Tracking bugs virtually

Scientists are using the power of the web to track and find real disease outbreaks. Every hour, HealthMap, an infectious disease-tracking website, feeds off of news, public health list serves, and the World Health Organization's online pages to survey the spread of infections. With help from Google, the program has identified 95 percent of all disease outbreaks, sometimes days before the WHO or international disease control agencies can announce them.

Most recently, HealthMap detected the salmonella outbreak in the U.S., which has sickened over 1,000 people, long before the Center for Disease Control announced that it was happening. By alerting officials and doctors to the most likely diseases in their area, the web tool could help make health care much more efficient and precise.

Why the iPhone will jumpstart demand for wireless broadband

The new iPhone is a true game-changer and July 11 2008 will down as a red letter day for 3G wireless and Wireless Broadband. Why? The immediacy of the data at your fingertips is huge. Imagine, looking up anything, anywhere this is what a PC-centric society we are turning into wants.

Would you like chat with that log-in? Meebo unveils 'Community IM'

Web-based instant-messaging company Meebo has taken a new step forward: bringing its IM technology to partner sites.

Amazon Plans an Online Store for Movies and TV Shows

In a significant step toward vanquishing the local video store and keeping couch potatoes planted firmly in front of their televisions and computers, Amazon.com will introduce a new online store of TV shows and movies on Thursday, called AmazonVideo on Demand.

Yahoo Radically Opens Web Search With BOSS



When you’re the distant second player in web search, you’ve got nothing to lose by making bold moves. So it makes sense that Yahoo has adopted an open strategy with the following idea in mind: woo developers to build on top of your technology, and then display your advertisements to more eyeballs throughout the long tail of the web.

Browse Del.icio.us Bookmarks Visually With FavThumbs

FavThumbs is a mini-project from Ryan Sit, CEO of Swurl, that allows users to browse through their Del.icio.us bookmarks visually in a grid or coverflow view.

Can you trust your business to Google's cloud?

Cloud computing, in which software runs not on PCs or company servers but instead on computers on the Internet, requires something of a leap of faith both technologically and culturally. Those making the move must get accustomed to a reliance on somebody else's computing infrastructure, and that can be scary.

The Mobile Web Hasn’t Arrived, But It’s Getting There

The most hyped feature on the new iPhone is faster access to the Web, thus begging the question: What is the state of mobile Internet use?

Niche search companies

Below are some niche firms that refine web search by collecting and organizing data:

Real Estate
Trulia
Zillow

Jobs
Simplyhired
Indeed

Travel
Kayak
Farecast

Four cool innovative start-ups

A few people asked what are the cool innovations out there. Despite the current economic climate, there are still a lot of innovation companies launching new services.

Why Google's 'Lively' is great for telecommuters

Today is the day virtual worlds go mainstream. The reason is that Google has launched its own 3D virtual world called Lively. It's free. And it changes everything. Especially for telecommuters.

Newer, Faster, Cheaper iPhone 3G

Software and online store will widen its versatility, but there are hidden costs.

Web 3.0 - Could it unseat Internet giants like Google?

Microsoft's acquisition of Powerset signals the building of a future when the world could have access to virtual “software agents” who “roam” across the Web, taking care of the day-to-day hassles of humankind. It's called a "Semantic Web" and it really could change the Internet at a fundamental level.

Tracking the News: A Smarter Way to Predict Riots and Wars

Whether news of current events is good or bad, there is always a lot of it. Worldwide, an estimated 18,000 Web sites publish breaking stories in at least 40 languages. That universe of information contains early warnings about everything from natural disasters to political unrest — if you can read the data.

Listening Post's Top 10 Hottest Music Sites

Change is the only constant in the music business, and that goes double for the digital music business. Nonetheless, here's a list of the 10 hottest digital music websites in the world.

10 Awesome Gadgets You Should Grab for 2008



During the six months since CES, some toys had us sitting up, smiling and paying attention. Here are some top gizmos so far this year, ranging from the practical (surge protectors and hard drives) to the downright silly (a dancing robot).

10 things you might not know about robots

Robots that are humanoid, such as this traffic controller in Tokyo, may be going in the wrong direction. In the future, many theorists believe, robots won't need to look like people to fit in.

Ten tips for securing Linux desktops

You might find these suggestions to be pure common sense, but maybe you'll see a means of security you never thought of before. If you're a new Linux user, these tips are a great place to start to ensure that your Linux experience is a good one.

Microsoft says willing to restart Yahoo talks

Microsoft Corp on Monday said it would be willing to reopen talks to buy all or part of Yahoo Inc, but only if a new Yahoo board is elected, a major boost for investor Carl Icahn's board slate.

