[TC]

Facebook has two very big pieces of news that they announced today at TechCrunch50. The first: They have crossed 300 million users worldwide now, extending their lead as the biggest social network. The second: They are now cash flow positive. Yes, from this point forward, Facebook is making money.

300 million is the obvious big news. But really, it was always just a matter of time before Facebook was going to hit the milestone. They hit 250 million back in July. Really, the much bigger news is the second item.

Back in April, we noted that while the company has been EBITDA profitable for several quarters in a row, they weren’t expecting to go cash flow positive on an operating basis until 2010. Back in 2008, there was roughly a $200 million gap between Facebook being cash flow positive and their EBITDA numbers. So why was it going to take another 2 years to close that gap? It’s likely because Facebook has been spending a lot of money over the past couple years on things like servers, but accounting rules allowed them to spread those costs over time. But the amount of money they’re pulling in has either eclipsed those costs earlier than expected or it isn’t spending as much. (Equipment spending for big storage servers tend to be lumpy).

Undoubtedly, projects like Haystack, which aim to cut the costs of sharing photo storage on Facebook have helped quite a bit. Aside from being the biggest social network, Facebook is also the largest photo-sharing site as well.

[CH]

The smart new iPhone application from Panelfly fills the digital void for comic book fans with a mobile platform for purchasing, storing and viewing comics.

An all-encompassing reader app—currently the only one of its kind available via iTunes—it includes a mobile store offering titles from a growing spate of comic publishers like NBM, SLG and Sterling, as well as complete library functionality that organizes purchased books according to title, publisher, author, artist and genre. It also takes advantage of the iPhone’s landscape viewing capability, allowing users to browse with a sideways cover flow option.

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[hype]

Finland-based Elementum series originally released earlier this year in the US but will enjoy a full release in fall of 2009 in select countries. The collection features three different model, the Elementum Aqua, Elementum Terra and Elementum Ventus. Each style has a specific purpose for diving, mountaineering and sailing (translating directly to water, earth and wind) with exact details to their workings seen below.

Stylish yet functional timepieces designed to guide deeper, higher and further through the elements – Suunto Elementum

Suunto, the world’s leading designer of sports precision instruments has unveiled Suunto Elementum – an exclusive collection of superbly crafted timepieces exclusively manufactured in Finland. These stylish, urban-inspired watches combine excellent craftsmanship with precision digital technology in a unique coalescence of function and form.

The collection consists of three watches, Elementum Aqua, Elementum Terra and Elementum Ventus, specifically designed for Diving, Mountaineering and Sailing. The names directly translate to Water, Earth and Wind, which are the three elements that surround the activities Suunto Elementum is inspired by and designed to help navigate through.

“We are entering a new era in Suunto’s history with a collection of premium digital sports watches, which reflects our deep knowledge in diving, mountaineering and sailing. This expansion derives from a unique insight into the other, more urban, part of athletes’ lives; an understanding that allows us to develop watches that are modern and stylish, yet still very functional, for all of life’s situations.” says Juha Pinomaa, President of Suunto.

“Suunto has established itself as the leading outdoor watch brand in the sports retail channel. We are seeing an increasing interest and demand for functional sports watches in the watch retail channel as well, and consumers expect to find our products there. The Suunto Elementum collection has been developed exclusively for this channel.”

The Aqua detects when the user enters the water and starts all the functions and measurements for an enjoyable dive such as depth, max depth, dive time, surface time and water temperature. Ideal for any lifestyle that combines urban life with submerged pleasure.

The Terra is equipped with all the essentials for survival in the outdoors, such as an altimeter for altitude measurement, barometer for easy prediction of weather changes and compass for navigation. It provides information that makes for outdoor exploration with the utmost confidence.

The Ventus (in the image) is a highly sophisticated yet elegant sailing timepiece with impressive features that allow for predictions of upcoming weather, an advanced compass for navigation and a sailing timer for the perfect race start. These make it a must-have extension to one’s on-board equipment.

[Wired]

Apple and the major labels are squaring off  for a major battle this fall with competing formats for delivering the latest innovation in digitial music. Full albums will come with a cornucopia of digital extras — at least that’s the way much of the tech press is setting the scene for a clash between Apple’s Project Cocktail and the major labels’ CMX format.

Both wrap songs, videos, images, lyrics, ringtones and other digital doodads into a comprehensive package that the industry hopes will bring back the long lost, profitable days of full album sales, which gave way to listeners buying single songs.

