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« April 2006 | Main | June 2006 »
This entry was posted in the following categories: Mobility, News
Curious to see where from it all started? Check out this pretty accurate evolutionary tree!
Details available here.
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This entry was posted in the following categories: News, Web services
From CNET:
A test version of MTV's long-delayed online music service, called Urge, will be introduced Monday.
The service was developed in cooperation with Microsoft, and will be heavily promoted from within the latest version of the Windows Media Player, which also begins public testing Monday.
The MTV service largely matches the price and features of other music services, including Napster and RealNetworks. It will cost $9.95 a month for people who want to listen to music on their computers and $14.95 a month for those who want to download songs to portable players. (The service works with many hand-held music players from Samsung, iRiver and other manufacturers, but not the Apple iPod, which dominates the portable market.)
It allows users to download as many songs as they choose from a library of two million tracks, but the pieces downloaded will stop playing if the user stops paying the monthly fee. MTV will also sell permanent downloads for 99 cents a track.
Some of the songs will be from performances on MTV's broadcasts. And MTV Networks, a unit of Viacom, hopes to differentiate its music store with programming and features, many related to its television shows, that will help users find music they like. It has more than 500 preset playlists for various moods and styles. And MTV has started 24 blogs, with different views of current music. The service will also include 130 Internet radio stations.
The MTV service is tightly integrated into the Windows Media Player and is designed to use some of its newer features, like easier ways to search and navigate through very large collections of music.
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This entry was posted in the following categories: Home / Office, News
As a Skype user, I may have to get me one of these hotties. Looks really cool.
I can definitely see myself picking up my mouse to take a phone call.
See the review at TechCrunch.
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Technorati Tags: skype sony
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This entry was posted in the following categories: Mobility, News
These new Vaios look really cool.
This pocket-size portable pc weighs 1 lb, and comes with a 4.5 inch screen, WIFI/EDGE/Bluetooth radios, a camera for taking still pictures and video conferencing, and a fingerprint reader.
Best of all you can snatch one for $1,800.
Here's a CNET article with more info and reviews.
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Technorati Tags: sony handheld vaio UX180P mico+pc
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This entry was posted in the following categories: Mobility, News
Since Monday's announcement from Palm of the Treo 700p, Palm-related sites are buzzing in overload.
I can't wait to get my hands on one. Until then, I'll drool over the postings from the many sites available. This is just a few of many.
Enjoy reading all the perspectives.
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Technorati Tags: palm treo 700p 700w verizon sprint blackberry
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This entry was posted in the following categories: Mobility, News
CNET reports that Nokia, the world's top mobile phone maker, will unveil on Tuesday a new version of its Internet tablet device that runs Google Talk communications software, sources familiar with the plans said on Friday. The pact between the Finnish company and Web search leader Google would offer consumers the ability to chat with other users of instant messaging software via the Nokia Wi-Fi device, which relies on short-range wireless networks.
The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, introduced last year, offers wireless access to digital music and video playing on a high-contrast color screen, as well as to check e-mail, surf the Web and read computer documents or play video games.
At a press conference to be held in Stockholm on Tuesday, Espoo, Finland-based Nokia will introduce a new version of the Internet Tablet with upgraded software and hardware elements, one source said.
Nokia's 770 is available worldwide via its Web site. The 770 is a rectangular, 5.5-inch by 3.1-inch device with a big color screen that is slightly bigger than a mobile phone. It has a retail list price of around $400 in the United States.
In contrast to phones, the Nokia 770 relies on unregulated local wireless connections rather than cell phone networks.
Google Talk, which allows users to chat via text or to talk with other instant message users, will be one of the featured applications on the Nokia Internet Tablet, a second source confirmed.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the news.
The deal with Nokia marks the Mountain View, Calif.-based Google's latest move beyond computers and into the mobile communications market.
Earlier this year it announced a plan with Nokia's biggest rival, Motorola, to feature Google search software on Motorola phones.
Google rivals Yahoo and Microsoft are also pushing to have their services featured on handsets. Yahoo is offered on several Nokia phone models.
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This entry was posted in the following categories: News, Web services
This is sort of old news now, but you can now add photos to your contacts in Gmail. Wo when you mouse over or open the contact, the photos appear.
You can add your own photo, or if the contact is another Gmail user, they can upload their own choice of photo, and you can opt to use what they've chosen.
Also, while adding photos, you have the ability to suggest the photo to the contact. Of course, it integrates with Gtalk as well.
Click on New Features at the top right of your Gmail Inbox.
