Planet Noori

Yesterday we reported on the outlandish iphone 3G pricing plans of Vodafone New Zealand, which is charging up to $250 per month for data plans and $1129 local currency for the 16 GB phone by itself - a far cry from the $199 Steve Jobs was promoting last month. But Vodafone NZ is not the only telecoms carrier to be rubbing its hands together like a greedy fly in anticipation of the iPhone 3G launch. Here are details of other global plans...

In the US, iSmashPhone has a good summary:

The iPhone 3G will cost $199 (8GB) and $299 (16GB) if:

* You are an AT&T customer and are eligible for an upgrade

* You already have an iPhone

* You are a new customer signing a first time 2 year contract with AT&T

If you don't fall under any of the above 3 criteria, then you will pay $399 (8GB) and $499 (16GB). Again, so much for the $199!

Canadian vendor Rogers has a range of capped data plans, from 400MB for the cheapest service plan ($60 Canadian or $59.23 U.S.) to 2GB for the most expensive ($115 Canadian or $113.64 U.S.).

In the UK, according to a thorough report of global plans by Seeking Alpha:

O2 is the exclusive carrier in the UK. They'll be offering the iPhone in 4 plans. At the entry level, customers will pay a monthly fee of £30. That will buy them 75 minutes of talk time, 125 text messages, and unlimited data. The subsidized cost of the phones will be £99 (8GB) and £159 (16GB).

For those looking to spend more, the tiered plans will escalate in fees to £35, £45 and £75 a month. At the top end, £75 plan, customers will get the phone (8Gb or 16GB) free. They'll receive 3000 minutes of talk time, 500 texts and unlimited data. All of the plans will require an 18 month contract.

Meanwhile in Australia, they are lucky to have two telcos offering the iphone 3G -- so there is some competition. Again according to Seeking Alpha:

Australian mobile carrier Optus will be offering both post-paid and pre-paid options. Pre-paid, the phone will cost $729 AU (8GB) and $849 AU (16GB) plus usage. For those opting to buy monthly service contracts there will be seven different plans. They'll start at $19/month for 100MB of data and $50 of calls. The highest plan will provide 1GB of data and $1500 of calls, text and more for $179AUS a month.

Telstra (TLS, which will also be offering the iPhone in Australia, announced its iPhone plans on June 30th. Their plans will start at $30 per month "with an upfront cost of $279 for the 8GB model and $399 for the 16GB model." Customers paying $80 a month will get the 8GB phone free. Those paying $100month can choose to get either model at no cost. All plans include free Wi-Fi access at Telstra hotspots and require a 24-month contract.

Check out Seeking Alpha for pricing plans in other countries.

Conclusion

The upshot is that there's a wide variety of pricing plans on offer globally, each with their own clauses and fine print to assess.

But one thing is for sure, telcos worldwide are expecting to cash in big time on the iphone 3G. The iPhone is one of the best devices on which to experience the Mobile Web, so it's disappointing that telcos are still making it so expensive to do. No wonder the Mobile Web never seems to take off.

Today was a weird / exciting day for virtual worlds. This morning, a virtual-world startup called Vivaty launched a room-building product that lets you chat with your friends on AIM or Facebook. Mid-day, IBM and Second life announced a partnership that allows people to roam between the two “worlds”. Now Google enters the picture with Lively. In my humble opinion, this is huge.

Now I’m not a fan, or user, of virtual worlds. I did try Second Life for a few minutes but quickly gave up because the engine is bad, and quite honestly I’m not a big fan of spending hours living the life of a fictional character. There’s people partying on there all day, I’m sure, but if I want to do some of that, I’ll definitely do it with no keyboards attached.

On Lively

But Lively is interesting. One, it is from Google, which has enough online properties to really explore this market. Think about Blogger and Orkut. Now think about the possibilities of allowing people to have rooms where they can engage with their friends in a totally new (and apparently exciting) way. It is quite obvious this is big for them. Maybe it won’t mean a thing for early adopters and tech pundits, but the average young blogger will be all over this.

Moreover, this is a whole new vertical to explore in new, creative, advertising ways. Everyone knows Google loves that - it’s their business. Just imagine all the plans for in-game advertising being tested with the thousands of rooms about to be created by people with blogs about music, fashion, cinema. It’s potentially a big, big market.

I guess we’ll see how this turns out. Me, I’m impressed that Google stepped out of the box and delivered a product that people weren’t expecting. This may not be a good thing for some people, but I actually think it is a refreshing initiative. If you’re looking to read more about Lively, check out the coverage on Techcrunch and Techmeme.

Update: I totally forgot to mention one tiny detail that I’m not that happy about. Windows only? Come on now, Google. I do expect more of you guys.

O programa "SAPO Summerbits” é inspirado no Google Summer of Code, onde são oferecidas bolsas a estudantes, de todos os graus de ensino ou proveniências (maiores de 18 anos e com vínculo a escola/universidade portuguesa), para que desenvolvam código para projectos de software livre, já existentes ou completamente novos. O SAPO, com o apoio de outras entidades, seleccionará as ideias com maior impacto tecnológico e social, financiando o seu desenvolvimento ao longo de três meses. A ambição do SAPO Summerbits é, acima de tudo, a de se tornar um programa de referência no meio académico português, mostrando ao mundo toda a capacidade criativa dos nossos estudantes.

