The Best Tools for Visualization


Here are visualization tools for search, music, networks, online communities, and almost anything else you can think of. Whether you want a desktop application or a web-based tool, there are many specific tools are available on the web that let you visualize all kinds of data. Here are some of the best.

Sun unveils the most powerful super-computer on the planet

Sun and the Texas Advanced Computing Center unveil Ranger", a supercomputer based on Sun's Constellation System. Ranger is one of the very fastest supercomputers in the world, and ushers in the new era of "petascale" computing in which high performance supercomputers approach one petaflop (one quadrillion floating point instructions) per second.

Forget Facebook. The Web's platform is Firefox

The most interesting topic discussed in meeting with CNET, was just how compelling Mozilla's Firefox will increasingly be as the platform for much that happens on the web. Forget Facebook, MySpace, the iPhone, and other so-called platforms. Firefox could well prove to be the most disruptive web platform on the market. Here's why.

Facebook CEO Admits Missteps

At SXSW, Mark Zuckerberg says the social network has yet to achieve its grand ambition. Plus, the lesson of the Beacon controversy.

A new way to watch TV

Watch out YouTube. Two old-media dinosaurs, Fox and NBC Universal, have created one cool venue for their hottest shows. Hulu CEO Jason Kilar is obsessed with making Hulu as easy to use as old-fashioned television. You can watch in either partial- or full-screen mode.

People don't read books - says Steve Jobs

When Mr. Jobs was asked at the Macworld Expo what he thought of Amazon's Kindle, he heaped scorn on the book industry. “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is; the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. I presume he won't read this news article then.

New Android SDK Spells Out OS Improvements and UI

Google's evolved the Android UI and it looks a lot better than it did before, with animations and an overall look and feel that seems more iPhone/HipTop than Windows mobile. They keep improving like this, Android could really be great.

Humanized makes using your computer easy

Aza Raskin wants your computer to disappear, but the 24-year-old is no latter-day Luddite. His goal is to make communication with the PC so intuitive you'll forget you're using a device. And Humanized—a software company and think tank he and a trio of fellow idealists founded in 2005—is the means to that end. Read the Businessweek article here.

Get the software [free] here.

How will Real ID affect your life?

What are the privacy implications? What will happen next? CNET News.com tries to clear up some of the confusion surrounding the controversial law.

Why Google will remain king of search



Even with the bid by Microsoft to buy Yahoo, the combined company would be unable to knock Google off its web search and web advertising throne, industry watchers say.

Ooyala Backlot is a video management platform that gives you control over the delivery, organization, analytics, and monetization of your online videos.

Microsoft offers $44.6 billion for Yahoo!

The offer--described by Yahoo as "unsolicited"--amounts to $31 per share, or a 62 percent premium above its closing price Thursday.

Sloog

Sloog is a bookmarking service for Second Life residents. It allows users to save favourite places and avatars and search for them later, both in-world with a simple plug-in (HUD) or via web browser at www.sloog.org

Ideawicket

The name Ideawicket is derived from the words ‘idea’ and ‘wicket’. Webster online defines wicket as “a small gate or door; especially: one forming part of or placed near a larger gate or door”. Their name signifies a gateway for ideas.

The Untold Story: How the iPhone blew up the wireless industry

Read this interesting article regarding how Steve Jobs made AT&T and others look at the cell phone in a whole different manner.

Hot or Not?


You know the feeling. You try on a shirt at the store and think you look pretty, but you need another opinion. With Social Retailing, developed by Icon Nicholson, you can send a video to your friend's cell phones and instantly get their vote. You can also try on outfits virtually using a mirror that shows how fab they might look...or not.

Skyhook Wireless

Skyhook Wireless has developed the first ever metro-area positioning system to determine location using Wi-Fi access points rather than satellites or cell towers. Skyhook's Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) is software only, works indoors and outdoors, provides location instantly, and is more accurate than all other positioning technologies indoors and in metropolitan areas.

Yahoo Live

The goal is to unite services like mail, search, etc. under a social framework, with Yahoo Mail serving as the central hub.

