Road Warriors Web 2.0

For those who are looking for ways to never overpay for a flight again, try out these services:

Farecast.com is the first airfare prediction website. They help online travel shoppers save money by answering the question; should you buy now or wait? Farecast now offer airfare predictions from over 75 U.S. departure cities to top domestic destinations.

This site focuses on building new product features that will help travel shoppers make more confident and smarter airfare purchase decisions.

FareCompare.com wants to improve the current shopping process by providing relevant information to consumers in a timely fashion.

They receive and process fares directly from the airlines. Each fare shown is a valid fare on that airline. Unfortunately, sometimes inventory (seats) is limited/unavailable for the selected fare on your selected dates. On average each airline files from 10-20 fares between any two cities.

Yapta's purpose is to make it easy for you to secure the best airfare deals available on the Web. They do this by giving you a tool to "tag" the trips you like while shopping online, then Yapta tracks prices on these trips and alerts you when prices drop. Yapta also gives you a single place to keep all of your trips online. It's a pretty simple concept, but for some reason, no one has done this before.

Web 2.0 Applications

Here are a few popular Web 2.0 applications. Not to worry, I'll bring you more later on.


Allmydata
Allmydata harnesses the power of grid storage technology to securely store your email, photos, music, movies and more.

Backpack
Make a page out of an idea. Then add free-form text, to-dos, notes, photos, files. Share pages with other people. Set email and mobile phone reminders so you don't forget.

BlinkList
Import and manage Your Bookmarks - in the Blink of an Eye. Create Watch lists to See What Your Friends Are Discovering Online. Follow the Wisdom of Crowds and Discover What's Hot Now.

clipmarks
Clip and save just the stuff you want from any web page. Create your personal online collection of clipmarks. Tag them with keywords, add your own comments and share them with friends. Search the Public Clipmarks to see what's being clipped and who is clipping it.

Kiko
Slow, featureless online calendars are so Web 1.0. Kiko is a cool new web calendar that delivers all the functionality of desktop calendar software, and all the convenience of online access. And it's free!

Second Life Copyright Infringement Clam Heads To Court

A case of alleged copyright infringement in Second Life is heading to court.

According to Reuters, Second Life entrepreneur Kevin Alderman, the owner of Eros LLC, a company that makes virtual sex beds, filed the “Eros LLC vs John Doe” lawsuit on Tuesday.

Second Life user Volkov Catteneo is alleged to have copied and distributed the “SexGen Bed”, an item that sells for L$12,000 ($45.11). The lawsuit seeks to force Linden Lab to disclose Catteneo’s real-world identity, as well as asking Catteneo for damages.

The case, the first of its kind for Second Life, will be interesting from a legal perspective. There is no legal precedent for the case, and as Stanford University’s Lauren Gelman said in a Four Corners report earlier this year, the concept of virtual property ownership is vexed:

“All of this is virtual bits and bytes, ones and zeros that are sitting on the servers at Second Life’s headquarters and the server farms they have around the world…how much can you own something that’s really under the control and domain of another party, this is really where the law is being tested to see how they’re going to figure that out.”

On the surface it also seems a little strange that Linden Lab has not already dealt with it; Second Life has strict rules in relation to copyright infringement and has previously acted in favor of in-world copyright owners.

Trendmill: Clothes Darling, Clothes!

Keeping with this weeks evolving theme of niche social networking sites comes Trendmill, a social networking destination for lovers of clothes.

Trendmill allows users to upload images of their own clothes or clothes they wish they owned. Members are able to “tip people off” on what they think is hot, vote on other people’s clothes and collaboratively “give a general sense of what the next big trend in fashion is going to be”.
Trendmill also provides the usual features expected from a social networking site, including messaging, publishing articles (blogging) and connecting with friends (”entourage”).

TrendMill competes in the same space as StyleDiary, ShareYourLook and ShoutFit . Unlike some competitors, TrendMill is strictly a social networking play and it shows through a stylish interface and a haute couture of user sites. Clothes may make the man but they won’t on many reading this, so it is a site that’s not for everyone. However if you take your Versace and YSL seriously, you will probably like Trendmill.

NBBC Joins The Deadpool

NBBC, a video aggregation service launched by NBC last September has joined the TechCrunch Deadpool.

The remains of NBBC will be merged into the NBC/ News Corp joint venture first announced in March.

