If you haven’t yet checked out Prezi, one of the most innovative presentation tools I’ve ever seen, you’re totally missing out. Today, the young company behind the amazing product is (finally) launching the highly-anticipated Prezi for iPad (iTunes link), enabling users to show stunning live presentations straight from the tablet computer.

Right off the bat: we all know the iPad doesn’t support Flash, so not all existing presentations can be viewed in full if they contain Flash material such as videos. Apart from that, all presentations that were made in the past should be flawlessly viewable on the iPad.

As you can tell from the video below, Prezi for iPad is a great way to show someone a presentation on a touch-screen device, and the typical Prezi style fits hand gesturing (pinching, flipping, panning) on the iPad perfectly. At launch, it isn’t possible to effectively create and edit presentations from the app, but I’m told that this will likely be coming later.

Prezi has many organizations using its product, from the World Economic Forum to Stanford University and at companies such as Facebook, IBM and Google. The startup has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from TED Conferences and Sunstone Capital, and counts Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey among its advisors.

The company, which has offices in Budapest, Hungary and San Francisco, has attracted over 1.85 million registered users since its launch in April 2009. The company boasts users from 220 countries, but the United States is the biggest market for them, followed by Europe and Asia.

Over the past several months, there’s been a shift happening in the Bay Area. Whereas a lot of startups used to be centrally located in actual Silicon Valley, near the tech giants, Stanford, and the venture capitalists, they’re increasingly moving north, to the city of San Francisco. (Technically, TechCrunch was one of those startups, we moved to the city in June from Palo Alto.) So it should be no surprise that a number of incubators are popping up in the city. But Founders Den, which is opening its doors today, is attempting to be a bit different.

Founders Den isn’t actually an incubator at all. Instead, it’s a shared office/club for entrepreneurs — all types of entrepreneurs, from experienced ones who have sold companies, to those just starting out. The idea is for them to all come together in this new, large 8,500 square foot space in the SoMa area of San Francisco. We got a chance to tour the place last week — it’s very, very nice (check out the video below).

But it’s a private club. You have to be invited to join. The idea there is so it’s a comfortable environment for all those who are there.

So who is there?

Well the Founders Den is the brainchild of four entrepreneurs: Jason Johnson, Jonathan Abrams, Michael Levit, and Zachary Bogue. Given the amount of experience between the four (and they’re all working on new startups themselves), they were able to pull together an impressive list of advisors who will also regularly be in the Den. These include people like Drew Houston, Elad Gil, Ethan Beard, Gil Penchina, James Hong, Jay Adelson, Justin Kan, Keith Rabois, Michael Birch, Michael Marquez, Philip Kaplan, Rick Marini, Rusty Rueff, Shervin Pishevar, and Tim Ferriss.

This is the perfect spot for a joke about the Founders Den having more Angels than Heaven.

The Den will also feature four initial sponsors: DLA Piper, Norwest Venture Partners, SecondMarket, and Turnstone/Steelcase. Each of these companies are free to come and go from the Den as they please as well. The money they contribute to the Den will go towards paying the rent and putting on events.

But the key to the Founders Den may the actual startups that are able to get inside. Already, there are ten such pre-launch startups that have moved in and are working in the space:

• Bionic Panda
• DotCloud
• Inporia
• iSpeech
• JungleCents
• OpenAppMkt
• ProximityWare
• Rethink Books
• Revel Systems
• Spigot

Each came by way of referral from the network of the individuals listed above. That’s how you get in: referral. There’s no strict application process — someone with clout in the Founders Den just has to vouch for you.

And if you get in, you’ll have about 6 months to work on your startup while paying a low rent and getting access to all the amenities: the space, the people, and the events. Typically, startups working out of the Founders Den will be post-seed funding but working on raising their first proper round. And while there is no formal funding policy, with that many angels regularly hanging around, you can bet there will be a lot of action going on.

Learn more in our video below.

Jules: “Well you know the 3D HD channels on TV?”
Vincent Vega: “I don’t watch TV.”
Jules: “Well, the way they make the Penthouse 3D HD channels is, they make one show with a dual-lensed camera. That show’s called a 3D porno. Then they show that show to the people who make 3D pornos, and on the strength of that one 3D porno they decide if they’re going to make more 3D porno. Some 3D pornos get picked and become 3D television pornos. Some don’t, become nothing.”

PR after the jump.

Three weeks ago, Foursquare updated its iPhone app to include the ability to upload photos with check-ins. Around that time Foursquare competitor Gowalla hit the one million milestone after nine months of including a photo uploading feature. It looks like it has taken Foursquare less than one month to reach that milestone, according to a Tweet sent out by the company this morning.

Foursquare hit one million photos over the weekend but it’s unclear who posted the one millionth photo. The fact that the startup hit the milestone so quickly is not surprising, considering that Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley said in late December that the network was approaching one photo uploaded per second. One factor that has contributed to this traction is that Foursquare launched their photo functionality with a number of popular partners including Instagram, PicPlz, and Foodspotting. The photo uploading functionality was also added to its Android app.

To put this number in perspective, Flickr recently hit 5 billion photos and are seeing 3,000 images uploaded every minute.

Khush, a startup that develops music applications, has raised a new round of funding from Dave McClure’s 500 Startups, angel investor Yee Lee, and Georgia Tech ATDC VentureLab. The startup declined to reveal how much money was raised in the round.

Co-founded by Prerna Gupta (you can read her recent TechCrunch guest post here), Khush develops an artificial intelligence technology that helps people make music. The company’s first product LaDiDa, which costs $2.99 on the App Store, is essentially a "reverse karaoke" iOS app. Similar to TechCrunch Disruprt finalist Ujam, LaDiDa allows users to sing a song and then will remix the users’s voice, add beats, and background music to create a professional sounding track.

LaDiDa's demonstration videos have received over 65 million views on YouTube, and the app has been in the Top 10 Paid Music Apps list in iTunes since May 2010. Over 5 million songs have been created in less than one year on the App Store and LaDiDa has been downloaded 270,000 times since last May. And Gupta says that the company is now profitable.

Gupta says that LaDiDa is hoping to differentiate itself as more of an entertainment product as opposed to a music production software. And the app’s key userbase is focused on the 13-17 year old market. Gupta adds that the funding will be used towards product development, with the startup planning to launch new apps in the next few months.

We’re all back at home this morning and I’ve been mulling over best of show all weekend. While we could take our love of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Minis to its obvious conclusion, considering that the candies eventually and inevitably turn into a sloppy mess when you hold them in your hand too long, we decided against it. Instead, we’ve chosen the unique and decidedly game-changing Motorola Atrix.

First, let me state that it was slim pickings out there. The show was, at best, a placeholder. Many of the major company events were actual snores (if you watched our live stream, you’d have seen that LG whipped out a fridge and washer combo and talked about Six Sigma for a bit, always a crowd-pleaser) and the only exciting event was the Motorola launch of the Xoom Honeycomb tablet and an odd phone that shouldn’t have captured our imaginations but definitely did: the Atrix.

Read more…

Nothing speaks to the hearts, minds (and stomachs) of young, urban men than endless rib dinners. Last week, Bro-zine Thrillist launched Thrillist Rewards, a weekly deals site aimed at its audience of city-dwelling males. The top deal is a $29 “Endless Ribs And Beer” meal (normally $55) at Hill Country Barbecue in New York City. It has already sold more than $25,000 worth of these rib dinners, and Thrillist only sent the deal via email to a fraction of its most loyal readers. There are still 8 days to go until the deal expires. Other deals include 55 percent off custom men’s shirts and street fighting lessons.

