Archive for July, 2007

AOL is apparently for sale. Time Warner announced that they have upgraded the stock from Neutral to Buy.

Google Streetview cars are unveiled
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/eye-on-you/google-streetview-camera-car-fleet-set-to-invade-america-279222.php

Around the World Wide Web
Hanover Germany A German man who startled his neighbours when he hurled his computer out of the window in the middle of the night, was let off for disturbing the peace by police who sympathised with his technical frustrations.

Tech it Out
As Promised, Google are now cutting their cookies to 2 years instead of 30.

Firefox has released 2.0.0.5

X Box head Peter Moore has jumped ship over to EA

Transformers the movie is being hailed as a cgi marvel but here is a video of a real transformer presented to a Japanese audience. Very cool. http://hitslot.com/?p=111

Tech Biffo
Iran has unveiled a new game that simulates an attempt to rescue 2 iranian nuclear scientists kidnapped by the US. They claim it is a response to the game Assault on Iran. The game is called Rescue the Nuke Scientist
http://www.smh.com.au/news/games/iranian-game-promotes-sacrifice-and-martyrdom/2007/07/17/1184559749090.html

The RIAA has been ordered to pay legal fees from a case they brought against the Fosters of Oklahoma. After Capitol Records could not provide the exact details of the alleged infringement and was ordered to pay legal fees to the tune of $68,685.23

Site of the Week
www.jingproject.com visual conversation

NEWS

Sony has slashed prices on PS3 by some 17% and increased capacity from 60GB to 80GB in an attempt to compete with the Wii. The current model will be reduced by $100, the upgrade will still be $599.
Microsoft is also cutting prices in an attempt to compete with the others. No word yet as to when and how much.

It seems MSN has made some impact in search, increasing from 8.4% in May to 13.2% in June. Many are touting their move in offering prizes through the club.live.com. I personally attribute a lot of it to the fact that many users find it difficult to change the default search through Vista and IE7

WORLD WIDE WEB
MSN are claiming the crown for the largest online event in history with some 30 million (15 during the show and 15 since) views online. TV views were well beneath these numbers which has many channels concerned. Boo Hoo.

GEEK PSYCHIC has predicted a smaller, cheaper iPhone in the works. Based on the iPod Nano, this version will most likely utilize a scroll wheel priced around the $300 mark. She reports this as a false rumour.

TECH IT OUT
Its becoming an interesting race to watch MySpace v FaceBook. More rumours abound regarding the purchase of Facebook by Google.

Meanwhile apparently FaceBook is blocking gays, that is people with the surname Gay. All the gays around the world are fuming.

Geek Chick
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/07/how_to_geek_you.php

Tech Biffo
ISPs are coming under increased pressure to become the Internets Gatekeepers after a ruling in Belgium stating that they one of their ISPs has the capabilities to block or filter copyright infringing traffic on their networks and should do so in 6 months.

The iphone release is starting to die down in the news which is why I thought we should mention it. I like the folks who decided they would like to see inside. Some doing it very methodically, others prefering brute force like on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy20b7pCcrY

Around the World Wide Web
Russian music downloading site that came under immense pressure from Visa and even got the U.S government involved has shut down. According to John Kennedy of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry “If this is the end of allofmp3.com, this is good news”. Coincidentally, a new website www.mp3sparks.com launched as it closed.

In Japan, the Wii outsold Playstation 3 to 1

Tech it Out
Feedburner purchased by Google recently is now free for all. You do have to login to activate the services where you will see the message “Thank You for Using FeedBurner. You owe us $0.00″ It also includes MyBrand where you can point your URL and stats.

Google has also acquired Grand Central Communications, a service which include some interesting telecommunications function including visual voicemail, playing voicemail from computer’s and a whole slew of interesting features. For more go to www.grandcentral.com

Yahoo has been testing a SmartAds function that targets user behavior and has shown to have click thru rates some 2-3 times higher than regular advertising.

Site of the Week
I can has cheezburger. Anyone heard of it?;)