At Yahoo, a Threat from Within

Fleeing executives' gripes: the Microsoft saga, the Google deal, and cumbersome decision-making.

Michelin Guide Goes Web 2.0

The famous red-covered hotel and restaurant guides turn interactive, community-centered, and free. And the effort is boosting book sales.

Top 10 TED Talks

With 50 million views since we started posting video two years ago, TEDTalks have become a powerful cultural force.

To celebrate this milestone, we're releasing a never-before-seen list: the Top 10 TEDTalks of all time, as of June 2008.

Straight-to-Web video camcorder is easy to use

The Flip Video Mino is the fourth generation of Pure Digital's popular straight-to-Web mini camcorder, designed to make shooting and sharing low-resolution videos very easy.

Apple cuts SSD-based MacBook Air price by $500

With the price of NAND flash memory continuing its steady sequential decline, Apple Inc. this month cut the price of its Solid State Drive (SSD)-equipped MacBook Air by half a grand, AppleInsider has discovered.

Broadband Internet? No Thanks

A new study suggests that attitude rather than availability may be the key reason why more Americans don't have high-speed Internet access. full story

Jobs of Web 2.0

Life will become different as we walk further into the future.

After Steve Jobs

Fresh questions about Jobs' health revive an old dilemma: If the illustrious Apple CEO were to leave (for any reason), who could possibly fill his shoes? more

Pownce

Pownce is a way to send stuff to your friends. What kind of stuff? You can send just about anything: music, photos, messages, links, events, and more. You can do it all on our web site, or install our lightweight desktop software that lets you get out of the browser.

The Internet's Undersea World

WidgetWebExpo - Widget Analytics

What makes a widget sharable? I mean, what if you could just copy the source of a link and place it on your own site? Does that make it a widget or does the piece of content have to come with a sharing mechanism in order to cross the bridge over to widgetdom?

See the presentation on YouTube below.

Zembly

Zembly is the place to create social applications, together.

With zembly, you easily create and host social applications of all shapes and sizes, targeting the most popular social platforms on the web.

'New York Times' goes social with TimesPeople

The New York Times has added a new feature to its Web site that takes a few cues from Facebook and Digg: TimesPeople, now in beta.

The age-old Magnifying Glass goes digital

People who lose part of their sight to macular degeneration, diabetes or other diseases may now benefit from some new technology. Several portable video devices that enlarge print may help them make the most of their remaining vision.

More Cool Adobe AIR Applications


Adobe AIR applications are nice looking and not so memory-hungry applications. If you don’t already have Adobe AIR installed you can download it for free from Adobe’s website.

New Technology Brings Second Life and WoW to The iPhone

Second Life and World of Warcraft are two the most popular multiuser games, but generally require a laptop or desktop computer. Until now. 3D Streaming technology developed by Comverse and Intel allow 2nd Life for mobile platforms by using a powerful backend server, to compute and render scenes, then smartly compress and stream to a mobile phone.

Redesign A First Step In Bringing Order To The MySpace Chaos

Los Angeles based social network MySpace, which has 115 million monthly visitors worldwide (Comscore, April 2008), will be launching a redesign of its site next week. The first phase of the project, internally called “MySpace 2.0,” will launch on Wednesday June 18.

Dell E and E Slim revealed, taking on Eee and Air in one fell swoop

Dell is wanting to keep up with Apple's design talents. Think they're on the right track?

Starbucks offers new flavor: Free Wi-Fi

Thirsty for more business during the worst slump in its history, Starbucks will try to lure more customers by offering two hours of free AT&T Wi-Fi a day.

Jimmy Wales Reboots His 'Google-Killer'

The Wikipedia founder launches his community-powered search engine--again.

Ballmer predicts the death of all print media in 10 years

In an animated discussion with Washington Post editors and reporters, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer offered his far-ranging views of upcoming changes in technology and the media.predicting that in 10 years all media will be delivered via the Internet and professed that he is confused by Google's moves in the mobile-phone market.

Wireless Social Networking To Generate $2.5 Trillion By 2020

Wireless social networking products, services, applications, components, and advertising will generate more than $2.5 trillion in revenue by 2020.

Is a New Digital Video Service Derailing Amazon.com?

So what's with the recent downtimes for Amazon's website? The New York Times article sheds some light on this topic.

Is Google Wanting to pick up Digg?

More Digg rumors for your viewing pleasure.

26 Tricks to Help You Tame Google Calendar

Google's free online calendar makes it easy to track your schedule from anywhere, but many of its best features lurk beneath the surface. Here's how to handle Gcal like a pro.

