techcrunch
Latest
Grockit gets funding to teach us all a little something
The question is, however, what? According to TechCrunch, former online exam prep site Grockit has recently raised $8 million in funding, bringing the total funding amount up to $10.7 million. Calling itself an MMOLG, or massively multiplayer online learning game, Grockit purports to bring users together to learn from each other. But what exactly does that mean?Considering its origins as an exam prep company, we could guess that people will connect with one another to discuss specific tests, maybe with sample questions. There might be collaborative tools that allow users to show each other their thinking processes. At the very least, there ought to be animations where avatars will be able to pass each other notes while taking the test. Whatever's being planned, it's apparently worth $10.7 million to somebody.
WoW Insider is taking over the world
Reader Andy wrote in this morning to tell us about what he read while having his morning cup of joe. From the The Guardian's article on The world's 50 most powerful blogs: "46. WoW Insider"Ummm... really? Cool!While I consider us to be a major source of news, information, and QQness about World of Warcraft related things, I never really thought that we'd ever be included on a list like this. It's kind of nice. So who did we beat? And who beat us?
Second Life's Chris Collins talks, but doesn't say much
Duncan Riley from TechCrunch recently had a little time to speak with Chris Collins from Linden Lab, where Mr. Collins holds the intriguing title "Technical Assistant to the CEO". I'm not entirely clear on what exactly that position entails, but more substantially, he's also responsible for the LindeX, the currency exchange service in Second Life.Mr. Riley took this opportunity to pose some strong questions to Mr. Collins, which got some pretty tepid and by-the-book answers. Unfortunately, this is typical of LL, which usually sticks to saying things like 'we're working on it', and 'it's not easy'. Well, sure, this is a given. If it were easy, not only would everyone be doing it, but it probably wouldn't be worth doing. But when you're given a chance to give some definitive answers to questions a lot of people are asking, it behooves you to provide something more. Otherwise, why do an interview? LL is already way out there in terms of being ahead of its time, challenging frontiers, etc. Wouldn't it be nice to let the people who truly care about SL in on a few things, O Lindens? Chances are we'd be a lot more understanding and cut you all a lot more slack when things go wrong, as they so frequently do. Remember: your residents are a passionate crowd, and we only scream so loud because we love SL so much. Give us the truth; we can handle it.
Leopard starting to land for lucky users
Good morning everyone! As our 24 Hours of Leopard marathon continues, our UK, Aussie and Kiwi readers are beginning to report in that their mail-order copies of Leopard have arrived (although it's hard to read the tips; apparently the drops of drool and little bits of torn shrinkwrap are clogging up their keyboards). TechCrunch's Duncan Riley had his copy by 9 pm Pacific time and has already upgraded two machines to mostly positive results. One warning from Riley that I can echo from experience with the dev seeds: if you turn on Time Machine right away, be prepared for a slow go until the initial full backup is completed. You may want to wait to activate TM until you sign off for the night; by the time you wake up that first pass should be all done.Not everyone's install experience was so smooth -- Bryce's upgrade got wedged and he had to erase and install before everything got back to normal. Fortunately, he had backed up first; a wise warning for us all... remember, Carbon Copy Cloner and/or SuperDuper! are your buddies.Are you blogging your Leopard installation experience? Let us know.