Turn Your Cellphone Into A Portable WiFi Hotspot

Now this is the type of new gadget that gets us all starry-eyed and drooling. The CradlePoint PHS300 will allow you to turn your Blackjack, Blackberry, RAZR or other cellular or USB modem into your own personal 802.11b/g wireless hotspot. Simply plug the USB cable from your supported cell phone into the PHS300 and your're ready to go with all the bells and whistles you'd expect from a wireless router like NAT, Firewall, access control, UPnP, and 64/128-bit WEP (11b/g), WPA/WPA2, and WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK. This portable wireless device is also priced right at $179. Full features after the jump.

• Wireless networking compliant with IEEE 802.11 b/g Standards
• 3G device support for networks that support ‘Phone-as-Modem’ or USB Modem Data Plans
• Firewall features Network Address Translation (NAT), and Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) protects
against DoS attacks
• Access Control to prevent unauthorized usage
• UPnP (Universal Plug & Play) and ALGs support for Internet applications such as Email, FTP, Gaming,
Remote Desktop, Net Meeting, Telnet, and more
• Provides additional security of Enable/Disable SSID, Internet Access Control (Services, URL and MAC
Filtering)
• Supports multiple and concurrent IPSec, L2TP and PPTP VPN pass-through sessions
• Flash memory for firmware upgrade, save/restore settings
• Easy Management via Web Browser (HTTP) and Remote Management
• Supports 64/128-bit WEP (11b/g), WPA/WPA2, and WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK
• Compliant with Windows 98SE/NT/2000/XP/2003 Server, Linux and Mac OS

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Yahoo's New Site for Women...Shine

Yahoo on Monday will launch a new Web site aimed at women. The site, called "Shine," will feature original blogs and content from major publishing partners including Conde Nast, Hearst, and Time.

The site is Yahoo's latest foray into vertical sites, which include the popular Yahoo News and Yahoo Finance, as well as Sports and Entertainment, and the much less popular Yahoo Tech and Yahoo Green. This site is Yahoo's first targeting a specific audience and not just a topic.

Yahoo aims to be the top destination site in the lifestyles category, said Amy Iorio, general manager of Lifestyles at Yahoo. Women as a demographic is a good target, particularly given the number of women who use Yahoo (40 million women between the ages of 25 and 54 every month) and the fact that females tend to blog more than males.

"This is really a key audience for Yahoo," she said. "We've been calling them 'chief household officers' internally."

Yahoo's efforts at doing original content haven't all panned out, but this site is more of a hybrid. Articles and original blogs will come from a range of sources, including Glamour, Epicurious.com, Style.com, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar, Women's Health, and Good Housekeeping.

Eight editors are overseeing the various sections (such as home, parenting, fashion, culture, and career) and the editor in chief is Brandon Holley, former editor in chief of Jane magazine.

Shine readers will be able to start their own blogs and that content, if deemed worthy, can end up as some of the featured content in different sections on the site.

You will also be able to get to your Yahoo Mail on Shine, and there is integration with Yahoo Search, Food, Health, and Astrology. But there could be even more integration with things like Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Answers.

The site will compete with iVillage and fashion- and celebrity-news heavy Glam.com, but its content partners and editors will set it apart, Holley said. Shine will distinguish itself by having more of an editorial voice than the other sites and by interacting more with readers, she said.

On a quick glance, Shine looks more aesthetically appealing and less cluttered than the rival sites, despite the fact that Yahoo is not exactly known for simple site design.

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Upload, ehnance and organize High Defination Videos...

Today Motionbox is taking an important step forward as a video host. It's now supporting high definition footage uploaded by its premium users, who get to partake in unlimited file size or storage limitations as part of the $30 a year service. Regular users will also notice a quality bump, as the supported resolution has been increased to DVD quality to help meet the now standard VGA quality and beyond on most point and shoot cameras.

HD videos can be any one of the popular competing formats, including AVCHD which only recently began to meander into consumer level video editing software suites. Speaking of which, users will be able to edit their raw, uncut HD footage in MotionBox's Web based editing tools, which should make it easier, and far less expensive for people who want to get into doing simple edits to HD footage without needing to upgrade computer hardware.

he sample clips I've seen are beautiful and load instantly. If you've spent any time on Vimeo and its high definition gallery the experience is similar. Both also suffer from a technological shortcoming of not allowing embedded clips to be in HD, meaning you'll have to visit here if you want to see for yourself.

Motionbox is coming to the HD crowd a little late, but offering some interesting tandem services to entice prosumers who are looking less at broadcasting to the masses, and more to small groups of friends and family. Coming in a few weeks is a custom DVD service that will let you drop your clips onto a virtual DVD and have it printed and sent your way or to friends. With the right permissions users will also be able to take your clips and burn them onto a DVD if you make that option available. CEO Chris O'Brien also tells me the flipbooks, which were introduced last November have been enjoyed by users.

