Recently at CEATEC in Japan Shinoda Plasma Corp unveiled a plasma screen that tops out an an extraordinary 1mm in thickness. Plasma tubes aligned between film-form electrodes not only make the screen thin enough to be bent (as the image above demonstrates), they also make it extremely light. In fact, the 43-inch screen prototype weighed in at only 800g. This could set the stage for truly gigantic displays--79 x 118-inches or more created by seamlessly combining screens during the manufacturing process. Naturally, I would love to hook an Xbox up to something like this right now, but chances are it will take the better part of a decade before we can get our hands on it. [TechOn via Technabob]
a collection of things i like and want to remember. by "scrapbooking" it on my blog i can go back and google it later
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Launch: Microsoft Launches HealthVault Medical Record Manager
Today Microsoft unveils new web application HealthVault, a medical records manager that will let users—and their doctors—store and track personal health information online. As for privacy? The NY Times reports:
The personal information, Microsoft said, will be stored in a secure, encrypted database. Its privacy controls, the company said, are set entirely by the individual, including what information goes in and who gets to see it. The HealthVault searches are conducted anonymously, Microsoft said, and will not be linked to any personal information in a HealthVault personal health record.Microsoft's secured a few major partners in the health industry (with more to come, they hope) who will be able to zap your blood pressure or cholesterol level right into HealthVault during your checkup. You willing to entrust the big MS with your medical records? Let us know in the comments.
The AT&T Tilt, October 5 for $299.99
Supercrude Scum: The Algae-To-Biodiesel Battle
Most greentech watchers have lost their sense of wonder over the fact that pond scum, a.k.a. algae, could be one of the most efficient ways to make biofuels for our cars. These tiny chemical factories can turn sunlight and nutrients into fuel with an efficiency unrivaled by traditional crops, all while using the CO2 that would otherwise go into the atmosphere. It seems almost impossibly promising, which is one reason that a host of companies working with algae, including Solazyme, GreenFuel, GreenShift, and Inventure Chemical have all received funding in the past year.
Of course, there are also host of problems (VCs might call them opportunities) involved in actually creating energy from algae. These problems mimic those of agriculture: there is a constant trade-off between the yield and the amount of money required to invest in the “crops’”production. The two culture methods — open and closed pond systems — each have their pros and cons. In the open system, the algae grow in what are essentially just ponds. It’s cheap, but keeping out “weed” organisms is difficult. Closed pond systems, on the other hand, work more like greenhouses. They are expensive to construct but it’s much easier to regulate the growing conditions.
Today’s startup profiles look at two algae-to-biofuel companies, Live Fuels and Solix Biofuels. When it comes to both culture systems and funding, the two have taken divergent approaches, but they aim to have the same end product: biocrude (or as Live Fuels calls it, “supercrude”). Instead of attempting to convert algae directly into ethanol or biodiesel, these companies are attempting to create green crude that could be fed directly through the nation’s current refinery system. If it works, the technology would require fewer changes to the nation’s energy infrastructure than other biofuel approaches currently out there.
Company: Live Fuels Hometown: Menlo Park, Calif. Founder: Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones Financing: $10 million In Their Corner: Quercus Trust, Sandia National Labs Product: Biocrude CoreTech: Open-pond algae bioreactors Commercialization: 2010
Company: Solix Biofuels Hometown: Fort Collins, Colo. Founder: Jim Sears Financing: NA In Their Corner: Colorado State University Product: Biocrude CoreTech: Closed-pond algae bioreactors Commercialization: 2009?
Live Fuels has received $10 million in financing from the Quercus Trust, David Gelbaum’s well-known environmental funding group. The company believes that driving down costs is paramount to pushing out their technology, so they are taking the open-pond approach to algae culturing. A major component of the group’s core technology is the cultivation of an open-pond ecology that keeps high-value algae producing while preventing unwanted natural competitors from taking over. Working with scientists from Sandia National Labs, Live intends to be price competitive with crude oil.