Speed Test on the latest Web browsers



Here's the latest speed test results conducted on Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera 9.5, and Safari for Windows. Take a look at the full (and somewhat unexpected) findings here.

The iPhone FAQ list

There's still a lot of stuff left unsaid about the newly announced iPhone. How does activation work? How will first-gen iPhone users bring an iPhone 3G onto their plan? Does the GPS work for driving? How much will games cost on the App Store? Here are some answers.

Microsoft: We only wanted to buy Yahoo if quickly

In the wake of Yahoo's decision to go with Google, Microsoft's Kevin Johnson explains in a memo why it was no longer willing to buy all of Yahoo.

With iPhone 3G, Next Cellphone Battle Will Be Apple vs. Google



Here's how Google Android could really take down iPhone 2.0 in the upcoming code wars.

Social anxiety, meet social networking

As many surveys have suggested, fear of public speaking is one of our strongest anxieties. The following won't help: These days, the audience could be skewering you on blog sites -- not after your presentation, but during. And just about everyone in attendance could know about it, except you. full story

Corn farmers take anti-Google fight to Washington

If you think there's something a little odd about a bunch of corn farmers lobbying Congress to hold hearings on the details of a Google-Yahoo advertising deal, you may be right.

How Android Will Change Your Shopping Experience Forever

Android application scan finds pricing and metadata for anything with a barcode. You will be able to source detailed reviews, search online/offline stores for better prices, get directions to other local stores, preview cd's (yes people still buy cd's unbelievably!) and check for books in the local library.

An Easy Wiki...please!

How many of you have said "I won't build a Wiki". If you haven't tried starting one, I'll save you the trouble. It's a colossal pain in the ass. First you have to find the right Wiki engine for your purposes and your server technology. Then you have to decide whether you want to pay for licensing it, or find a version that does what you need for free.

You're wondering: isn't there an easier way to do this in a Web 2.Whatever world? Well, of course there is. Tt just came out this week. It's called Nuospace, and it's a fully web-based, no-coding-required Wiki platform that aims to be a one-stop home base for documents and content that require group collaboration and editing.

3G iPhone Patent App Surfaces: IM, Blogging App, Vid Conf

The US Patent and Trademark Office has recently published an extensive patent application, seemingly for the 3G iPhone and software version 2.0, both now expected to be released next Monday, June 9th.

Femtocells represent signal of change

Devices help improve indoor cell phone coverage, but are still in test phase.

5 Things: Finding People Online

By now, even your toddler knows where and how to locate just about anything on the Web. But unless your friends are all dialed in to the same social network, a white-pages-style directory for finding actual people is often harder to come by. These five services aim to change that.

Wikia Search Offers User-Edited Results

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is trying out the technique that succeeded in putting together an online encyclopedia—opening it up so that anyone can edit it—to improving search results. Wales' user-edited search engine Wikia Search is now out of alpha and open to the public for edits.

Go to Wikia Search

Gmail Gets 13 Experimental New Features


Google will start rolling out Gmail Labs, an experimental area of new Gmail features that will be familiar and very welcome to users of the Better Gmail Firefox extension. More here.

Feeding the Twitter addiction

Twitter - the exploding social Web phenomenon that lets users post 140-character updates to the simple question "What are you doing?" and follow the posts of friends - is very addicting.

Google Gadgets open-sourced for Linux

Google has announced the official release of Desktop Gadgets for Linux and is distributing the source code under the open-source Apache software license.

The 100 Best Products of 2008

This year's tech gems--as picked by PC World editors and readers--will leave you more productive, connected, and entertained.

The best free private journal on the web

Penzu is the most realistic re-creation of paper I've seen on the Web thus far.

Like.com’s Creepy, But Effective, Facebook Ads

You’ve heard of contextual ads triggered by keywords on a Web page. Now, get ready for contextual ads triggered by images on the page.

7 Habits of Highly Innovative People

Have you ever looked at super creative or innovative people, and felt they are special beings blessed with gifts? Creativity is actually more psychology than intellect.

iGoogle Artist Themes NYC Launch Event




What if the Google homepage had been designed by Dolce & Gabbana? Or Philippe Starck? Or the Beastie Boys? Get a behind the scenes look at our iGoogle Artist Themes NYC Launch Event.

Live-blog from your phone with Jott


Live-blog from your phone with Jott Free voicemail-to-text service Jott can help you nail down post material while you're on the go with a phone call, but you can also use the service directly with a number of blogging platforms, including Blogger, Typepad, LiveJournal, Tumblr, and WordPress. If you're hosting your own blog, you can still use Jott's voice-to-email service in conjunction with your platform's email-to-post function to indirectly get your thoughts up online, even while you're miles from your keyboard.

