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Gmail Adds Voice and Video Chat

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:00:00 EST

Google has added voice and video chat to Google Mail. They say getting started is easy and all you need is a webcam. You can download the video chat software from Google here. Will this be what sends video chat into the mainstream? Here's a video from Google where Serge explains how Gmail video chat works.

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Phishing Scams in Plain English

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 21:00:00 EST

Phising is one of the biggest and worst types of scams on the Internet. Usually phising involves fraudsters pretending to be your bank or credit card company. They try to fool you into giving you your information by sending you an email that looks official. Here's some great advice about how to spot phising emails from commoncraft.com.

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Facebook Privacy Tips

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:00:00 EST

Here's some great tips from Gabe Mac at Mobuzz about how to handle the Facebook redesign. Gabe Mac shows you how to handle Facebook privacy how to select which friends can see which parts of your Facebook profile.

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Google Takes You Back to 2001

Thu, 2 Oct 2008 16:36:00 EST

Mental-floss reports that Google took its users back in time for its 10th birthday. You can now search an index from 2001 to see how things have changed. You can find the special search here.

In honor of Google's tenth birthday*, the search engine has posted a version of itself as it appeared in January 2001 (the earliest available index). It was a simpler time: only 1,326,920,000 web pages were in the index. Today it's over 8 billion, though Google stopped revealing the exact number in 2005, saying the index size was "meaningless." Doing a search on the 2001-era index reveals how much the web has changed since then.

Just like mental-floss we aren't in the 2001 index but our parent company WritersWrite.com is.

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Muxtape Shuts Down

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 15:04:00 EST

Muxtape was a service that was rapidly gaining popularity until it was suddenly shut down. Valleywag notes the fun music website's RIAA problem.

Muxtape, a New York-based online-music startup much favored by the Tumblr set, has shut down its website, citing a "problem" with the RIAA, a music-industry organization which polices copyright. Could it have anything to do with the ease with which users can download music files from the site, despite founder Justin Ouellette's efforts to block them? The company blog elaborates, barely: "No artists or labels have complained. The site is not closed indefinitely. Stay tuned."

A long note on Muxtape website now says the website will be relaunching in the future but as a service for bands.

Muxtape is relaunching as a service exclusively for bands, offering an extremely powerful platform with unheard-of simplicity for artists to thrive on the internet. Musicians in 2008 without access to a full time web developer have few options when it comes to establishing themselves online, but their needs often revolve around a common set of problems. The new Muxtape will allow bands to upload their own music and offer an embeddable player that works anywhere on the web, in addition to the original muxtape format. Bands will be able to assemble an attractive profile with simple modules that enable optional functionality such as a calendar, photos, comments, downloads and sales, or anything else they need. The system has been built from the ground up to be extended infinitely and is wrapped in a template system that will be open to CSS designers. There will be more details soon. The beta is still private at the moment, but that will change in the coming weeks.

An Ars Technica article lists a few alternatives. They include Songza.com, Favtape and Mixtube.

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Add Bling to Your Graphics With Blingee

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:00:00 EST

Blingee is a graphics tool that lets you add ridiculous bling to your photographs and graphics. You can find the help page here. Here's a Michael Bolton image that has been blinged up with Blingee.

Blingee's tools are a lot of fun but it can be overdone as you can see here.

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Google Launches a New Browser Called Chrome

Thu, 4 Sep 2008 15:00:00 EST

Google has launched a beta version of a new browser called Chrome. Google is pushing the security aspects of Chrome. The Chrome has a feature called the omnibar that pulls in the top three or four search results from Google. PC Magazine compares the Omnibar to Firefox's "Awesome Bar." Other features with Chrome include tabs and desktop shortcuts.

Topher Kohan handles search engine optimization for CNN.com and discusses Google's new Web browser in the video below. He calls the browser fast, quick and secure. Kohan mentions one problem - there is no "Home" button. You can add a home button though by changing the preferences. You can also configure Chrome to bring up several of your favorite sites upon launching.