Solix Biofuels is a venture that consists of private entrepreneurs Jim Sears and Doug Henston, Colorado State professor Bryan Wilson, and Colorado State University itself. Working to refine and scale Sears’ original bioreactor design, the group has called on the resources of CSU’s Engine and Energy Conversion Laboratory in constructing a working prototype of the closed-tank bioreactor. Simply put, the system grows algae in cheap plastic tubes, which keep out unwanted algae while keeping capital costs low.
The company has said that construction will begin this year on its first, large-scale bioreactor at the New Belgian Brewery in Fort Collins, Colo., where waste CO2 produced in the making of delicious beers like our personal favorite, Fat Tire, will be used to feed the algae. Solix eventually plans to license its technology, a process the company believes will speed its product to market without the huge capital investment necessary to build its own plants.
Algae is the most promising biofuel “crop” on a per-acre basis, but the technical hurdles involved in finding (or bioengineering) the right oil-producing algae, the right nutrient mix, the right culturing system, and the right business model mean that scale production of any type of fuel from algae is probably a long way off. Still, it’s going to be an exciting bout to watch as all these startups move through the various stages of funding and start to turn these ideas into factories and fuel.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Bailong Elevator - China
DeputyDog has compiled a list of some of the most interesting elevators in the world. And among them is this Bailong elevator in China.
This controversial 326 metre high elevator takes you up the side of one of the many enormous cliffs in zhangjiajie, china - the lower 1/3 running from a cavern through the rock, the top 2/3 rising outside to the summit - and is the highest and heaviest outdoor elevator in the world. the elevator has an uncertain future due to the potential harm caused to the surrounding landscape.
On-demand host goes up against Amazon S3
Flexiscale, a new UK-based on-demand computing service aimed at Web 2.0 startups plans to compete with Amazon's EC2/S3 service. The move - announced at today's Future of Web Apps conference in London - is significant because there are so few 'pay as you go' hosting solutions in Europe, so the launch of a new service shows there's real demand of this kind of scalable hosting for startups. Speaking to a few people about this space, I hear that architecturally Flexiscale could well have a better product than Amazon. That's a big claim. But perhaps one of the key feathers in Flexiscale's service is that it supports Windows while Amazon only does Linux, and offers an SLA, which the latter doesn't. For more detail on this check out TechCrunch UK.
See our recent coverage of Nirvanix, a U.S. based S3 competitor as well.
Microsoft Acquires Social Shopping Network Jellyfish
We've just caught wind that Microsoft has acquired Jellyfish, the Wisconsin-based social shopping site. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, and the official announcement has not yet been made, but is expected very soon.
Jellyfish will remain its own entity under the Microsoft umbrella, and all of Jellyfish's 26 employees will stay on board. Co-founded by Brian Wiegand and Mark McGuire, this is the third company that Wiegand has sold, including Business Filings which was sold to a Dutch publishing company in 2002 for $14 million. Jellyfish had also raised about $5 million a year ago, with much of the funding going towards the improvement of Jellyfish's search technology and social components for shopping online.
It's expected that Jellyfish will be incorporated into Windows Live search, but its extensive social networking components and live games, including Smack Shopping, are the crowning jewels of its social shopping experience. With Microsoft's revised focus on growing its online presence in the social networking realm, this may be more heavily incorporated into some of Windows Live's other services, such as its niche community or moms.
Microsoft has also announced that it will be tweaking its ad platform for Windows Live Search, which will shift more attention to the quality of prominent ad placement. Yahoo has incorporated some fun shopping tools on its portal as well, with the promotion of the Woot Daily Deal. DivX has also swapped Google for Yahoo to power its search or its online video-sharing networks.
[via Wisconsin State Journal]
TringMe: Phone Free Click To Call
Nearly every VOIP related startup has their own click-to-call widget, Jajah, Jangl, Jaxtr, and even GrandCentral. These widgets let you easily and sometimes anonymously set up a call with friends over the web. They're very useful and come packed with features like voicemail and texting. However, each of these services connects phones to phones, which still eats away at your mobile minutes while you're talking to that business contact or MySpace hottie.