The new service, dubbed Clown Co has long been discussed but to date is yet to appear. Strangely, News Corp recently launched , a YouTube competitor in its own right that will compete directly with the NBC/ News Corp joint venture.

In an interview with MediaPost, George Kliavkoff, NBCU’s chief digital officer justified the closure of NBBC as a step towards strengthening the NBC/ News Corp joint venture : “we saw that “NewSite” could use NBBC’s resources, so last Friday afternoon we agreed to contribute it to the NewSite effort.”

The closure of NBBC and the transfer of IP and talent does not extend to existing agreements. Over 150 partners of NBBC, including Hearst, A&E Television Networks, The Horror Channel, Vibe Media Group, CNET Networks and Forbes.com will be required to negotiate new contracts with the new service.

CNN gives it's website a face lift and a new improved Technology site

Tech-head nation

Technology is all around us all the time and we crave even more gotta-have-it gadgets.

iPhone blog

Go to CNET's blog site devoted to the iPhone. There you can stay up to date on the newest applications that you can download.

Firefox 3 Alpha 6 now available

Mozilla has released the sixth alpha of Gran Paradiso, Firefox 3 development name. This release comes with a very short delay to the original schedule which is an important achievement considering Alpha 5 was delayed for about a week.

Is IBM Making Enterprise Mashups Respectable?

Here's a great article on how IBM is embracing the use of mainstreaming mashups and Web 2.0 technologies.

Mobio Launches New Mobile Social Media Widgets

Mobio Networks announced today that are launching new mobile social media widgets for Web 2.0 services Twitter, Digg and Kaboodle as part of their GetMobio lifestyle portal. Mobio has created 50+ mashups that help people stay connected with friends, places and information while mobile.

25 New Apps for Your iPhone

<So you took the plunge this weekend and snapped up an iPhone. You lucky BizHacker! Now it’s time to see what she can do. Web-2.0 blog Rev2.org has assembled the top 25 Web apps for the iPhone. Not all of them will improve your productivity, but the list definitely includes some worthwhile tools.

Nine Cool Things You Can Do With Wikipedia

Wikipedia is great encyclopedia, but did you know you could also use it as a future planner, TV guide, zeitgeist trend tracker, and more?

New Version of Plaxo Launched

Plaxo has announced Plaxo 3.0, a new version that builds on its multi-point sync product by offering improved sync options as well as a feed-style people tracker.

Automated “multi-way sync” under Plaxo 3.0 includes Google Calender, Microsoft (Outlook, Outlook Express, Vista Mail, and Hotmail), Yahoo (Mail and Calendar), Mac OSX (for Address Book, iCal, and iPhone), AOL (AIM and Classic AOL), Mozilla Thunderbird and LinkedIn. The new multi-component “smart address book” web app includes tabs for contacts, calendar, tasks, notes, and more. A revamped address book component includes click-to-call phone numbers via Jajah and maps from Yahoo.

Search for Billions of Photos

Photobucket has announced the launch of Photobucket Media Plug-in 2.0, an enhanced version of its free image and video hosting plug-in.

The new plug-in gives users of participating web sites the ability to search for billions of publicly stored photos, videos and images from Photobucket’s extensive library, along with access to their own content from existing Photobucket media accounts, all without leaving partner sites.

Photobucket Media Plug-in 2.0 partner sites include: Freewebs, Gaiaonline.com, LiveJournal, Piczo, Rockyou.com, Singshot, Slide.com and Tagged.com.

Photobucket CEO Alex Welch said that by adding search to Photobuckets Media Plug-ins will deliver a more compelling service option for Photobucket’s partners.

A Happy Reminder

If you’ve even been on a late night Mountain Dew binge only to wake up and forget how many of the “Extreme” beverages you need to restock for your next LAN party,Ikan might have the fix for you.

Ikan is a special bar code scanner you can use to keep your grocery shopping list up to date. As you use items, simply scan them before you trash them to keep a running tally of what you’ve used. It also has a voice recorder you can use to add non-coded items like apples and oranges.

Your list is saved to the internet, where you can review and print out your list or ship it off to an online grocery store to complete your order. Because the list is on the net, you can even review it on the go from a mobile browser.

New Rules for Social Media Optimization

There is an exceptionally interesting meme developing around the idea of social media optimization. It started with Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy Public Relations and his 5 Rules of Social Media Optimization (SMO).

Read the article here.

Create mashups in minutes. With openkapow you can quickly create, deploy, share and use web services (called Robots) that masups anything on the web.