Wetpaint might be one to watch

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington has alerted us to a dark horse candidate in the race to dominate the land of wikis. Wetpaint, is a Seattle-based service it's positioning itself to be a player in niche social networks, not just mini-Wikipedias.

The easy-to-create wiki service pulled in 3 million page views in March, according to ComScore numbers, compared with 3.8 million for Ning, the well-funded social-network creator helmed by Marc Andreessen. Wetpaint also claims 900,000 wikis have been created, far more than the 263,000 that Ning counts (though who knows how many of those are legitimate and/or active). While Ning's way ahead in traffic, a few months ago Wetpaint released a set of features to ramp up social-networking activity on the site, with friends lists, news feeds, member profiles, and Yelp-style "compliments" now in the mix.

One stop photo captions made simple with SuperLame

Here's a fun tool for play around with over the long weekend. It's called SuperLame, and it's a simple tool for adding speech bubbles over photos. It's missing out on some of the special effects found in other similar tools like Comeeko, but what it lacks in versatility it makes up for in flash and user experience. It's simply a joy to tag up a photo with captions, speech and thought bubbles. Best of all, the end result is total eye candy.

Control BitTorrent downloads from Facebook with Morret

So much for Scrabulous being an end-all diversion on Facebook. Try Morrent instead, a simple tie-in to the popular BitTorrent software uTorrent that runs right in Facebook (read: sans software) and lets you monitor your torrent downloads and uploads from wherever.

Big Blue Embraces Social Media

IBM has been encouraging social networking among its employees with in-house versions of Web 2.0 hits such as Facebook and Twitter.

The (Virtual) Global Office

Moving beyond Second Life marketing, many companies are infiltrating virtual worlds for employee meetings, mixers, and recruiting.

Virtually Bridging Corporate Gaps

Setting Sun

In light of a surprising third-quarter loss, analysts sound cautionary notes and CEO Schwartz announces plans to lay off up to 2,500 employees.

7 Cool Bluetooth Gadgets

Bluetooth revolutionized electronics 10 years ago with its wireless technology that enables devices to communicate with each other. Here's a look at some of the latest. more

Where does Google go next?

Yes, it's making gobs of money. Yes, it's full of smart people. Yes, it's a wonderful place to work. So why are so many people leaving?

Meraki is offering free Wi-Fi to San Francisco. Why?

There is no business model behind it, but mesh Wi-Fi company Meraki is offering free Wi-Fi access to San Francisco, one neighborhood at a time, as I discovered when I passed by the company's folksy demo table at my local farmers' market last month (see report from local newspaper). But Meraki is not in the business of just blasting money out the door, which it appears to be doing in San Francisco, and there is a method to this program.

Read the article here at CNET.

Places for iPhone

iPlazer, the upcoming iPhone client for the geo-tagging social networking site. The app will be available when Apple’s official App Store launches in mid June.

Google Maps Integrates Panoramio Geo-tagged Phots and Wikipedia

It’s great to see them adding more open content to Google maps.

Inside Microsoft's War Against Google

With Yahoo off the table, Microsoft plans to challenge Google's online-ad juggernaut alone. A behind-the-scenes look at its provocative strategy.

All About Microsoft by Mary Jo Foley

Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 20 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning "At The Evil Empire" column for ZDNet, and more recently the Microsoft Watch blog for Ziff Davis.

Web 2.0 and consumers

Consumers are rapidly adopting new behaviors powered by Web 2.0 technologies including social networks, blogs, tags, ratings, user-generated content, news feeds, shared bookmarks, online photos, and videos.

The Twitter trend

A look at Twitter.com, which hopes its audience will move beyond tech geeks and into the mainstream.

Check out Twittervision. Once in, select the Twittervison logo in the upper right hand corner to get more information.

Looking for the next Facebook

Jim Breyer of venture capital firm Accel Partners discusses what he thinks makes a company worthy of investment.

Why Microsoft isn't buying Facebook

The popular social networking service is tempting to Microsoft in the wake of its failed Yahoo assault, but there's no urgency to do a deal now.

GSP is the premier conference for developers and marketers building and distributing apps for MySpace, Facebook, OpenSocial and other social networking platforms.

Brightkite: A bright future for mobile social networking?

"Do you have a Brightkite invite yet?"

Brightkite, a Denver-based start-up that uses both a Web interface and SMS text-messaging to log your location and broadcast it to your friends. It's a lot like a more feature-intensive version of Dodgeball, a mobile networking site that debuted in 2004 and was eventually acquired by Google.

