 |
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Hx1obiAjcS8/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80900 
Last Friday, a fire at Fisher Plaza in Seattle knocked out a number of popular websites, including Microsoft Bing’s recently launched Travel portal. The site was back up by Saturday afternoon, but not before Google caught the the site’s placeholder “Bing Temporarily Unavailable” page and added it to its index (you can see the cached page here).
Now, five days later, “Bing Temporarily Unavailable” is the second search result offered when you search Google for “Bing”. It doesn’t take much to picture Google CEO Eric Schmidt cackling with glee over this.
This would be amusing enough on its own — It’s been days since Bing was last unavailable, and while I’m sure Google’s automated bots caught the page while it was actually down, it’s strange that it is taking this long for it to recognize the updated page. Bing may currently see traffic that pales in comparison to Google’s, but it’s no slouch either, and many much smaller sites are indexed by Google on an hourly basis.
But it gets even better: Bing’s Twitter account just sent a message directed towards Google’s, asking if they could take a look at their index and captions.
This might seem like a trivial goof on Google’s part, but it could actually have a fairly significant impact. Given how many people rely on using their browser’s integrated search box (which is often set to Google) rather than their address bar, I suspect there are quite a few queries for “bing” on Google every day.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/VZjcBJS_Xic/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80895  Taking place tonight in Seattle is The Naked Truth 2009, a Redfin-hosted conference to give entrepreneurs advice. Michael is there participating as an expert to discuss industry trends. This year’s topic is revenue models for consumer Internet startups. The four presenting startups, Redfin, UrbanSpoon, Picnik and Animoto have some interesting information to share via their slides, which we’re posting below, pointing out a few of the highlights.
For those who want to follow along live, you can find the video of the event here.
First up, restaurant recommendation service UrbanSpoon, which was recently bought by IAC. Some highlights of their slide:
- Of their visitors on the web, 74% come from Google.
- Of their visitors through mobile devices, 99% come through the iPhone (they have one of the more popular apps).
- They’re seeing more than double the revenue off of those mobile users versus web users.
- When they were featured in an iPhone commercial, they saw 300% growth.
Next up, online imaging editing service, Picnik (which has a partnership with Yahoo to edit Flickr pictures).
- 80% of their revenues come from paid subscriptions, the other 20% from advertising.
- About half of their subscribers do so on the first visit to the site, 75% of those do within 4 visits.
- “Partnerships are not nirvana” — obviously a shot at Yahoo.
Video slideshow maker Animoto (which recently raised a new round of funding):
- They have 700 paid users per 100,000 users, but are already cash-flow positive with that.
- They say their hybrid model (freemium + virtual goods) is working
And finally, online real estate company, Redfin:
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/eE7VELcdSV8/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80888 
Microsoft’s competitor to Adobe Flash, Silverlight, has officially rolled out the new version, Silverlight 3, today. Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in for delivering media experiences and interactive applications for the Web. The first version was launched in 2007 and the second version was launched in September of 2008. In April, Microsoft reported 300 million downloads of Silverlight between September 2007 and April 2009, with an estimated 300,000 developers and engineers working off the Silverlight platform.
SIiverlight 3 launched a day earlier today on Microsoft’s servers, surprising the blogosphere. The new version has improved streaming capabilities, called Smooth Streaming. Here’s what Microsoft said about the new streaming function:
If the Internet bandwidth and video rendering capability on your playback device are sufficiently high, you’ll experience high-definition video playback of the sample content. You will also be able to simulate end user experiences under varying conditions by simulating drops and recoveries in bandwidth. If your actual bandwidth is below 3 Mbps, or your playback device is video-challenged, then you will experience the adaptive nature of Smooth Streaming without needing to simulate a bandwidth cap.
Microsoft is also extending Silverlight’s technologies beyond the browser by allowing developers to design and create apps that can run on the desktop. Microsoft will be announcing further details about Silverlight at its official launch of Silverlight 3 and Expression Studio 3 tomorrow morning. We’ll have all the details. And Microsoft will also be demoing some of the real-time capabilities of Silverlight 3 at TechCrunch’s Real-Time Stream CrunchUp tomorrow.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/MvrGyTD4R14/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80875  So, as you may have seen yesterday, Yammer founder David Sacks is still alive in the World Series of Poker. In fact, he has to miss our events tomorrow because of it. But you know, there’s something that we’re missing today — Yammer.
The service has been down for a few hours now, with no signs of coming back up. Twitter is abuzz with the failure.
So while Sacks is busy playing Poker (okay, he’s actually working today, but still), leaving comments on our blog posts, and Twittering, his startup (which we love and use everyday, by the way) is suffering. Hope you win that gold bracelet, David!
Update: It’s definitely a hardware and not a software issue, we’re told. They’re still looking into the issue.
Update 2: After several hours, it looks like Yammer is finally coming back online. Our icons still aren’t working, but messages are going through.
Here’s a video Sacks and Calacanis talking poker and their bet:
Watch Internet CEOs Play Poker at the 2009 WSOP on RawVegas.tv
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/L61S0icYO8Y/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80866  A new URL shortening service LinksPreadeR (spelled like that because the URL is l.pr) has just launched in beta with an interesting twist on the shortening craze. It allows you to tack comments onto the end of the short URL, to send messages via the hyperlink. That’s kind of cool, but it also obviously makes the short URL a lot longer.
