Sitelauncher, A Firefox add-on


Firefox extension Site Launcher lets you replace your bookmarks toolbar with an overlay window of links that can be pulled up at any time using a simple keyboard shortcut. You pick which sites you want on the list, and a one-letter keyboard shortcut is given to each.

How to downsize your social network

Tied to too many social networks? Time to do some house cleaning.

Cisco's home-networking push

Cisco Systems, which builds the gear that powers the Internet, is making a big push this year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas with new products that will help consumers move digital media around their homes.

Xobni

Outlook plug-in maker Xobni has raised a $7 million series B round of funding led by Cisco. Previous investors from the series A funding (about $4.1 million) also participated in this round.

Xobni is an e-mail add-on that analyzes your in-box to give you context around the people you communicate with. Recent updates also correlate against social sites like LinkedIn to provide even more information on people.

Can Wind Save Steel

Wind power was recently ranked in a comprehensive research study as the top energy alternative in terms of environmental impact and total power potential.

Japanese Private $1 Billion Li-Ion Battery Investment Shames U.S.

While Li-ion battery makers in the US are going cap-in-hand to the government in search of federal aid to keep up with foreign companies, it's been rumored that Nissan and NEC are about to invest around $1 billion of their own capital into making batteries for electric cars.

Guy Kawasaki Gives A Reality Check



He's been a Silicon Valley insider for a long time and his latest book, Reality Check, doles out tons of great advice for entrepreneurs. In this video Guy talks about all sorts of stuff like why he would rather have Twitter than a cell phone.

Facebook sues Power.com


The Power.com service lets users view activities on all of their social networks at once. It also marks up pages to include additional functionality in a way that Greasemonkey users are familiar with.

Eric Schmidt's View on the Future of Business

How the Internet will change the nature of competition, innovation, and company operations.

Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales Almost Out of a Job


Imagine an online encylopedia anyone can edit — and no one can run. With the calendar running out on 2008, Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's sleaze-drenched cofounder, nearlylost his seat on the board. Who's in charge here?

Voike

A voice blog and social media mash-up that allows you to record your voice, music, sounds words, pictures and thoughts by phone, post it in on your Voike account, blog or social networking environment like Facebook. You can also email these voice messages to others, send them to someone's phone and share them with others on Voike.

Wishpot



Wishpot is a free social shopping service that makes it easy to save and share interesting things you find in online stores.

Items are easily collected online or from stores and organized using simple online lists. Lists and items can be kept private or shared with others. You can collect and discover products you like, recommend your favorite stuff, share and explore gift suggestions or ask for opinions and advice.

Jumptags

Jumptags.com is a revolutionary Web 2.0 social bookmarking web service for collecting, storing, sharing and distributing web bookmarks, notes, RSS feeds, contacts, and much more. You can import your IE and Firefox bookmarks, besides those from del.icio.us.

Microsoft planning layoffs in January

Mark January 15 in your calendar: Rumors of layoffs at Microsoft peg that as the day the bad news will come.

Mobile Revolution: You're Holding It In Your Hand

The Future of Mobile Apps

There is a fascinating discussion about the future of mobile apps going on over at Change.org. Nathanial Whittemore started it all with a hopeful and visionary blog post on how mobiles will be changing the world.

Howard Rheingold Shares Thoughts about Robots in Our Future via his blog

Spanish researchers have published a study about the potential future impact of robots on society. They think that the potentially widening gap between the first and third worlds will cause a technological imbalance over the next 12 years. One of the researchers said that ‘just as we depend upon mobile phones and cars in our daily lives today, the next 15 years will see mass hybridization between humans and robots.’ So they predict that robots will be around — and inside — us.

Is Google Big Brother?


Internet search engines know a lot about their users - maybe too much. Do we really care?

Five predictions for 2009

Take a look and see what you think of Don Reisinger's forecast for 2009.

Name that tune


Scenario: You got a fat iTunes gift card for Christmas and you're loading up on music... but there's that one song that you're dying to download that you just can't remember the name of, or even who sings it, for that matter.

You can try searching for lyrics -- if you have 'em straight -- or you can let your voice do the searching. Check out Midomi, an ingenious website that lets you sing or hum a few bars of any song to figure out what it really is. It is, of course, totally free.

The 2008 Crunchies is the second annual competition and award ceremony to recognize and celebrate the most compelling startups, internet and technology innovations of the year.

