Pixel.com published this news:
Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division - the same department responsible for Xbox 360 - has unveiled a new
“Entertainment and devices has a long history of bringing innovative product experiences to market - such as Xbox, IPTV and Zune. Today, E&D’s vision is anchored in delivering end-to-end hardware, software and services across different pillars of Connected Entertainment, such as music, video, communication and gaming,” said E&D executive Tom Gibbons.
“That’s exactly what we’re doing with Microsoft Surface… The new hardware and software in Surface, along with a predominant focus on the consumer experience, support the Connected Entertainment vision - making entertainment more personal, more interactive and more social.”
Gibbons added, “As a new product category, we see the Surface computing group as extending Connected Entertainment to new devices, categories and platforms.”
Microsoft Surface will initially roll out through partners such as Starwood Hotels, T-Mobile and Harrah’s Entertainment, plus gambling game company International Game Technology. It will be priced at between USD 5000 - 10,000, but Microsoft plans to produce cheaper versions to sell to home users within three to five years.
And if you wont see some images.
Thursday 31 May 2007
The new Microsoft Surface!
Wednesday 30 May 2007
American Idol Winner: Jordin!
American Idol for example represents a true cross media phenomenon, explained Matt Booth of The Kelsey Group. American Idol winner is a 'normal' teenager with a crush on the boyfriend of Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt. American Idol has bucked the trend of most successful television programs, past and present, by growing in audience numbers in its fifth season.
Jordin
Jordin won, DWTS is over, Robin and Ted are broken up, Grey's anatomy got all burned down, close to home ended with a. Jordin is a wonderful young girl, but I feel that there were better singers. Jordin Sparks looked exactly as I pictured her in the moment of her Idol victory.
Contestants
The contestants sing a song of their choice based on a theme each week and the two with the least public votes exit from the competition. Once in the top 5, the contestants sing two songs each. The stage is moved to the Kodak Theatre for the finale showdown, where the two remaining contestants perform for an audience of at least 3,400.
Performances
For their final performances, both contestants sang "This Is My Now," the tune picked by viewers in an online "American Idol" songwriting contest introduced this season, along with two other songs of their choice. Most everyone seems to think, especially after last night’s performances, that Jordin is the obvious winner.
American Idol continues to clobber its competitors in the market sector that really matters to advertisers, those 18-49 years of age. American Idol, its judges are fond of repeating, is a singing competition. American Idol’s Latin night was a battle in the latter category, and perhaps the less said about it the better. Imagine "American Idol" if people like Diana DeGarmo, Jon Peter Lewis and Scott Sabol (wrapped in a metallic bodysuit) won every year and no one was.
Tuesday 29 May 2007
Ron Paul's point of view
Ron Paul believes that the federal government has been neglecting its constitutional responsibility to protect its own borders and concentrating instead on unconstitutionally policing foreign countries. Ron Paul has voiced support for re-opening the 9/11 investigation to discover why the FBI did not act on 70 field tips from an agent reporting student pilots (and eventual 9/11 hijackers) who were learning to take off but not land and why the various intelligence agencies could not collaborate on information to possibly prevent the attacks.
Government
Paul tirelessly works for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies.
Candidate
As a former Libertarian Party candidate for President, Congressman Paul has been a proponent of ballot access law reform, and has spoken out on numerous election law reform issues.
Iraq
He has spoken out against torture[18] and the abuse of executive authority in the Iraq War to override human rights guaranteed by the Constitution. He claimed that the current circumstances with Iran are similar to those under which the Iraq War began, and urged Congress not to authorize a war with Iran.
Campaign
Paul is they are used to modern campaigns spending millions on pollsters, consultants, and "grassroots organizers" to create the illusion that have an army of passionate supporters. In 2002, he spoke before the Congress in opposition to campaign finance reforms that place any restrictions on citizens and businesses making campaign contributions to the candidate of their choice. If we don’t learn how to use that to its maximum benefit, we won’t have a very viable campaign.
