Gaza: Track This Now

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Track This Now is a great way to find out how the world's media are responding to the Gaza Strip conflict. This news site allows you to enter any search term to find out how the world is reporting on that subject.

If you enter 'Gaza Conflict' into the search box markers will appear on all the countries that have been reporting on the conflict. Clicking on a country will load all the news items from that country on the Gaza Strip into the map's sidebar.




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Girls carve out a niche in gaming

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pic:Emmanuel Dunand/AFP

The stereotypical gamer has been a twenty something male. And into guy things like sports or blowing stuff up.

This year it became clear that the stereotype just doesn't square with reality. Increasingly girls — and women — are gaming.

Nintendo's Wii became the top-selling(*) console this year in large part by appealing to women. More than half of active Wii users are female, according to Parks Associates.

The trend goes beyond the Wii. One of the fastest-growing segments in recent years has been so-called "casual" games, the card and puzzle games that can be played quickly and easily on a computer. The market for casual titles has grown to more than $2 billion, and women comprise three-quarters of the consumers who purchase the games.





*: in the United States




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"The protoblogger"

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..or The father of blogging and RSS.

Dave Winer





The outspoken, programmer is best known for co-developing Really Simple Syndication. RSS is a form of Web coding that lets users not only view content from multiple Web pages in one place, but also be notified whenever those pages change. The University of Wisconsin graduate also played a key role in developing the tools that underpin blogging and podcasting. Along the way, his barbed remarks have stirred debate and rankled foes. These days, Winer continues to develop Web software and he’s editor of Scripting News, a widely read blog.



Dave Winer http://www.scripting.com


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source: BW

School technology investments

-Providing the Right Tools


-Teaching 'Digital Natives'
We must prepare our children and our country for the future. This is an investment we can't afford to ignore.



School technology investments enable 21st-century learning and provide our current and future workforce with the tools they need to compete and succeed in our globally integrated world. To accomplish this goal, Obama's reported $850 billion Economic Recovery Plan should include two critical components:

1. Investments in school technology and broadband; and

2. Investments in home-to-school technology targeted at low-income families.

Specifically, the federal stimulus package should cover expenses for schools to install or upgrade Internet connections to broadband; hire technical and instructional technology support; and purchase or upgrade hardware, software, and services. And, the home-school investment should enable low-income families with one or more students to purchase eligible learning technology devices (computers, laptops, and other new devices) and educational software, as well as broadband Internet connections.

Short-term economic benefits of this strategy include:

1. Creation of jobs in the technology and telecommunications sectors;

2. School districts hiring technical and technology curricular staff (a vastly understaffed function today); and

3. Upgrading and retooling of school facilities and equipment (which is impossible in the current fiscal environment).

This strategy's greatest impact is that our children would receive an education that reflects the wider world, and would emerge from schooling "future ready" for higher education and our global economy.

Tokyo-Jogging

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Tokyo-Jogging is a mashup project using WiiRemote and Google Street View.





Wii Remote plus Google Maps mashup offers virtual tour of Tokyo.. A new innovative mashup cooked up by Japanese coder Ryo Katsuma mixes Google Maps with the Wii Remote to create a virtual jogging or walking experience.

His mashup takes you on a tour throughout most of Tokyo, but it's immediately clear that this mashup could be applied to any number of cities covered by Google Maps, making the world just a little smaller via virtual presence. You can find out how to create your own virtual jogging city mashup ..here



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Google to track Santa Claus

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Since 1955, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has helped track Santa Claus’s movements on Christmas Eve. Now Google is joining in the search.

Google has developed a downloadable iGoogle gadget for Google Earth to help track Santa’s movements in conjunction with NORAD, according to Google. The tool, “an enhanced 3D Santa-tracking experience,” will be available at 4 p.m. EST on Christmas Eve at noradsanta.org, wrote Carrie Farrell on Google’s corporate blog.





Is He Real?
Based on historical data and more than 50 years of NORAD tracking information, we believe that Santa Claus is alive and well in the hearts of children throughout the world.

Santa Claus is known by many names, including Saint Nick. Historians claim that the history of Santa starts with the tradition of Saint Nicholas, a 4th century Christian priest who lived in the Middle East in an area of present-day Turkey who became famous for his kindness. He was known for giving gifts to the less fortunate, sprinkling gifts of gold down people's chimneys or hiding surprises in their stockings.