There's money involved. ;-)

Remember how we were talking about Google's semi-secret virtual world project?

No longer quite so secret.  Please discuss. (thx, Lum)  News coverage here (via Google, natch.)

Mobile streaming service provider Flixwagon has added an array of new features in coincidence with its launch into public availability.

Among the new features, users can now register and download the client software through Nokia Symbian Series 60 mobile browsers. Before broadcasting, users can specify whether to increase video quality or decrease delay. With new two-way text chat, broadcasters can write back messages to the comments area that appears during a broadcast from their mobile device. They can also change title videos during broadcasts and enjoy digital zoom-in and zoom-out.

Post-broadcast features include a group-sharing option, where broadcasters can specify which groups they want to share videos with (friends, family, coworkers, etc.). They can also post to Twitter and YouTube with personalized messages.

Changes made to the Flixwagon site include the addition of RSS to users’ broadcast feeds, as well as an option to import contacts from Gmail, Yahoo, Plaxo, etc.

Flixwagon was the first streaming service to announce support for the iPhone (albeit, only by a few hours). It competes most directly with Qik and Kyte.tv (see Robert Scoble’s analysis of the mobile video broadcasting space here).

 

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Lively! I should think so. Google has just announced it's new web-based virtual world:

"A free, browser-based virtual environment with tight integration to MySpace, Facebook, OpenSocial, and Google gadgets like Picasa and YouTube."

... says Virtual Worlds News.

It seems at first glance to be rather exactly along the lines of MetaPlace and Whirled, although I'm sure there will be differences on investigation. The avatars look like Bratz. Some of the rooms look like Home.

Here's a user generated room called "I hate Ewoks" - clearly the creation tools are pretty good!

So I know I've been a bit off the grid recently, what with the nipper and a new busy job, but I missed any and all early news of this one. Is there anything Google can't do?

While surfing around on Teh Intarwebs, I've read complaints from people that we're doing something radically new to the user. Some of those users seem to have problems with all that "radically new" stuff. Honestly, I don't think they have seen anything we *can* do yet. With KDE 4.1, we have pretty much implemented functionality that was there, made applications smarter, and polished the looks. Almost all of the work on the UI, especially in Plasma has been put into recreating functionality from KDE 3.5. What is so radically new to it? Having a shallow look, both -- KDE3 and KDE 4.1 have quite a similar interface. Panel with tasks in it, an application starter menu, a simple clock with a calendar, a virtual desktop switcher and the systray. Just about everything is in the same place where people using KDE 3 used to find it. And in 4.1, you'll have icon groups on your desktop that work just like kdesktop's filemanager, only a bit more flexible. Overall nice improvements, but certainly nothing radically new as a whole. That's probably as far as it can get with re-creating the traditional desktop. Nobody wants to create an exact copy of KDE 3 at this point anyway. If we would have wanted that, we wouldn't have started this journey that is KDE4.

Yet nobody wants to take away the traditional desktop from the users. That's why KDE 4.1 looks like it is. It's a relatively conservative traditional desktop. If you look at the KDE 4.0.4 implementation of openSuse, it's even very close to how KDE 3.5 looks like and works. Besides that, you have enough choice to run any traditional desktop around, wether that'd be KDE3, GNOME, XFCE, or whatever you like. And in August, we'll release KDE 3.5.10 for those that prefer 3.5. See, we're nice people, we're not abandoning 3.5. We don't want you to move. It's completely up to you. KDE 3.5 is rocksolid and works really well in many aspects. KDE 4 has not reached its full potential yet. You will be able to decide yourself when it's time to move to KDE4, if ever. And if you happen to fall in love with KDE4 applications, which is quite possible, they also run just fine in KDE 3.

Surely the developers do need some room for innovation and trying out new ideas. It would be strange if we kept adhering to all those traditions and copied 3.5. And it's why we created KDE 4 in the first place. Two years ago I talked with a Canadian friend on the phone about KDE 4 and Plasma in particular. The idea was back then to create a desktop that is backwards compatible with what people are used to, yet offers new cool stuff that gets you hooked. With KDE 4.1 we've probably reached this goal. A desktop that's pretty close to 3.5's functionality.

Regarding those relatively small adjustments we've made to the desktop shell, one could wonder what some people say when their filemanager and applications start dealing with information, rather than with data understanding relationships between information, people, ... and works with metadata and semantics, rather than a hierarchic filesystems. (that's what nepomuk might bring us at some point) What about when we start blurring the lines between the desktop, the network and other devices. Will people start freaking out then?

A couple of days ago, I read that 166 new SVN accounts have been created in the last 6 months, that's a lot of new blood. That's 116 people that plan to contribute to KDE codebase on a regular basis. And those are people that are obviously attracted by the direction KDE is taking.