Zigtag


ZigTag, a social bookmarking tool that has been in the works for years, has finally launched to the public. Competing with services like Delicious and Ma.gnolia, ZigTag categorizes bookmarks through the use of tags and allows users to share those bookmarks with friends. To set itself apart, ZigTag claims its service is "intelligent" and uses semantic technology to understand the meaning of tags. In essence, ZigTag tags have stated definitions, which the company uses to categorize bookmarks more effectively. ZigTag is available upon registration.

Cisco starting a push into home electronics

Cisco Systems, the dominant provider of the digital pipes that run the Internet, is making a big play in digital entertainment.

Ringful, is a start-up that focuses on connecting the Web to mobile phones.

OLPC

The OLPC Foundation's mission is to stimulate local grassroots initiatives designed to enhance and sustain over time the effectiveness of laptops as learning tools for children living in lesser-developed countries.

MSearchGroove



MSearchGroove is a premiere knowledge portal providing analysis and commentary on mobile search, mobile advertising, social media and all things digital at the intersection of content and context.

Global sales of Android-handsets to top 5-8 million units in 2009

Most branded handset vendors as well as vendors in China and Japan are all planning to launch Android-powered mobile phones in 2009, reports Taiwanese internet publication Digitimes.

Razorfish and Viral Distribution Metrics

Razorfish filed a patent to measure social media distribution. The patent, which is marketed as a way to measure social influence, is really more about providing metrics for how social media content/widgets/applications virally distribute.

Some Tips On How To Build an Offline Network

In anything, as well as social media, you’re only as good as your plan.

Green:Net

Green:Net is a one-day conference examining how the tools created in the Internet, computing and IT revolutions will be crucial for fighting climate change.

Social Media 2009 Predictions

Social Media 2009

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Management Business social media 2009

Turning Page, E-Books Start to Take Hold

Could book lovers finally be willing to switch from paper to pixels?

TED 2009 Lineup


With just over 40 days to go till TED 2009, which promises to be the best ever. At a time of deep uncertainty about the world's future, and people hungry for change, the Ted 2009 event promises to provide a few days and hear voices of insight, brilliance, passion and wisdom.

The Hottest Tech Developments of 2009


Watch for Microsoft's Windows 7; Apple's Snow Leopard; and Motorola and other smartphones running Google's Android software

The Net Generation Takes the Lead

Enabled by the Web and digital technology, the Net Generation is transforming media, politics, and culture. Will older generations stand in the way?

Google Maps Mashup Combines Your Address, Nuclear Blast

Nuclear weapons are often measured in kilotons, but that doesn't really tell the story of a weapon's destructive power.

Scrapplet



Perhaps you're on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, and FriendFeed. You've got accounts on Flickr, Photobucket, YouTube, Yahoo, and Google. You have a personal website, a business website, several blogs, and more...or maybe you're just getting started...

Scrapplet brings it all together and makes it easy to turn your distributed web presence into a single virtual place.

And best of all, it's free!

Apple stock should shine in 2009

Whether you should have faith in the shares depends on whether you bought AAPL at about $200 last year, or are contemplating it now at around $85.

Notify.me


Lets you get real-time notifications about information you specify. Track items on craigslist, job postings, breaking news stories and much more. Choose to have notifications delivered to IM, SMS, email, or desktop application.

Center'd



Want to make planning easier? From basic activities like figuring out what to do this weekend to more complex plans like organizing a school event that requires volunteers, Center'd provides tools to help. You can connect to people you know, discover new places in different neighborhoods, and plan any event or activity.

ShoutEm



A free platform where you can easily start a co-branded micro-blogging social networking service. Features range from simple Twitter-like text micro-blogging to more advanced features: posting attachments, photos, comments, or even a private network for your company.

One Juicer

This iPhone Apps monitoring service saves you time and frustration by monitoring keywords for Apps you are interested in at the iTunes Store. One Juicer notifies you of the latest iPhone Apps based on your choice of keywords via email.

Clutershot

A free-for-all site that allows anyone to sell their photos and allows anyone to buy them. Clutershot allows you to upload pretty much any of your photos and sell them at the price you want. They take 12% of the entire sale per sale and buyers get them immediately, royalty free.

myExperiment



A web service to find, use and share scientific workflows and other files, and to build communities.

BufferMe

BufferMe is a video streaming service that allows users to watch videos from a different approach. It provides faster results than regular streaming websites; its much more intuitive design allows users to have a different and better experience watching their favorite online videos.

ArtistData

Enables musicians to update their information on multiple sites (MySpace, Virb, PureVolume, Jamebase, last.fm, etc) with a single mouse click.

Dennis vanEngelsdorp: Where have the bees gone?

