Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

We haven't heard too much lately about the South Korean government's probe into the Samsung Group's alleged corruption and influence in the government, but the AP is now reporting those bribes were emanating from a $213 million slush fund the company supposedly set for use in swaying government officials. Various executives have been in and out of questioning with special prosecuters, including Samsung vice chairman Lee Hak-soo, top strategic planner Kim In-joo, and the chairman's son, Lee Jae-yong, who is an executive and apparently viewed as the eventual successor to the company when his father, Lee Kun-hee, hangs up his money-stuffed envelopes. Apparently dirty deeds can't be done dirt cheap anymore, but they can still be done when you're the top consumer electronics manufacturer in the world.

 

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Facebook has grown to very notable international proportions (numerically speaking) over the last couple of years, but it’s been slow to expand its lingual repertoire. Only recently has the site been amended to allow users whose primary language is Spanish a way to interact with friends, family, and associates more easily. Though Facebook has been popular with residents of China and Turkey, neither base of users has been afforded the option to navigate “natively.”

Well, Turks and Chinese (and many others) are going to have to wait longer for Mr Zuckerberg to cater to their wants and needs specifically. But German-speaking members are going to be glad to hear of the latest update to the network’s back-end. According to Nick O’Neill of AllFacebook, the site has just rolled out Deutsche-friendly version to enjoy. Memo from Facebookers in Germany to the site’s devs: Danke!

At least we presume that is the response to the news. We can only imagine how enthused other international users will be if Facebook continues to bridge other language divides with the relatively rapid succession it’s has so far accomplished with its initial efforts to further build the brand abroad.

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What it does

A boozehound or social butterfly’s new best friend, partyGPS.com is a Google Maps mashup to help you locate bars, clubs, or liquor stores in 25 major U.S. cities (with new cities being added regularly). Select a city by name or zip code and you will see a Google Map with small markers to distinguish between bars, clubs, or liquor stores. You can zoom in or shift the map to adjust your view. Select an establishment by clicking on its marker or selecting it from an alphabetical list on the right, and partyGPS will tell you it’s name, address, and phone number. You can also get driving directions from Google Maps or read partyGPS user reviews.



Tag words such as Live Music, Billiards, Irish Pub, or Outdoors help you to get an idea what an establishment is like or to search for others like it. Registration is not required to view the maps, browse the forum, or even to save your favorite locations, but you must sign in to post in the forum. Anyone can suggest a new bar, club, or liquor store that they would like to see added to the partyGPS database, which is decent but far from all-inclusive at this point. This site also includes easy links to share what you’ve found on partyGPS with Facebook friends.

In their own words

“partyGPS.com makes it easier to locate bars, clubs, and liquor stores throughout the U.S. with Google Maps, tags, and user reviews. This will hopefully help you and your friends plan your night out quicker without the hassle.”

Why it might be a killer

This site is smart to unroll city-by-city, instead of spreading itself too thin as it develops. It also encourages users by allowing nearly full access to the site without any registration requirements. Instead of trying to compete with sites like Facebook as a social network, partyGPS focuses on providing just its unique service and encourages and facilitates integrating its service with Facebook.

Some questions

Will many users post reviews or utilize the forums? There is currently next-to-no activity in the forums, and it seems like sites like Yelp or CitySearch already have a huge head start on gathering an extensive collection of reviews for establishments like bars and clubs.

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Something shitty’s going on here and I feel bad for this kid, Nathaniel. According to Hawty McBloggy (sweet name, by the way), here’s what happened…

Nathaniel’s Xbox 360 was his trusty traveling companion. Throughout their joint adventures, Nathaniel acquired several signatures from notable members of the gaming community, all collected directly upon his console with permanent marker. Signatures from several members of the Rooster Teeth Productions staff shared space with signatures from members of the Xbox 360 team and also staff from Bungie Studios. He even had custom artwork by Rooster Teeth Comics artist and Halo fan artist Luke McKay on it.

So this kid has a bunch of signatures and the cool Master Chief drawing on his Xbox 360 and he has to send it in for repairs. He includes a long, long letter with the console that explains the significance of all the signatures and the drawing and basically says to please, oh please not let anything happen to the case.

He also calls and speaks with someone, who assures him that he’ll receive his original case back, signatures and drawing intact. Instead, he gets the console fixed and returned to him — same serial number, mind you — but the case has been wiped clean except for a few slight smudges left behind, as seen below.

All of the writing on the case was in permanent marker and wouldn’t easily be rubbed off without a fair amount of elbow grease. So what happened here? I present you with some possibilities.

1. The tech that worked on the box was an asshole and wiped everything off for no good reason other than to continue in his quest to be an asshole.

2. The tech that worked on the box wanted it for himself, so he replaced it with a clean one and made a couple smudge marks to make it appear as though it’d been cleaned.

3. The tech that worked on the box didn’t speak English and mistook “Don’t clean the case” with “Definitely clean the case. Clean it like it’s never been cleaned before, as if your very life depended on this case being cleaned spotlessly. Leave a couple smudges, though.”