So what will KDE 4.2 look like? Judging by what the Plasma team has accomplished in the last couple of months and the magic crystal ball, we might see some mighty cool new things. I'm certainly looking forward to integrated uiserver and Plasma notification applet, the concepts of detachable extenders and Plasma's ZUI integrated with KWin and generally made more polished.

I'm sure KDE 4.1 will be a blast, and if people still complain that it doesn't do exactly the same as 3.5, we can probably never get it right for some. I've personally always found KDE a friendly bunch of people that like creating cool and free technology together. Let's concentrate on just that. Happy hacking!

Props to Wade for the picture.

1. Yay! This is my 100th post on this blog. This is quite an achievement for me since I’ve probably gone through about 2-3 blogs/sites and was never able to really maintain them. I guess it’s quite different when you actually have an audience. I was hoping to post something special for this 100th post, but certain things came up and thus my plans changed. So instead, I’ll treat you all to a hodgepodge of stuff.

2. KDE 4.1 is so going to rock! At least it already does for me. And I include a disclaimer that I’m not your average KDE joe, so YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary). Seeing the project evolve as a whole (and not just focusing on some more visible part) is truly amazing. Of course, some will not like it, and some will. What’s important at this point IMHO is that things aren’t stagnating. Of course, it’s not yet complete (depending on your “completeness” requirements). But I firmly believe that it’s too early to really bang the gavel on KDE 4. Only time would tell (and there’s always KDE 3.5 while waiting). As for me, I’m planning to migrate my main user (jucato) to KDE 4.1 this week.

3. We had our class’s first online session last Saturday. We were told that we’d be using Yahoo! Messenger. Not knowing how it will be done, I opted to use the real client on Windows XP. It turns out we’ll be using the conference feature, which is perfectly supported by Kopete, so no need to switch for the next sessions. Right now I’m considering suggesting and helping setup a more permanent online session place (like IRC) for group studying (because people might prefer synchronous communication than forums). A friend suggested using a web app like Campfire. I’ll have to take a long look at it since it’s not something I’m familiar with and, thus, can’t confidently recommend. I’ll try to see if the university can setup something for us and make it more “official”.

4. I’m considering migrating my blog from WordPress to Textpattern. When I do that, I’d probably make all the static pages I have in my site also under Textpattern. I don’t have any problems with WordPress actually, and it has served me quite well. Textpattern just happens to come highly recommended by a good friend compared to WP. Other supposed advantages of Txp include: better and cleaner template system (no messy PHP, which I’m not really keen on learning right now), more CMS than blog (whereas WP is more blog than CMS), and created by writers for writers (like me?). Anyway, it’s probably not going to happen immediately as I still need to actually use Txp. And when that time comes, I hope I don’t flood the Planet and get kicked.

5. One of my subjects this semester teaches Principles of Programming using the C programming language. Having some previous experience gives me a bit of an edge in class. One of the things I’ve noticed is how our book really doesn’t say much about good programming practices. It’s a very short, direct to the point textbook. I presume that we are being encouraged to research on our own. For example, the book mentions that something like sum1 = sum2 - (x - (y = 10)) * 4; “makes the code unreadable, but certainly shorter”, either implying that “shorter” is to be preferred over “unreadable”, or not explicitly discouraging such kind of code. Anyway, I don’t really expect much from the book and the professor, since the study program is more or less based on independent studying, but I’m somewhat uncomfortable that beginning programmers aren’t being taught good habits as early as possible. Fortunately, the subject makes use of Moodle, which has a forums feature which I can probably share my thoughts, as well as solicit other people’s experiences.

Hm… I really need to learn to write shorter…

Michael once wrote that Twitter may not have to worry about uptime any more, explaining, “I now need Twitter more than Twitter needs me.” And, a few months and countless hours of downtime later, it looks like most of you feel the same way. The early adopters may have migrated to Friendfeed, but the masses appear to be content to stay and take their punishment at Twitter.

Hitwise has just released their latest Twitter usage data, and despite a reliability record that many would describe as an “epic fail”, the service is showing a surprising amount of resilience. Twitter’s share of returning visitors (users that return to the site more than once in thirty days) has held steady at around 55% since March. Twitter has seen near-constant downtime and disappearing features in that time, but nobody seems to mind. At least, not enough to try out one of the other microblogging services.

The site has also seen impressive growth, rising from around .0004% of all internet traffic in January to .0024% in July - the nearest competitor only sees about 1/10th of that traffic. These numbers also neglect to account for the many Twitter users who use the site through its API using 3rd party programs, so we can expect Twitter’s lead to be even more significant.

In effect, we’ve been telling Twitter that no matter how badly it screws up, we’ll stay loyal, simply because our friends are already on the service.

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Attention Flash game developers-

It’s hard making money in your field these days, right? Actually, making money in any field these days seems to be quite difficult. But if you are a Flash developer and you’re focused in on games then why not enter into the Meez Inside Avatar Games Contest? There’s $20,000 worth of cold, hard cash in prize money and who doesn’t like free money? Meez has partnered with FlashGameLicense to run this contest starting today through September 8, 2008.

