedbugs.

  Free(iOS) | CouchBug

  
  

The latest Transformer tablet packs a detailed 1920 x 1200-pixel display. Photo by Peter McCollough/Wired

Asus is making some of the best Android tablets on the market. In fact, the Taiwanese company currently offers three 10.1-inch-screen tablets within its premium Transformer line.

The best of the bunch is Asus’ latest, the new flagship Transformer Pad Infinity TF700, which becomes available on July 16 and follows the Transformer Prime and the Transformer Pad, both of which arrived earlier this year.

All three tablets run Google’s latest mobile operating system, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. All three also have the ability to “transform” into a laptop-style device by slipping the tablet into a keyboard dock, which is sold as an optional accessory.

The obvious question is, “What’s the difference between all these Transformers?” Aside from price (the Infinity is priced on the high end: $500 for 32GB of storage and $600 for 64GB), the biggest differences are found in the displays.

The two previous Asus tablets, the Transformer Pad (starting at $380) and Transformer Prime (also starting at $500, but likely due for a price cut) were built around screens with 1280 x 800 resolutions — the standard resolution found on the best tablets from Android rivals Acer, Samsung, and Toshiba in the 10.1-inch size.

The Transformer Pad Infinity introduces a new 1920 x 1200 resolution 10.1-inch Super IPS+ display, covered in Corning’s new Gorilla Glass 2. It looks much better than its predecessors — it’s not quite as noticeable of a resolution jump as what’s found on Apple’s third-generation iPad and its 2048 x 1536-pixel Retina display, but it’s fairly close.

The keyboard dock extends the tablet’s battery life and turns it into something closer to a laptop. Photo by Peter McCollough/Wired

It’s a really beautiful display, and one of the better screens I’ve seen on a tablet. Watching high-definition video on the Infinity is a joy, with deep blacks and warm colors. In fact, the display on the Infinity is so detailed and sharp that Asus’ included wallpapers look just a tad soft upon close inspection. Many app icons haven’t been optimized for screens this dense, so they look a bit blurry. While surfing the web, I noticed that text renders crisply and clearly with no discernible jaggedness or pixelization, but the accuracy of the display betrays the lower resolution of ads and images.

In this regard, higher-resolution devices such as the Infinity, the new iPad and the new MacBook Pro with Retina display are all a bit ahead of their time. Pushing the platform forward is a good thing, but it’s apparent the Android world isn’t fully prepared for a screen this sharp. Outside of a small number of games, super high-resolution apps are scarce, and tablet buyers who surf the marketplaces seeking quality apps that look appropriately amazing on this awesome screen will be left wanting.

As more devices with such detailed displays get produced, web publishers, content creators and app developers will have to catch up. And when they do, the consumers with the best displays will reap the benefits. Until then, the larger tablets are caught on the outside. There are a lot of apps available in Google Play, but big names such as Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and even Google+ still don’t offer versions tailored to large Android tablets. Eager users are left with stretched-out phone versions.

Samsung has upgraded last year’s Series 9, and the 2012 version is much-improved. Photo by Peter McCollough/Wired

The 2012 edition of Samsung’s well-regarded Series 9 laptop invites you to play a game of numbers. Here are the relevant digits: 15-inch screen. 15 millimeters thick. 3.7 pounds.

The last figure is the showstopper. This isn’t just the lightest laptop in its size class, it’s lighter than every 14-inch laptop I’ve reviewed and even lighter than some 13.3-inch laptops I’ve seen, too. If ultrabooks had a 15-inch category, the Series 9 would be the leader of the pack.

But for now they don’t, and that puts the Series 9 in an interesting and unique market position. For users who desire broader screen real estate and a more spacious typing experience — yet aren’t willing to sacrifice portability — the 2012 Series 9 is a near-perfect pick.

What’s under the hood? A 1.7GHz 3rd generation Core i5, 128GB SSD, 8GB of RAM, and integrated graphics. The screen — an odd 15.0 inches — packs in 1600×900 pixels and is extremely bright. Altogether, it’s one of the most dazzling displays I’ve come across.