4. The story is some sort of scam, hoax, traffic-driver, or something to that effect. However, the author of the post states, “I would not have carried this story if it didn’t come from an extremely reputable source. An upstanding member of the community that is a personal friend of mine asked if I would do the article. He is someone that knows Nathaniel, and also is one of the signatures on the case.”

At any case, the idea that this is some sort of simple mistake defies all logic. Something’s going on here and it’s doubtful that it’ll ever be fully explained. Microsoft is currently “looking into the issue and working to correct the situation.”

Another Gamer Screwed by Microsoft [Hawty McBloggy] via Next Gen

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Filed under: GPS

Reuters is reporting that the European Commission, apparently having completed is inquiry into the $4.2b acquisition offer TomTom made Tele Atlas last year, is apparently issuing a "statement of objections." Apparently it's not a flat-out rejection / do not pass go / do not collect $200, but now TomTom has until May 5th to work on resolving the issues the EU's presented before it can get the thumbs up to make its big buy.

 

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There’s a little rumor spreading slowly around the tech blogosphere. It was delivered first by Nicholas Carr of Rough Type earlier today, and anticipates the arrival of word from Microsoft as to its Web-app strategy. Yes, so says Carr’s headline on the matter.

Though I can’t envisage Microsoft being so kind as to reveal its corporate strategy pertaining to the development of its Web business, simply for the fact that it hasn’t ever been in their self-professed interest ever to employ such tact when deal with the outside world, so it would not likely behoove those in Redmond to so drastically change course in that respect, I can understand why there has been an increase in chatter on the Web app front. Carr’s points of Microsoft’s efforts to build its server-side infrastructure could be the ideal basis on which to preview something(s) really snazzy. And let’s not ignore the fact that the advent of MIX08 next week could provide an ideal stage to offer a number of teasers of what is to come of the engineering efforts of the software giant in the next year or two. And there’s reason to think that there’s something to

But gosh darn it, for some unexplicable reason, I’m one to think Microsoft may well disappoint Mr Carr and anyone listening eagerly to the drum of hope and high expectations. ‘Cause heck, when has Microsoft offered a truly delectable surprise to its customers - be they based in the consumer or small- or big-business worlds - lately?

As much as I’d graciously accept Microsoft laying down the real goods - in word, image, or even complete form - on its purported “Office-in-the-cloud” project that a great many people have long demanded of the company, I can’t see Ballmer besting my expectations. So I’ll take a reserved stance here, and keep a little glimmer of hope simmering on the proverbial back burner that Microsoft proves this rumor true. If not, well, you know the drill.

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Electronista’s gotten word that applications developed for the iPhone for free might not get the same review process as for-pay apps. In fact, there may be no review process at all for such apps. Applications that are developed with profit in mind must first clear Apple’s review process for inclusion into iTunes and then subjected to a profit-sharing model wherein Apple will take a percentage of each application sold.

By not restricting or subjecting free applications to the same review process, it’ll provide more incentive for developers to make stuff for the iPhone. Can you imagine spending a bunch of your free time on coding free software only to be told by Apple that they weren’t going to clear it for download? That’d really put a damper on things.

Source: Apple may not restrict free iPhone apps [Electronista]

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Edmodo says it’s going to be Twitter for teachers and students, with features like calendaring events that are tailored to the classroom. Personally, I think Twitter itself works just fine as the Twitter for teachers and students, but give edmodo a shot if you’re interested. They’re taking signups for the private beta now.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

The vast majority of people don’t really need heavyweight image editing applications like Photoshop or Aperture. Luckily, you can find a lot of great, online applications that’ll do just fine for some simple everyday photo editing tasks. Interestingly enough, although there’s a lot of competition in this space, we constantly see new apps sprouting everywhere. Therefore, we bring you seven apps you may have missed.
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What it does

NewsFeedJournal.com is a new service that will allow you to read only the stuff you are interested in reading. Here’s how it works: the service automatically aggregates feeds from around the world in different languages, which it gathers from diverse sources (newspapers, magazines, news portals, corporate sites, blogs, etc), and then sorts out those individual feeds into channels and microchannels, which is the feeds that users receive. Thus users have the additional benefit of receiving only the kinds of news they are interested in, but they also get to know other sources they might not be familiarized with, plus since the service is available in a variety of western languages, it will be very useful for a large and international audience as well.

In their own words

“This is an online newspaper that automatically gathers news headlines from all over the world, in different languages, from many sources (online versions of renowned publications, established websites, blogs, etc) - by using the RSS feeds provided by these sources -, groups the news by languages and topics and finally making them available to you in an organised manner thus making the reading of news that matter to you as easy as possible”.

Why it might be a killer

As RSS use becomes massive, it also becomes increasingly difficult to make it serve any interesting news. Thus a service like this one, which is both simple and effective, is a great way to get you in touch with the news you want to hear about, and at the same time present you with stuff you can possibly be interested in as well.

Some questions

Unlike similar aggregating services that are popping up everywhere, this one does not allow users to vote for the news they receive in order to keep getting similar stuff and avoid getting other kinds of news they are not interested to read. I don’t think NewsFeedJournal.com stands a big chance with a large audience unless it figures out some way to allow people to intervene in the feeds they receive. Will they be able to compete with similar services without these features?

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