If you're a heavy HD user looking to share some HD footage with others on the cheap, Dailymotion and Vimeo serve up free hosting. There are caveats for each though. Dailymotion needs you to be a MotionMaker and broadcast your stuff to everyone, while Vimeo limits your weekly file uploads to 500MB which might be pushing it for some long, raw 1080p footage.

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Upload unlimited photos now...

I'm always on the lookout for new ways to host images for quick and dirty sharing. Worth checking out is Photie, which is an incredibly simple photo host. It's light on features, but offers unlimited storage and file sizes (great for people with 14 megapixel SLRs), along with generous sharing options both for downloading shots and hosting on external sites and social networks. What might be its killer feature, however, is that it gives you a detailed listing of when and where your photos have been viewed.

It's something you find on YouTube and Viddler for videos, which can make tracking the buzz of a certain shot more fun for the creator. Many photo services simply give you a view count, which isn't nearly as useful. While the tracking is great, the service is not without its small annoyances. Thumbnail previews are slow to load, and tags can only be added to shots one at a time. Users of Flickr will yearn for more.

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The creepiest universal remote. Ever.

There's got to be a subliminal message of some sort coming out of Japan with the influx of robotic gizmos the country seems to be endlessly conceptualizing, not to mention giving them affectionate nicknames. Just name us any other country that's so obsessed with birthing mechanical substitutes.

The latest labor of love is one ApriPoko, an 11-inch-tall talking robot developed by the researchers at Toshiba as a voice-activated universal remote control. ApriPoko is still in embryo stage, so it's unlikely to debut in stores anytime soon. But its purpose in life has been coded into its genes. It will, unlike your regular universal remote, go beyond manual programming into the realm of voice control.

Since it's a robot with some semblance of artificial intelligence, ApriPoko is smart enough to observe how you use your remote control and then ask you questions regarding your actions. Say you've just turned on the TV with the remote. The robot detects the IR signal and will then ask what you are doing. If you answered "Turn on the TV", the robot will memorize the voice command and associate it to the function, after which you can perform the same task using voice control.

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Why are people leaving Yahoo?

Yahoo defections aren't news. But people trying to get hired there? Stop the presses!

That's the gist of this blog entry at headhunter firm BINC.

BINC Chief Executive Boris Epstein writes:

"So it's obviously no surprise that Yahoo is in trouble right now and people are leaving in droves. That's why I was so surprised to hear one of my candidates tell me that he's currently interviewing with Yahoo right now. WHAT!! Why is he interviewing with Yahoo? It's like somebody jumping on board Titanic mid sink."

The candidate's reasoning is that Yahoo is investing its resources into making a last-stand effort to avoid a takeover by Microsoft. Epstein doesn't buy it though, and then he goes on to provide a list of the top 9 reasons people give for leaving Yahoo:

1. Want to escape before Yahoo gets acquired by Microsoft

2. Lack of innovation at Yahoo

3. Excessive bureaucracy

4. Seeking job stability and expect more layoffs

5. Want to be bigger fish in smaller pond elsewhere

6. Yahoo has lost its focus

7. Volatility of stock price after Microsoft offer

8. Poor management

9. Long hours and on-call nights and weekends

And I'll offer one to round out the list:

10. Google is hiring

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Add Notes to your Photos...

SimpleBucket hosts photos, lets you add sweet interactive notes

Looks like I've found a partial replacement for my beloved dead-pooled photo annotation tool 2view. Check out SimpleBucket, an aptly named photo host that lets you upload and share up to five photographs at a time, and let others mark them up with onscreen notes. It's one of my favorite features in Flickr, and I'm glad to see it beginning to reach elsewhere.

Adding notes works just as it does on Flickr, although there's a nice option to toggle them off entirely, which means the accidental mouse over won't make them appear (which can be annoying). SimpleBucket doesn't show you who has left the note--which makes it far less social, but it also doesn't require any registration from others to mark their territory. Unfortunately the notes you make on the photo pages don't travel with the photo embeds, something that made 2View a lot of fun.

The service has an unusual method of having users upload their shots. There's not a bulk uploader or any sort of system to group photos together into albums; instead, it makes you add photos one at a time (up to five per upload) as you'd do in a Web e-mail. You then have to plug in your e-mail address to get a secret log-in link to your account. SimpleBucket lets up upload up to 500 shots total with its free account. An upcoming pro service will give users unlimited storage, although in its current state I wouldn't recommend it over the myriad of other free photo hosts, including Flickr, which offers a much more social experience.

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Regular production of Electric Cars Started...

Tesla begins regular production of the Roadster(Electric Car).

The electric sports car has gone commercial.