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Iterasi Lets You Bookmark Dynamically Generated Pages

Tue, 2 Sep 2008 15:50:00 EST

Iterasi is a new bookmarking website that let's you save dynamically generated pages and Flash pages. You can see a video about the new service here.

At iterasi, we love the Web. So much so, that we want to keep it. Forever.

That's why we're taking steps to move beyond traditional bookmarking. Because, these days, saving the address of a page isn't half as important as being able to save the page you created.

Our first product, iterasi, makes it simple for any Web user to save the dynamically generated pages that are increasingly becoming the bulk of today's Web experience. With iterasi, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX, and database driven technologies, like PHP and ASP, can all be saved?in their current state?with the push of a button.

You can see up a scheduler to bookmark pages for you. You can also share the pages you have saved with others using a shortened URL.

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Survey Finds Centenarians Use Email, Google and Online Dating

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:00:00 EST

The third annual Evercare 100@100 Survey polled 100 centenarians. The poll shifts conventional stereotypes on aging by revealing that some of the oldest Americans are using the latest technologies to keep up and stay close - talking on cell phones, sending emails, "Googling" lost acquaintances, surfing Wikipedia and even online dating.

Here's some of the results from the survey that found some centenarians are web savvy.

Surveyed Centenarians are no technophobes: 19 percent say they use cell phones to keep in touch with friends and family. Other technology used to stay in touch includes: e-mail (7 percent), sending or receiving digital photos by email (4 percent), and text messaging (1 percent).

Love 2.0: As many Centenarians as Baby Boomers (3 percent) say they have dated someone they met on an online dating site. Twelve percent of Centenarians surveyed say they have used the Internet and some have "Googled" someone they have lost contact with (2 percent) or have visited someone's personal Web site (2 percent).

Use the online encyclopedia "Wikipedia" (3 percent)

Purchased a gift online (3 percent)

Used the Internet to research a health topic (2 percent)

Have visited a political Web site (2 percent)

Have made travel arrangements and plans online (1 percent)

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Xobni Microsoft Outlook Plug-in Getting High Praise

Fri, 8 Aug 2008 22:00:00 EST

Xobni is a plug-in for Microsoft Outlook that has been garnering a large number of positive reviews. The plug-in helps you organize your Outlook inbox with features like fast email search, email analytics, social network type features and threaded conversations. Newsweek reports that Bill Gates, speaking at the Microsoft Office Developer Conference, called Xobni "the next generation of social networking." Here's a review of Xobni from the WSJ's Walt Mossberg.

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Beijing Olympics Search Tools and Resources

Thu, 7 Aug 2008 15:00:00 EST

The main resources for the Olympics this year are the official website and NBCOlympics.com. There are also a large number of Olympic blogs and Twitters.

The search engines this year are also useful. Google is providing some useful one box results. If you search something like beach volleyball olympics you will see scores pulled in from the beijing2008.cn website. Google Maps has also added new feautures for the Beijing Olympics. There is also a downloadable Olympics Countdown Gadget.

Yahoo is also providing box scores if you type in searches like usa medal count and diving + Olympics. You can also quickly obtain athlete information. For example, if you type in Jingjing Guo Olympics you will get an athlete information box that looks like this:

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Web Humor: Baby's First Internet

Tue, 5 Aug 2008 21:00:00 EST

Baby's First Internet by Kevin Fanning and Kean Soo provides a hilarious look at some of the trends, habits and absurdities of today's online culture. From having to be the first to add a comment underneath a new blog post to the urge to photograph every single thing you eat this new baby book (that's not really for babies) covers a great deal with it's short insightful rhymes.

Metafilter connects the book to larger concerns about where the Internet may be headed. (via Babyosphere)

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Show Off Your Inbox Zero Victory

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:00:00 EST

An iniative called Inbox Victory from the F.A.T. (free art and technology) website is encouraging people to take pictures and screenshots of when they have managed to clear out their email inbox.