“We were expecting to start slow and see if there was any appetite for this but it turns out we’re onto something big,” says Thrillist CEO Ben Lerer, “or so it seems. For now rewards will be once a week in NYC with multiple deals delivered at a time, some which we think will drive significant revenue and some which we think will be more about access to exclusive offerings that only Thrillist can secure (with our deep local relationships that have been built over the course of the last 5 years). Plus they’ll all be targeted to our guys, who we obviously know very, very well.”

With Thrillist Rewards, Lerer is moving his online media company more into commerce, a trend he first tried last year when he bought JackThreads, a group-buying site for dudes. Thrillist Rewards will bring deals from restaurants and retailers directly to the Thrillist audience. Thrillist typically takes a 30 to 50 percent cut of each deal. If it works out, Lerer will expand to other cities soon.

It’s official: the automotive press loves General Motor’s Chevy Volt as it walks away from the NAIAS as the North American International Car of the Year. The don’t-call-it-an-extended-range EV essentially sweep 2010′s consumer automotive awards, earning the top spot as Motor Trend’s 2011 Car of the Year, Green Car Journal’s 2011 Green Car of the Year, Automobile’s 2011 Automobile of the Year, and placing among the top ten in both Car and Driver’s and Ward’s AutoWorld’s 10 best of the year. So yeah, GM built a winner with the Volt.

The Chevy Volt’s story started out a short three years ago as a rolling concept and then quickly, it became clear that GM was dead serious about this car. Development timelines were beat and concepts shown-off. They even let us drive one of the engineering test mules in 2009 to show that yes, they had this thing on lock-down.

Read More

Saul Klein is a partner at European VC firm Index Ventures, previously worked for Skype, co-founded Video Island and is founder of Seedcamp. In this guest post he responds to recent posts by TechCrunch US writer Paul Carr regarding the position of London as a startup hub.

Back in July 2009 we wrote about a Y Combinator-funded startup called FlightCaster that looks to help you predict flight delays — before the airline even tells you about them. The service looks at air traffic, weather, and a variety of other factors to predict these delays, and the early warning can be very helpful if you need to book a different flight.

Today, the startup is announcing that it’s been acquired by Next Jump, a large company that powers reward programs for 90,000 companies, including MasterCard’s MarketPlace. That seems like a strange fit given FlightCaster’s original mission, but things make a bit more sense when you look at what FlightCaster has been up to in the last year.

In a blog post announcing the news, FlightCaster says that while it’s been working on improving its flight delay predictions, it’s also been hammering away behind the scenes on a different problem: saving people money on their flights:

The biggest item in production over the last year is an engine for travel discounts. We realized early in 2010 that helping travelers and businesses save on travel is as important as helping them get to their destination on-time. As we really dug into this space, we met the team at Next Jump and were blown away about their insights into discounts.

Note that despite the apparently different focus, Next Jump has indeed acquired FlightCaster’s technology (as well as most of its team). The price of the deal wasn’t disclosed. FlightCaster’s existing service will remain available on FlightCaster.com, and the company is also making its mobile applications (which were previously paid apps) free.

Flightcaster had raised a total of $800,000.

Klout, a startup that measures influence on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, has raised $8.5 million in new funding led by the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer recently launched sFund with participation from Greycroft Partners. Angel investors, including ff Asset Management, Paige Craig, Howard Lindzon, Thomas McInerney, Bobby Yazdani, Shervin Pishevar, and others also participated in the round. This investment brings Klout's funding to more than $10 million. Kleiner partner Bing Gordon will join Klout’s board of directors.

Klout, which markets itself as a “standard for influence” on the web, evaluates Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook users’ behavior with complex ranking algorithms and semantic analysis of content to measure the influence of individuals and topics around the web. On Twitter, Klout's influence score is based on a user's ability to drive action through Tweets, ReTweets and more. On Facebook, Klout will examine how conversations and content generate interest and engagement, via likes, comments, and more, from the network's 500 million-plus users.

The company also offers an API, which has become popular among social media applications to give users a picture of how influential Twitter and Facebook users are. As of last year, over 1250 startups were using Klout’s API.

Klout says that it will use the new funding to hire more engineers and to add more services beyond Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to the Klout algorithm.

Playboy Enterprises, the world-famous adult entertainment and media company, is to “go private” again.

The media company, which of course publishes the Playboy magazine but also runs an Internet business segment called Playboy Online, alongside TV and radio networks, will be taken private for $6.15 per share by Icon Acquisition Holdings.

The latter is a limited partnership controlled by iconic Playboy Enterprises founder Hugh Hefner (who also just got engaged, hurray!). Playboy originally went public in 1971.

The $6.15 price represents a 18.3% premium over the closing price Friday, January 7, and a 56.1% premium over the closing price on July 9, 2010, the last trading day before the proposal was first announced.

Icon Acquisition Holdings has obtained equity commitments for the transaction from an affiliate of Rizvi Traverse Management and a debt commitment for the transaction from affiliates of Jefferies & Company.

Playboy CEO Scott Flanders will remain with the company in his current position and maintain a significant equity investment in Playboy. He says the strategy is to transform the struggling Playboy into a full-fledged brand management company:

“This transaction will advance our efforts by strengthening our balance sheet and streamlining our operations, while creating opportunities to participate in new ventures. I am excited about the future, and I look forward to working with our new partners as we guide Playboy into the next era.”

More details on the transaction are available in the press release.

Hearst Interactive Media, early investors in companies like Pandora, Netscape and Local.com, has taken the lead in a $3 million round of funding for VillageVines, a startup that offers member discounts at upscale restaurants in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other major cities in the United States.

The media company’s interactive arm led the round, which follows a $750,000 round seed funding round, with GrandBanks Capital and High Peaks Venture Partners participating.

VillageVines says it will use the investment to scale its operations across the country, hire key staff, increase its marketing efforts and establish more affiliate agreements.

People can sign up for VillageVines to gain access to a curated selection of ‘exclusive’ restaurants, book reservations online and score discounts that are discreetly applied to their bills without needing to show a coupon – the startup says discounts are generally 30 percent off the entire meal, including drinks.

The company claims it has already generated over half a million dollars of sales for their restaurant partners in December 2010 alone.

London-based m8 Capital has announced its latest investment: leading a $4.2 million round in SCHAD, which produces mobile technology to enable engineers to remotely access, monitor and manage company plants, systems and facilities. The German company's customers include Ford, BASF, Vanderlande Industries, FRoSTA, Deutsche Lufthansa, Volkswagen and the Airports of Cologne Bonn, Munich and Berlin. Original seed investor High-Tech Gründerfonds has also participated in the round, although an exact break down remains elusive. SCHAD represents the third investment for m8, the majority-owned affiliate of AGC Equity Partners that targets mobile startups and technology. In June 2010, it invested $800k in the location-based startup Rummble, while more recently $2 million was put into Masabi, which develops mobile ticketing technology for the transport sector.

Today sees the launch of Quickish, a near-realtime micro-news recommendation service founded by former Associated Content Vice President and ESPN.com ‘Daily Quickie’ writer Dan Shanoff.

Considering Shanoff’s background, it’s no surprise that the first category Quickish is launched for today is sports.

News recommendation services are plenty, and they all try to crack a similar nut: getting news updates more rapidly in front of people who are likely to be interested in them. Quickish is no different, yet, as the name implies, recommendations for online news items are shared quickly but decidedly not instantaneously.

