Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Upward mobile


Man with a phone

By 2012, UK sports fans will be watching live action on their 'TV-phones'.

Monday, August 11, 2008

iPhone 3G issues


Models of the new iPhone 3G with Chinese interface are shown during a promotional event at its launch in Hong Kong July 11, 2008. (Bobby Yip/Reuters)
Apple and AT&T are staying quiet about issues with the new iPhone 3G.


ClipBlast!

clipblast-screen

ClipBlast! is the Internet's fastest growing Web-Wide Video Index, Search and Navigation Platform.

Their patent-pending technologies have been designed to organize and simplify the "Video Web"; the fastest growing video distribution platform in history. ClipBlast! technology helps Viewers search, navigate, watch and personalize their experience with the Video Web, and helps Video Content Providers, Advertisers and Marketers monetize their investments.

Will the next Wii take us into the future?


images by Adam Benton@kromekat.com / T3 magazine www.t3.com

Speculations on what Nintendo would release as a Wii 2 are manifold. Nintendo could just release a Wii with more CPU power that is able to handle media and games at higher resolution or they could just break the rules again and deliver something outlandish like a body-suit or brain interface.

Harry Potter would want one


An illustration of a person wearing an invisibility cloak
We're getting closer to having an invisible cloak thanks to our boys in the research labs at Cal.

Why Twitter hasn't failed: The power of audience


Ok, Twitter is not a must have for a lot of people, but you have to admit, it's a phenomenon you can't ignore.

A wikipedia search engine

Similpedia
Similipedia is one of the best Wikipedia search engines available. Not only is it extremely accurate and effective, it has a completely different approach to search. Instead of typing in a query, e.g. computers, you are asked to copy and paste a URL or a paragraph containing at least 100 words. Just press “enter” and let it go to work.

Friday, August 08, 2008

25 enterprise social media companies to know


Taking into account where we're going as a society today, thought you might find this list of social media companies of interest.

Blogtronix

Blogtronix is a social media platform for Enterprise 2.0 communication. We provide a single, unified system that includes blogs, wikis, and social networking. Unlike other companies, we are able to offer a product that’s easy to use, scalable and can be delivered either on-demand or as a software.

Edison, a different type of light bulb




The Edison software lets people set dials for putting a PC into energy-saving mode.

Thursday, August 07, 2008

2011: Looking for the next trend

Everyone is always looking for that 'next trend'. In Richard Laermer's book 2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade, he talks about how to find the signal in the nosie.

SummerMash

Mashable US Tour

Mashable just completed its sixth stop on the U.S. Summer Tour with the folks in Boston.

issuu-logo


Issuu has released a new publishing platform that could very well change the rules of the game when it comes to creating online publications. The platform is a place where developers, designers and companies can work together in collaboration to customize their Issuu distributed publications such as magazines, newsletters, etc.

5 books on corporate social media


If you're looking for some books to improve your knowledge about the blogosphere, check these out.

Rejaw..another Twitter?

Rejaw is a new way to communicate in real-time with friends, family, and co-workers. You can shout messages to your followers, or whisper to your friends. Monologue or dialogue, micro-blog or status update, soliloquy or dialectic.


rejaw-sshot.png

Make slick Web 2.0 site backgrounds with BgPatterns

Want a cool looking background for your site or favorite nanoblogging service like Jaiku, Pownce, or Twitter? Check out BgPatterns, a site that's not unlike the Web 2.0 stripe generator in that it lets you put together really slick looking repeating backgrounds with a simple builder.



A new view for documents


Logo

A new tool for embedding documents on Web pages is cropping up on sites as diverse as the storage service Drop.io; LabMeeting, a social network for scientists; and the Obama campaign's official blog. Launched earlier this year, the format, called iPaper, is technology from Scribd, a company that hopes to become the sort of clearinghouse for documents that YouTube is for videos. With iPaper, the company offers a browser-based system for viewing documents that retains their original formatting and can be employed by the 98 percent of Internet users who have installed Adobe Flash.

Twitter has growing pains


Twitter's Growing Pains
Plagued by service outages, the microblogging site rebuilds its infrastructure.

Architecture of the brain

Traditional magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, can detect the major anatomical features of the brain and is often used to diagnose strokes and brain tumors. But advances in computing power and novel processing algorithms have allowed scientists to analyze the information captured during an MRI in completely new ways.

11 iPhone tricks you might not have known

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Whether you're an iPhone rookie or a weathered pro, take a look at these quick-and-easy iPhone tips and tricks which not only save you time, but ease your overall iPhone experience.

Six degrees of separation


Microsoft has studied a total of 30 billion instant messages sent by over 250 million people in June of 2006, and determined that we are in fact, all linked by only 6.6 degrees of separation.

Have you checked your DNS lately?


See if your system is safe by selecting the 'DNS Checker' on the following page, located in the upper right hand side.

PulpMotion


pulpmotion themes

PulpMotion's got a full menu of visual themes that incorporate your media into clever animations that will wow your friends and family, impress your clients.

