HP Turns To Bing For New webOS Maps App On Smartphones

Jordan Crook studied English Literature at New York University before entering the tech space. Prior to joining TechCrunch, Crook dabbled in mobile marketing and mobile apps as well as doing device reviews for MobileMarketer and MobileBurn. Crook is fascinated with alternative energy production and greentech. She is now a writer for CrunchGear. ? Learn More

Though webOS products have been somewhat shelved going forward, there are still plenty of people out there using HP and Palm phones running the OS. For them, getting map information and directions has been quite the task with the webOS Google Maps-powered app. But today that should change, as the company has opted for a Bing Maps-powered mapping application for the OS.

This is the same Maps app you’ll find on the now discontinued HP TouchPad. According to MobileBurn, the app loads much faster, and comes with new features from Bing. For instance, users can choose between standard map view, satellite view, or birds-eye view, which are pretty gorgeous as far as maps go. The app now provides driving, walking or public transit directions, along with access to your address history and saved locations.

The new app is available for all webOS smartphones, which includes the original Pre, Veer, and Pixi smartphones. Just search “Maps” in the App Catalog and download the new app.

It’s really wonderful to see that HP hasn’t washed their hands of webOS entirely. Plenty of loyal webOS customers deserve a solid Maps application, especially since their OS of choice is on its way out the door.

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Dyson Turns Up The Heat, Releases The Dyson Hot AM04 Air Multiplier

Matt is currently working as a writer for CrunchGear. Matt Burns is a family man first and attempts to be a freelance writer second. Born and raised in the heart of the automotive world, only cars eclipse his love of gadgets. He previously wrote for Engadget and EngadgetHD before moving into the party house that is CrunchGear. He learned the... ? Learn More

No common household product is safe from a Dyson disruption. This time around the company is taking on the household space heater and just announced an air multiplier fitted with a ceramic heating element. The result is a heater that not only looks freakin’ awesome but also one that draws in surrounding air and recirculates it without the traditional choppy air effect or spinning blades. A handy remote allows for operation from afar and a temperature gauge allows you to precisely dial in the desired temperature.

Heating is optional. The AM04 also possesses all the goods as Dyson’s traditional Air Multipliers, which gives owners a valid excuse to keep this functional conversation piece in their room year round. Just like the other models, the fanless design allows for easy cleaning and safe operation but Dyson included a tip-over sensor that automagically cuts the power if the 5 lbs heater is tipped over.

The new AM04 is available for $399 in either iron/blue or white/silver. The company just announced the models so local retailers might not have them in stock, but you can be sure these heaters will eventually occupy prime retail locations well before the holiday spending season kicks off.

So what’s next for Dyson? The company already reinvented vacuums, hand dryers, household fans and now with this announcement, heaters. I hope toasters are next. I love toasters.

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Video: Padzilla Case Turns Your iPad Into An iCoffeeTable

Chris Velazco is a mobile enthusiast and writer who studied English and Marketing at Rutgers University. Once upon a time, he was the news intern for MobileCrunch, and in between posts, he worked in wireless sales at Best Buy. After graduating, he returned to the new TechCrunch to as a full-time mobile writer. He counts advertising, running, musical theater,... ? Learn More

There were quite a few thoughts running through my head when I purchased an iPad, but I can honestly say that “I wish I had an iPad as big as a coffee table” wasn’t one of them. Now, after having seen Crunchy Logistics’s Padzilla case, I can safely say it’s all I’m thinking about right now.

Crunchy Logistics seems to have a thing for creating absurdly big touchscreens, a great example of which is the conference table-sized display they showed off last month. The Padzilla is their newest product, and it allows users to interact with their iPhones and iPads on a completely ridiculous scale.

To call it a case is a bit of a stretch: you’re not putting the Padzilla on your iOS device so much as you’re mounting your iOS device inside the Padzilla. The name is pretty apt, for sure: the Padzillas are custom made, and assuming you’ve got the green for it, they come in sizes as large as 150? diagonal. To give you an idea of scale, the model demoed in the video below comes in at a slightly more reasonable 70? diagonal.