The idea is that with the messages in the URL, you won’t need to have a separate comment in your tweet or Facebook message. The problem with that is that people the people who like to retweet comments with comments of their own will have much less space to do so.
Here’s an example of what the shortened URL with a message will look like: http://l.pr/a43v/hey,_it’s_mah_blog and here’s a slightly more ridiculous one: http://l.pr/a43w/hey,_look_it’s_my_Twitter_profile._go_take_a_look._if_you_dare.
Yeah, not sure how useful that is.
But, you can use it as a regular shortening service too. Below each message-encoded URL is an actual short URL you can use too. For example, the latter one above can also be: http://l.pr/a43w. Yes, much shorter, and nice thanks to the three letter domain.
Like most other URL shortening services. LinksPreadR also has a bookmarklet for easier use.
Update: And I just realized something, for URLs with really long messages, Twitter will re-shorten it, using bit.ly. Yeah, that totally defeats the point. For shorter messages it still works though.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/FfLKJyKn6sk/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80787 
The Web is speeding up and Gnip wants to help push it along. Today, the API aggregation platform is releasing its own Push API which lets any site patch together its own version of Friendfeed or Twitter-like data stream. Gnip will be speaking at TechCrunch’s Real-Time Stream CrunchUp tomorrow on the Real-Time Business panel.
Gnip lets data-consuming services like Plaxo that take data from other services (like Twitter, Facebook Friendfeed, Digg, Delicious, etc.) collect data from requested users pushed to them. Data consumers using Gnip’s platform can get public data streams for over 30 social media networks and sites, including Twitter, Digg, Delicious, YouTube, WordPress, Flickr, Six Apart and others without ever visiting those sites or accessing their individual APIs.
The new push service lets companies filter and white-label the stream so the technology is fully integrated into the business’ infrastructure. Companies list out the most common data requests that are made on their APIs and websites and Gnip will collect the relevant data and deliver it in real-time to any approved third-party. For example, a travel website like Expedia or Kayak may use Gnip’s service to track and deliver real-time information on how customers are interacting with airline deals to the vendors that are listing flights on their site, like American Airlines or Delta. The real-time capabilities would let a travel site analyze real-time data and syndicate changes in fare sales immediately.
Gnip is also launching a early-stage startup partner program that will let startups access to all of Gnip’s service features and data services. The program is aimed towards software development startups that have been in business for less than 3 years and generating less than $200,000 in revenue. Of course, Gnip requires that partners pay a fee of $1000 but says the services that they will receive are valued at $10,000 per month. Dipity, Toobla and Klout are all pilot partners of the new program.
<input ... >
<input ... >
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/oo6FF8qDFkA/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80771  It was only seven months ago that video chat startup TokBox sent a taco truck to meet newly laid-off Yahoo employees in an effort to cheer up and recruit a few of them (the startup was kind enough to send the truck over to our office afterwards to let us in on the action). Now, it sounds like someone should be sending the taco truck in TokBox’s direction. We’ve gotten word that the company just fired six of its twelve engineers, or around 30% of the company’s total staff, and that all of the company’s founders are now gone.
TokBox offers a great product that allows for multi-user video chat from the browser, but it hasn’t really managed to take off, much to the chagrin of the company’s investors who include Sequoia and Bain Capital (TokBox has raised $14 million to date). That’s a lot of money for a video and chat startup, especially when there are a number of similar sites that have begun offering some of the same functionality.
So the company is beginning to make some major changes. TokBox recently got a new CEO — the third in the company’s brief history. Founder Serge Faguet was replaced by Nick Triantos last July, who in turn was replaced in May by former Mark Logic exec Ian Small.
TokBox VP Marketing Micky O’Brien says that this week’s firings were part of Small’s plans to restructure the company, and that as of this morning the vacant positions are being shown on the company’s Jobs page. She also says that TokBox’s last remaining co-founder, CTO Ron Hose, left the company on his own accord around four weeks ago.
Disclosure: TokBox is a sponsor for tomorrow’s Real-Time CrunchUp.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/3loR2o_vEXs/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80820  DoubleTwist, a universal media management desktop application for Macs and PCs, not only has a clever marketing team behind it but also seems to be something a lot of people have been waiting for. The free software, which works like a multi-platform version of iTunes with a social networking component, has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times since it launched in February (exact number aren’t disclosed for the time being).
Users can share music files, photos or videos across (almost) any device via drag and drop and share the files with others. DoubleTwist’s main selling point: It supports hundreds of devices, from cell phones or mobile gaming devices to portable music players. For example, the software can sync all music files you bought on iTunes with your Blackberry, Nokia phone, Kindle or Sony PSP without you having to worry about file format compatibility. Media files can then be uploaded to sites like Flickr, Facebook or YouTube from within doubleTwist.
Watch this video to see how the app works:
It’s safe to say Apple isn’t probably a big fan of the software. But doubleTwist co-founders Monique Frantzos and Jon Lech Johansen (better known as DVD Jon) silently enhanced the app in the last few weeks and told me today they have more plans for the future.
doubleTwist added support for video downloads from YouTube and now works with Android phones and the Palm Pre, too. Drag and drop any YouTube video you want to watch on the go on your Android G1, for example, into the doubleTwist window and copy it onto your device in seconds. iPhone 3.0 compatibility, bundling deals with several cell phone makers and a more sophisticated podcast engine are to be expected in the near future, too.