That’s because Quickish shuns automated systems and relies on editor-vetted news recommendations, which are nonetheless delivered at modern media consumption speed.

In Shanoff’s words:

"People have made it clear how they want to stay updated: fast. Quick to know something happened, quick to access the best of what is being said, quick to consume, quick to recognize if something is worth their time. Quickish is built for them."

Quickish is built on editor-curated quick bits of news, analysis and insight, generally referred to as “tips”. As topics surface (a relevant one right now would be bcs but it could be anything that’s trending), all incoming stories are evaluated by Quickish editors prior to publication.

The actual source of relevant news items can be anything from someone on Twitter to TV, to Tumblr, to talk-radio, including user referrals and original content, and content is swiftly published into an easy-to-follow stream. It looks great on mobile phones and tablets, fwiw.

Unlike news aggregators such as Techmeme, the stream of news is chronological and only links to a single news source instead of multiple, which would let people discover different takes on a topic. Like Techmeme however, people can tip Quickish on stories on Twitter or by email and get credited for the heads up on the site.

As mentioned earlier, Quickish is kicking things off today with sports but plans to expand into more categories in the second half of 2011.

It took a bit longer than we thought, but the inevitable has happened: blueTunes is calling it quits.

A message posted on the website reads:

We have decided to pursue other opportunities and will be shutting down our service on January 31, 2011.
Thanks for supporting us and for all you’ve done.

In an email to users, blueTunes founders Nick Alexander and Andrew First acknowledge that, after two years, the service will cease to operate at the end of the month. All user data will be deleted, but anyone who wants to download their data before that happens is invited to get in touch with them.

BlueTunes let you scan your hard drive for music files and upload them to the site's servers, after which you could stream your music from wherever you are.

The startup’s technology, which it said was patent-pending, was able to match uploaded music files against a user network-wide database for existing copies of an album or track in order to speed up the file uploading process.

BlueTunes was originally launched in September 2008, earning a critical review from Mike Arrington, in which he predicted the demise of the service because the music industry tends to sue companies who try their hand at something like this into oblivion.

As far as I know, this is not what happened here, but First and Alexander do say that they are “unable to continue supporting blueTunes in its current form”.

I’ve requested more details on the shutdown, and how popular the service had become in the past two years, but I’m still waiting to hear back.

Either way, the story of blueTunes ends here, although the uploading technology could potentially prove to be an asset some companies would be interested in acquiring.

Good news for Europeans and those U.S. users (perhaps as many as 30,000) of music streaming service Spotify. In a similar deal to the one signed last year with Sonos, users will soon be able to listen to streaming Spotify music through their Logitech devices. That means being able to listen to music files stored on any computer in your home as well as Spotify, and other music services you might subscribe to.

Guest author Semil Shah is an entrepreneur interested in digital media, consumer Internet, and social networks. This will be the first in a series of essays on Quora that he will post on TechCrunch. Shah is based in Palo Alto and you can follow him on twitter @semilshah

The incredible growth of Quora has also led to an equally incredible growth in chatter, punditry, and analysis about the future of social networking. The opinions range from thought-provoking ("the knowledge network comes online") to routine ("the new form of blogging") to flatly illogical ("this is the next Twitter, Foursquare, or Wikipedia"). In reality, the elements of discovery, serendipity, and search that dovetail seamlessly  from the Quora product have captured the imagination of its users (myself included) and have placed the company in a rare, enviable position. During these types of growth periods and transitions, though, some like to sound off, using their blogs, Twitter accounts, and Quora itself to beg for new features, complain about the quality of their experience, and to make predictions that do not take stock of history nor the current context. There is significant hype around Quora, but I believe it's warranted. As a I result, I’ve attempted to produce a synthesis of the questions swirling around the rise of Quora and to offer answers to them, too. These answers are my own, but of course, you could peruse the Quora topic or specific related questions below on Quora to answer them yourself.

Q: How is Quora different from the other 20+ companies that have attempted Q&A?

A: Only a handful of sites have Q&A features that offer both producers (contributors) and consumers (readers, voters) of content an incentive to craft, establish, and shape an identity. Where others have tried and failed, such as Yahoo! Answers and Ask.com, and where some like Facebook Questions, LinkedIn Questions, Stack Overflow, Kommons, and Namesake, have successfully tied user identity to the act of Q&A, Quora may be positioned to travel slightly further in this race, if it hasn't done so already. For instance, users on LinkedIn may think twice about posing or answering sensitive questions, given many employers will look at their profiles. Kommons allows users to publicly direct questions at specific Twitter accounts, where answers are not editable. Namesake has a nice threaded conversation feature, though they seem focused on niche networks and talent search. It's a big opportunity and many of these sites will fill various needs quite well. While these other sites create separate verticals across topics or people, Quora seems less concerned about protected silos and more interested in fostering communities that consist of a blend of broad and deep domain knowledge across an interconnected network of topics and subtopics. If organized correctly, the information contributed to and categorized on Quora could not only result in the best Q&A site ever, but it may also transform into a new type of search engine and destination for information.

Quora question: How is Quora different than X?

Q: Could Facebook Questions render Quora obsolete?

A: Theoretically, yes. Thousands of startups investigate countless opportunities to engage with Facebook users around a variety of activities, and here Quora is no different, though their mission is large, relative to others. While Facebook has its Questions feature, the types of questions posed on Quora, the types of users who answer those questions, and the high level of interaction among users through comments and messaging would be very hard for Facebook to replicate in the short-term because Facebook users are engaging in hundreds of different social networking activities, where the thought of a Q&A dialog may only be of fleeting importance. Additionally, the topic ontology in Facebook is very general compared to the more nuanced set of topics, sub-topics, and cross-referenced topics in Quora. With a new enormous round of funding, Facebook seems poised to go after ideas that will move the needle for them, such as mobile and breaking through in new countries. Finally, Quora users may feel more comfortable interacting around questions and answers away from their personal Facebook accounts, where they can maintain more control over their brand and privacy.

Quora topic: Quora vs. Facebook Questions

Q: As Quora grows, will it be able to maintain its campfire atmosphere?

A: Some serious and casual Quora users worry about how the volume and tone of interaction may change as the service adds more users. This was put to a test in December, as follower accounts increased, along with activity on the site. Some observers believe that the genie is out of the bottle, and that the rush of new users will result in a deterioration in the quality level of questions and answers and that Quora may no longer provide them with the knowledge they seek to consume. This will auto-correct over time. In the long-run, the true, lasting value of Quora is built on two key pillars: (1) authentication of user identity and (2) the interest graph. First, as of right now (and hopefully it stays this way), only real people can follow you on Quora. That is very different than the spammy bots that troll on Twitter. When I signed up, I had to connect through my Facebook account, and this helps me reduce any noise in my Quora stream. Second, by allowing me to follow both individuals and topics, Quora has a very good sense of what my contribution and consumption interests are, much more so than Facebook. By understanding my interests and allowing me to shape my experience through that additional filter, Quora's architecture creates an environment where I can accumulate relevant knowledge very quickly. The campfire can burn bright so long as users continue to place a premium on positive, thoughtful interaction, where the quality of contributions always outpaces of the quantity of contributions. Of course, there will always be people who try to game the system.

Quora question: How will the quality of Quora crowd-sourced content scale over time?

Q: Will Quora users continue to have an incentive to contribute content?