The Padzilla is a purely plug-and-play solution to boot; the iDevices don’t need to be jailbroken, but anything older than the iPhone 3GS isn’t supported. If playing Angry Birds and its ilk get old, feel free to connect your choice of game consoles or computers into the display too.

While I’m sure the Padzilla has some practical uses (they’d give your local news station a bit of pizazz, for one), the wow factor alone is enough to make it tempting. Better start saving your pennies though, because CrunchyLogistics CEO Neil Dufva says that buying a 70? rolling display like the one in the video would cost roughly between $30-40,000 (iPad included). If that seems a bit steep, don’t worry: Neil says CrunchyLogistics is open to renting these things out to interested parties.

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Pressly Turns Websites Into Tablet-Friendly HTML5 Web Apps

TechCrunch Disrupt finalist Pressly is an HTML5-based platform that turns online publications into tablet-friendly websites that work on the iPad, Android tablets or the BlackBerry PlayBook. The sites it produces are nearly indistinguishable from their native counterparts, like Flipboard and Zite for example, offering a similar experience for browsing through articles, images and videos. Navigation is designed for the tablet interface, using common gestures like multi-touch swipes and pinches.

Pressly’s platform includes five customizable templates as a starting point, each designed with the needs of different publishers in mind. One template is more text-driven, while others are better for browsing through photos or videos. Like native apps, navigating a Pressly-built site uses intuitive gestures, like a 2-finger swipe up or down to reveal quick navigation and a pinch to close articles.

The templating engine can pull in a variety of data feeds, too, like JSON, XML, RSS or Twitter and WordPress content.

Despite the end product’s similarities to today’s popular tablet magazines, Pressly isn’t designed to be an alternative to building a native app for the iPad or another tablet. In fact, the company isn’t even a big proponent of saving URLs as homescreen icons. Instead, Pressly wants to leverage the popularity of tablets’ most popular application, the browser, to immediately deliver tablet-optimized experiences to those surfing the Web.

In addition, because these sites are just HTML pages, publishers can integrate all the common functions found in a traditional website, including analytics, advertising, payment processing, store finders and more. And Pressly includes its own ad platform which lets publishers and advertisers insert rich media ads into the tablet-friendly site. These ads can include videos, photos, links, hot spots, social sharing buttons, detailed tracking mechanisms and they can even be displayed as 360-degree immersive views.

Pressly is currently working with Canadian Living Magazine, Transcontinental Media Group and The Toronto Star (Canada’s largest daily) as well as with the The Economist’s digital team in New York on a new, yet-to-be-announced product prototype.

If you’re on a tablet computer, you can see a demo of Pressly in action here.

The company’s founders include CEO Jeff Brenner, CTO Peter Kieltyka, Marketing and Media Lead Tobin Dalrymple and Business Development Lead Chi Chen. Brenner and Kieltyka previously founded a consulting business called NuLayer, which built over 17 successful Web and iOS projects including the popular sports app for theScore, as well as social photo sharing startup Crowdreel, winner of the 2009 Twitter Chirp conference.

NuLayer has a minority partner in theScore, but Pressly itself has no direct funding. Pricing for the platform has yet to be determined.

Judges Q&A

Expert Judges: Aileen Lee (Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers), Dustin Moskovitz (Asana), Michael Parekh (MPi Capital), Joshua Schachter (Jig)

AL: Really beautiful. Need to focus on certain verticals.

A: We feel publishers need this. This isn’t competing with Flipboard directly.

DM: I’m Flipboard investor, not sure your product is there yet.

A: Flipboard is iPad. Pressly is a Web tech (HTML5). Also, publishers can control content better. There’s room for us. Flipboard does content discovery on iPad, Pressly uses Safari or a Web browser to deliver tablet-friendly site.

MP: From user perspective, looks great. Biz model question about revenue share.

A: No upfront costs on revenue share with publishers - a win-win situation for both. If consumers love and is engaging, publishers can increase CPM’s. Can start bringing ad inventory to publishers.

JS: I like the ads. Worry is people with dev shops can build whatever they want, leaving you with newspapers, those without tools to build this.

A: Built platform where publishers can build on top of. Publishers are good at telling stories, not great at innovating like this.