Entry into gadget-crazy Japanese market
Things are going very well for doubleTwist in the English-speaking world, and starting today, the application is available as a localized version in mobile phone-crazy Japan (Windows-only for the time being/demo video). According to Johansen and Frantzos, the main reasons for choosing Japan as the first Non-English market are:
- a myriad of super-advanced cell phones from different makers (about 100 a year) delivering a mediocre software experience
- world’s highest penetration of iTunes (1 out of 4 broadband users or about 13.6 million Japanese use iTunes to manage their music)
- high online video consumption (21 million Japanese users watch YouTube videos for 187 minutes per month as opposed to Americans who are on YouTube for 134 minutes monthly)
-
strong demand for high-quality online video (mobile YouTube delivers low quality but doubleTwist can show YouTube videos in high-res)
doubleTwist’s entry into Japan makes sense, as the country is one of the world’s biggest markets for music and movies (for example, Japanese users downloaded music worth $10.2 billion to cell phones in 2007). Nearly 170 Japan-only cell phones from local carriers NTT Docomo, KDDI au and SoftBank are supported from the start. DoubleTwist has set up a Wiki page for each one of them, an exclusive pilot service for the Japanese market that might be expanded to all doubleTwist-compatible devices in the future.
The company has so far raised $7.5 million in series A and B from several major venture capital companies in the US, Europe and Asia, including Index Ventures (investors in Skype) and Hong Kong-based Horizons Ventures.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
martinfowler | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://martinfowler.com/bliki/MercurialSquashCommit.html I've recently had a bit of a fiddle squashing some commits with
Mercurial, so thought it was worth a post in case anyone else is
looking to do this. I don't know whether this is the best procedure,
but it seemed to work pretty well for me. hg clone base working
# tip of base is revision 73
cd working
# do work, committing on the way
cd ..
hg clone working squash
cd squash
hg qimport -r 74:tip
hg qgoto 74.diff
hg qfold $(hg qunapp)
hg qfinish -a
cd ../base
hg pull ../squash The basic task I was doing was some fairly severe moving around
of files and folders. I wanted to do this in several steps to
checkpoint my work as I went, but I wanted a single commit in the
version history. (I gather git does this more easily with rebase.)
Making a single commit makes it easier to understand what happened -
particularly since moving files tends to complicate looking at
repository logs. Moving files also complicates the process - a
couple of times I ended up with a procedure that didn't work because
it lost the ability to track the moves - I want to be able to go
hg log -f and see when and what the original commits
were before the move. To begin I needed to enable the mq extension (mercurial queues)
and set my diffs to git style. Git style diffs help to track file
moves properly.
# in ~/.hgrc
[extensions]
mq=
[diff]
git=true
When using Mercurial in this way, it seems the general way of
working is to have multiple repositories. Mercurial encourages
different repositories where other systems, eg git or svn, would use
different branches. People argue about this, but it's the Mercurial
way of working. For this example I had 'base' as my original repos. My first step was to clone base into a working repos. hg clone base working At this
point the tip of base (and working) was revision 73. I did the file
moves, with several checkpoint revisions as I went. cd working
hg mv foo1 newdir/foo1
.. more hg mv ..
hg ci -m "moving around"
.. more hg mv ..
hg ci -m "moving around"
.. more hg mv and hg ci..
cd .. By the time I was done the last revision was 80. To squash them down into a single commit I cloned another
repos. hg clone working squash It's important to clone at this point because I was about
to edit history, so wanted to keep the original history handy until
I knew it had worked. I now moved into there. cd squash Now I turned all the commits I'd done for the revisions into
patches for the mercurial patch queue mechanism. hg qimport -r 74:tip I made the first change the current patch hg qgoto 74.diff I squashed all the patches together into a single patch hg qfold $(hg qunapp) The commit message for this folded patch would be all the
individual commit messages linked together. I wanted a single
message for my clean commit. hg qrefresh -m "reorganized files" I then turned the patch into a regular commit. hg qfinish -a I now had a single commit with all that work. I looked through it
to see that everything was sane, in particular testing hg log
-f on some moved files to ensure the history was still
there. Once I was convinced all was well, I pulled the single
changeset into the base repos.
cd ../base
hg pull ../squash
It's interesting to see how the attention on version control
system has changed over the years. Early on the primary and only
purpose was audit - to be able to safely go back to older revision -
mainly to diagnose problems. Then attention switched to how they
enabled collaboration between people. This didn't replace the need
for audit, but built on top of it. Now there's more attention to
using them to provide a narrative of how a code base changes -
hence the desire for history rewriting commands like this. Again
this need is built on top of the other two, but introduces new
capabilities and new tensions. My thanks to my colleague Chris Turner for his help and I also
found this page very useful.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/kvNtWAdVzyc/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80793  With many of us using smartphones with GPS now, we’re starting to take for granted applications like Google Maps being able to pinpoint us. But using computer is a different story. Sure, there have been plugins, and things like Google Toolbar, but those are things that most people aren’t going to bother to install. But starting today, location is now built in to Google Maps in the browser — provided you’re using the right browser.
If you are using either Google Chrome 2.0+ or Mozilla FireFox 3.5+, you’ll now notice a little dot in the upper left-hand corner of Maps, just above the Street View guy. If you click that dot, Google Maps will show you your location on the map. It does this using the W3C Geolocation API standard, according to Google.
So how well does it work? Pretty well. It got my location slightly wrong, but only by about a block. That’s not as good as it is on mobile devices, but remember, many of those have GPS, which is more accurate. Google Maps location is pulling from WiFi access points or, if none of those are around, your IP address.