TringMe offers a bit more flexibility. Callers can ditch their phone and call directly through their Flash widget to your mobile phone, landline, and GTalk (Yahoo and Skype coming soon). All they need is a microphone and one click. Although they're still in private beta, you can try the demo widget to the right for an idea of the experience.
Similar to the other services, your phone number is kept private and the calls are free (now's the time for that overseas call). You can also set the widget to just receive voicemails, which are emailed to you, saved on your standard mailbox, or recorded and played back in GTalk. There is one major drawback, though. Since there is no virtual phone number involved, callers have to be at a computer and can't call you while they're on the go.
Naturally such an easy and anonymous calling service is susceptible to abuse, and I don't see any countermeasures in place to keep out prank calls and telemarketers. The other services have verified phone numbers and white/black lists to keep abuse to a minimum. I expect TringMe will have to incorporate similar controls to make people more comfortable with using the widget.
Wiimote used to control Nokia N95
Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming
Just in case you've somehow managed to control everything else in your world with Wiimotes, why not your lovely N95? Thanks to a team at the University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg, Austria, users with an S60 handset can now control games with Nintendo's fun-lovin' controller. WiiConnect, which is a Bluetooth driver for S60 phones, "enables you to play party games directly on / through your mobile phone," all while taking advantage of the accelerometer and rumble functionality. As an added bonus, the team also crafted WiiRider, a motorcycle simulation that utilizes the Wiimote's features. We know, you're already eager to know how much this time waster is gonna cost ya, but we've got excellent news: it's being provided as freeware in the read link below.[Via MobileCloseup]
RIAA: Our anti-fan lawsuits are costing us millions
During yesterday's RIAA trial proceedings in Virgin v. Thomas, Jennifer Pariser, Sony BMG's the head of litigation. admitted that the 20,000+ anti-downloader lawsuits run by the labels had cost the companies "millions" and were enormous money-losers. I had previously heard from an industry insider that they were running the suits on a break-even basis, shaving costs by running a sloppy boiler-room operation that used cheap telephone thugs and flimsy, badly assembled evidence to extort a few thousand bucks from each of the victims, just barely breaking even.
The next line of questioning was how many suits the RIAA has filed so far. Pariser estimated the number at a "few thousand." "More like 20,000," suggested Toder. "That's probably an overstatement," Pariser replied. She then made perhaps the most startling comment of the day. Saying that the record labels have spent "millions" on the lawsuits, she then said that "we've lost money on this program."LinkThe RIAA's settlement amounts are typically in the neighborhood of $3,000-$4,000 for those who settle once they receive a letter from the music industry. On the other side of the balance sheet is the amount of money paid to SafeNet (formerly MediaSentry) to conduct its investigations, and the cash spent on the RIAA's legal team and on local counsel to help with the various cases. As Pariser admitted under oath today, the entire campaign is a money pit.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
The Latest Victim of Identity Fraud: Mayor Bloomberg
The Latest Victim of Identity Fraud: Mayor Bloomberg
By Sewell Chan
Updated, 5:30 p.m. | You might think a man worth at least $5 billion would hardly notice if $400,000 or so went missing.
But someone noticed.
The Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, announced this afternoon that two men had been charged with stealing or attempting to steal from personal financial accounts belonging to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
One man, Odalis Bostic, was indicted for trying to steal $420,000 from the mayor. According to prosecutors, Mr. Bostic created the Laderman Development Company in Elizabeth, N.J., and set up accounts in the company's name at two banks, PNC and Sovereign Bank.
In early June, Mr. Bostic deposited a $190,000 forged check into the Sovereign account and a $230,000 forged check into PNC account, according to prosecutors. Both of the forged checks were drawn on Mr. Bloomberg's personal account at the Bank of America and were issued in the name of the mayor's financial manager, Geller & Company.
