Today marks the launch of Yelp in Australia. For those unfamiliar with the service, Yelp is a service that allows users to rate their experience with businesses. These business ratings can aid in the decision process for selecting a business to suit your needs.

Imagine you find yourself in an unfamiliar city and want to discover the best restaurant to dine at that evening. Rather than take a gamble on a random place, you can inform your decision by using the wisdom of the crowds, or rely on your social graph to surface the best places. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking Yelp is just for restaurants, it’s not.

Based on international statistics to September, Yelp reviews are made of up only 23% shopping, 23% restaurants, 10% Home and local services, 9% Beauty and fitness and 8% Arts, Entertainment and events. From these numbers and the pie chart below, you can see Yelp covers a massive cross-section of businesses in all different industries.

Yelp launched in the US in late 2004 and has continued it’s international expansion to Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Belgium. Seven years later, Australians will get their turn.

The local launch of Yelp here in Australia means Australian businesses will be added to the list of cities available. Yelp has worked with Sensis to add a bunch of local businesses, which means they won’t be starting from scratch. Initially the company has focused on Melbourne and Sydney, but will work throughout Australia. To a large degree, it’ll be up to the community to contribute content.

From 6:01am this morning, a dedicated Yelp Australia website will be live – http://yelp.com.au. The Australian launch of Yelp will also include the launch of free iPhone and Android mobile applications. There are currently no dates for the launch of a Windows Phone 7 application. Good news for Americans who already have the Yelp app on their phones, the Australian locations will simply show up.

Gallery

Yelp for Business Owners will also be available, the company’s free suite of business owner tools. Businesses can claim their businesses, then add images, post business information like special events and publically and privately respond to customer reviews. Businesses can offer Yelp Deals, essentially these work the same as Facebook or Foursquare deals.

Video

On Monday this week, I got a chance to sit down with Co-founder and CEO of Yelp, Jeremy Stoppelman to discuss the Australian launch. Check out the video interview below.

Kevin Rose’s new startup Milk recently launched their first mobile application Oink. The app, which offers similar functionality, gets users to rate the things inside businesses rather than the business itself. When asked for his thoughts on Oink, Stoppelman replied that they have had similar functionality for years now. It is however achieved in a very different way. Yelp looks at a reviews at a business, then algorithmically identifies common objects, dishes etc that are discussed.

More information @ Yelp.com.au (available from 6:01AM 30/11/11).

Ultrabooks are all the rage right now, with Macbook Air competitors coming from almost every PC manufacturer. The favourite right now for those with unlimited budget is the Samsung Series 9, if your boss is paying, get this one. The next tier down is a more reasonably priced Asus UX21 (Zenbook) is a great the middle class. But what about those on a budget ?

Good news today for those looking for an ‘affordable’ Ultrabook. The Acer S3 Ultrabook now starts at a brand new price of A$999. Just under that magical $1,000 mark. Yes to reach that price point there are compromises above and beyond the regular Ultrabook limitations.

The Acer S3 family starts at A$999 but only houses an Intel Core i3 chip, rather than the i5, or even i7 chips found in other Ultrabooks. There’s also a 320GB SATA drive, rather than the power-saving and speedy SSDs. If thin and light is your requirement, not speed and grunt, then this may still satisfy your check boxes. It still weighs in at just under 1.4kg and is just 13mm thin, wrapping up a 13.3” display.

It’s always been a promise of Wintel Ultrabooks to hit the sub $1000 mark, but until now that had been unachievable. Most like the Asus retail for between $1200-$1500, with the Samsung over $2k. Price pressure down is always great for consumers and while you can pick up a standard laptop for less than an Ultrabook, you should definitely consider the benefits.

More @ Acer via ARN.

Rebecca Black is coming to Australia. Nope, I didn’t ask for it either, blame Telstra.

The world of Internet meme’s move pretty fast, with most videos spreading rapidly over the course of a few ours and forgotten about a few days later. Rebecca Black’s Friday video lasted longer than most and received the appropriate remix treatment to extend its lifespan.