It may be that the Santa we know today emerged from the legacy of Saint Nicholas. Clearly, Santa's basic approach to gift giving is strikingly similar. Could they be the same person? Only Santa Claus knows for sure.

Long before the Wright brothers flew the first airplane or the Montgolfier brothers launched the first hot air balloon, Santa had to find a way to travel from house to house at great speed. We know from our Santa Cam images that Santa’s choice for quick transportation was a herd of flying reindeer. Detailed information on these reindeer remains a elusive; we do know, however, that Santa enlisted the reindeer to help him with his worldwide mission of gift-giving. A veil of sweet mystery hides the rest.


http://www.noradsanta.org/en/home.html


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Revolutionary Technology: Electronic-Reading Device

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Previews With Revolutionary Plastic Electronics Display


-First Product Aimed Specifically at Business Users Debuts in Q2 2009





The nascent electronic reader industry is poised for explosive growth beginning in 2009. But current products in the category focus on leisure reading and ignore a large and untapped market: business users.

Differentiated by a stunning form factor (the size of 8.5 x 11-inch paper), the reader features a big readable display. Yet it’s thinner than a pad of paper, lighter than many business periodicals, and offers a high-quality reading experience - better than alternatives of paper or other electronic readers on the market today. "Research confirms professionals read much more business content than recreational content. They require access to all formats of digital content at their fingertips, and want a large readable screen".

The reader supports a full range of business document formats, such as Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint, and Adobe PDFs, as well as newspapers, periodicals and books. It has an easy gesture-based user interface and powerful software tools that will help business users to organize and manage their information. Users can connect to their information either wired or wirelessly and store thousands of documents on the device. The reader incorporates E Ink technology for great readability and features low power consumption and long battery life. The reader is scheduled to ship in the first half of 2009.

Current electronic reading devices feature small displays that are based on fragile glass screens that negatively impact their bulk, durability and weight. Plastic Logic has achieved a product that is the ideally sized for business needs and robust enough to take the push and shove of daily usage, based on its revolutionary plastic electronics display technology.




Revolutionary Technology

This display technology, first developed at Cambridge University, uses highresolution transistor arrays on flexible plastic substrates, manufactured at a low temperature. The promise of plastic electronics is to disintermediate the traditional silicon based semiconductor industry with components and products that are lighter, less expensive, and more environmentally friendly. Plastic electronics technology has broad applicability across many markets. An industry research group, estimates the plastic electronics industry will be a $30 billion market by 2015.

This is really innovating on two fronts that represent major market opportunities. They have created fundamentally advanced plastic electronics technology, enabling to develop reading devices that will transform the way we publish, distribute and consume content.





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Samsung Android Dev Team

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Samsung will release its version of the Google phone in the second quarter of 2009. The company is interested in testing out different open source platforms over the next few years and first on its list is Android.

Samsung is currently in the development process of its new Google phone. To speed up the process, they have hired 30 additional Linux and Java experts to customize the Android platform in order to function well with the sleek touch screen. The team now contains 80 members.

This will be a big test for Google. As Symbian prepares to roll out their latest open source platform, users heavily adopting the latest Samsung/Android offering may enable Google to get its foot in the door.



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Gartner’s top 10 disruptive technologies 2008-2012

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Multicore and hybrid processors
Virtualisation and fabric computing
Social networks and social software
Cloud computing and cloud/Web platforms
Web mashups
User Interface
Ubiquitous computing
Contextual computing
Augmented reality
Semantics

Social PR-related cartoon

?!?!!










source : gapingvoid

Share photos on twitter with Twitpic

Have fun!

You can post pictures to TwitPic from your phone, Twitpic API, or through the site itself.

Spacehack

Spacehack is a directory of ways to participate in space exploration, interact and connect with the space community and encourage citizen science.

Greek Riot Tagging ( #griots)

International usage of Twitter is pretty extensive, with multiple languages and character sets available. The tag #griots is being used in Greece to mobilize protester collaboration in real time through Twitter, and to tag images and video.

Rallying the ‘€700 generation‘ (the amount graduates can only hope to earn a month if they can find work- about 950 US Dollars) for change is greatly empowered both by the collaboration benefits of modern online tools, and also from an agitprop perspective.

It’s sobering to think how powerful these forces are when empowered by modern collaboration technologies, and how quickly the information stream hits the rest of the planet pretty much in real time as events unfold, in multiple languages and formats.