Tesla Motors on Monday moved into commercial production with the Tesla Roadster, an all-electric sports car. The car isn't in mass production yet--Tesla is actually only putting out about one or two cars a week right now, but it will steadily increase production. By early next year, it hopes to be producing around 100 cars a month.

So far, more than 900 people have put reservations in for the car, including Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, George Clooney, Dustin Hoffman, and Arnold Schwarzeneggar. The Roadster costs $98,000. But for that you get a two-seater car that will go zero to 60 miles per hour in just under four seconds. The company has dealerships in Los Angeles and Northern California. (Tesla delivered the first car earlier to company Chairman Elon Musk, but it's not like that counts as a commercial release.)

The company helped revive interest in electric cars. Rather than try to come out with an economy car like some other outfits that have tried to sell electric cars, Tesla decided to start at the top-end and first release a sports car. In hindsight, it made sense. Batteries cost quite a bit, and one of the advantages of electric engines is acceleration. How fast is it? Fast. Check out the test ride.

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Read the News through the worldMap...

Cambridge, Mass.-based company is launching a free Web site that maps news articles to their location on a map.

MetaCarta indexes more than 1,400 sources, including stories from the Associated Press, Reuters, and other news sites and blogs.

You can search for a place name or zoom into the map to a specific location, and articles related to that spot will be displayed. Repositioning the map refines the search. You can also browse by category, such as health, politics, sports, and world news.

The AP and Reuters stories are displayed in a window on the site, while clicking on other items sends you to the source site.

There are no ads right now, but eventually there may be classified listings and ads associated with businesses, says Rick Hutton, vice president of content at MetaCarta.

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Video ads now showing on Google, Yahoo search

Video ads for select keywords are now showing up on Google and Yahoo search sites. I took a look and I have to say I prefer the Google ads because they seem less intrusive and obnoxious.

I typed in "smartphone" on Google's search site and saw a hot link that said "watch commercial" under the second sponsored listing on the right side. Clicking on that link opened a small 2-inch-by-2-inch window below the listing that automatically played the 34-second ad. I could pause the video or hide it.

I got a similar experience when I typed in "Curve," except the window was slightly larger and the ad was available underneath one of the sponsored results near the top of the page. But this did not appear every time I tried. Fortunately, I was able to grab a screenshot the one time it worked for me.On Yahoo, typing in "Special K" or "Honda" brought up video ad links underneath sponsored results near the top of the page. When I clicked the "play video" icon the page went gray and a 5-by-5-inch window popped up and began playing the ad. The Special K ad ran for 30 seconds and the Honda ad for 23 seconds.

But do I really need a big window to watch an ad? I like how Google's ads are smaller and don't interfere with the rest of the page, allowing me to continue to view the "organic" or non-paid search results while the ad is playing. On Yahoo, when I click the ad I can forget about doing anything else while the ad is playing, and I have to click the "X" to close the window and get back to the search results.

It will be interesting to see how many people actually click on the new video ads. To be honest, I wouldn't have if I weren't a curious journalist doing my job.

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Turn your cell into a redar detector...

Trapster turns your cell phone into a police detector

Skyhook Wireless' geopositioning can be useful, but rarely does it save you from a $400 speeding ticket. A start-up named Trapster is trying to change that.

The company has taken a creative spin on using geopositioning to help lead-footed drivers avoid known and newly discovered speed traps and other police dragnets. By installing the application on your mobile phone you'll get heads up on speed cameras, red-light cameras, hiding places, and live police while out and about. The application uses Skyhook Wireless' Wi-Fi and cell tower location positioning system to keep tabs on where you are while you're driving around. It also blends in GPS to give you more precise positioning on city streets.

The data comes from other tipsters on the Trapster network, and is updated frequently. Creator Pete Tenereillo tells me there only need to be about 10 active users in each city to provide a reasonable amount of coverage for live police and new traps on major thoroughfares, a number which has already been met in places like Rhode Island, Florida, and San Diego.

To keep users tipping, the service uses a karma system and a confidence scale to make sure tips aren't providing useless tips. Users can also create new trap alerts for others right on their phones. Tenereillo says the ratio of people tipping to simple leechers is hovering at about 40 percent. Part of that is because of the simplicity of adding new traps, which is a one button affair if you have the application running on your Nokia or Blackberry smartphone.

Coming in a couple of weeks is an iPhone version of the application which will take advantage of the geopositioning that made its way into the maps application in an earlier software update. iPhone users will get the same audio alerts and live-positioning locating, with less position accuracy because of the lack of GPS, something Tenereillo is hoping will be added in the next hardware revision.

Despite the free price, there are a few hindrances. The stock warning sounds are a little alarming, but you can go in and rename and rerecord the warning with your own voice. You're also missing out on the radar and laser protection you'd get with a real radar detector, which tend to work a little faster than the mobile phone alerts. I'm still in love with the idea though, and for the cheapskate out there with a compatible handset, this is almost as good an alternative as being a safe and responsible driver.