This is an important step for Google. If it wants services like Google Latitude to take off, there needs to be ubiquitous location information no matter if you’re on your phone or your laptop. Location is also potentially huge for Google if it can use it to start serving up localized ads based on your current location. It of course already does this somewhat, but being able to exactly pinpoint you will work better.
Of course, there are privacy implications with that. And Google devotes a whole paragraph to that in its announcement:
Google takes privacy very seriously, so your location will never be used without your permission. The first time you use My Location on Google Maps, you’ll be asked to confirm that you’re happy to share your location with Google Maps, and you can always undo your decision. See the help center article on Privacy and My Location for more information about how your location is used.
If you don’t have these latest versions of Chrome or Firefox (the two browsers currently supporting the Geolocation standard), you can still get your location if you install Gears. Google says support for more browser is coming soon, and notes that if you’re using a browser that doesn’t currently support it, you won’t see the location dot.
Update: Lots of commenters are pointing out that Maps is placing them at completely wrong locations — sometimes in wrong countries.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/1aAlNGt_BGc/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80794 
The Catalyst Group, who ran a fairly unscientific study of Google v. Bing preferences, have run another fairly unscientific study of Kindle v. Sony Reader user preferences. The results? The Kindle won on all fronts, beating Sony's aged ereader handily.
The Group asked 12 interviewees, six men and six women, what they thought of both devices. They were asked about physical controls, the general "feel," UI, resolution, and shopping experience. Eight respondents preferred the Kindle overall, three preferred the Sony, and one apparently fell asleep and pretended to like both when he or she woke up because there was one tie.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/W2CQnPvlIGQ/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80767 
I’m sorry, but RSS feeds are way too slow. I know this first-hand. As part of my job here at TechCrunch, I monitor a lot of RSS feeds for breaking news. We also produce our own feed and I can see how quickly it propagates to various feed readers and feed-powered news aggregation services. The lag time between posting a story and seeing it pop up in the RSS feed is usually a few minutes, and then it can take another 10 to 15 minutes or so for it to appear in something like Google Reader. And the TechCrunch feed is probably checked more frequently for updates than most other feeds. In our business, every second counts and RSS just isn’t cutting it.
While there is an argument to be made that RSS is dying, being replaced by more instantaneous forms of content delivery such as Twitter and other real time streams, many people aren’t quite yet ready to give up on it. Instead, they want to save it by speeding it up. Tomorrow, at our Real Time Stream CrunchUp, we will see three demos of projects that do just that in slightly different ways.
Google engineers Brad Fitzpatrick and Brett Slatkin will show a demo of a new push protocol called pubsubhubub, Netvibes CEO Freddy Mini will demo his similar RSS Instant Update Hub, and WordPress engineer Andy Skelton will show off a Jabber client which uses the XMPP protocol to push blog headlines into an IM-like environment faster than RSS.
The pubsubhubub and Netvibes technologies create RSS hubs, which push out feeds as soon as they are available. This approach is in contrast to the polling method which is the foundation of RSS. The polling method sucks because it requires the server acting on behalf of the RSS subscriber to constantly ping the server where the RSS feed is published to ask if there is anything new yet. Depending on how often this happens, you end up with a lag. As communications become more real-time, this lag is becoming more noticeable.
The way pubsubhubub fixes this is by putting an RSS Hub in the middle which more efficiently pushes out the feeds to the servers subscribing to them. It is an open protocol and can be applied to any existing RSS or Atom feed, as well as other real time streams. If you think about the Twitter firehose that everyone wants access to, this approach lets anyone create their own firehose for different types of data streams. It is more of a federated approach. You can think of these RSS Hubs as a content delivery network of sorts for RSS feeds, similar in concept to what Akamai does for video streams.
Netvibes is creating its own proprietary version of this for its own service, which it is developing independently. It is called the RSS Instant Update Hub. All of those widgets on your Netvibes page today take forever to load because they each have to fetch the underlying feeds of data. The Instant Update Hub will cache and push these feeds automatically so that the widgets load faster and they update continuously without requiring a refresh. Any data stream that is supported by a Netvibes widget today, which goes well beyond RSS, will be pushed through the Instant Update Hub. It will also form the basis for a new stream reader which Netvibes will introduce later this year as an alternative to its current widget grid and magazine-style layouts (see screenshot below).
The WordPress Jabber client uses a different push technology, XMPP, to speed up RSS. The effect is that headlines pop up like instant messages. Jabber is mostly used for IM clients such as Gtalk, but Wordpress is using it as a feed reader and micro-blog publisher. The great thing about it is that it is two-way. In the demo, Skelton will show how the Jabber client can be used as an interface to to post directly to your blog. Feed reading and blog posting can all be done from the same place in a more real-time fashion. The Jabber client can also be used as a blog commenting system and embedded as a widget directly into a Web page, turning comments into more of a chat room.
What we are seeing is the world’s of publishing and IM colliding. The faster we can close the loop between publish and response, the more we are going to see real-time data streams take on the look and feel of public IM systems. Twitter is asynchronous, but it often feels immediate with back and forth conversations sometimes happening almost fast as a private IM chats. That is just a taste of things to come, as all publishing platforms get up to speed.
