Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Only ten days left of August. Microsoft claimed Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 would be out some time this month. Well, the countdown is on. And hmmmm...there are rumors flying around that it is going to be a special version. Private. Yeah, code name for “porn mode”.

Private browsing lets a user go anywhere they want without leaving any tracks. It’s like they were just magically never there.  Firefox decided not to go with it, and currently Safari is the only browser sporting this feature. The Mozilla Foundation, however does argue that “although while viewing pornography may be a popular use case due to the nature of content on the Web, assuming that this is the only reason that users need private browsing trivializes the overall feature. For instance, users may wish to begin a private browsing session to research a medical condition, or plan a surprise vacation or birthday party for a loved one.”

If trademark filings are any indications...the rumors of IE taking on private browsing may indeed be based on fact. July 30th filings by Microsoft:

MORE »

Developed by the Canadian company Idee, the TinEye search engine is a fantastic new breakthrough in the realm of search engines that allows users to search for their photographs anywhere on the Internet.  Users are able to actually search for a picture by uploading it, and then having the program run a pixel by pixel search across the ‘Net. All found instances of the image are flagged, regardless of whether it has been cropped, merged or digitally altered in any way.

Leila Boujnane, CEO of TinEye, has the following to say about their program.

“TinEye does for images what Google does for text. We are not limited by words, Google can only find an image if a particular search word is in proximity to it. We have the ability on a large scale to tell somebody where one of their images has appeared and how it’s being used.”

The program is also not limited by the quality of the input image according to Boujnane.  She states that “anything you would consider a preview image or low resolution image would work. I can take a photograph of a picture in the Louvre with my mobile and upload it to TinEye and it would dump me on the page of that Wikipedia page related to that painting.”

MORE »

Google seems to be advocating a lot of things recently, with the latest being their “Free The Airwaves” campaign.  Free The Airwaves is about asking the FCC to free allow anyone to use unused airwaves that currently carry analog TV signals.  About 3/4 of these waves are currently unused, and Google wants to leverage these waves for the good of everyone.  Its idea is to use it for cheap and easy wireless internet access, of course.

FCC engineers will be testing the airwaves that could carry Wi-Fi, with the ban on using the “white space” airwaves possibly coming by the end of the year.  This would be great news for just about everyone.  There are still places in the United States that don’t have access to broadband (shocking to realize sometimes, I know), and these waves should already be there anyway.  It should just be a matter of buying a device that can connect to the airwaves.

MORE »

Net giant Google just revealed their plans to release their version of living in a virtual world with the online 3D social arena “Lively.” Unlike the program “Second Life”, Lively allows users to enter “their world” via IE or Firefox after the initial download and installation of the program. You can make use of integrating the Internet in several ways, bring in your photos or videos that you have hosted online, email your friends inviting them to join, or use the special pre-written widgets to embed your Lively area on your blog. Currently it doesn’t work with MySpace, they are still working on that one.

“It’s integrated with the Internet. It’s not an alternate destination,” said Niniane Wang, Google’s engineering manager for the project. “Our intention is to add to your existing life.”

MORE »

In an attempt to lock into some kind of deal before their board re-election August 1st, Yahoo! is trying to resume talks with Time Warner about a possible merger with their internet arm AOL in a deal worth up to $10 billion. 

These talks have come to the forefront after it came to light that Microsoft is also talking to companies including Time Warner in an effort to launch a break up bid of Yahoo!.  Microsoft is attempting such a breakup in order to place themselves on a more level playing field with their big search competitor Google, and snag a larger slice of the advertising market pie estimated to be worth about $40 million. (This number is set to double in the next two years). Microsoft is not a happy camper after being promptly rebuffed in their revised offer to Yahoo!, and it is also rumored that they approached Mr Icahn, the billionaire activist investor who already nominated himself and other execs to replace the Yahoo! board, last week.