Have you ever been in the situation where you spend days trying answer all of your email only to accomplish your goal and have no one to share in your victory? All you want is a high five, a pat on the back, and a "job well done soldier!", and yet most likely all you are left with is an empty room and a cold cup of coffee. Inbox Victory is an initiative that says, "you deserve that high five!" And here is how you get it:

1) Get your email inbox down to zero. People have various methods for dealing with their email so 'inbox 0' is going to mean different things to different people. A basic rule of thumb, however, is getting it to a point where no further action can be taken.

2) Open up your webcam software and take a screenshot of yourself profiling in front of your defeated foe (See examples below).

3) Leave your screenshot in the comments of this post.

It can be very difficult and time consuming to get your email inbox down to zero. It is also usually a very short-lived experience because it isn't long before new emails come rolling in. This is a great way to keep a momento of your inbox success story. (via Boing Boing)

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China Has More Web Surfers Than U.S.

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:00:00 EST

China has more people surfing the Internet than the United States does according to an AP news story. China has about 30 million more web surfers than the U.S.

China's booming Internet population has surpassed the United States to become the world's biggest, with 253 million people online despite government controls on Web use, according to government data reported Friday.

The latest figure on Web use at the end of June is a 56 percent increase over the same time last year, the China Internet Network Information Center said. It said the share of the Chinese public using the Internet is still just 19.1 percent, leaving more room for rapid growth.

The United States had an estimated 223.1 million Internet users in June, according to Nielsen Online, a research firm. The Pew Internet and American Life Project puts U.S. online penetration at 71 percent.

"This is the first time the number has drastically surpassed the United States, becoming the world's No. 1," a CNNIC statement said.

China is also well known for having strict filters that block China's citizens from viewing many of the world's websites. During the recent situation in Tibet, China reportedly even blocked news websites like CNN and the BBC. U.S. organizations doing business in China - including MSN, Yahoo and Google - have been blamed for complying with China's filters in order to do business in the coutnry. You can read a couple older articles about how China filters the Internet here and here.

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20% of U.S. Population Has Never Sent an Email

Mon, 19 May 2008 18:00:00 EST

Not everyone is using the Internet. About 20% of the U.S. population has never sent an email or looked up information online according to a recent study by Parks Associates.

Age and education were significant factors cited in the study, which was conducted by researcher Parks Associates. Half of those who have never used e-mail are older than 65 and 56 percent had no formal education beyond a high school level, the telephone survey found.

"Nearly one out of three household heads has never used a computer to create a document," John Barrett, director of research at Parks Associates, said in a statement. "These data underscore the significant digital divide between the connected majority and the homes in the unconnected minority that rarely, if ever, use a computer."

Just 7 percent of the 20 million households without Internet access indicated during the survey that they plan to subscribe to an Internet service within the next 12 months. However, the study noted a steady decline in the number of disconnected households when comparing findings with previous years; the 2006 survey found that 31 million households, or 29 percent, of all U.S. households were without Internet access.

20 million households with no web access is signicant. It would be interesting to know how many are going without because they can't afford it and how many are simply uninterested. It would also be interesting to know whether there are still areas in the U.S. where it is simply unavailable.

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Paintings of Internet Memes

Thu, 1 May 2008 18:00:00 EST

Czech painter Jeremiah Palecek is now painting Internet memes. Featured below are his paintings of The Dramatic Chipmunk and the Star Wars Kid. You can see Palecek's paintings on his blog here (via Boing Boing).

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A Convention For Lulz

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:00:00 EST

Finally all those Internet memes will be honored with a convention. It's the ROFLCon. We really needed this convention badly right? LOLCats just doesn't get enough notice on the Internet. The Bosotn Herald says this lulz con is being held by MIT.

The best - and, well, the worst - of Internet culture will crawl out of computer screens across the globe and descend on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Friday and Saturday for the first-ever ROFLCon, a joint venture of the Harvard and MIT Free Culture programs that will feature more than 60 Internet celebrities, guest speakers and college professors.