The positive aspects of these technologies to align people for the common good are arguably more powerful, but good news never sold newspapers and ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ has historically led on US TV News.

Interestingly, regardless of the geographical origins of international event, English appears to be the tagging language of choice, presumably because it will reach the widest online audience.

Although the media focus on the more sensational aspects of the protests by ‘extremists, idiots and provocateurs’ thousands are protesting more peacefully for change in Greece. These people, although using the same online tags and with the same core desire for change, don’t get the publicity or the international discussion engendered by more pyrotechnic and therefore photogenic activity.

Covert and overt usage of collaboration technologies is incredibly powerful, the catalyst for usage is in the motivation of the users.

Harnessing positive motivations, whether in a business setting or a public one, is the real challenge to empower force for lasting good.

source: ZDnet

Aiko Project

 With current technology it is impossible to design software and hardware to mimic all systems of life. However, they have tried the best to designing an artificial intelligence system which uses both dynamic software and hardware linked together to mimic part of human behaviour. By using Biometric Robot Artificial Intelligence Neural System (aka B.R.A.I.N.S) software together with a custom designed Humanoid (aka Aiko), they hope one day they will make an android as close to a human as much as possible.

Building a robot that will look humanoid is a very complicated but fascinating experience. The differences between robot and human are that we have feelings and emotions and robots do not. It is currently impossible to build a robot that will have the same feelings and emotions as us, but we can start by building a robot that looks human, one that can read, recognize objects, and interact with the surroundings.

Aiko has the ability to talk and interact with human (13,000+ sentences). Aiko can read books, newspapers (print font size at least 12 pts). She has the ability to solve math problems displayed to her visually. Aiko has the ability to see color patterns on the clothes you are wearing. Aiko in theory has the ability to bring you your orange juice or coffee. In other words, Aiko can distinguish between the different drinks. She can also recognize simple foods such as Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, Sandwiches and even toys. Aiko has the ability to recognize the faces of family members, or Aiko can be programmed to activate defense mode when it does not recognize the person’s face in the house such as in the case of an intruder. How advance is Aiko? When you are about to go outside, Aiko can tell you to bring an umbrella if it is going to rain or wear warmer clothes if it is windy.

Software B.R.A.I.N.S

 By using B.R.A.I.N.S software together with Aiko, we have created one of the most unique android. The software is programmed in C# and Basic, and is constantly updated. BRAINS software controls speech, reading, math, vision, colors, hearing, automation and sensors. It controls reading temperatures to face and 3-D object recognition. In other words, it is literally the brain and heart of Aiko. In additional to controlling Aiko’s functions,the software can control Robot kits such as Kondo KHR2 through voice activation, automation and basic recognition. The BRAINS software is designed to interact with the surrounding environment, process it, and record the information into its internal memory. Once the internal memory is at full capacity, the information can be transferred into the server data base. The information can be shared for current and future robots.

Internet Critical for Obama Victory

Even into the final days of the U.S. Presidential campaign, the Internet played a significant role, as it has throughout most of the season. Both presidential candidates made use of the channel to advance their respective messages, whether by outlining their positions on their websites, distributing campaign messages via video, or using online ads. Perhaps most important was the way the Internet changed the candidates' ability to fundraise in smaller increments from a much larger donor base.

In the waning days of the campaign, both candidates inundated their email lists with last minute pleas to contribute money for advertising to be used in the remaining days. It should not be much of a surprise, then, to find that the number of visitors to the candidate websites spiked in the last week. In particular, BarackObama.com peaked at 730,000 visitors in a single day on Tuesday, October 28 -- 125% higher than an average day over the preceding two months.

This was truly an historic election for reasons that are too many to count. One of the stories that is certain to go down in the annals of history was how this was the first national election where the Internet was truly front and center in determining the landscape and eventual outcome of the election. The Internet has forever changed the game of politics and I can only wonder what 2012 will have in store...


source comScore

100 million YouTube viewers in October

Online video is really taking off, according to stats firm ComScore. Not that we should be particularly surprised by that assertion. But the leader in the space, Google's YouTube, during October pulled in 100 million viewers in the U.S. for a market share of almost 40 percent.

That market share is about the same as it was this spring. But lower in the ranks, there's some change afoot. Video content hub Hulu, a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp., has edged its way into sixth place behind YouTube, Fox Interactive Media (which owns MySpace and its MySpaceTV platform), Yahoo, Microsoft, and Viacom. Rounding out the top 10 are AOL, Turner, Disney, and CBS.

source some cnet

Little Connie...Singing Over the Rainbow

No comment..

