Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

gBox: Give The Gift Of DRM-Free Music

from TechCrunch by Nick Gonzalez

gBox is a new take on selling digital content. Instead of emphasizing sales directly to consumers, gBox is encourages you to create wish lists and buy gifts for your friends and family. To kick-start the service, they’ve sealed a pretty big deal with Universal to be the retailer for their new “Open MP3″ experiment into DRM free music. In a move that’s a snub to Apple’s iTunes, Universal will be buying Google AdWords for their music, linking people to the gBox site to buy their artists’ music. gBox will be expanding to other forms of digital content in the future.

gBox is not only a destination retail site for digital content. It also has an embeddable gift box widget to show off what you want to your friends. Your friends can then buy it for you directly from within the widget. It will be available as a general embed or specialized for 7 of the big social networks (no Facebook). Their current offering, music, will go for 99 cents per track and $9.99 per album (to stay competitive with iTunes). You have to have a gBox account to receive a gift, but not to buy one.

Considering people already pay 99 cents to send their friends virtual gifts on Facebook, I’d expect buying a real song to be an attractive proposition. It also seems like a missed opportunity for a network like MySpace, which runs on Snocap.

You can download the content after its bought for you, but need a special gBox plugin to control the downloads since some content partners (Sony, Iota) will be selling music with DRM. This makes the offering somewhat disappointing, because the plugin will only work for IE (FF on the way) and not on the Mac.

gBox was started in June as an angel funded spin-off from Navio systems. They’re a 20 person company based in Cupertino, California.

Toshiba's 320GB 2.5-inch hard drive: a world's best for laptops

from Engadget by Thomas Ricker

Step aside Fujitsu, there's a new 2.5-inch hard disk champ on the block by way of Toshiba. A world's first 320GB 2.5-inch drive, in fact. The MK3252GSX drive spins a pair of 160GB platters at 5,400rpm with an 8MB buffer and 12ms average seek time over a 3Gbps SATA interface. So yeah, it's just 20GB more data that the Fujitsu 300GB disk but that HDD spins at just 4,200rpm. Better yet, The Tosh drive stands just 9.5-mm tall -- a full 3-mm less than Fujitsu's 300 gigger; that's about as thin as it gets in these 2.5-inch laptop drives. Look for the 320GB disk as a factory shipped option around November when Toshiba starts turning 'em out for mass production.

Sony's Bravia VPL-VW60: the SXRD black pearl with 35,000:1 contrast

from Engadget by Thomas Ricker

September 20th: know it home cinema buffs. That's the date Sony releases their SXRD followup to the VPL-VW50 "Pearl" projector in Japan. The new Bravia VPL-VW60 projects a 1,920 x 1,080 image with a 35,000:1 contrast ratio and 1,000 lumens courtesy of its (¥42,000 / $367) 200W high pressure mercury lamp and trio of 0.61-inch SXRD chips. It's also quieter than its predecessor at 22dB while packing a pair of HDMI-CEC class HDMI jacks supporting 1080/60p, 50p, and 24p. Best of all though, Sony managed to seriously up the specs while cutting the introductory list price nearly in half to "just" ¥441,000 (about $3,858).

Gallery: Sony's Bravia VPL-VW60: the SXRD black pearl with 35,000:1 contrast

[Via Impress]

Stanford's EyePassword helps fight "shoulder-surfing" at the ATM

from Engadget by Paul Miller

Gaze-based password entry might sound like a chore -- and we can't say we find the fact of aligning our eyes with an on-screen ATM keyboard all that practical -- but if it means we can finally avoid that awkward moment at the cash machine where we block the keypad view from that shifty-looking sixth grader standing next to us, it just might be worth it. Stanford University has folks working on just such a solution to the dreaded "shoulder-surfing" at ATMs, and has come up with EyePassword. They're testing some systems that track your eyeballs in a variety of ways to perform PIN input, and while the resulting study shows that input times are slowed a little, the system does indeed make "eavesdropping by a malicious observer largely impractical." Of course, there's no telling when something like this will hit your neighborhood deli.

[Via New Scientist ]

Mess of circuitry unlocks iPhone, software solution next?

Posted Aug 21st 2007 1:02PM by Sean Cooper

Welp, 'tis done friends, but we're going to have to wait a week for all the gory details to be released. Geohot and his crew of trusty fiddlers have apparently found a solution for sorting the iPhone for worldwide consumption by hardware unlocking the beast. We've seen a video, and know he's been well involved with iPhone shenanigans since day one, but until we see it in our hand color us excited but not sold -- though we're stoked that they report a software based version may be on the horizon. But in the unhappy event that it ends up being hardware unlock only, you can use this week to brush up on your soldering skills. We're gonna be all over this in the coming days so know that the minute we know more, you will too. Peep the vid after the break.