How do you get started? Jump on over to CrunchGear to find out.

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"Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose." Gertrude Stein

O SAPO acaba de anunciar o “SAPO SummerBits“, inspirado no Google Summer of Code, é nada mais, nada menos do que um conjunto de 10 bolsas (2500€) e é destinado a estudantes com o objectivo de que estes desenvolvam e participem em projectos OpenSource ou Software Livre.

O programa tem a duração de 3 meses e as candidaturas terminam já no dia 19 de Julho! Por isso e se ainda não sabes bem o que fazer nas férias de verão, aqui tens uma grande sugestão:

While IBM and Linden Labs are cozying up to each other, Google has just released its own virtual world: Lively. Lively is available through a browser plugin for Firefox and Internet Explorer. It is Windows only for now. Lively does not feature one coherent world like Second Life but splits worlds up into different rooms. Lively was originally developed as a 20% project my Niniane Wang.

Lively runs completely in the browser and you use your Google account to log in and create your own avatars. Within the world, you can interact with other users, very much like you would do in Second Life. You can also watch YouTube clips on virtual TVs and share your own photos.

Users can chose from a number of preset animations for their characters, ranging from shaking hands with others, to applauding, crying, etc. By double clicking on certain items in the virtual world, users can also often activate some preset animations such as sitting down on a chair or jumping off a dive board.

Setting the plugin up and creating an avatar is a very simple process. Creating rooms, too, seems quite easy, as you can quickly import a number of templates to get started. Currently, all virtual items for Lively are for free, but chances are that Google will start charging for premium items in the future.

For now, the content in Lively is being created only by Google, though over time, they are planning to allow users to start creating their own content as well.

Rooms can be easily embedded into any webpage and worlds often launch with a basic skeleton of the room within just a few seconds.

Graphically, Lively runs very smooth on our test machine here and the visuals, while not comparable to a modern game, are not too bad either. Interestingly, there is no first-person view available, instead, the world is always seen from a camera perspective the user can control.

One area where Lively could definitely needs some improvement is in how users move their avatars around the rooms. To move an avatar, users basically have to drag them through the room, while most people we have met in Lively have commented that they expected to see a more game-like approach where users use the keyboard to move avatars through the rooms.

Second Life users might find the Lively rooms and the amount of customization they can do to them rather restricted - however, Google's idea seems to be less to create one large virtual world, but to give publishers an opportunity to create their own small virtual world for their readers and visitors.

It's interesting to see Google moving into this space. There have always been rumors that Google might be working on a similar product for Google Earth. As of now, the rooms in Lively are compartmentalized and there is no way to move or communicate from one room to another, but given that this is only a first release, this might (hopefully) change over time.

In this post we provide data that shows how public market investors see 7 of the Internet bigcos we listed in our current poll (repeated below). In particular this data provides some background insight into the the "sound and fury" surrounding Yahoo.

We looked at 7 Internet bigcos, chosen from the RWW poll list and with the addition of Cisco (per a suggestion from one commenter). This is a list of publicly traded companies. We have not included AOL - if we did we'd also have to include all of Time Warner, which makes them very far from an Internet company. We also can't include Facebook, Mozilla or LinkedIn - as none are (currently) public companies.

The data comes from Yahoo Finance, as at July 8th around 10.30am. So results may vary when you check the numbers! Yahoo Finance happens to be what I use, no statement being made there.

Out of many potential parameters, this analysis focuses on 5:

1. Market Cap. This is a simple proxy of "bigness".

2. PEG. This is Price Earnings Growth. This is a proxy for "value".

3. Revenue Growth in last 12 months. Growth is the most prized parameter by investors. Revenue growth is less easy to "financially engineer" than profit growth, so it is a good proxy for basic growth.

4. Cash. This just says "staying power" and is prized during recessions.

5. 52 Week change in stock price. This ranks the companies by how happy their shareholders are. That matters, as Yahoo management can tell you (but as you can see, Yahoo is far from the worst on that ranking).

Here are the numbers, ranked alphabetically:

Here is the ranking based on each of the parameters:

A. Market Cap - bigness

1. MSFT
2. GOOG
3. CSCO
4. EBAY
5. YHOO
6. AMZN
7. ADBE

B. PEG - value

1. EBAY
2. GOOG
3. CSCO
4. MSFT
5. ADBE
6. AMZN
7. YHOO

C. Revenue Growth

1. GOOG
2. AMZN
3. EBAY
4. ADBE
5. CSCO
6. YHOO
7. MSFT

D. Cash - staying power

1. CSCO
2. MSFT
3. GOOG
4. EBAY
5. YHOO
6. AMZN
7. ADBE

E. Share price change - happy shareholders

1. AMZN
2. GOOG
3. ADBE
4. YHOO
5. MSFT
6. EBAY
7. CSCO

Poll: Best Internet Bigco

So, given all of the above data, which do you now see as the most impressive Internet bigcos so far this year? Vote in the poll below (note: Cisco has now been added as an option):

Which Internet bigco has impressed you the most over the first half of 2008?
( polls)

double binding

Experimental
www.myspace.com/phalovich
www.myspace.com/lorenzfactor
dubearth.com

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Stock in virtualization provider VMWare today dropped almost 25%, as growth expectations were lowered and founding CEO Diane Greene was replaced by the board. Prior to today, VMWare was the fourth largest software company in the world, with a market cap of over $20B. They have slipped down the list and lost $5B in value as the company struggles to match high growth expectations places on it after its much-hyped IPO almost a year ago.

