Techcrunch: The iPad Will Make Apple’s Acquisition Of Quattro Wireless Look Even Smarter

Posted by on under early adopters, iphe, ipad, coue, miker, approximate number, yoda, apps, acquisition, debut, developers, apple |

Early adopters who will be among the first to unbox and fire up an Apple iPad in a couple of months, will have nearly 140,000 applications readily available from the App Store right out the gate. That's the approximate number of applications that are currently offered for free or for a fixed fee on the iPhone / iPod Touch App Store, which will soon be known only as the App Store (or under an entirely different moniker, though unlikely). This is, in my opinion at least, one of the key benefits of being one of those early adopters: they won't have to wait for developers to get acquainted with an entirely new SDK first, nor will they have to wait for them to build and get Apple's approval for the apps they want to publish. Just in case you forgot: more than 3 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store onto devices since its debut. Thriving, the platform is, as Yoda would put it.
Tagi: early adopters, iphe, ipad, coue, miker, approximate number, yoda, apps, acquisition, debut, developers, apple

Techcrunch: Aardvark Continues Running At Full Steam After Google Acquisition, Joins Google Labs

Posted by on under google labs, social search, google, steam, acquisition, aardvark, alg, search engine |

Yesterday we broke the news that Aardvark, the social search engine, was being acquired by Google for $50 million. Aardvark confirmed the acquisition to us yesterday (though they didn't comment on the amount), and now Google and Aardvark have publicly announced the deal with posts to their official blogs, along with some more details about how Aardvark will be integrated with Google. Unlike some of Google's past startup acquisitions that resulted in services shutting down or restricting new user signups, Aardvark is going to continue running at full steam. New users can still sign up, and it's already featured as part of Google Labs (though it hasn't been integrated with Google search at all — it's just a link to Vark.com).
Tagi: google labs, social search, google, steam, acquisition, aardvark, alg, search engine