Star Wars Mashups

Upload your videos and mash them with classic Star Wars scenes, special effects, and music. Add transitions and titles, then share your video.

High Stakes Countdown

(Robyn Beck / AFP/Getty Images)

Apple is struggling to keep expectations in check as it prepares to release the hotly anticipated iPhone this month.

Going Green At Work

Sun Light & Power CEO Gary Gerber stands behind a set of solar panels that provide power to his Berkeley office space. Sun Light & Power installs solar operated power sources for commercial and residential use.

The Healthy, Hip High-Tech Home

Today's decked-out domiciles are big on gear that helps you get a good night's sleep, keep the germs away, and stay fit.

How can Web 2.0 contribute to development?

How can Web2.0 contribute to development? What are your experiences in using Web2.0 tools for knowledge sharing and collaboration in the domain of rural and agricultural development? Do social networks, mashups, blogs, and wikis have an influence on your work? What challenges towards Web2.0 did you experience or do you expect?

Kiss Boring Interfaces Goodbye With Apple's New Animated OS

When Steve Jobs takes the stage Monday [June 11th] at Apple's programmers conference, he's likely to give the world a glimpse of an upgraded Mac operating system that could herald the biggest changes to the machine's interface in 30 years.

Reid Hoffman talks with Mercury News

LinkedIn founder and angel investor Reid Hoffman talks with Mercury News venture capital reporter Connie Loizos about where he sees the social networking space headed, as well as his investment strategy these days

Download MP4

Maestro: Social Music Streaming

Music has been a killer app on the web ever since Napster met mp3 in 1999, and we’ve seen a lot of startups designing new social applications around it. Some startups are creating communities around discovering new music, others are helping you store and remotely access the music you already have. Atlanta-based Maestro is doing both.

How Do Wikis Work?

Here's a creative explanation for those not in the know.

Web 3.0: When Web Sites Become Web Services

Today's Web has terabytes of information available to humans, but hidden from computers. It is a paradox that information is stuck inside HTML pages, formatted in esoteric ways that are difficult for machines to process. The so called Web 3.0, which is likely to be a pre-cursor of the real semantic web, is going to change this. What we mean by 'Web 3.0' is that major web sites are going to be transformed into web services - and will effectively expose their information to the world.

Foleo


As rumored, the big new device that's Palm's Jeff Hawkins has chosen to announce at the D conference today is the Palm Foleo, which the company is billing as a "mobile companion." Boasting a 10-inch widescreen display and a full-size keyboard, the device is intended to be used in conjunction with your smartphone, with any edits to documents made on one device automatically reflected on the other thanks to the device's Bluetooth connectivity.

See additional pictures of Foleo.

Mahalo is the world's first human-powered search engine powered by an enthusiastic and energetic group of Guides. Guides spend their days searching, filtering out spam, and hand-crafting the best search results possible. If they haven't yet built a search result, you can request that search result. You can also suggest links for any of our search results.

eBay confirms StumbleUpon acquisition

eBay released a statement on Wednesday afternoon confirming that, as speculated, it has acquired Web site discovery service StumbleUpon. The price, according to eBay, is approximately $75 million.

eBay's most famous acquisition is arguably Internet tele

Twitter Blog Site


A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing? Answer on your phone, IM, or right here on the web! Check out Twitter's blog.

Note: Twitter is Micro-blogging. Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that lets you write brief text updates (usualy less than 200 characters) about your life on the go and send them to friends and interested observers via text messaging, instant messaging, email or the web.

Schmap!!

Schmap is a leading publisher of digital travel guides for 200 destinations throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The innovative technology behind Schmap Guides is also used by clients, partners and bloggers to power schmapplets – a range of fully customizable map mashups and map widgets. Founded in 2004, Schmap is privately owned and based in Carrboro, North Carolina.

Know Where? Your Phone Does

With WHERE™ GPS widgets, you drag widgets like your local weather forecast, earthquake reports, roadside assistance, local ski reports, store finders and more from the web to your handset, or discover them directly on your phone.

Full Flexible screen by Sony

On May 24, Sony unveiled what it is calling the world’s first flexible, full-color organic electroluminescent display (OLED) built on organic thin-film transistor (TFT) technology. OLEDs typically use a glass substrate, but Sony researchers developed new technology for forming organic TFT on a plastic substrate, enabling them to create a thin, lightweight and flexible full-color display. The 2.5-inch prototype display supports 16.8 million colors at a 120 x 160 pixel resolution (80 ppi, .318-mm pixel pitch), is 0.3 mm thick and weighs 1.5 grams without the driver.