Launch Date: September 13, 2011

Pressly is an HTML5 publishing platform that automatically transforms online content, such as RSS feeds and social content, into interactive, cleanly-designed web apps for tablet web browsers. Pressly is currently optimized for the iPad. Pressly’s web apps give publishers an easy, turn-key vehicle for displaying full-page, stylish tablet advertisements, that are more engaging than traditional online ads and are more effective with readers.

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Smule’s MadPad Turns Your Life Into A Video Soundboard

Greg Kumparak is the editor of MobileCrunch.com, a mobile industry blog within the TechCrunch Network. Greg has been writing for the TechCrunch network since May of 2008. Greg was born in the outskirts of San Jose, CA, and now lives in the East Bay. ? Learn More

From the “click-clack, click-clack” of your car’s turn signal to the honking of a passing bus, life is a symphony of sound — there’s just no one conducting.

This morning, Smule (makers of many a fine/remarkably clever iPhone app, from Leaf Trombone to I Am T-Pain) is looking to change that with their latest iOS app: MadPad. By capturing short, everyday sights/sounds and arranging them for playback at your fingertips, MadPad turns the world into your beatbox.

Their demo video probably explains it better than I can (though I’ll do my damnedest in a second):

Make sense? MadPad lets you capture those fleeting sounds (that turn signal click-clack, that bus honk, a barking dog, a finger snap, or anything else) and arrange them into a video soundboard. Each sound (and its accompanying recorded video) is laid out at your fingertips, and tapping any of the soundboard’s squares fires off its paired event. A few dozen taps and a good bit of experimentation later, you’ve gone and turned those random sounds into something resembling a melody.

Recording each sound is remarkably easy — far more so than I expected, actually. After you set a button to record (and set the ambient noise level), the app can automatically monitor for a volume spike and intelligently edit down your clip accordingly. Or you can just do things manually and hope for the best.

Once you’ve figured out your grand arrangement, videos can be recorded and exported to YouTube with just a few clicks. Who knows! Maybe you’ll be the next Jack Conte (minus the sweet beard.)

Interestingly enough, this app wasn’t actually built entirely in-house by Smule. It began its life as a project of Stanford student Nick Kruge, only to be adopted a few months later as Smule’s first trip into the publishing world. While it’s not nearly as graphically rich as some of their in-house efforts , it’s just as polished and well-built as anything else we’ve seen come from Smule. Plus, it’s really friggin’ fun.

The app is available now, and can be found for $0.99 for the iPhone and $2.99 for the iPad

Smule is a creator of Interactive Sonic Media for mobile platforms. Smule’s first product, Sonic Lighter, is a virtual lighter iPhone application that launched on September 24, 2008....

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Gootip Turns Twitter Into A Location-Based Q&A Service; Launches iPhone App, APIs, and More

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Gootip, the location-based Q&A startup from France, launched in May to take on Hipster (we think, as Hipster is still stealth) and other sites like it trying to make Yahoo Answers, for example, a valuable, realtime service. Gootip was founded by PriceMinister alumni Mathieu Bidart, Eric Gagnaire and Thierry Sebba, and operates out of a small garage in the South West of France. I’ve seen the pictures, and these guys are bootstrapping all the way, looking like the Jobs and Woz of Southwestern France.

But Gootip, in spite of a questionable name, is trying to separate itself from other Q&A services out there, like LocalMind for example, by not only enabling users to ask and answer questions in context of a particular city, town or specific location, but by going a few steps farther.

Gootip allows users to sign up and link their accounts to Foursquare and Facebook to integrate their check-in data, along with their home and work location. Users then categorize their questions (be it by nightlife, shopping, arts and entertainment, etc.) and enter an expiration date for when they need their question answered by, whether that be 24 hours or one week.

As Steve O’hear pointed out in our initial coverage, Gootip is proving that the barrier to entry for location-based Q&A sites taking advantage of Facebook and Twitter’s data sets has “gotten lower” and young, savvy startups can quickly build services that offer worthwhile expansions of the popular social networks. However, at the time of their beta launch, as he noted, there were a few key pieces missing.