Ron Paul, R-Texas, touches upon the primary themes of his presidential campaign -- Iraq, immigration and abortion. Ron Paul has also formed a presidential exploratory committee (something Gingrich has not even done yet), his name was conspicuously absent from Falwell's list.
Friday 12 January 2007
Bill Gates: Worried about the Wii?
From: Gearlog
In George Orwell's novel "1984," the main character was charged with rewriting history. Somewhere in Redmond, there must be something similar to Orwell's Ministry of Information at the Microsoft and Nintendo campuses. At least that's the feeling I get when I hear that Bill Gates is saying that Nintendo is the real competition right now, in the never-ending
videogame console wars.
GameDaily reports that
Gates believes that the Nintendo Wii presents "impressive strength," and that the House of Mario, not Sony, is actually Microsoft's toughest competition in the video game space. Microsoft, Gates claims, will see cost-reduction faster than Sony. But apparently Mr. Gates fails to realize that the PlayStation 2 is still the best selling video game system of all time, and Sony isn't exactly throwing in the towel just yet. It did release a little console called the PS3 last year. And no
one is accidentally throwing those controllers at TV screens.
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Nintendo shows Sony Wii are the champions
From: London Free Press
Wii love it!
Wii, Nintendo's latest video game console, is a runaway hit and is far outselling its more expensive competitor, Sony's PlayStation 3.
Both were released to long lineups and much hoopla in November, but only the Wii is still hard to find in London-area stores. Even in Japan, Wii sales are double that of Play- Station 3.
Sony sat solidly on top of the previous generation of game consoles, garnering 70 per cent of the global market by selling 35 million PlayStation 2 consoles. Nintendo was a distant third, behind Sony and Microsoft's 15-million seller Xbox, selling just 11 million GameCubes.
Both Sony and Nintendo say they will sell six million new-generation consoles worldwide by the end of March.
Allan John, manager of EB Games in White Oaks Mall, said his store has been getting as many as 200 calls a day for the Wii, which sells for about $279. The weekly shipment of about 10 to 15 consoles are usually gone in five minutes.
In contrast, the PlayStation 3 is usually in stock.
John said there's no mystery to Wii's wild popularity
"It's the most interactive, fun thing I've bought in the last 10 years. No matter who you are, chances are you're going to like playing it," he said.
The Wii's big innovation is a wand-like controller (Wii-mote) that detects and mimics the hand and body motions of the player, translating them to TV-screen action.
Buyers of the Wii console get a free game called Wii Sports. It gets couch potatoes up and thrashing around in simulated games of golf, tennis, baseball, boxing and bowling.
Parents who have never played video games tell him they've spent hours playing Wii games with children.
"That's something unheard of in the gaming industry. The whole point of this system was to bring in people who don't play video games," said John.
Carol Bennett, of Head 2 Head Games on Dundas Street, said customers sometimes wait an hour on weekends to play on her Wii station consoles.
Head 2 Head has had to clear a bigger space for the Wii players, she said.
"We don't keep them side by side or they (the players) would hit someone. They get right into it."
There have been reports that enthusiastic Wii players have broken the wrist straps attached to the controllers and sent them flying into TVs or other players' faces.
But Bennett is skeptical, saying Head 2 Head has had no such incidents.
There have been more games released for the Wii than the PlayStation 3 and they are easier to play and less violent, appealing to a wider audience, said Bennett.
Playstation 3 has far superior graphics for serious gamers and can play Blu-ray discs, she added.
"But graphics isn't everything. I think that's what Sony is learning," said Bennett.
Thursday 11 January 2007
Google, Digg, Yahoo and more...
The early part of the New Year has been especially kind to the mobile phone industry in terms of positive buzz - culminating with yesterday's Apple iPhone announcement that knocked the social media side of the web off its feet. Standing at the center of this social media storm (well, perhaps not in the middle, but definitely major players) are none other than Google and Yahoo!.
During yesterday's iPhone announcement - presented by Steve Jobs - Engadget's coverage revealed the iPhone would very supportive of Google's cavalcade of web applications (a Google Maps demonstration was presented during the announcement) as well as confirming a partnership with Yahoo!. Surprisingly, the iPhone is not the only device these competitors have partnered with.
