Archive for April, 2007
Remember when it was first announced two months ago? It was just a mock-up of Digg’s website, and Teddy Hwang, the author, was afraid to release it in order not to get sued for it.
Quoting from his blog:
Wow, it never ceases to amaze me what lengths people will go to get what they want. Like all default WordPress installations, my plugin folder didnC”b,b”t have a blank index.html to hide the files. Some people have went through the trouble of downloading every single plugin I had to find out which one was the digg styled admin. I know that at least one blog is distributing it. This proves exactly why I didnC”b,b”t want to release the theme in the first place. Even though I didnC”b,b”t create the original design of digg, it sucks knowing that somebody went behind my back and took the incomplete plugin and started distributing it without my permission.
It seems that the author sent an e-mail to digg asking for permission to publish the theme, but it got stolen from him before that and being published in an incomplete version over various blogs. For those interested, here’s a video describing the theme.
Digg Style Wordpress Theme! – More free videos are here
We all know the long expected Optimus keyboard. Yes, it’s that keyboard that allows you to customize what’s being shown over the keys based on different profiles.
Well, good news. The development schedule has been announced. They say it’s going to be fully finished by the end of November, THIS year and it will retail for $1536. But since with good news come bad news as well, only 400 pieces will be manufactured by the end of the year but this is enforced with another 400 pieces for January.
I know I’d love to buy one, if I’d have the money to spend.
As much as 10 days ago, Kevin Rose announced the release of the Digg API in order to serve as platform for one upcoming contest of theirs.
Many of you have been asking about the Digg API and IC”b,b”m happy to announce that it is now publicly available at services.digg.com along with a Flash application toolkit. This will be a great tool for Digg users and partners to openly access all Digg data dating back to 2004.
To kick off the API release, starting today weC”b,b”re launching a contest for the most creative and innovative visualizations and applications developed by our community using the API and Flash toolkit. All of the top 10 finalists will get prizes, with a Grand Prize featuring a Falcon Northwest gaming PC, the full catalog of EA PC games, and the Adobe CS3 Master Collection.
Big thanks to stamen design for their help in the development and design of the API and flash toolkit. As always, weC”b,b”ll build on this first release with future releases that allow developers to interact in even greater ways with Digg data.
–Kevin Rose
After only 10 days, I have already found two interesting releases. The first one is called “Who’s digging you?“. It might be buggy at first, but I think it’s an interesting program to research friends as well as multiple usernames abuse. The website could look better though, but let’s keep in mind it’s only at the beginning.
The second website I’m talking about it DuggBack, a words game inspired by the WayBack machine. DuggBack is a site that helps you find removed stories using a mix of mirrors and caches. The service uses the Digg API, and mirror services from DuggMirror, Coral CDN, Wayback Machine and DotCache, and web cache services from Google, Yahoo, Live Search and so on. It’s basically the DuggMirror, only with more features.
UPDATE: I later found out the number of applications developed with the help of the Digg API extends to 7. A full list here.
Not much to say about the new version, it’s a development release that brings extended documentation and some bug fixes, nothing spectacular. Although it’s worth mentioning as it brings us one step closer to Gnome 2.20, the 2.19.1 is a test release that’s meant to point out bugs and other flaws. This being the case producers recommend you download, build and test the new release in order to bring 2.20 out quicker.
This along with the release of Linux Kernel 2.6.21 are the latest news in the Linux world (besides some other minor releases) but you have to consider the fact that the ‘release season’ should only start in the second half of 2007.
According to a new study by Access Market International, the market for hosted VoIP solutions targeted at small and medium sized businesses is set to hit US$416 million in North America this year, up from only $165 million two years ago.
“In particular, the small business (SB, or companies with up to 99 employees) segment is forecasted to grow at a spectacular 69% on a cumulative basis for the next 5 years,” says Sanjeev Aggarwal, AMI-Partners’ New York-based Vice President for SMB Infrastructure Solutions. “The concept of hosted VoIP is analogous to software-as-a-service (SaaS) where upstarts like Salesforce.com and NetSuite are gaining rapid adoption. Similarly, the concept of voice communications as a service is becoming very appealing as these small businesses have almost no IT/voice communications expertise and resources.”
The market opportunity for hosted business-VoIP solutions for SMBs is huge and growing rapidly – and so is the competition, which is increasing with participation from traditional telecom and cable companies, equipment vendors, and focused complimentary service providers.