"We're getting the Internet to appear in the real world," said ROFLCon organizer and Harvard senior Tim Hwang.

"And it's terrifying," laughed fellow coordinator and Crimson undergrad Carrie Anderson.

If you don't know that ROFL stands for "Rolling on the Floor Laughing," then chances are you've never marveled at the luminescent costume detail of Tron Guy, giggled to grammatically depraved kitty captions on the Web site "I Can Has Cheezeburger" or hopped aboard the meteoric rise of the "Stuff White People Like" blog. That site garnered 24 million hits over a few months and landed creator Christian Lander a book deal with Random House Publishing.

Laughing Squid says the Tron guy is going. Wired calls the convention a weekend of nerddom. The full list of guest stars is here.

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Online Video Views Soaring

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:00:00 EST

Data from Comscore says video views soared over 66% in February over the year before. Comscore also says TV networks are starting to fight back with sights like Hulu.com. This is also what the writer's strike was all about. Video is rapidly moving online and everybody wants a piece of the pie.

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Can You Scrub Away Your Digital Footprint?

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 21:00:00 EST

Every social networking website you have used likely still retains the information you placed there even after you abandoned the website. For some the Friendster social network may be a website they used and abandoned years ago. Forbes explains.

You may have forgotten about Friendster, the once-booming social networking site that faded as American Web users flocked to MySpace and Facebook. But Friendster may not have forgotten about you.

It still remembers, for instance, that John Smith from Salisbury, Md., enjoys hobbies including "comic books" and "copulation." And any Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) user can read a glowing testimonial written to Brooklynite Sam Brown, describing his habit of walking around his apartment drunk and naked, as well as his talent for using a certain part of his anatomy as a puppet.

In fact, Friendster is a ghost town of detailed personal information: The site received only 2.4 million unique visitors in the U.S. in January, but has more than 10 million American profiles, many of which publicly display information that users would probably prefer to keep private.

The Forbes article called "How To Disappear Online" goes on to explain how to get informaton removed from Facebook and how information is not always easy to erase - especially if it wasn't created by you. There are also companies that will help you erase your personal data for a fee. Some companies also help to remove negative information. This process is sometimes called Googlewashing. This video from MSNBC explains how it is done. The video mentions some web services that claim to perform these services. They include Reputation Hawk, Defend My Name and ReputationDefender.com. One expert argues in the video clip that removing all negative information is not possible so it is better to counter the negative information by creating lots of positive information about yourself.

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Rick Astley Interview About Rickrolls

Sat, 5 Apr 2008 21:00:00 EST

Rickrolling was very big on April Fool's Day. YouTube even rickrolled people who were clicking on its featured videos. For the very few who don't know rickrolling is when someone tricks you into clicking on a link that takes you to Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" music video. Astley told Web Scout that if he was a young kid looking at his old song today he would think it was pretty naff.

For his part, Astley was nothing if not modest about his new cultural role. "If this had happened around some kind of rock song, with a lyric that really meant something -- a Bruce Springsteen, "God bless America" ... or an anti-something kind of song, I could kind of understand that," Astley said. "But for something as, and I don't mean to belittle it, because I still think it's a great pop song, but it's a pop song; do you know what I mean? It doesn't have any kind of weight behind it, as such. But maybe that's the irony of it."

Astley would never put the song down, mind you. It's just that, as he says, "If I was a young kid now looking at that song, I'd have to say I'd think it was pretty naff, really."

(Wikipedia on "naff": British slang for "something which is seen to be particularly 'cheesy' or 'tacky' or in otherwise poor aesthetic taste.") "For me it's a good example of what some of the '80s were about in that pop sort of music way. A bit like you could say Debbie Gibson was absolutely massive, but if you look back at it now ... do you know what I mean?"

Rick Astley seems to be taking it very well. If "Never Gonna Give You Up" was a bad song it probably wouldn't be such a popular choice for something like a rickroll. It's the fact that the song gets your head - it is both catchy and cheesy - that makes it the perfect music video to trick someone into viewing.