According to numerous reports, both Yahoo and Google have also partnered with Samsung for the recently launched SGH-Z720 phone. Google's partnership allows users to access three of Google's web applications - search, Gmail, and Google Maps.
Yahoo!'s partnership calls for the phones to come preloaded with Yahoo! Go 2.0; Yahoo! oneSearch (Yahoo's mobile web search feature); Yahoo! Mail; Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Personal Information Management. Of course, all of these services are intended to provide potential owners with a more robust user experience and considering all of the applications available, Samsung has succeeded in doing so.
Partnerships like these are good indicator of what powerful search engines like Google and Yahoo are focusing on (not solely of course): the mobile Internet. As more and more users adopt this method of Internet interaction, partnering with the mobile phone companies to provide mobile web services goes a long way towards securing a future beyond organic web search.
Apparently, either the current Google PageRank update or someone at Google doesn't like Digg because the nexus for social media currently has a PageRank score of zero.
That's right, when you navigate to Digg.com, Google's green bar
turns white (this goes for both the www. version and the non-www. version). I've
got a screenshot if you are interested in case this gets corrected anytime soon. Although, when you consider How PageRank Works, then perhaps this wasn't an accident at all.
Hat-tip
to DazzlinDonna for pointing this out at her SEO Scoop blog.
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Sunday 7 January 2007
Pfizer Medication for Obese Dogs Wins U.S. Approval (Update4)
Written from: Justin Blum
Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. approved the first
prescription weight-loss drug for the growing number of dogs
whose owners feed them too many scraps and treats.
The Food and Drug Administration today cleared Pfizer Inc.
to market a drug called Slentrol for use in the estimated 5
percent of U.S. dogs that are obese. Veterinarians also could
use it for the additional 20 percent to 30 percent that are
overweight.
The medication, which Pfizer estimates will cost pet owners
about $1 to $2 a day, could be used for the increasing
population of dogs with weight problems due to overfeeding and
lack of exercise, said George C. Fahey Jr., a professor of
animal sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign who specializes in pet nutrition. As with humans,
obesity can lead to diabetes along with heart and joint
problems.
``It would be helpful,'' Fahey said of Slentrol in a
telephone interview today. ``It would be more helpful if people
could feed their dogs less. That would be turning off the spigot
instead of mopping the floor. Not everybody's going to do
that.''
Dogs that are 20 percent more than their ideal weight are
considered obese. The FDA approved the medication for those
dogs, Pfizer said, though veterinarians are free to give it to
dogs classified as overweight. It will be dispensed only by
veterinarians and is expected to be available in the spring,
Pfizer said.
61.5 Million Dogs
There are about 61.5 million pet dogs in the U.S.,
according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, based
in Schaumburg, Illinois.
The FDA warned Slentrol can cause dogs to vomit and
experience loose stools, diarrhea, lethargy and loss of
appetite.
The medication will include a warning saying the drug isn't
to be used by humans, and Pfizer said it shouldn't be used for
cats.
Pfizer originally studied the drug for use in humans to
lower cholesterol, said Bob Fauteux, a spokesman for New York-
based Pfizer. The company discovered it could be used in dogs
and gave up on human uses.
The drug makes it easier for owners -- many of whom are
overweight themselves -- to reduce the amount of food their pets
consume, said Debra Zoran, who ran a clinical trial for Pfizer
and is a professor of animal medicine at Texas A University in
College Station, Texas.
Begging and Stealing Food
``You start to take away the calories from the animal and
they beg and they steal food and they take food from the
trash,'' Zoran said in an interview. With the drug, she said,
owners were able to feed their dogs less ``without having a
fight.''
When dogs become overweight, it can hurt them to walk and
exercise, resulting in more weight gain, she said. Overweight
dogs also can develop arthritis and hip dysplasia.
The drug reduces appetite and fat absorption to produce
weight loss, according to the FDA. It blocks the assembly and
release of lipoproteins into the bloodstream.
