jump

So you have a great idea for a BlackBerry application, but like the rest of us in the poor old U. S. of A., you have no money to develop it.

Enter the Jump Start Financing Initiative, which provides entrepreneurs with capital infusions of up to $250,000. The initiative is designed to bring new and innovative ideas into the development process faster, allowing entrepreneurs to focus on building smartphone applications instead of raising capital.

Announced Monday, the initiative is funded by the BlackBerry Partners Fund, a $150 million venture capital fund formed to focus on applications and services for … Read more

Six Apart announced this week that it is partnering with virtual-appliance vendor JumpBox to deliver a virtualized instance of Movable Type, its open-source blogging platform. No more configuration problems as your organization strives to get up and blogging.

Ed Anuff, executive vice president and general manager of the Movable Type division of Six Apart, declared:

You can get up and running immediately, while reducing the cost of configuration and maintenance. And it's a snap for anyone who wants to evaluate the platform to get started, whether that's on a desktop, running VMWare or Parallels, a large-scale deployment on … Read more

Mobile search and advertising start-up JumpTap has received an additional $26 million in funding and has expanded its relationship with U.S. operator AT&T, the company said Tuesday.

JumpTap, based in Cambridge, Mass., provides search technology and advertising services for mobile operators such as AT&T and U.S. Cellular. The company also provides advertising for carriers and content owners such as NBC Universal and Fox Mobile.

JumpTap, which works with 17 mobile operators around the world, competes against search and advertising heavyweights such as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. The new funding, which completes the company's … Read more

Sonic the Hedgehog has seen a platform or four.

The spikey-furred rodent first brought to life by Sega in 1991 for proprietary consoles rolled with technology's punches onto TV, Xbox, PS3, and recently, onto mobile phones. April saw the spawning of Sega Mobile, when several flagship games, including Sonic the Hedgehog, were ported to mobile phone format and offered to cell phone gamers for subscription or sale through their carrier's Web portals. Now Sega Mobile is offering Sonic Jump, Afterburner II, and Golden Axe free of charge for U.S. residents.

The catch, as you may have guessed, … Read more

Some of us at Crave are old enough to remember when the Harrier "Jump Jet" gained fame (or notoriety) in the Falklands War of 1982, an aircraft that seemed to arrive from the future because it could take off vertically like a helicopter. That, anyway, is what came to mind upon seeing this "RC Jump Jet Stealth Plane."

Unlike most remote-controlled aircraft, this one claims to have a Harrier-like vertical lift powered by four "gyro-stabilized" propellers. Unfortunately, OhGizmo says it looks more like "a four-bladed helicopter that's been adorned with small wings&… Read more

Virtualization technology lets apps--even entire servers--coexist with localized software, for example, your computer's operating system. Virtualization's value to consumers and businesses is in producing fast, resource-saving experiences that boost productivity for businesses and consumers. Four newly launched companies using this technology share their products at Thursday's Under the Radar Conference, hosted at Microsoft's Mountain View, Calif., office.

First up is DeviceVM's Splashtop, a virtual operating system that hopes to break the cycle of long computer boot-up times by producing the Splashtop desktop a few seconds after the BIOS screen blinks on. You can access the … Read more

One of the most frequent questions I get from CNET Download.com users is "What free software can I use to edit video?" If I didn't respond to you personally, it's likely because there's not an easy answer. It depends on what type of video you have, and what you want to do with it.

Let's start with the basics. If you didn't know, you likely already have Windows Movie Maker, which was included with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and recently beefed up for Windows Vista.

The XP version of Movie Maker is adequate for putting together clips into larger videos, adding simple transitions, and making basic edits, but I can't recommend the experience. The review on CNET Download.com is overly harsh, but it encapsulates several problems you may encounter.… Read more

Yet another back-office suite is launching here at the DemoFall conference (more stories). This one is called LongJump. It's designed for the small business, and while it's a bit sparse at the moment, it looks like it will develop into a good collection of apps.

I played around with a few of the apps, like the job application tracker, the employee manager, and the trade show planner. They're straightforward and mostly free of frills and complexities in the crucial screens (like data entry). However, I did find some superfluous animated graphs that slow down page loads while … Read more

Summertime conjures visions of endless outdoor activities, but what protects a kid's brain from melting in the day's heat? JumpStart World, 2nd Grade (there's also a kindergarten version) is one of CNET Download.com's many educational software programs to keep students' brains sharp over vacation.

From the beginning, JumpStart World reminds me of a Second Life for second graders--the download and installation are lengthy, and slurp up quite a bit of memory. Users begin by registering, choosing an avatar, and entering an interactive 3D world replete with an orienting tutorial. The main difference is that kids go on "hero" missions at their virtual summer camp, earning shields and gems--the in-game currency--for following instructions, doing good deeds, and mastering fun games.… Read more