Bees are dying in droves. Why? Leading apiarist Dennis vanEngelsdorp looks at the gentle, misunderstood creature's important place in nature and the mystery behind its alarming disappearance.

Adamo coming in February?


Reports in the last day or so have offered up some tidbits about an "Adamo" laptop purportedly in the works at Dell.

25 Year Timeline of Mac: From Boxy Beige to Silver Sleek

Here's what's amazing about the Mac as it turns 25, a number that in computer years is just about a googolplex: It can look forward. The Mac's original competition—the green-phosphorus-screened stuff made by RadioShack, DEC, and then-big kahuna IBM—now inhabit landfills, both physically and psychically. Yet the Macintosh thrives...



Making Apple's '1984' commercial: Ridley Scott Interview

Digital Mapmaking

How are you able to see street level images? Here's are it works.

How Cloud Computing Works

So what us cloud computing and how does it work? Read on.

Apple iTunes vs Amazon MP3 - Amazon wins

Has Apple's iTunes Music Store had its day? Despite rumors that Apple would announce a DRM-free iTunes operation yesterday, nothing of the sort actually occurred. And a new review claims that Amazon MP3 is much, much better.

Why Is Steve Jobs Skipping MacWorld?

So why is Steve not presenting at the Macworld Conference?

Apple at Expo: What went wrong?

World Future Energy Summit 2009



Top government officials, heads of global organisations, leading environmentalists and the largest international investors are meeting once again at the World Future Energy Summit, 19-21 January 2009, Abu Dhabi to discuss, debate and plan the world's future energy.

The Summit is the platform for policy decision making, investment and high-level business deals. This is your opportunity to attend and become a part of an evolving industry with unlimited opportunity.

Join the Social Media Revolution

Online social networking is becoming an essential tool for companies to engage, listen to, and interact with customers and potential customers in ways that have never before been possible. The challenge for businesses is how to create and maintain communities that deliver measurable business value.

Social Media Today LLC helps global organizations create purpose-built B2B social communities designed to achieve specific, measurable corporate goals by engaging exactly the customers and prospects you most want to reach.

Going Social Now

Going Social Now covers the social media space - from the businesses and the applications to the users, behavioral patterns and cultural affects.

MobileMe News

If you're a mac user [like me] and want to keep up on the latest news regarding MobileMe, go to their MobileMe News letter.

Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks

There are many more oblique, clever, and lesser-known search recipes and operators that work from that unassuming little input box. Dozens of Google search guides detail the tips you already know, but here obscure Google web search tricks.

YouTube: Captions and Subtitles

The Caption feature allows you to give viewers a deeper understanding of your video. Adding captions and subtitles makes your videos more accessible to people who can't follow along with the audio—either because they speak a different language, or because they are deaf or hard of hearing.

SlideRocket, The Best Online Presentation Software




SlideRocket is a revolutionary new approach to presentations. It’s the only presentation software that allows you to create stunning presentations, manage them intelligently, share them securely and then measure the results.

SlideRocket goes beyond traditional presentation tools by harnessing the power of the Internet and making everything available to you in an integrated and intuitive online interface. SlideRocket is provided in a software-as-a-service model starting at free.

SlideRocket embraces collaboration with a number of features that make it easy for you to work in sync with your colleagues.

SlideRocket also offers the most advanced security available for presentations. Manage user and object permissions and define how and when your presentations can be viewed, printed and shared.

Kiss Your Phone Bill Good-bye

Disruptors: Silicon Valley startup Ooma wants to help you connect your home electronics for cheap - starting with your phone.

Semantic Web

The "semantic web" could make the Internet more interactive and rewarding.

StockTwits nails stockpicking on Twitter

StockTwits, a two month-old site that lets you track messages on micro-blogging service Twitter about public company stock performance, has closed a first round of venture funding. The investors, all individuals, are a wide range of Twitter-loving finance types who have become addicted to the service.

StockTwits is an open, community-powered idea and information service for investments. Users can eavesdrop on traders and investors, or contribute to the conversation and build their reputation as savvy market wizards. The service takes financial related data - using Twitter as the content production platform - and structures it by stock, user, reputation, etc.

Stickam API Lets You Build Your Own Live Video Site



Stickam, a live video streaming service that competes with the likes of Justin.tv and Ustream.tv, is releasing a new API that effectively allows anyone to build their own streaming video startup with a minimal amount of effort. The service is normally pay-as-you-go, but the first 100 users to sign up will be able to try it out for free.

Can Microsoft makes its future mobile?

You want a phone that can do it all? Internet, music, photos, films, documents, texting, instant messaging, diary, contacts and ... err ... phone calls?