Now AdWords for iPhone and G1

Google mobile ads team is announcing a new campaign-level option that allows those of you who are AdWords advertisers to show your desktop text and image ads on the iPhone, the T-Mobile G1, and other mobile devices with full (HTML) Internet browsers. The ads can point to desktop landing pages so you don't need to create mobile landing pages or ads in mobile formats. The ads will have many of the same benefits as our standard mobile ads, such as the delivery of mobile-specific calls-to-action and reaching mobile users that are searching with their phones more than ever -- especially during the holiday season.

You may have seen ads running on the iPhone and G1 already. That's because Google Search on these devices used to show desktop results pages modified for these phones. Recently, the Google mobile team launched new results pages formatted specifically for the iPhone. Now, advertisers will be able to display ads exclusively on these mobile devices, create campaigns for them, and get separate performance reporting. If you prefer not to show your desktop ads on these phones, you can opt out and show ads only on desktop and laptop computers.

Turning the iPod Touch into a phone

The Truphone application allows users with a Wi-Fi connection to make and receive phone calls via voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP, with other iPod Touch owners, users of the Google Talk's messaging service, and customers of Truphone's Internet telephone service. The company said it expects to add the ability to handle landline calls.

The app creates a virtual keyboard on the second-generation iPod Touch to dial calls, and requires the addition of a headset and microphone.

However, Apple doesn't appear to be too threatened by Truphone; the application is available for free download at Apple's App Store.

While the app could work with any device with Wi-Fi access, the company said it has decided to focus on devices with connections to an application store.

Save energy.

A wireless sensor network in your house would automatically shut off lights and turn down heating when you leave a room. But such networks have proven costly and cumbersome. GreenPeak has developed a communication technology for wireless sensor networks that can use energy harvested from the environment rather than from batteries. It claims to be the first Wi-Fi-based controller capable of providing a maintenance-free sensor network.





Lemnis Lighting was started by Otten and Warner Philips, both great-grandsons of the founder of Royal Philips Electronics. It aims to achieve affordable zero carbon-emission lighting by using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in new ways. The company is striking deals to have its energy-saving bulbs distributed through electric companies.



source BW

Femtocell technology

A pioneer in femtocell technology, which lets mobile-phone users plug into broadband connections to improve their reception while using their handsets at home or in the office. Besides more reliable reception, users can enjoy higher-quality mobile Internet services while taking advantage of cheaper rates. Thirteen mobile operators are currently trying out the service, and three are expected to launch services in Europe by next March.



source BW

Google adds millions of newspaper pages to their archive

Thanks Google!
Greece: Where r u?



Google announced plans to scan and index the content of historical newspapers — that project just got a huge boost with the acquisition of Paper of Record’s archives.

Paper of Record started off by being the first to index the entire history of the Toronto Star newspaper in original published form. Since then, they have expanded their efforts internationally to UK, Australia, Bahamas, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Ecuador France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Mexico.

Newspapers are an excellent source of historical information, and thanks to the combined efforts of Google and Paper of Records, it will be unlocked for everyone to search and read. This shows how these companies percieve the importance of all kinds of information — be it breaking news, or hundreds of years old.

gOS Cloud

Browser based Operating system

New Dubai Airport

no comments...

Online ad estimate

eMarketer lops $1.3B off 2008 online ad estimate

Tech layoffs

Company Date How many Further reading

CBS Interactive 12/11/2008 Undisclosed All Things D: CBS Interactive/CNET Re-Org: The Complete Memo

Yahoo 12/10/2008 1,520 Yahoo pink slips issued, recruiters circling above

Electronic Arts 12/09/2008 Unknown EA lowers 2009 outlook

Sony 12/09/2008 16,000 total Sony to lay off 8,000 full-timers, 8,000 others

Netflix 12/08/2008 50 people Neflix cuts 50 tech jobs; streaming issues linger

BMC Software 12/05/2008 350; 6% AP: BMC Software to cut 350 jobs, 6% of workforce

RealNetworks 12/04/2008 130; 7% Sources: Layoffs hit RealNetworks

Viacom 12/04/2008 850; 7% Viacom lays off 7 percent of workforce

AT&T 12/04/2008 12,000; 4% AT&T lays off 12,000

Adobe 12/03/2008 600 Adobe warns of shortfall, job cuts

Carlyle Group 12/03/2008 about 100, 10% Bloomberg: Carlyle Cuts 10% of Workers, Including U.S. LBO Jobs