Hard copy or digital copy?

Open book

Is it time to finally accept digital versions of books? You decide.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Wordle


Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.

Big Brother in China




Better watch what you say and do during the Olympics.

Digg Meetups & a pint


Digg is coming to a city near you! Come raise a frosty pint with fellow Diggers and meet some of the Digg crew.

Proposal 2.0


In the true spirit of Silicon Valley, a self-described geek proposed to his girlfriend using Street View, Google Maps' online gallery of street-level panoramas.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Loaded with gadgets, rower halfway to Hawaii


Loaded with gadgets, rower halfway to Hawaii
Checking in with Roz Savage to talk tech and self-sufficiency as she aims to be the first woman to row solo across the Pacific.



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. Using just your browser and your creativity, and working collaboratively with others, you create and publish Facebook apps, OpenSocial apps, meebo apps, iPhone apps, Google Gadgets, embeddable widgets, and other social applications.


Why let a Flash developer squeeze you for an extra payday when you can repurpose content for free? That's the idea behind Flypaper.


Read the CNET article.

Monday, August 04, 2008

Google Street goes live down under

Sydney, Australia now can be explored with Google Maps' Street View, shown with blue lines where available. (Click to enlarge.)Street View, the driver's-eye-view on Google Maps, made its debut in the United States, but it's now available in Australia and Japan, too.

Resnooze puts helpful email nags


If you're wary of using silly things like calendars to keep track of to-dos and reminders, Resnooze is worth checking out. This tool lets you schedule in weekly, daily, and monthly reminders to do something. Every time you get said reminders delivered to your in-box there are three simple options to get rid of it, or be reminded yet again--either a week or month from then.

San Jose: Hub for a green-tech gold rush?


Mayor Chuck Reed says California's high-tech hometown can become the world's eco-capital. Calling all solar companies, and Tesla, too.

Is Cuil cool enough to be a threat to Google?


www.cuil.com

The much-hyped, heavily funded new search engine developed by a former Google whiz leaves users unexcited.

Making use of social networking sites

It's time your small business started to look at ways to leverage these and other social networks to boost business. "It's virtually low or no cost for entry," explains Adam Schwam of Garden City-based Sandwire, an information technology consultancy.

BT goes after Android and Skype

BT has bought Internet telephony company Ribbit, in a move that will bring the communications giant up against competitors ranging from Skype to Google's Android platform.

Facebook grows, but where's the profit?

They like to meet, chat, make friends and business connections. They post photos and videos. They share their passion for a celebrity, hobby, or cause. Show me the money.

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Evite's makeover




The invitation service has overhauled its UI.

Friday, August 01, 2008

New 3.2Gbps Firewire


The IEEE 1394 working group has formally approved FireWire's next-generation standard. The new version defines transfer speeds of 1.6Gbps and 3.2Gbps, is backwards compatible with FireWire 800 and 400, and uses the same cable standard as FireWire 800.

Chat with friends who speak a different language


If you've been on the hunt for a tool that lets you chat with friends or clients that speak a different language, MeGlobe is a really simple solution that does all the work for you.


Sun throws JavaFX hat into Web app ring


Sun is promoting JavaFX as a good way to write rich Internet applications.

Programmers now can start trying out JavaFX for writing rich Internet applications--and seeing if it's worth using over Adobe's Flash and other alternatives.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Emotiv's New Mind-Control Headset for PCs



Its wireless sensors help users run some programs with their thoughts.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

With Security at Risk, a Push to Patch the Web



Dan Kaminsky has been urging companies around the world to fix a potentially dangerous flaw in the basic plumbing of the Internet.

While Internet service providers are racing to fix the problem, which makes it possible for criminals to divert users to fake Web sites where personal and financial information can be stolen, Mr. Kaminsky worries that they have not moved quickly enough.

RollAName


Roll A Name


Roll A Name is not a social networking site like any other. This is a site that focuses on visibility and self-promotion, and will help you promote just about anything you want.

By joining, you can maximize your network and your visibility. Use this visibility to start promoting yourself, your business, your website, your blog, your videos, your songs, your photos. Buy, sell and trade anything and everything. You can also find or post jobs... Be Creative!

Olympics enter the '2.0' era


Chinese portal Sohu.com's lucrative deal with the Olympics has had rivals envious.
This year's Summer Olympic Games have been seen as China's coming-out party, destined to be as significant for the host country as the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo were for Japan.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

The filing cabinet is about to become obsolete



Pixily is a cool scan-by-mail service that launched in early June of this year. The service is similar to Shoeboxed, however, Pixily is all about taking paper clutter out of your life by scanning it in for you and making it both searchable, and able to be organized into buckets. The big difference between the two services is that Pixily is focused less on receipts and finances, and more on day-to-day papers like insurance claims, long cell phone bills (with call lists on them) and little things like birthday cards.