A: There are segments of users on Quora. Some choose to only consume information by following certain people or topics. They may or may not send any signals, such as up-voting or down-voting content. Few will ask questions, and fewer will comment on answers and engage in a dialog. All of this interaction is possible because of the free work of a small subset of users who generously ask and/or answer questions through their contributions. While a rational economist may disagree, I believe this trend will not only continue but actually grow because Quora has tapped into a strong behavioral tendency. Those who contribute content to Quora do so because, in exchange for their contribution, Quora gives them the chance to establish a brand, reputation, and areas of expertise. There are no promises, though, and the crowd can shoot you down, but that opportunity is enough for users with knowledge to risk their time in the hopes of learning something new and making meaningful connections in the future.

Quora question: As Quora usage grows, is contribution quality affected?

Q: Is Quora overvalued, and will it make money?

A: No, and Yes. About a year ago, Quora's funding from Benchmark Capital turned heads until alpha and beta users witnessed first-hand the quality of the experience the site created for them. That investment was prescient. With the surge of users in December 2010, Quora, on its own and with its strong engineering and design team, could have justified a much, much higher valuation given the current climate. In terms of turning into a business, Quora is in the luxurious position of not having to worry about that issue for some time. The growth of the site, relative to the cost of constructing it, has given its small team a longer runway to tackle those sorts of endeavors. Quora has signaled in the future that some of this may involve advertising, but there are many other ways which the site could be at the center of important online activity, which I'll touch on within in later posts. In the meantime, keep in mind that Quora has a very good idea of what interests its users have, and that is very, very valuable knowledge.

Quora question: How much is Quora worth and why?

Q: Does Quora deserve all the press it receives, including TechCrunch?

A: The simple answer is "yes." On the surface, Quora’s user growth itself is newsworthy. Peeling back that layer, the quality of content from those contributing is surprisingly high. It's one thing for a celebrity business person or technologist to use Twitter. It's an entirely different atmosphere when one writes a thoughtful, public, detailed answer for a built-in audience to a question that someone else posed. It is in these rare but powerful instances when the site becomes a true quorum. At a deeper level, nearly everyone and every entity— individuals, the press, and eventually, those that work on behalf of brands, companies, and political issues—can inevitably become interconnected in a symbiotic information relationship, where the mutual meeting place is Quora.

Quora question: TechCrunch seems to be pimping Quora. Is there some relationship between the two companies?

As the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show wraps up today, we’d like to share a few secrets. The CrunchGear writing team, with support from TechCrunch TV, provided more than 20 hours of live CES video coverage, taking our viewers right to the industry and media access only exhibit floor. For a look at video highlights, check out ces.crunchgear.com. Hundreds of Twitter questions were answered in real-time, giving our viewers a chance to interact with the company reps and win some giveaways. We also got a lot of questions on how we did it.

The traditional, old-school way of broadcasting a live event would involve driving up a satellite truck with a C or Ku band transmitter. Or, getting a special expensive video fiber circuit connected at the venue. But, that would only allow a video feed from a single location. Otherwise we’d need multiple circuits or time to drive and set-up the sat truck at different locations.

We wanted to stream at a moments notice, from the Sands Expo during CES Unveiled and the following Media Day, from the inside and outside the Las Vegas Convention Center, and from hotel parties and events all over the Las Vegas Strip. Plus, we wanted to roam the halls without any wired connection. We investigated some RF and microwave transmitter options but they involved great expense and production limitations. We finally settled on a mobile streaming solution, with a backup ‘nearly live’ wired solution. We never needed to resort to the taped backup.

We used a LiveU mobile package provided by our live streaming partner, Ustream. The livepack fits in a custom designed backpack. It takes a firewire input containing video and audio from a camera. We used our Panasonic HVX200a camera and some wireless microphones and a camera LED light. The livepack has 6 data modems and attempts to connect to 3 different mobile phone networks (ATT, Verizon, and Sprint). The signal is put back together by LiveU and then sent to Ustream for live streaming distribution.

Giving the bandwidth issues to be expected when 125,000 (Update: CES now says 140,000) tech savvy people get together in one place, we had some concerns that the technology would work. Those concerns grew when we tried un-successfully to use our mobile phones. But, with its 6 modems, the livepack was able to get a connection 95% of the time. The bandwidth was constantly changing. During the best times, we were getting more than 1Mbps upstream. At a few locations, such as the lower level of the Sands Expo Center during CES Media Day, and inside of few of the exhibitors private conference rooms, we weren’t able enough bandwidth. So, the stream froze, stuttered, or turned into audio only at times.

On the livepack, we chose the small CIF video window setting. While a sacrifice to quality, this allowed for more consistent streaming performance. Ustream distributed an encoded feed at 400k, with a 480×270 window and h.264 video. We didn’t get any viewer complaints about the video image quality.

Batteries and battery planning was key. The livepack has an internal battery and also runs on hot swappable external batteries. We got about 2 hours on a full external battery and carried lots of spares. We also had lots of camera batteries (not hot-swappable), wireless mic, and LED light batteries.

Most of the time, the system worked way above our expectations. But, we did have 2 other non-transmission issues. The camera connects to the livepack using a firewire plug. Not the best, robust connection. Even taped down, that came loose a few times, but there is a monitor screen on the pack that alerted us to the problem.

One night, the pack wouldn’t start up. A quick call to the phone number on the pack for LiveU at 10pm Eastern Time, helped us confirm a hardware problem, most likely a loose circuit board. We had just carried it for miles on a busy convention floor. A gentle nudge got the livepack working again. But, we weren’t ready to trust it, and used a backup wired solution for coverage from a fixed location that night. But with another day of coverage coming up with miles of walking the halls, Ustream rushed us a new livepack overnight, and we were up and running on Friday.

The LiveU livepack we used has been out on the market for a year and a half. It’s used by streaming video providers Ustream and Livestream, in addition to broadcast networks. It’s been used at all kinds of sports event and the Grammy Awards. A new HD livepack started shipping last week. It contains 6 to 12 cellular connections (including T-Mobile), and supports Verizon LTE 4G and Sprint and ClearWire WiMax 4G. The new units also feature SDI, HDMI, and analog input, in addition to FireWire. And they output SD and HD to 1080i.

Even with our 1st generation livepack, we succeeded in our mission to bring CES directly to our viewers. Our viewers got to hear about dozens of new TVs, phones, tablets, cameras and headphones plus interviews with the CEO of Ford and T-Pain. And behind the scenes previews of the RED Scarlet, the Notion Ink Adam tablet, and Microsoft’s Surface V2. And they got a chance to see what it’s like to drive around in GM’s EN-V futuristic car.

They also got an honest look at CES, warts and all. They saw when we didn’t get into the Samsung event on Media Day, after waiting in a Disneyland size line. And they came along to several booths where no one wanted to talk to us or our viewers even though the booth representatives were standing there talking with other convention visitors. Our viewers gave us instant feedback on what they were seeing, which booths to see, and even some help when we got lost. All in all, quite the interactive, front row, video experience.

Uh oh, AT&T.

It’s looking very, very, very, very likely that the event Verizon is holding on Tuesday morning in New York City is all about unveiling a CDMA iPhone that will work on the carrier’s network. And for those of us who have long suffered and struggled with AT&T’s network to be able to use the iPhone (particularly those of us in cities like San Francisco and New York) this is basically Christmas all over again. And in typical Apple fashion, there may be a nice little “one more thing” — but it likely comes compliment of Verizon.