LG.Philips to Debut Color E-paper Display at CES



E-Books such as Sony's Reader and Amazon's Kindle have been a huge success despite their black and gray electronic display, so imagine how much more exciting e-Books will be once they incorporate color electronic paper.

What is the Story of Stuff?

The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuffexposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world.

Why Apple hasn't gone Web 2.0

Apple doesn’t have a corporate blog, and hasn’t come forth with a grand, social “Web 2.0″ strategy - say “iFacebook.” Why?

Google-powered mobile phones to make a February debut?

First came the fervent and persistent rumors of a Google mobile phone.

Then, just six short weeks ago, the search supremo (and just-about-everything-else-online supremo) announced there would not be a ‘Google phone' per se, but rather dozens of them from a raft of mobile manufacturers, and all built on an open Linux-based mobile phone platform named Android.

The Davos Question: Get involved

Voyager RSS Reader: More Designers Experimenting with 3D UIs

The use of 3D is pretty limited on the web right now but it’s interesting to see people experimenting with it.

Voyager, an RSS reader made by Andy Biggs, displays news feeds chronologically with current messages in the foreground and older messages in the background. As you use your mouse scroll wheel you move through the present into the past, with messages floating beyond you. It reminded me of the introductory text at the beginning of the Star Wars movies.

Applying depth to screen content to convey time or other concepts opens up a world of possibility. Certainly when trying to communicate some real life experiences, depth can be used to emulate the usual way the item or content is experienced.

One of the newer companies trying to improve on YouTube's offerings is 3rd Eye Solutions which has an app called iDesktop.tv (formerly known as "YouTube Desktop"), that lets you browse, view, and search YouTube videos in a similar style to a desktop application. Read the article here.

The power of Steve Jobs


Apple CEO Steve Jobs tops the “Power 25″ list in the current issue of Fortune, ahead of News Corp.’s (NWS) Rupert Murdoch, Goldman Sachs’ (GS) Lloyd Blankfein, and the Google (GOOG) guys.

You can read the rest of his article here.

Google and Android



Sergey Brin and Steve Horowitz discuss the availability of the SDK, that it will be open source in the future, and demo applications on the Android platform.

Web 3.0 and beyond: the next 20 years of the internet

Silicon Valley has painted a picture of the web in 2030, and it is very powerful – and very smart – indeed.

Flickr getting a little bit of a face lift

The Yahoo photo-sharing service will soon be retooled to make more use of geotagged photos.

Gomobo adds Twitter to it's food


Gomobo, a New York-based start-up that allows you to order and pre-pay for food at participating restaurants on your cell phone or computer, plans to announce a new feature on Thursday that will allow you to connect your Twitter account to the service.

How Google maps the world

How does Google bring you the maps of the world? At the click of your mouse, you can home in on your house, the Tower of London, and more. Here's how it's done.

DivShare Upgrades its One-stop shop Free File Hosting Service

DivShare starting to release today a series of innovations that will make the service more unique and attractive.

The whole service is now providing a one-stop solution that will save users the download process, whatever the format of the file is. They offer free unlimited hosting and convert to flash nearly every file type (audio, video, office documents,..) instantly upon uploading with embedding capabilities.

Wikipedia mapping

The map is generated by first laying out the graph of Wikipedia (nodes are articles, edges are links between articles) and then using then decorating that substrate with colors (for topics: maths, science and technology) and images.

A Search Engine for Music

Don't you get tired searching for radio stations on the Internet?

Enter Iheard.

Fusa Capital launched a new search engine that brings the thousands of Internet radio stations out there to one Web site.

The engine includes both Internet-only stations, as well as simulcasts offered by AM and FM radio stations online.

Unlike Radio-Locator, which started from "MIT's List of Radio Stations on the Internet", you're not taken to the Web site of the station your search results return. Instead, the station is streamed from right within Iheard's Web site. Users are given a choice of supported streaming formats depending on the station that includes RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, Winamp and iTunes.

Stations can be browsed or searched by language, country, genre or most popular. The site attempts to include Internet radio across the globe, not just in the U.S. The stations are also rated, which is nice if you're looking for a great bebop station but don't know which of the many choices to try first.