So, to make Gootip more than a simple website or mobile app, the startup is aiming at building a platform that can retrieve and analyze local questions and answers from both internal and external services: Web, mobile, APIs, SMS, social networks, and beyond. It’s an ambitious goal, but to get started and showcase how functionality can work with other big social networks, Gootip has created “Askgtip”, which it calls a “mentioned application” that works with Twitter (and soon Facebook, Foursquare, and Gowalla) to ask questions of their favorite social networks — in this case, Twitter.

Askgtip allows users to ask questions directly of Twitter, whereupon the startup will analyze the question, pull location data, and post it to Twitter and Gootip.com so that users of both will be able to see the question and post an answer. The application retrieves answers given on Twitter and displays them on their homepage, specifying locations given in the answers.

Askgtip also supports Twitter’s topics, which are often linked to an event (like #tcdisrupt, for example), which will be analyzed by the application and linked to a specific location. That’s the main pain point Gootip is trying to address: The difficulty of finding locations and analyzing questions to produce the correct location and location-correct data.

So, for example, if you were to ask “Who is the best doctor in the ‘Mission District’ in San Francisco?” Gootip would convert “Mission District” to a location that exists on the Gootip website so that when Askgtip answers the question (because users have answered on Gootip), transforming it into a map and location on both sites, in short, bringing Gootip’s functionality to Twitter.

As the startup rolls out its service for various social networks, it is also opening up its APIs and plugins. In the coming weeks, Gootip Co-founder Mathieu Bidart says, Sud Quest (one of the biggest local, daily press groups in France) will be integrating the startup’s API to allow users to ask local questions directly from, in this case, Sud Quest’s website.

Beyond the addition of plugins and widgets to enable partnering websites to take advantage of Gootip’s features, the startup is also launching an iPhone app to enable users to search, ask and answer questions, with content presented based on a user’s GPS location — all from the comfort of your iPhone.

The cool thing about Gootip is that it’s already working with over 30 million locations, so that every Gootip search can be performed by keyword (or by using your GPS default on mobile) from millions of towns and cities across the globe. Results are presented with the number of answers to the question, with locations pinned on an interactive map with all the details, including address, phone numbers, etc.

Gootip has also enabled Facebook and Twitter authentication to the new mobile app to allow users to sign in through the social networks, on top of simply signing in through the Gootip.com — the website already offers authentication with Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla and Google — plus, the service is now available in English and French, with German and Spanish translations launching in the next few weeks.

O’hear pointed out several things that Gootip would need to accomplish after launching their beta, and with a new iPhone app (Android is coming soon), plugins and widgets, open APIs, Twitter functionality, and new languages, Gootip has certainly made some great progress. The UX does still need a little tweaking (along with some of the translations), but for three guys bootstrapping in their garage, Gootip has already made leaps and bounds. Hipster better be ready.

For more on Gootip, check them out at home here, and play with Askgtip here.

Gootip is a local questions/answers website. Users can ask every kind of question linked to a town or a precise place. Where can I see a hip hop concert tonight in...

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Jumio Comes To WordPress, Turns Blog Readers’ Webcams Into Credit Card Readers

Jumio, the new technology that turns webcams into credit card readers, is now offering a plugin for WordPress websites. The new Jumio Netswipe add-on allows website visitors to pay for products or make donations quickly and easily, just by holding up their credit card to their computer’s webcam.

For WordPress publishers, adding Netswipe to their site is simple – just download, install and activate like any other WordPress plugin.

With the new plugin, WordPress site owners get a “Netswipe PayMe” button which can be placed anywhere on their website. All the payments are managed through your Jumio account, which is free of charge after registration.

After downloading the WordPress Plugin here, just unzip it and upload the folder ‘Wordpress_Jumio_Payment_Plugin’ to the ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ directory. Then activate the plugin through the “Plugins” menu in WordPress. You can then configure your options in WordPress’s “Settings” menu. (More detailed instructions are here).

Jumio launched last month, introducing its seamless, one-stop solution for merchants and developers with the intention of disrupting the payments industry. Not only is the technology easy to use, it also adds a layer of security to digital transactions since the physical card has to be present in order for Jumio’s webcam solution to work.