Not only does Verizon seem poised to unveil an iPhone, it looks like they’ll do so with the option for unlimited data plans. This is something AT&T killed off last year, smartly disguising it as a better short-term deal for most customers. Of course, the reality is that the data caps are actually a long term play to help preserve their struggling network and more importantly, make more money.

But Verizon isn’t ready to go in that direction, apparently. At least, not yet.

Yesterday, Reuters cited an unnamed source says that Verizon will offer the iPhone to its customers with their existing wireless service plans. Today, the Wall Street Journal further clarified that the Verizon iPhone will in fact offer an unlimited data plan, citing “a person familiar with the matter”.

AppleInsider has a nice breakdown of what this actually means. While the core talk-time and text plans are largely the same on the two networks (though AT&T has rollover minutes), AT&T no longer offers unlimited data plans. Instead their highest data plan is 2 gigabytes for $25 a month. After those 2 gigs, each additional gig is $10. Verizon, meanwhile, if the plans do stay the same, will offer unlimited data for a flat $30 fee.

That’s the same unlimited data fee that AT&T used to offer until they castrated it in June. The timing of the move was curious as it was right before the iPhone 4 launched exclusively with AT&T in the U.S. In other words, they got millions of customers locked into the new plans for at least two years (though previous customers were allowed to keep their existing plans). Oh, and in another bit of curious timing, AT&T also managed to up their early termination fee right before all these new contracts were signed. Imagine that. That move couldn’t have been related to what’s about to happen on Tuesday, right? Sure…

And there’s more. Not only are the standard data rates much better on Verizon, but the tethering plan is better. Currently, AT&T gives you the option to use tethering on your iPhone, but it will cost you $45 a month (your $25 data plus an extra $20 to tether) and it counts against your same 2 GB cap. Verizon, meanwhile, offers tethering for $30 extra but they give you 5 GB of data to use exclusively for tethering with that money. In other words, it’s more expensive, but a much better deal because your AT&T 2 GB data cap will be eaten into quickly by your actual iPhone usage.

Assuming all of this information is accurate, this looks very, very bad for AT&T. It looks like the larger network that is perceived to be superior is not only taking their crown jewel, they’re kicking them in the nuts while they do it. It looks as if Verizon is confident that they’ll be able to handle the iPhone’s huge data traffic surge, whereas AT&T has already proven that they could not and altered their plans accordingly.

Let me pre-emptively include AT&T’s undoubtedly forthcoming spin here. Something like: “Customers are delighted by our data plans that are $5 cheaper than they previously were — and the data cap doesn’t matter because the vast majority of them never hit the 2 GB cap.” Let me then once again pre-emptively call bullshit on such a claim. Sure, most customers may not hit the 2 GB cap now, but everyone is continuing to use more and more data. As a result, more and more people will start to hit that wall in the coming months and years. And that means one thing for AT&T: more $ on overage charges.

Of course, the big picture is that Verizon is also still a greedy carrier. While their data plans may look good right now, they’re already said to be looking into the idea of capping them as well. And don’t be surprised if that happens sooner rather than later.

Still, for this initial iPhone launch at least, it’s looking like Verizon will be a big, red rose in bloom. As AT&T withers.

Update: AT&T has written to clarify that any customer with a previous contract can choose to keep it even after upgrading to a new device, so I’ve updated some of the wording there. The key point is intact: new customers don’t have the choice of getting an unlimited plan on AT&T, and they do on Verizon.

AT&T also wishes to point out that Verizon raised their ETF first. We still find the timing right before iPhone 4 launch suspicious.

Instagram is no doubt the latest rage in photo sharing, recently crossing one million users after less three months of being open to the public. While the company is planning to open up its API in the near future, one developer has built a nifty new app on top of Instragram that has a roulette type of feature to access photos created and published via Instagram’s iPhone app.

Called Instagram Shuffle (http://instagram.tk/), the web site displays photos uploaded to Twitter using Instagram in real time. Every time you refresh the page (or click on Shuffle) a new image published by an Instagram user appears. It’s important to note that Instagram Shuffle does not include photos that were not posted to Twitter via the Instagram app (users can also post photos to Facebook and Flickr).

So why is this interesting? The photos taken by Instagram users tend to be fairly artistic and visually appealing thanks to the photosharing app’s many filters. For anyone who doesn’t own an iPhone and wants to check out what Instagram can do with photos, this site is definitely an interesting resource.

As the developer tells us: “Instagram users can find new friends on Instagram Shuffle,and non-users can see what all the fuss is about.”

One thing’s for sure-I’m looking forward to seeing what innovative web and mobile apps developers come up with when Instagram does release its API.

Daniel Raffel is a former Yahoo product manager and a newbie entrepreneur. A year ago we asked him to write a guest post telling us about his favorite new products, projects and features of 2009. The post below is an updated list of his favorite new geek stuff from 2010.

Looking back at 2010, I’m particularly struck by the quantity and quality of new projects that launched. Just when I thought I had time to start reflecting on the year another project popped up onto my radar! And then another. And another! I count myself lucky to be working in an industry with so much creativity and energy.

As I started assembling a list of launches from 2010 that caught my eye, I grouped them into the categories I used last year: New Products and Services, New Projects, Feature Updates, and Mobile Apps. Rather than restrict myself to an arbitrary number for each category, I decided once again to list all the things that stood out to me. This list is an admittedly subjective batch. or instance, like last year you'll notice I am clearly interested in specific trends: games, geo services, HTML5, identity, mobile, music, news, social updates, and web development.. I’d love to hear what exciting developments you discovered in 2010!

New Products/Services

Apple Airplay, iBooks, iPad, Magic Trackpad

My iPad can just about always be found in my backpack. While it’s probably more of a guilty pleasure than a necessary device, I’ve found so many use cases for it that it’s hard to imagine giving it up now. Adoption was definitely assisted by the fact that my 2nd generation Kindle died shortly after my iPad arrived. iPad sales blew analyst expectations out of the market and at the end of the year there’s still no real competition. It’s looking a lot like the iPhone playbook from 2007 all over again. While the screen on an iPad is nowhere near as readable as a Kindle the introduction of iBooks gave consumers another outlet for purchasing and consuming their favorite reading materials. The Magic Trackpad hooked me enough that I bought one for my desk at home and work. I’ve gone all in on adopting a variety of trackpad friendly gestures. Approximately six months in I haven’t missed using a mouse. Airplay introduces easy ways to share media content from one Apple device to another, it’s super handy around the house. Erica Sadun has taken things a logical step further and created AirPlayer and AirFlick which do a few extra things you can’t with Airplay.

Bagcheck / Fancy / Pinterest / Svpply

Each of these services deserves to be reviewed in their own right and I regret not doing each of them their proper justice because they are certainly not the same. But there’s a theme that’s undeniable when they’re grouped together: people enjoy using services that enable them to share objects that they love!

Blippy / Swipely

In the search for data sets and industries that hadn’t yet been disrupted by social elements, both of these companies appeared to stumble upon the same controversial, general idea with slight twists. While neither has compelled me to publicly share my purchasing data, I think they’re exploring interesting areas and someone will figure out something awesome in this space. Note: Blippy launched in 12/2009.

Boxee Box

The Boxee Box reminds me a bit of the Nexus One: it’s a very good, controlled demonstration of the power of the platform. Like Android it’s still easy to stumble on use cases that need work, but what’s there today greatly simplifies the way I consume, discover and share digital media. I’m very excited to keep watching them refine their offering and continue to get even better at what they’re doing. BTW the UI is total eye candy.