Everything that's scanned goes through optical character recognition (OCR), so you can search for it in the built-in search tool. It also lets you tag, and make notations to documents for the sake of sorting. If you've got digital documents, you can upload them into the mix as well.

Think of this service as Netflix for the office or home.

Kallout

KallOut - Where Search Begins

KallOut is the first application to bring "selection-based search" to any web page, email, presentation, document, spreadsheet or PDF. Unlike other search methods that are trapped inside the browser, KallOut serves up content from the most popular sites on the web inside floating information palettes (which we call KallOuts). Using only your mouse, you can now avoid the disruption of launching a browser and let KallOut bring you the best the web has to offer.

12seconds


"But the shortest works are always the best," wrote the French poet, and video sharing start-up 12seconds is counting on that being true. The simple site, which launches an invitation-only alpha today (500 invites for Webware readers at the end of this post), places a 12-second limit on the videos its users can share.

The idea is to keep the focus on status updates, letting users share--via video--what they're doing in a single moment.

The simple concept of 12seconds is backed up by a simple interface: once you sign up you can begin capturing video directly from your computer's Webcam.

Dimdim




Open-source Web conferencing provider Dimdim has raised $6 million in Series B funding, the company is set to announce on Wednesday.

The funding round, which was led by current investors Index Ventures, Nexus India Capital, and Draper Richards, will enable Dimdim to introduce enhancements to the free service and expand its market reach.

Dimdim competes with fee-based services like Webex. Because it is open source, it could become a platform for real-time communications if it garners enough developer support.
Since its private launch 10 months ago, Boston-based Dimdim has attracted more than 500,000 users in more than 180 countries, the company says.

Zynga, a game network for social networking

Zynga, which specializes in games for social-networking sites, has received $29 million in a new funding round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Institutional Venture Partners.
The round, announced Wednesday, also includes funding from previous investors Union Square Ventures, Foundry Group, and Avalon Ventures.

Out with the old, in with the new



Commuto is a smart swapping community that's been designed to undermine the in-person swap meet of the past with an online system that finds other people with items you want automatically.

Like Craigslist's wanted section you can list items you're looking for, be it electronics, text books, video games, or any other common good. You can also list items you own but are looking to pawn off.

Like Craiglist, Commuto is all about keeping things local, so there's no integrated payment system or way to auction off your goods. Instead, you just get in touch with the other person and arrange a swap. It's delightfully simple and will work great as long as there are enough users in your area. There were only eight items in my neck of the woods, so your millage may vary.

Look to the Clouds

Search Cloud is a search engine that uses weighted keywords to determine relevancy in its results. When entering search terms you can change which words or phrases need priority over others by changing their size from one to five.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Apple's next-gen Macs to have something special under the hood

A new generation of personal computers on the way from Apple Inc. may sport some of the most significant architectural changes since the Mac maker made the jump from PowerPC processors to those manufactured by Intel Corp., AppleInsider has learned.


Baynote

It's a sort of social science of the mouse - the point-and-click kind.

Cupertino start-up Baynote has created search and navigation software that derives results from what people do on a Web site, including where the mouse moves.


Sprout


Build web content in a flash. Sprout's mission is to make it quick and easy for anyone to build sophisticated rich media web content. We are based in Honolulu, HI and San Francisco, CA, both of which just happen to have some good surfing.

Cuil [pronounced COOL]

Cuil’s founders worked with other search engines and knew that tinkering with old systems wouldn’t work. A fundamentally different approach was needed. So they've developed new architecture and algorithms that can handle the exponential growth of the Internet and organize results that reflect its enormous complexity. See the site here.


Saturday, July 26, 2008

Publishing 2.0

Publishing 2.0 is a blog about how technology is transforming media.

Doodlage

Ok, it's a warm summer day and thought I'd throw this one in for fun. Check it out.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Knol


Think you are an expert on a subject? Well, Google's got a proposition for you.
Google's Wikipedia competitor, Knol, is open.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Go2Web2.0

Orli Yakuel has put together the largest online directory for Web 2.0 applications worldwide, which is a labor of love for her. Check it out.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Let the guessing begin

Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer's decision to warn financial analysts Monday that Apple's fourth-quarter gross margins will be negatively impacted by a "product transition" should be enough to get the rumor wheels turning: of course, it doesn't take all that much.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Apple is roaring back!

Apple is moving up the charts, toppling Acer to become the third largest PC vendor in the U.S., according to a survey from Gartner.

Trouble in paradise

Apple continued to have problems with its new MobileMe service over the weekend and into Monday, with several users unable to access their e-mail.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Mixi

Japan’s biggest social network is called Mixi, launched in February 2004 by the company of the same name. Drawing in one in five web users in the country, Mixi now boasts over 15 million members. The site ranks sixth on Alexa Japan and racks up over 14 billion page views monthly.

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.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

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.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

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.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

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

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Four cool innovative start-ups

Picture 2

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.

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

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.

Monday, July 07, 2008

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

Topten

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 in order to fit in.

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.