The mayor's personal account information appeared on both checks, but because of the size of the checks, the two banks put holds on the transactions. The banks determined that the checks were forged and then contacted the authorities.
Mr. Bostic, who was arrested in New Jersey in August and waived extradition, was to be arraigned today in State Supreme Court on a charge of attempted grand larceny in the second degree, a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison.
In the course of the investigation into the forged checks, an unrelated fraud was discovered, Mr. Morgenthau said.
A second man, Charles Nelson, has been charged with stealing $10,000 from one of the mayor's financial accounts on May 11. In an online transaction, Mr. Nelson transferred $10,000 from the mayor's Bank of America account to an E*Trade account the defendant had set up, prosecutors said. They said he later used a debit card for cash advances and to make purchases from the E*Trade account.
Mr. Nelson was arrested in Newark, and a computer, documents and two guns were recovered through search warrants. He remains in custody in New Jersey on local charges, but has been charged in New York with grand larceny in the third degree and identity theft in the first degree, both felonies punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Mr. Morgenthau credited Detective Drew Barone of the Police Department's Special Frauds Unit and Christopher Romanyshyn of the New Jersey attorney general's office for their work on the case. A Manhattan assistant district attorney, Jeremy B. Glickman, who is assigned to the Identity Theft Unit, was assigned to handle the prosecution.
A City Hall spokesman, John P. Gallagher, declined to comment on the matter.
This was not the first time criminals have gone after the mayor. Before he was elected in 2001, he helped officials build a case against a man from Kazakhstan who prosecutors say tried to extort money from Mr. Bloomberg's financial services company, Bloomberg L.P .
Federal prosecutors said the man, Oleg Zezez, sent threatening e-mail messages in March 2000 to Mr. Bloomberg, in which Mr. Zezev said he had infiltrated the company's computer system and wanted $200,000 in exchange, he said, for helping the company fix its computer security lapses.
Mr. Bloomberg contacted the F.B.I. and exchanged e-mail messages with Mr. Zezez. Eventually, he flew to London and met with Mr. Zezez , and an accomplice, Igor Yarimaka, who was also from Kazakhstan, in a hotel. The meeting was secretly recorded by police officers from Scotland Yard, using a hidden camera. In February 2003, Mr. Bloomberg testified at Mr. Zezev's trial.
Mr. Zezev was convicted of extortion and sentenced to 51 months in prison. The charges against Mr. Yarimaka were dropped.
Sales Rise for Counterfeit Music, Fashion, Business Group Says
By Erik Larson
Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The entertainment and fashion industries are losing battles against pirated media and fake designer clothing, according to a report showing the number of U.S. adults buying such goods rose 4 percent this year.
Illegal copies of songs, films, footwear and other items were purchased at least once in the past 12 months by 22 percent of adults, according the study released today by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The ``steadily rising'' figure compares with a rate of 18 percent last year and 13 percent in 2005, according to the report.
The report, based on a Gallup survey of about 4,300 people, shows ``consumers still don't understand the broader implications of piracy,'' Chamber of Commerce IP Director Caroline Joiner said in a phone interview. ``They still think it's a victimless crime.''
Industry trade groups and government agencies have been trying to curtail piracy and counterfeiting though legal action and education, claiming such behavior costs the global economy billions of dollars each year. The chamber's study suggests those efforts are having limited impact, at least among U.S. adults.
The list of items acquired illegally was topped by pirated songs, with the number of adults who admitted to downloading them rising from 5.1 percent in 2005 to 9 percent this year, according to the study. The average offender downloaded 17 songs in the past year, it said.
The Recording Industry Association of America, which represents U.S. record labels, in the past four years has sued about 26,000 people who download music illegally, claiming pirated music costs the U.S. economy $12.5 billion every year. Although piracy is rising, the recording association believes its legal campaign has made a difference.