Greene, an original founder of the VMWare company, will be replaced by Paul Maritz as President and CEO, and he has also been assigned to the board of the company. Maritz was the founder of Pi Corporation, a cloud based storage and services provider that was acquired by EMC last year. Previously Maritz was the VP of Cloud Services at EMC, and prior to that he was a long-term executive at Microsoft.

The company faces a number of fresh challenges as the virtualization market heats up with the entry of Microsoft with their virtualization platform, now built into Windows Server, and their new Hyper-V product, which will retail for only $28, fractions of the cost of a VMWare solution.

VMWare: A missed opportunity for EMC? Continue reading at Techcrunch IT >>

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// Que disco se encontra nesta imagem com a capa filtrada? - título e autor(es)

Confere o TrompaQuiz em atraso:

TROMPAQUIZ|#1092

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Getty Images, one of the world’s largest media licensing companies, has partnered with Flickr to add a broader selection of pictures to its online catalog. Getty will hand-pick a number of Flickr members to participate in the program, with a goal of acquiring thousands of images in the next few months.

Getty editors will use a set of tools jointly developed by the two companies that will enable them to easily scan through Flickr photos to find the best of the crop. Each selected member will have their images licensed through a special Flickr-branded section of Getty’s site, and will receive portions of the licensing fees collected by Getty (there is no set payout structure - each selected participant in the program will need to negotiate their own deal with Getty).

Flickr members will likely try to do anything they can to become a part of the program, which stands to offer them both wide exposure and compensation for their work. Unfortunately, there’s currently no way for a Flickr member to apply to become a part of the program - they need to be “discovered” by Getty’s editors. It’s also hard to tell how lucrative the deals will be for photographers, as Getty has yet to form any partnerships.

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Vitor’s post led me to a recent German startup: aka-aki. Their product is based on a social network based on real life encounters. Using a java software in your mobile phone you will be able to check out whoever is near you, using your bluetooth connection. It keeps track of people you cross by, checks if you have any friend nearby (bluetooth-range that is) and enables free messaging inside you network. On their website you can also see a more detailed report of the information you have gathered and find out, for example, the profile of that girl you’ve bump into on the bus.

The idea is good and with some good marketing can become viral. It seems they’re already experiencing a big growth on some German cities, mainly Berlin. Some work is still needed on the English version of the website, since I occasionally was surprised by some rough German labels and pop-ups. A bit more integration with other already established social networks would also be a good idea, no one likes to build yet another social profile and friend list. They’re on the right track though.

I’m not really a fan of leaving the bluetooth turned on all the time on my mobile phone, it helps to suck up all its battery life. But if aka-aki gains some traction around here, I will reconsider.

> Teresa Gabriel

chadaseiras.blogspot.com
www.myspace.com/barrabassoundsystem
barrabassoundsystem@gmail.com

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É uma excelente notícia para a blogosfera portuguesa: o Nuno Gouveia, autor do Eleições Americanas de 2008, recebeu credenciais da Convenção Nacional Republicana para fazer a cobertura do evento como blogger.

Photo Credit

What can I say, I’m just a Nickelodeon kid. I’ve written on here before of how programming on the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon rocked, and I’ll keep saying it again and again.

Yesterday, I walked into my favorite video rental place here in Gainesville, Video Rodeo. As I was reaching for season two of Curb Your Enthusiasm, I spotted it. The Adventures of Pete and Pete on DVD. I could not believe my eyes. Only season two of Pete and Pete was on the shelf, and I knew that if I were to indulge once again in my inner 90s kid, I would have to start from the beginnings of Pete, Pete, Petunia, and Mom’s Plate (in her head, remember?). Tomorrow, when I return the disc full of Larry David’s antics, hopefully season one will be sitting there, and I’ll grab it immediately and bike my butt home as fast as I can.

Polaris, the side project of Miracle Legion, provides the opening song.

Listen: The Backyard by Miracle Legion

There were a lot of celebrity and not-yet a celebrity cameos and roles in the show including Selma Blair, Janeane Garofalo, LL Cool J, Luscious Jackson, and Iggy Pop (below).

Listen: Going Back to Cali by LL Cool J (Walking With A Panther, 1989)
Listen: Naked Eye by Luscious Jackson (Fever In Fever Out, 1996)
Listen: Real Wild Child by Iggy Pop
Listen: Janeane Garafolo HBO Special

Mom’s Plate

And who can forget…..

Artie: The Strongest Man in the World!!!

Where Are They Now?