There are many drivers that are influencing SMBs to adopt hosted business-VoIP, including predictable monthly voice communications expenses with no up-front capital expense, toll savings for intra- and inter-company long-distance and local calling. “Simple, secure, very reliable, easy-to-use solutions supporting unified messaging and mobility are key for small businesses that never want to miss a customer call,” Mr. Aggarwal says. “Helping SBs appear more professional and larger, especially SBs that have a store presence and web presence.”
Source: AMI Partners
Nintendo has launched the Internet Channel on Wii! It’s based on the Opera Internet browser and for now you can download if for free until June 30 (after this date it will cost you 500 Wii points).
The new Internet Channel pack brings a couple of updates such as Google and Yahoo as preloaded search engines, a new search function on the tool bar, the outline font feature that keeps font from becoming blurry when zoomed in and not least manual or auto control for zooming in and out. Also the tool bar can be hidden so that you can enjoy browsing in full screen mode, besides you can now scroll either by using the B button or by using the directional arrows in order to scroll in all four directions.
This was an expected addition for Wii fans that can now make more of their browsing experience, and not only that but browsing will now be more secure as Nintendo has added support for parental control while browsing. But even with all this additions I still think that the Xbox 360 will do much better when talking about interconnectivity. For me the Wii remains a console that’s brilliant by feeling not features.
The new suite from Adobe was released, shipping starting April 16 for all the releases besides Production Premium and the Master Collection. And I say for all the suits because there the release was separated in: Design Standard, Design Premium, Production Premium, Web Standard, Web Premium, and the Master Collection. They say the multiple suites are meant to offer flexibility and offer the customer the best combination of the released products: Adobe Photoshop CS3, Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended, Adobe Flash CS3 Professional, Adobe InDesign CS3, Adobe Illustrator CS3, Adobe Fireworks CS3, Adobe Dreamweaver CS3, and Adobe Contribute CS3.
This release from Adobe means a real step forward the development branch of the industry. At this moment Adobe has the most comprehensive post-production and development environment. The software contained in CS2 was already powerful and used by lots of professionals out there, now Adobe brings quite a few new features like support for Windows Vista and MacIntel systems. But that isn’t the spotlight of the release, in my opinion the most important novelty of CS3 is the interconnection provided between applications like Photoshop and Ilustrator and applications that used to belong to Macromedia, like Flash and Dreamweaver.
But all this comes with a price, here are some pricing details: Adobe Creative Suite (CS3) Design Standard ($1,199), Design Premium ($1,799), Adobe Creative Suite (CS3) Web Standard ($999), Web Premium ($1,599), Adobe Creative Suite (CS3) Production Premium ($1,699), Adobe Creative Suite (CS3) Master Collection ($2,499).
That’s a little over my budget for the time but I’m sure there will be buyers even for the Production Premium and Master Collection suites that are due to release this summer.
I have no problem with people down in Scotland but this was too funny not to share with the world.
Yes, No and Cancel are no longer used.
(more…)
Guess what, it happens to the bigger parties as well. AOL started out testing a new beta-page to replace the actual page. When I first saw it, a deja-vu sensation hit me. I have seen the page before. Anyway, it was just a matter of time to figure out that it’s almost identical to Yahoo’s main page.
There has been much theft online, mostly intellectually. Usually, websites (start-ups or not) believe that copying the same idea/feature from a bigger company/website who happens to be successful will also attract success to their own house. Wrong. It’s not only the idea that matters.
However, we’re now talking about two big portals here. Obvious “inspiration” cannot pass unobserved.
What do you think?
It’s not confirmed yet, but hey, do you remember what made PS3 be so expensive? Indeed, the Blu-Ray discs did. In case you haven’t heard, now the Blu-ray diodes cost only $8 to make, so it’s more than possible for the PS3 to drop prices in the upcoming period of time. But who knows? Since Sony hasn’t done any official move regarding this until now, all we have left is our hope for a price-cutting.
“Yes, it means that Sony is definitely in a position to cut price. God knows whether they will, but lower costs usually lead to lower prices. The right question to ask is whether the full bill of materials is below $499, allowing them to cut price and still avoid losing money. I’m not competent to answer whether it is, but I am competent to say that when cost is below $499, we should look for a cut to that level.
The point is that if they’re ramping capacity to [5 million diodes], they probably are coming down the cost curve for MPEG chips, dedicated disc drive processors, and every other component. Hard to say for sure, but I’d guess that Sony could squeeze a hundred dollars out of its cost by mid-year, maybe more.”
–Michael Pachter, Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst