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Make your Family Map now...

Map your family in more ways than one with It's Our Tree
It's Our Tree is a genealogy service that lets people create very simple family trees using Adobe Flash. Like Geni (review), and Kindo (review) the idea is to get your entire family involved by inviting them to join and add family members they remember. It doesn't offer some advanced services like DNA sleuthing using cheek cells, but it's incredibly simple to get started, and the finished product can double as a rolodex, birthday reminder, and private e-mail system for you and your family. Like Geni and others, to get started you simply add family members using the directional arrows found on each person's block. There's support for divorces, first, second, and third marriages, half-siblings, and any other oddly conceived (literally) member of your extended family. It's also got support for nine different languages, meaning if you're trying to share your tree with your Italian grandmother she'll be able to see it in her language, including the invite to participate. It's a nice touch if your family is spread out. Each family member you (or others) create gets their own profile in case you feel like turning the service into an updatable family phone tree. My one irk with this is that they don't take advantage of a pre-existing contact management service like Plaxo, Gmail's contact list, or LinkedIn to save you some time of having to dig all that up. What does make these profiles interesting is that you can add all sorts of geo-data to your family members including the place of birth, death, burial, and present location. This information can be toggled on a large Google map, which can lead to some really great exploration if you're willing to spend the time researching and inputting it all. Ancestry.com's DNA service will do something similar, although it actually shows you where your family is from based on cultural migration. I'm giving this service a thumbs up, although if you're already tied to one of these services, its feature set is nearly identical to Geni and Kindo, so give it a look before trying to get your whole family to convert. Grandma will say grazie.

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Make your Company Invoice Online Now...

Zoho adds strong Invoice app to growing business suite

Zoho Invoice is a clean, straightforward, and flexible invoicing service. I gave it a quick spin and was creating estimates and invoices within minutes after entering in customer data and product lines (which also took only minutes). There is a good collection of attractive invoice templates for goods and services, or you can create your own.

It was easy to take an estimate and convert it into an invoice, and the app has a solid template system that sends form email cover letters with an invoice or estimate attached as a PDF file. The system tracks payments and has aging reports; it will send dunning letters and apply flat or percentage-rate fees for late transactions.

The app lets customers pay via PayPal, but it does not process credit cards as far as I could tell. It supports multiple currencies and tax rates, however this early version does not come with auto-populated tax rates for different states or regions. Rather than offer its own full business accounting app to go with the invoicing service, Zoho will "probably" at some point integrate with Intuit Quickbooks, Zoho's Raju Vegensa told me. Intuit, of course, also sells an invoicing add-on for Quickbooks, and offers Invoicing in its Web-based QuickBooks Online Edition. But Zoho's full suite of business apps may help to push it into the primary app role in a business, while Quickbooks gets relegated to the supporting, accounting-only function. It's a bit early to see how this will shake out, and if Zoho will be able to win the trust of customers in small businesses, where Intuit currently has a dominant market position. There are dozens of Web-based invoicing services, some of which we've reviewed on Webware (Blinksale, SimplyBill, Freshbooks; also the full small business suite Netbooks). Most are easy to recommend: They're simple to use and reasonably priced. So is Zoho's. But Zoho has more than just another invoice app. The company is building a full suite of business apps, which at some point will connect together at the logical places: CRM to invoicing to project management to HR, for example.

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Tiny solar charger for cell phones

From Strapya World, the mecca of miniatures that dangle from cell phones, comes this tiniest solar charger (which, unfortunately, only works with cell phones in Japan). The idea behind it is that it dangles from your cell phone to charge it whenever it''s exposed to sunlight. You can also charge it at home with the AC adapter. It''s more of a novelty item, as it takes 6 to 10 hours to charge up in the sun (though I suppose it could be a life saver in a true emergency). $18 from Strapya.

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Edit your Picture online now:Photoshop...

Adobe opens shop on Web-based Photoshop Express
Adobe Systems opened up Photoshop Express on Thursday, its long-anticipated Web-based image editor aimed at the millions of consumers that want a simple way to touch up, share, and store photos.

Photoshop Express, available for free with 2 gigabytes of storage at www.photoshop.com/express, is a significant departure from Adobe's desktop software business and a big bet that it can make money offering Web services directly to consumers.

The application, which needs Flash Player 9 to run, pushes the limits of browser-based applications and will likely ratchet up the competition on the dozens of free and online photo-editing products available now (see our full review of Photoshop Express and gallery of screen shots of the application).

Since then, Adobe has expanded the scope of the project, one reason why the product launch has taken longer than expected, according to executives. Rather than only an image editor, Photoshop Express also has ties to social networking sites like Facebook and other image-sharing sites.

Also, Adobe needed to build the back-end infrastructure needed to offer the service directly to consumers, rather than partner with another photo-sharing site, as it did with its online video editor, Premiere Express.

"We've seen a convergence of trends where the everyday consumer is becoming overwhelmed with the number of images and they have the desire to share images in new and interesting ways," said Doug Mack, the vice president of consumer and hosted solutions at Adobe.

"We're at the point now with bandwidth that most consumers can use really rich Internet applications and also have a relationship with a service where they store and upload images," he said.

The service will go live in beta test mode on Thursday. Mack said that the company intends to use the test period as a way garner feedback from customers.

Adobe intends to offer more features to consumers who pay a yearly fee. Some planned features include a printing service, more storage, support for audio and other media, and the ability to read additional image file types (the service works with .JPGs now.)

Adobe also plans to build an offline client using AIR (the Adobe Integrated Runtime) so that people can edit photos offline, executives said.

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YouTube now shows your video stats...

YouTube has just announced the newest addition to its video service. It's called YouTube Insights and it allows content publishers, partners, and advertisers to see detailed statistical data for their videos. Metrics that the service provides include geographic viewing and relative popularity.

YouTube claims that this new service will allow you to determine trends in how long it takes for a video to become popular as well as what happens when they do become popular. Advantages vary for the different groups that will be using Insights. Creators will benefit from looking at viewing trends, partners can use the data to better understand their audience and become more profitable, and advertisers can tweak their marketing strategy based on past trends.

There are, without a doubt, people who are going to benefit from the addition of this new service, but there is one thing we have to remember. Most of the people who are on YouTube are there to watch the videos, not to create them or advertise there, so the effect of this announcement will not be immediately apparent to most YouTube users.

With all of this in mind, I think that this is an interesting look at video trends, but I'm not convinced that this is a game changer. It may help us to better understand the life cycle of web videos, but I think that this will ultimately be a bigger deal for partners and advertisers than it will be for content creators.

You can get a look at this new service by going to Account > Videos, Favorites, & Playlists > and then clicking on "About this video" for the video that you want to analyze.

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Download youtube videos without Youtube Downloader.

Download You Tube Videos without having youtube Downloader or any other downloader.

Now videos of you tube can be downloaded without having you tube downloader. You just need to have Real player v 11.o . After downloading and installing real player go to its tools>preferences> downloading and Recording option and Check Enable Downloading and Recording box.

Now then the video starts at You tube a pop up kind of thing will appear having text"Download This Video" on the top of the video, asking for the download, click that download button and the downloading will start.


When the Downloading finishes they are saved bydefault "C:\Documents and Settings\yz login\My Documents\My Videos\RealPlayer Downloads". You can download and flash videos from any site through this trick.

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World's lightest cell phone...

The Guinness World Records named the Modu phone as the lightest cell phone in the world. At just 1.5 ounces and 2.8 inches by 1.4 inches by 0.3 inch, the Modu is a full ounce lighter than the already miniature Pantech C300. Without a doubt, it's the tiniest cell phone I've seen outside of Zoolander.

In case you're not familiar, Modu is a modular cell phone that can be placed into "jackets" that change the both the appearance and the functionality of the handset. The Modu only has a tiny display, a couple of navigation controls, a mini USB port, and a charger jack. It's a normal cell phone in most respects but you're not really meant to use by itself. Instead, it's designed to be inserted into one of the jackets, which basically are the shells of a larger candy bar phone. My Modu hands-on from the GSMA World Congress will give you the full report.

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YouTube downloads to iPhones now...

MxTube brings native YouTube downloading to iPhones

MxTube is a fantastic new native application for jailbroken iPhones. If you're one of the lucky few with a jailbroken handset and the installer app, you'll find MxTube in the recent packages section as of last night. The app is fairly similar to the iPhone's native YouTube video viewer with the added benefit of being able to download entire clips and save them to your phone's memory for offline viewing.

Downloaded videos don't show up to those in your regular video library, and won't sync up into iTunes the next time you plug in your phone, but they can be deleted one at a time just like regular video files in case you start running short on space.

The app has a search tool that lets you hunt for videos, and each one has the option to download the higher or lower quality version in case you feel like trying to save space. Downloads can be stacked up, although in its current release, having more than one video in the download queue seems to crash it.

Speaking of crashes, the app is has a handful of bugs that make it a little volatile, including one that doesn't let you exit playing videos unless you hit the home button. Otherwise it's a fantastic tool for grabbing a ton of free video content without having to deal with the molasseslike speeds of EDGE or third-party ripping tools that require syncing with iTunes to transfer content.

I've embedded a demo from the creator of the app after the break.

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Phone + HD Portable Computer...

It's a phone, it's a UMPC, it's...an HDPC?

An easier way to describe the HDPC (Hybrid Dual Portable Computer) is to list the things it won't do.

That basically includes writing my blog posts and going through mounds of e-mail and auto-deleting the stuff I don't want. Otherwise, the HDPC from Korean manufacturer MIU does almost everything I want to do during the day.

The list of its purported functions: Internet phone, MP3 player, UMPC, digital camera, voice recorder, e-book reader, Wi-Fi, navigation, camcorder, and portable video game player. It also runs dual operating systems: Windows XP or Windows CE 5.0 and Linux QPlus. The screen measures 4 inches, and the keyboard is a full QWERTY setup, and to top it off, its starting price tag is around $500.

Sounds great, but there are several things to quibble over. First, in the looks department...it probably has a good personality. I mean, I want to like it, but the photos reveal it to be bulky, and the design is really lacking. If I actually used this as a phone I'd look like I teleported from 1994. (To see why, check out this photo of the phone in someone's hand.)

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How about a 40-hour laptop battery?

Unbelievable isn''t it? A laptop battery that can keep your laptop going for 40 hours! Yes, research is underway at Stanford Tech to develop a hi-tech lithium ion battery that can juice up your laptop for 40 hours, keeping those charging woes at bay for a longer period.

Apparently, the new battery uses a discarded technology that has been been revamped by Professor Yi Cui and team - silicon anodes in the form of nanowires for charging. This technology was earlier abandoned as the silicon expands up to 400 times when charged, exploding the battery in the process. Using silicon in the form of nanowires eliminates this danger.

So when can you start rejoicing? In a "few years time" is all the information we have at this moment.

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Remote control Hummer H3: no driver needed

Full Size Hummer But Remote Control
Here's one that's sure to chap the hides of eco-warriors everywhere: An engineering lecturer from a university in the U.K. has converted a full-size Hummer H3 into a remote controlled toy.

So those folks who get bent out of shape when they see people commuting alone in ginormous SUVs will really love the idea of a Hummer that can pollute without anyone in the car. Now that's progress.

James Brighton from Britain's Cranfield University converted the new right-hand drive version of the H3 in about a month's time. No doubt it's certainly an impressive feat of engineering; the car can climb a 16-inch vertical wall and operate in up to two feet of water.

The press release sent out to journalists touts the creation as "the ultimate boy's toy." And as a girl who's into cars, I'd normally take offense. But I admit, aside from the "wow" factor, this is one I just don't get.

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Google phone...

Dreaming of the Google phone
So far, we've only seen prototypes of a cell phone running Google's Android platform, but InfoWorld has some gossip on what the first real device might be. According to a source "close to the situation", HTC may become the first company to manufacture an Android device. Yet it also appears that Samsung, which also is a member of the Open Handset Alliance, is not far behind.

Details are slim but the source reported the following specs. The HTC device will be called the "Dream" and will be about 5 inches long by 3 inches wide. What's more, it will feature an alphabetic keyboard that will either slide or swivel out from under the display. There isn't much more to tell at the moment, but the above details match rumors that Forbes reported last year. We apologize that we can't offer any photos of the Dream but we can give you a look at an Android prototype that we examined last month at the GSMA World Congress. See the video for more details.

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Network Solutions shutters anti-Islam film site

Network Solutions has suspended a Web site that a Dutch lawmaker was using to promote a yet-to-be-released film critical of Islam.

The Web hosting service said it was investigating whether content on the site--Fitnathemovie.com--was in violation of the hosting service's Acceptable Use Policy.

The 15-minute movie, called Fitna--an Arabic word that means "test of faith in times of trial"--describes Islam as "the enemy of freedom," according to comments made by Geert Wilders, a Dutch lawmaker and the film's maker. Dutch officials fear the movie could spark violence, as happened after Danish newspapers published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Wilders had been using the site to promote the movie, but the site was pulled after the Web-hosting company said it received "a number of complaints" regarding the site.

"In this situation with the dialogue that's happening throughout the world we've made the choice to suspend the site as of last night," Susan Wade, spokeswoman for Network Solutions, told the Associated Press. "This site is suspended so people can't see the content right now but the customer still has access to their site. They can make whatever changes are necessary as we complete our investigation."

Wilders plans to show his film despite the setback, Dutch news agency ANP reported.

"If need be, I will personally distribute DVDs in the Dam," ANP quoted him as saying. The Dam is the central square in Amsterdam.

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You Tube Video Awards...

YouTube Awards are a major yawn

On Friday morning, YouTube announced the second annual iteration of its YouTube Video Awards. What? Awards?

The video-sharing service, owned by Google since 2006, awarded accolades in categories like "Adorable," "Creative," and "Comedy" to original videos hosted on its site that were uploaded in 2007, as voted on by users. The prizes, per YouTube, are "bragging rights, a trophy, and a special invitation to an event later this year."

