NewsClipper Brings All The News Video from Around the Web to One Place
February 20, 2008
Why isn’t there a Google News for video? That is what Onar Vikingstad, a 27-year-old Norwegian Web developer with a day job at Apple, asked himself before he created NewsClipper. The site is a side project of his that brings together news video clips from the Websites of ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, ESPN, Fox News, NBC, and MSNBC. He explains:
What I wanted to create with NewsClipper was a site that consolidates all news clips from the major TV news networks in one location. No more having to run around to different carefully managed and controlled individual websites. Basically it lets you view the latest news clips from the major TV networks in one location, without having to go to their slow sites overloaded with ads.
The site is dead simple. Read more
Microsoft To Announce WorldWide Telescope On January 27
February 18, 2008
A source close to Microsoft says the company will launch new desktop software called WorldWide Telescope on January 27 at the TED Conference in Monterey, California. Our guess is that this is what Robert Scoble was talking about last week when he said he saw a new Microsoft project that brought him to tears.
The service will be accessed through a downloadable application - Windows only for now is what we hear. Users will be able to pan around the nighttime sky and zoom as far in to any one area as the data will allow. Microsoft is said to be tapping the Hubble telescope as well as ten or so earth bound telescopes around the world for data. When you find an area you like, you can switch to a number of different views, such as infrared and non-visible light.
Read moreWhat’s Microsoft Offering Open Source On February 27?
February 15, 2008
First Scoble writes about something so amazing from Microsoft it makes him cry and will be world changing. Then Long Zheng spots the above page via an email pitch linking to opensourcehero that redirects here.
What open source something will Microsoft forge on February 27 that will be world changing and make Scoble cry? I read Scoble’s post again (either I didn’t read it all the first time, or he has since added to it) and pulled out some more clues:
Read moreTerrifying Computer Owners Part IV
February 14, 2008
Just in time for Valentine's Day, Google released a survey that shows one in three people with an email account have sent a message containing a love letter. But beware: Odds are that e-card in your inbox this morning isn?t from a secret admirer, but from Ilie the Romanian hacker.
Yes, cyber bad guys are preying on the lovelorn. So much so that the FBI earlier this week issued a warning not to open Valentine?s Day e-cards from people you don?t know. Doing so will most likely give a hacker access to all the personal information on your computer and let the hacker use your machine to send millions of spam emails.
Read moreApple TV (take 2), take two
February 12, 2008
We got some good time in with Apple's take 2 (i.e. v2.0) software update at Macworld this year, but now that it's out we had to put the spurs to it. We'll be updating with more as we go, but for right now here's what you need to know:
Read more
The Futility of Fighting Media “Pirates”—How MediaDefender Got Hacked
February 10, 2008
As if we needed yet more evidence that trying to fight piracy is a futile exercise, just look at the case of a company called MediaDefender. The company acts on behalf of media companies to monitor and sabotage the sharing of movies, music, and video games on peer-to-peer networks. It seeds BitTorrent, for instance, with fake files to try to make P2P file-sharing a hassle and annoyance. Last September, a hacker fought back by uploading to BitTorrent internal e-mails and documents outlining MediaDefender’s tactics, rendering them much less effective.
A Radical Option For Yahoo: Out-Open Google
February 8, 2008
Yahoo is between a rock and Google. As Yahoo’s board decides today whether or not to accept Microsoft’s $44.6 billion offer to buy the company, we’ve argued that it really only has two choices: accept the inevitable and go with Microsoft, or outsource search to Google. Both, are in their own way, admissions of defeat and riddled with potential problems. There is another option to consider, though. That is to hit Google where it hurts by truly opening up search. I will explain what I mean below, but first let’s go through the two obvious options.
