Last week, Danish Computerworld awarded IT Factory, a provider of CRM, HRM and Business Intelligence add-on solutions based on a SaaS delivery model, with the prestigious “Denmark’s Best IT-company 2008″. This week, the company has been declared bankrupt and its managing director Stein Bagger went missing in Dubai while under scrutiny by the police and Interpol. The remarkable story is all over the Danish press but has remained largely unnoticed outside of the country so far. Stein Bagger apparently got his hands really dirty: he’s wanted by Interpol for financial fraud and by the Danish police for a possible assault on a business man (reportedly executed by members ...

Introducing the Nokia N97, the next generation high-end mobile phone from Nokia. Described by Nokia folks as a "handheld computer" this device is a pretty comfortable high-end phone. It has a tilting (resistive) touch-screen display, and is the first N-series phone with a QWERTY keyboard. It has 32 gigabytes of memory, expandable to 42 GB via 16 GB memory card. It has a digital compass, a 1500 milliamp battery, and DVD quality video capture. It's extremely comfortable to hold, easy to use, and represents a solid solid evolution of the Nokia smarthphone line. ...

Animoto, the impressive startup that automatically generates high quality music videos from a set of photos, has unveiled a new feature for the holiday season that will allow users to append any of their videos with a holiday intro/outro movie and a snow-themed backdrop, making for a perfect holiday eGreeting. To activate the special holiday look, just click on the ‘Santa’ button beneath any video. Of course, you’ll have to come up with photos suitable for the holiday season yourself - Animoto will just make them look festive. We’re big fans of Animoto - the site may not offer an expansive list of products or features, but it does a great job of automatically spici ...

Just got this lovely email, pretending to be from Blizzard: Subject: Warning : World of Warcraft Account Notice From: donotreply@blizzard.com To: arfenhousetoo@gmail.com An investigation of your World of Warcraft account has found strong evidence that the account in question is being sold or traded. As you may not be aware of, this conflicts with Blizzard’s EULA under section 4 Paragraph B which can be found here: WoW -> Legal -> End User License Agreement and Section 8 of the Terms of Use found here: WoW -> Legal -> Terms of Use The investigation will be continued by Blizzard administration to determine the action to be taken against your account. If your account is foun ...

YouTube sure has come a long way since launching in 2005 and being acquired by Google within a year for $1.65 billion. The company has today announced a collaborative project with a bunch of classical music institutions and artists in the context of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra program, and I think it’s awesome. Starting today until January 28, 2009, musicians are invited to submit two videos: a personal interpretation of an original Tan Dun composition, written specifically for this program, and a talent video designed to demonstrate their musical and technical abilities. The semi-finalists will be selected by an impressive panel made up of members from the London Symphony Orchestr ...

If you thought Randall Stross’ attack on Tesla yesterday was in poor taste, wait until you read what Michael Wolff has to say about MySpace. In a dinner interview with BusinessWeek columnist Jon Fine, Wolff says: …if you’re on MySpace now, you’re a [expletive] cretin. And you’re not only a [expletive] cretin, but you’re poor. Nobody who has beyond an 8th grade level of education is on MySpace. It is for backwards people. That’s just part of a much longer interview in which Wolff goes into detail on exactly why he thinks MySpace will go the way of AOL. He also makes some blatantly incorrect statements, such as “All of the growth now in MySpace is international, ...

If you thought Randall Stross’ attack on Tesla yesterday was in poor taste, wait until you read what Michael Wolff has to say about MySpace. In a dinner interview with BusinessWeek columnist Jon Fine, Wolff says: …if you’re on MySpace now, you’re a [expletive] cretin. And you’re not only a [expletive] cretin, but you’re poor. Nobody who has beyond an 8th grade level of education is on MySpace. It is for backwards people. That’s just part of a much longer interview in which Wolff goes into detail on exactly why he thinks MySpace will go the way of AOL. He also makes some blatantly incorrect statements, such as “All of the growth now in MySpace is international, ...

uTest, the crowdsourcing QA startup that lets companies rely on external developers to help them identify bugs, has closed a $5 million Series B funding round led by Longworth Venture Partners and Egan-Managed Capital, along with existing investors Masco Ltd. and Massachusetts Technology Development Corp. The new round brings the startup’s total funding to around $7.8 million after a $2.3 million Series A round last year and some early seed funding. The site offers customers a web based testing platform and tools for monitoring testing and QA cycles, which are available to them free of charge (they only pay for the testing offered by the crowdsourced community). Community members ar ...

Accoona, the highly suspect New Jersey based search/electronics retailer, has suffered what might be its final disgrace - the closure of it’s last business, Twing. The company, which offered a search product, has a rich history. Founder Marc Armand Rousso has a shady past involving stock fraud, and former President Bill Clinton was a spokesperson for the company. Most of Accoona’s $137 million/year in revenue came from distributing electronics after buying a number of retailers in Brooklyn. In 2007 they canceled a planned IPO, and the Accoona search business was sold to Masterseek, a Danish company, last month. The company said in April they were deprioritizing all of their bus ...

<img src=”http://www.mobilecrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/smack-300×165.jpg” alt=”" title=”smack” width=”300″ height=”165″ class=”alignright size-medium wp-image-5967″ /> Of all the complex and expensive toys that have become standard objects in our lives, mobile handsets probably get the worst treatment. Think about it: they’re the result of many hours of engineering and design and cost hundreds of dollars to obtain, yet within days of purchase they’re generally being smashed into coin-filled pockets or carelessly tossed into cupholders. How do they last a week, much less the years we expect of t ...

