Phishing attacks, which hit Twitter over the weekend, are a sign a service has arrived (Facebook has the same problem). But someone hacking into Twitter’s internal admin tools and compromising 33 high profile accounts, including President Elect Barack Obama, has Twitter users freaking out about what to do.

Here is Twitter’s official explanation:

Continue reading " Twitter Gets Hacked, Badly "

A pink iguana overlooked by Charles Darwin turns up on the Galapagos Islands. The iguana’s color isn’t the only thing that distinguishes it from other iguana species: New research shows that it separated from the others genetically 5 million years ago, much earlier than most Galapagos species.

Continue reading " Pink Iguana That Darwin Missed Holds Evolutionary Surprise "

The Crunchies ceremony and party in San Francisco is just four days away. Who’s going to win best startup of 2008? It’s up to you. Just make sure you vote by Wednesday (we’ve extended the voting deadline by two days).

We’ve got an awesome evening planned. The ceremony kicks off at 7:30 pm, Friday, January 9 at the historic Herbst Theater in San Francisco. Awards will be given out to the winners (yep, those gorilla statues - here’s the back story).

Among other surprises at the event, you’ll see the famous Richter Scales make a return performance. We’ve commissioned them to write a special song just for the Crunchies.

Right after the main event is a big party at City Halls Rotunda, from 9 - midnight. MySpace will be showing up with a fancy DJ, and drinks will be flowing.

Tickets are available here until they are sold out. See you there!

Continue reading " The Crunchies Are This Friday. Vote Now And Get Your Tickets! "

Just a friendly reminder that CrunchGear will be at Moscone tomorrow (1/6) for Phillip W. Schiller’s very first keynote speech. Wait. MacWorld keynote? What? Isn’t Jobs dead? Who the hell is Schiller? Where am I?!

Continue reading " MacWorld Keynote 2009: CrunchGear has you covered "

Smarter-email startup Xobni has raised $7 million in a B round of financing from Cisco Systems and existing investors Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital, Baseline Ventures, and Atomico. Three of the four existing investors increased their ownership stakes in the company. But Cisco led the round, highlighting the importance of enterprise e-mail for Xobni (that’s where the money is). CEO Jeff Bonforte says:

Continue reading " Xobni Closes $7 Million B Round Led By Cisco "

Has the Recording Industry Association of America reached any deals with leading U.S. internet service providers that would terminate service to online file sharers of copyrighted music? Not a single major ISP contacted by Wired.com admitted to going along. And Verizon, with 8.5 million internet subscribers, balked at the proposal.

Continue reading " Top Internet Providers Cool to RIAA 3-Strikes Plan "

The Apple rumor mill has been churning furiously with Macworld Expo just a day away. Here’s a roundup of everything we’ve heard, along with our probability estimation for what’s true and what isn’t.

Continue reading " Rumor Roundup: What to Expect at Macworld Expo 2009 "

Asteroids circling dead stars in the galaxy are made of the same stuff as Earth, raising the likelihood of more habitable, rocky planets. Astronomers used the Spitzer Space Telescope to study six dead “white dwarf” stars, and announced their findings at the American Astronomical Society meeting.

Continue reading " Habitable Exoplanets Could Be Common in Our Galaxy "

Two notes from Wall Street analysts came to my inbox today with top-ten predictions for what 2009 holds in store for the technology industry. J.P. Morgan’s Imran Khan, for instance, predicts Yahoo and Microsoft will finally strike a search deal, video advertising on the Web isn’t working, retail bankruptcies could actually help e-commerce companies, and that M&A activity will pick up in the second half of 2009 (but the IPO market will be dead until 2010).

Barclays’ Doug Anmuth thinks that both Yahoo and eBay will make major strategic moves this year to try to right their businesses, distribution wars in search will break out between Google and Microsoft, and there will be consolidation among the 300-plus ad networks out there. Both believe that performance-based advertising will continue to rise in importance.

Rather than reproduce all 20 predictions from both analysts, I’ve picked six from each and listed them below. You can vote for your favorite predictions, or the ones you think are most likely to happen, in the poll at the bottom of the post.

Continue reading " 2009 Tech Prediction Faceoff: J.P Morgan Vs. Barclays Capital "

JPG magazine, which was declared dead less than a week ago, is most definitely for sale and it looks like a transaction will close shortly.

Twenty or so potential buyers have expressed interest, say our sources, including Flickr (a natural fit because the photos published by JPG Magazine are submitted by readers), Smugmug and Alexander Muse. Wordpress also expressed early interest, we’ve heard, although they’ve pulled out of the bidding.

It’s unclear how much it’ll take to get the JPG Magazine assets, but our understanding is that 8020 Media, the company behind the publication, is fielding cash offers only and is being fairly successful in getting a bidding war going.

Continue reading " Flickr, Smugmug And Others Bidding To Buy JPG Magazine "