shorts on SWiK

Chrome Hands-On Review

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:01:35 -0700

OStatic has put Google’s new open-source browser, Chrome, through its paces. While it found Chrome to have a clean interface — and to deliver on its promise of working efficiently with numerous tabs open — OStatic notes the power Firefox still gets from the large collection of useful extensions with which it works. Chrome is built to be extensible in interesting ways, but it will need to play catch-up with Mozilla.

5 Devices That Spell Trouble For Your Comcast Bandwidth Cap

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:00:15 -0700

Comcast’s new 250 GB bandwidth cap is that, as Om points out, is metered without a meter — Comcast doesn’t provide you with a central tally of all your data use. The company instead suggests its customers install bandwidth metering software on their machines and then add up the numbers. Got multiple home machines consuming data every day? Better bust out that spreadsheet — and get ready for some wild guesstimates. After all, you can’t just install a bandwidth metering application on your Slingbox. For a rundown of five innocent-looking devices that could get you in trouble with Comcast, head over to NewTeeVee.

Solar Map: Over 30 Big Solar Projects in the Works

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:11:51 -0700

U.S. Utilities are increasingly adding solar to their power portfolios as a way to meet state mandates that call for a percentage of renewable power. So far we’ve counted more than 30 utility-scale — we’re saying one megawatt or greater — solar projects that are in various stages of development across the U.S. Big solar is only going to get bigger. Check out the map and read the full story over at Earth2Tech.

What Do You Want in a Mac Netbook?

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:11:49 -0700

Rumors about small devices that run Mac OS X are a dime a dozen most days. Putting aside for a moment the question of what we might see from Cupertino, James Kendrick and Kevin Tofel converse on what they’d like to see out of an Apple netbook — in terms of pricing, size, weight and performance. For the full debate, head over to jkOnTheRun.

Attention UK SMS Twitter Users….

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:13:58 -0700

Quite a few people are complaining about Twitter’s decision to stop updates via SMS in the UK because it was proving to be too costly. (Actually it is a decision that impacts everyone who is not in US, Canada or India.) Sarah Lacy says they should stop whining. Instead they should check out this new service, Zygotweet, that will allow you to buy credits (between 4-to-5 p per message), and get your tweets to your mobiles.

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Kevin Rose’s Next Startup to be Cleantech?

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:05:54 -0700

Could Kevin Rose be latest convert from info tech to cleantech? In a recent video blog post, the Digg founder fleshed out an idea for making managing the power consumption of your home’s many gadgets a little more eco-friendly and way more gizmo-geeky. The idea combines ideas that startups like Tendril and Green Plug are already working on but adds a location-based twist. Not only will your devices be remotely controllable, Rose proposes, but the system will ping the GPS in your phone to find out if you’ve gone out and turn off the lights you left on. Keep reading at Earth2Tech.

SDForum Corporate Innovation and Research Fair

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:06:08 -0700

SDForum will celebrate the innovation processes at Silicon Valley tech companies at its first annual Corporate Innovation and Research Fair this Friday, Aug. 15, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. Companies including HP, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and Sun will present their learning lessons and best practices in an effort to strengthen an open, collaborative exchange with the entrepreneurial community. Go here to register for the event, for which GigaOM is a media partner.

RoofRay Launches the Zillow of Solar

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:06:03 -0700

What do you get when you cross Zillow and Lending Tree? Online solar clearinghouse RoofRay. The site, created by entrepreneur Chris Bura, launched this morning; it offers users satellite imagery and drawing tools based on Google maps to help solar fans find and buy the best solar rooftop solutions. Cause you know you don’t want to buy a house that’s got poor solar potential. Read the full story over at Earth2Tech.com.

SingTel Buys Growth

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:05:43 -0700

Let’s pretend for a moment that you operate a wireless phone company for a relatively small country that’s packed with mobile phones. Sure, you’ll focus on increasing data revenue, but if you’re smart, you’ll buy into growing operators in other countries, too. That’s how SingTel, the carrier whose home market has about 4.6 million people (and 5.6 million mobile phones), does it. The company added 182,000 new customers in Singapore in the second quarter of this year, lifting its total base there to 2.75 million subscribers. Meanwhile, in countries including India, Pakistan, Australia and Bangladesh, SingTel saw its customers grow by 42 percent, to a total of 70.76 million subscribers.

Vatata: Chinese P2P TV Coming to Set-Top Boxes

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 18:11:49 -0700

Chinese P2P solutions provider Vatata, whose similarly named P2P streaming platform Vakaka we wrote about last year, has developed a set-top box solution to bring a Joost-like P2P TV experience to the living room. It provides access to both the company’s own P2P network for live streaming video as well as public P2P networks and protocols such as Emule, Gnutella and BitTorrent for media downloads. Continue Reading.