Dog owners can give the liquid medicine directly or by
adding it to food. It is to be given in varying amounts, with an
initial dose for 14 days. A veterinarian will determine the
dog's progress on a monthly basis and adjust the dose depending
on weight loss, the FDA said.
After a dog reaches the desired weight, Pfizer suggests
continued use for three months while the best level of food and
exercise are determined, the FDA said.
Shares of New York-based Pfizer fell 8 cents to $26.30 at 4
p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
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SanDisk V-Mate gets a wii firmware upgrade
SanDisk’s V-mate was actually first announced back at IFA last year and it’s European launch was really a bit of an understated affair. However, although SanDisk is strongly rumoured to be putting some really exciting kit on display at its proper booth, the V-mate was really all it had on show at today’s unveiled session. Normally this wouldn’t really have merited a mention, but as I was chatting to the rep I noticed an interesting new feature in the menu – Wii compatibility.
When you chose the recording format, it looks like we’ll soon be able to record video straight to a memory card and then play it back using the Wii’s memory card reader. Current V-Mate owners are also in luck to because adding this functionality only requires a firmware upgrade, not a whole new unit.
For those who haven’t seen the V-mate before, it is basically a video recorder that connects up to any A/V device with a composite output and records straight to memory cards (SD, MMC, MMCplus MMCmobile, SDHC, MiniSDHC, MicroSDHC, Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick Duo and Memory Stick PRO Duo). Because of its wide range of format support and recording styles, it works with a very large number of portable devices such as the Nokia handset and teh SanDisk sansa player in the picture, and apparently the Nintendo Wii also soon be able to join in, which is pretty good.
Came straight to this page? Visit www.TechDigest.tv for all the latest news.
Thursday 4 January 2007
New Nintendo Wii & DS Titles On The Horizon
Wii and DS both have a wonderful library of games as it is, but the big question is: What’s coming during this first quarter of 2007 for Europe? Thankfully, Nintendo Wii and DS owners will have to wait no longer to find out, since the company has released a list of what’s to come.
Here’s the schedule straight from Nintendo Europe:
January
WarioWare: Smooth Moves - What’s wacky and will have you twisting, turning, waving and even hula-hooping with your Wii Remote? Wario’s back with more than 200 crazy microgames made specifically for Wii, for up to 12 players to enjoy.
Children of Mana - Role-playing game masters Square-Enix return to their roots in the latest instalment of the classic Mana series of action-RPGs. Go it alone or join with up to three friends wirelessly.
Star Fox Command - The Star Fox series blasts onto Nintendo DS! Part action shooter, part turn-based strategy game, Star Fox Command puts an armada of ships under your touch screen control.
Actionloop - Puzzle games don’t come any faster and more furious than this! Use the stylus to flick the magnetic marbles into like-coloured groups, testing your brainpower and reactions in equal measure.
February
Magical Starsign - An out-of-this world, astrological adventure! Journey across the galaxy to find missing members of a magic academy and their teacher, using spells that grow more powerful when stars are in alignment.
Excite Truck - Grip the Wii Remote like a steering wheel and boost, swerve and jump your way across wild terrain that morphs beneath your wheels. As the name implies, Excite Truck is a wild ride.
Kororinpa - In this action/puzzle game, you’ll need a steady hand and a cool head to roll the ball through the 3D maze to the goal by tilting the Wii Remote.
Wing Island- Take to the skies and engage in a range of diverse missions, from fire-fighting to wildlife photography, controlling your plane’s flight with simple movements of the Wii Remote.
The following games are currently planned for release by the end of March 2007:
Trauma Center: Second Opinion - The hit Nintendo DS surgical simulator makes its Wii debut, with hands-on controls using the Wii Remote and Nunchuk.
Sonic and the Secret Rings - Made exclusively for Wii, Sonic’s new outing is a super-fast action game that unleashes the power of the Wii Remote.
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin - Play as two characters at once, skilled in combat and magic, in this brand new action-adventure for DS.
Mario Slam Basketball - With gorgeous graphics and intense, comical action, Mario’s hoop-shooting debut is set to be a Spring scorcher.
