Revver co-founder Oliver Luckett (on right in picture) and CTO Rob Maigret left Revver in a management shakeup in late 2006. By June 2007 they’d founded their new venture, Digisynd, based in Burbank, California. In May 2008 they raised a seed round of financing from Greycroft Ventures and Village Ventures. Digisynd has been deep in […]

Revver co-founder Oliver Luckett (on right in picture) and CTO Rob Maigret left Revver in a management shakeup in late 2006. By June 2007 they’d founded their new venture, Digisynd, based in Burbank, California. In Might 2008 they raised a seed round of financing from Greycroft Ventures and Village Ventures.

Digisynd has been deep in stealth mode, although we’ve been able to gather some basic details about them based on information from Greycroft’s site and a job listing from late 2007:

DigiSynd is an outsourced packaging, syndication, and marketing solution that enables digital studios and other content creators to get the most value out of their content online.

The company uses time-honored storytelling techniques and valuable lessons from traditional media, but applies them in a medium of on the internet communities, virtual experiences, interactivity and user-generated content.

That’s not much to go on. But rumor is the company has sold to Disney, months before the actual launch of the product. We’ve this from multiple sources, although the company won’t comment. Literally, in fact. When I cornered Luckett at the D6 conference yesterday and asked him about the deal he literally walked away from me. His VC, Dana Settle from Greycroft, pretended she didn’t hear my question the three times I asked her, and then also walked away. Sounds like a confirmation to me.

From what we have the ability to tell, the deal isn’t being done through the strike team Disney set up last year to do Internet based acquisitions, but is being led by someone else in the organization. More details as they emerge.

Credit to CNET for the picture above.

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By Andrew Liszewski Unless your ‘pool’ happens to be a lake or other massive body of water, I don’t understand why you’d need to have a speaker floating right next to you while you swim. Even a basic radio is loud enough to fill an entire backyard with music, so why add yet another item to […]

By Andrew Liszewski

Unless your ‘pool’ happens to be a lake or other big body of water, I don’t comprehend why you’d need to have a speaker floating right next to you while you swim. Even a basic radio is loud enough to fill an entire backyard with music, so why add yet another item to a pool that’s probably already overcrowded with inflatable toys? On the other hand, when it comes to buying gadgets who really needs to ask why? Particularly when this floating speaker can wirelessly connect to and stream from an iPod dock ensuring your MP3 player doesn’t have to go anywhere near the water. For some reason I can’t find any info about the range of the wireless signal (besides that it operates at 915MHz) so I’m going to assume it will accommodate an average sized pool or backyard.

It’s available from Brookstone for $129.95.

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By Andrew Liszewski So you really liked that Full Swing Golf Simulator we wrote about a few months ago, but don’t particularly feel like completely renovating your home just to have one installed. Well as long as you’ve a huge enough backyard, you can opt for this inflatable golf simulator setup from Eball Games instead. […]

By Andrew Liszewski

So you really liked that Full Swing Golf Simulator we wrote about a few months ago, but don’t particularly feel like absolutely renovating your home just to have one installed. Well as long as you’ve a big enough backyard, you can opt for this inflatable golf simulator setup from Eball Games instead. It also uses a massive projection screen and a series of sensors to detect the motion and speed of a real golf ball, which is then translated to a virtual ball on a 3D course. It’s no where near as portable as a Nintendo DS or a PSP, but since it’s inflatable, it collapses down to an easily transportable package. The simulator only works with woods and irons, so you won’t be able to practice your putting game, but it is weatherproof allowing you to play in all but the worst of storms.

[ Eball Inflatable Golf Simulator ] VIA [ Born Rich ]

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By Andrew Liszewski In my pre-iPhone days I went through a lot of cellphones, but the Nokia E61 probably holds the record for sticking around the longest. So although I now mostly only use an iPhone, I’ve been keeping an eye on what Nokia has been doing with their e-series handsets. While the E61i was […]

By Andrew Liszewski

In my pre-iPhone days I went through a lot of cellphones, but the Nokia E61 probably holds the record for sticking around the longest. So although I now mostly only use an iPhone, I’ve been keeping an eye on what Nokia has been doing with their e-series handsets. While the E61i was a marginal upgrade over the E61, it looks like the E71 is a considerably bigger step, at least in terms of design. The Boy Genius Report recently got their hands on one and have posted a review of their findings.