Faster Web Pages Makes Users Happy

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:11:30 -0700

I can’t believe that in this age of Twitter, 24-hour news cycles and always-on access, anyone needs to point out that slow web sites alienate customers, but just in case, there’s an interview at Royal Pingdom with Steve Souders, who works at Google on web site performance and is the creator of YSlow software, which measures web site performance. It’s a nice reminder that there are many links in the chain that create a user’s web experience, and it focuses on what developers and site designers can do to make pages load faster.

Dell Offers HPC Systems in Europe

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:15:20 -0700

Dell has launched a pilot program to provide high-performance computing systems to European universities and other organizations. The market for high-performance computing servers grew 15.5 percent in 2007 to reach a record $11.6 billion, according to IDC. It’s not a completely random venture for Dell, which has 25 computers on the Top 500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers, but it is an example of the computer giant chasing growing markets. We’ll see if this pilot makes its way stateside.

Bill Gates Trash Talks Bill Gates

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:13:30 -0700

Bill Gates has so much money that pieces of his empire of investments are in conflict — over trash hauling. So like any emperor, he’s mediating a hostile takeover battle in the form of an unwanted attempt to snag Republic Services by Waste Management, the king of trash hauling, and of which Gates’ personal retirement fund owns 2.3 percent. Funny thing is, Gates’ Cascade Investment also owns a 15 percent stake in Republic. What does Bill want? It seems to be a bigger payout from WMI for Republic. Read the whole story on Earth2Tech.com.

Cleantech Investors Back Obama Over McCain

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 09:04:58 -0700

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s green energy platform has gained him fans among that industry’s most powerful players — its investors. According to a presidential campaign donation database, the investors backing cleantech companies are backing Obama as well, putting six times the amount of money into his coffers vs. those of John McCain. Read the full story on Earth2Tech.com

FCC Rules Against a Baby Bell

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:59:25 -0700

Not only did the FCC decide on Friday to berate Comcast for messing with P2P traffic, but apparently it showed no love to Qwest, either, denying Qwest’s request for forbearance in four cities. Qwest had sought the right to stop charging competitive telecommunications carriers wholesale rates for access to its network in Phoenix, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Denver and Seattle, saying the area was now competitive. Kevin Martin, chairman of the FCC and the carrier’s biggest fan, disagreed. Maybe he’s tired of being the industry’s lapdog.

14 Things Corporations Can Learn from Seasoned Web Workers

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 07:57:11 -0700

As travel costs continue to rise, big corporations are looking for alternate ways to get their employees in front of one another, including investing big bucks in things like teleconferencing systems. But while the giants are just waking up to this new world of distributed and remote work, web workers everywhere have already spent years perfecting it. And Web Worker Daily has consolidated the knowledge gleaned from those years into a 14-point prescription.

Wireless HD Gets a New Standard Effort

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 05:55:06 -0700

Israeli chip startup Animon, which is pushing a form of whole-home, uncompressed wireless HD, has teamed up with Sony, Samsung, Sharp, Hitachi and Motorola to create the WHDI special interest group. Animon already has products out on the market to offer wireless HD using the same 5 GHz spectrum used by Wi-Fi. But the SIG should give both the company and its technology a boost as it fights off rival wireless HD standards and attempts to make delivering content from PCs to TVs easier. To read more about the technology and how it could cause problems for ISPs, check out our coverage on NewTeeVee.

AMD Won’t Offer Netbook Chips

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:55:00 -0700

AMD isn’t going after the mobile Internet device market that Intel and other chip vendors are eying. AMD’s senior VP and chief marketing officer, Nigel Dessau, told eWeek, “What we are saying is that we are a smaller company and we have to focus on what we do well at this point. We are watching that segment rather than playing in it, but as it matures we’ll see where it goes.” Sounds like a good plan for AMD, which already has chips that might work for Netbooks and needs to focus on righting itself.

Tesla Opening a Silicon Valley Store Next Week

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:47:44 -0700

Electric car startup Tesla Motors has raised more than $100 million in funding from Silicon Valley venture firms and has its roots in the Valley’s entrepreneurial culture. So it should come as no surprise that next week, on July 22, the company will open its second store in Menlo Park, Calif. At the location near Stanford University, Tesla will not only sell and service its vehicles, but also carry out the final assembly on them…Read more on Earth2Tech.

Viacom Now After YouTube Employee Info?

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:48:07 -0700

The latest skirmish in the ongoing Viacom v. YouTube billion-dollar lawsuit battle is over how YouTube employees used their own site. It’s been a nutty couple of weeks for the high-profile case. First a federal judge ordered YouTube to hand over its user data to Viacom. Then Google asked to have user identifying information stripped out. Viacom denied it ever asked for that data (it did) and then said it didn’t want user information after all. Still with us? Now the news is that Viacom wants YouTube employee user information. If the media conglomerate can show that employees were aware of or upoloaded copyrighted material to the site, YouTube could lose its protection under the DMCA. [Full Story on NewTeeVee]

Viacom Denies It Wants YouTube Data

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:52:02 -0700

On a day when iPhone app madness has swept the planet (or planet blog at least), there is a bunch of news involving YouTube. First - Viacom today issued a statement about recent court ruling that ordered YouTube to hand over its user data to the media giant. Except they are lying and so wanted the data. In other YouTube news, Liz Gannes reports that YouTube is going to allow geosearching its videos which should help with local search. On the bad news front, looks like they will be able to monetize only 4% of their videos.