Mario vs Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis - Guide a team of Mini Mario toys through obstacle filled levels or even make your own levels and upload them to the world with Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.
Also coming in 2007…
There’s lots more to look forward to this year including the Wii debuts of Mario and Metroid in Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3 Corruption, plus the eagerly awaited Super Smash Bros. Brawl featuring new fighters like Wario and Solid Snake. Also watch out for the arrival of Big Brain Academy for Wii, Battalion Wars II and Mario Strikers Charged bringing strategy and soccer action to Wii, and seafaring adventure The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass coming to Nintendo DS.
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Militias hijacked Saddam's execution, claims government official
From: news.scotsman.com
SADDAM Hussein was hanged by "militias and outsiders" who infiltrated the execution chamber, an official claimed yesterday. He said the hanging was meant to be carried out by executioners employed by the interior ministry but that "militias" had taken over instead."The execution was carried out by militias and outsiders. They put aside the team from the interior ministry that was supposed to carry it out," the official said.
The claim came as Iraqi investigators said a guard was being questioned in connection with the illicit filming of the former dictator's death.
The video, which has provoked demonstrations among Saddam's fellow Sunni Arabs and provoked international condemnation, shows him being subjected to sectarian taunts from Shiite observers as the noose is put round his neck.Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser, one of a group of 20 officials and other witnesses who were present at the execution at dawn on Saturday, said the person who took the video had infiltrated the chamber, but did not say the masked executioners were interlopers.
"Whoever leaked this video meant to harm national reconciliation and drive a wedge between Shiites and Sunnis," he said. "There was an infiltration at the execution chamber."Major-General William Caldwell, a US military spokesman, said the US military, which had kept custody of Saddam until he was handed to Iraqis before the execution, had no role in the hanging, but added:
"Had we been in charge we would have done things differently." Despite the controversy, preparations were being made to execute two of Saddam's co-defendants. His half-brother Barzan Ibrahim, a former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the Revolutionary Court's former chief justice, are expected to be executed today.
Mysterious object crashes into New Jersey home
From: CTV.ca
Officials are mystified after a mysterious metallic object crashed through the roof of a New Jersey home, although one expert said it could be a meteorite.
"There's some great interest in what we have here," Lt. Robert
Brightman told The Associated Press. "It's rather unusual. I haven't
seen anything like it in my career."
The object is the size of a golf ball but weighs as much as a can of soup, according to AP.
It crashed through a two-story house in Monmouth County on Tuesday
night, breaking tiles on a bathroom floor before rebounding into a
wall.
Brightman said Wednesday that authorities could identify the object
within 72 hours. But adding a further level of mystery, he didn't
specify what agencies were examining the metallic-looking ball.
Carlton Pryor, a professor of astronomy at Rutgers University, said
the object may not be that mysterious -- although he hasn't seen it. He
argued that dozens of objects crash to earth every day.
Pryor told AP. "These are usually rocky or a mixture of rock and
metal."
The family that owns the house damaged by the object has preferred
to keep anonymous. But Brightman said the tenants -- a couple and their
adult son - discovered the object at 9 p.m. Tuesday, after hearing it
earlier punch a hole through the roof.
Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson Arlene Murray confirmed the object did not come from an aircraft passing overhead.
"It's definitely not an aircraft part," she said. "I can't speak beyond that as to what it might be."
powered by performancing firefoxBloggers fear Somali insurgency
Members of the international blogging community have given their reaction to the role of Ethiopian troops in Somalia where Islamic militias have been defeated.
"'The air raids have begun, the air raids have begun.
Ethiopia has entered Somalia.' My mother kept repeating the words
hardly able to believe it herself... Words I never thought I'd hear.
Words that made my heart race and my blood boil. I cannot think
straight."
That was the scene in the Canadian-Somali household of blogger Muslimah
as Ethiopian and Somali government troops launched a devastating
assault on Islamist forces in Somalia, pushing them out of stronghold
after stronghold by sheer force of arms.