The Series 9 is also an impressive performer, turning in the best general application benchmark scores I’ve seen on an Ivy Bridge system to date while still pulling out 4.5 hours of battery life on a full-screen video loop at maximum brightness. Of course, it’s a no-show on graphics tests, a necessary sacrifice for a machine of this size and weight.

The design is strikingly thin, yet there’s still a fine selection of ports. Photo by Peter McCollough/Wired

The Series 9 even goes above and beyond with its port selection considering its tiny size: two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0, and an SD card reader, plus micro connectors for HDMI, VGA, and wired Ethernet (dongle included). Even the power brick is small enough to add only a minimal additional burden to your travel bag.

Samsung has been dinged in the past for having wonky clickpads on its laptops, and the kinks finally seem to have been ironed out here. I had no trouble with tracking and taps being registered, and the depress-to-click action works well.

If I have only one complaint (and I do) about the Series 9, it’s the keyboard. 15mm doesn’t give you much depth to work with, and the shallow travel on these keys makes touch typing difficult. At $1,400, the price may be an additional concern for some buyers, but I’d happily argue that the design and power of this good-looking laptop merit the extra outlay.

WIRED Amazingly portable and powerful, with a screen to die for. Surprisingly sturdy, tough design. “Silent mode” kills fans.

TIRED Keyboard backlighting too dim to be useful, even at highest brightness setting. Thin profile means very shallow key travel.

The keyboard suffers a bit from the thinness of the computer’s case. Photo by Peter McCollough/Wired

Eric van der Kleij is to depart his post as CEO of the UK’s Tech City Investment Organisation (TCIO) after his two year contract comes to an end this Summer. The TCIO was set up by the UK government to promote East London’s pre-existing cluster of technology startups and is just one of hundreds of similar initiatives around the world where a city is promoted as a ‘tech city’. It’s a natural course to take, given that tech is one of the few economic areas growing during a downturn in developed economies. Even tech-obsessed San Francisco itself is thinking that way.

A TCIO spokesperson told us it plans to advertise the positions “in the next couple of weeks”. Mr. van der Kleij will go part-time from the end of July and steps down formally in September.

TCIO now plans to split his role into two, a CEO and a Deputy CEO. Both positions have yet to be filled. The CEO will be external-facing, promoting the East London hub, while their Deputy will organise events and promote the tech community on the ground in London. Sources told us Mr. van der Kleij had been too stretched trying to fulfil both roles.

A TCIO spokesperson told us: “Eric’s always been clear that he would run TCIO for a maximum of two years. The feedback we had from the community around the Impact Report and the Town Hall meeting has fed into the recruitment strategy and the type of person we’re looking for.”

The strategy for the organization also appears to be more or less unchanged. TCIO will continue to focus on East London.

“There are other organisations such as London & Partners that focus on London as a whole – and TCIO works closely with them. It’s about making sure that businesses set up in the area that’s right for them – whether that’s in Shoreditch or Shepherds Bush,” a spokesperson said.

We asked if Tech City had any comment on whether van der Kleij did a good job or not.

TCIO spokesperson said: “TCIO met its targets last year but there’s still a lot more to do – and it can do what it does better as well. In its first year, it was about getting companies to come to Tech City – now that effort will be focused on those companies that will benefit the existing ecosystem. That may be focusing on areas such as smart cities, fintech and digital-creative.

“The emphasis has always been on helping support and accelerate the cluster’s growth through attracting foreign direct investment, introducing investors and supporting the companies already in the cluster with international expansion and through mentoring etc to help them scale up.”

So comes to an end an interesting two years of Mr. van der Kleij’s tenure.

The TCIO was created in March 2011, following Prime Minister David Cameron’s announcement the previous November of the Tech City initiative in the ‘Silicon Roundabout’ area of East London. The organisation was created by Number 10 Downing Street as a subsidiary of the UK Trade and Investment (it has sometimes inaccurately been described as a QUANGO).