Apple and Amazon would not answer our questions about this move on the record (nor would any of the four major labels), after Times Online broke the news about the labels’ CMX format. But from the sources we canvassed, a picture emerged of Apple and the labels working on these efforts in parallel. It seems they’re not necessarily “at war” with each other, as a Google News search might lead you to believe.

In fact, many at the labels are happy to work with Apple on Apple’s full-album format, and will supply the assets and licensing the company needs to create it. If one side is supplying the other, it’s not a war. But the labels also want something they can sell on Amazon and elsewhere, and Apple’s format will only be available in iTunes — it appears to be as simple as that.

So Apple may be the biggest game in town when it comes to digital music sales, but it’s not the only game. Admittedly, many at the labels feel that iTunes is in need of some healthy competition, which isn’t the same as a war.

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[CH]

Designer Joey Roth (of Sorapot fame) recently sent us images of his sharp-looking new speakers, which soft-launched at Nooka’s pop-up store at Den in NYC (see details below). Made from porcelain, wood and cork, Roth chose the materials not only for the aesthetic appeal they add to desktops, but also because porcelain’s density and “acoustical deadness” rivals that of wood or plastic enabling the cone shape. The upshot contrasts the thoroughly contemporary mix of textures and colors with a four-inch silhouette that conjures gramophones of the past.

Due out in October, Roth will be accepting pre-orders via his site starting September. No official word on pricing yet, but Roth expects they will be in the $400-500 range—stay tuned for more.

Nooka Pop-up at Den
Through 16 August 2009
328 East 11th Street
New York, NY 10003 map
tel. +1 212 475 0666

[NME]

“There’s an app for that.” Apple’s answer to a million retarded questions, like ‘how can I pretend to drink a non-existent beer?’ or ‘can i make my phone simulate flatulence?”

Now Steve’s Jobsworths have finally addressed a question worth answering, namely ‘Is it possible to make awesome Baltimore club remixes/psych freakouts/electro bangaz just by waving my iPhone around?’

Star6 is a crazy and colourful new application that allows you to manipulate and molest samples using something called an accelorometer which harnesses the phone’s tilt mechanism. With the flick of a wrist you can now live out your wildest Diplo/Aphex Twin/Tiesto fantasies (models and cocaine not included).

Star6 was designed by Jason Forrest AKA DJ Donna Summer, the Berlin-based US ravelord who knows a thing or two about dancefloor destruction. The instrument lets you change all kinds of technical stuff like jitter, gate and filter, but music production virgins need not be wary. Star6 is easier to pick up than Katie Price after a bucketful of Ibizian sangria.

There are inbuilt sample packs called things like Carnival and Laserflash or you can upload any sound you like and go to town on it. I’ve spent the morning working on a crackhouse remix of Fugazi’s Sieve-Fisted Find. It’s going to be amazing.

The future is now.

[PDN]

We were curious about the technology behind an application like this, and what else you could do with it.

For a few years, researchers have been experimenting with augmented reality — essentially, taking a live picture and overlaying some sort of real-time 3D information on it. This is the technology that draws the yellow first-down line in TV broadcasts of football games.

To really put augmented reality to work in a consumer device, you need a gadget that knows its exact position and orientation in space. Now we have one: The iPhone 3G. The first iPhone Apps to take advantage of this technology appear to be on the way.  (That subway station app we mentioned is being developed by acrossair, and they’re also working on a version for New York. We learned about it from Wired.com’s Gadget Lab. There are a handful of other examples in the works, including one for Twitter.)

If augmented reality proves itself useful on the iPhone, expect it to spread to all sorts of gadgets, including digital cameras. Imagine looking into a camera screen and seeing annotations that identify objects as you pan around. Maybe the camera could label important landmarks as you frame a picture of a city skyline. Maybe it could recognize faces and keep a label on each person as they move around in the frame. Some of this could turn out to be gee-whiz trickery, but it could also be fun and useful.

At least one big camera maker is active in this space. Canon holds several patents on augmented reality methods and recently showed off some of its technology at a trade show in Japan. Canon’s demo put the technology to use in virtual reality-style 3D headsets. But we wouldn’t be surprised to see some photographic applications for this technology in the coming years.

[Engadget]

CNET has some choice words for the $4,500 Woo Audio WES amplifier and the $2,410 Stax SR-007Mk2 headphone combo — namely, it’s the world’s best headphone sound money can buy. Far be it for us to argue, but given the steep cost of entry, we’ll also be hard pressed to find out for ourselves. Needless to say, only the purest of audiophiles need apply — we’ll be sticking to working out our mixtapes with aurally subpar three-figure ear pieces, thank you very much.

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