figip.com

Last week’s interview guest was Dean Hachamovitch, formal title “general manager Internet Explorer at Microsoft Corp.” This week we have Chris Beard, Mozilla’s Vice President of Products. (Here’s a recent “pre-Firefox 2 release” interview with Chris that you might want to look at to avoid duplicating questions.) Chris will be calling on other Mozilla and FireFox people to help answer your questions, but he’s the point man here. Slashdot interview rules apply, as always.

Originally
from Slashdot

by Roblimo


reBlogged

on Oct 31, 2006, 5:31PM

Originally by Roblimo from Slashdot on October 31, 2006, 12:31pm

kaufmanmoore writes “A Chinese government official at a United Nations summit in Athens on internet governance has claimed that no Net censorship exists at all in China. The article includes an exchange by a Chinese government official and a BBC reporter over the blocking of the BBC in China.” From the article: “I don’t think we should be using different standards to judge China. In China, we don’t have software blocking Internet sites. Sometimes we have trouble accessing them. But that’s a different problem. I know that some colleagues listen to the BBC in their offices from the Webcast. And I’ve heard people say that the BBC is not available in China or that it’s blocked. I’m sure I don’t know why people say this kind of thing. We do not have restrictions at all.”

Originally
from Slashdot

by Zonk


reBlogged

on Oct 31, 2006, 5:05PM

Originally by Zonk from Slashdot on October 31, 2006, 12:05pm

Google Acquires Wiki Collaboration Company Jotspot  —  Google’s office strategy just got a whole lot richer with the announced acquisition of the wiki based company Jotspot.  A business oriented service that plugs a long list of different applications like calendars and photo sharing into a wiki framework …

Source:   TechCrunch

Author:   Marshall Kirkpatrick

Link:   http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/10/31/google-acquires…

Techmeme permalink

Originally
from Techmeme

reBlogged

on Oct 31, 2006, 5:40PM

Originally from Techmeme on October 31, 2006, 12:40pm

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Peripherals

These kids just can’t catch a break. The folks at Sony, fresh off their battery debacle, and struggling to make any sort of relevant quantity for next month’s PS3 launch, are being probed by the US Justice Department’s antitrust division in regards to the company’s SRAM biz. Sony, which did $27.7 million worth of SRAM business last year, says it “intends to cooperate fully with the DOJ in what appears to be an industry-wide inquiry,” but that’s about all the info we’ve got so far. Apparently US-based Cypress Semiconductor is also under investigation for similar SRAM doings, and Mitsubishi is even in some retroactive trouble, but there’s no word if the situation is similar to the price-fixing scandal that Samsung and others got busted for earlier this year. We’ll be keeping an eye on this investigation as it develops. I seems unlikely that any sort of accusations that could come out of this could do much damage to Sony’s relatively small share in the industry, but we really wouldn’t mind a feel-good puff piece on Sony now and then — you know, just for a change of pace.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Originally
from Engadget

by Paul Miller


reBlogged

on Oct 31, 2006, 5:29PM

Originally by Paul Miller from Engadget on October 31, 2006, 12:29pm

Last year Ross Rubin, author of Engadget column Switched On, submitted the now mythical epic Halloween poem, The Maven. So ingrained is it in our minds and so much has it become lore here at Engadget HQ, we’re running it again this Halloween. Now, leave the store.

Once upon a midnight madness sale I sauntered, steeped in sadness,
Through the shiny piles and aisles composing my computer store.
Suddenly there came a rapping. “Skeet skeet skeet.” Had I been napping?
Energy, it had been sapping from my soul for weeks or more.
Yea, those loathsome customers had chilled my being for weeks or more.
Back-to-school had drained my core.

Soon the winds would bring the winter - time to sell each mouse, each printer.
“Profit!” said I, “Thing of evil? Nah,” applying Avacor.
For while came the rare exception, money flowed from deep deception.
Ignorance would find reception warm throughout each corridor.
From these fools I’d find the dollars flow down every corridor.
Idiots I did adore.

There I saw him, by the mobos, dressing like those unkempt hobos -
Greasy hair atop the fat and pimples that adorned each pore.
Mannerisms quite absurd, he stood there mumbling, looking nerdy,
Yet I could not find the word he brought to mind inside the store.
In that squalid rust of malice did he slither through the store,
Saying naught and nothing more.

Fate approached him as a customer who seemed at once to trust him.
“Are these cameras any good? I’ve never shopped for one before.”
Glasses thick, stubble unshaven, spewing trivia like Cliff Clavin,
On he went, this crazy maven bragging of his Slashdot score.
“If you read my blog, you’d know my postings rate above a four.
‘Funny’ and ‘Insightful’ are the words you’d see with five or four.”
After which she fled the store.

Then a man who lacked acumen caused his targeting to zoom in.
“Windows spyware drives me nuts. Removing it is such a chore.
“This Mac mini sure looks swell so buying it would end my hell, no?”
“Apple’s switching to Intel so I would wait a year or more
“And you’ll want new software too if you don’t wait a year or more.”
Quoth the maven, “Leave the store.”

