Topic: General

Posted by : Anonymous on Thursday, October 11, 2007 - 02:54 AM

IBM has previewed a mashup platform designed to allow "non-technical users" to assemble web 2.0 information applications without help from the IT department.

The IBM Mashup Starter Kit, available today at IBM alphaWorks, can combine information from databases, departments, personal users or the web.

The offering contains two key technologies. The Mashup Hub is a mashup server that stores information feeds in RSS, Atom or XML to enable reuse and collaboration.

Mashup Hub can also merge, transform, filter, annotate or publish information in new formats.

The other component, the newly-enhanced QEDWiki, serves as the user interface and allows non-IT users to 'mash' information from multiple data sources to create a single view of disparate sets of information.

"The combined solution of IBM's Mashup Starter Kit and JustSystems XFY product holds the promise of letting key decision makers within our business easily and rapidly unlock valuable data to address business needs," said Susumu Haraki, a vice director at Daiichi Sankyo, Japan's largest pharmaceutical company.

The IBM Mashup Starter Kit with the enhanced version of QEDWiki is available for download now from IBM's alphaWorks online community for early adopters.

Posted by : trraju on Thursday, October 11, 2007 - 02:52 AM

Google has rolled out a version of its AdSense online advertising platform for mobile devices.

AdSense for Mobile will allow online publishers to sell AdSense ads specifically formatted for the mobile web, such as pages in the WML, XHTML or CHTML formats.
Advertisers can either provide one slot inside the page, or two slots at the bottom.

The service operates in a similar way to AdSense for the web. Publishers place AdSense code in their pages to open up ad space, which is then auctioned off to advertisers looking to reach targeted audiences in a certain location or industry.

The publisher is then paid a fee for every user that clicks on the message.

Google is offering the mobile AdSense programme in 11 countries including the UK, the US, France and Germany.

The announcement comes just one day after handset maker Nokia jumped into the mobile advertising market with the purchase of ad firm Enpocket.

The two companies will contend for a slice of a mobile advertising market that is expected to balloon to $11.35bn over the next four years.

Posted by : Anonymous on Thursday, September 27, 2007 - 06:29 PM

Dell has announced plans to neutralise the carbon impact of its worldwide operations.

"Never before in the history of business have we seen such a critical need to build a worldwide community dedicated to improving the environment," said chairman Michael Dell at a policy forum organised by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

"Leadership starts at home, which is why we are going carbon neutral, but this should only be the beginning of building long-term partnerships with customers, stakeholders and suppliers to make a difference for the Earth we all share."

Dell also issued a challenge to its rivals to join in "a long-term, carbon-neutral commitment to our shared Earth".

The company unveiled a programme called 'Plant a Forest for Me' that enables global organisations to join with Dell in planting millions of trees in managed reforestation schemes.

This initiative is an extension of Dell's 'Plant a Tree for Me' programme for consumers.

However, some analysts have questioned Dell's motives behind the announcement.

"It would be so easy to be cynical about this: 'arch-capitalist Michael Dell sees the error of his ways and turns hippy'," said senior Ovum analyst Ian Brown.

"But while we are sure that Dell is very sincere in his belief that carbon offsetting is needed to slow down climate change, this is all about marketing. Dell is battling with HP, IBM, Sun Microsystems and others to prove how green it is."

Dell is committed to becoming carbon neutral and doing its bit for the planet, according to Brown, and has to show that it is ready to stand up and be counted.

"But what we'd prefer to see is practical assistance for customers on how to reduce energy wastage and improve resource efficiency in their data centres," he said.

"Dell may be ahead on the offsetting, but it needs to catch up on services and its ability to help customers reuse and share resources, reduce costs and maybe help the planet a little too."

Dell is implementing a company-wide power management programme that automatically powers off machines at night and during periods of inactivity.

The company estimates that this will result in annual savings of about 13 million kilowatt hours of electricity, equivalent to 8,500 tons of CO2 and savings of $1.8m.

The firm has also replaced office lighting in its central Texas offices, resulting in a nine per cent reduction in electricity demand at the campuses. Similar programmes will be implemented on other Dell campuses within the coming year.

Approximately 10 per cent of the energy needs of the company's Austin, Texas operations come from renewable sources.

Posted by : Anonymous on Sunday, September 02, 2007 - 11:19 AM

A man who posted a VH-1 clip featuring his own video has had it removed from YouTube because of copyright infringement, even though the TV station did not ask his permission before airing his video on television.
Friends of Christopher Knight's saw the campaign advert for the board of education in Rockingham County played on VH-1's Web Junk 2.0 show, after he had posted it to his YouTube account.
Knight said that when he originally the saw the broadcast he was "laughing pretty hard" and he posted the VH-1 clip featuring his video on YouTube.

Posted by : Anonymous on Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 07:58 AM

A few months ago I was at wit's end in deciding what to do with my site because I had tried all kinds of things but my site was just not getting the attention it deserved and my site traffic was at an all time low. I decided that I had reached rock bottom and I have to work my way up the search engine rankings so I started to follow a free marketing plan as was given to me by a friend whose site is doing very well and today I have a PR of 3. With hopes of climbing still higher in the coming months and all for free! So I am going to share his wonderful advice with you so that you can have free website traffic just like me.