According to Sony, which plans to release a new line of miniature TVs this year and is bolstering efforts to develop next-generation flat-panel OLEDs, this new technology will lead to the development of thinner, lighter and softer electronics.

The company is scheduled to present the results of its research at the SID 2007 International Symposium now underway in the US.

,

Polymer Vision: Organic based rollable displays

Polymer Vision announced its cooperation with Innos to establish the world’s first production facility for organic semiconductor based rollable displays. Manufacturing will start this year to meet the increasing commercial demand for the unique Polymer Vision display technology.

» polymervision.com / PDF download

What will Web 3.0 look like?

Just in case you missed it, the web now has version numbers. Nearly three years ago, amid continued hand-wringing over the dot-com crash, a man named Dale Dougherty dreamed up something called Web 2.0, and the idea soon took on a life of its own.

• More information regarding Web 3.0.
• Web 3.0 Q & A.
  

Wireless for the Clueless

Wireless, we keep being told, is the wave of the future. It's the next big thing. After all, the San Jose, California research firm Infonetics estimates that the market for WLAN hardware (that's equipment for wireless local-area networks) will grow to approximately $2.3 billion by 2005.

World's Thinnest Laptop

Codenamed the Intel Mobile Metro Notebook, this prototype was designed by Intel along with Ziba Design, and it's a mere .7 inches thick and weighs just 2.25 pounds. See it here.

7 Ways to Send Huge Files: 25X Bigger than Gmail

Gmail users can now send up to 20MB of attachments to each other. But we want more! Here are 7 awesome services that let you send files of more than 500MB.

One more Web 2.0 and what it means

Using the Web 2.0 write up in Wikipedia this video is to help teach educators about Web 2.0 tools.

What is Web 2.0?

What exactly does it mean? Andy Gutmans of Zend defines Web 2.0 and explains how it's changing the face of the Internet.

Yugma is a free web collaboration service that enables people to instantly connect over the internet to communicate and share content and ideas using any application or software. Whether you are on a Windows, Mac or Linux, you can connect on-demand and real-time with friends, family, clients, or employees whether they are across the city, nation or even the globe.

Diggnation

Diggnation is a weekly tech/web culture show based on the top digg.com social bookmarking news stories.

Companies Think of Clever Ways To Draw Young Talent

Justin Wong, an aerospace engineering student from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was schmoozing on Facebook.com last fall when he came across a sleek Boeing job ad.

Campaigns Tread Carefully Into Web 2.0

Presidential hopefuls starting to use blogs, social networking sites to advance their cause.

Cisco Steps Up Consumer Push

CEO Chambers is readying a souped-up set-top box as part of the networking company's deepest push yet into the living room.

Online Video Gets Real

Not all video is good video—that's why editors were created. But a good video-editing package can cost hundreds of dollars and take weeks to master. Fortunately, there's a new generation of video-sharing sites that include free video-editing tools.

Here are a few:

Eyespot beta (www.eyespot.com)
Not only does Eyespot let you upload and edit your video online, it also encourages the use of free public-domain and open-license material. To edit a video, you simply drag and drop clips into a timeline. To trim a sequence, Eyespot indicates start points with a bright-green arrow and end points with a red arrow, a method so simple it puts every other video editor to shame.

Grouper (www.grouper.com)
Notable primarily because it was purchased by Sony last summer, Grouper takes a unique approach to helping users edit their efforts. Rather than having them perform edits online through a browser application, Grouper offers a free editing program for download. Unfortunately, the Windows program leaves a lot to be desired.

Jumpcut (www.jumpcut.com)
Recently acquired by Yahoo!, Jumpcut was clearly designed with bloggers in mind. Its lucid online video-editing program is useful and trouble-free, and the site offers lots of options for getting your message online.

Motionbox (www.motionbox.com)
Taking a no-muss, no-fuss approach to editing videos, Motionbox emphasizes sharing "the good stuff." In other words, it lets people cut out the dead, dull, and dopey parts of their videos quickly online so that the audience doesn't get bored.

YouTube founders unfazed by challenges

The media's recent legal and competitive challenges to Internet video pioneer YouTube haven't fazed co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, who have diligently sought to make money for new owner Google Inc., as well as the creators of the content that fuels their Web site's whirlwind growth.