Adobes plots its path on the Web

Much of the future success of Adobe Systems hinges on the work done by its Platform business unit headed by Kevin Lynch, the company's chief software architect.

Online Productivity Toolbox

Thanks to the many free and useful new applications on the web, it’s also getting easier to keep your life in order. Check out the list below:

Word Processing Services

Online word processing provides you with ways to manage and write documents without a download - great for collaboration or those using multiple computers.
Google Docs - A way to create your documents and share them too.
Zoho Writer - Serious competition to Google Docs. There are some options present that Google Docs lacks and of course vice-versa.
ThinkFree - Think Microsoft Office, except this is the online equivalent.
Buzzword - A recently discovered service that is still in private beta. It has many offerings and a slick interface to boot! (Private Beta)

Web Portals

You can have all the information you want and need accessible to you immediately by using one of the following services.

Netvibes - Generally considered to be the first successful, independent startpage.
Pageflakes - Pageflakes could be considered the brother-in-law to Netvibes and both have very similar offerings in customization and content.
iGoogle - If you have a Google account, then the iGoogle comes part of the package deal, and since many of us have Google as our home page anyways, why not give iGoogle a trial?
My Yahoo - The offerings are somewhat more customizable than iGoogle, but essentially the same concept from a different provider.

Calendar Services

Unless you prefer writing it on your hand, here are some very good calendars.

Google Calendar - I personally use Google Calendar on a daily basis. It is just that freaking awesome!
Yahoo! Calendar - Yahoo provides a pretty good, but basic, calendar application for organizing your life
30 Boxes - Has a lightning fast interface that is really easy to navigate makes this a good contender.
Kiko - A very nice calendar application with a drag & drop interface.

Contact Management Services

Below are some great sites to use for maintaining information about your contacts.

Plaxo - One of the best known services which allow you to keep track of contacts. Other services that can tap into your Plaxo account and utilize your contacts with your permission.
Tabber - was created with the notion of linking together friends from many social sites and services, but it still serves very well as an address book and contact management application.
Highrise - A premium option to manage your business contacts. If you are more serious about keeping your contacts and have hundreds of them, this could be a cost efficient solution depending on your needs.
HyperOffice - Another premium service that offers control of your contacts. This is for more serious contact management.

News Readers

These news readers will help you stay on top of current events with nothing but a browser and a connection.

Google Reader - If you would like a straight and simple news reader, then Google Reader might be worth your time to check out.
Bloglines - A competitor to Google Reader, and offers most of the same services, just a matter of personal taste as to your selection.
Netvibes - Netvibes, as well as being a web portal, serves the other critical purpose of being a news reader for any page that provides an RSS/ATOM feed.
Pageflakes - Like Netvibes, provides RSS modules and can be used as a news reader.

Communication Services

Stickam - If live video conversations are your thing, then Stickam provides you an excellent opportunity to mingle with friends, coworkers, or just random people if you so desire. We wouldn’t use it for business calls, though.
Google 411 - This service from Google is likely something you have never tried before, but once you do, you might use it for a long time coming. A good 411 replacement. (US Only)
Meebo - If you prefer to communicate with friends and colleagues through IM, then Meebo is the site for you to do it all in one easy to use program.
Gmail - The king of e-mail? We think so. Much more efficient at handling large volumes of email than rival services.

Charting & Diagram Services

Here are some great tools to use when your wanting to brainstorm.

Flowchart.com - The title says it all really. Flowchart allows you to create charts and diagrams in a nice drag & drop interface. (Private Beta)
MindMeister - Offering both a free and premium version, MindMeister focuses on collaboration in an easy to use “mind mapping”environment.
Mind42 - Yet another “mind mapping” web app that allows you to collaborate with others. This one is completely free.
Gliffy - Likely the most technical and detailed option on this list. It has many more options available than the others.

File Storage Services

Box.net - A very nice solution to uploading and backing up your files, as well as sharing them. You can sign up for free and get a gig of space, or you can have additional storage with the premium options.
MediaMax - Another powerful and useful service to regularly back-up all your important data.