Sage North America 12/03/2008 150 Sage North America Reports 2008 Results

Gawker Media 12/02/2008 "a few" Gawker Media's rolling layoffs continue

Intrinsyc 12/01/2008 95; 30% 680 News: Intrinsyc cuts global workforce 30 percent

Fring 11/27/2008 10/20% Fring cuts staff by 20 percent
Technorati 11/25/2008 6/12% Technorati trims workforce, cuts pay
TiVo 11/25/2008 7 percent TiVo profits from EchoStar litigation
Palm 11/21/2008 up to 10% of 1,050 Palm orders layoffs as Apple and RIM take toll
Buzznet 11/21/2008 10/11% Valleyway: Music community Buzznet lays off 10
Lam Research 11/20/2008 600/15% Reuters: Chipmaker Lam Research cuts 600 jobs
Akamai 11/20/2008 7% Akamai to cut 7 percent of workforce
Lawson Software 11/19/2008 200/5% AP: Lawson Software shares tumble after job cuts
Pillar Data Systems 11/18/2008 150/30% SJ Mercury News: Pillar Data Systems lays off 30% of staff
KLA-Tencor 11/18/2008 900/15% SF Business Times: KLA-Tencor to cut 15% of people
Sun Microsystems 11/14/2008 6,000/15-18% Sun restructures, lays off up to 6,000
Rearden Commerce 11/14/2008 10% Valleywag: Rearden Commerce cuts 50 people
Applied Materials 11/12/2008 1,800/12% Applied Materials cutting 12 percent of workforce
National Semi 11/12/2008 330 Reuters: Nat Semi cuts revenue view, plans job cuts
Wired.com 11/11/2008 3 of 28 Wired.com trims editorial staff by 10 percent
Current Media 11/11/2008 20% Layoffs hit Al Gore's Current Media
Six Apart 11/11/2008 8% Six Apart: Changes at Six Apart
Tucows 11/11/2008 15% Restructuring at Tucows
Circuit City 11/10/2008 20% Circuit City files for bankruptcy
BitTorrent 11/10/2008 50% After a tough year, BitTorrent replaces CEO again
Insight 11/10/2008 240, 4% East Valley Tribune: Insight Enterprises lays off 240
Honeywell 11/07/2008 700 Phoenix Business Journal: Honeywell moving 700 jobs out of Phoenix
Zappos 11/06/2008 8% Letter to Zappos employees
Veoh 11/05/2008 20, 20% Veoh lays off 20 percent of workforce
LinkedIn 11/05/2008 36, 10% LinkedIn slashes 10 percent of its workforce
Cadence 11/05/2008 625, 12% Cadence Design cuts 625 jobs
Anadigics 11/05/2008 100,15% Anadigics cuts 15 percent of workforce
AMD 11/05/2008 500, 3% AMD slashes 500 more jobs
Nokia 11/04/2008 600 Hundreds of Nokia jobs under threat
THQ 11/03/2008 4-5 studios Kotaku: THQ Shuttering Four to Five Studios?
Tektronix 11/03/2008 150 Tektronix announces fresh layoffs
Spot Runner 11/03/2008 115, <30%>

Barack Obama's technology

Barrack Obama:The Innovator!

During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama used technology to organize, communicate, and raise funds in innovative ways that gave him an advantage over opponents in both the primaries and the general election. It’s clear that Obama views tech as a powerful catalyst, and with the U.S. facing an unprecedented array of economic challenges, Obama will need to use technology to drive efficiency and institutional transformation.

A part of his policy platform, Obama has stated that he plans to hire the nation’s first chief technology officer (CTO) to play quarterback in driving these changes. A CTO is typically an organization’s top engineer and focuses on outward-facing technologies, but based on Obama’s policy statements he wants to use the national CTO position to:

* Build a 21st century technology infrastructure
* Unite and lead the CIOs and CTOs of various federal agencies
* Architect innovative tech solutions to help solve big problems

As a result, Obama is going to need a visionary tech leader who can rally both technologists and standard Washington bureaucrats around a common purpose. It also wouldn’t hurt to bring in a big name — someone who already has a strong reputation that will translate into political capital.





source part from BW

Open Source: A Silver Lining in the Economic Slump

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Sales at open-source software companies are booming, even as stock prices slump and corporate IT spending plummets, Are the good times here?