Web 2.0 is led by technology geeks

Web 2.0. So what does it mean? Basically it is a new way of designing websites based on new ways of coding (like Ajax), new designing techniques that use advanced CSS and “pure” layouts (more spaces, nice logos, brand oriented) and also probably on the feeling of community.

Top Tools to build a web 2.0 app from scratch: the ultimate guide

You have a brilliant idea and want to bring it to life through a nice web 2.0 application on the web. In this guide, we suppose you already have access to a dedicated or shared server.

The Digital Incubator program, now in its second year, was developed jointly by mtvU and Cisco to discover talented college students to create new media and entertainment concepts. Together, they provide the monetary, creative and technical resources for students to bring their digital media ideas into reality…as well as a national platform for the finished products to be showcased. The Digital Incubator program wants to encourage the next generation of talent to experiment with new forms of story telling made possible because of video and broadband coming together and mtvU reaches a college audience that is consuming media in new and exciting ways. mtvU and Cisco are happy to announce our 2007 grant awards.

Build online applications by dragging and dropping


A simple, powerful new way to create web-based business applications that can be used by anyone, anytime, anywhere! Coghead is the one do-it-yourself web application platform that can handle all of your projects from beginning to end.

Amazon opens a music store

Amazon dropped the bomb today by announcing its DRM-free music store.

Digg, Reddit, Netscape: The Wisdom of Crowds or Mob Rule?

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals" - "K," Men In Black

Welcome to Inside Silicon Valley

Welcome to a new weekly podcast from the Mercury News and PodTech.net. Each week, they’ll help you understand what makes Silicon Valley tick, with news and interviews with entrepreneurs and established tech companies.

For their first show, they visited Brickhouse, the new idea incubator that Yahoo recently opened in the trendy South Park neighborhood of San Francisco. Yahoo is hoping that this new campus will evoke a start-up vibe and spur innovation within the company. Yahoo executive Bradley Horowitz explains how it will work.

Pew Research on tagging

Pew Research Center: Tagging Play is a short report looking at who tags content on sites like Flickr, YouTube, Del.Icio.Us and the others.

I’d strongly recommend reading the brief report. There are some basic demographics in the report and short piece on what tagging means.

A December 2006 survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 28% of internet users — and 7% on any typical day — have tagged or categorized online content such as photos, news stories or blog posts.

Grouptivity Pulls Social Bookmarking Card



Grouptivity launched an updated version of its content-sharing tool on Monday. Blog posters can now add a "discuss this" button on the bottom of any post, which will pull up the Grouptivity sharing dialogue to send off the post or article to others. This dialogue allows you to pick from various pieces of media (photos and videos) that you want to share, along with a full text copy of the content. There's also the option to send it off to multiple e-mail addresses, set up read confirmations, and author explanatory messages to your recipients.

Firefox Does Twitter: Twitbin

Twitbin is a small Firefox extension that puts a Twitter sidebar inside your browser. Once you've logged in with your Twitter credentials, it keeps tabs on your friends or public Tweets. You can also write new posts right from the sidebar.

To toggle the Twitbin sidebar on and off, there's a bird logo that shows up on your browser next to the home button. The sidebar has its own links, for switching back and forth between friends and public feeds, and a refresh button to update posts. If you're not interested in manually hitting the refresh button, Twitbin can be set to automatically refresh all the posts every 1, 5, or 10 minutes.

To toggle Twitbin on and off, there's a handy button installed on your browser.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Twitbin is not without its snags. For example, when typing there's no character limit warning to let you know how much room is left; instead, it just cuts off once you've hit 140 characters. Likewise, the typing interface only gives you a single line, so you can't see what you've written about without scrolling back and forth.

Twitbin is free and maintains that no-cost aspect with advertisements; you'll see a small ad on the bottom of the sidebar. It's fairly unobtrusive, and in place to pay for the development team's server costs.

Compared to some of the other Twittering solutions out there, Twitbin is very similar to Tweetbar in its use and integration with Firefox. Tweetbar also works with the Flock browser. For other ways to use Twitter, check out our Newbie's guide or our post on six ways to improve Twitter.