(Photo credit: Flickr/joiseyshowwa)
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/WvojDmyrTdo/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80769 
As a blogger, I search Flickr and other photo sites for Creative Commons commercial licensed content on a daily basis. I like Google’s image search feature but the ability to search Creative Commons and other licensed content was a missing. Today, Google is launching the ability to create and advanced search for images that you can use for free and that have been tagged with licenses like Creative Commons. Searches will also include images and art that have been tagged with other licenses, like GNU Free Documentation license, or are in the public domain.
For me, the new feature is already listed under the advanced image search page. Under the “Usage rights” section, you can select the type of license you’d like to search for, such as those marked for reuse or even for commercial reuse with modification. Google says they will slowly be rolling out this to everyone throughout the day.
Unfortunately, Google warns that its up to you to verify that the licensing information is accurate and says that they can’t guarantee that the content that is found under a search is in the public domain,or available under the license.
The nice thing about the search capability is that it allows you to do a licensed image search for Flickr, and a variety of other sites and sources, as opposed to searching for content only on Flickr. Yahoo has had the capability to filter image searches by licensed content for some time, but Yahoo’s licensed content search appears to pull images mostly from Flickr, where Google provides a diverse selection of sources of licensed images. I wonder when Bing will jump on the licensed content bandwagon?
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
googleblog | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/g_Ec7GflX40/find-creative-commons-images-with-image.html Let's say you're a blogger. You've just returned from a trip to New York City, and you're writing a post on New York landmarks. You want to illustrate your travel guide with an image — as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. It's easy to find images of New York online. But you want to make sure that you don't use images without the permission of their owners, and you can't afford licensing fees for professional photographers. Today, we're launching a feature on Image Search to help you find images that you can use for free, while respecting the wishes of artists and creators. This feature allows you to restrict your Image Search results to images that have been tagged with licenses like Creative Commons, making it easier to discover images from across the web that you can share, use and even modify. Your search will also include works that have been tagged with other licenses, like GNU Free Documentation license, or are in the public domain.   This feature also helps artists who want their images to be discovered and reused across the web — on their own terms. Creative Commons licenses allow artists to specify the ways others may use their work. Artists can license their images for general reuse, or for noncommercial reuse only. They can also decide whether or not to grant people the right to modify or remix their images. Once they've chosen to make their work available online under these terms, Google Images helps people start to find and use it.  To enable this feature, go to our advanced image search page. Under the "Usage rights" section, you can select the type of license you'd like to search for, such as those marked for reuse or even for commercial reuse with modification. Your results will be restricted to images marked with CC or other licenses. Once you confirm the license of the image and make sure that your use will comply with the terms of the license (such as proper attribution to the image's owner), you can reuse the image. Some of you may already see these options, and we'll be rolling this feature out to everyone throughout the day.  "Red squirrel with pronounced winter ear tufts in the Dusseldorf Hofgarten", Ray Eye, Wikimedia Commons  There's some fine print, of course. This feature identifies images that are tagged with licenses that authorize reuse. You'll still have to verify that the licensing information is accurate. We can help you take the first step towards finding these images, but we can't guarantee that the content we linked to is actually in the public domain, or available under the license. We believe that we've made it easier for people to find images they can use while helping artists who've made their images available under these licenses to gain exposure for their work. So try it out, and let us know what you think. Posted by Lance Huang and George Ruban, Software Engineers
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/BNgSOt5lW4M/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80543 
There has never been a better time to be a “fan” online. Whether it be via Facebook, MySpace, or even through fan-based social networks like TopFans, fandom on the web is taking off now that fans have more ways of expressing themselves. Just look at the recently deceased Michael Jackson, whose Facebook page now has close to 8 million fans, surpassing the fan count of Barack Obama’s Facebook page (6.4 million fans). SuperFan is a new way for people to express their loyalty and admiration for a show, movie, celeb, professional athlete or politician. SuperFan is a social gaming network where users build their network around who and what their fans of and compete with other fans to become the top fan.
Users of the network can become Fans of all their “Faves,” which include everything from ABC’s show Grey’s Anatomy to tennis star Roger Federer. Fans tag their Faves and can then use credits (via a virtual currency) to become the “SuperFan,” which gives them special privileges in controlling the favorite item or person’s profile. The network has enabled a bidding system to motivates fans to prove they are the number one fan.
Fans can earn points as they contributing more to the site. The credits can then be used to send virtual gifts, posting site-wide messages, customizing profiles with skins and colors and becoming the ultimate “SuperFan.” Fans can also create, take and share quizzes about their Faves, create and post to blogs on their homepages, and create battles (posted to the community) between Faves to drive traffic to the their respective pages (think Angelina vs. Jen). Users are also given a compatibility score with other fans on the site, that recommends friends to you base on your mutual Faves.
SuperFan is the brainchild of the co-founder of Tickle (which was bought by Monster Worldwide for $100 million in 2004), Rick Marini. Marini says SuperFan will make money mainly through e-commerce (via virtual currency sales), advertising and afilliate campaigns (SuperFan has partnerships in place with iTunes, Amazon, TicketMaster, StubHub, ThumbPlay to sell products and tickets.) Board members include founder of F*cked Company and AdBrite Philip Kaplan and Napster founder Shawn Fanning.