Truemors

Guy Kawasaki decided to start a Web 2.0 site called Truemors, www.truemors.com. He wanted firsthand experience with social media, and wanted to see how cheaply he could start and run the site.

WHAT IT IS: Truemors covers what it calls "true rumors," or reader-submitted items that span a range of topics and include both news and rumors. Essentially, the site is designed to make sure its users are in the know.

HOW MUCH: Kawasaki started it with less than $13,000.

HOW POPULAR: The site is getting 150,000 page views a month.

It's Vudu magic



Here's a set-top box that plays Internet-delivered movies on your TV; solid movie selection includes major Hollywood studio titles in the same week they hit DVD; no monthly fees; very good video and audio quality; no waiting--movies start immediately; excellent onscreen interface and scroll-wheel remote; simple setup and configuration. Go to Vudu.

Scaling the Social Web

Move over, MySpace. Online players from media giant Viacom to auctioneer eBay are adding networking features for their users

Facebook CEO visits Microsoft

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was spotted Tuesday in Seattle, headed for meetings with executives at Microsoft.

Sling Media is Bought

EchoStar’s $380 million purchase of Sling Media once again raises the question of whether a consumer TV-device company can exist as a standalone entity. History has not been kind to such companies trying to break out from the startup field. Akimbo anyone?

Artists 'draw on air' to create 3D illustrations

By putting on a virtual reality mask, holding a stylus in one hand and a tracking device in the other, an artist can draw 3D objects in the air with unprecedented precision. This new system is called “Drawing on Air,” and researchers have designed the interface to be intuitive and provide the necessary control for artists to illustrate complicated artistic, scientific, and medical subjects.

Business by Twitter

Mansueto Digital President Ed Sussman chats with expert tech blogger and videocaster about Twitter, the fastest growing application in Internet history. Scoble sees services like Twitter, where users can update snippets from their lives — through text, images, and video — as the next great marketing tool. It’s just that marketers haven’t quite caught on yet.

Vator.tv is a catalyst for innovation. It is a professional network and marketplace for ideas and businesses. Anyone, across all industries, at any stage, can share ideas, products, services and businesses with the rest of the world, mainly through video.

People use Vator.tv to pitch their ideas, businesses, skillsets or needs, such as capital, partner or staffing requirements. Hence, the tagline, "What's your pitch?" Through these pitches, people on Vator.tv can network, exchange knowledge and collaborate with other people who can help those ideas get to the next level. People use Vator.tv to get their ideas or needs discovered or to find, discover and connect with others in networks of interest.

Meet the couple behind Bebo

In the United States, Bebo may not be a household word, but in the UK, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia it is well known. In those countries, Bebo is the most popular social network, attracting some 34 million registered users globally. I sat down with husband-and-wife founders Michael …

Yahoo's Upcoming New Social Network

Yahoo's rumored social network, dubbed "Mash," has arrived. The company started inviting people outside the company to test it on Friday, the company says in a blog.

(Credit: Yahoo)

Mash is different from other social networks in that you can start profiles for your friends and "open" your own profile to friends you trust, according to the Mash blog. What that means, exactly, is still a bit unclear. You can also reportedly customize your profile or friends' profiles with other apps, ala Facebook.

"One last note before you jump in: Mash is still pretty raw--there are bugs and we haven't gotten to several of the features it really should have. We need to hear from you about where to focus our efforts," writes Will Aldrich, the head of Mash.

Joost and Copycats



The Joost look and feel is being widely copied by others, even before the company officially launches.

Last week the second Joost look-alike popped up: DNAStream. Like the first Joost clone, created by Paul Yanez, it basically appropriates the Joost look and feel and presents it in a web browser through a Flash interface (Joost itself is available only as a download). Unlike Yanez’s version, DNAStream is presenting itself as a business and doesn’t talk about Joost at all. DNAStream is shown above on the right, next to Joost. Read rest of article here.