Go to Brightkite's blog for more information.

Facebook launches Chat

Facebook has just turned on Chat in a “few networks” this morning and I think it’s a great implementation. While Facebook hasn’t announced an official rollout schedule, Chat will be gradually rolling out over the coming days.

The iPhone Gets It's Own Photo Sharing Site

Natuba is a new photo sharing site that targets iPhone users with an emphasis on mobile uploading. It comes from Richard Yoo, a former CEO of Rackspace and Serverbeach.

iPhone users with Natuba accounts can add their snapshots to the site by emailing them to a special address. Descriptions can be included in the subject line and all photos are injected into a public activity stream. They are also included on one’s profile page and are candidates for the “Surprise Me!” page that randomly displays one photo at a time from the site.

The idea and execution are simple, perhaps a bit too simple. There’s no tagging, not to mention no geotagging (which would be a natural feature for such a service, if only iPhones had GPS already). I’d like to see the site add rating

Sticky now is a Quickie

Post-its are great to jot down quick notes and messages; and important phone numbers; and meeting locations; and the zillions of passwords. Great that is, until they lose their stick and end up buried in piles of work or behind the desk. Now, researchers at MIT have solved that pressing problem with the demoed “Quickies,” a new application to digitize handwritten sticky notes and allow you not only to browse through an archive of notes, but set up to-do lists, send reminders, and even find that sticky note you lost in the middle of a textbook.

The system uses commercially-available digital pens and special writing pads. As users jot on a typical Post-it note, the handwriting recognition software captures the message and stores it on the computer. These notes are then processed by the software and sorted into different types of notes. For instance, a note about the meeting would be added to a calendar; a note left for a friend would be sent as a text message (the computer searches through your address book to find name matches).

An additional feature of the Quickie is an RFID tag on the back of the sticky note. This helps readers track where they posted their sticky note—and help find it. In the video, the Quickie helps find a book with a RFID tagged sticky note—after searching for the note the program tells the user its location “2nd rack in the office.”

Now if only it will find the keys . . .

No word on when it could hit the market, but learn more at pranavmistry.com

Moving oral history online


Miomi is a new frontier on the Internet, taking all the world’s information, including the personal history of as many people as we possibly can, and putting them together in a useful, easy-to-use way.

Google diving into 3D mapping of oceans

We've got Google Earth and Google Sky. Next up will be a map of the world below sea level--Google Ocean. The company has assembled an advisory group of oceanography experts, and in December invited researchers from institutions around the world to the Mountain View, Calif., Googleplex.

Podcasting in Plain English

What I've Learned: Vint Cerf

"I'd like to know what the Internet is going to look like in 2050. Thinking about it makes me wish I were eight years old.

Top 100 Web 2.0

These are the 100 best Web 2.0 applications, chosen by Webware readers and Internet users across the globe. Over 1.9 million votes were cast to select these Webware 100 winners.

A new kind of zoo

A former product lead of Google News is quietly working on a new social search service called Mechanical Zoo, which he started with the help of two other Google refugees.

Visit Mechanical Zoo

What to Watch for A Web2.0 Expo

On Tuesday, the Web 2.0 Expo invades San Francisco. The largest Web 2.0 conference there is--the organizers are expecting 7,000+ attendees--will inhabit the Moscone exhibit hall through Friday. Visit Web2.0 here.

10 Cool Gadgets You Can't Get Here--Yet

A high-definition TV you can carry in your pocket. A remote you talk to. A dongle for bringing HDTV broadcasts to your laptop while you're on the go. Sound great? Too bad, because you'll have to cross an ocean to get them.

IBM and the Future of the Mobile Phone

Over the coming years, mobile phones are expected to get "smarter", adjusting to our usage patterns. Innovations such as larger projectable screens and other e-commerce and social networking features will enable the phone to provide much more value to our lives.

Fiction becomes reality

It takes a while for a great idea to go from imagination to actual use in the real world, but it happens a lot! Three fictional gadgets made real were in the news just this past week.

The World in 2057

What might our world look like 49 years from now? Take a peek.

Examples of mashup uses

50 Top US Medical Schools

Interactive Census Maps

Ask 500 People

See more examples of mashups here.

Mashups, what are they?

Mashups are an exciting genre of interactive Web applications that draw upon content retrieved from external data sources to create entirely new and innovative services. They are the second generation of Web applications informally known as Web 2.0. This article explores what it means to be a mashup, the different classes of popular mashups constructed today, and the enabling technologies that mashup developers leverage to create their applications.