CloudApp / Droplr

Both of these services make it simple to share content from the cloud, such as images, links, music, videos and files. Dropbox is awesome but I haven’t found it to excel at simple sharing and distribution like these services. Each of these services is Apple focused with native OS X desktop apps as well as 3rd party support for Windows (here and here). CloudApp’s iOS app is coming soon and Droplr’s is live. Over the past few months I’ve noticed more and more services choosing to use these content sharing apps (specifically CloudApp) to distribute content.

Dribbble / Forrst / LoveDsgn

If it wasn’t for interaction and visual designers the tubes would be fugly. These services are valuable resources for IxD/VisD talent to share and get feedback on their latest work. It’s total design pr0n so prepare to be distracted.

Greplin

A challenge of adopting multiple cloud services is knowing where your data lives. Greplin provides a single search box that lets you query against multiple services that host your data. This isn’t just handy, it’s becoming necessary. If you use Spotlight on the Mac, it will remind you a bit of Google’s Precipitate project which launched several years ago.

GroupMe

Coordinating in real-time with groups of friends can be painfully challenging. GroupMe provides a variety of features from group texting to simple conference calling that make it easier to ensure that everyone is on the same page.

Kissmetrics

There are lots of analytics tools out there to help you understand your webapp, but Kissmetrics has released invaluable tools that help you track how your users are engaging on your site. If you’re looking to make data driven business decisions their service can be a big help.

Microsoft Kinect

It will take dozens and dozens of games (and service integrations) to fully unleash the Kinect’s potential. This product is very fun and feels downright futuristic. When you first interact with the system it’s understandable why so many people are inspired to hack their Kinects.

Microsoft Windows Mobile Phone 7 (aka Windows Phone)

Microsoft definitely deserves props for delivering a deep-rethink of their mobile platform that’s not derivative, offers a very aesthetic look and feel, feels f-a-s-t and has awesome Facebook integration. I’m currently carrying Android and iOS devices right now, and have no plans to add a Windows Phone to the mix, but this has definitely caught my attention.

New York Times Chrome App

I am a very big fan of the design and technical directions that the NYTimes chrome application has taken. It’s attractive, functional, minimal, works across a growing variety of devices, is semi-customizable and is a great use of HTML5. A definite work in progress but a big step in the right direction.

Nuance Dragon Mobile SDK

Earlier in the year Eric Schmidt mentioned that 25% of Android-based searches in the US market are initiated by voice. Integrating voice recognition into mobile services is a trend that’s likely to accelerate next year and the good news is that it’s never been easier. Nuance has released an SDK for iOS and Android mobile app developers who wish to enhance their applications with voice recognition input and text-to-speech output. Already in use by applications like Amazon’s Price Check, Ask.com’s Ask for iPhone, Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary and Siri, this is shaping up to be a great cross-platform voice framework for mobile app developers.

Parrot Ar.Drone

iPhone remote controlled augmented reality quadricopter video games? Sold!

Quora

If had to pick just one new web product of the year this was definitely my favorite. It has been both an invaluable resource for me and an extremely inspiring product to watch develop. I could easily elaborate on their impressive tech stack; their appealing visual design; the awesome content and community; or numerous clever product features that demonstrate how thoughtful many of their social interactions are.

Rdio

It’s hard not to respect what Rdio has pulled off: it’s a streaming music service that’s social, available on multiple platforms, has a decent sized library, is fairly priced, and currently available in the US. This is a very tough space and 2011 should be even more crowded with rumored launches from Apple, Google and Spotify. It will be interesting to see what Rdio has up their sleeves to stave off some stiff competition.

Uber

If you don’t have your own wheels and aren’t taking public transport, then finding a clean, safe, unplanned ride in a city like San Francisco can be a bit daunting. Uber’s goals appear to stretch beyond the creature comforts of simplifying a pickup via a mobile app and offering a high quality ride. They seem to want to deeply reset an industry and experience that has seen so little innovation, you kind of wonder if Louie De Palma is still working the dispatch.

New Projects

Design then Code

I’m a little early with this one because it has yet to publicly launch but I’m optimistic and really like the idea. Mike Rundle describes his projects goals here but essentially he wants to share what he has learned about iPhone UI design and development. He intends to convert small projects he’s worked on into elaborate tutorials that articulate what he learned and how to reproduce them. “Each tutorial has two parts: design and development. The design half discusses how to create a particular app’s user interface in Photoshop with all steps explained along the way including lots of screenshots. It includes the PSD file as well. The development half discusses how to execute that design in code. This half includes the Xcode project.” Signup now to be notified when it launches and get a special bonus treat.

Diaspora

This project was developed by four NYU students who shared a common desire to build an open source, distributed social network that allowed members to retain complete control over their personal information. The money their project was raising through Kickstarter became a bit of a media frenzy. The project continues to be actively developed.

Glyphish / Noun Project

Quality icons are hard to design and often not worth re-inventing. If you use popular mobile applications like Dribbble, Instagram, Flipboard, Twitter, WordPress, or over 1,000 others you’ve almost certainly seen a few of the Glyphish icons. The Pro version is available for sale on their site. A Kickstarter project gave its designer Joseph Wain the financial initiative to give away a portion of his existing work and further invest in developing this highly attractive and useful icon set to include support for iOS Retina Displays, amongst other things. While its mission is a bit different, the Noun Project has also taken a Kickstarter funding approach. The Noun Project’s goal is “to collect and organize all the symbols that form our language into one easy-to-use online library that can be accessed by anyone. All the symbols on our site are completely free to download, and can be used for design projects, architecture presentations, art pieces – just about anything.”

HTML5 Rocks Interactive Presentation

Google did a lot to evangelize HTML5 in 2010! If you’re a web designer looking to learn more about HTML5 books like HTML5 for Web Designers and CSS3 for Web Designers are great places to start.

OAuth 2.0

OAuth 2.0 is a completely new open protocol inspired by OAuth 1.0 and based on the OAuth WRAP proposal. OAuth 2.0 allows secure API authorization in a simple and standard method from desktop, web, mobile and other applications. Eran Hammer-Lahav does an excellent job providing additional color and introducing what’s new.

The Pylons Project

The Python community has been developing a wide range of competing web frameworks each with relatively small market share compared to Django and with very similar approaches. The Pylons Project is an attempt by many projects (specifically Pylons, repoze.bfg, and TurboGears) to consolidate their efforts. Chris McDonough’s original post and Ben Bangert’s follow-up announcement are great places to start learning more.

Stuxnet

This Windows worm was almost certainly the result of a multi-nation state sponsored effort. Technically this cyberweapon was probably developed and released years ago but it was only discovered this year. Its target was specific industrial hardware used in the manufacturing of nuclear weapons. Its goal was to sabotage uranium enrichment production at very specific facilities. I found this story behind Stuxnet fascinating.

TikTok and Lunatik Multi-Touch Watch Kits

These kits provide a simple way to “mod” the latest generation Apple iPod Nano and transform it into an attractive multi-touch wristwatch. It became so popular that it ended up becoming the most funded project of all time on Kickstarter raising nearly $1 million.