Web 3.0 and SEO

Phil Wainewright first used the term “Web 3.0” nearly a year ago, and to date the concept has been even more difficult to pin down than Web 2.0 was when it was first coined. Already the term attracts controversy, with Wikipedia barely mentioning it except to say that there is not “sufficient consensus from the community of Web designers to justify the creation of a new term to describe the next generation of the Web.” Is it real, and what does it mean for SEO?

Wiki

What is it? A wiki is a website that allows visitors to add, remove, and edit content.
A collaborative technology for organizing information on Web sites. Wikis allow for linking among any number of pages. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for masa collaborative authoring.

One that I like is Jotspot. Below are links that provide information about Jotspot.

• Getting Started
• Watch Tutorials
• View FAQ
• Ask a Question

Web 2.0 Principles and Best Practices

Web 2.0 Principles and Best Practices What does Web 2.0 mean for your company?

Additional information about Web 2.0 by Tim O'Reilly.

Comparing 5 Ways to Tag Videos

There's so many videos flying around online these days and both the sheer number and impact of those videos are only going to increase with time. Video tagging tools let you archive and share favorites, subscribe to video tag feeds in iTunes or display tagged videos on a webpage using SplashCast.

Joost Announces $45 million Funding From Sequoia, Index, CBS & Viacom

Internet TV startup Joost raised $45 million in a venture round of financing, the company will announce this evening. Investors include Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, CBS Corporation, Viacom and Chinese billionaire Li Ka-shing.

The company has not previously disclosed any financings. Joost was started by Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström in 2006; presumably seed funding came directly from them.

Apple Filing reveals multi-sided iPod with Touch Screen Interface

Apple Inc. is looking to patent a design for a handheld device (or iPod) that displays its output on a small front-side display screen but receives input through a larger touch- and force-sensitive back-side interface, AppleInsider has discovered.

How to Get Started using RSS

RSS has become a valuable technology for everything from casual web users to webmasters. According to a recent Yahoo survey only 12% of internet users are aware of RSS and a mere 4% have knowingly used RSS. RSS exists as a means to gather and display information quickly and easily. By the end of this article, you should know what RSS is and how to use it to make your life easier.

Digg This

Jim Wilson for The New York Times

Kevin Rose, second from left, the founder of Digg.com, a Web site that lets users submit links to news accounts, on the set with Alex Albrecht, Jay Adelson and David Prager.

10 Emerging Technologies 2007

This year, as every year, there are 10 technologies that most likely will alter industries, fields of research, and even the way we live.

Wheelman 2005 BushPig

The Bushpig cruises at up to 20 miles per hour. Measuring 3 ft. 6 in. x 1 ft. 2 in., it has a low center of gravity, high strength construction, and a 30-mile range. Weighing 45 lbs., it is powered by a high performance 43cc 2 cycle engine. Seven colors are available.

Steve Jobs on Nightline [1/10/07]

UMPC Future

Mobile devices of the future look pretty cool. Run time: 5:59 min.

Climate Change

Iceland's President Olafur Grimsson at the site of the Carbon Rock project at Hengill, Iceland, on March 19, 2007.

eBay Acquiring StumbleUpon

High-flying startup StumbleUpon has been rumored to be in acquisition discussions since at least last November. Recently we’ve heard that talks have heated up again, with Google, AOL and eBay as potential suitors. A source with knowledge of the deal now says the company has signed a term sheet with eBay to be acquired. The price is somewhere between $40 - $75 million. (update: GigaOm is now reporting the price at a $40 - $45 million).

Announcing The Webware 100 Awards

Which Web 2.0 sites and service set the bar this year? Vote for your favorite here.

The Scoop on the Coop

An early prototype of The Coop, Mozilla's new social networking component for Firefox, is now available for user testing. Announced earlier this week, The Coop is designed to integrate support for social networking features directly into the Firefox browser interface.

How To Create Icons Without Text

Have you seen the textless icons on the Dock in Apple’s Mac OSX? For many programs, the text was unnecessary and it really made the icons stand out. Now you can have the same effect in Windows XP and Vista.

Google Earth Maps Out Darfur Atrocities

As of today, when the 200 million users of Google Earth log onto the site, they will be able to view the horrific details of what's happening in Darfur for themselves. More…

Google Fails Integration 101

This just in from Royal Pingdom (via TechCrunch): Of the top 20 most trafficked web sites, Blogger and YouTube have far and away the worst downtime track record in 2007. So much for Google’s (GOOG) vast server farms and vaunted geek cred.