Overall they really like the phone, particularly the chrome finish and its thin form factor. While they weren’t a large fan of the smaller keyboard keys (when compared to the E61) they don’t feel it’s a deal breaker. In fact they go as far as to call the E71 the best phone Nokia has made to date, and it apparently puts the E61 to shame. Personally, I’m waiting to see what Google’s Android is like before I think about a new phone, but for those who like an actual keyboard (opposed to the iPhone’s virtual one) you might want to look into Nokia’s latest offering.

[ BGR - Nokia E71 Review ] VIA [ Gear Diary ]

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OpenSocial gained a new convert today. AOL is officially joining the initiative to standardize social-networking apps, Google VP of Engineering David Glazer announced today at the Google I/O event. TechCrunch’s Mark Hendrickson liveblogged the entire session, which just ended. From his notes: AOL joins OpenSocial this day. Their suite of products will support the […]

OpenSocial gained a new convert this day. AOL is officially joining the initiative to standardize social-networking apps, Google VP of Engineering David Glazer announced this day at the Google I/O event. TechCrunch’s Mark Hendrickson liveblogged the entire session, which just ended. From his notes:

AOL joins OpenSocial this day. Their suite of products will support the standard.

Not much more was mentioned. AOL, of course, purchased Bebo for $850 million, which is already part of OpenSocial. But Bebo is also integrated with the Facebook platform.

So is AOL just hedging its bets in the social network wars? Looks like it. With Facebook planning to open-source its platform, it will be interesting to see if AOL shows up as a partner for fbOpen as well.

Update: A post on the official OpenSocial Blog says that AOL’s first steps will be to implement Gadgets on myAOL.com. The post states that Gadgets should help developers create widgets that can be used on myAOL, as well as the web at massive.

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What if you could monitor the goods and raw materials that any company imports the day it crosses customs? At first glance ImportGenius, a startup out of Arizona, doesn’t sound particularly exciting: It’s a website that tracks the import/export activity at America’s shipping docks. But according to ImportGenius’s Managing Director Ryan Petersen, this […]

What if you could monitor the goods and raw materials that any company imports the day it crosses customs? At first glance ImportGenius, a startup out of Arizona, doesn’t sound particularly exciting: It’s a website that tracks the import/export activity at America’s shipping docks. But according to ImportGenius’s Managing Director Ryan Petersen, this is the first service of its kind, and one that has no shortage of potential applications.

Every shipping vessel that enters and leaves the United Says is required to submit shipping records that document its cargo. Most of these documents are a matter of public record - you could look up the information yourself if you wanted to. But there are millions of such documents submitted each year, with no searchable index, making the data practically useless.

Until now. ImportGenius has licensed import/export data form a number of sources (along with free sources like US Customs), which is added to a database that is updated daily. For a monthly fee ($99 for standard access, $250 for premium) users can search through the data, allowing them to identify criteria including the class of cargo, the company involved, and the point of origin.

When the site first launched six months ago, ImportGenius was primarily a tool for small importer/exporters that wanted to see what their competitors were up to. Rival companies could keep tabs on which factories were being used, or how much demand there was for a given product. While this market has taken off, there are a number of other possible (and more exciting) uses for the data.

Earlier this week ImportGenius examined Apple’s current shipping records to deduce that unusually large shipments of “electronic computers” (a classification that Apple has never used) have been arriving this spring. This isn’t exactly surprising, but it serves to make a good point: No matter how secretive a company is about its products, it still has to keep accurate shipping records.

Stock analysts have been keeping a close eye on the data - if they can establish a trend between revenues and imports, they could potentially evaluate a company’s earnings long before its quarterly press release (which could obviously turn the stock market on its head). Other companies have been using it to enforce copyright protection. Rather than simply attacking a criminal merchant of counterfeit goods, these companies can hunt down the factory where the goods originated. The data has also been used in a number of lawsuits.

We should note that this kind of data isn’t going to be useful for security purposes - the US Customs office has invested in a $15 Billion tracking system that (hopefully) leaves this one in the dust.