Multiply Lands $16.6 Million Series B

Social network Multiply has taken $16.6 million in Series B funding. The round was led by VantagePoint Venture Partners with Point Judith Capital and Transcosmos Investments also participating.

As part of the deal ex-Chairman of Intermix Media (the original owners of MySpace) David Scott Carlick will join Multiply’s board.

Google Expected To Launch Wiki And Presentation Services This Week

Several signs are pointing to the imminent launch of Google Wiki and the company's long-awaited presentation service at this week's Office 2.0 conference in San Francisco.

The biggest indicators are history and vague comments by Google officials. Last year's Office 2.0 brought the launch of Google Docs and Spreadsheets, and Jonathan Rochelle, the product manager for Google Spreadsheets, will also be at hand for the opening panel at the conference kickoff on Thursday. Between this, an almost-demo by Google's CEO Eric Schmidt of the presentation application, as well as a post on the Official Google Blog that presentations would be making their way to everyone "this summer," and we should be seeing something new as early as Thursday.

The new wiki application from Google would fill out its online office suite, and give Google Apps a little more appeal for small- and mid-size business customers who want a consolidated wiki solution. The launch would also coincide with the anniversary of Google's acquisition of wiki service JotSpot last October. Considering JotSpot served up multiple tiers of service to serve casual to business users, the model could follow suit with Google's four flavors of Google Apps, including their business and enterprise solutions.

More to come.

Vcasmo

There are a few online video editors available right now, and there are also several slide show tools online. Vcasmo is both. It's designed to display video alongside a PowerPoint slide show. It fills a highly specific need, and it does it well.

VCASMO is "online presentation" tool that build a new communication experience based on "multimedia + slide". The tool give users more expressive power, you can show your work to lot of people in a more simple, more interesting way.

Wikirage Does Live Zeitgiest For Wikipedia

If you're a fan of Google's zeitgeists, or whenever Wikipedia publishes their list of the most popular pages, you'll get a kick out of Wikirage. The service scours the latest edits on Wikipedia to find out which items are getting the most editing attention. It then publishes the list in a top 100, which you can browse by hour, day, week, and month. Each link goes straight to the Wikipedia page in question, and offers a pretty fascinating look at what's going on inside the service.

Touchgraph Shows Connectivity Between Websites

The TouchGraph Google Browser shows connectivity between websites in a visual fashion.

The service pulls in data from Google’s database of related sites, delivering an interactive visual map of interconnected websites or search terms.

TouchGraph also offers Amazon and Facebook browsers as well as providing the visualization technology to companies on a per job basis.

Yahoo To KickStart Social Networking Efforts

Yahoo is reported to be working on a new social networking service that matches college students to employers.

Yahoo Kickstart give users profile pages which are focused on the user’s resume, LinkedIn style, as opposed to a Facebook or MySpace profile. Corporations and wannabe employers are then provided with groups that users can join, but with a catch: to join a group you need an invite via a former student who works at that company.

Microsoft Looking for it's iPhone

With continued rumors of Microsoft possibly buying out Research In Motion, the company that makes BlackBerries, the company’s stock price has reached an all-time high of $85.Micro

Web 2.0 Summit: October 17-19, 2007; San Francisco, CA

Only the Web 2.0 Summit (formerly named Web 2.0 Conference) brings the intelligence, innovation, and leadership of the Internet industry together in one place at one time. The Summit is known for its interactive format, stressing audience interaction and participation.

Eight Best (Or Most Interesting) Web 2.0 Definitions and Explanations

Why does Web 2.0 – a complex, subtle, yet practical topic – need so much explanation? That question was addressed by social computing and Web 2.0 expert Dion Hinchcliffe in an end-of-year round up that he compiled all the way back in December 2005. To this day it makes a very handy starting-point for anyone seeking to get themselves up to speed.

Eurekster is a pioneer and leader in Social Search and Vertical Search technologies that harness the knowledge and behavior of online communities to increase search relevance and value for site visitors, site publishers and advertisers. Eurekster created the Swicki platform which allows web publishers to build community-driven social search engines, called "swickis" that aggregate information on particular topics from any site of their choice for use on their websites.