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Technorati Tags: gmail photos gtalk yahoo+mail
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This entry was posted in the following categories: News, Web services
iPod Directions is a web service that fetches directions from Yahoo! Maps and gives them to you as a ZIP file full of images to drop into your iTunes photo folder.
It's both simple and ingenius, because all it does is grab the images and text directly from Yahoo! Maps' turn-by-turn directions, convert the text into images, and serve them to you together in a format perfect for a slideshow on your iPod. Of course, this comes with the same caveat as plain old Yahoo!/Google/whatever Maps, i.e you have to remember to get directions before you leave.
The major advantage of having them on your iPod rather instead of printing them out is, I suppose compactness.
If you're going on a road trip with a dozen out-of-the-way stops, carrying your iPod (which you carry around anyway) might be preferable to a sheaf of printouts. Now, what would really be cool would be if it did speech synthesis and gave you an MP3 so you didn't have to look at the iPod while driving.
Source: [DownloadSquad]
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Technorati Tags: ipod apple yahoo google map directions
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This entry was posted in the following categories: News, Web services
RSS Micro is a new dedicated RSS feed search tool built with Ajax.
It's a very simple, fast, easy to use and it searches both news feeds and blogs.
It seems to work rather well in my initial simple tests. I like how it combines news and blogs together. It will also soon give you the ability to subscribe to a blog or news feed from inside a search.
The site also retains your search history, but through cookies not user registration.
RSS Micro is in beta and there are a few bugs, still it looks promising.
Source: [MicroPersuasion]
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Technorati Tags: rss feed xml feedburner newsgator aggregator
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This entry was posted in the following categories: News, Web services
Google Desktop 4 beta is now available. One of the new features of Desktop 4 are the "Google Gadgets." Like Yahoo's widgets, Google Gadgets let you personalize your desktop with mini-applications that deliver personalized content like games, media players, weather and news. Google Desktop can also recommend new gadgets and can automatically create a personalized homepage based on what you frequently search and access.
Other features of Google Desktop include:
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This entry was posted in the following categories: News, Web services
Faced with opposition from conservative groups and some pornography Web sites, the Internet's key oversight agency, ICANN voted Wednesday to reject a proposal to create a red-light district on the Internet.
The decision from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers reverses its preliminary approval last June to create a ".xxx" domain name for voluntary use by the adult entertainment industry.
ICANN had postponed making a final decision in August after the U.S. government stepped in just days before a scheduled meeting to underscore objections it had received, an intervention that had led some ICANN critics to question the organization's independence.
"The board was certainly very conscious of that (the controversy) ... but the heart of the decision today was not driven by a political consideration," ICANN Chief Executive Paul Twomey said in an interview that followed more than an hour of discussion in a closed teleconference meeting. Twomey said the decision largely came down to whether the creation of "xxx" might put ICANN in a difficult position of having to enforce all of the world's laws governing pornography, including ones that might require porn sites to use the domain. Speech-related laws, he noted, often conflict with one another. He said concerns raised by various governments around the world did prompt the company proposing the domain, ICM Registry Inc. of Jupiter, Fla., to make changes in its bid, but the changes did not address all of the questions concerning enforcement. ICANN's rejection of ".xxx" in a 9-5 vote ends, for now, a 6-year-old effort by ICM to establish a domain for the porn industry. ICANN first tabled its bid in 2000 out of fear it would be getting into content control. ICM resubmitted its bid in 2004, this time structuring it with a policy-setting organization to free ICANN of that task. But the language of the proposed contract was vague, Twomey said, and a majority of the board felt that one interpretation could kick the task back to ICANN. When the board initially voted last year to move forward with ".xxx," the contract details had yet to be written. ICM argued the domain would help the $12 billion online porn industry clean up its act. Those using the domain would have to abide by yet-to-be-written rules designed to bar such trickery as spamming and malicious scripts. Anti-porn advocates, however, countered that sites would be free to keep their current ".com" address, in effect making porn more easily accessible by creating yet another channel to house it. And they say such a domain name would legitimize adults sites, which 2 in 5 Internet users visit each month, according to tracking by comScore Media Metrix. Many porn sites also objected, fearing that such a domain would pave the way for governments - the United States or repressive regimes abroad - or even private industry to filter speech that is protected here under the First Amendment. Democratic Sens. Max Baucus of Montana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas have introduced legislation that would create a mandatory ".xxx." The porn industry trade group Free Speech Coalition believes a domain name for kids-friendly sites would be more appropriate. Twomey said the board took the porn sites' concerns as a sign ICM did not fully represent the industry, a criteria required in the current round of domains. Meanwhile, ICANN approved the creation of a domain name designed to help people manage their contact information online. As envisioned, Internet users could buy a ".tel" name and set up a Web site with their latest digits - home, cell and work phone numbers, home and work e-mail addresses, instant messaging handles and perhaps even a MySpace profile. The ".tel" domain could appear in use as early as this year. Source: Dallas Morning News
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This entry was posted in the following categories: News, Web services
AOL's much-talked-about social networking site AIM Pages launched Wednesday in beta form at AIMPages.com.