The ‘Silicon Roundabout’ phrase was coined on Twitter as a joke by engineer Mat Biddulph and by his own admission was never intended to become a ‘brand’ as such. But Biddulph did hit the zeitgeist at the right time, since the area stretching East from the Old Street Roundabout was indeed cheap enough to create a startup in, but still close enough to the centre of London to make sense business-wise.

It’s widely accepted that East London does indeed have the largest single cluster of London’s internet startup companies based on several surveys. However, the TCIO has been criticised for lumping creative and design companies in with genuine technology companies and engaging in too much ‘success theatre’.

Thus, it ended up claiming around 600-800 “tech” businesses in the area. To give that some context, the whole of San Francisco city currently houses over 1,500 (real) tech companies and the industry employs more than 30,000 people.

The TCIO’s figures were in contrast to an independent survey last year which put the figure for high growth, technology oriented companies for the whole of Central London at 250 (this is not including financial tech companies in the Square Mile). Having said that, the study did confirm the largest cluster was indeed in the East of London, and proved it with a map.

In May the TCIO published its first Impact Report reviewing its activities and achievements against objectives for the 2011-2012 fiscal year.

TCIO has three roles: To secure foreign investment from tech companies into East London; to engage with overseas VCs and help them get deal-flow; and to support the cluster and raise its profile internationally.

In broad terms only a curmudgeon would say it’s done nothing at all, since to most observers it’s managed to do at least something in all three of those roles. The detail of its achievement however is not exactly amazing, and shows the problem of relying largely on a small organisation to hit all three of its – rather ambitious – targets.

In it’s own report the TCIO said that after two years of work it had attracted 37 companies to TechCity against an initial target of 26 companies. It now has a target of 50 for 2013.

It also brought 15 overseas VCs partners, 29 VC firms – but only four of these firms then participated in November’s Entrepreneur’s Festival, set up by TCIO. The organisation admitted “there is more that can be done to help overseas investors access deal-flow in the cluster.” It now plans to create 50 investor pitches for Tech City companies and attract three overseas investors to establish investment facilities in Tech City.

It organised 30 events in the UK and abroad, hosting a bootcamp with over 80 mentors. However, only three mentors have continued their relationship with Tech City companies as a result.

Critics might point out that this entire process ought to be left alone to happen as market conditions dictate. After-all, most London-based VCs choose either to base themselves in the Square Mile, just south of the Tech City area of Shoreditch and eastwards, or close to the Private Equity houses in Mayfair.

Then again, creating the Tech City brand has clearly had resonance internationally, some of which I’ve actually witnessed myself in places like New York, San Francisco and elsewhere.

It’s also clear that having an organisation beating the drum for tech startups in a cluster has had other effects nationally. Rather like a trojan horse, the whole Tech City initiative has ended up letting tech entrepreneurs into the heart of the UK government’s policy-making unit. This has lead directly or indirectly to changes in national policy, for instance on entrepreneurs visas, new tax breaks of Angel investors (SEIS), and several other initiatives.

I spoke to sources inside Number 10 who was insistent that the TCIO would continue to focus on East London, while working in concert with London-wide organisations like the Mayor’s office and London & Partners, which promotes London generally as a business destination.

But has the East London focus had it’s day? Yes, the biggest single cluster is in the East, but it’s also clear that there are startups all over London. Lately I’ve notice clusters developing in West London and also around London Bridge in the South. Ask the guys running the business outreach department in New York City if they emphasise Manhattan over New Jersey for instance, and they just shrug their shoulders – “We don’t care where you put the company, so long as it’s in New York” as one official told me.

But my Number 10 sources admitted that the East London focus would remain. However, one said: “The TCIO’s focus on Tech City acts as a door-opener. Sure, a company may not end up in the East, but it’s a way of opening the conversation in the first place.”

Whatever the case, Tech City’s £1.7m annual budget looks on the large side when most of it’s role seems to be PR. It has also been criticised for spending £55,000 on a lack-lustre web site which probably could have been created for far less.