ProfileBuilder: Manage Your Profile, Not Accounts

With a plethora of social networks for everyone from knitters to dog lovers, managing our increasing number of long tail profiles is a huge pain. The problem of managing a fragmented identity has been attacked two ways: creating a new master account (OpenID), aggregating identity through search (Spock, Wink), or aggregating management of all your accounts on one site.

ProfileBuilder link

The Next Email

Why Twitter will change the way business communicates (again).

France Telecom confirms talks with Apple on iPhone

France Telecom confirmed on Friday that it is in talks with Apple Inc over marketing the latter's iPhone but said there is no deal yet.

France's Jooce Enters WebOS Space

Jooce is a Flash-based web operating system and sharing platform. They are targeting the millions of people who use "cybercafes" to conduct their Internet affairs instead of a regular desktop or laptop. The Jooce product is aiming to provide these virtual vagabonds with a web-based desktop to manage their IM, email, storage, media and widgets in a secure and protected way. They also provide virtual nomads with an online desktop that they can share with friends to swap files like pictures, documents, audio and video.

The Times of Your Life


Never forget another special memory. circaVie allows you to easily create multimedia timelines all about your life. Special events, noteworthy achievements, relationships, memorable vacations, interests and hobbies, celebrations, announcements … you name it. If it’s about life, it’s circaVie.

Web 2.0 for Moms and Dads

Websites that cater to families tend to be very community-oriented, and deliberately family-friendly without being overly "girly" (which can be a problem for dad-oriented sites). Care is made to ensure a positive experience for the user, and not just in using the app or website, but also in interacting with other people who use the same tools.

Watch It When You Want

The age of TV-on-demand is finally dawning in Australia as new digital recording technologies hand unprecedented levels of control back to viewers.

New Video Chat Channel

TokBox is a new site that allows you to set up a video chat channel in seconds. The controls are simple - set volume, mute or kill camera. If the person is not there, you can leave a video message. That’s all there is to it

Box

Box.net was originally founded in 2005 as a college business project with a vision of connecting people, devices and networks. Launched officially in March of 2006, Box.net currently provides secure online file storage and sharing functionality to over 900,000 registered users, serving files to millions of people around the world. Box.net's unique platform allows personal and commercial content to be accessible, sharable, and storable in any format from anywhere. Box.net is currently based in Palo Alto, CA.

Fring

Israeli-based VOIP start-up Fring has closed an estimated $12 million second round, led by US VC fund North Bridge Venture Partners. VenFin and previous investors Pitango, Veritas and Yossi Vardi also participated. If the investment estimate is accurate, it would be one of the larger rounds for a VOIP company.

Fring is a mobile application for Windows and Symbian phones that uses VOIP to make cheap/free mobile calls and instant message. Unlike Jajah, but like Truphone, Fring sends calls and chats over Wi-Fi internet access or your 3G or GPRS Internet data plan. Like Skype, users are charged a nominal fee to call standard phone lines. However, calls made to other internet phones are free. Fring connects to standard phones, other SIP based VOIP clients, and chat applications (Skype, MSN Messenger, ICQ, Google Talk, and even Twitter).

Scrybe Closes Series A

Scrybe, the online/offline calendar and organizer, has closed their series A round of financing from Adobe Systems Incorporated and LMKR.

Scrybe is a Flash-based organizational and productivity tool that works both online and offline. It consists of multiple calendar management, to do lists, web clip bookmarklet, contact list (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail or Outlook importing), and the system operates offline by caching your changes and then uploading when the system reconnects. Zimbra and Google Gears provide similar online/offline products.

The driving principle behind the application is usability. Scrybe’s main selling point is that the application retains the context of the data that you’re working with by “zooming” instead of flipping to the data. One example is the calendar. The cells of the calendar expand and contract as you edit a week, day, or hour more closely while still showing the details of the surrounding days. See the extended video below for more details.

Amie Street Closes Series A Financing Led By Amazon.com

Social music marketplace Amie Street has closed a Series A round of financing led by Amazon.com, along with some new partnerships and a site redesign. The amount of Amazon’s investment and the terms are not disclosed.