Toshiba announces 32GB, 16GB SDHC cards

from Engadget by Ryan Block

Yeah, Toshiba just announced an 8GB microSDHC card and even a massive 16GB full-size SDHC card (launching in October for ¥40,000, about $350), but it's the friggin 32GB card we're eyeballing. Due out January of next year for ¥80,000, soon enough you'll be plunking down seven bills for what's surely the last memory card you'll need for, what, six months? [Via Engadget Japanese]

Sharp's 52-inch LCD TV prototype: Just 1.1-inches thick!

from Engadget by Thomas Ricker

Like your flat panels flat, we mean, really flat? Then check this, Sharp's prototype LCD which jams a 100,000:1 contrast ratio into a 52-inch LCD display only 20-mm (0.78-inches) thick. Right, we're talking LCD, not OLED. In fact, the entire TV measures just 29-mm (1.14-inches) at its thickest point while covering 150% of the NTSC color gamut and consuming just 140 kWh/year. Shazam! Unfortunately, Sharp fails to mention the resolution but tells us to expect the new TVs sometime in 2010. See her in profile after the break with plenty more over at Japan's Impress in the Via link below.

[Via Impress]

Monday, August 20, 2007

Facebook Takes Action Against “Black Hat” Apps

from TechCrunch by Michael Arrington

Some of the most popular Facebook applications are using highly questionable tactics to spread themselves virally. Users have noticed and complained, and Facebook took action today to put stop the most egregious behavior.

There are two ways application developers are breaking the rules to get new users. The first: When a user looks at an application on his/her profile the application can show something different than when other users view the profile. So a user adds an application that looks nice to them. But everyone else sees, say, a big yellow box with an advertisement that says the user wants you to add this application, too.

The second and more devious scheme is being used by many of the largest application developers. They all involve some sort of notification fraud. Generally, you add an application. Then, every one of your contacts is notified that you've "written on their wall" or "have asked them a question," even though you never did. To view the content the contact must add the application. They then find out there is no wall comment, or its a canned question like "is it ok to kiss on the first date?"

Super Wall (RockYou, 4.5 m installs), My Questions (Slide, 6.9 m installs) and FunWall (Slide, 3.6 m installs) all do this (and users complain loudly in the comments area to the apps - see here and scroll down).

Facebook Hits Back

Facebook took measures today to stop these kinds of activities. The first is dealt with in the new release (1.1) of FBML, the markup language used to build Facebook applications. Developers will no longer be able to show a different profile to friends than the one the user sees him/herself:

One of the key parts of the success of the design of the Facebook profile is that the user is always aware of exactly what their profile looks like to their friends who stop by to view their profile. This enables users to understand exactly how they are expressing themselves to others by simply deciding whether or not they like an application's profile box and the content that the developer has decided to put into the box.

Right now, we have made a few FBML tags available that are causing users to not trust the content in the profile box. Tags such as: fb:if-user-has-added-app, and other fb-if tags. These tags are currently being used to deliver content to profile boxes which users are unaware of. Content such as big yellow boxes which say "ADD THIS APPLICATION!" or "ADD SOME OTHER APPLICATION!".

Starting today, these tags will no longer be available for use in profile boxes. We will be migrating FBML to version 1.1, and adding a new set of tags called fb:visible-to-. They are:

fb:visible-to-owner
fb:visible-to-friends
fb:visiible-to-user
fb:visible-to-added-app-users
fb:visible-to-app-users

Facebook also notified developers today that they will be blocked from sending misleading notifications to users. This will stop Slide, RockYou and others from mass spamming users with false notifications:

Over the last few weeks we have noticed several developers misleading our users into clicking on links, adding applications and taking actions. While the majority of developers are doing the right thing and playing by the rules, a few aren't – and are creating spam as a result. Going forward, if you are deceptively notifying users or tricking them into taking actions that they wouldn't have otherwise taken, we will start blocking these notifications. The bottom line is that if the notifications you send are the result of a genuine action by a Facebook user and that action is truthfully reported to the recipient so they can make an informed decision, you should have no problems. If you do find some notifications blocked, it was probably because this wasn't the case and we will be happy to inform you of some best practices by other developers that have prevented this issue.

Facebook has done a great job in managing their platform since opening it up to developers of applications. They have had to accommodate application developers while at the same time protect users interests and the general security of the site. The changes that Facebook have made today, while they may inconvenience some application developers, have clearly been done to protect users from spammy tactics that some applications have employed.

Google To Increase Investment In China

from TechCrunch by Duncan Riley

Google is looking to acquire "one or two Chinese internet companies" and will invest in five in the next 12 months as part of a continued push to increase market share in the worlds fastest growing internet market.

Google has previously focused on building partnerships in China, with Google technology powering Chinese search portals Sina.com, Soso.com and 163.com. Google also made a strategic investment in popular Chinese browser Maxthon in April.

