Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Listen to Music On-Demand with Songza [Music]

from Lifehacker by Adam Pash

Search and play a wide variety of popular music for free with web site Songza. In a nutshell Songza is a search engine for music—most of which is live—that can stream songs as soon as you click on them and create and organize playlists on-the-fly. Beyond that you can share songs via email, with a simple link, or embedded on a web site (as I've done above). Songza isn't the first site aiming to fill the YouTube-of-audio shoes (see Hype Machine, which is incredible), but if you've got limited options for listening to music at work and recommendation sites like Pandora aren't really your thing, Songza is worth a look.

Teen Steals Over $5K in Virtual Furniture, Gets Busted By Very Real Cops [So Real]

from Gizmodo by Wilson Rothman

Police arrested a Dutch 17-year old and questioned five other 15-year-olds for the alleged theft of over $5,000 worth of furniture from Habbo Hotel, a virtual hangout with more than 6 million visitors from 30 countries. "The six teenagers are suspected of moving the stolen furniture into their own Habbo rooms," says the BBC story. Reality just got bent.

Like in many virtual worlds, Habbo Hotel lets you buy furniture to deck out your pad. The kids apparently perpetrated the theft through a phishing scam: by creating websites that mimic the Habbo login, they could trick the victims into unknowingly surrender login IDs and passwords. The crooks could presumably just swing by their room and transfer whatever they wanted to their own accounts. Says a spokesman for Sulake, Habbo Hotel's operator:

"It is a theft because the furniture is paid for with real money. But the only way to be a thief in Habbo is to get people's usernames and passwords and then log in and take the furniture."

Of course, you know what we're thinking: anyone gullible enough to spend thousands on virtual furniture might be a prime target for trickery. I mean, not to get off on a rant, but when you think about it, who stole whose money in the first place? [BBC News]

Sandy's Your Personal Assistant via Email

from Lifehacker by Gina Trapani

If you live out of your inbox and don't have the luxury of a human assistant, check out newly launched webapp Sandy, an information tracker you interact with via email. Register for a free account and you'll get an email address you can send your to-do's, contacts, bookmarks, notes, and appointments to in keyworded messages. Sandy receives the email, parses, stores, and organizes the information, and emails you back reminders and agendas only when you need 'em.

For example, a message to your sister that cc:'s Sandy and reads:

Remind us to call Mom on her birthday on 9/16/07 @yearly @birthday

Will set up yearly email birthday reminders for Mom from Sandy. Here are a few more ways Sandy can remember important items you want to get off your mind.

All your lists and reminders are available on Sandy's web site as well as via email, and you can set up SMS and Twitter access to Sandy, too. Formatting messages Sandy understands is very easy; you'll see from this cheat sheet the language is natural, as if you were talking to an actual human.

Those of us already getting more email each day than we can handle should configure Sandy to send just the messages we want. Opt in or out of replies to every Sandy command, specific item reminders, and a daily digest of appointments and to-do's. The best part about Sandy is the messages you get back from "her"—helpful and fun, the tone truly makes you feel like you have an assistant backing you up.

Sandy's yet another example of how the command line's making a comeback—except the "command line" is a new email message, not a terminal window, and the commands and responses are in readable, natural language. Overall, Sandy's one of the most evolved reminder systems and remote command line apps available today.

Microbes Churn Out Hydrogen at Record Rate

from Slashdot by ScuttleMonkey

FiReaNGeL writes to mention that Penn State Researchers have improved on their original microbial electrolysis cell design bringing the resulting system up to better than 80 percent efficiency when considering all energy inputs and outputs. "By tweaking their design, improving conditions for the bacteria, and adding a small jolt of electricity, they increased the hydrogen yield to a new record for this type of system. 'We achieved the highest hydrogen yields ever obtained with this approach from different sources of organic matter, such as yields of 91 percent using vinegar (acetic acid) and 68 percent using cellulose,' said Logan. In certain configurations, nearly all of the hydrogen contained in the molecules of source material converted to usable hydrogen gas, an efficiency that could eventually open the door to bacterial hydrogen production on a larger scale."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Open Source Video Player Miro Hits 1.0 [Video]

from Lifehacker by Kevin Purdy

Windows/Mac/Linux: Cross-platform, open source video application Miro is now available in a full-featured, bug-fixed 1.0 version. The program formerly known as Democracy Player plays almost any kind of video file, but its real value lies in its content fetching and organizing features. Miro can subscribe to video podcasts, grab from YouTube channel feeds or BitTorrents (letting you make your own season pass) and keep video libraries organized, amongst other features. Miro is a free download for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Extreme Hi-Tech Log Cabin Would Make Al Gore Cry (Gallery)

from Gizmodo by Wilson Rothman

Ahh, the great outdoors. Wouldn't it be nice to get out to the woods, to a log cabin far from the things of man? Naturally, you'd still need motorized Lutron Sivoia QED window shades, a "corporate-style" phone system from Panasonic, a whole-house music system and an AMX home control system to bring it all together. Oh and...

...a Meridian sound system with Vidikron Vision 90 DLP projector and a 130-inch screen for the home, I mean cabin, theater. And what about two kitchens, one for you and one for your guests? After all, you're not a caveman. Speaking of caves, it might pay to replace some of the natural rocks around the property for high-end speakers that just look like rocks, am I right?

So how much for this 10,000-square-foot relax-o-dome located (I believe) near Fort Collins, CO? You know the drill: If you have to ask, you'll never know. For more shots of decadence, hit EH's article. [Electronic House]

Thumbplay On The Block: $500M For Ringtones?

from Silicon Alley Insider by Peter Kafka

We hear that Thumbplay, the NY-based ringtone startup that's been growing at a supercharged rate, has hired Morgan Stanley to quietly shop itself around.