`Not Satisfied'
``We're not satisfied with the impact we've made so far, but had we done nothing, the situation would be exponentially worse,'' association spokesman Jonathan Lamy said in a phone interview, adding that piracy hasn't been growing as fast as Internet access and capacity.
Pirated music was followed in the survey by counterfeit clothing, footwear and bags bearing phony designer trademarks, with the percentage of adults who buy such goods rising from 3.3 percent in 2005 to 6.2 percent in the past year.
Nike Inc., the world's biggest shoemaker, is one of many apparel companies trying to stop sales of counterfeits. The company's director of global issues, Vada Manager, said the results of the study prove that changing consumer habits is a slow process.
`Prolonged Education'
``We've always said a combination of prolonged education and enforcement is needed to get at the root of the issue,'' Manager said in a phone interview. ``If this survey is done four or five years from now you'll see more impact from education.''
Pirated movies, downloaded from the Internet or bought on street corners, were the third-most-popular category of illegal purchases. The number of adults who admitted to buying such movies during the past year nearly doubled from 3.3 percent in 2006 to 6.2 percent this year, according to the study.
The Motion Picture Association of America regularly sues Web sites that offer illegal downloads of movies. The group's chief executive officer, Dan Glickman, said making it easier to buy movies legally is one way to address piracy.
Legal Options
``As consumer options change and grow our companies are working to provide people with ways to get movies when they want and how they want,'' Glickman said in an e-mailed statement. ``We will continue to try to educate consumers about legal options to get films.''
Almost 90 percent of those surveyed said they believed it should remain illegal to buy counterfeit products, meaning about 12 percent of U.S. adults buy such goods even though they believe it's wrong to do so.
Of those who admitted to buying counterfeit goods, most cited ``easy availability'' as their reason for doing so. The illegal buying was highest in the Northeast, where 31 percent of adults admitted to such purchases, and, at 19 percent, was lowest in the South and Midwest, according to the study.
To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net .
Last Updated: October 2, 2007 00:19 EDTFamily Sues Over Unauthorized Use of Photos
Use My Photo? Not Without Permission - New York Times The New York Times is running a story on the plight of Alison Chang, a 15-year-old from Dallas, whose family is suing Virgin Mobile USA, over her unauthorized likeness in a Virgin Mobile advertising campaign.
The case seems pretty clear cut to me and Alison's family will probably get a chunk of money over it. It's pretty stupid that Virgin Mobile would use a photograph commercially without getting the rights cleared. I'm sure someone over there will probably lose their job over this.
The photo isn't Alison's by the way, it's a Creative Commons licensed photo that was posted to Justin Ho-Wee Wong's Flickr account. Which brings up an important point. Justin had his photo licensed Creative Commons but did not have a non-commercial designation on the license. When you license something Creative Commons with no additional designation pretty much anyone can use that photo. In this case Virgin still needed to clear the likeness issue with Chang but are probably within their rights in using Wong's photo. Although there may be an issue with attribution even there.
Almost All Consumers Now Use Web for Buying Decisions
Avenue A | Razorfish surveyed 475 consumers across "all demographics" in July. The findings show the usual divide between what the loud techno-elite minority cares about, as compared to the quiet mass-consumer majority:
- Only 60% personalize home pages
- 47% never share bookmarks
- 44% never use RSS feeds
- 65% never use tag clouds
- Almost all read the "most popular" or "most emailed" items on sites
Video: Big
- 67% regularly watch videos on YouTube, etc.
- 95% have watched online videos in the last 3 months.
- 49% have uploaded online videos in the last 3 months [shockingly high--almost makes us discount all findings, or at least conclude that this is a highly web-literate and young consumer sub-set].
- 85% have watched online movie previews in last 3 months.
- 71% have watched a TV show online in the last 3 months [ more than we would have thought].