Continue reading The Maven

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Originally
from Engadget

by Ryan Block


reBlogged

on Oct 31, 2006, 4:59PM

Originally by Ryan Block from Engadget on October 31, 2006, 11:59am

Filed under: HDTV, Wireless

Six of the world’s largest consumer electronics companies have joined with startup SiBEAM to form the WirelessHD interest group. They expect to complete the WiHD spec by spring of next year, using the unlicensed 60GHz frequency to stream digital information at multi-gigabit rates. The advantages of using SiBEAM’s solution is that such chips can use higher power levels without overlapping other frequencies, yet are limited to a short range and won’t penetrate walls. With the backing of LG, Matsushita (Panasonic), NEC, Sony and Toshiba, this standard could easily overtake WiFi- and UWB-based solutions others are working on. Its backers expect HDTVs, DVD players, receivers and other devices based on the technology to start rolling out in 2008, leaving us wondering: why can Sony and Toshiba cooperate on this high definition standard, but couldn’t make Blu-ray and HD DVD work together?

[Via Yahoo News]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Originally
from Engadget

by Richard Lawler


reBlogged

on Oct 31, 2006, 4:35PM

Originally by Richard Lawler from Engadget on October 31, 2006, 11:35am

The official Google Blog just announced Google bought wiki hosting service JotSpot.
JotSpot’s co-founder Joe Kraus says, “Our first order of business is to move JotSpot to Google’s software architecture. While we’re doing so, we’ve turned off new registrations. But if you’re interested, sign up for our waitlist and we’ll keep you posted.” Paying customers will no longer be billed, the JotSpot acquisition FAQ states. The FAQ also explains just what JotSpot aims to be (sounds like your typical Web 2.0 pitch):

<<JotSpot’s wiki allows you to create rich web-based spreadsheets, calendars, documents and photo galleries. It’s as easy as using a word processor – you don’t need to know HTML. Thousands of businesses are using JotSpot to manage projects, build an intranet, share files and stay in sync with colleagues and customers.>>

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch in a review once called this “the best business-facing hosted wiki available,” whereas Yahoo’s Jeremy Zawodny said: “Stop calling it a Wiki and I bet more people would use it.”

, and step 2

Note that Sam is giving away account login details in this post’s comments, so you can try this yourself.

The discussion started in the forum.

[Thanks Reto Meier, Manoj Nahar and Sam Davyson!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Original post]

Originally
from Google Blogoscoped

reBlogged

on Oct 31, 2006, 3:16PM

Originally from Google Blogoscoped on October 31, 2006, 10:16am

Getting Around IE 7 App Problems

Originally
from Microsoft Watch

reBlogged

Originally from Microsoft Watch

By Tim O’Reilly

In the spirt of Google Image Labeler, Ryan Grimm has added a code quiz to the O’Reilly Labs site. The quiz selects a code example from any one of the books in our complete Xquery database of all our content, and offers you a choice of four books that the code might be from, only one of which uses the language in question. For bonus points, you explicitly identify the language. Like the Google Image Labeler, this game does actually gather useful metadata for us, but Ryan’s real interest is in finding a game that helps “teach us what we don’t know.”

I found the game curiously addictive. It seems obvious, but after a few tries, you realize what an engaging way it is to explore code snippets doing interesting things. (Also see the Content Stats and Code Search tools on Labs.)

We’re interested in opening up our content database to other developers who might have cool ideas about what applications they could build with access to all our content. If you have ideas, let me know, and we’ll see what we can do about giving you the keys to the family car. We don’t yet have a formal application process, but will develop one out of our back-and-forth with the early birds.

Originally
from O'Reilly Radar

by Tim O'Reilly


reBlogged

Originally by Tim O’Reilly from O’Reilly Radar

By Brady Forrest

Google has acquired JotSpot, the programmable wiki. JotSpot was one of the first sites that was catering to the longtail of software (Joe Kraus the founder has a good post on this) - others include Ning (Radar post), DabbleDB, Coghead and to some extent Zimki (Radar post). JotSpot is a wiki with a scripting language and several components (such as a calendar, to-do list, file share, photo gallery, spreadsheet) and an API. Using the scripting language and these components you can create your own community application such as Strmz, a JotSpot powered video clip sharing service.

Like other purchases they are going to move to Google’s infrastructure. I don’t have any inside knowledge about what they are going to do with it next, but I’ve got some ideas that I would like to share with them. All of these fit with the “features, not products” mantra.
* Integrate JotSpot (or GWiki) into Google Groups. The new update was nice and I like the addition of the webpage creator, but for true group collaboration I would like a easy to use and permission wiki. Having this type of functionality might make me switch my groups usage from Yahoo! to Google.
* Integrate Google Docs and Calendar into JotSpot. I want to be able to integrate my existing documents into JotSpot (or GotSpot?) and I do not want to learn a new interface for creating them.
* Integrate GChat into the service (this serves as advice for Writely, er Google Docs as well).
* Add this to Apps For Your Domain. Let people continue to make the longtail of software for themselves and revshare with AdSense. This seems like the most likely plan to me as it provides the most new ad inventory.

I don’t imagine that these are new ideas; these are just the ways that I would like to use their new product.

Marc Hedlund adds:
I have to wonder if there’s some internal debate at Google about wikis. It always seems to me that Wikipedia’s mission overlaps directly with Google’s, “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” even though the technologies they use to get there are very different. I wonder if Google has the same discussion about Wikipedia that O’Reilly sometimes has about Google, that their real competition is from Wikipedia and not Yahoo or Microsoft.

Originally
from O'Reilly Radar

by Brady Forrest


reBlogged

Originally by Brady Forrest from O’Reilly Radar