The economy may be a shambles, but open-source software is doing better than ever.It provides software at a lower price than enterpraise competitors. In fact, open-source supplies the basic software for free, making money by selling support services or additional features. Its annual fees can be as much as 85% to 90% lower than its competitors. Open-source seeing more interest from companies looking to replace an older software product they can no longer afford.
This "try-before-you-buy" phenomenon is common in the open-source world, and the vendors say they don't need to keep an army of sales people because customers can easily find their products.

Budget Squeeze boosts Asterisk

The demand for Open Source's wares reflects companies' increasingly urgent search for low-priced alternatives to products no longer supported by shrinking IT budgets. Corporate software purchasing in the current quarter is undergoing its sharpest decline ever. The economic slump is fueling a miniboom in open source open source. Four open-source vendors said in interviews that they've posted record third quarters, and most are optimistic that the current quarter will bring more gains. But downloads of a free software don't bring in much money unless customers also opt for support services or added features, such as security enhancements. At publicly traded open-source companies, rising sales don't necessarily result in a climbing share price.

Open-Ended Growth?

Despite near-term interest in open-source alternatives, many investors remain concerned about the long-term growth prospects of open-source software. There's still plenty of room for growth.




Source: parts from BW

STARZ OPENING

STARZ OPENING
This event is planned to start at 11:00 pm on Dec 4, 2008 at Thiseio.

More http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=513371571&k=XXG43VTX4V6M5GC1UK25Q3

Targeting...

...

“Location-based Mobile Ad: A Lesson From Japan”

“Location-based Mobile Ad: A Lesson From Japan”, presentation of a thriving location-based mobile advertising company based in Tokyo.



“heat map” of mobile ad impressions in Tokyo


The picture they presented sounded like a forecast of the Future in 10 years time… However it is Japan’s reality, right now. So here are the figures:

- 90% of the subscribers use the mobile web;
- 90% will be on 3G by the end 2008;
- At the Present, almost 1/2 are GPS enabled phones;
- The Mobile commerce market has hit 10B USD*

It is predictable that TV watching (w/ digital TV tuner) and video sharing will soon become a top mobile entertainment. You Tube on mobile and Nico Nico Video Sharing are already becoming a clear trend.

IC wallets are being integrated with mobile phones by default. This mobile electronic payment method already has 28.5 million subscribers (as of Mar 31, 2008) and is accepted in Public transportations, supermarkets and vending machines.

So why did this market grow so rapidly in Japan?
A combination of broad coverage of 3G network, flat-rate data plans and a bigger influence of the operators upon mobile ecosystem than in GSM markets did the trick.

Regarding the mobile ad market, the latest trends clearly promote the mobile ad market expansion:
- A new governmental regulation imposed GPS for all 3G phones by default (for security reasons);
- Top 2 operators have integrated Google as default search (thus enabling Google AdWords revenue);
- Massive growth of “non-official” sites (the Long Tail effect on mobile content).

The forecast for overall Mobile Ad Spending in Japan is 1.284 million USD by 2011.**

Sponsored listings and Location-based mobile ads are growing rapidly, due to:
- Strong publisher network in Japan;
- Proved performance for advertisers (Local Ads have 395% Greater CTR*** than Non-Local Ads);
- Proved performance for publishers (Local Ads have 826% Greater CPM*** than Non-Local Ads).

The most successful categories of advertisers are: Food & Restaurant, Educational Institutions, Local Jobs and Employment, Educational Institutions, Beauty salons and Car dealers.

*Source: Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications
**Source: DentsuInc., 2007
***CTR:Click-through rate
CPM:Cost per mille

Interviewing an hologram!

Two technologies spotted on CNN during Elections 08 season




...

Facebook Demographics

Who’s really on Facebook?

(22/11) YouTube LIVE Event..

DONE!

This is THE FUTURE...
YouTube...you change the world!
CONGRATULATIONS!!!







































Now Live...


Just another innovation from Google..!

Top 10 tips for green IT

Top 10 ways to cut energy use and green up your business technology.

The IT industry is currently responsible for around two per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. That’s the same as the aviation industry, but IT’s emissions are growing at a much faster rate. BT alone uses 0.7 per cent of the UK's electricity supply.

