Projectors: Toshiba TDP-PX10U Surprisingly Bright for a Such a Puny Projector
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Slick: Vaio Zoom Concept is Exactly How We Want Laptops to Look in the Future
[Renewable Energy: First Large Scale Wave Farm Approved in England
Metaplace Unveiled: Raph Koster Brings Virtual World To The Web
Call it Second Life on the web, call it an MMO markup language, call it the most powerful open-standards, web-driven game platform ever made public — however you end up describing it, we finally have the main details to go on. After a year of rumors and terse venture funding announcements around Raph Koster's new San Diego-based startup, Areae, his stealth Internet project is finally public.
Hours before he went onstage at TechCrunch 40 to officially introduce Metaplace, Areae's metaverse for the web, Koster's publicists finagled me an extensive interview and first look at the platform. Formerly Sony Online's creative director, Koster also directed the Star Wars Galaxies MMO and led design on the groundbreaking MMO Ultima Online. So everyone in the online game/virtual world industry has been eagerly waiting to see just what he was planning.
To be honest, I'd expected a user-created online world built on top of a Java platform or something. Instead, Koster's vision is far more ambitious: in effect, he's proposing to make online world elements like dynamic, graphically shared space, avatars, and virtual currency part of the standard code which drives the web. How is that possible, and how can they compete in such a crowded market? What follows are my first hasty notes, on the day the web married the metaverse.
Destroying the traditional walled garden: An MMO accessible through Flash apps, 3D clients, cellphones, etc.
Up to now, most MMOs have been "walled gardens", requiring an extensive client install. Metaplace, by contrast, is "A Web browser with virtual world capability." And it's a browser that comes with its own tool kit, for people who want to build worlds, and a community/marketplace where developers can give away or sell their templates, scripts, and so on, hosted on the Areae network.
Thanks to the underlying HTML-style code by which Metaplace defines each individual world served by its network, you can literally copy and paste attributes like graphic appearance and user interface from one Metaplace world to another. In the demo, Raph showed me a Habbo Hotel-style living room (Metaplace will launch with this 2D isometric graphics view as standard), but Raph and his team expect the variety of worlds to grow with their tools, eventually accommodating hardcore MMOs like World of Warcraft—or even a new Second Life.
So instead of a single contiguous world, someone visiting the Metaplace web site gets presented with a YouTube-style home page (see photo of Metaplaces Beta log-in page ). Instead of videos, however, you have a variety of worlds to choose from, with ratings in terms of popularity, genre, and other categories. This prevents users looking for different worlds with different audiences and genre expectations getting their experiences crossed. (Or as Koster calls it: "Oh no, you got my Cartoon Network in my Suicide Girls!")
Gaming the system: Koster eats his dog food
As a renowned game developer, Koster has a rolodex of top developers in games and the tech world in general, and says Areae has been talking with an A-list roster of people interested in creating their projects in Metaplace. More key, Koster say he'll be developing his own next MMO on the Metaplace network, which will probably gain a large audience in and of itself (thanks to his reputation) — while also creating a signature prototype for his company's platform. (Koster wouldn't provide any details on his new game, however — he said he's saving that for a later announcement.)
Areae's many revenue models
- World-making is free — much like some introductory blog services, Areae only starts charging users for hosting their Metaplace world when they begin generating heavy traffic.
- There'll be sponsored worlds from advertisers and/or Areae partners.
- Virtual currency can be spent across the network, and can be sold for real cash — which users and developers can buy from Areae.
- An Adsense-style ad network will track user behavior based on what Metaplace games and worlds they play, and feed them appropriately targeted ads.
- A mini-Metaplace world can be embedded within a web ad, creating instant brand engagement to promote a sponsor's products.
Philosophical Differences: Metaplace vs. Second Life
While Second Life is evolving as an immersive 3D metaverse which slowly incorporates web elements like XML and RSS in-world, Metaplace is beginning as a web-based network which swallows the attributes of online worlds. As Koster put it: "We don't think the Net is getting stuffed inside a giant 3D client." That's just the Second Life strategy, which demonstrates the fundamental philosophical difference between Raph Koster's Areae and Philip Rosedale's Linden Lab. Rosedale wants a one-world utopia where all Second Life users share the same space. Koster wants a metaverse that looks more like the web. "Cramming people into one world doesn't make sense to us," he told me.
Metaplace: The geek details
- Content creators will use the Lua programming language.
- Client agnostic.
- Fully interoperable with the web.
- Modular scripts that are click-and-draggable from world to world.
- Every object in Metaplaces is a web object, and can thus serve XML data. ("We speak web top to bottom.")
- World developers have tools to charge their users Metaplace money, which they can then convert into U.S. dollars. (Which is why you'll need to give Areae your Tax ID number, when cashing out.)
- Areae is now developing an open source 3D engine and cell phone-driven platform. ("All of our clients will be open source.")
- Speaking of which, Creative Commons licensing is in consideration. "That seems like a natural fit." (And notably CC evangelist Cory Doctorow is on Areae's board of advisors, along with other stellar MMO figures.)