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Adobe Launches Free Photo-Editing Software

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:00:00 EST

Adobe has launched a free web version of Photoshop - its popular photo-editing software - called Photoshop Express. Adobe was expected to make this move and some are saying the software wasn't quite a feature-full as they would have liked but it is still Adobe-powered editing software. There is also concern about the TOS. Photoshop Express will probably get better as time goes by and Adobe adds new features and services.

You can see a few reviews of the new software here, here, here, here, here and here. Below is a video from the AP about the launch.

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Add Places to Google Maps

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:00:00 EST

You can now add any place to Google Maps that does not already appear on the map. Suggestings from Google include "your favorite town square" or "little-known landmarks." It is a pretty nifty feature especially if you trying to give someone directions. You have to logged in with Google to add a place. Here is a video from Google showing how it is done.

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Create Search Engines at Topical

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:00:00 EST

A new website called Topical allows users to create search engines that will search a small number of websites. People can also take advantage of the search engines that have already been created on the website. ReadWriteWeb reports that the site is using a Wikipedia-type model.

The service, which went live today, uses a model similar to that of Wikipedia, allowing anyone to contribute to the creation and enhancement of their own vertical search engines.

To use Topicle, the process is simple. You first search for a search engine, using their current database of human-created engines. If you find one that fits your needs, you can use it. If not, you can create your own engine or add to an existing one to make it more suitable.

The Topicle website is using Google Custom Search tool to generate the search engines. ReadWriteWeb says the site is the brainchild of Steffen Mueller, a former Google Product Manger.

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RateMyCop.com Temporarily Shut Down

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:00:00 EST

A website called Rate My Cop that allows people to rate police officers that they have interacted with or have ticketed them was temporarily shut down by GoDaddy.com, an online domain retailer and website.

RateMyCop founder Gino Sesto says he was given no notice of the suspension. When he called GoDaddy, the company told him that he'd been shut down for "suspicious activity."

When Sesto got a supervisor on the phone, the company changed its story and claimed the site had surpassed its 3 terabyte bandwidth limit, a claim that Sesto says is nonsense. "How can it be overloaded when it only had 80,00 page views today, and 400,000 yesterday?"

Police departments became uneasy about RateMyCop's plans to watch the watchers in January, when the Culver City, California, startup began issuing public information requests for lists of uniformed officers.

Then the site went live on February 28th. It stores the names and, in some cases, badge numbers of over 140,000 cops in as many as 500 police departments, and allows users to post comments about police they've interacted with, and rate them. The site garnered media interest this week as cops around the country complained that they'd be put at risk if their names were on the internet.

Wired links to this ABC story which says police offers are very upset about the website. Police officers are particularly concerned that the site may contain personal information about them such as their home address, marriage status and children.

"I'd like to see it gone," says Officer Hector Basurto, vice president of the Latino Police Officers Association. He recently learned about Ratemycop.com and is furious.

"Having a Web site like that puts a lot of law enforcement, in my eyes, in danger because it exposes us out there," says Officer Basurto.

"Having a website like that puts a lot of law enforcement, in my eyes, in danger because it exposes us out there," Officer Hector Basurto, vice president of the Latino Police Officers Association, told ABC television affiliate KGO.

Wired says RateMyCop does not include information about undercover officers and there is no information about officers' home addresses.

RateMyCop.com is back online now. More discussion of the controversial website can be found at Slashdot, CNET, Ars Technica, Mashable, TechDirt, Jossip, Perilocity, Legal Pad, Killer Startups, la.metblogs and the L.A. Times.

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Coffeenatic: A Social Network For Coffee Lovers

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:00:00 EST

It's 2008. That means there is already a social network for everything under the Sun. Even coffee. Web Worker Daily reports that there is a new social network called Coffeenatic that is just perfect for coffee addicts.

Coffeenatic focuses on coffee products and recipes, with data coming from its users. Coffee reviews are get quality and price ratings, while recipes are sorted by quality and complexity. You can browse without joining the site, but to add your own content or comments you'll need to sign up for a free account. It's just recently launched, but already they cover some ways to enjoy the bean that I hadn't heard of before.

