chad

Hillcrest Labs isn't a household name, but if you have a Roku 2 streaming player (and really, you should) the company has entered your home.

Based in Rockville, Md., Hillcrest developed the motion-sensing technology used in Roku's remote. So when you're flipping through menus or playing Angry Birds, Hillcrest is behind how it all works. Its first product in the motion space was the Loop controller, which it showed at CES 2007. After that, the company went on to license its technology to Sony and LG, develop the Kylo browser, and sue Nintendo over the Wii controller.

For the next year, however, Hillcrest is thinking smaller. And by that I mean right down to the mobile level. Two weeks ago at CTIA in New Orleans, SVP Chad Lucien explained how the company is working to integrate motion control technology into cell phones and tablets. … Read more

It looks like YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen have a new service called "Zeen" -- designed to let users "discover and create beautiful magazines" -- coming soon.

Blog Fusible spotted a teaser page for the site earlier today, at zeen.com. The page features a box that lets visitors reserve a username; links to Zeen's Twitter and Facebook pages; and links to a page of job listings and a privacy policy. The jobs page lives at AVOS.com -- AVOS, of course, being Hurley and Chen's company, and the company that bought Delicious off of Yahoo a little less than a year ago.… Read more

Still in rough development, a new extension for Google Chrome puts in your hands a useful power tool for separating your data from Facebook apps of dubious origin. Called OOptOut (download), the add-on by Chad Selph helpfully lists above the Facebook header for you any permissions that a newly-installed Facebook app requests.

Check boxes next to each let you toggle the select permission. Keep in mind that this extension isn't for casual enthusiasts. Disabling permissions can prevent an app from functioning properly. A gaming app that wants your location data may seem strange at first, but it's possible … Read more

Love brainteasers? Brainiacs from a California university hope you can help decipher a mind-draining 10,000-piece puzzle through their collaborative Web site.

The DARPA Shredder Challenge aims to discover new ways the U.S. military can process and decode shredded documents confiscated in war zones, as well as test vulnerabilities in the shredding methods used by the U.S. national security community.

The Shredder Challenge is made up of five separate puzzles in which the number of documents, the documents' subject matter, and the shredding methods vary to present challenges of increasing difficulty. To complete each problem, participants must provide the answer to a puzzle embedded in the content of the reconstructed document.

Three out of the five puzzles are still available to be solved before the contest ends December 4 and DARPA awards $50,000 as the prize. Manuel Cebrian, a research scientist at the University of California at San Diego, and a team from UCSD have created a way to solve the remaining enigmas by "combining advanced computer vision methods with shared tasking and referral-based crowdsourcing," says the USCD Web site. … Read more

As any record buyer knows, LP quality varies a lot. I'm not just referring to the dusty old records sold at yard sales; some new records have noisy grooves, clicks and pops, or they're not flat. Those imperfections are common vinyl woes; making consistently quiet records has never been easy. That's why I was thrilled to hear that Quality Record Pressings (QRP), in Salina, Kansas, employs the most advanced technology ever used to manufacture LPs. The proof is in the listening, and the sound is spectacular.

I spoke with QRP's Chad Kassem about the undertaking, which … Read more

Etsy, the handmade goods online marketplace, has appointed its CTO Chad Dickerson (pictured here) as CEO. He replaces founder Rob Kalin, who stepped back into the top leadership role in late 2009.

Kalin is again transitioning out of the day-to-day management at the New York-based start-up.

In a blog post about it, Dickerson wrote, in part:

With engineering well in hand and a strong partner in Adam Freed (our COO), it's time for me to focus my attention on other aspects of the business. I'm stepping into the role of CEO at Etsy, and I'm looking forward … Read more

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

The white iPhone 4 launches at long last

Yahoo sells off Delicious to the founders of YouTube

Microsoft admits a security breach on the Xbox

Google adds new voice features to the Chrome browser

State Farm Insurance launches an app that will tell you if you drive like a jerk

Social-bookmarking service Delicious has been purchased by AVOS, the company started by YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. Yahoo said in a statement that it will continue to run the Delicious service until about July. User information will then be handed over to AVOS.

The new owners say they'll continue to run the site as it is. On a frequently asked questions page on Delicious, Yahoo says "there may be a time of adjustment as AVOS relaunches Delicious, but the company's intention is to add new features and grow the service overall."

"We're … Read more

NEW YORK--YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen are considering ideas for a new start-up.

Six years after the pair and Jawed Karim founded the phenomenon video-sharing site, Hurley and Chen are "dabbling with new ideas" for a start-up, Hurley said last night during a discussion he participated in at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in Manhattan.

Asked by a member of the audience what the two might be planning, Hurley, 34, was naturally secretive but said they're looking at what might be done with the "basic components that every Web site needs to get off … Read more