Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen some very large companies launch products that compete with products created by self funded startups.

Few notable examples: 

Yesterday, Nike launched an iPhone app that no longer requires a separate sensor in your running shoes. The new app is a direct shot at RunKeeper.

A few weeks ago, Google lanched Priority Inbox which is a direct shot at SaneBox.

The idea of big companies going after self funded startups is nothing new. Happens all the time and always will. 

Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ obsessive focus on design detail is at least partially responsible for why the tech sphere and the design sphere are so intertwined at the moment. Which makes the ire that Jobs has received for the current iTunes 10 logo (not to mention the foibles of Ping) particularly poignant.

Last time we wrote about Notifo, we called it a “simple mobile notifications platform for anything” — and really, that’s probably the best way to describe it. Take your iPhone, install the Notifo app, hook it up to your favorite services (like Twitter, or GitHub) or any of the “Projects” (read: plugins, like Growl alert forwarding, or Chrome-to-Notifo ), and bam! You’ve got push notifications coming down to your iPhone from just about anything you could imagine.

Back in March, on the eve of SXSW, Plancast got an iPhone app out just in time. Now, with more time to work, they’ve perfected it with the launch of version 2. And that’s not all they’ve been working on.

Vidyo, a company that specializes in high-quality video conferencing technology for the enterprise, is betting big on bringing video conferencing to mobile devices, including tablets and smartphones. Similar to Skype, Vidyo offers a technology that allows people to connect with each other over the web via video conferencing. However, the company says that Vidyo system is focused more on the enterprise, providing a reliable system, allowing conferencing for many parties at once, and offering high quality video.

As a longtime Apple TV owner, I’ll admit a dirty little secret: I really like the device. Sure, it has been one of the rare flops for Apple in recent years. And it could be so much more with say, a Blu-ray player or a web browser. But it is really good at its core functionality: bringing iTunes content into your living room. And that’s why this new version of the Apple TV makes sense — at least for now.

When I read Twitter CEO Evan Williams post tonight about the state of Twitter from a mobile perspective, the first thing that jumped out at me what that Twitter for Android, an app Twitter worked hard on, isn’t even in the top 10 most-used apps for the service. But Williams also used the post to whip out some impressive numbers.

AOL has just acquired Rally Up, the Santa Cruz-based mobile application company, we’ve learned. The 9-person team will become a part of AOL’s mobile group reporting to David Temkin, the new head of mobile. No word on the price, but we hear it was less than $10 million.

If you live in San Francisco and you haven’t tried UberCab yet, do it. The service, which we first covered in July, eliminates everything bad about a taxi experience. In my order, that’s flagging one down, finding the cash to pay, and being in a sometimes disgusting car. For bonus points, I always enjoy negotiating whether or not I get air conditioning in the summer in NY.

Fashism, a fashion site where you can get instant feedback on your outfits has taken the next logical step to the iPhone and just hit the app store. The Fashism iPhone app extends the concept behind the site, which involves getting collective advice on your fashion decisions in realtime.

One of the big problems with drug and prostitution transactions is that they tend to involve a lot of cash, and cash is hard to launder. Taking credit card payments has never been easier via Square, which lets anyone swipe credit cards with their iPhone.

Sure, it leaves one heck of a paper trail, but you have to wonder if at least a few of those person to person transactions aren’t being done via that sexy startup. I certainly have.