SuperFan is a innovative and engaging way for users to express their “inner fan” but I worry about how site will amass actual users when many people are already using Facebook and MySpace as fan hubs. Marini says that the site has implemented integration with Twitter and Facebook Connect to allows users to publish news onto their other social network sites, and also possibly catch the attention of potential fans at the same time. Still, MySpace, especially when it comes to music, and Facebook have a relative monopoly when it comes to combining fans with social networks. But Marini counters that on Facebook anyone can create a fan page for a celeb, show, athlete etc, creating sometimes hundreds of pages for one person or item and distorting the ultimate fan experience. Users often don’t know which page is the official one. With SuperFan, all “Fave” pages are pre-set and monitored so fans cannot create new pages but only add to them.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ZtLPNfWWofQ/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80743 
CoTweet, the web based Twitter collaboration platform for businesses, has announced a Series A round of funding totaling $1.1 million. The investors are Baseline Ventures, Founders Fund, First Round Capital, SV Angel, Maples Investments and Freestyle Capital.
CoTweet helps companies and brands, like Whole Foods, Microsoft, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, and the City of San Francisco’s 311 manage their Twitter accounts as a marketing channel. CoTweet makes it easy to manage multiple accounts and supports group access to the same acounts, so a marketing team can split up Tweeting duties among themselves but still keep a unified public voice on Twitter.
CoTweet also launched into public beta today — meaning anyone can now sign up for the service. Previously, CoTweet was an invite-only service, with invites being hard to snag.
Finally, CoTweet has announced that it has integrated directly with Bit.ly, enabling CoTweet users to access the real-time click tracking and analytics from the URL shortening service. CoTweet launched in 2008, and is based in San Francisco.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/WkYd1_HvCrY/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80688  For some, it’s useful to go to OneRiot to search for links being tweeted or dugg in real-time. But for a lot of people it’s better if the sites and services they’re already using have the functionality built-in. That’s OneRiot’s intention in opening up its API to the public today.
The site’s API, which has been in use with selected partners for several weeks, will give third-party developers a chance to bake the results right into their sites or apps. One of the big developers that has already been using it is Microsoft, which has a version of its web browser, IE 8, with OneRiot built-in.
Another partner that has been using the API is the desktop social messaging client Nambu. You can imagine that a lot of the clients that offer Twitter functionality may also want to offer real-time link search capabilities, which OneRiot’s API will be perfect for.
Here are four of the main options that OneRiot will offer with the API:
Realtime Search Results – a realtime stream of related web pages and videos that the social web is buzzing about right now for any search query.
PulseRank Search Results – a feed of search results ordered by relevance using OneRiot’s PulseRank algorithm, PageRank for the realtime web.
OneRiot Trending Topics – a feed of emerging topics heating up across the web right now.
Simple Web Search Interface – allowing developers to provide innovative search integration with minimal investment.
OneRiot CEO, Kimbal Musk, will be participating in our Real-Time Stream CrunchUp this Friday.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/JgZHTizzg74/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80731  The Europas, the tech startup awards from TechCrunch Europe, will be streamed live from this post from 6pm tonight London time/GMT (10am SF, 1pm NYC). We'll kick off with a startup pitch competition, followed by a panel of some of the leading lights in tech consisting of: our own Sarah Lacy, Jolicloud founder Tariq Krim, MyDeco's Brent Hoberman and Michael Birch, co-founder of Bebo. The actual announcement of The Europas winners will be from around 8.30pm GMT onwards. he winners will be announce first on TechCrunch Europe ( RSS and Twitter). After that, well, a huge party. Over 300 people are attending from all over the European tech scene. Our streaming partner is TechFluff.tv. If you couldn't get to the awards, if you're somewhere in Europe working on your own startup, then tonight raise a glass, put the projector screen on in the bar and have your very own Europas awards with us. We salute you.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
aws_blog | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AmazonWebServicesBlog/~3/GWr0RYquHaI/aws-startup-challenge-2009.html
We're kicking off the third annual AWS Start-Up Challenge now.
We're looking for the hottest and coolest start-ups and start-up ideas. Developers and entrepreneurs in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Israel are encouraged to enter for a chance to win $50,000 in cash, $50,000 in AWS credits, mentoring sessions from AWS technical experts, and AWS Premium Support Gold for one year.
To enter, fill out and submit the online application by August 26, 2009. The judging panel will review all of the application and choose the seven best, based on originality and creativity, likelihood of long-term success, monetization strategy, quality of proposal, and effective use of AWS.
The finalists will be announced in October. At that time we will post a video of each finalist and invite the public to vote for their favorite. Then we'll fly all of the finalists to Silicon Valley where they'll present their ideas to the judges' panel during the day, and pitch them to a live audience of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists that night, where the winner will be chosen, annouced, and feted.
All runner-up finalists will receive $5,000 in AWS service credits; all entrants with qualified submissions will receive $25 credits.
The Challenge finalist with the most creative monetization model using the Amazon Flexible Payments Service (FPS) or Simple Pay from Amazon Payments will win $10,000 in combined cash and Amazon Payments credits. All finalists using these services will receive $2,500 in Amazon Payments credits. Read more here.
Questions? Check out the contest rules, review the prizes, and scan the FAQ. You may also want to watch the videos we made for the 2007 and 2008 finalists.
-- Jeff; 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/CCuqmgLuacU/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80628 
Music collaboration service Indaba Music has launched a new version of its Session Console, which is a digital audio workstation that lets musicians record, mix and edit music together from different locations.
Indaba is a music community for musicians looking to share and collaborate with other musicians around the globe. The site offers artists a suite of online tools to help record and develop tracks in real-time. What makes Indaba’s newest version of its Session Console unique is that it brings high quality recording software to the web platform.