Michael C. Maronna (Big Pete) has guest starred on shows such as Law and Order and Gilmore Girls. Much of his work after Pete and Pete has comprised of camera and electrical work on shows and movies (most recently Be Kind Rewind and Sex and the City, the Movie).

Danny Tamberelli (Little Pete) was recently seen in a 2006 Wendy’s commercial. “Currently, he is the bassist and vocalist for the rock band, Jounce”.

Toby Huss (Artie) has appeared in 30 Rock, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Reno 911, and King of the Hill. His “hilarious-ness” continues to entertain us all.

So I buckled under temptation and bought myself a 32GB CF card and a CF-IDE converter board off eBay just now; whole lot came to about 74 pounds including postage, which I think is not too shabby for what should be a fairly good 32GB SSD solution.

Claimed read/write speeds for the card are 36/40MBps which would be very nice if true, but I’m expecting it’ll probably be around half that at best. Still, I’ll do some rudimentary tests with hdparm to see how it is; hopefully it won’t be slower than the 4200rpm 1.8” disk that’s currently in there!

I also hope the battery life improves… I’ve only ever had the X40 down to about 7 or 8W power consumption at minimum; with this setup I hope to inch an extra watt out of it!

Photo Credit

The one where Jack gets in a hymnal mood, Beth gets in an M.I.A. mood and Devin gets in an ‘R’ mood.

Jack

“White Winter Hymnal” - Fleet Foxes

“Chips Ahoy” - The Hold Steady

“The Past is A Grotesque Animal” - Of Montreal

Beth

“Bamboo Banga” - M.I.A.

“Amazon” - M.I.A.

“Mango Pickle Down the River” - M.I.A.

Every time I move cities, I miss an M.I.A. concert by days.

Devin

“What’d I Say” - Ray Charles

“Dear Chicago” - Ryan Adams

“Hannah” - Ray LaMontagne

Love the R-tists. (he says regretfully)

Ao que parece o Sacro Santo e Inviolável nome de sua Eminência o Xerife de Nottingham foi invocado em vão pelo ex-ministro-jornalista Paulo Portas.

Sinceramente, não há direito. Penso até que os conhecimentos de história inglesa do mencionado político não roçam, sequer, os calcanhares desse grande estadista que foi o Xerife de Nottingham. Não posso deixar em claro esta afronta à honra e bom nome deste defunto agente real.

Como é de lei e do mais elementar direito, o Xerife dedicava-se a roubar os pobres para dar aos ricos! Estamos no século XXI e esta lógica não mudou um milímetro que se saiba!

O digno Xerife jamais andou de VW Touareg mas sim numa mísera carroça. Também não era conhecido por ser fã de solário, da Tunísia ou qualquer outro paraíso similar longe dos seus domínios. Não há registos tampouco que fosse apreciador de cozinha francesa, em particular de Vichysoisse.

Defendendo a honra do ilustre personagem, deixo aqui algumas fotos dele mesmo em toda a sua glória:

Aproveito também para mostrar o alegado esconderijo do infame Robin Hood que, como todos os traidores, teve direito a uma morte macabra.

A foto pode parecer recente, mas na realidade tem cerca de mil anos. Assim a modos como o carvalho objecto da mesma. Esperemos que a breve trecho as forças leais ao Xerife ou um qualquer raio o deixem neste estado:

(fotos tiradas pelo autor há exactamente uma semana na Floresta de Sherwood. Sítio prazeiroso para um passeio tranquilo e sem pressas desde que o tempo ajude. Entrada gratuita.)

Não se sabe bem o que é que passou pela cabeça de Guy Hands, o patrão da Terra Firma - a empresa-mãe da EMI - quando decidiu contratar o italiano Elio Leoni-Sceti de 42 anos, para director executivo da divisão de discos da editora discográfica, a EMI Music. Isto porque Leoni-Sceti é de facto um “homem das limpezas”. Bem, não propriamente… Ele ocupa desde 2005 o cargo de vice-presidente executivo da Reckitt Benckiser, uma gigante mundial do sector dos produtos de limpeza responsável por artigos tão populares por esse mundo fora como as toalhitas Glassex, a marca de tabletes e géis de limpeza de casas de banhos Harpic, a marca de cremes e ceras depilatórias Veet ou o creme anti-borbulhas e anti-acne Clearasil.

Antes de entrar na Reckit em 1992, o nosso “homem das limpezas” já tinha sido gestor de marcas da Procter & Gamble na Itália e na França. Portanto, estão mesmo a ver: a experiência profissional de Leoni-Sceti adequa-se que nem uma luva às competências necessárias da divisão de discos da quarta maior companhia discográfica do mundo. De facto, só alguém com um profundo conhecimento de limpezas profundas de todos os tipos - pele humana, casas de banho, pêlos, cozinhas - conseguirá finalizar a missão a que Guy Hands se propôs já desde há alguns tempos que é reduzir os custos da EMI, doe a quem doer. Nem que Chris Martin e os Coldplay ou Robbie Williams se venham de facto embora.

Mas nos dias de hoje, toda a gente sabe que redução de custos é sinónimo de despedimentos e cabeças a rolar. De qualquer modo, há quem especule que esta alteração na estrutura organizacional da EMI é um sinal de que a venda da divisão de discos da EMI está para breve pelo que Guy Hands pretende - tal como o previsto - manter a divisão de publishing, aquela que continua a dar dinheiro nestes tempos em que a descida das vendas de discos parece que nunca mais tem fim. Outros há, também, que dizem que o patrão da Terra Firma está ainda a considerar uma fusão com a Warner Music.

Seja como for, de acordo com o Silicon Alley Insider tudo indica que Elio Leoni-Sceti ainda permaneça mais alguns meses na Reckitt Benckiser. Isto porque ele só entrará em funções no seu novo emprego a 1 de Outubro. A questão que se coloca é saber se a EMI Music irá sobreviver na sua forma actual até lá… Talvez a EMI consiga juntar alguns “tostões” com alguns processos como este.

Nota: a imagem que acompanha este artigo está disponível aqui segundo uma licença CC-BY-SA 2.0 e pertence a Peter Barr-Watson.

Artigos relacionados:

• EMI poderá desfazer-se de divisão de discos
• EMI ameaça cortar financiamento à IFPI e RIAA
• Cartoon goza com neo-luddismo de Doug Morris, o patrão da Universal
• Digitalização e diversificação de receitas são as novas palavras de ordem na EMI
• EMI caça crânio do Google

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O PSD queria que as eleições autárquicas fossem em simultâneo com as eleições legislativas. Compreende-se: com o PS em queda talvez levasse umas câmaras à boleia e com mais força nas autarquias do que o PS talvez receba uns votos a mais para as legislativas. Parece que não vai acontecer.

Google has just launched Lively, a new social network built around the concept of each user creating an avatar and a personal virtual room that can be embedded anywhere on the Web. In essence, Google is looking to create a massive distributed virtual world, where every Google account can have its own avatar that can be used wherever a Lively virtual room is present – for example, on a blog, a social networking profile, or a Web page.

Here’s a closer look at what Google is launching, how it works, and how it might fit into Google’s larger social networking plans:

Getting Started

To use Lively, you do need to sign up using a Google account and download a browser plug-in. From there, you are able to create your own avatar – starting from a “template” character which then has customizable attributes like skin tone, hair color, and eye colors. You can also dress your character with clothing and accessories. In turn, you’re now ready to use Lively wherever you encounter a room on the Web by signing into it with your virtual account.

Lively Rooms

Similar to avatars, Lively offers several templates for starting your room that can then be customized – for example, a 5 room apartment, or a desert island (rooms can be outdoors). From there, you can do things like add your own background music, insert furniture, pull in photos from Picasa (and other services) and embed YouTube videos on a virtual plasma screen TV. In the example below, a virtual Googleplex shows a YouTube video of Sergey Brin and Larry Page:

Once a room has been created, embed code allows you to copy it to any Web page. Each room also has its own URL on Lively, if you prefer to just send your friends to your room directly.

User Interactions

When you’re in a room, there are text chatting options, emotions (angry, happy, say hello, etc.), and you can move around furniture (if the room owner permits it). Some of the emotions are tied to the text chat – for example, if you type “hello,” your avatar will wave. If you enter a room and there is no one it, you can leave a message and a piece of furniture for the room owner.

The Social Graph

For now, Lively has its own buddy list that you build one-by-one by inviting your friends. However, Engineering Manager Niniane Wang hints that the product will eventually move to support the porting of your friends from other social networks – per initiatives like Facebook Connect, MySpace Data Availability, and Google’s own Friend Connect product. There are already Facebook and OpenSocial applications for Lively that allow you to see which of your friends are signed in.

Monetization Potential

While for now Lively is a free product, there are already hints at the monetization potential Google is looking at with this product. For example, when browsing room templates you can use, it lists the price as “free,” implying that eventually there will be premium versions to choose from. Additionally, with the inclusion of wardrobe options, it’s not hard to connect the dots and see massive opportunities for product placement, such as decorating your character with Nike shoes or a Starter jacket (or whatever the kids are wearing these days).

Is This Google’s New Social Networking Strategy?

Wang tells me that Lively came about during Google’s famous “20 percent time,” where engineers devote 1/5th of their time to their own ideas and projects. But, it’s safe to say that this project may turn into much more. Tying an avatar to your Google account that can be used anywhere there is a Lively room is a unique idea that takes advantage of Google’s huge userbase.

Moreover, the ability to create and decorate a room to include on your social networking profiles may be a hit with younger users, if the success of services like Slide, RockYou, and SecondLife is any indicator. Lively is also a bit of a destination site – offering users the ability to browse rooms randomly to meet new people. It’s an ambitious new project from Google, and one that will be worth watching in the months ahead.

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Well, this sucks for Second Life. Google is launching a new service today called Lively, a browser based virtual world add-on that lets users create and customize avatars and worlds, interact with other users, and generally have a richer social interaction than is offered by GTalk today.