The Chinese acquisition strategy for Google would not seem as difficult as might immediately be presumed; a number of the leading Chinese search companies are listed on the NASDAQ. Market leader Baidu sits at the less appealing (from an acquisition viewpoint) market cap of $5.73 billion, however lesser players are well within a more likely price for a Google acquisition; No 2 ranked search player* NetEase.com (163.com) has a market cap of $1.78 billion and third placed Sohu.com has a market cap of $1.08 billion.

Baidu.com currently dominates the Chinese search market with a market share of around 55%

* traffic rankings per Alexa May 2007.

(in part via PC World)

3D visualization of photos and relationships (from Flickr data)

ICCARUS: Three Dimensional Data Visualization (for music)

from TechCrunch by Duncan Riley

ICCARUS is a new service created by social music and video recommendations startup Scouta. It creates a three dimensional visualization of the data behind a social networking or related website. ICCARUS also shows the social network between members, the memberships of groups, and the links between members and the content they enjoy. Navigate by clicking on points of interest, or searched using commands. Results are dynamic and are delivered in real time, providing an instant visual representation of the given network

The data is fetched via TurboGears and uses the GFX library to create the visual effects.

ICCARUS was launched Wednesday at Webjam Perth and won first place from a field of around 15 demonstrating startups. I spoke with Scouta CEO Richard Giles at the WA Web Awards Friday and he told me that the feedback on ICCARUS had been strong. Scouta plans on further refining ICCARUS with a possibility of providing the service to the public either later this year or early 2008.

The screencast above doesn't do the service full justice, but it's enough to give some idea of what it is capable of.

A Peek At Didja.com: VeryFunnyAds Clone

from TechCrunch by Nick Gonzalez

Although “advertising as entertainment” site Didja.com is not launching until next year, the NYT has a sneak peak at what it will look like (screen shot below). The NBC Universal project is part of the yet unnamed News Corp/NBC Universal cooperative strategy against Youtube. However, New Co.’s second “major assult” on YouTube looks like more of the same, a clone of TBS’s VeryFunnyAds. It’s very similar to the TBS re-branding effort, letting users watch heaps of ads by search, ratings, and sort by various companies and countries.

That’d all make sense if New Co. was copying a successful site, but VeryFunnyAds doesn’t appear to be a resounding winner despite the 63 million clip views the site article says they delivered over the past year. That number of views suggests an average of 5 million videos streamed each month, but the viewership of the site doesn’t stack up.

After an initial bump on launch, VeryFunnyAds’ traffic has since tapered out at about 100,000 uniques per month, according to Comscore. Sixty-three million streams is a lot of traffic for an audience that size, especially since they don’t allow off-site video embeds. Heavy.com, whose network generated about 6 million streams in April has about 5.2 million uniques per month. If the numbers are true, it appears TBS’s site is at most attracting a small cadre of ad fanatics.

Contrary to the “advertainment” meme going around, it doesn’t look like it has legs.

Alaskan luddites are 50th state to get e-prescriptions

from Engadget by Paul Miller

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

It's good to know that wherever you may roam in this great union, your doctor can file for your OxyContin electronically. Alaska was the last state to revise regulations that were keeping doctors scribbling illegible notes that presumably denoted medicines in their twisted imaginations. Other late-comers included Georgia, South Carolina and West Virginia. There'll always be a few complainers about how the new e-prescription systems hurt the mom and pop pharmacies, and tether doctors to a crash-prone computer, but the fancy new (hopefully hackable) databases that'll keep track of just how much who is taking of what really make it all worthwhile.

Conceptual UNI enables compartmentalized computing

from Engadget by Darren Murph

Those who find difficulty in cracking open a typical tower to replace that aging DVD writer with one that burns in high-definition should adore Richard Choi's UNI concept, which exemplifies compartmentalized computing and takes the stress out of upgrading. Apparently, the "Think" module would act as the core computer and handle the essentials, while a variety of other plug-in modules would provide additional outputs (HDMI, DVI, optical audio, USB, etc.), hard drive space, and optical drives. Granted, this could get out of hand for those who get UNI-stackin' fever, but we'll certainly pass along kudos to the idea. Click on for one more shot.

[Via YankoDesign, thanks Martin]

Researchers using pulses of light to quickly decipher codes

from Engadget by Darren Murph

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

While we imagine most Wolverines are focusing their efforts on gathering up the requisite tailgating gear for the onset of fall, a team of researchers at the University of Michigan are busy finding ways to decipher encryption codes "within seconds." The crew has apparently discovered that by "using pulses of light to dramatically accelerate quantum computers," these systems could not only crack "highly encrypted codes" in moments versus years, but it could also "lead to tougher protection of [sensitive] information." Additionally, the findings rely on "quantum dots and readily available, relatively inexpensive optical telecommunications technology to drive quantum computers," which could lead to quicker implementation of quantum level applications. Hackers, meet your dream machine.

[Via TGDaily, image courtesy of Technovelgy ]

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