- Open Beta planned for Spring 2008.
- Alpha testing begins now, starting with 50 volunteers. In later months, that will expand to 500, and by the time it goes to closed Beta by the end of the year, will have room for up to 5000, a community of early adopters which Areae will help teach to use the development tools. Go to the Metaplace site to apply for an opening.
Intel announces Penryn for November 12th, shows off Nehalem and 32nm SRAM
It's Fall IDF time in San Francisco, and Intel really came out swinging in the chips department. The company is releasing 15 of its new 45nm Penryn this year, with the first chips hitting on November 12th, and another 20 hitting in Q1 2008. That could get some of those chips into desktops before AMD's 65nm Phenom hits, and is earlier than was expected from the chip giant. The Penryn chips are promised to bring a 20 percent performance increase while improving energy efficiency. Intel also took the opportunity to show off Nehalem, Penryn's followup. Nehalem sports a new micro-architecture to further reduce power drain, and it can adjust itself dynamically to best suit the task at hand while saving power in the process. And just to tease, Intel talked up its 32nm SRAM tech, the world's first 32nm chip, which will apparently be ready in 2009, but we'll settle for faster chips and longer battery life from the likes of Intel and AMD in the interim.
[Via TG Daily]
Hasselblad rolls out 39 megapixel H3D II DSLR
Hasselblad may have already hit 39 megapixels more than a year ago, but that doesn't make the company's new H3D II DSLR any less impressive, which hits that same mark with a few other improvements. Those include a new 3-inch display, which promises both a clearer view of images and lower power consumption, as well as an apparently revamped menu system that'll let you tweak settings using the thumbwheel controls on the camera. Otherwise, you can expect just about everything you could ask for in a $37,000 camera, including 48x36 mm CCD image sensors (the largest currently available), a Global Image Locator that tags photos with the exact geographic co-ordinates at the time they were taken, and an array of features that promise to keep your shots free of noise and moiré effects, to name just a few. What's more, if 39 megapixels and $37k is just a bit too much for you, you can opt for one of two lesser models that Hasselblad's also just introduced, including the 31 megapixel H3D-31II ($30,000) and the 22 megapixel H3D-22II ($25,000).
3D: MotionPortrait Animates Still Photos, Turns On Internet Dating World
3D: MotionPortrait Animates Still Photos, Turns On Internet Dating World
This is easily one of the best picture-to-CG animations I've seen. Sure, it's not flawless -- but if the company keeps improving on it, it can open up a whole lot of interesting features for social networking sites and video games. Unfortunately, the program can only be used through companies that put it into their own products -- but I'm expecting a 3D animated Yuri to be doing obscene gestures my friend's cellphones in the near future. [SciFi via UberGizmo]
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Google Docs Adds Web Based Version of PowerPoint 1.0
Google today launched a "very basic" PowerPoint clone that lets you create Presentations inside the web browser. Other than creating presentations from scratch, you can also upload your existing PPT and PPS slideshows into Google PowerPoint.
The new Google tool, which surprising doesn't have any name (they call it Google Docs presentations feature), is available at documents.google.com or can also be accessed from docs.google.com. It's also available for Google Apps customers.
Microsoft PowerPoint is celebrating it's 20th birthday this year but should the Redmond giant lose sleep with Google making inroads into the Presentation arena. Probably not because Google is more focused on building a tool that eases delivery of presentations online, not creating them.
The winning feature in Google PowerPoint is integration with Google Talk - while you are delivering a live presentation online, the presenter and attendees can text chat in real time via Google Talk.
Google provides no option to embed PowerPoint slideshows in web pages. You can export a presentation to zipped HTML but that functionality is broken as of now.
Related: A Real Contender for Google PowerPoint
Ask.Com Ad Campaign Futility
Augustine: "if a site cannot grow virally, it just will not grow." -- absolutely agreed. It is harder than ever to stand out these days with new web 2.0 websites springing up daily. The key is to start with something simple, yet remarkable enough that users are compelled to share it with friends (they know best what their friends are likely to like). And the next key is to continue to innovate and build so that the remarkability is sustainable. This could be extremely difficult, BUT web services have a built in customer feedback mechanism and power users/lead adopters are usually the ones that have the best ideas to share about how to improve a web service. So by putting in place the business processes to incorporate such ideas rapidly into features, a site can leverage continuous user innovation to help it continue to grow virally.
One other example from the field... a colleague at American Express was able to prove an early hypothesis of mine -- cut above-the-line advertising by half and there will be NO detrimental effect on website traffic or new cards acquired. His budget was cut by 80% in last year's belt tightening, BUT to everyone's surprise the website traffic showed NO decrease, and the rate of customers signing up for cards on the website showed NO decrease -- i.e. traditional advertising IS being ignored more completely than ANY industry reports are willing to admit.
from Alan Meckler by Alan Meckler
I think Ask.com is terrific! I think it was smart for IAC to purchase it a few years ago.