Reducing the environmental impact of an IT department is no easy task, and the effectiveness of many common strategies is dubious, to say the least. Carbon offsetting, for example, may appease customers and give the marketing department something to show off, but the real-world benefits are debatable. So, what can be done? Here are ten strategies that really work.

1. Teleconferencing

Teleconferencing has been around for decades, and videoconferencing has come on leaps and bounds in the last few years. Despite this, though, tens of thousands of people fly to meetings abroad every day.

The benefit of face-to-face conversation is undeniable, but modern, high-definition videoconferencing has brought remarkable clarity to what was once a flaky technology, and the price is falling rapidly.

For international companies, investment in multiple videoconferencing rooms – or just renting the rooms from could save hundreds of tons of carbon emissions every year, and pay for itself in travel savings within a year. Overall IT spending and energy consumption may rise, but the bigger picture reveals significant savings.

2. Ditch paper

The phrase "paperless office" is inextricably linked with 1970s ‘Tomorrow’s World’ episodes, but the idea has made little progress towards the mainstream. The undeniable fact is that people still work with print outs everyday, and printers are one of the biggest offenders as far as office energy users go.

Around 40 per cent of those currently in use need to be manually turned off, but regularly aren't. Paper is also an environmentally-draining product, requiring the felling of trees and the use of huge quantities of bleach. Sourcing recycled paper, making duplex printing the default, and investing in printers that automatically power down are easy first steps.

Better still, a PIN-based collection system encourages staff to only print what is necessary and keeps logs to highlight heavy-use areas.

3. E-documents and online tools

Another approach is to reduce the need for staff to print documents at all, by making online experiences better. Internal tools, if badly designed, will steer people towards paper alternatives, so design them better. For example, holiday request forms are printed out in their hundreds every year in most offices, only to be read by HR, entered into a database and disposed of. A one-off investment in a well-designed online tool – possibly built into the existing intranet – will eventually yield large savings, and the same can easily apply to customer facing services.

4. Consolidated data centers

Large companies usually have geographically distributed data centers, which can be inefficient because of the duplicated overheads involved. One data center will use less power than two running the same amount of hardware, as lighting and cooling costs will be lower – all areas the British Computer Society is investigating with the Carbon Trust.

Consolidation also makes maintenance and installation of new hardware easier, and cuts down on the need for support staff to travel, further reducing energy use. Of course, centralized hardware can be seen as placing all your eggs in one basket, but off-site backup firms can easily solve this problem.

5. Visualization

Visualization is booming in popularity, and it’s easy to see why, as it offers cost reductions in the server room and simplifies maintenance. One of the biggest advantages, though, is in energy savings. By reducing the number of servers needed, and making more efficient use of the ones that are left running, your company can cut down on energy bills and cooling. It’s estimated that for every pound spent on hardware from an IT budget, 50 pence is spent on cooling and energy costs, so this can easily add up.

Currently, the average server uses less than 55 per cent of its potential, and with dual core processors becoming the norm this is only going to get worse, as many applications are ill-equipped to take advantage of multiple cores. Visualization leader VMware claims that the average consolidation ratio is 10 to one – a single server can run the workload of ten standard servers as virtual machines. Virtual machines can even be moved from one server to another in real time, so even more servers can be shut off at night or during holidays when demand decreases.

6. Home working

Home working is an idea that has gained a lot of momentum since the wide-scale adoption of home broadband. With almost all office work now done on a PC, it's possible for staff to sign in and work seamlessly, no matter where they are.

This has several benefits. The demand for space and power in the office will go down, saving significantly in rent and utility charges.

But there’s an ulterior motive, too. BT admitted in a recent investigation of home-working that 60 per cent of the time employees saved by not having to travel, they ended up giving back by working extra hours. And Microsoft has recently found in a separate study that home working can save employees £500 a year.

Whatever the true motivation, in the next few years employers will further embrace the idea that work is an activity, not a building.

7. Server rooms

As the cost of running and cooling servers is so high, huge energy savings can be made by making the server room more efficient. The more time and money invested in this, the greater the savings, but small changes can be put into practice immediately.

For a start, most server rooms are brilliantly lit, all day, every day, for no reason. Installing motion-sensitive lighting can, over long periods of time, reduce a company’s energy use considerably.

Closing any leaks in air conditioning systems can also help, and companies can be brought in to monitor airflow and make suggestions on new layouts that will make greater use of the cooling power you already have, by identifying any hot spots.