Logging in with your AIM screen name takes you to the profile editor, which has a neat drag-and-drop Ajax interface.
By default your AIM Pages profile has a few "modules" like the obligatory photo and "About Me" box, and you can add other modules like RSS feeds, photo tickers from Flickr or AOL, and even games, by dragging them to the column and position you would like them to appear.
Each module has "Edit" and "Style" buttons for changing their settings and appearances. It also has more than 75 built-in themes which range from clean to cutesy to garish, and after choosing a theme you can further customize it.
Source: DownloadSquad
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Technorati Tags: aol mypages myspace
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This entry was posted in the following categories: Mobility, News
iPod users! You may be able to say bye-bye to your FM transmitter.
Now you can add Bluetooth capabilities to your Apple iPod nano.
This is possible thanks to an adapter from ANYCOM Technologies. They're calling it the BluNa. It is actually Apple approved, boasting a "Made for iPod" logo.
The BluNa adapter pairs up easily with Bluetooth enabled car decks.
It's available in black or white to match your nano. Of course this doesn't help those of you who have one of the nifty skins on the market available.
The ANYCOM BluNa will be available through a number of retailers, such as Buy.com, Amazon.com, and Office Depot, among others for $120.
You can view/print the spec sheet here.
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Technorati Tags: ipod nano apple bluetooth anycom
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This entry was posted in the following categories: Mobility, News
Oh how I hope this is true.
According to GadgetsOnTheGo, Palm will be releasing the much anticipated Treo 700p on not only Sprint, but Verizon as well.
There have been many images floating around speculating a Verizon release, but this is the first "confirmation" of it.
As we know, Verizon was the launch provider for the surprising first Palm device running Windows Mobile, the 700w.
If this is true, sales should skyrocket for Palm.
As a Treo 650 user from Verizon, this is great news. I may not have to wait as long, or pay more for an unlocked device.
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Technorati Tags: palm treo+700p verizon sprint Treo+650 700p
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This entry was posted in the following categories: News, Web services
To give you a sense of its tremendous power for tapping into the world psyche, here are 25 things I learned on Google Trends. Someone should start a blog on this kind of stuff.
1) Almost all of the ten biggest US markets for MySpace are on the West Coast
2) There's more interest in Bluetooth than in Wifi
3) PR is starting to come close to catching advertising. AdAge still bests PR Week
4) David Hasselhoff's popularity in Germany is declining
5) Jerry Lewis's popularity in France is rising
6) Blackberry is widening its lead over the over the Treo
[source MicroPersuasion]
7) Zacharias Moussaoui finally beat OJ Simpson in searches
8) Hockey is starting to surpass baseball in popularity, but they fall way behind football (no matter which way it is defined)
9) New York still tops LA!
10) The Kryptonite Lock got more PR from the blog blow-up than any other event during the past two years
11) TV is kicking the movies butt
12) Dogs are by far killing all other pets while cats and fish battle for second place
13) Democrats vs. Republicans? Yup, they're neck and neck and on my screen red and blue!
14) YouTube is huge in the Philippines. Call it the Mike Abundo effect.
15) Blogs have caught up to newspapers. Boing Boing and Gizmodo are close to catching the WSJ
16) The beach is more popular than the mountains
17) Wikipedia is huge in Eastern Europe and it started to lead Britannica, Encarta and Webster's in 2004
18) Digg is still way behind CNET but it caught up to Slashdot. MySpace speed ahead of AOL last year
19) Interest in blogs and RSS is much higher than in podcasting and wikis
20) Flickr is the king of tagging, followed by del.icio.us and furl
21) Web 2.0 is huge in Korea - even bigger than in San Francisco
22) Elvis and The Beatles are in a dead heat
23) Word is more popular than any other Office app. Outlook and Excel are in a tie, followed by Powerpoint.
24) Bill Gates is slaughtering Steve Jobs in searches
25) Google is bigger than God?
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