Slashfood notes that there are two other coffee-related social networks: Barista Exchange and Barista Connection. Now you coffee lovers have three sites to check out.

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Google Wants Some Kid Doodles

Fri, 7 Mar 2008 18:00:00 EST

Google always has interesting new versions of its logo for holidays and special events. Most of the Google doodles are created by Chief Google Doodler Dennis Hwang. Here is a video of Hwang doodling.

Now Google is turning to students for help creating its doodles. They are running a Doodle 4 Google competition. The competition gives U.S. students in grades K-12 the opportunity to design a doodle for the Google homepage. Google says students will be asked to draw a doodle that best represents the theme "What if...?"

A panel of expert judges and Googlers will select 40 regional winners, who will be invited to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California, in May. Four national finalists will be announced as the result of a public vote. From there, Dennis will select one lucky student whose doodle will be on the Google homepage for a day in the U.S. This winner will also receive a $10,000 college scholarship and a technology grant for his or her school.

Registration closes on 3/28/08, and entries must be postmarked by 4/12/08.

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DailyMotion Goes HD

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:09:00 EST

A video sharing website called DailyMotion has added high definition (HD) videos. The have also set up a page here that lets you view and share HD videos.

For more than a year-and-a-half we have offered High-Quality video encoding, but with the rise of HD digital video cameras we have seen more and more Creative Content submitted in High Definition. This is why, from today on out, all HD video uploaded by MotionMakers will be automatically re-encoded in 720p High Definition for playback on the site.

Anyone can watch videos in HD. To get the most out of Dailymotion?s HD, we recommend opening HD videos in full-screen mode or, even better, viewing the site on an HD-compatible screen. If your monitor is not big enough to enjoy HD, you can always connect your computer to your TV.

ReadWriteWeb reports that another video sharing website called Vimeo added video sharing last October. YouTube still doesn't offer HD but it is probably only a matter of time before they do. (via Techmeme)

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Internet Spurs Dance Fads

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 21:00:00 EST

The Internet is helping dance fads to take off according to this WSJ video. In the past it was parties and dance tv shows like American Bandstand that helped dance fads take off. The article also mentions the Soulja Boy Tell'em - Crank That hit. The WSJ is certainly correct about this trend. If you don't believe them then just look at the 27 million views and counting that the Soulja Boy instructional dance video has received. The article says this is a trend and savvy bands will be trying to be a part of it with clever choreography.

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HotorNot Sold for $20 Million

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:30:00 EST

TechCrunch reports (via Techmeme) that investors connected to a company called Avid Life Media have acquired the 8-year-old HotorNot website for $20 million. HotorNot began as a simple site that let users rate the hotness of photographs of people. It then expanded into a dating service.

San Francisco based HotOrNot, founded by James Hong and Jim Young in October 2000, has been acquired, we?ve heard from multiple sources.

The buyers are investors connected with Avid Life Media, and paid somewhere around $20 million for the site. Hong and and Young have been taking money out of the very profitable business all along the way - which we reported was another $20 million or in May 2007. HotOrNot never raised outside funding.

The investors are creating a new company, called HotOrNot Media (new site coming soon), and they may be acquiring more properties as well.

The website still looks pretty similar today. You can people by their age group now -- apparently people over the age of 40 are even using HotorNot. They also have a page showing the hottest people. The HotorNot site inspired a number of clones - you can see a few of them here in Yahoo's directory.

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OoVoo Now Lets Users Record Video Chats

Fri, 8 Feb 2008 18:00:00 EST

ooVoo has released a new version of its ooVoo video chat software. This software allows users to record video chats. These video chats can then be posted on video-sharing sites like MetaCafe or YouTube. ooVoo allows video conferencing with as many as six people. You can also add virtual features like a virtual moustache.