Overview:

AmieStreet is a music download service, where any artist can upload their music for download. Users then go to the site and purchase songs, with the starting price set at free. When downloads pick up, the price starts to rise, all the way up to $0.98. If a song gets to $0.30 or so, you know it’s popular. Artists keep 70% of revenues as long as they have made at least $10. Additionally, artists are not required to sell their music exclusively through Amie Street and can remove it at any time.

On the user end, users can search, browse and listen to music for free (via streaming). Users who have purchased a song can recommend it to their friends using a limited number of RECs that they’ve received (users get one per dollar they add to their account). Once recommended, users will get account credit if the price of the song increases, giving them an incentive to find and recommend good music.

Sun Extends UltraSparc Reach

Sun Microsystems is getting into the business of selling microprocessors--again.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company plans to announce its new UltraSparc T2 microprocessor, along with plans for servers based on the chip. Sun plans to insert the UltraSparc T2, an eight-core, 64-thread microprocessor, into servers that will hit the market in the second half of the year.

The Slideshow Is Dead

An email arrived yesterday from the guys at Animoto proclaiming that their application, which launches to the public on August 14th, would lead to the "end of slideshows." Those are rather sensational words, but after taking a look at their app, they might just be right -- at least in terms of what's hot among the social networking set. Read the article here.

Facebook How To

What is Facebook and why should you use it?

Open standards may let social networks, virtual worlds intersect

The millions of people who use social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace and the millions who stalk the streets of virtual worlds like Second Life inhabit what are essentially two different neighborhoods in cyberspace.

Free Phone Calls...for Life?

Tech media and blogs were buzzing recently over the launch of ooma, a Palo Alto start-up that’s promising free phone calling, once you buy the $400 ooma box. In this interview with the Mercury News, CEO Andrew Frame explains how ooma works. And he answers questions about the cost of the box (they actually could have charged more, he says), the state of the Internet calling industry, ooma’s security and whether now is the right time to be launching a landline phone service. Frame also takes us on a tour of the start-up’s Palo Alto offices, where engineers design and work on the company’s devices.

Download MP4

Orbious is a privately held software company founded in Australia in early 2006 to develop innovative products based on natural language processing. In late 2006, Orbious identified document disclosure as a possible growth market and significant Research and Development was conducted to investigate alternative software based approaches to this problem. The resultant software, DocTracker, was completed earlier this month and beta testing has subsequently begun. As a result of our Research and Development, we have begun working on related software applications focusing around Copyright Infringement.

Turn Your Phone Into a GPS



Are you lost and need to find where you are and how to get to your destination?
You don't have a map? If you have a cell phone, then you're in luck. Read on road warrior.

Here's the buzz on Buzzword

Word processing in the browser has always been "convenient," but rarely has it been called "full-featured," or even "beautiful."

But the web apps status quo is set to change with the arrival of Buzzword, an office-caliber document editor with a visually rich user interface. Buzzword beats current Ajax-based offerings like Google Docs and Zoho Writer in both usability and aesthetic impact. And in a few months, when a desktop version is released, Buzzword will pose a serious challenge to Microsoft Word, the current king of document editing on the desktop. Read the rest of the article here.

Check out the demo below via YouTube

Comscore's Latest Numbers: Worldwide Social-Networking Growth

Statistics house ComScore released some numbers on Tuesday pertaining to how quickly a handful of popular social-networking sites are growing worldwide, and which ones dominate in which regions of the globe.

Moblog

Moblog is a blend of the wordsmobile and weblog. A mobile weblog, or Moblog, consists of content posted to the Internet from a mobile or portable device, such as a cellular phone or PDA. Moblogs generally involve technology which allows publishing from a mobile device.

Living With Technology: Web 2.0 design

Web 2.0 design means "cliche" to many. Designers aching to fit into the current aesthetic are overusing rounded corners and pastel colors on new sites. But at its core, Web 2.0 design is about building services that are clean, simple, fast, and interactive. Designers who get this are making sites that are leagues ahead of those from the previous generation.