Wikileaks

I’d have a hard time articulating the importance of Wikileaks better than how Yishan Wong summed things up so I’m just going to paraphrase what he wrote on Quora, “In the past, media was newspapers and the leaking of information to the people of the single country. Much has been made about the internet’s capability to spread knowledge across borders and link the peoples of the world. Wikileaks is the first such internet product to have used this technology to provide true journalistic service to an audience that is no less than all the people of the world. This is citizen journalism of a global nature.“

Feature Updates

1password

Gawkergate woke me up and made me a 1password believer. This is one of those apps I should have adopted last year. With new applications available on iOS, Android and desktop applications and browser extensions available for Windows and OS X it’s hard to see a reason why any savvy internet user wouldn’t be using 1password on all their devices. It’s never been easier to manage unique passwords across all of your favorite internet services on the devices you access them from.

23andme for $99

I took the opportunity to have my DNA genotyped via 23andMe during their $99 DNA day deal. They went on to offer a similar deal on Cyber Monday. While my results were chock-full of data, I found their interpretations underwhelming. I look forward to watching this field evolve and my results become more insightful. Through the hard work of many others I’ve come to realize that the understanding of human genetics is much more complex than were originally anticipated when the Human Genome Project was initiated. Considering what I learned I’d have a hard time justifying paying more than $99 until this field matures. Hopefully, they can find ways to permanently keep the price down. If you had your DNA genotyped you can export your SNPs and run it in 3rd party applications like Promethease and learn quite a bit more.

Amazon Web Services

I’ve been using AWS for a few years and am really impressed with how many features were introduced in 2010. They’ve definitely been listening and responding to customer requests. The list of launches in 2010 is large: combined data transfer pricing tiers, consolidated billing, Identity and Access Management, Micro Instances, Cluster and GPU Instances, CloudFront streaming (technically this is from 12/2009), new relational database features from Amazon RDS, Route 53 (a DNS service), significant additional console support, and more. Amazon has done a simply awesome job making this an even greater place for businesses and developers to setup shop.

Apple iOS4, iPhone 4, iPod Nano, MacBook Air, MacMini, Mobile Safari

This year I had to restrain myself from buying practically the entire Apple hardware product line. Apple makes it look easy to design beautiful, innovative products that are also fun to use. I totally regret buying a MacBook Pro earlier in the year and have a hard time accepting the fact that the MacBook Air in our house belongs to my wife. It’s fast, lightweight, and beautifully designed. The iOS 4.2 update is described in detail here but it delivered a welcome slew of changes to my iPad and iPhone (most notably a unified email inbox and multitasking.) Apple introduced a ton of updates to Mobile Safari in iOS 4.2, which continues to make it my favorite mobile browser. Maximiliano Firtman did an exceptional job uncovering and detailing them even before Apple got around to documenting them on their developer site. I could go on about the updates to the iPhone 4, iPod Nano and MacMini too, but I think these got adequate press coverage.

Chartbeat v2

This real-time analytics dashboard got even better. You can learn more about what’s new as well as get some insight into the decisions that drove their design changes. If you’re into fresh data about what’s happening on your site you’ll almost certainly want to give this service a try.

Dropbox

This service further establishes itself as one of the most useful utilities I have for sharing and backing up my data. This year they squashed a lot of bugs, released iPad and Android apps, and launched their 1.0 desktop product. Additionally, they added a much requested selective sync feature.

Facebook

It was another huge year for Facebook. There were so many announcements I’m bound to be missing a few obvious big ones. What stood out to me were Friendship Pages, Groups Overhaul (wow, did they quickly collect a lot of metadata about each of us), HipHop for PHP, Places, New Facebook Profiles, Facebook Messages, Open Graph Protocol, Graph API, Mobile SSO (how can nobody else be doing anything innovative here), Instant Personalization, Navigation Redesign, Numerous updates to Photos, the Platform adopted OAuth2, and there were a few cool Updates on their adoption of HTML5. I’m extremely impressed with their pace and focus.

Github

I’m digging the recent implementation of pushState to tree browsing on GitHub. They describe how they achieve it using the “new HTML5 History API (which really has nothing to do with HTML — it’s a JavaScript API) that allows them to manage the URL changes while CSS3 transitions handle the sliding.” Very cool stuff.

Google

I’ve always respected Google’s technical prowess and capability to deliver on big, disruptive projects. The self-driving car that they’ve been working on simply reinforces this reputation. This year they shipped a number of things I’ve enjoyed using on a daily basis. What stands out in particular are gMail Priority Inbox, Google Instant Search, Google Voice Calls in gMail, Google Voice Actions, Google TV, Chrome keeps getting faster and more stable, Google Prediction API, Android 2.2 and Android 2.3, and big updates to Google Maps on Android including Vector maps. I’m extremely eager to see what they are planning for 2011.

iOS Hackers

It’s hard not to appreciate all the tireless work 3rd parties have put into reverse engineering iOS so that consumers have more choice over their devices than Apple provides out of the box. I track what’s happening on the Dev-Team Blog but I’m sure there are lots of places to follow along. Each OS update is a huge challenge for the folks looking to find exploits that will make Apple mobile hardware more flexible. I am very appreciative of their efforts, which find their way to countless projects like Pwnage, etc. This year saw them defeat many challenges as well as hit a few new roadblocks.

jQuery 1.4.x

If you’re doing any front-end development work and aren’t using it already, jQuery is a javascript library that is highly worth checking out. They shipped 4 big updates in 2010. The amount of new awesome stuff is too long to cover but I certainly suggest you explore what’s new in 1.4, 1.4.2, 1.4.3 and 1.4.4!

Kickstarter

It’s been around for a while but this was the year Kickstarter started showing how revolutionary it has become. Their Most Funded Projects Hall of Fame is a testament to how much money it’s helping numerous projects raise. This list happens to feature four projects that were funded through it: Diaspora, Glyphish, The Noun Project, and the TikTok and Lunatik Multi-Touch Watch Kits. While they might have launched some new features it was how people used it this year that was so impressive.

Node.js

There’s a lot of excitement around Node.js and while it’s certainly not new there were a lot more people hacking on it in 2010. Some things that stood out over the past year included: Bayjax inviting Ryan Dahl to give an introductory talk on Node.js at Yahoo!, Douglas Crockford’s talk on event loops and the importance of server side javascript, the Node.js Knockout coding contest, NPM a Node Package Manager by Isaac Schlueter, announcement of the new JavaScript Services System in webOS 2.0, express.js a fast and tiny server-side JavaScript web development framework inspired by Sinatra, and probably lots more I haven’t even begun to hear about or look into.

Spotify Facebook Integration and Local Library Support

The Spotify desktop application got a ton of new features in 2010 but the most meaningful to me was the Facebook integration. Sharing music with friends has never been easier. I absolutely can’t wait for it to come to the US so more of my network can discover this truly awesome service that keeps getting better. Their support for local file library management was also a very welcome update.

Twitter (aka #newtwitter)

Sometimes change takes awhile to appreciate. I’ve been using Twitter since 2006 and it was hard for me to initially wrap my head around #newtwitter. While I didn’t like it at first it has definitely grown on me. I’ve discovered a lot of little features that I initially overlooked and which are thoughtfully designed and implemented. The ability to browse some media content inline was a very welcome addition. I still find I prefer to interact with Twitter via a desktop app or mobile device. While some of that is because there are features Twitter chooses not to natively support I suspect the real reason is that my previous patterns are fairly ingrained in me.

Webkit

The webkit community introduced a slew of awesome new consumer features but it was the developer focused features that surfaced in the Timeline panel, Audits Panel, and Dedicated Console Panel that proved to be most useful to me on a daily basis.

YUI3 Grids

This is a major update to YUI Grids, it’s simpler to use, has a much smaller file size, supports nesting more elegantly, and is significantly more flexible than prior versions. If you are looking for a simple way to handle complicated web page layouts this just might be for you.