Online Music, Photos, Blogs: Pretty Big
- 42% regularly purchase music online
- 41% use photo-sharing sites
- 70% read blogs regularly
Online research when making product selection decisions: HUGE
- 92%+ use the web when making product buying decisions (research, reviews, retailer location, price comparison, etc.)
- 54% start their product research at a search engine
- 14% start it at a comparison shopping engine
- 30% start it at an e-commerce or retailer site
- 55% rely on USER REVIEWS most when choosing products
- 21% rely on EXPERT REVIEWS most.
- After product selected, most important criteria when choosing where to buy are PRICE (38%) and SITE REPUTATION (38%)
Mobile data services: Small
- 68% never use mobile phone to listen to music
- 76% never use mobile phone to watch video.
- 64% never use mobile phone to check headlines.
Rainbow Moments - Colored Flame Candles
September 13th, 2007 by Hans
Blue and white flames are so yesterday, the candles from Rainbow Moments burns in a fun and colorful way by using a non-toxic mix of citric acid crystals and other minerals instead of the traditional wax.
Link Via [Coolhunting]
Pirates Bay House by Stuart Tanner Architects
September 26th, 2007 by Chantal
"Live in a house" designed by Stuart Tanner Architects — this particular Pirates Bay home is one of the most peaceful homes I've ever seen. The building's dramatic gesture toward the ocean is tempered by a more intimate dialogue with the rear of the site, thus symbolizing a bridge transition between wooded glade and open ocean vista. Passive heating and cooling through cross-ventilation, on site waste water management, rainwater harvesting, and exterior sun screens are some of the more impressive architectural components that make the project green.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Is Favorit a Digg killer?
Fav.or.it is tiny start-up based in a small office an hour’s drive from London. But this “feature rich community-based feed reading system” is about to unleash a wholly original take on reading blogs and news feeds which could see it face-down even the social bookmarking giants like Digg and the newer kids like CoComment.
[Note: this is an edited version of a much longer post which appears on TechCrunch UK]
Favorit brings together blog reading and replying into one simple web application. Its innovative web interface is designed to allow users to let users read any kind of RSS feed, cut-up, mashed-up with other feeds or “sliced” in any kind of way.
It’s also is a classic Web 2.0 startup which will attempt to solve one of the web’s most frustrating issues, i.e. the separation of reading RSS feeds from being able to comment on the post. Admittedly any blog post is only a click away from a user being able to comment on it. But imagine being to comment, Twitter-like, under a feed and not even have to care about filling in your name, email, etc. Just comment, save and carry on reading. Having witnessed it myself at an exclusive demo, I can confirm that this is what Favorit is capable of.
Favorit will this week launch a private beta based on a submitted database of 10,000 blog feeds. (The site is exhibiting at two events in London, FOWA and mashup demo).
Turning feeds into slices
Favorit approaches the issue of reading RSS feeds with the concept of ’slices’. Each post in a feed is categorised and tagged. By choosing a category, tag or rank (or a combination of each) the user can filter what they are reading in a more efficient manner than the normal ‘hose’ effect of having to laboriously wade through hundreds of blog posts in hundreds of feeds.
Comment posting with an API Based on PHP and the Zend Framework, Favorit will launch an API during the public beta enabling it to hook into many more blogging platforms to allow it to send comments back to the sites. Founder Nick Halstead hopes the API will create an ecosystem outside of Favorit.
Now of course there is a glaring issue here. Sites thrive on traffic. But by removing barriers to commenting, Favorit potentially creates a faster turnaround of comments to blogs, and especially blogs at the end of the ‘long tail’.
Tracking attention beats voting Because Favorit uses Javascript it will gauge how long you read a post and what you did before during and after. This data is invaluable both for advertising targeting and for data mining, and its far more sutble than Digg’s voing system. Eventually the site hopes to rank as many as a million blogs in order of attention.
Because it will track what people actually read, Favorit will be a far more accurate reflection of what is popular online than Digg, which everyone knows is increasingly subject to gaming. Although Halstead went to great lengths with me to emphasise that Favorit is a different animal than Digg, there is no getting away from the comparison. And it’s quite clear that capturing attention meta-data beats ‘voting’ hands down.