Then a smartphone is right for you. But as the market for high-end mobiles gets ever more crowded, which should you pick?

Secrets of Marketing in a Web 2.0 World


Consumers are flocking to blogs, social-networking sites and virtual worlds. An they are leaving a lot of marketers behind.

Taking the Social Networking Plunge

As the job market continues to sour, it is important to take advantage of all available tools to keep up with your personal and professional network. if you’ve been joining social networking sites, Here are a few things to think about as you take the plunge or take your social networking to the next level.

World Map of Social Networks Around The World

This world map courtesy Oxyweb should help you visualize the popularity of various social networks across different parts of the globe.

Aggregate Your Social Networks with Eventbox



Dealing with social media and networking is a chore. There’s so much going on in too many different places, and keeping track of all that information is hard enough; managing your own is another story. EventBox, a beta application for Mac OS X Leopard, is designed with this problem in mind. The purpose of EventBox is to aggregate the various social networks you utilize in one handy desktop application, much like feed readers did for all the sites you frequent.

No keyboards in the future?

A survey predicts that by 2012 keyboards will become "quaint relics."

6 Ways to Convert a PDF to a JPG image

The solution begs the question – why convert a PDF document to a JPG image? The answer lies in the way we view PDF documents.

Even Apple is now feeling the pinch

Apple, which has outpaced the overall personal computer market this year despite its strategy of eschewing discounts, showed its first signs of weakness in November.

Google Chrome is no longer beta


The Web giant's recently launched browser is now officially ready for the public. Plus: How to make sure you get the new build.

Learn more about Chrome.

Yes, Even Google Is Getting Frugal

Even internet superstars fall to earth eventually. While recent reports of layoffs and other cost-cutting measures at Google have been greatly exaggerated, the search giant's culture of unbridled spending is finally coming to a halt.

You Do Have Other Options Besides Google

If you're using a major search engine to find information on the Web, you're missing out on some of the best search experiences. With the help of a metasearch engine--a service that grabs results from multiple search engines--you'll not only find relevant results quickly, but you might be able to kick that Google habit.

Cisco Launches New Video Initiative

The online video revolution has begun, and Cisco Systems says it has designed a new strategy complete with new products to help its customers meet the demand.

The Storm gets negative buzz

Though Verizon says the Storm is its fastest selling handset yet, the touchscreen phone is also generating more negative buzz than any BlackBerry before.

iPhone Grabs 16.6% of Global Smartphone Market

Apple's iPhone is stealing market share from dominant smartphone makers like Nokia and Palm.

Some tips on how to get the most out of Google Maps



Google Maps has become the standard mapping utility for everything from getting directions and finding nearby food options to viewing the surface of the moon. Are you getting the most out of your Google Maps experience? Keep reading to get some helpful hints on how to maximize (or minimize) all your mapping desires.

Do you Poken?


A Poken is a small gadget you can keep on your key chain. When touching someone else’s Poken you automatically exchange ‘business cards’ and links to your social network profiles on LinkedIn and Facebook. Is this the future of social networking?

Boxee gets support for Netflix streaming

Boxee is releasing on Thursday a new version of its media center software that adds support for Netflix Watch Instantly streaming movies.

Poorer Nations Go Online on Cellphones

Using cellphones to surf the Internet is booming in emerging markets, showing how countries with poor fixed-line telecommunications have become important drivers of growth for mobile-technology companies.

Google Friend Connect

Google, likely in reaction to the official rollout of Facebook Connect, has opened up its universal log-in system, Google Friend Connect.

PeopleBrowser

PeopleBrowsr is a new service that can show you all your activity streams from various social sites and nanoblogs, like Twitter and Friendfeed. It also adds additional features to Twitter, such as grouping your contacts.

Mobile Optimized Websites, More Harm Than Good?

Many websites automatically redirect iPhones to mobile versions of their sites. Many of these sites often deliver limited content, wasting space, and eliminate zooming.

Apple: 300 million iPhone apps downloaded

On Friday, Dec. 5th, Apple announced that over 300 million iPhone apps have been downloaded from its App Store.

Meraki Releases World’s First Solar-Powered WiFi Device

Meraki’s groundbreaking energy-independent device is powered by a single solar panel and solar-charged battery.

Out of thin air

As Zimbabwe battles a cholera epidemic that has already killed hundreds, one company thinks it may have found a potential solution to the world water crisis.

The Perfect Storm

Faced with the perfect storm of a bleak market and a boom in ultra-budget portables, Apple is believed by some to be readying its own take on the netbook for the first half of 2009.