Worlds can be embedded into web pages, although only Windows users on IE or Firefox can view them, after an add-on download and installation. Mac and Linux users will have to wait for now.

Google has created a number of sample rooms that can be copied and altered, or users can start from scratch and build their own world. Furniture and other items can be added and moved around. Avatars can talk to each other, do things like dance and shake hands, and manipulate objects (in a demo, my avatar was able to blow up drums of toxic waste by double clicking on them. Users can also, of course, chat with each other - GTalk is the underlying chat engine.

This isn’t yet a full Second Life competitor. There’s no single world, for example, where users can move around. But it’s easy to see Google evolving this into a single online world. And then, of course, selling advertising into it. More screen shots:

The virtual world’s “Google Room” is embedded below.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Earlier today I reviewed a desktop chat client called Skabble, which had potential as a bookmarking and browser-integrated service, but fell short. Shortly after I was introduced to another new chat service, Browzmi, that does all the things Skabble should do. Browzmi doesn’t require a long download process and works directly in your browser. You can find friends across Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, and Facebook (AIM and Jabber will be added soon).

There is a bookmarking and rating option, so you can easily save sites you’re interested in and immediately recommend them to others. From there, you can also leave comments for a particular page, which can be viewed by other Browzmi users that come across this page as well. This is all experienced in the Browzmi browser tool, which essentially wraps a given website in its service. Given the number of features present in Browzmi, certain aspects are similar to other services that are becoming part of our regular vocabulary, like FriendFeed.

So how does Browzmi stack up against some of the other players in the field, including FriendFeed, Flock and Yoono?

Browsing the Web

There are two sidebars and a top toolbar for navigating the Browzmi service while you’re surfing the Web, giving you options to add a particular site to your own account, share it with friends, and further explore content based on other user and Web activity. This is a very dominating way in which to consume the Web, which is similar to Flock (though Flock is dominating because it is the browser itself).

While colorful and easy to use, some may prefer Yoono’s less obtrusive sidebar option, though Yoono, Flock and Browzmi all have minimizing and expanding options. FriendFeed doesn’t have any of these active browsing tools, but offers a hands-off, automated approach to aggregating your Web activity once you sync accounts with FriendFeed.

Sharing Content with Friends

In terms of sharing content with friends and keeping abreast of their updates, the left sidebar gives you all the information you need. For each friend that’s displayed here, you’ll see the site they’re currently visiting, and you can chat with them and/or join them on that site. You can also get a glimpse of their Web activity as updates from their Flickr, Twitter and other social media sites can also be shared through this sidebar as well.

This is somewhat of a mobile FriendFeed, which is similar to some of the update options that can be broadcast through Yoono as well. Flock can also be used as a broadcast tool, depending on what accounts you have set up, but one thing I’ve always enjoyed with Flock is the ability to drag’n'drop content across sites and over usernames in order to immediately share individual media items with friends.

Widgets

Browzmi has more than one sidebar option, and each has its own function. The sidebar that appears on the right side of the page contains a handful of widgets that display the update stream for that particular page, showing the comments and ratings others have left. Along with this user feedback, you’ll also get related content from Flickr and YouTube.

I got to chat with Browzmi founder Travis Parsons while perusing Browzmi, and he indicated that these sidebar widgets will be expanding in the coming months. Though Browzmi will be releasing the widget updates in the near future, the company will eventually look to third-party developers to help build out some additional widgets later on, as the widgets are built on Browzmi’s API.

Yoono has been building on its widget offerings and has indicated that it will be offering more in the future as well. Flock “widgets” could be determined in a different sense, as it’s more deeply ingrained in the browsing experience overall, but between addons and native apps that Flock promotes, there’s no end to the types of relevant surfing and sharing capabilities that can arise as a result.

Recommendations

All of the services I’m comparing today deal with recommendations in the immediate sense, meaning that content shared with friends becomes an immediate recommendation to others. Indirect recommendations come through as passively viewing sites that others are currently visiting, and checking out any available archives will give you a brief history of what your friends have been up to. Browzmi and FriendFeed have filtering options towards this end, allowing you to see friends’ activity based on a certain service.

Other recommendations come by way of ratings and comments as you browse, which is present in FriendFeed and Flock and Yoono to a certain extent. As these services become more aligned with regular social media activity and collect data, we’ll be seeing more integration for direct recommendation systems, as well as better search and filtering options for any archived content that may be relevant to us.

LinkedIn Groups seemed like a great idea when it was introduced, except for one big problem: finding interesting and relevant groups to join was virtually impossible unless you received an invite. That will change on Friday, as the networking site for grown-ups will roll out a search feature for its group directory, allowing you to find groups relating to specific professional interests, versus the fairly generic (alumni, professional, etc.) and only somewhat browseable (there isn’t even paging) categories the site currently offers.

The main feature of LinkedIn Groups is the ability to browse other members and allow them to contact you directly – hence, bypassing the need for a premium LinkedIn account. We’ve setup one for Mashable where our readers and professionals in the social media space can connect. It’s available here.

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