However, the reality is that the Tech City project is operating in a global context and competition with other cities is fierce.

While Google bought a 10 year lease on a seven story building in Shoreditch (Google Campus) and stuffed it with accelerators and co-working spaces, it’s also recently bought the tallest building In Dublin For $136 million.

In New York, Mayor Bloomberg has vowed to To Make NYC “Tech Capital Of The World” and is even learning to code himself.

Plus a $2 Billion tech-oriented university is planned for New York, which will have 2 million square feet to play with on an amazing campus.

Over in ‘hot Berlin’ they are actually arguing about the fact that the mayor isn’t even interested in the tech startups that have been garnering so much attention.

Indeed, San Francisco is getting so concerned about global competition for tech clusters that, ironically, it’s started to realise it must start helping the tech industry. I bet you never thought San Francisco would actually even bother to think that way.

So whatever happens to the UK’s Tech City project, whether it’s spats in the tech-sceptical British press about its funding or staffing or strategy or whatever – it’s clear that entrepreneurs, startups and engineers the world over are being wooed on a global basis.

DogVacay launched in March this year as an Airbnb for dogs — offering owners an alternative to soul-less kennels and expensive dog sitting services for when they need to leave town and leave their pooches behind. Since then, the service has picked up some traction with users tripling every month since launch, and to continue its growth, it’s adding another VC to its list of backers. Andreessen Horowitz, which also backs Airbnb, has signed on to DogVacay’s seed round at an undisclosed amount, joining existing investors First Round Capital, Science, Baroda, and Quest.

Although the service first started as a basic dog-boarding alternative, with much of its use developing by word-of-mouth, over the last couple of months, Aaron Hirschhorn, co-founder and CEO of DogVacay, says that it’s also been offering an ad-hoc concierge service covering a lot of other functions, including dog walking and daycare for people who work all day. Part of the funding will be used to make that into a more formal offering, as well as being some proper marketing for the service as DogVacay rolls out nationally — or “spreading the woof,” as Hirschhorn likes to say, to those 72.9 million households in the U.S. that own a pet.

Hirschhorn says that the service came to the attention of Andreessen Horowitz because one of the partners there, Jeff Jordan, is a big dog lover.

DogVacay’s unique approach plays on two levels: for one, it’s about getting more personalized care for your dog. “Dogs are like part of the family,” says Hirschhorn, himself a dog lover who still has his own place registered on the site for dogs to board in LA.

On the other hand, it is also about costs. He says that typically the average price for a night’s stay on DogVacay is $25/night, compared to overnight sitting services in cities like New York — “north of $70″ — and San Francisco, which he says costs over $50 per night.

DogVacay is currently building up its user base in the U.S. and Canada with a service that takes a 10 percent cut on any boardings that get created through DogVacay — and less if users are booking regularly through the site. Hirschhorn admits that’s a thin margin, which is where the additional personalized services may start to come in handy. Scale will also be crucial: the aim is for DogVacay to expand eventually to international markets, with the first targets likely to be Germany and the UK, both countries known for having a lot of dog owners.

The service is also moving beyond dogs. Hirschhorn says he’s registered just about every permutation you can think of for DogVacay.com, including CatVacay and IguanaVacay and PetVacay. That’s partly about brand protection, but it also points to having sights set beyond canines in the longer run: “The biggest pain point now is dog boarding, but biggest opportunity comes from no standard provider today for total pet care.”

What’s interesting is that its newest investor is also a backer of Airbnb. A while ago, it was noticed that Airbnb had actually registered a site called Dogbnb, which led some to wonder if the company was planning to extend its services beyond humans. That would represent a conflict with DogVacay for Andreessen — whose co-founder Ben Horowitz pointed out quite famously around the Instagram acquisition that it doesn’t invest in competitors.

Hirschhorn has an answer for this: Airbnb isn’t actually looking to do anything with dogs. “Just like I own Iguana Vacay, it’s not that I’m necessarily going into the iguana business,” he told me. “They are protecting their brand. The fact that Andreessen has put money into us supports that answer.”

