Thursday, February 14, 2008

Lightway OLED Shutters Could Mean It's Curtains for Curtains [Lightway]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/234932131/lightway-oled-shutters-could-mean-its-curtains-for-curtains

lightway.jpgLouvered shutters may not be everyone's idea of a great time, but Damian Savio's spangly, light-up version sure is mine. The 23-year-old industrial design student designed them for his final-year show at the University of Western Sydney. Using OLEDs and advance transparent Photovoltaic Nanoscale technology, the Lightway shutters allow the sunlight in during the day, whilst storing energy in solar cells to power the crazy lights at nighttime. Suddenly I feel like I want to party.

[Swongled]



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Archos teams with SFR in France for building 3G+ into upcoming players

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/234375791/

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With the likes of Apple and Garmin taking their respective expertise and pointing it toward the mobile phone world, perhaps it should come as no surprise that Archos is doing something similar. Unfortunately, it's fairly impossible at this stage to figure out what that thing is. All we know is that Archos has struck a deal with France's SFR to integrate 3G+ HSDPA data modems into its players -- a deal that was rumored late last year -- but whether that means beefed up mobile surfing and VoIP, or an all new phone product has yet to be seen.

[Thanks, Marien]

 

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Hands-on with NVIDIA's APX 2500, and yeah, it plays Quake

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/234402971/

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Yet another mobile platform, and this time with NVIDIA power. We had a chance to checkout the APX 2500 and its Quake skills at MWC today and we're definitely enthused about this new toy. Engadget Mobile has all the pics so just wander over via the link to see this thing in action.

 

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Samsung's See'N'Search set-top box automagically connects internet, TV

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/234713458/

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Samsung -- not satisfied with people using their TVs and set top boxes to, y'know, watch TV -- has announced its See'N'Search set-top box. Separate from its Media Center Extender and RSS-enabled HDTVs, this box pores over channel guide info and closed caption metadata to find and suggest accompanying video or websites from the internets to go with your episode of Bold & the Beautiful. This is better than actually getting up and using a computer to find Youtube spoofs, because it's automatic, and accessible via the remote's "More Info" button, which can then send said info to a phone or PC via Wi-Fi. With a press release short on details of how this tech will get out of Samsung's R&D center and into our home theater, we're not throwing out our HTPCs just yet.

 

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Facebook Adopts Reputation Based Spam Filtering

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AVc/~3/234870882/facebook-adopts.html

I am a big fan of using reputation as the central measure of spam. Reputation means many things to many people, but I am using the word in the context of an aggregated measure of many inputs taken together to establish a message senders' reputation. That's how a company I'm invested in, Return Path, does it. They are the leader in email whitelisting and deliverability. Their premise is simple. Measure every known mail sender's (ip address) reputation based on a slew of inputs, including complaint rates, unsubscribe compliance, e-mail send volume, unknown user volume, security practices, identity stability, etc and create a Sender Score. Once you know a sender's reputation (sender score), you can provide a host of services to mail senders and recipients that help both sides make sure that users get the mail they want and don't get the mail they don't want.

Facebook is mimicking that approach with the viral marketing channels in its Facebook platform. Inside Facebook reported yesterday that Facebook has rolled out a reputation system that dynamically determines how many notifications and invitations a Facebook app can send per user per day. Right now, it's relatively crude and relies upon the following items:

  • Your historical invitation acceptance rate
  • Whether your application overrides the user's choice to invite no friends, but instead forces users to invite friends
  • Additional undisclosed factors that "reflect the affinity users show for the application as a whole"

Like everything Facebook does, this system will evolve and get better and more sophisticated. But the bottom line is this. If you use best practices, play by the rules, don't upset users, and deliver percieved value, you'll get to send more. If you don't, you'll get to send less.

I think this is a very smart move by Facebook that will result in a better experience for everyone.

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