Built on Sun Microsystems’ JavaFX platform, Session Console 2.0 now allows users to add affects in real-time without effecting the audio. This feature makes changes appear seamless when testing out effects instead of creating breaks in a track. In addition, the console now includes a catalog of Creative Commons Commercial Licensed loops and audio clips that musicians can use and integrate into their tracks. Indaba commissioned professional musicians to create the sounds and then licensed the content to the community. The console also lets users remix and edit offline or online.
Thew new console is being launched in conjunction with a contest sponsored by the music group Weezer, where musicians on Indaba will have the opportunity to collaborate and remix a Weezer track that will eventually be recorded and produced. Indaba’s co-CEO and co-founder Dan Zaccagnino says that Weezer found the workstation compelling because of its ability to collaboratively capture the ideas of musicians in a rich format.
Previously, Indaba’s console was being powered by Flash, which Zaccagnino says wasn’t the right fit as a platform for audio production tools. After experimenting with other solutions, he found Java and JavaFX to be the optimal language and application to power and process (from any computer) the high-quality recording software that is now run on Indaba.
Indaba Music, which makes money through membership fees, has also updated its membership tiers to include a free account, a pro account for $5.00 per month and a platinum account for $25.00 per month. The paid accounts, which still seem pretty affordable for a fledgling musician, gives users access to higher quality sound clips, real-time editing effects and more.
Earlier this year, the site launched a number of news features, including a new Facebook-like chat system, enhanced commenting within tracks, and a recommendation engine that helps compatible artists find each other, effectively enabling it to automatically pick out potential bandmates. Since January, the site has steadily grown from 125,000 users to over 200,000 users. Zaccagnino says that while the basic focus of the Indaba has been to help musicians collaborate and remix music in innovative ways, but the startup also wants to help with the next step beyond just creating the tracks. Indaba is also looking into providing resources for musicians to distibute and promote music that has been created on the site.
Indaba competitors include Minimum Noise (covered here), WeMix, JamGlue and Indomite.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/7dNwKGINGh0/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80710  Mollom, a spam prevention tool that competes with Automattic’s Akismet, has blocked a stunning 100,000,000 spam messages from appearing on websites, social networks and blogs since the product was introduced about 14 months ago.
Given that the product has only been out of beta since September 2008, that gives you an idea of just how much junk travels the digital highways. According to Mollom co-founder Dries Buytaert (also the creator of Drupal, one of the most used open source content management systems in the world), the solution is now used by about 10,000 websites across the globe, and the rate at which it is blocking spam messages from appearing on the Web is rapidly increasing. In a blog post, Buytaert says Mollom reached the 25 million blocked spam messages milestone five months ago, and got to the point where it filtered out 50 million of them only two months ago.
The full scorecard, as publicly posted on the company website:
“Mollom is currently protecting 10,052 active websites. The average efficiency is 99.93%. This means that only 7 in 10,000 spam messages were not caught. Mollom has caught 100,537,961 spam messages since it started. Today we caught 297,061 spam messages. On average, 89% of all messages are spam.”
In reality, the number of filtered junk messages is much higher, since he doesn’t take into account private servers it operates on behalf of larger clients and only counts the ones that get blocked on public servers. About 4 million of comment and post spam messages per month get filtered out of just one social network, the rapidly growing Netlog, with which it struck a deal two months ago. In aggregate, Mollom is processing up to 150 million messages a month, which translates to the company needing to handle over 200 million HTTP requests to analyze them appropriately.
That’s a lot of viagra selling drivel for you.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/C5egVb0rB3I/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80616 
Zoho Suite, a web-based software suite comprised of document, project and invoicing management tools, has rolled out another plug-in that allows integration with a Microsoft product. A few weeks ago Zoho launched an add-on that allows Zoho Office to integrate with Microsoft SharePoint. Today, Zoho will now provide access to Microsoft Access, a database management system for the desktop.
Zoho Creator is web-based cloud computing platform that lets you build and run applications online. With the new plugin, Zoho will allow users to easily migrate data from Microsoft Access to Zoho Creator and Zoho Reports. Zoho says that when you migrate entire databases from Microsoft Access to Zoho creator, you are able to retain your database structure and data while being able to still create a collaborative database app in Zoho. Once imported into Zoho Creator, the entire application or parts of it can be shared with several users.
Zoho continues to add innovations to its document management suite and includes easy access thanks to support for mobile, Google and Yahoo IDs and group sharing across different app features. Last week, Zoho’s project management application, Zoho Projects 2.0, added the capability to import existing projects from MS Project, Microsoft’s project management desktop software. Zoho faces stiff competition from web-based applications offered by companies with a vast reach (Google, Adobe, etc.) which is why integrations with a big player like Microsoft are integral to the software’s success as an application suite.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
aliceandkev | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://aliceandkev.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/troubled-sleep/ http://aliceandkev.wordpress.com/?p=636 There’s an ugly confrontation between the father and daughter on the doorstep that evening. Zedadias is upset by Kev’s comments about Alice, and about him, but not once does either party invite him to join the conversation.
Alice is invited to stay the night again. Kev seems to believe this invitation is extended to him as well, and he sleeps on the sofa.
Despite being given the spare bed, Alice doesn’t sleep properly, and only snatches a few hours on top of the covers.
She gains a scowl on her face when she finds Kev hasn’t magically disappeared by the morning. Despite her displeasure, she starts preparing some food for him. She isn’t very hungry herself, but her father is still starving.
Zedadias does not seem to share her pity.
To be continued.