In fact there may be a possibility for Airbnb and DogVacay to one day do business together: Hirschhorn says that already there are people who are travelling somewhere who are looking for DogVacay hosts at their destination so that they can bring their dogs along. “Rather than leaving them at home, they can be watched closer to where their owners are staying,” he said.

DogVacay has not yet releases numbers yet on how many users they have on its service, but Hirschhorn says that in the four months since launch, its user base has tripled every month, as the amount of hosts have also continued to grow alongside it. He says the company will likely be looking to raise a Series A round in the “near to medium term” to continue its growth.

Angel investing may be hot, but it looks like things are not too shabby for the tech industry’s most powerful late-stage venture capital firms either.

Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) is announcing today that it has closed on $1 billion for its 14th fund, dubbed IVP XIV. This represents the largest-ever fund IVP has raised in its 32-year history. To date, this brings IVP’s total committed capital to $4 billion.

As is sometimes the case with later-stage investors, IVP has flown under the radar a bit compared to other VCs that get into tech companies earlier and more often. But nevertheless, the firm’s portfolio speaks to its clout: ComScore, Juniper Networks, MySQL, Seagate, and Zynga are among its past hits, and Buddy Media, DropBox, Twitter, and Hipmunk are among its current investments.

We at TechCrunch TV were pleased to have the opportunity to interview IVP general partner Jules Maltz about the brand new fund. Watch the video above to hear the first-hand scoop all about IVP XIV. Here are a few key takeaways from our chat:

Late Stage Is Still The Focus

The new fund may be bigger than its ever been for IVP (the firm’s last fund before this was $750 million) but according to Maltz, the firm’s focus will largely remain the same. Maltz said:

“Essentially it’s going to be the same strategy. We’re a late stage firm, we’re very focused. We only do tech investing. We don’t do China, we don’t do clean-tech. We really want to focus on the 10 to 12 fastest growing, most prominent late stage tech companies each year, and fund those businesses.”

On Bigger Investments, And Follow-On Funding

But there is one benefit that deeper pockets brings, Maltz said — the ability to invest more into each company. He continued:

“I think what this fund allows us to do is invest larger amounts in some of those best-performing companies, and actually follow on to some of our most promising companies after our initial investments. So we can now invest from $10 million to $100 million over the life of the company.”

Venture Stage: For IVP It’s More Than Just A Letter

Maltz explained that being a late-stage venture firm does not always mean that it only participates in Series D and above funding rounds. For example, he led IVP’s investment in DropBox, which has only had two rounds of venture capital funding.

“We try to not actually focus on letters of the alphabet, whether it’s an A through a Z investment. We really try to focus on what’s the fundamental characteristics of the business and is that a late-stage business.”

And while infographics can be overdone, IVP had a pretty handy one whipped up that give a quick look at its credentials. The full one can be found on its website, but here are a couple especially key bits I clipped from it (click on each to enlarge):

With the growth of more location-based mobile apps, there is some inevitable shakedown, too: the latest of these is that check-in service Forecast will be shutting down its app and website, effective July 1, because its developers, Hurricane Party, have run out of money.

The news hasn’t been posted yet on Forecast’s own site, but was relayed to existing users through an email. “We have run out of resources to keep the Forecast project afloat,” developer René Pinnell writes.

Forecast was developed a service for people to make more sophisticated use of the check-in concept, by either letting them check-in on Facebook and Foursquare before actually arriving somewhere — or, more recently, enabling automatic, ambient check-ins once they got there.

But whether that was enough to differentiate the service from those on which it sat — Foursquare and Facebook — may have been the big question for users, the developers — and ultimately investors.

Both the worlds of check-ins and ambient location apps are getting very crowded. In ambient-location apps, which pick up connections on behalf of the user, there are companies like Highlight and Glancee (bought and shut down by Facebook). Facebook itself even released and then pulled an ambient networking app just this week.