Earlier this year Vuvox, a startup that generates rich interactive slideshows, was acquired with little fanfare by eBay. Vuvox slideshows put the generic, thumb nailed images on eBay to shame, allowing users to include video, audio, and impressive photo collages into an embeddable Flash widget. But until recently users had to go to Vuvox’s homepage directly if they wanted to include a widget as part of their auction. Now, eBay is conducting a pilot program for its automobile auctions, presenting sellers with an option to include the enhanced slideshows for free. The results are very cool, allowing prospective buyers to intuitively browse through auctions in a way that is as inform ...

File this one under “Unfortunate Ad Placements.” On a day that the Dow dropped 680 points (7.7 percent), MarketWatch ran the Jack Daniels banner ad in the screenshot above (sent to us by reader Scott Murff). The ad shows the “countdown to the close” of the market in minutes and seconds, suggesting that might be a good time for a drink. Juxtaposed with the headline “Bears Refusing To Hibernate,” it takes on additional meaning. It becomes a commentary on the financial markets themselves: there is not much you can do in a down market but drown your sorrows (so might as well drown them in Jack Daniels). Does the unintentional pairing with the headline make ...

File this one under “Unfortunate Ad Placements.” On a day that the Dow dropped 680 points (7.7 percent), MarketWatch ran the Jack Daniels banner ad above. The ad shows the “countdown to the close” of the market in minutes and seconds, suggesting that might be a good time for a drink. Juxtaposed with the headline “Bears Refusing To Hibernate,” it takes on additional meaning. It becomes a commentary on the financial markets themselves: there is not much you can do in a down market but drown your sorrows (so might as well drown them in Jack Daniels). Does the unintentional pairing with the headline make it a more effective ad or a tasteless one? Crunch Ne ...

Pownce, the media-rich Twitter competitor that was co-founded by Digg’s Kevin Rose along with Leah Culver and Daniel Burka, has been acquired by Six Apart and will be closing its doors on December 15. Users will be able to export their accounts to other services, allowing them to retain their messages and media, but it looks like Pownce users will have to turn to Twitter for their micro-blogging needs (if they haven’t already). Culver and Mike Malone (Pownce’s two engineers and only full time employees) will be integrated into the Six Apart team. The news doesn’t come as much of a surprise - Pownce has long struggled to top Twitter in the microblogging space, desp ...

With the launch of multiple DSLRs including today's Nikon D3X, camera manufacturers are ready and waiting for you to buy their wares. But should you? DSLRs are perceived by beginners as the pick-up trucks of the camera world. Why buy something with high wheels and a tailgate when you are perfectly happy with a comfortable minivan or sedan? But DSLRs aren't quite they heavy duty machines we make them out to be. Point-and-shoots, while small and comfortable, are severely limited in terms of shooting ability. Manufacturers stuff all sorts of image improving features into these things including red-eye reduction, night mode, and even child mode for fast-moving rugrats. But these are crutches d ...

In the waning days of his leadership at the FCC, chairman Kevin J. Martin is trying to push through some striking initiatives in his last chance to leave his mark on the agency. On Election Day, for instance, the FCC approved unlicensed use for white-space TV spectrum (aka, WiFi 2.0) that is being freed up. Now Martin wants to rid the wireless Web of porn. One of the issues he plans to tackle in upcoming meetings this month, is a plan to give all Americans free access to the Web via the airwaves, minus the porn. Adults would be able to opt back in to get the raw, unfiltered Internet. The proposal opens the door for the FCC to regulate decency standards on the Web, but only when it is acc ...

It’s the season for top searches, and Ask.com just doesn’t know how to play the game. To compile these, big search engines take all the top search terms for the year and promptly throw the data out. They then compile a list of terms that they think properly reflects key trends that people are looking for, occasionally looking at the actual data for guidance. We saw Yahoo’s list earlier today. Ask’s comes next. And it’s clear they are being way too honest. The top search is Dictionary followed by MySpace, Google, YouTube and Facebook. These aren’t searches, they’re navigation queries. Ah well. Here’s the complete list: Dictionary MySpace Goog ...

What is fascination with Britney Spears? Maybe it’s a train-wreck kind of thing. Once again she tops Yahoo’s list of overall searches for 2008, just like she did last year. In fact, the entire list hardly changed at all. The term “WWE” was once again No. 2. All in all, six out of the top ten search terms remained the same. The only new entrants were “Barack Obama,” “Miley Cyrus,” “Angelina Jolie,” and “American Idol.” This list doesn’t really tell you much other than that people are obsessed with celebrities. I’ve bolded the repeats below: http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/03/yahoo-top-searches-2007- ...

Trutap, a leading UK mobile startup which made the TechCrunch 40 list in 2007, is letting go almost 80% of its 30 staff after failing to hit its window for a second round of funding. A skeleton staff will keep the social apps Java application for mobiles available prior to a sale or new investment, only a month after its re-launch. The startup was orphaned after its first investor Tudor Ventures, a hedge fund hit hard by the economis crisis, put in a rumoured $6m but could not come back for a second funding round. And today the UK startup scene was also hit by news that review site Reevoo is putting a fifth of its staff jobs on an “at risk” list. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the f ...

When I was in Europe two weeks ago I fell in love with Moleskin notebooks. I know I am neither a college-age girl or a pretentious artist but these things are great. The paper is soft and thick, there's a little pouch for your documents at the end, and they survived the abuse of me running around Paris doing research which is more than I can say for most reporters notebooks I've used. But yes, they are kind of for weenies but I'm giving some cool, specially engraved notebooks away, so read on. ...