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Third Undersea Cable Damaged in Mideast

Fri, 1 Feb 2008 18:00:00 EST

The Middle East has been suffering from Internet and phone outages ever since two cables were cut offshore from Egypt. Now there are reports that a third cable is cut.

Ships have been dispatched to repair two undersea cables damaged on Wednesday off Egypt.

FLAG Telecom, which owns one of the cables, said repairs were expected to be completed by February 12. France Telecom, part owner of the other cable, said it was uncertain when repairs on it would be repaired.

Stephan Beckert, an analyst with TeleGeography, a research company that consults on global Internet issues, said the cables off Egypt were likely damaged by ships' anchors.

The loss of the two Mediterranean cables -- FLAG Telecom's FLAG Europe-Asia cable and SeaMeWe-4, a cable owned by a consortium of more than a dozen telecommunications companies -- has snarled Internet and phone traffic from Egypt to India.

There were widespread Internet access problems in India, Dubai and Egypt. Some of the Internet traffic may improve by rerouting traffic but these two cables carry a lot of the bandwidth between Europe and the Middle East. News of a third cut line (near Dubai) is going to raise concerns that intermittent web access may plague the MidEast for weeks or months.

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Everyblock Launches Local News Service

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:00:00 EST

A new site called Everyblock plans to use mashups to provide local news and maps down to your very block. They blogged about the launch of their service in three cities today.

For a long time, that's been a tough question to answer. In dense, bustling cities like Chicago, New York and San Francisco, the number of daily media reports, government proceedings and local Internet conversations is staggering. Every day, a wealth of local information is created -- officials inspect restaurants, journalists cover fires and Web users post photographs -- but who has time to sort through all of that?

Our mission at EveryBlock is to solve that problem. We aim to collect all of the news and civic goings-on that have happened recently in your city, and make it simple for you to keep track of news in particular areas. We're a geographic filter -- a "news feed" for your neighborhood, or, yes, even your block.

Everyblock has launched in three American cities: Chicago, New York and San Francisco. Technology Evangelist blogs that Adrian Holovaty, the person behind the Chicago Crime website, put together the team behind Everyblock.

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Time Warner to Test Tiered Internet Access Charges

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 21:00:00 EST

The Associated Press is reporting that Time Warner Cable is going to experiment with a new pricing structure for its high-speed Internet access where heavy bandwidth users will be charged more. Those "lucky" enough to live in Beaumont, Texas will be the first to experience the trial.

Company spokesman Alex Dudley said the trial was aimed at improving the network performance by making it more costly for heavy users of large downloads. Dudley said that a small group of super-heavy users of downloads, around 5 percent of the customer base, can account for up to 50 percent of network capacity.

Dudley said he did not know what the pricing tiers would be nor the download limits. He said the heavy users were likely using the network to download large amounts of video, most likely in high definition.

It was not clear when exactly the trial would begin, but Dudley said it would likely be around the second quarter. The tiered pricing would only affect new customers in Beaumont, not existing ones.

Time Warner may see this as a way of "improving the network performance" but customers are going to see it as nothing more than a way to charge them more money.

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PBS Launches PBS Kids Play Website

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:15:00 EST

PBS is opening the beta test for a new Internet-based educational service called PBS Kids Play. PBS says the website is designed to provide children ages 3 to 6 with a comprehensive early childhood curriculum. PBS Kids Play will be offered as a subscription service later this year. It uses interactive games and activities to provide a personalized learning experience at home.

The website's curriculum covers skill areas in math, science, language, literacy, creativity, healthy development, and social studies. Parents can read the learning objectives and instructions for each activity. The site also provides a progress chart that helps parents see how each child is advancing through the curriculum, including an indicator of how far the child has progressed in each skill area.

"A critical mass of families now has broadband Internet access and that creates an opportunity to take online learning to a whole new level for a new generation -- and that's exactly what PBS Kids Play is designed to do," said Lesli Rotenberg, Senior Vice President, PBS Kids. "PBS Kids Play is a natural extension of the PBS mission to advance children's learning with new, innovative media approaches."

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