Recently the folks at Ask have been pushing a billboard and television ad campaign to stimulate readership. The billboard campaign was ridiculous. However the tv ads are terrific.
I doubt, however, that any ad will grow traffic to Ask. Our short Internet history has shown one thing: if a site cannot grow virally, it just will not grow.
The IAC management comes out of the old media tradition. While it has made terrific Web site purchases over the years, these ad campaigns seem to be coming from their old media training. I suggest they use the ad dollars for some more solid Web deals.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Alarm Clocks -- from Seth's Blog
Augustine: something as simple as this, yet because manufacturers don't have business processes whereby such obvious customer feedback gets directly to product development people who need it, they have not built this in. Web 2.0 services have the luxury of immediate (and intense) user feedback and the good ones turn these into bug fixes or new features rapidly. Obviously it is a lot harder for traditional product companies to incorporate "rapid user feedback" but simple changes to business processes and organizational structure can bring them closer to this "customer-driven innovation" nirvana -- and save them a lot of time and resources on wrong product "guesses" - a la Palm's Folio.
For twenty cents or so, alarm clock manufacturers can add a chip that not only knows the time (via a radio signal) but knows what day it is too. Which means that they can add a switch that says "weekends." Which means that the 98% of the population that doesn't want to wake up on the same time on weekends as they do on weekdays will be happier (and better rested.)
This isn't as complicated or expensive as my idea four years ago.
So why doesn't every alarm clock have this feature? Because most people in that business are busy doing their jobs (distribution, promotion, pricing, etc.), not busy making products that people actually want to buy--and talk about.
There are very few products and services that wouldn't get a lot better if people just tried to make them better.
Iron Sulfate Dumped Into Sea May Slow Global Warming Or Do Completely the Opposite
The process -- called carbon sinking -- could potentially restore plankton, improve the quality of the water and, on a very good day, slow climate change. On the other hand, since it's more or less untested, it could also result in nitrous oxide and methane being shot into the atmosphere, making things worse. So, you know, cross your sustainable fingers. [Hindustan Times via TreeHugger]
iUnlock Reloaded: free iPhone unlocking for dummies now available
Filed under: Cellphones
Wake the kids, phone the neighbors, the We'll bring you more just as soon as we get hands-on with the new wares (eh hem, all our iPhones seem to be unlocked at the moment) and as long as Apple doesn't drop the hammer with a new iPhone firmware release. We know it's coming, and chances are it will wreak havoc with the unlock.
Download
EU mirror
US mirror
Update: Not so dummy-proof Instructions and more after the break.
Update 2: GUI version is now out.
Giant email leak from MediaDefender -- MAFIAA hitmen
700 megabytes of internal email from MediaDefender, a group of entertainment industry enforcers, has leaked onto the net. The emails detail MediaGuardian's procedures, their internal response to being outed for posting a fake download site to entrap users, the plans to induce users to link to their entrapment site, and the way the company sought to insulate their clients in the motion picture industry from negative publicity arising from their entrapment efforts. There's plenty more there -- 700mb is a lot of mail -- and I'm sure we'll see all kinds of interesting things in the coming weeks.
Unfortunately for Media Defender - a company dedicated to mitigating the effects of internet leaks - they can do nothing about being the subject of the biggest BitTorrent leak of all time. Over 700mb of their own internal emails, dating back over 6 months have been leaked to the internet in what will be a devastating blow to the company. Many are very recent, having September 2007 dates and the majority involve the most senior people in the company. Apparently this is not the first time that a MediaDefender email leaked onto the Internet.Link (Thanks, Christian!)According to the .nfo file posted with the Mbox file the emails were obtained by a group called "MediaDefender-Defenders". It states: "By releasing these emails we hope to secure the privacy and personal integrity of all peer-to-peer users. The emails contains information about the various tactics and technical solutions for tracking p2p users, and disrupt p2p services," and "A special thanks to Jay Maris, for circumventing there entire email-security by forwarding all your emails to your gmail account"
Clips: VOCALOID 2: The Japanese Anime Song Generator
Update on TD Ameritrade data breach: yup, hacked.
Remember Mark's post about TD Ameritrade customers receiving weird pump-n-dump stock scam spam from TD Ameritrade? Turns out the company was hacked, and those spams resulted from that data breach:
Link.Online brokerage TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. said Friday one of its databases was hacked and contact information for its more than 6.3 million customers was stolen. A spokeswoman for the Omaha-based company said more sensitive information in the same database, including Social Security numbers and account numbers, does not appear to have been taken.
But Ameritrade has known about the problem at least since late May when two of its customers sued the brokerage in federal court because they were receiving unwanted e-mail ads on accounts used only for Ameritrade.
The data on Ameritrade's servers may have been vulnerable for an extended period of time dating back at least to last October, according to the lawsuit filed by lawyer Scott A. Kamber. The company said Friday the problem had recently been fixed.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit had wanted the court to order Ameritrade to tell its customers about the data problem, but Ameritrade issued its release before a hearing could be held. The plaintiffs are also seeking damages and are trying to qualify as a class-action lawsuit.
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