A blogging platform as well?! Favorit is not just going to be a feed reader. It is also a blogging platform. By creating a subdomain, such as ‘gadgets.fav.or.it’ users will be able to write their own posts into the system. Using this, they can pull in their feed from their blog as well as post directly into Favorit. Any comments on the Favorit subdomain blog then appear back at the original blog.
Since it’s all widget based, users will be able to ‘pimp’ their Favorit blogs with a set of widgets - many form outside suppliers - which Favorit will build into the system. But you won’t be able to access the underlying HTML or CSS.
Here’s where the revenue comes in. Favorit plans to share advertising revenues with users who create these subdomain blogs.
However, controversially, a user could create a subdomain site with someone else’s feed.
If the Nike subdomain pulls in everything there is to know about Nike, Google could be among those knocking on the door given the usefulness of this data. But so could the lawyers. Because of its simplicity for reading and commenting Favorit has the potential to open up feed-reading to a wider audience than perhaps other aggregators have done so far. And could well disrupt older ‘voting’ style social bookmarking sites.
iWon Gets a Makeover
iWon, the site owned by IAC that attracts people with the promises of instant prizes, is revamping it’s look, going from a very 1.0 portal to a Flashy, casual-games site, complete with spinning wheels, slots, and lots of bright colors. The games are also now going to become widgetizable so they can live on people’s Facebook or MySpace pages. (And you thought you could avoid the shrill marketing come-ons just by avoiding the site).
iWon’s business model is to lure people in with cash prizes, get them to play online games like Sudoku, Slots, or Solitaire, and show them ads. Games can also be created specifically for ad sponsors.
This was iWon 1.0:
and here’s iWon 2.0:
I can’t decide which one’s lamer. Still, iWon needed to do something. According to comScore, its monthly unique visitors dropped from 5.2 million last year to 2.2 million in August. Although average time spent on the site shot up from 33 minutes a month to 53 minutes, that’s what you’d expect as the casual visitors tired of the offerings and the only ones left were the hardcore iWannaBeWinners. In beta testing, the new site has already proved to keep people playing five times longer than before. But is it the same people over and over again, or will the makeover be able to attract enough new visitors to turn things around?
NetBank Joins The Deadpool
NetBank, one of the first online banking startups and a survivor of the first web bubble, was closed Friday after intervention from the US Office of Thrift Supervision and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
NetBank had been in trouble for some time with failed mortgages and serious operating deficiencies. The service, which floated at $12 a share in 1997 hit a high of $249/ share in April 1999 until settling to a price of $15 a share in mid 2004. The company was delisted from the NASDAQ on August 3 this year and last traded at $0.068 on the OTC board on Friday.
An interesting comparison can be drawn between NetBank's model and a number of verticals being targeted by startups today. In 96 internet banking was new and the big players were only just starting to roll out internet banking services, and even then they weren't very exciting. Services such as NetBank offered a product suite that was innovative at the time; however the major players saw a demand for online services and eventually caught up. It's not too dissimilar today to the various Google Maps mashup services that have launched, only to find Google 6 months later offering the same features themselves. We've seen it a little bit with MySpace add-ons and I suspect we'll see it with Facebook in the months to come as well.
Existing NetBank accounts have been acquired by ING Direct. NetBank joins the veiled halls of the TechCrunch Deadpool.
Water bridge created with high voltage
Physicist Elmar Fuchs and his colleagues from Graz University of Technology are investigating why water, when exposed to high voltages, forms this strange liquid bridge as the liquid moves from one beaker to another. They published their research in the Jouranl of Physics D: Applied Physics. The water bridge was cylindrical with a diameter of 1 to 3 mm and spanned as much as 25 mm. From PhysOrg.com:
The group's analyses have shown that the explanation may lie within the nature of the water's structure. Initially, the bridge forms due to electrostatic charges on the surface of the water. The electric field then concentrates inside the water, arranging the water molecules to form a highly ordered microstructure. This microstructure remains stable, keeping the bridge intact.Link to Physorg article, Link to the scientific paper (Thanks, Sean Ness!)