Initially, the technology is only available for desktop websites, but, later this year, a two-part mobile solution will become available. This part of the Jumio’s system will include a mobile app and developer library. Jumio’s mobile developer tools are the aspect of the solution that’s most like Card.io, which offers a similar toolkit.

Jumio received $6.5 million in funding from Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin and other investors back in March.

Jumio offers an advanced technology that increases security and ease of use for online credit card payments. Jumio is the inventor of Netswipe, a patent pending solution that turns...

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Facebook Turns To Stack Overflow To Power Developer Forums

Jason Kincaid currently works as a writer at TechCrunch. He grew up in Danville, California and later relocated to UCLA in Los Angeles, California, where he studied biology with a minor in ‘Society and Genetics’. You can reach him at jkincaidtc@gmail.com (he has other addresses too, so don’t worry if you have a different one). ? Learn More

If you’ve ever roved around Facebook’s developer forums, you may have noticed that — aside from being loaded with complaints and bug reports — they’re pretty basic. There’s nothing wrong with them per se, but they feel like a pretty generic forum install, and not a hub for developers on one of the web’s most popular web platforms.

Today, Facebook is announcing how it’s going to fix the situation: it’s abandoning its old forums, which it says are “showing their age”, and launching a custom site on Stack Overflow, the Q&A hub that’s very popular with programmers (and is loaded with helpful content). You can find the new site at facebook.stackoverflow.com.

The benefits from the swap are obvious. Stack Overflow has a robust reputation system, a more structured Q&A platform, and is generally easier to sift through.

Stack Exchange is the parent company of Stack Overflow, which is one of a network of 60+ Q&A portals. In a post discussing the news, Stack Exchange Chief of Staff Alex Miller writes that this the Facebook launch also marks the introduction of a new feature for the platform, which allows for the creation of custom mini-sites.

But facebook.SO isn’t just a sub-domain, it’s an entirely new feature set that we’ve been considering and working on for months. Ever since launching, we’ve gotten requests to start dedicated communities for niche programming topics, but we’ve always been hesitant to do so for fear of balkanizing the great community we already have. So we came up with a solution that provides the best of both worlds. We can now create a mini-site by selecting relevant tags (in this case, anything Facebook related) and grouping together just the content from those tags. When you visit a mini-site, you’ll see only the content from those tags. Not only will you be able to see only questions related to Facebook, but the reputation on the user ranking pages will also only show reputation earned on questions tagged Facebook.

Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 500 million users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It...

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Stack Exchange is a network of free, community-driven Q&A sites. StackExchange was created by the founders of StackOverflow. Stackoverflow is a community knowledge exchange for programmers.

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AliveCor Turns Mobile Devices Into Low-Cost Heart Monitors, Raises $3 Million

Robin Wauters currently works as a staff writer for TechCrunch and lead editor of Virtualization.com. Aside from his professional blogging activities, he’s an entrepreneur, event organizer, occasional board adviser and angel investor but most importantly an all-round startup champion. Wauters lives and works in Belgium, a tiny country in Europe. He can often be found working from his home or... ? Learn More

AliveCor, developer of a low-budget electrocardiogram (ECG) recorder that works in conjunction with a variety of mobile platforms (including iPhone, iPad, and Android devices), has raised $3 million in Series A funding, the company announced this morning.

The financing round was led by Burrill & Company along with Qualcomm, acting through its venture investment arm, Qualcomm Ventures, and the Oklahoma Life Science Fund.

AliveCor’s credit card-sized wireless device is capable of turning iOS and Android smartphones and tablets into low-cost heart monitors that can be used by patients at home and by physicians and other healthcare providers in a clinical setting. See video below for a demo of the iPhone version.

Note that the device isn’t for sale yet – AliveCor’s products haven’t yet been cleared as a medical device in the United States. It’s also unclear exactly how much it will cost, but earlier coverage by the Wall Street Journal mentioned a $100 price point.

The company says it will now use the capital to complete clinical studies currently ongoing at the Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center, pursue those necessary regulatory approvals, and gear up for commercial launch of its electrocardiogram recorder.

AliveCor has developed a device that will turn any smartphone into a clinical-quality electrocardiogram (ECG) recorder.

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