It seems Australia’s largest telco, Telstra is funding the expedition international voyage to have Black visit down under. If they were looking to cash in the ‘success’ of the teen internet celebrity, they sure did miss the boat. The timing is intriguing given the release of Windows Phone 7.5 and iPhone are both due in October. I’m sure Apple is smart enough to avoid Rebecca Black, I hope the same can be said for Microsoft.

Black confirmed the news with a Twitter post earlier today and followed up with a YouTube video.

Director of TiVo Australia or Hybrid Television Services (ANZ), Robbee Minicola has left Australia, and is already back in her home country of the USA, after working internationally for 27 years. She confirmed this with a post on twitter a few hours ago. Her profile description listed her as  the “TiVo mad leader working towards building the best TiVo experience in AU and NZ”.

TiVo in Australia hasn’t exactly been booming with poor sales numbers, lack of updates and models and downsizing to skeleton staff. With the head of the company, TiVo’s future in Australia becomes even more bleak. As an owner and fan of TiVo, its incredibly frustrating that TiVo is being left to die like this. There has now been multiple models and updates released internationally that have not made it to Australia.

What has always puzzled me about TiVo is its lack of partnerships and bundles with television manufacturers. Consumers have embraced HDTV’s over the past few years in a massive way, so bundling a discounted TiVo would have been a great way to drive sales. One hope for TiVo fans is that Australian licencee of TiVo, would be acquired by someone who has the resources and passion to make TiVo a success in Australia. Fingers crossed.

Family HQ is a new concept in social networking – it’s private. An Internet start-up that is 100% owned and developed within Australia, Family HQ is the first Australian social network of this type. During Microsoft’s Tech.Ed conference I got a chance to sit down with the Co-Founders Jase and Brooke Farmer.

Family HQ was created as a result of a personal need, that was then requested by friends. The private social network is designed for those that want to keep content private, so security is strong focus. 

More info @ FamilyHQ.com

No doubt most Google users would be envious of our US counterparts who have enjoyed cheap call rates via Google Voice. Well today Australia gets its turn. Google have officially launched Google Voice for Australia, sadly there is one key exception. One of the best parts of Google Voice is the Google Voice Number.

A Google Voice number allows users to route all their calls through what’s effectively an alias number. This can be handed out to without fear of exposing your actual real number. This may launch at a later date in Australia.. fingers crossed.

So what do we get today? Basically its Google’s answer to Skype out. Google Voice Australia rates are low, charged at US$0.02 per minute to landlines or US$0.10 for calls to mobiles. There’s no initial flagfall charge when a call is connected like a tradition non-IP call.

While Skype pro never enticed me to lay down cash, for some reason Google Voice is enticing, so this afternoon I tried it out. Sure it worked, but call quality wasn’t fantastic in both directions and the mobile carriers can’t be blamed for shotty coverage, this was too a landline. Just be aware of this if your thinking of ditching your landline and going with Google Voice your VOIP solution.

You can access Google Voice through the Gmail interface, apparently there is a plugin to install, but it seems I already had it from Google+ hangout testing. It is annoying call costs and balances are still in US dollars.. baby steps. Buying credit is a fairly simple process, if you try and call without any, you’ll get a link to buy credit. $US10 is the minimum buy if your going to try it out.

Australia wasn’t the only country to get Google Plus today, calling from Gmail is now available to 150 destinations and 38 languages according to Google’s blog post.

More info @ Google Voice via ZDNet

Australian gamers are frustrated by the lack of voice support on the Xbox 360. A feature that launched late last year for the US and UK Xbox owners, it was promised for ‘early 2011’, but its mid-year and we’re still waiting. Microsoft’s reason – the Australian accent is complex and requires time to add proper support. Yes we’d prefer it to work correctly when the feature arrives, but seriously, how hard could it be ?

At the bottom of a Forza 4 press release from E3, it listed “Kinect Voice capability scheduled for Australia before the end of 2011.” This means we may see games that use voice commands, ship before voice support is rolled out to Australia. Pretty ridiculous right ?

