[WEB2] No clown, Hulu looks great
[WEB2] Microsoft projects target young and old
Microsoft is apparently on a bi-generational education campaign. This weekend at the national conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in San Francisco, the software giant hosted an exhibit designed to educate pediatricians on answering parents' questions about children's online safety. More than 750 doctors took Microsoft's 10-question quiz about kids and the Internet to receive a free copy of Vista, according to Adrienne Hall, the company's senior director of Trustworthy Comp...
[WEB2] MTV, Cisco drop 100K on rapping social net, RapHappy
Back in early September, I wrote about the five finalists to win a combined $250,000 in development funding from MTV and Cisco, sponsors of the Digital Incubator contest for university-grown Web apps. Today they announced a prize even grander the first--$100,000 in addition to the $30,000 finalist grant already applied to RapHappy.com's development. The social network for recording, editing, distributing, and commenting on user-generated raps won Digital Incubator's judges with a business...
[WEB2] GreenVolts, which builds urban solar power plants, gets $10 million
GreenVolts, which is commercializing technology from the national labs to better concentrate sunlight, has received $10 million in funding. The company, based out of San Francisco, has a concentrating system for photovoltaic panels that effectively lets its put the power of 625 suns onto a solar panel. The high concentration levels thus allow it to shrink the real estate required for a single power plant. As a result, the power plants can be built closer to the consumers--i.e. people living i...
[WEB2] Yahoo Messenger gets slicker
Yahoo is launching a new version of its popular Yahoo Messenger on Tuesday that lets you forward phone calls and instant messages and watch videos and view photos with friends, among other enhancements. But probably the most popular thing will be the new emoticons. The new Yahoo Messenger toolbar lets you send an instant message, text message or call a contact with one click. (Credit: Yahoo) Yahoo Messenger 9.0 has a redesigned interface with new "skin" background designs and new em...
[WEB2] AdBrite puts spotlight on Facebook application ads
Online advertising firm AdBrite is set to announce on Tuesday a new program to serve ads for third-party Facebook applications. Considering it a niche "channel" alongside existing AdBrite verticals, the company has launched a new Web-based interface so that Facebook application developers can join the program and make their inventories "instantly available to AdBrite's large base of advertisers." The company saw it as a logical move, AdBrite co-founder Philip Kaplan said in an interview with ...
[WEB2] More Google Phone rumor
Google will unveil its long-anticipated plan to bring its software to cell phones within the next two weeks, The Wall Street Journal reported late on Monday citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter. The "Google-powered" phones are expected to make it to market by mid-2008, possibly from Taiwan's HTC, South Korea's LG Electronics, Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile USA, France Telecom's Orange SA and Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.'s 3 U.K., the report says. In addition to the ad-supported phone se...
[WEB2] How cheap storage can hide criminal activities
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies recently stated that advances in technology make it possible for it to predict 4 terabyte drives on desktops by 2011.That's great if you're storing media files. It's a nightmare, however, if you're a digital forensics investigator, according to Dave Merkel, vice president of products for Mandiant. He's suggesting that to contend with advances in technology online criminal investigators such as himself may have to change the way they collect and analyze data, ...
[WEB2] Nokia gets into the Asian music scene
Homegrown music talents in the Asia-Pacific region now have a new platform to showcase their latest song creations. The Independent Artists Club Web site launched recently by Nokia aims to promote local artists in the region by allowing them to upload their songs on the Web for music fans around the world to enjoy. The IAC program will launched in Singapore and Thailand first, before being rolled out over the next six months to selected Asia-Pacific countries including Malaysia, the Philipp...
[WEB2] Apple acknowledges some Leopard installation problems
Apple posted a support document over the weekend on its Web site addressing reports of interminable "blue screen" problems that caused some Mac users upgrading to Mac OS X Leopard no small degree of frustration. Some attempts to upgrade to Leopard were stymied after the installation process was almost complete and users attempted to restart their machines. A long thread on Apple's discussion forums outlined the problems, in which their Macs would get hung up on the initial boot screen. That scr...
[WEB2] No winner for NASA lunar challenge
HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M.--The $2 million NASA-sponsored Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge ended Sunday with no winner and a call to the fire department. Armadillo Aerospace, the space company founded by "Doom" creator John Carmack, was the lone competitor in NASA's contest, which calls on teams to build a lunar vehicle and then simulate a 90-to-180-second lunar flight. On Sunday morning, Armadillo flew one 91-second flight successfully, but as it was preparing to launch a second ti...