Okay, so the videos are kind of amusing. The "Adorable" category winner is a video of a baby who falls over every time he laughs (wonder what'll happen when his friends find out about that in 10 years), the "Creative" winner is that "Human Tetris" thing you've seen a million times, and the "Music" winner is none other than that "Chocolate Rain" video that everyone was watching last year.

But the culture of YouTube doesn't really lend itself that well to awards. YouTube, for better or worse, is a cultural hub rather than strictly a creative outpost; there's plenty of cool, original content there, and it's no surprise that Google would want to highlight the good stuff rather than the goofy prank videos and pirated content that propelled it to the upper echelon of the Web.
Content on YouTube, however, doesn't necessarily become popular because it's high-quality or original--just look at the Rickroll phenomenon, an '80s music video that has been seen millions of times because people get a kick out of tricking their friends into watching it. Or the current hot clip, a British public service announcement with a hilarious twist.

Or, for that matter, this week's number-one YouTube video: Barack Obama's most recent speech.

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Make Ur Profile and Upload online now...

Professional networking site LinkedIn has launched the beta version of its business directory, called LinkedIn Company Profiles, with data provided by BusinessWeek and Capital IQ supplementing LinkedIn's member information. Over 150,000 companies and organizations are indexed in the directory, working it into a Hoovers-esque database that ties into LinkedIn's social features.

A LinkedIn Company Profiles page includes a number of basic statistics pulled from BusinessWeek's database, such as company size and history. But for the most part, the rest of the business' page consists of information from employees of that company who have LinkedIn profiles, like a list of "new hires" (LinkedIn members who have recently added a current affiliation with that company) and recent promotions, other businesses that have seen people hired from that company, and demographic tidbits like median age and education information.

At first glance, LinkedIn's business directory seems like it will be fairly useful for people who are looking to make connections at a given company, dig up information before interviewing for a job or accepting a position, or just looking for interesting facts. Accuracy, of course, is an issue when it comes to the data gathered from LinkedIn profiles--the networking site has 20 million members, but the workforce of one company (or even an individual branch of a larger company) may be represented far more heavily than another.

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IM+email+social Network in 1...

Digsby Now have your yahoo, IM live, paltalk, AOL buddies in one messenger open to all, adds Twitter..
Digsby, the application that lets you view your instant-message, e-mail, and social-network accounts through one interface, opened up to the public on Thursday. Download Digsby for Windows from CNET Download.com. The application also has support for popular micro-blogging application Twitter and allows real-time audio and video chat across IM networks through a partnership with TokBox. Oh, and it now offers inline spell check. WooHoo! Digsby first hit the scene in early February. It's still in beta, but now you don't need an invitation to use it. Other applications that enable you to manage multiple IM accounts include Trillian and Miranda, but Digsby goes a step further by integrating e-mail messages as well as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace communications. Then there's Fuser, which lets you view your e-mail and social-networking messages in one place, but doesn't touch IM. And Orgoo integrates e-mail, IM, SMS (Short Message Service), video chat, and video mail. It's enough to make your head spin.
Digsby, the application that lets you view your instant-message, e-mail, and social-network accounts through one interface, opened up to the public on Thursday. Download Digsby for Windows from CNET Download.com. The application also has support for popular micro-blogging application Twitter and allows real-time audio and video chat across IM networks through a partnership with TokBox. Oh, and it now offers inline spell check. WooHoo! Digsby first hit the scene in early February. It's still in beta, but now you don't need an invitation to use it. Other applications that enable you to manage multiple IM accounts include Trillian and Miranda, but Digsby goes a step further by integrating e-mail messages as well as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace communications. Then there's Fuser, which lets you view your e-mail and social-networking messages in one place, but doesn't touch IM. And Orgoo integrates e-mail, IM, SMS (Short Message Service), video chat, and video mail. It's enough to make your head spin.

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DiggSuggest tells you what...

DiggSuggest tells you what you should read on Digg

DiggSuggest is a new service created by 20-year-old Digg user who has used the service's API data feed to provide a feature the popular social news site currently doesn't: suggested readings. All you have to do is plug in your Digg username (or someone else's) and it will scour your past dugg stories to serve up suggestions for stories both popular and upcoming. The more you digg the better the results should be. Not only does it show stories, but it also groups together keywords related to the things you like. That's about all it does for now, but it's a wonderful way to discover new stories, and quite a bit more engaging than browsing the mass of stories in the upcoming section. Many people, including myself, have been waiting for Digg to get around to creating a suggested reading service. Until that happens, this is about the closest thing you can get.

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Read Msword07 file in Iexplorer without word07

Open Msword07 file in Internet Explorer without having Msword07

By following these simple steps given below you will be able to read msword 07 docs in you internet explorer without having Microsoft word 2007.