Equally, the check-in space has already been seeing some consolidation, with Facebook buying Gowalla among them. Foursquare so far has been the early-mover leader here.

The most recent figures for usage of Forecast were reported in February 2012, when the app had 100,000 users.

It’s not clear yet whether the developers’ other project, the eponymous Hurricane Party, a group-messaging app that lets contacts create spontaenous parties, has shut down as well — but it’s had no updates on its blogs since 2011 and its developers in February said that it had not managed to get much traction after launching that year at SXSW.

The full email from the developers:

The time has come for Forecast to shut its doors. Starting on July 1, our mobile apps and website will not work.

Although we’re passionate about building great products that help people connect in the real world, we have run out of resources to keep the Forecast project afloat. We sincerely appreciate you taking the time to try our app, and we hope that it brought you some value.

If you have any questions, comments, or just want to keep in touch, don’t hesitate to email us!

Best,

René Pinnell and Team Forecast

NFC, the technology that can help turn a mobile handset into an instant, superpower payment device, has been long on promise but largely short on delivery. But today, the France Telecom-owned mobile operator Orange took a step that could see some of that potential realized: it has announced that it will initiate a nationwide deployment of NFC SIM cards across its home market of France, covering 27 million subscribers. Orange says that all new post-paid subscribers will be getting the new SIM, regardless of what handset they have; existing customers will need to request it. What this means is that any NFC-ready device with Orange’s new SIM in it can actually be used to make transactions — as long as a businesses has enabled the service.

The GSMA mobile carrier association first endorsed the NFC SIM solution back in November 2011 and this looks to be the first widescale European deployment of that — although there are other carriers, like China Mobile, who are already offering these elsewhere. Orange, meanwhile, has only been working on local services of NFC services that worked with a limited number of handsets (the UK’s QuickTap being one example).

Orange says it will be rolling this out in other markets, too: its footprint includes mobile operations in the UK, Africa and other countries in Europe, 33 countries in all with 166 million mobile subscribers, and it projects that the next markets to see NFC SIMs will be the UK, Spain and Poland.

This particular SIM solution comes from Gemalto, which announced its UpTeq product in February and it claims that it is the first NFC SIM to have the same level of security as a smart card or chip-based payment — the standard for card payments in Europe (where the magnetic strips on the back of the card are used significantly less than they are in the U.S.). Orange says it will work with Oberthur and Morpho as well for SIMs.

“Gemalto is the first supplier we’re working with for the deployment of NFC SIM cards at a national level,” said Thierry Millet, VP of Mobile Payments & NFC at Orange, in a statement. “Gemalto’s NFC solution is fully in line with our strategy to simplify and secure the use of mobile contactless services. We are committed to equipping our customers with NFC SIM cards and handsets. We are delighted to achieve a new landmark with this nationwide rollout towards our subscribers in France.”
The task now for Orange will be to sell the solution on to third parties like banks, retailers and public transportation operators for them to implement the solutions at their end.

This will require investments not only for processing hardware at the point of sale/transaction but also software investments to create the apps that will exist on the SIM to be used with the service: Orange says each participating merchant or other partner will get secure “space” on the SIM for their individual services and to store private data — “as within a vault,” Orange says in its statement.

There will also need to be more NFC-ready handsets put out into the market for this to work: Orange has confirmed to me that these SIMs will only “speak” to NFC services if the devices in which they are sitting have NFC capabilities embedded in them. For now that rules out the iPhone, among others. Orange says that it sold 500,000 NFC-capable handsets in 2011 in France and the UK; a number likely to be significantly higher this year as more of these roll out in the market.

Some analysts are skeptical about whether all the pieces in play — from merchants through to handset makers and of course consumers — will be working together in a comprehensive way any time soon. A recent report from Gartner estimated that that the mobile payments market is currently worth $172 billion worldwide, but that NFC will play a marginal role in that for some time to come. Jupiter research is more optimistic: it believes that around 25 percent of all mobile users in the U.S. and Western Europe will use NFC on their devices by 2017.