8. Desktops and the grid

There’s a huge computing resource that almost all companies have, and few take full advantage of: user’s desktops. Most of the day, these machines are barely idling – checking email and writing documents barely taxes a modern processor, and there are times when they’re not used at all.

Some companies are starting to make use of all those spare cycles, such as Dresdner Kleinwort.

“The cost of supercomputers isn’t very economical and isn’t very scalable,” says David Doherty, one of the company’s developers. “Every single computer in every office location is hooked up to the bank’s network and has a small piece of software installed on it that allows it to communicate with the grid. This software does absolutely nothing until someone logs off their machine or the screensaver comes on while the employee goes out for a pub lunch. At this point, the grid sends it a bunch of files with an executable that is run on the machine.”

9. Turn it off

Assuming you’re not making use of desktop power during the night, those machines need to be switched off. Asking employees to turn off their desktops is one of the least effective ways of making this happen – people forget, or are too lazy to do it.

One way around this is to force it. Set all machines to power down unless active at a certain time in the evening, or by using automatic remote shutdown tools.

The Government itself is thinking of doing this – and expects to save £10 million a year in energy costs.

10. Think holistically

The final thing that companies should do to save power is think on a holistic level, and investigate unusual ways to save energy.

HP recently spent time redesigning a desktop case, which involved an initial outlay in research and design and retooling overheads. However, within a month, the more efficient design saved the equivalent of the Eiffel Tower in steel.

It's important that companies approach reducing the environmental impact of their operations on a wider scale - providing home desktops and broadband connections for employees may seem like an expensive overhead, but could yield huge savings in real estate rental and utility charges, not to mention reducing the carbon footprint of each employee by reducing their need to travel.

Apps management to buck IT spending slide

New analyst research is predicting that applications management will be one of the strongest areas of IT services spending during the next three years, despite the economic downturn.


Spending on applications management services in Western Europe will exceed €9 billion (£7.6 billion) in 2009, according to a new study from IT services researcher. It said applications management would be one of the few areas to dodge the widely predicted contraction in IT spending due to ongoing, global economic uncertainty, as enterprises look to reduce their operating costs, rationalize their applications estates and improve their software processes.

Applications management will remain a robust area of spending for organizations during the current economic downturn, as it can offer a way to reduce operating costs without the commitment and sourcing complexity of a large outsourcing engagement.

Applications Management in Europe – A Buyer’s Guide defined application management as the maintenance and enhancement of existing applications, as well as initial development work. The report made a distinction between application management and application outsourcing, when a supplier takes responsibility for managing the entire application chain including the server and operating system.

It advised those looking to find an applications management provider to look for one offering transparent pricing that includes a breakdown of saving through labor arbitrage; additional savings and service improvement methods; and proactive evaluation and improvement of the service in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and flexibility.

It also recommended establishing how secure the supplier’s current and future financial positioning is and considering, as a result, whether or not to commit to a multi-year deal.

Those suppliers that are able to go beyond simple labor arbitrage savings will be best placed to deliver long-lasting value in terms of process improvement, industrialization and resource optimization.

The application management suppliers that will succeed in the current market will be those that can deliver a ‘blended’ service combining onshore customer intimacy, as well as cost effective offshore skills.


source ITpro

Google and LIFE's Image Library

LIFE has provided a pictorial tapestry of American history. Through a new collaboration with Google, many of the iconic images captured by LIFE are now available through Google's Image Search function.

Many of the images made available today have never been published online before. This effort to bring offline images online was inspired by Google's mission to organize all the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. This collection of newly-digitized images includes photos and etchings produced and owned by LIFE dating all the way back to the 1750s.

Google and LIFE have digitized about 20 percent of LIFE's vast catalog of images. Google is still working to bring the entire catalog online. It says the effort, which includes some 10 million images, will take several more months to complete.

The landing page for the LIFE collection lets users browse through pictures by decade, as well as by people, places, events, sports and culture. I quickly looked at some great photos of Louis Armstrong playing the trumpet, Times Square throughout the years, and famous moments from the history of baseball. Many of the pictures are accompanied by information such as the time, date, and place and/or circumstances under which the photo was taken.

Users can look at full-size, full-screen version of each image by clicking on the picture itself in the landing page. Of course, they are all for sale if you want them. Even if you're not interesting in buying any of them, it's worth taking a look at LIFE's pictorial montage of history.


http://images.google.com/hosted/life