SlingCatcher gets unboxed, our hearts beat ever faster
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/413475375/
Filed under: Home Entertainment
[Thanks, Christopher]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
[Thanks, Christopher]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Eee PC modded by Intel engineers to boot in five seconds
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/413594324/
Filed under: Laptops
Sure, we've seen projects like SplashTop boot a stripped Linux build quickly, but Intel engineers at the recent Linux Plumbers Conference took things a little father last Thursday, starting up modified versions of Fedora and Intel's own Moblin Linux on an SSD-equipped Eee PC in just five seconds. That's all the way to an idle CPU and disk, not cheating and starting a window manager while background services thrash in the background, mind you -- and it's fast enough that the splash screen was removed from both distros. The changes are being sent back to the Moblin and Fedora trunks, but if you're curious, a detailed overview of the changes awaits at the read link.[Via SlashGear]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Monday, October 06, 2008
Yahoo Exec Makes Yuil: Looks Like Cuil, With Better Results
Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/350919233/
It was only a matter of time. Cuil, the “massive” new search engine that was supposed to be able to keep up with Google, has just gotten its first knockoff. It’s Yuil, a Yahoo-powered mashup that looks almost exactly like Cuil. And, oddly enough, Yuil might actually work better than its much-hyped predecessor.
In a surprising (and hilarious) twist, Yuil is actually the product of Yahoo VP of Platforms, Sam Pullara, who is using the site to show off Yahoo’s recently-released BOSS API. BOSS is unique among search engine APIs, giving developers an unprecedented level of control over results generated by Yahoo’s search engine. And while Yuil isn’t really doing anything new with its search results, they’re more relevant than the occasionally bizarre ones we’ve been getting from Cuil.
Developers are only just starting to tap into the power afforded by the BOSS API - we’ll probably see dozens of similar search engines like this pop up over the next few months. The difference between these, and the generic API-based engines we’ve seen before, is that developers will be able to manipulate and reorder the results to make them more meaningful - something that APIs from most other search engines prohibit.
Update: Looks like someone in the Yahoo or Cuil camp doesn’t have a sense of humor. Pullara has just updated his blog to say he’s taken Yuil down:
“Yuil is dead. However, you can always get the same great search results here.”
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Nokia Plunks Another $150 Million Into Venture Fund
Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/351166226/
So far the fund has done best investing in mobile chip companies, some of which have been acquired by ATI (BitBoys for $44 million), Broadcom (Global Locate for $143 million), and Dolby (Coding Technologies for $250 million). But it is also an investor in mobile video service Kyte. Generally, it is a alter-stage growth fund that looks for companies with a product ready to ramp up.
The new cash comes at a time when the mobile Web is generating excitement again in Silicon Valley. Most of that excitement right now surrounds the iPhone. Throwing around a little cash to encourage startups to develop cutting-edge apps for Nokia phones is not a bad strategy. The fund will also invest more heavily in China and India, where mobile growth far outstrips the U.S.
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Socialmedian Brings A New Take On News Filtering
Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/351264509/
There is no shortage of social news aggregators looking to help users cut through the noise on the web. Digg is by far the most popular, with similar offerings from Reddit, Newsvine, and a host of others. Today, Socialmedian (not to be confused with SocialMedia, the ad network) is launching its own take on social news. The site has just launched in public beta, and can best be compared to Digg, with some elements of Twitter and FriendFeed thrown in.
At first glance, Socialmedian bears more than a slight resemblance to Digg. Each story is ranked according to the number of votes (called Clips) that it has received, with an expanding tab for comments and sharing. Even the color scheme is very Digg-like.
Founder Jason Goldberg acknowledges that Socialmedian does share some features in common with Digg, but says that its focus is on helping you find stories that you’ll be interested in, rather than finding stories that are popular and appeal to the masses. To do this, the site allows users to create their own personalized networks, or chose from over 1000 existing networks. Each network monitors certain keywords for stories submitted across the entire site, and generates a list of related stories. Users can also specify RSS feeds they’d like to automatically pull stories from, and they can use a sliding “Noise” meter to limit the number of stories displayed.
Socialmedian also uses a Twitter-like follow system to help generate relevant results. Whenever you come across a story submitter than you particularly like, you can flag them as a “Newsmaker”. From then on, their stories will receive a higher ranking, and are more likely to appear on your main news feed.
Because the site is so young, it’s hard to get a feel for how well these filters work (the vast majority of the stories on my front page have fewer than 10 votes). The site has far more customization than Digg, but its ultimate success will lie in its ability to cut out the noise - something we won’t know until it has to deal with thousands of stories at once. The site will also see competition from other social news sites like Reddit, which mimics Socialmedian’s network function by allowing you to “roll” your own customized feeds.
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