Mobile apps

Angry Birds (Android, iOS, Symbian)

Technically launched in 2009 but it’s hard to ignore this as one of the breakaway mobile apps of 2010. It’s a fun, addictive physics game that has been faithfully re-created across multiple platforms.

Chrome to Phone (Android and Chrome Browser Extension)

This simple chrome Extension and Android App makes it super easy to send links from your Chrome desktop browser to your Android device.

Colorbind (iOS)

The graphics in this puzzle game lured me in but the more challenging levels kept me interested. Unfortunately, there’s no optimized support for the iPad and it doesn’t look like it’s being actively maintained.

Cut the Rope (iOS)

This is a highly enjoyable puzzle game that sucked me in on my iPad.

Facetime (iOS and a beta app for OS X)

The iPhone 4 shipped with a simple way to start taking widespread advantage of mobile video calls. Problem is it’s currently closed, only supports limited hardware profiles and only works on mobile devices over WiFi. I’m looking forward to seeing additional details behind the “open standards” stack find their way into the public domain so that 3rd party integrations can become possible.

Glee (iOS)

Entertaining and original karaoke app that lets you sing popular songs from the show Glee along with other people from around the world. I’m not a fan of the show and this app is not my cup of tea but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s very well executed.

iElectribe (iOS specifically iPad)

Korg’s faithful software reproduction of the ELECTRIBE·R drum machine was a great early example of the opportunity for music creation apps on the iPad. Unfortunately, the introductory price has gone up and it’s now a bit expensive.

Instagram (iOS)

Pictures that have been processed by this app instantly feel like they have just a bit more soul. The attractive images it churns out, simple social features and integrations with numerous popular photo sharing services make it a highly useful and addictive application.

Keynote (iOS)

Apple made the iPad a great device for both creating and sharing presentations.

Marco Friend Locator (iOS)

I dig this simple service for sharing one-way location fixes that timeout in 30-minutes. Bonus points for not requiring everyone to have the application installed or force bi-directional sharing. If you’re in the “share my location now with others” market, Glympse, which launched a year back, is more complicated and has more dependencies but is also interesting.

Netflix (iOS)

The native iPhone and iPad apps now enable Netflix to be usable on mobile devices on the go. Super awesome.

Pulse (Android and iOS)

Aesthetic newsreader that makes it easy to skim your favorite news sources.

Remote (iOS)

Apple provided a long overdue update that now optimizes support for controlling iTunes (and any Airport Expresses on your local network) via your iPad.

Skype Video (iOS)

Very similar to Apple’s Facetime service, this feature adds video calling to other Skype users on iOS. The big advantage over Facetime is that it works over both 3G and WiFi and Skype has a significantly larger network of users.

Square (Android and iOS)

These mobile apps continue to make it easier for vendors to accept payment with common off the shelf mobile devices. The iPad app, which launched this year, is particularly powerful given the flexibility of the additional real estate.

SwiftKey / Swype (both on Android)

If you’re running Android and find the keyboard to be challenging to use give these a peek. In the case of Swype, the hard part for me was rewiring my brain to adapt to it. In their own unique ways each of these apps made it faster for me to input text and more easily adapt to using Android. I hope the default keyboard improves and I will not have to continue to hunt for 3rd party premium add-ons in future versions of Android.

Twitter (Android and iOS)

The iPad application that launched this year is definitely one of those things you’ll either love or hate. The user interface takes a variety of unique approaches at displaying, and framing, 3rd party content within the app itself. The port of Tweetie as the official iPhone client was well done although the signup UI could use some more love. The Android app is a faithful reproduction that feels more buggy than it should.

Venmo (Android and iOS)

Dead simple mobile payment system for splitting bills with friends and trying to keep things even.

Word Lens (iOS)

Augmented reality finds a perfect use case in this real-time language translator that superimposes translated text over words contained in a live video stream. It doesn’t work perfectly but that it even works at all is crazy.

OK, I’m out. What’s on your list?

It has been a litany akin to prayer in certain circles: “Everything will be better when Verizon gets the iPhone. I’ll buy it then.” But what will a Verizon iPhone really change? Let’s think this through.

First, expect iPhone sales to surpass Droid sales for a brief period and then level off. My friend (a former Hell’s Angel) told me how a Verizon rep sold his niece a Droid X explaining that it was as good as the iPhone. After seeing my her uncle’s iPhone, however, she was gravely disappointed and repeated the litany to herself, albeit with some trepidation as the rumor of iPhone’s apparition on Verizon has been a long time coming. This time, however, we’re almost certain that the prayer will come true. Before you Droid-heads start flaming, accept that, at least until Honeycomb, when Verizon has the iPhone its Droid sales will dip.

Second, expect nothing to change in terms of iPhone development over the next few years. I agree with Gruber in his belief that Verizon will sell a CDMA iPhone and not an LTE model. The GSM and CDMA models will be upgraded concurrently but there is no reason for Apple to release a “better” model on either platform (even LTE) until all carriers converge to LTE.

Next, expect a banner year for Verizon. Last year was more of a pennant year as subscribers flocked to AT&T and their profits tumbled. That will not happen in 2011.

Fourth, expect Apple make this announcement quietly and without fanfare. I doubt His Steve-ness will even show up to the event on Tuesday, if that is, in fact, what the announcement is about. Maybe he’ll appear on a screen, benevolently beaming down on the faithful who masochistically stuck with the phone on AT&T and who will be gravely disappointed when they can no longer roam internationally. But considering the iPod Touch has become a Wi-Fi phone that works everywhere, we’re looking at the reduction of carrier control in mobile anyway, so who cares?

Now, for the bad news. The Verizon iPhone won’t be much better than the AT&T iPhone when it comes to reception and data transmission – at least not yet. Even anecdotally, as evidenced by this Ars survey, most users use a little more than 200MB of data a month with outliers hitting over 1GB of data. That’s 200MB per iPhone and there are a total of about 11 million AT&T iPhones floating around out there. According to AppleInsider, Verizon sold an estimated 4.4 million Droids. Verizon has 92 million subscribers while AT&T has 90 million. So 11 million AT&T subscribers are slamming the network while 4 million Droid-ites are tapping Verizon’s network gently. So what happens, then, when the iPhone effect hits Verizon, especially on Verizon’s older, slower CDMA network? Verizon will experience the exact issue that has been plaguing AT&T: the curse of success.

Contrary to popular belief, AT&T isn’t hobbling iPhone calls and data service out of malice or ignorance. It just hard to serve that much data to that many people. Last Monday in Las Vegas, for example, I had perfect iPhone reception. Add 130,000 people – all but a few of them iPhone users – to the network during CES and you’ve got a mess. I couldn’t make a call or get an email all week. What’s going to happen when Verizon iPhones roll into the same town? Even if you split iPhones evenly (and you won’t, because international users will drive up the GSM-based iPhone count) you’re still overloading both networks. What’s Verizon going to do? Send the Can You Hear Me Now guy to install new cells? Mark my words – Verizon’s vaunted connectivity and coverage will plummet. Heck, if I were a conspiracy theorist I’d note that Verizon’s website no longer touts its coverage to avoid potential class action lawsuits.

The Verizon iPhone won’t be a solution to the many problems folks in urban areas like San Francisco and Manhattan are experiencing. In fact, it just spreads the pain to two carriers.

However, it’s nice to know someone is listening, even a few years after the fact. Steve is truly good and kind.