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By Andrew Liszewski They say if you build a superior mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door. But given the variety of alarm clocks available on the market, I think the real money is in finding new and unique ways to wake people up in the morning. Like this hanging alarm clock for […]

By Andrew Liszewski

They state if you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door. But given the variety of alarm clocks available on the market, I think the real money is in finding new and unique ways to wake people up in the morning. Like this hanging alarm clock for example. You attach the clock to your ceiling with the supplied cable so that it hangs just above your bed. Not so close that you’re going to hit it every time you roll over, but close enough to hit the buttons without having to reach too far.

When the alarm goes off in the morning (playing the theme from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind) you can simply reach up and hit the snooze button for some more shut eye. But that’ll also cause the alarm to climb up the cable 30cm every minute. So each time you hit the snooze button, that’s 30cm farther you’ll have to reach. Eventually the alarm will be so far that you’ve no choice but to physically get up to reach it, and at that point you’ll probably be wide awake.

You can find the Hanging Alarm Clock at Crazy About Gadgets for about $40.

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By Evan Ackerman Generally, I’m not much for baths. They take a while to get ready, it gets boring to just lie there, the water inevitably cools off, and when I get out I don’t feel especially clean. If I had a Red Diamond Bathtub, though, all of my problems would be solved and showers would […]

By Evan Ackerman

Generally, I’m not much for baths. They take a while to get ready, it gets boring to just lie there, the water inevitably cools off, and when I get out I don’t feel especially clean. If I had a Red Diamond Bathtub, though, all of my problems would be solved and showers would be a thing of the past and it would take me about 2 hours to get ready for work in the morning. This is a serious, serious bathtub. The first thing you’ll notice are the two waterproof HDTVs that pop up out of concealed side panels. There’s also an integrated Champagne holder, fully electronic controls (including automatic temperature hold), solid gold highlighting, and a whole bunch of Swarovski crystals leaded amorphous solids.

Want more? Okay, how about comfortable seating for two, four color LED mood lighting, an “electric self extracting hand-held shower unit,” variable intensity whirlpool and airpool jets, a continuous automatic water disinfection system, and a GSM module that lets you call the bathtub (!) and order up a bath with the temperature and water level of your choice from anywhere in the world.

For the ultimate in bathtub luxury, expect to pay somewhere around $47,000.

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Do you own a small fabricating plant in Taiwan? Do you’ve an engineering team of ten PhDs? Do you want to make small laptops? Has VIA got a deal for you. The VIA OpenBook reference design is not actually a product — it’s more of an idea. Because it is ostensibly open (the CAD […]

Do you own a small fabricating plant in Taiwan? Do you’ve an engineering team of ten PhDs? Do you want to make small laptops? Has VIA got a deal for you. The VIA OpenBook reference design isn’t actually a product — it’s more of an idea. Because it is ostensibly open (the CAD plans are available on the VIAOpenBook site) you simply purchase the chips from VIA and use the plans to build your own cases, keyboards, and I/O systems. What does this mean to you and me? Not much, unless we want to mill our own laptop parts out of plastic.

VIA isn’t really selling anything here other than its own motherboards and chips. The laptop portion is a bit of lip service to openness that corporations like to pay just to get their piece of the “open” mindshare. While the potential is there — mini laptops with powerful features hand-crafted by Cuban virgins out of sandalwood and jade come to mind — let’s just call this an advertisement for a mobile computing platform and leave it at that.

Read more…

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Fifth Generation Systems, the company behind social homepage creator Zude has taken $5.3 million Series B in a round that includes Irwin Lieber and Barry Rubenstein of Wheatley Partners, Persistency Capital, and Gund Investment. Zude offers a “social webpage network” that grants users to create their own personalized webpage from modules that hold personal content or […]

Fifth Generation Systems, the company behind social homepage creator Zude has taken $5.3 million Series B in a round that includes Irwin Lieber and Barry Rubenstein of Wheatley Partners, Persistency Capital, and Gund Investment.

Zude offers a “social webpage network” that allows users to create their own personalized webpage from modules that hold personal content or clips grabbed from the web. Each module can be placed anywhere on the canvas, edited, layered, and have its transparency adjusted.

As part of the deal, Dan Bricklin, co-creator of VisiCalc, and Barry Rubenstein of investment firm Wheatley Partners, will join the Fifth Generation Systems’ board of directors.

Roslyn Heights, NY based Fifth Generation Systems stated they would use with new round to accelerate product development and expand its user base.

Read our April 2007 review of Zude here.

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