The situation gets even more intriguing when you take into consideration that Windows 7 features voice recognition which isn’t switched off in Australia. The latest puzzling piece of the equation is that Kinect Fun Labs, now available on your Xbox 360, in Australia, DOES support voice commands. In my experience it does a great job.

There is another dashboard update on the way that ads full Kinect support to the entire interface, not just in the Kinect hub. It’s due around September and is the most likely time Australian’s will get the overdue feature.

Image credit: Microsoft

If you remember when Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox 360 launched last year, Australian’s missed out on a key feature. Controlling content on your TV by voice commands was the thing of dreams and science fiction. Microsoft said in November that Voice control would come to Australian Kinect’s by ‘early next year.’

Well Microsoft we’re now well into 2011 and there’s still no talk of it. So why was it originally left out ?

“Some methods of communication are straight forward, like hand gestures are the same, but voices are obviously different with accents and slang, not just across different countries, but within those countries. To implement more advanced controls we have to master all of these accents.”

Essentially the reason is our accent. Apparently the voice recognition in Kinect is significantly different to that of Windows 7, because that shipped here just fine. With a set database of terms the user can say, correlating to on-screen options, you’d think the process of Australian’ising it would be relatively straight forward.

Hopefully it arrives soon, it is arguably one of Kinect’s most unique and futuristic features.

More info @ Kotaku

“Its time to expand.”

techAU has been growing phenomenally over the past 4 years, but there’s an opportunity to do even better. With an ambitious goal of increasing traffic to the site 5x-10x in 2011, I’m going to need some help. I’m looking for 5 Australians who are passionate about technology and want to share that experience with the world. If you think you’ve got what it takes then, then go ahead, prove it !

There’s no complicated rigmarole.. just send an email including which tech categories your passionate about and an example post. I’ll play editor, for the first few, but once I’m comfortable you’ll get to post directly to the site.

Update 1
Great news! We already have our first new writer on board, taking care of Mobile and Home Theatre.. best be quick if you want in.

Update 2
Even more  great news, we now have a second writer on board who’ll take care of Hacks, Tips and tricks as well as how-to.

Update 3
You guys are amazing, looks like we’ll have 5 new writers in a variety of categories, the latest are photography and design. Don’t let that stop you from applying, there’s still some categories uncovered.

Suggested categories include:

As for the reward, your name will be on each post you write. This can form a portfolio of writing that’ll follow you wherever you go. There’s no cold hard cash on offer for a couple of reasons. The first is that I want techAU writers to write because they have something valuable to contribute, not because they are financially motivated. The second reason is that the site’s income goes straight into hosting costs and equipment upgrades to improve in the future. There will likely be some fringe benefits along the way, potentially attending conferences, getting the latest products to review etc.

Applicants should read and understand the unique flavour that is techAU. Covering the latest news, product and service reviews and sharing your personal experience in your categories of interest/s is all part of the gig. There’s no minimum or maximum amount of posts, just write as often as you can, the more content we produce, the more visitors to the site will increase.

Being part of the team, you’ll also have the opportunity to make suggestions about future direction of the site. So if your a creative person who like to blog, then send me a damn email ! If your not right for the gig, please pass it on to your friends, spread the word !

Join one of Australia’s leading tech blogs by emailing jason@techAU.tv now !

The core concept of a group buying site is that users share deals with friends, all building towards a magic number. That magic number is usually the point in which the economics make sense for the business to provide the deal.

One the first deals on StarDeals by Groupon Australia is for 1 month membership at Balmain Fitness for only A$49. Apparently this will normally cost users A$200 per month, maybe they have golden treadmills there. Earlier today, the deal had only 1 single purchaser, yet the ‘Deal is on!’

Sydney only
The other complaint about the launch of Groupon Australia is that while Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth are all displayed at the top of the page, launch deals are only available to the residents of Sydney. Sure its the largest city in Australia, but what kind of a launch is it that appeals to 4.5 million, less than a quarter of all Australians. This feels very undercooked, something I wouldn’t have expected from the US-giant.

More information at http://stardeals.com.au/