Have you ever jacked in? Have you ever wire tripped? No? [smirk] A virgin brain. Well, we’re gonna start you off right. This isn’t like “TV only better”, this is life. Yeah, this is a piece of somebody’s life. Pure and uncut, straight from the cerebral cortex. You’re there! You’re doing it, seeing it, hearing-hearing it. You’re feeling it. It’s about the stuff you can’t have, right? Like running into a liquor store with a .357 magnum in your hand, feeling the adrenaline pumping through your veins.

In 1995, long before Tom Cruise was waving his hands around in now eerily true-to-life vision of the future that was “Minority Report,” another science fiction drama was also painting a picture of the darker side of technology. In director Kathryn Bigelow’s “Strange Days,” (written by James Cameron and Jay Cocks), people and the technology they used to record their lives had practically merged.

Using devices called “SQUIDs” which were plopped on top of their heads (that’s short for “Superconducting Quantum Interference Device,” if you must know), you could record every moment of your waking life without the inauthenticity and awkwardness that comes with holding up a camera. Wear a wig, and no one would even know they were being filmed. And you could play back your recordings whenever you chose, as often as you wanted.

The movie used the technology as a tool to tell a whodunnit-type mystery involving a girl’s murder (she knew too much, of course) while also offering up social commentary on the racial tensions following the still fresh wounds of the LAPD’s beating of Rodney King and the resulting riots that followed the officers’ acquittals.

But the technology found in the film – the SQUIDs – were a big part of the story. The leading character (Ralph Fiennes), still obsessed with his ex-girlfriend (Juliette Lewis), couldn’t stop playing the recordings of their time together over and over again. He was living in the past and unable to move on, because everything felt so real.

You see, the benefit of the SQUID is that the action is recorded from your own viewpoint. Everywhere you turned your head, the camera turned. Your hands were free, meanwhile, to do…well, whatever hands do. And you could see them. You saw your world the way your really see it. And when you played a recording back, the SQUID let you experience the memories of whichever recording you viewed as if they were your own – even if you were not the original wearer.

Well, maybe we’re not quite there yet, but it’s fun to imagine, right? After all, technology has been chasing this vision of the future for a long, long time. The idea that we should – and must – save a moment in time is a part of the human condition dating back to the paintings of men slaying buffalo adorning the walls of caves. Cameras, then film, Hollywood movies, then portable cameras installed in smartphones, and virtual reality devices have all further enabled our ability to not just record, but remember, and not just remember, but experience.

And we, as a society, can’t let it go. It’s become apparent that the ubiquity of our mobile devices, their portability and their ease of use have made it so simple to capture every snippet of our lives, that we sometimes lose track of ourselves in our digital detritus. Pics or it didn’t happen, as they say. If you think it, tweet it. Share it on Facebook. Like, save, record, watch, favorite, play, rewind, replay. We’ve lost our ability the live in the moment. Do we stop and listen to the concert and feel the music, or are we more obsessed with making sure we get a good snap of the band or a great recording of their best song which we can post on YouTube? Because, you know, if we can’t share a moment with our friends, what was the point of experiencing it at all?

Our digital attachments don’t just feed our fame-seeking tweeted and be retweeted egos. They make us miss the actual moments we meant to record. The precious memories we want to hold onto and live in for days at time. Baby’s first steps? Quick, grab the camera! Oops. Missed the actual steps. C’mon baby, try again. No one will know it’s really your second attempt.

How sad.

And how nice to think that technology is finally progressing to the point where we can ditch the cameraphone and just live our lives. Hands free. Making eye contact. Sure, sure, through dorky looking glasses. But they won’t be dorky looking forever. And you have to start somewhere. And besides people are already working on how to put transistors in contact lenses.

But, as pop culture has warned us before: for every major leap in our capabilities, there is a flipside. The Internet is rewiring our brains. Our identities are so digital that we can be erased as if entries in a database. And, the ability the record too much of our lives too accurately, will lead some people to live in moments they were meant to abandon.