Firstly the first thing is that I started to really look at my website. I noticed that it looked dismal in plain white and blue and my email form was not making it appear like a real person was manning this site. So I decided to change that and downloaded a free template and applied it to my site and also made a special page for the company where I described myself and the company history a bit. I carefully inserted the correct amount of keywords in that and also named my products with the search engine-friendly keywords.

Then I wrote some articles and added my site information for reprint purposes and added them to my site as well as some article directories. These articles all had my link at the bottom so I got a lot many one-way inbound links in this fashion. I also compiled some of my articles into an e-book and started to give this away as a freebie and in no time I had so many people downloading and referencing my e-book so more brownie points to me.

Posted by : Anonymous on Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 07:58 AM

The impending release of Apple's much-hyped iPhone will further boost an already buoyant global market for touch-screen technology, experts predict.
Market research firm iSuppli said that global shipment revenues for the leading touch-screen technologies will rise to $4.4bn by 2012, up from $2.4bn in 2006.
"Demand for touch-screen displays is being driven primarily by the mobile phone and consumer electronics industries, specifically portable game consoles, PDAs and portable navigation devices," said Jennifer Colegrove, senior analyst for display technology and strategy at iSuppli.
"However, as the market matures touch-screen displays will find a role in nearly every aspect of electronics life, from planes to automobiles to machine-control systems to home appliances."
The analyst noted that the eight leading touch-screen technologies are 'resistive', 'surface capacitive', 'projected capacitive', 'infrared', 'surface acoustic wave', 'optical', 'bending wave' and 'active digitiser'.
The eight other emerging touch-screen technologies are 'photo sensor in pixel', 'polymer waveguide', 'distributed light', 'strain gauge', 'multi-touch', 'dual-force touch', 'laser-point activated touch' and '3D touch'.
The resistive touch-screen market comprises more than two-thirds of the more than 100 manufacturers of touch-screen components. Because of the wide competitive field, this market is currently in the midst of a price war.

Posted by : Anonymous on Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 07:57 AM

Samsung has developed a 4GB chipset which it claims obviates the need for memory expansion slots in space-starved mobile phones.

The Samsung moviMCP is implemented on a 4GB embedded memory card, comprising two 16Gb Nand Flash chips and controller, 1Gb mobile DRam chip to support the processor and 2Gb Nand Flash memory for general handset operation.

This provides a total memory capacity of a little over 4GB. The design is currently being sampled by phone makers.

Samsung has used the eMMC interface (the MultiMediaCard Association standard for embedded memory) to simplify the management of the various types of Nand Flash.

The design stacks several memory functions vertically further reducing the footprint.

Posted by : Anonymous on Sunday, May 06, 2007 - 02:20 AM

Former employees of leading games firm NCsoft have been accused of selling secret information about upcoming games to a Japanese rival, police in South Korea told local media yesterday.
NCsoft publishes several popular multiplayer online games including Lineage, Guild Wars, City of Heroes and City of Villains.
Seven ex-employees of NCsoft are suspected in the case. Police did not name the Japanese games firm which they believe may have paid for the information.
According to police statements, the NCsoft employees are suspected of first leaking details of NCsoft's upcoming Lineage III last September, Korean daily Chosun Ilbo reported yesterday.
The employees, who had quit NCsoft in February, applied for work at the unnamed Japanese games firm, allegedly taking copies of unfinished games to the interviews.
Police stated that the software may have been copied by the Japanese firm at this time, and that they suspect that money changed hands.
The employee resignations and apparent leaks stem from a management shake up at NCsoft last year, in which a senior developer with responsibility for Lineage III was forced out of the company for poor performance, according to Korean media reports.
Several members of the Lineage III development team subsequently left the company, the reports claim. NCsoft has made no public statement on this issue.
NCsoft claims to have earned a total of $1.6bn from the first two games in the extremely popular Lineage series.

Posted by : trraju on Sunday, April 08, 2007 - 02:01 AM

Google has added a new feature to its Google Maps service that allows users to set up, save and share personal maps.

The maps can be shared with friends or made public on the Google Maps website so that other users can find them by searching.

The service allows users to mark locations on a map using a library of icons, draw lines and shapes to highlight paths or areas, and add text, photos or videos.

Users can also use HTML to further personalise the maps, which can be viewed using Google Earth.

"With this release, creating maps mashups is now as simple as pointing and clicking," said an official statement from Google.

Posted by : trraju on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 09:24 AM

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is finally to get his degree, 32 years after dropping out of Harvard.
Gates, recently acknowledged as the richest man in the world for the 13th year, will be the principal speaker at Afternoon Exercises during Harvard's 356th Commencement in June, where he will receive an honorary degree.
Paul Finnegan, president of the Harvard Alumni Association, said: "I am very pleased that the Harvard community will have the opportunity to hear from Bill Gates on 7 June."His contributions to the world of business and technology, and the great example he has set through his far-reaching philanthropy, will rightfully put him on centre stage in Harvard Yard."
Gates is a member of the Harvard College class of 1977, which will celebrate its 30th reunion during Commencement Week.
The future co-founder of Microsoft arrived at Harvard as a freshman in 1973 and, while at Harvard College, pursued his passion for computer programming.
He also came to know his classmate and future business partner Steve Ballmer, who lived down the hall at Currier House.
As an undergraduate, Gates teamed up with his childhood friend Paul Allen to develop a version of the Basic programming language for the first microcomputer, the MITS Altair.