Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

RT @bmorrissey - shortcuts into the stream - "30 phones will cost it under $10,000 with no media or creative costs" - twitter sweepstakes

Boku Lets You Purchase Virtual Goods via Cell Phone [Cell Phones]

We've previously covered services like TextPayMe (since bought by Amazon) and PayPalMobile that let you make purchases using your cell phone. Today we see another called Boku, a mobile payment service designed to make getting your virtual goods easy.

Admittedly, the market for virtual goods is larger abroad than here in the United States (though that may change in the future, see Mafia Wars), but the service—available in over 50 countries—is useful for those looking to buy virtual goods on Facebook, hi5, and other social sites.

To use it, click the "Pay by Mobile" button that's listed on the web site, punch in in your cell phone number, and reply "Y" to the text message confirmation. The purchase will then be added to your cell phone bill. No credit card information or registration is required, and the service works for both monthly cell phone and pre-paid subscribers.

The Boku site lists compatible carriers for each country (in the U.S, for example, the service works with Alltel
AT&T, Cellular One, Sprint/Nextel/Boost, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Verizon, and Virgin), though you should make sure to ask what, if any, additional charges your carrier may apply for using the service.

Check out the above demo for a rundown or browse the Boku site for more information.

[Boku]

Game Over for Sun's "Game Changing" 16-Core Rock CPU [Sun]

In the wake of their buyout by Oracle, Sun Microsystems has canned their 16-core Rock chip project—once touted by the company as a "game changer," and their answer to IBM's latest Power CPUs—after five years of development. This represents the second major chip offering from Sun to be shelved in recent years. [NYT]

20,500-Gallon Firefighting Boeing 747 Supertanker In Action [Airplanes]

The fire season has started in half of the world and I wish there were more of these 747 Firefighting Supertankers. They can drop 20,500 gallons of water in one go, as you can see in the video.

Rob Cockerham at PopSci got to see it in action, and took a few photographs of this mighty—and extremely useful—sploshing megalomaniac dream machine. [Popsci]

TweetDeck Now Available On The iPhone [Apps]

Digg founder Kevin Rose got his hands on the beta for the iPhone version of TweetDeck, proclaiming that it will soon replace tweetie as his go-to app.

If it works anything like the desktop version, I will also be making the switch. Apparently, the app version features the same column-based friend group structure as the desktop version, the ability to synch with the desktop version, and Facebook-esque status updates. Unfortunately, the "when" and "how much" part of the question remains unanswered. Hopefully, we won't have to wait long.