Firefox: Run Faster Without Rebooting Reinstalling
If Firefox has a flaw to get bummed about, it's that it slows down your machine after a few hours of steady computing. Digital Inspiration has a workaround for this that (yay!) does not include any sort of restart reinstalling:
That should do it; now, when you start Firefox in your new profile, you should be up to speed (get it?). Sure, it won't have all the tweaks of your old profile, but if you're just looking for a CPU break, this might be the way to go. Note: Be sure to check out Gina's post on managing multiple Firefox profiles for further info.
- Start Firefox and export your bookmarks as a file on your hard-drive (we'll need them later).
- Type firefox.exe - P in the Run box of Windows.
- Click the Create Profile button without making any modifications to your existing profile (which is normally called "default")
Image Editing: Resize Images without Sacrificing Content with GIMP or Rsizr
If you're a fan of the open source image editor GIMP, you can download and install the Liquid Rescale GIMP plug-in to get liquid rescaling results (after you install it by moving the downloaded files into your GIMP directory, you'll see the Liquid Rescale option under the Layer menu). If you don't feel like installing anything, you should try out the Rsizr webapp, which does the rescaling from the comfort of your browser. Both tools are a good deal slower than what you see in the very cool video above, and neither are implemented to the full extent of what you're seeing in the video, but the results are still promising.
Clocks: CB2's World Panel Clock is Sci-Fi Sexy
Our desks are so cluttered we have given up the fight for organization, and that is exactly why we are tempted by CB2's World Panel Clock. The transparent LCD display looks Star Trek awesome and has all sorts of useless information we would otherwise have on our desktops, including time and calendar functions.
As you well know, we are suckers for cool, as you can tell from our fantastic fashion sense...well, CB2's World Panel Clock certainly does have ample flair, with a brushed aluminum base and a slanted transparent display. The timepiece is battery powered, which will saves you adding to your wired disorganization and is available for a reasonable $24.95. The fight against unneeded, largely pointless gizmos is futile—we'll have one over here, please. [Product Page via Technabob]Mansion: Jelly-fish 45 Habitat Won't Sting Your Pocket Too Much
If you have fallen a little short of the $50 million price tag for a Poseidon 180, fret not, the Jelly-fish 45 Habitat will set you back only a mere $2.5 million. Bargain! Designed by Giancarlo Zema, the "floating dwelling" comprises five separate levels all connected by a snazzy spiral staircase.
The floors are split into cheesy zone-titled areas including study, night, day, guest and viewing quarters. Though, if you purchase the floating mansion, you may abide by whichever nomenclature you wish. The viewpoint stretches 3m below the surface and looks jellyfish-like fantastic. The colossal seat-in-the-sea stands 10m high and 15m wide. Now, if I manage to roll out one hundred posts in 24 hours, Blam promises me a tour of his Jelly-fish 45 Habitat—game on! [Product Page via Ballers Guide]Speechless: AT&T Lets You Talk, But Limits What You Say
AT&T has revised their Terms of Service in a manner that should horrify the consumer public. Usually such updates screw the customer subtly, but AT&T's new adjustment ironically pulls freedom of speech directly from those using AT&T's service to speak. In short, if you slam AT&T, they can pull your service:
AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes...(c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.Of course, AT&T has overlooked one important fact about their TOS: they can't cancel a customer's service who will no longer do business with them anyway. Changes in TOS are often a loophole out of your contract. And if I were an AT&T customer, my choice would be pretty clear. [TOS via morningpaper]
Intel fleshes out 45nm Yorkfield launch details
iPhone 1.1.1 "bug" unleashes music over Bluetooth