Step 1: Change the file extension of your docx file to .zip (hello.docx -> hello.zip)

Step 2: Extract the contents of this zip file locally using Winzip or any other unzip utility.

Step 3: Open the “word” folder in the extracted files and you should see a file called document.xml.

Open document.xml inside Internet Explorer and there you have the full text of your docx document.

If there are any images or charts, they’ll be available under a sub-folder called media.

Though you get to read the text without formatting, it’s still a useful technique to know.

Thanks Amit

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Live Online Tracking System Launched

At the New Tech Meetup last night Seero officially launched it new livestreaming (and recording) video service. Like UStream, it lets you broadcast live from a Webcam or record shows for later playback. But it also records location and syncs it to video. That opens up some new capabilities for video producers and for advertisers. For live online news videos, this is a killer feature, especially if the viewer has the options of selecting from several cameras. And imagine it for sports - bicycle racing, golf, sailing, etc. (Remember Quokka? They could have used this.) Seero doesn't just display location: It pulls up relevant location-based data and links in a separate window. The service also works well for travel videos, with links to nearby attractions showing up in the related information box as the video plays.

The Seero founders, all three of whom shared the stage during the the New Tech pitch, say they've designed the service for event-based video, not for lifecasting. That's good, since watching someone through their hat-cam is weird enough; knowing exactly where they are at all times would be just creepy, and dangerous for the presenter.

The revenue model for Seero is under development, but location-based advertising is obviously the main opportunity for the service.

Seero works best when the recording service is run on a PC that has a connection to a GPS device. We saw at the demo a small rig based on an OQO ultra-mobile PC, a Web cam, and Bluetooth GPS receiver. That's an expensive rig, unfortunately, so at the moment only the most devoted broadcasters are likely to create Seero videos and shows. Support for GPS-equipped mobile phones is forthcoming.

The technology desperately needs to be exportable to publishers' own sites. There are limited branding a skinning capabilities in this first release; a full API is needed, so content producers can use the technology without having to shunt viewers to the Seero site itself.

Unfortunately I don't see Seero as a strong consumer play. Notwithstanding the leading-edge geocoding technology and the inviting site, the livestreaming market is crowded. And once geocoding hardware becomes pervasive, I bet that every livestreaming service will begin to record and display geo data. Seero may be able to sell a suite of geo-location and video technologies to professional video production sites, though. It's not as sexy a play as a consumer video destination site, but the pro market might actually have some paying customers in it.

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Diigo:Research and knowledge-sharing community

Diigo is a powerful research tool and a knowledge-sharing community

Diigo provides a browser add-on that can really improve your research productivity. As you read on the web, instead of just bookmarking, you can highlight portions of web pages that are of particular interest to you. You can also attach sticky notes to specific parts of web pages. Unlike most other web "highlighters" that merely clip, Diigo highlights and sticky notes are persistent in the sense that whenever you return to the original web page, you will see your highlights and sticky notes superimposed on the original page, just what you would expect if you highlighted or wrote on a book!

Moreover, all the information -- highlighted paragraphs, sticky notes, and the original url -- are saved on Diigo servers, creating your personal digest of the web, your own collection of highlights from the web - ones that are meaningful to you! You can easily search, access, sort and share this collection from any PC or even iphone. More about Diigo

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FaceBook now in BlackBerry...

Facebook for BlackBerry
You won't be able to turn friends into zombies or chuck sheep in their general direction, but with Facebook for BlackBerry, you will be able to perform all the basic Facebook maneuvers you need to keep up with your friends and keep your profile up to date.

So long as your carrier is supported and you've set up your Facebook profile to receive messages on your mobile phone, you'll be able to send and receive messages, poke pals (the normal way, not the fancy way), and peruse friends' profiles.

Be warned that there's a lot of data shuffling back and forth, and the app doesn't scrimp on photos, so data transfers can be potentially slow. Also, there will be no taking advantage of third-party Facebook apps with this BlackBerry build; though what you lose in making your Scrabulous move, you partially regain in the ability to upload phone photos directly to your profile.
Thanks Cnet

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Broadcast your live Video now...

The Live TV Studio In Your Browser

Veodia offers the first TV-Quality live broadcasting and publishing Software as a Service (SaaS) platform. Using MPEG-4 / h.264 technology, Veodia's video broadcasting service makes it easy and inexpensive for businesses, universities, religious institutions, and even professional bloggers to broadcast high-quality live video and digitally archive content for on-demand viewing or podcasting. Business users are in search of a way to create and distribute high quality video while preserving full control and ownership of their content. Veodia's SaaS solution simplifies the process for broadcasting, publishing, and managing video content online while putting the easy-to-use tools in the hands of product managers, sales directors, and HR execs. Removing the need for IT or technical support, Veodia is a perfect tool for broadcasting video over the Internet

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