The Pirate Bay Wants to Encrypt the Entire Internet

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:53:17 -0700

The team behind the popular torrent site The Pirate Bay has started to work on a new encryption technology that could potentially protect all Internet traffic from prying eyes. The project, which is still in its initial stages, goes by the name “Transparent end-to-end encryption for the Internets,” or IPETEE for short. It tackles encryption not on the application level, but on the network level, the aim being that all data exchanged on your PC would be encrypted, regardless of its nature — be it a web browser streaming video files or an instant messaging client. Continue Reading the story on NewTeeVee.

NVCA Discovers That Most VCs Are White Males

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:53:34 -0700

The National Association of Venture Capitals released a demographic study today that was pretty anticlimactic. They discovered that venture capitalists in charge of investing money were white (88 percent) and male (86 percent.) But the trade organization was encouraged by the fact that 81 percent of junior venture capitalists (senior associates and associates) were weren’t white, leading to hopes that the VC population overall will become more diverse.

In the meantime, if you’re a member of a minority you’re far more likely to achieve the exalted general partner or managing director status if you have a PhD. Almost a quarter of non-whites and 81 percent of those born outside of the U.S. earned Masters or PhDs, compared with 62 percent of whites and 61 percent of U.S.-born VCs. As a friend of mine put it, if you can walk on water, you’re in. Nice.

User:giggleberries

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:51:33 -0700

Giggleberries is the owner of giggleberries.co.uk who is an online retailer of the latest in designer men’s underwear who offer free worldwide delivery on all leading brands of mens underwear in quality fabrics and styles from boxer shorts, boxer briefs, trunks, thongs, briefs and g-strings.

We only stock what our sales reps tell us are selling.

Is YouTube Killing Video Originality?

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:52:48 -0700

??The promise of web video was that cheap cameras, easy editing software and free online distribution would open up new vistas of creativity. Instead we???re just seeing the same things, mostly parodies, over and over. Some are just recycling the same ideas. It???s just becoming faster and easier, which is spawning more of it, as people chase video views on YouTube. Continue Reading.

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly of $7 Gas

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:54:25 -0700

Imagine what it would be like if gas were $7 a gallon, or three and a half times the price at the beginning of last year. According to CIBC World Markets analyst Jeff Rubin, unless something gives, that’s what we can expect two pay — in less than two years time. Earth2Tech has the full story.

No-Contract iPhone Found in AT&T Press Release

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:54:23 -0700

If you want a 3G iPhone without an AT&T contract, you can get one. Eventually. For $599 for the 8 GB version or $699 for the 16 GB version. That’s a 200 percent markup over the $199 price tag for the 8 GB version with a contract. AT&T isn’t providing details yet on when this hoped-for option will be offered (will it look like the SIM card plan?), or if the iPhone is unlocked, but a spokesman said all will be revealed before the July 11 launch.

Dash Express Gets Twitter App

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:49:32 -0700

At first we were scratching our heads over the idea that the Dash Express, an Internet-connected navigation device, has a Twitter app — given how stupid texting while driving is. Surely tweeting while driving would fall under that category? However, the Twitter app for the Dash merely sends out a tweet telling your followers where you are and provides a link on a map. There are almost 30 other Dash apps that the company talked about today, including useful ones that provide route-specific coffee shops or local crime data.

Microsoft to Acquire Powerset?

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:58:24 -0700

Microsoft has agreed to buy Silicon Valley-based semantic search engine Powerset for over $100 million, VentureBeat is reporting today, a move that will apparently be announced next month. Powerset’s search technology uses the open-source, cluster-based technology Hadoop, which provides fast answers to queries by using the resources of many computers. And of course, Microsoft has been very focused on shoring up its search offerings. For more, head over to OStatic.

Can Power Grid Be Hacked?

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:58:59 -0700

A smarter network doesn’t necessarily mean a safer network, or so goes the thinking when it comes to the new intelligent power grid. It is seen as an increased security risk. It has been rumored that Chinese paramilitary hackers have taken tried to take down parts of the U.S. power grid and caused blackouts. Former CIA director-turn-venture-capitalist James Woolsey asked a panel of energy experts at the Google/Brookings plug-in electric vehicle conference in Washington this month what is being done to address this threat. We wanted to know too so we asked some smart grid startups. The threat is real, they say, and the solution is IP. Continue reading at Earth2Tech and watch the video.