But who can blame the chaos-embracing engineers at the Googleplex? Why take on the thankless job of integrating someone else’s messy code when you can spend your time working up brilliant April Fools jokes?

Use Your Mug as a Password

Bioscrypt's new 3D cam sounds like something from the future. Capable of detecting and reading your face, it's the first 3D face recognition camera, relying on 40,000 different ID points (like your forehead, eye sockets and nose) to ID you and log you onto your computer.

EMI, Apple partner on DRM-free music

The music label makes its entire catalog available through iTunes sans copy protection--but those downloads will cost you more.

Google Gadgets

Gadgets powered by Google are miniature objects made by Google users like you that offer cool and dynamic content that can be placed on any page on the web.

Widgets Gone Wireless

Microsoft's first wireless software spin-off wants to help companies deliver personalized marketing messages to cell phones.

The High-Tech Home of Tomorrow

Living Tomorrow plans a permanent museum of cutting-edge product development in San Jose.

Is Google Too Powerful?

As the Web giant tears through media, software, and telecom, rivals fear its growing influence. Now they're fighting back.

Creating a 3D effect with image editing software (GIMP or Photoshop)

Here's how to make a neat effect to make it look like the subject of a photo is popping out of the background. This can be done with GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) or Photoshop.

Virgin American's Airplanes Play Doom

The screens are 9-inch and touchscreen, which are powered by an actual individual PC running Linux. The best part? They ported a bunch of Linux games—including Doom

These Back seat Drivers Are Moving Up Front

How's your driving? If you’re ready for a blunt, detailed answer to that question, computer-based gadgets selling for $200 or less will provide it.

High-Tech Ski Gear

How much of the powdery slopes you'll be seeing depends on where you live or where you get to travel this year. But whether you're in your armchair or on the moguls, there's always the dream of new gear. Here's some of the coolest ski gear this year, and it's way high tech.

20 Hottest Gadgets From the Consumer Electronics Show

This year's Consumer Electronics Show included plenty that was new, significant, or just plain bizarre--here's a list of some of the best of what CES had to offer.

Controlling How search engines access and index your website

Ever wonder how Google and search engines work. One key question is: how does Google know what parts of a website the site owner wants to have show up in search results? Can publishers specify that some parts of the site should be private and non-searchable? The good news is that those who publish on the web have a lot of control over which pages should appear in search results.

Can't Touch This

Working all but alone from his hardware-strewn office, Jeff Han is about to change the face of computing. Not even the big boys are likely to catch him.

Web 2.0, 3.0, 4.0...

“Web 2.0” is a much discussed and debated phrase. It was in Time Magazines Top 10 Buzz Words of 2006. Apparently (according to wikipedia - so this must be right), the phrase was coined by O’Reilly Media in 2004 and “refers to a perceived or proposed second generation of Internet-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies—that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users”.

Welcome to Wi-Fi-Ville Pop. 300 towns and growing

As municipal wireless pops up, so do questions: Who pays for it? Who runs it? Who's looking over your shoulder?

Make

MAKE brings the do-it-yourself mindset to all the technology in your life. MAKE is loaded with exciting projects that help you make the most of your technology at home and away from home. This is a magazine that celebrates your right to tweak, hack, and bend any technology to your own will.

High-Tech Dream House

PopSci has built a house in California equipped with the most advanced materials, cutting-edge technologies and incredible household gadgets available today. Take a look inside with their virtual tour...very impressive.

Winning-And Losing-The first Wired War

U.S. forces in Iraq are waging a pivotal campaign in modern warfare—combat on the first “networked” battlefield. One problem: the enemy has a few networks of its own.

Hacker's Delight

Make the open-source Nokia 770 Internet tablet do anything.

A New Internet Radio Browser

Musicovery is a new Internet radio browser service that combines streaming music with some really neat visual navigation for discovering new (to you) music.

Musicovery is controlled with a sidebar and a song list that's strung together by genre in small clusters. Each color represents a different genre, and you can dig even deeper by selecting your mood. The playback controls are shown on each individual song, along with the title and the artist.

Joseph Vella: Passionate Podcasting

All hardcore fans dream of meeting their musical heroes. “What is more beautiful than being able to listen to the behind-the-scenes workings of your favorite artist?” asks Joseph Vella.

Search Engine Room

Search Engine Room is a website, along with associated entities, exist is to deliver high-quality information on the new economy industries of search engines and online publishing to curious individuals and businesses.