While Muslimah's mother sat stuttering out her shock in
What
has Prime Minister Meles Zenawi gotten the soldiers of the Ethiopian
defence forces into with his irresponsible and aggressive foray in
Somalia?
Canada, scores of other Somali bloggers around the world rushed to
their keyboards to type out their reaction to the fighting.
Many of them were just as astounded by the news.
"The world has officially gone mad, the Muslim world
that is... Somalis are turning on each other again. Was it not bad
enough when we simply slaughtered each other the first time?" wrote NM
of the blog Muslim, Female Black.
After the surprise came the analysis. Very little of it was upbeat.
The fear is that this war is gonna become a full out war that affects the neighbouring countries to Somalia," wrote Native Female.
"It was a stupid move to have Ethiopia involved in this.
Somalis are sensitive where Ethiopia is concerned. They are a sore
wound where Somalia is concerned. Having them support the interim
government means rubbing salt on the wound causing most to turn against
the government."
Others were deeply suspicious of Ethiopia's motives in supporting the troops of the Transitional Federal Government.
Shafi of the blog Incoherent Thoughts titled his post "Mogadishu Bloodbath" and asked:
"How long do we have to wait for more Ethiopian troops
to settle in Somalia? And how long before they decide to move up
towards other Somali cities? My heart aches for Somalia. And though the
world ignores its plight, again Mogadishu will carry the burden on its
shoulders and bury its dead with streets coagulated with blood!"
Ethiopia's victory may have been surprisingly swift. But that was little comfort for the country's own band of bloggers.
Zenobia of the blog Ewenet Means Truth in Ethiopia
was one of many to raise the spectre of an Islamic insurgency that
could keep her country's soldiers stuck in Somalia for many months to
come:
"What has Prime Minister Meles Zenawi gotten the
soldiers of the Ethiopian defence forces into with his irresponsible
and aggressive foray in Somalia? Are they going to be facing an
insurgency similar to the type in Iraq as some Somali pundits are
suggesting?"
Crigler-Somalia was thinking along the same lines:
"A return to the feudal anarchy of nine months ago and a
failure of the TFG (Somalia's Transitional Federal Government) to get
its act together and impose order could very well result in rekindling
the Islamist movement - probably more radical than ever - as an
alternative to secularist bumbling. Somalis really want an end to
anarchy."
The Head Heeb summed up everyone's doom-laden thoughts in his post "Somalia: the third phase":
"On balance, I'd still rate the most likely outcome as a
sham Ethiopian withdrawal followed by an extended counterinsurgent
conflict, with the TFG remaining ineffectual and internally divided
while the Islamist militias wage a guerrilla struggle with substantial
public support... Somalia deserves better, but there are too many
forces converging toward the opposite to provide much room for
optimism."
Neural substrates of envisioning the future
Posted from: PNAS
The ability to envision specific future episodes is a ubiquitous mental phenomenon that has seldom been discussed in the neuroscience literature. In this study, subjects underwent functional MRI while using event cues (e.g., Birthday) as a guide to vividly envision a personal future event, remember a personal memory, or imagine an event involving a familiar individual. Two basic patterns of data emerged. One set of regions (e.g., within left lateral premotor cortex; left precuneus; right posterior cerebellum) was more active while envisioning the future than while recollecting the past (and more active in both of these conditions than in the task involving imagining another person). These regions appear similar to those emerging from the literature on imagined (simulated) bodily movements. A second set of regions (e.g., bilateral posterior cingulate; bilateral parahippocampal gyrus; left occipital cortex) demonstrated indistinguishable activity during the future and past tasks (but greater activity in both tasks than the imagery control task); similar regions have been shown to be important for remembering previously encountered visual-spatial contexts. Hence, differences between the future and past tasks are attributed to differences in the demands placed on regions that underlie motor imagery of bodily movements, and similarities in activity for these two tasks are attributed to the reactivation of previously experienced visual-spatial contexts. That is, subjects appear to place their future scenarios in well known visual-spatial contexts. Our results offer insight into the fundamental and little-studied capacity of vivid mental projection of oneself in the future.