As Angela Bassett’s character says to Fiennes in “Strange Days:”

“Memories are supposed to fade, Lenny. They’re built like that for a reason.”

So, Google Glass. Amazing technology. But it’s never too soon to ponder the ramifications of a future filled with infinite point-of-view recordings. Of the moment when the glasses become contacts, the contacts become implants. At which point, when do we ever get to shut them down?

 I can make it happen. I can get you anything you want. Ya just have to talk to me. Talk to me, talk to me, talk to me, talk to me. I am your priest. I am your shrink. I am your main connection to the switchboard of souls. I’m the magic man. The Santa Claus of the subconscious. You say it. You even think it. You can have it! Are we beginning to see the possibilities here? You know you want it.

There’s no love lost between Android and Apple users, or at least among the fanboys and fangirls. The flamewar between the passionate adopters of the top two mobile operating systems has persisted for awhile now, even in spite of our pleas for a detente. Luckily, one startup is on a mission to bridge the gap between the Open and Walled Gardens, so that we can all join hands and walk off into the sunset.

At Google I/O today, BlueStacks staged a mock wedding between Android and Apple as the backdrop for the launch of its Android App Player for Mac — software that aims to bring 400K+ Android apps to iOS.

BlueStacks’ alpha release, which is available for free on the startup’s website, gives Android users the ability to run their favorite apps on a Mac, so that they can download Angry Birds, Temple Run, Evernote, etc directly into BlueStacks, or sync apps they already have installed using the startup’s “Cloud Connect” app.

The Mac release follows BlueStacks’ release of its platform for Windows, which allowed users to download and play their apps on any Windows machines. The PC version went like hotcakes upon its release in March, reaching one million downloads in just nine days. As we said at the time, the real key to BlueStacks’ success was its “ability to run graphics-intensive Android apps on desktop PCs, using its patent-pending technology called ‘Layercake’ … allowing Android apps to run on x86-based PCs, including apps written for the ARM processor,” like Angry Birds Space or Fruit Ninja, for example.

Shainiel Deo, the CEO of Halfbrick (the makers of Fruit Ninja) also said at the time that, while BlueStacks’ tech has plenty of appeal for everyday users, there’s a lot of appeal for developers, too, because they don’t have to port or modify apps to run them on a new operating system — meaning that those who’ve already developed apps for Android don’t have to go through the typical heavy lifting.

The same holds true for BlueStacks’ Mac release, and the company pushed its launch today featuring a number of new developer partners, including HandyGames, Creative Mobile, and Pulse. The startup said that its next release, which is coming soon, will expand its partner roster further, and the team has been in full force at I/O wooing developers.

For more, find BlueStacks at home here, or check out our prior coverage here.

Qualcomm announced an upgrade to their Vuforia Augmented Reality platform on Wednesday. Vuforia is a platform that focuses on using images as the “targets” to launch an AR experience, rather than requiring consumers to scan QR codes or other glyphs.

So instead of scanning a barcode, you just scan a specific picture to start the AR experience on your mobile phone or tablet (it could launch a video, or a 3D model, etc.) There are many AR companies that employ this method of recognizing images. That is nothing new.

The difference here is that the old version of Vuforia required the database of images that are the “targets” to be stored locally on the device running their software and therefore had a limited capacity of storage (around 80 images).

This new system allows developers to continue using local app storage of image targets but they can also now implement programatic, API-based access to up to 1 million targets using a new cloud database system.

Metaio Creator (see middle video) have already allowed this kind of cloud access, although I am not sure if their databases or tools could support 1 million records.

In any event, for Vuforia this update is important and is sure to increase the viability of the platform as a retail AR solution, since Vuforia will now be able to support the number of images present in actual product inventories, unlike its previous iteration.

To show off the new system and its potential, Qualcomm showed a demo branded for American Apparel at the Uplinq 2012 conference on Wednesday. I was able to get my hands on a copy. It’s pretty slick.