[WEB2] New Virtual Iron CEO wants spotlight
Virtual Iron, a start-up trying to commercialize the open-source Xen virtualization software, has just gotten a new chief executive, and he wants to grab some of the attention lavished on rivals in the suddenly high-profile market. The new CEO is Ed Walsh, who led Avamar Technologies, a company focusing on economizing storage by reducing duplicative data, which EMC acquired in 2004. John Thibault, who was named Virtual Iron's CEO in 2005, will remain executive chairman of the 73-employee Lo...
[WEB2] EveryScape brings 3D map views inside buildings
The online mapping stuff just keeps getting better. A company called EveryScape is launching on Monday a three-dimensional local search site that lets people "drive" down streets and even "walk" into buildings. If you thought Google's Street View was cool, wait until you see how you can ski down the slopes in Aspen, Colorado, or whiz over taxicabs and pedestrians through the streets of New York, Boston, and Miami. The inside views of buildings are only available in Miami an...
[WEB2] MTV Networks launches online lyrics initiative
On Monday, MTV Networks is set to unveil an initiative to connect its television, online, and mobile presences by helping music fans answer that crucial question--"Who the (expletive) sings that song?" In other words, MTV Networks, the Viacom division that encompasses the MTV, VH1, and CMT brands as well as a host of other pop culture channels, is aiming to renew its focus on music by bringing lyrics to the forefront. This will begin rolling out in November and is expected to be complete by t...
[WEB2] Lunar rover flies, then falls
Armadillo Aerospace's MOD(Credit: Stefanie Olsen/CNET Networks) HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M.--Armadillo Aerospace, the space company of Doom creator John Carmack, impressed the crowd here Saturday by flying and landing a privately built lunar spacecraft over 90 seconds. By doing so, Armadillo completed the first of two parts of a NASA challenge worth $350,000 to simulate a flight on the moon. On its second try, however, Armadillo didn't fare as well. The spacecraft, called the MOD, flew 5...
[WEB2] Bring a credit card if you want an iPhone, and you only get two
Apple has apparently instituted a credit card-only policy for iPhone sales at its retail stores in order to guarantee supply for the holidays and frustrate potential resellers, according to multiple reports. Would-be iPhone buyers must now present a credit or debit card if they want to take home an iPhone, and they're also now limited to just two units, as they were on iPhone Day, according to The Associated Press. The AP quoted an Apple representative explaining the move as a way of making sur...
[WEB2] Upstart unveils tourist space suit
HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M.--Fashions for private space travel are becoming reality. On Saturday, the Washington, D.C., start-up Orbital Outfitters showed off a prototype of its first pressurized suit for the commercial space industry here at the 2007 X Prize Cup, a two-day space and air show. Orbital Outfitter's spacesuit(Credit: Stefanie Olsen/CNET Networks) The suit, called the IS(3)C (for Industrial Suborbital Space Suit-Crew), is specifically designed for pilots who will man an upc...
[WEB2] The battle of robot standards
Robots don't always see eye to eye. Sometimes they don't even use the same techniques for viewing. Companies are taking different approaches to computer vision systems, one of trickiest problems in robotics, according to a whirlwind round of interviews at the RoboDevelopment Conference taking place in San Jose, Calif. But it's only one of several forks in the road for robot developers. The "humanoid or not" debate continues to rage, and companies still question whether the strongest market fo...
[WEB2] Research on a dire problem--carbon capture--gets going
"Without carbon capture and sequestration, we are all toast." Jiang Lin, a scientist with the China Sustainable Energy Program with Lawrence Berkeley Lab, issued that gloomy proclamation earlier this week, and it's a fitting description of the current world situation when it comes to global warming. To make it worse, I asked Lin about how the world is responding to the challenge. Not well. "We haven't invested in deep research or spent much money in testing out the scenarios," he said. "Ther...
[WEB2] TelePresence is way better than you think it is
Have you seen Cisco System's TelePresence? If you haven't, you should. TelePresence is a next-generation video-conferencing offering from Cisco and to call TelePresence "technology" minimizes its scope. TelePresence includes television monitors, desks, chairs, and everything you need for connectivity. Once installed, you get a Star Trek-like experience. Cameras react to voices and focus on the person speaking. Television monitors display remote participants across a virtual table as if they were...