We gather this is more of a market-testing exercise than a full-blown sales pitch; apparently Thumbplay's investors (Bain Capital Ventures, SoftBank Capital, i-Hatch Ventures, Redwood Partners, New Enterprise Associates and Meritech) are more interested in raising some additional capital and eventually taking the company public.

But if Thumbplay did want to put itself on the block, it might be able to get a substantial price: We hear that the company is doing more than $100 million/year in sales, and that a conservative multiple would be 2x - 3x and an optimistic one might be as high as 5x. The latter would make the two-year-old company worth more than $500 million.
One potential hitch: Some data we've seen suggests that the ringtone market is flattening. Perhaps this is why Thumbplay is eager to move into other markets such as full-blown music sales.

IBM's BlueGene/L: world's fastest supercomputer, 3 years running

from Engadget by Thomas Ricker

The TOP500 supercomputing list was just announced and IBM's BlueGene/L system has kept its crown. In fact, IBM's and the Department of Energy's co-developed monster at Lawrence Livermore has occupied the number 1 position since 2004. Of course, an upgrade was required boost the Linpack benchmark to 478.2 TFlop/s from the 280.6TFlop/s the machine was clocking just 6 months ago. The top 10 swath is dominated by the US, Sweden, and Germany with India breaking into the list for the first time at the number 4 position with its HP Cluster Platform 3000 BL460c system measuring 102.8TFlop/s.

Intel said to be planning 45nm Diamondville CPU for low-cost PCs

from Engadget by Donald Melanson

It looks like Intel's not done with its 45nm processors just yet, as Reg Hardware is now reporting that the company is set to release yet another model, dubbed "Diamondville", that is apparently intended specifically for low-cost desktop PCs. That processor will apparently be part of the so-called "Shelton" platofrm which, among other things, will be able to operate without a fan, meaning the systems based on it should definitely be on the small side. The folks at Reg Hardware go one step further than that, however, speculating that the Diamondville/Shelton combo could in fact be the basis for Asus' forthcoming desktop Eee PC -- a possibility given a bit more credence given that Shelton is designed to work with 2 to 4GB of flash storage. Either way, we should be hearing plenty more about it soon enough, as the platform is supposedly set for a 2008 release.

SanDisk's Vaulter Disk: flash-based drive module for laptops

from Engadget by Ryan Block

Details are light, but apparently SanDisk will be announcing a device called the Vaulter Disk next year, which will basically be something like an SSD intermediary -- a large bank of fast flash memory for speeding up platter-based drive access. Sounds a lot like the lovechild of RAMdisk and a hybrid hard drive, but we won't know more until a later date.

Update: We've got more details! It'll come in 8GB and 16GB sizes, and is intended to host the laptop's operating system and select user data, leaving apps, media, and everything else to the platter drives. So calling it an SSD intermediary is pretty accurate. It'll be available to OEMs early next year.

LG uncovers 47-inch 47LG75 LCD TV: LED-backlit and oh-so-thin

from Engadget by Darren Murph

We knew LG was cookin' up a LED-backlit LCD TV behind closed doors, and it's quite the treat to hear that all that work has paid off in the 47LG75. This 47-inch set touts an uber-slim design, oh-so-sexy frame, 1080p support and hidden speakers to boot. Unfortunately, we're not privy to actual specifications just yet, but we are told to expect a "high contrast ratio" to go along with the automatic brightness and color optimizing technologies. We've also got a sneaking suspicion that this beauty won't be one of the sets ringing up for next to nothing on Black Friday, but we certainly hope LG fleshes out a few more details by then, anyway.

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Polaroid and Zink develop Digital Instant Mobile Photo Printer

from Engadget by Darren Murph

Filed under: Digital Cameras

We'd heard through the grapevine that the Zink portable printer camera would be getting boxed up and sent out to eager customers late this year, but now it seems as though Polaroid has jumped in for a bit of the action. Realistically, you shouldn't be too surprised that the former king of instant photography is syncing up with Zink, and we must say, this whole partnership conjures up some pretty fond memories of shakin' snapshots in tense anticipation as we waited for the scene to develop. Nostalgia aside, the firm's Digital Instant Mobile Photo Printer does indeed sport the Zink logo, and sure enough, it produces borderless 2- x 3-inch color prints instantly when fed images from a digicam or cellphone. We don't have a firmed up release date in front of us or anything, but all signs are pointing to soon -- very soon.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Free Rice -- How many grains did YOU donate?

http://www.freerice.com

more importantly how many hours did you spend? :-)

The moment of truth

Today in the lunch line I was waiting for a custom tossed salad to be made for the person in front of me and I was surveying the sundry items available to add to my salad.

I decided for health reasons I was definitely getting the haricots verts (fancy french for green beans). Then moments later when it was my turn to name 5 ingredients to go into my salad and was rushed by the salad-tosser-guy i just rattled off avocado, corn, alfalfa, artichokes, and tomatoes. After I got back to my desk and started eating, I noticed I had no green beans. I realized I had gone with "my usual" or what was familiar and safe.

So, in marketing, even if the marketing were so successful to have gotten a product in my consideration set and I had already decided to buy it, even then at the moment of purchase some other distractions may come into play that ultimately defeats the intended purchase.

How does marketing impact the moment of purchase and make one product "win" over another?

Alienware's Area-51 ALX CF the first to use 45nm processors

from Engadget by Nilay Patel

Well, that didn't take long -- just a few hours after Intel confirmed that those hot new 45nm Penryn processors are shipping, Alienware blasted out a press release announcing the Area-51 ALX CF, the first machine to use the new chips. The QX9650-equipped machines can be ordered overclocked up to 4.0GHz, and Alienware also bumped the graphics to dual CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 3870 cards. All that power won't come cheap, though -- the CF line starts at $5499.

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