Job cuts at Jobster: 60 positions
Posted from: John Cook's Venture Blog
Here's the long-awaited news from Jobster: The Seattle-based online recruiting and job-search service says it will eliminate 60 positions, or 41 percent of its staff, leaving the company with 88 employees after the cuts.
The P-I's Andrea James has details in this story.
Jobster CEO Jason Goldberg discusses the news in this post on the Jobster blog, explaining that primarily in-person sales and support positions will be eliminated. He writes:
"2006 was a year of growth and learning for Jobster. On the positive side, we signed up more than 500 customers for our paid recruiting services, grew our revenues by 482%, and grew traffic to the Jobster.com site by more than 260% after re-launching it as a web 2.0 careers site in July. We also raised $18M in additional financing in 2006. On the other hand, we experienced slower than anticipated adoption amongst certain types of customers and were less than pleased with the cost to serve via in-person support."
Today's news caps an unusually public saga over Jobster's future, starting with a Dec. 26 post by John Cook, your regular host on this blog.
The software in Wii
Posted in: Kiyoshi Saruwatari's Wii Blog
Nintendo Wii will be the first Nintendo console ever with extensive built in software. It will have emulators, download manager to download news etc and possibilty to seamless extend the system with like for example the Opera browser to allow to browse regulare web pages. And it will also have the option to download and view videos from Nintendo with new video player, and file manager because the memory card now can take many things, including videos, VC games, saved data, game contant and much else.
Obviously, you can hear that all this is very expensive to make and put in the console. How could Nintendo cut the cost? It's very simple. Simply Wii will have software based on a industry standard platform that's open source. Linux. You read that right. Wii will have Linux as operating system with proprietary GUI and applications based on commonly open source for Linux programs. This probably make you all think of homebew and hacking and things like that, but the final system in closed and will allow only signed code etc and will be very secure, even though it's technically compatible with a world of already existing software. You can count on a lot of 3rd party add ons, much like Opera. By default, Wii will not have a window manager, but a easy to understand and simple interface, similar to what other consoles have. Underneath is a powerful and stabel Linux kernel which keeps it all solid.
The system itself will put on the 512 mb memory stick integrated in the system and its hidden and cant be removed from the console. So there is no risk for removing the system software. The memory card make the system start up very quick, and if you hold A on the Wiimote while starting Wii, it will automaticaly start the game in the DVD without booting Linux, and you can also set up this in Settings so it always starts automatically. But by default, it brings you to a menu, similar to the Nintendo DS menu.
Remember that the games will not run on Linux, but on a similar propritary platfrom like other consoles also use.
Tuesday 2 January 2007
Web 2.0: “It Is The Race To The Bottom”
And, in this case, the bottom may be literal. Today, the New York Times reports on new video-sharing, YouTube sites that do not restrict much content and sure don't police their users.
"Where do the young thrill-seekers go?Increasingly, to new Web sites like Stickam.com, which is building a business by going where others fear to tread: into the realm of unfiltered live broadcasts from Web cameras."
And you know what's going to be going on on that site. I am a social Libertarian and believe information wants and needs to be free, but there is a certain point at which I think we don't need anymore webcam sex, especially from teens. Or will we only start thinking that way when some teen kills himself on one of these live feeds? The pornography of the self trudges on with these video-hosting companies primarily interested in turning a profit.
When are the gurus of the Web 2.0 going to get their minds around the fact that with the ability to unloosen mankind's lust for information and booty there comes an ethical charge to deal with what youths can access? I am not sure how far that charge reaches and parents sure have a big part to play in all of this, but maybe it's time for the industry to start creating a code of ethics and industry standards that can address this with something other than window dressing.
I know many will interpret what I just wrote as an invitation to censor the Net because if all information and data aren't free then all information and data are effectively censored. That's bullshit. Keep in mind that free speech protections, to use a real world analogy, do not extend to libel, threats of harm and sedition. I have to keep that in mind when I do my job--that there is a scope to what I can get away even with the vast protections of our First Amendment. Why is the Web 2.0 world seemingly immune from such considerations?
Posted By: Furious Seasons