Mr. Icahn is not pleased that the Yahoo! shareholders weren’t given the chance to vote on the initial cash/shares offer from Microsoft in May, and he wants investors to boot the board when they meet on the 1st. However, Jerry Yang, the co-founder and chief executive of Yahoo! is wanting to be able to present the shareholders with an alternate offer at the annual meeting. A hostile takeover by Microsoft is NOT the direction he wants to see Yahoo! have to take. Should be interesting to see what goes down in that boardroom August 1st.

Read [TimesOnline]

In an attempt to be more proactive rather than simply reactive, the MPAA has recently approved the DreamStream system and its 2048-bit “military strength” anti-piracy encryption technology to protect content streamed to viewers online.

First introduced to the MPAA in March of 2008 by Laura Tunberg, MGM’s former vice president of intellectual property enforcement, it was since reviewed by the MPAA and found it to be a viable means for securing digital content. Chief development officer for DreamStream, Ulf Diebel, is excited by this acknowledgment of their product.

“We are very excited to have the MPAA stand behind our technology.”

MORE »

We couldn’t help but be amused by the timing of Nokia’s release of its latest addition to the lineup, the 1508. Just when other phone manufacturers are outclassing each other with the release of new advanced features, here comes Nokia introducing a lowly, plain-jane-looking, basic handset. In fact, the 1508 is so simple that it took only a few sentences for Nokia to come up with an official press release. Or maybe it was just that we are so used to Nokia’s lengthy press releases.

Anyway, what should we expect from the Nokia 1508, a mobile phone as simple as this certainly doesn’t have that much to offer. This candy bar style handset boasts of easy keypad dialing, integrated FM stereo, high-speed data connectivity to the internet via cable, text messaging, built-in speakerphone, 3 minutes of voice recording time and memory that will let you store around 500 phonebook contacts plus 400 text messages.

Well, that pretty much sums up the Nokia 1508’s features. A simple mobile phone that can actually answer our most basic needs. Nokia expects to ship the 1508 sometime during Q3 2008 and it will be available in select CDMA markets. Pricing information is not yet available. But with a simple phone such as this, we wouldn’t expect the price to be too much.

Read [Nokia]

It’s a problem that most Web-based companies would love to have: their website servers crumple under the weight of popularity and pent-up demand (as long as denial-of-service attacks are not involved.) It usually means a lot of people have come to rely on your services, or at the very least are checking out what you have to offer.

It has happened most recently to leading e-tailer Amazon and up-and-coming short form messaging service/social network Twitter. Public relations officials at both companies have had to work overtime explaining why users were not able to access the sites. Amazon’s problems hit on June 6th and 9th and were initially chalked up to a hiccup caused by company systems that are “very complex and on rare occasions, despite our best efforts, they may experience problems.” Twitter’s problems happened a couple of weeks ago and included outages and public viewings of supposedly-private “tweets.”

MORE »

There is one image from Barack Obama’s standing-room-only political rallies that I haven’t seen yet in the ubiquitous campaign coverage. Maybe I missed it, but I doubt that the sight of thousands of people holding up their cell phones and punching in a five-digit text code so his campaign would know how to contact them would have escaped me.

Then again, it’s wasn’t Obama Girl, which may explain why it flew under the cable news radar.

That image speaks volumes about the innovative nature of Obama’s techno-candidacy. It’s included in one of two very good stories in the June issue of Atlantic Monthly which can be read online: “The Amazing Money Machine” by Joshua Green and Marc Armbinder’s “HisSpace.” Green’s piece throws a spotlight on the Silicon Valley insiders who led Obama’s record-breaking online fund-raising initiative and their novel use of technologies ranging from social networking to ringtones. “HisSpace” advances the story by picturing an Obama presidency based on the candidate’s campaign platform: 

MORE »

South Korea is still the fastest Internet country on the planet, Microsoft software still has a big bullseye painted on it by hackers and password theft continues to be all the rage in the nether regions of the Web.

Many of the findings from Akamai’s State of the Internet Report for January-March 2008 shouldn’t come as a surprise to most technology watchers. But you might be scratching your head to learn that according to the web hosting company, Delaware is the state with the fastest Internet connections and Washington state - home to Microsoft and Amazon - is the slowest state, with the most connections at speeds of 256 kbps or slower. 

MORE »