Check back tomorrow for the next update, subscribe to the RSS feed, or follow the twitter.
If you are tempted to buy The Sims 3 after reading this, consider supporting this blog by buying through these links to amazon.com or amazon.co.uk
If you’ve found this tale of homelessness affecting, you might want to consider helping a real-world charity.
     
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/6QdUJCd-KQ8/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80668  The timing of Google’s announcement of Chrome OS was curious. I don’t mean the fact that Google moved up the post on it by a day when some details leaked out, I mean the fact that they were announcing it on some seemingly random date in July, well before anything is actually ready to show off. Now, we likely know why.
On Monday, Microsoft is set to unveil its plans to counter the attack Google previously had launched on it with Google Docs. Yes, Microsoft Office is going to the cloud. This is something which we all knew was eventually coming, and there is already some limited functionality, but the full details will pour out Monday at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans. You can expect the new version of Office, that syncs with the cloud, and the ability to use it in the cloud without any software as well.
Almost immediately following the Chrome OS announcement, Robert Scoble took to his favorite home on the web, FriendFeed, to have one of his, I-know-something-you-don’t-know “discussions.” During the course of those “discussions,” Scoble dropped quite a few hints about what Microsoft planned to announce on Monday, including “Diego, no, it’s one of Microsoft’s primary businesses. Did you know Microsoft has 14 billion dollar businesses?” Guess what that is? Microsoft Office.
It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together. And several bloggers already have. And it was especially easy after Scoble ruled out the new browser project Microsoft has code-named “Gazelle.” Scoble also noted that what Microsoft was showing off would run in browsers beyond just IE.
So yes, it’s Office Web that was first talked about at PDC last year.
And it’s possible that Microsoft could unveil that this new web-based Office will reside on the great domain, office.com. That site is clearly going through a transition to new ownership right now, and that would make a lot of sense.
Office is obviously the 900-pound gorilla that Google is attempting to slay with Google Docs, but a 900-pound gorilla with a matching web offering will be a lot tougher. And that’s likely why Google wanted to get its own uppercut in first this week. And it’s a strong one. But now Microsoft is going to have to come up with some answers to how it can counter Chrome OS, rather than focus on talking about the new Office.
[photo: flickr/tipiro]
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
moviestorm_dev | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://moviestorm.blogspot.com/2009/07/burning-streets-remix-working-with-cel.html Yesterday I posted Burning Streets, a movie showing what you could do with lighting using the burning objects in the new Special Effects pack. Just to see what would happen, I tried it with the cel shading switched on. Some bits worked really well, but others, as you might expect, didn't. I then tried some experiments to see what I had to do to make the scene work properly. Here's the cel-shaded version - watch and see if you can figure out what the differences are. Some of them are quite subtle. To start with, I had to add in some global light. Without it, the whole scene was too dark. I had an orange ambient light on 11%, and a straw-coloured directional light at about 13%, shining down the street to put extra light on the fronts of the characters. Because of the vagaries of the lighting system and cel-shading, dropping these by even 1% made a lot of things go almost black, so it took a little bit of tweaking to get it where I wanted it. Next, I moved the fire at the back a bit further away from the walls. The light it cast created strange circular rainbows on the walls when it was close up, and although interesting, they weren't what I wanted. Moving them about two feet reduced this considerably. And finally, I changed the smoke on the vents from black to white. Black smoke just didn't show up against the background, so I opted for a more contrasting colour. I'm not 100% pleased with the outcome, but still, it was an interesting experiment, and useful to help understand what you have to shoot differently if you're working with the cel shader. I like some shots, but others don't work as well as I'd hoped. I suspect that the only way to get the results I want would be to light each shot separately, and then edit them together later. Just like a real film, I guess. Fortunately, when you're working with Moviestorm and similar machinima tools, you can see all the visual effects as you shoot - what you see is what you're going to get in your final footage. Now that, my friends, is a luxury other film techniques don't give you!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
techcrunch | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/vBzuL0f5Pvc/ http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=80655  Microsoft has upgraded its Quick Add feature in Hotmail, first announced earlier this year, with a number of features from their new Bing search engine.
We’re not talking about a small number of users who will be affected. Hotmail is still by far the largest web mail provider on the Internet, with 343 million monthly users according to Comscore. Second and third are Yahoo (285 million) and Gmail (146 million). A year ago Hotmail had just 273 million users, so it is still growing rapidly.
The new features let users search for and insert maps, movie listings and times, in addition to the restaurants, videos, images and business listings that were there before. And all of these have been upgraded with Bing functionality via the API.
Some of these quick adds are quite useful, particularly the maps and movie listings. For the masses that use Hotmail, it’s also a great way to introduce them to Bing.
Screen shots below:
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Previous 
No one likes limitations. Though Apple has been opening up more and more of their API with each software update, a good chunk of it is still off limits to anyone outside of their own team of developers. Be it because they're unstable, unproven, or just outright blacklisted, a number of methods exist that no one but Apple is supposed to use.
Of course, people try to use them anyway. Some (
Office Team Lead: We need something really cool to make people excited about Office 2010.
Some Office Programmer Guy: Can we call Google to hint at ChromeOS to take the heat off of us when we launch on Monday?
OTL: Already done. We need a video.
SOPG: What should it include? A little run-through of the program? Sort of a screencast that folks can watch and understand and then maybe get excited about Office 2010? Maybe we can put some Feist in there? Make it really minimalistic?
OTL: No. We need an action movie.
