On Saturday I attended the second meeting of the Bay Area Mobility Forum. Ray Rischpater spoke about BREW development and how to get your application into the carriers' mobile shop. I learned there are a lot of gatekeepers in the world of BREW and as a result individual developers usually do not have the financial resources to develop for the platform. You need to purchase a VeriSign document ID, submit your code for independent testing, and convince the carrier your application is unique and worth inclusion in their mobile shop. Some applications receive special placement and reap the rewards of…
Michael Hammer at the University of Arizona in Tucson tracked the DNA of three separate populations and found there was less variation in the male chromosome DNA. His findings, published in Nature Genetics, suggest that over the years half as many men as women have passed on their genes. [F]emales also tend to be similar in their tastes, which means some males get chosen far more often than others, and therefore have more offspring. Females, by contrast, tend to have about the same number of offspring each….
AlwaysOn will introduce a quarterly print magazine. Over "50 percent of the content in the issues come either from AO members or will be posts that our members considered the most valuable. In this way, our community is both transparent and plays an active editorial role in the content we publish." AlwaysOn is the first weblog site to spin into a magazine….
Hideto Tomabechi claims to have developed a ringtone to increase breast size. He uses sounds "that make the brain and body move unconsciously. It's a technique involving subliminal effects." Tomabechi is famous for his work reversing the brainwashing of the AUM Shinrikyo doomsday cult. (via Engadget) [Update: Engadget has posted an MP3 of the ringtone….
Andrew Anker, Executive Vice President of Corporate Development for Six Apart, joined the board of directors of VA Software. VA Software owns Slashdot and SourceForge….
Paul Carr of The Guardian writes about how The Guardian and other media outlets have embraced bloggers and seen monetary results. Free content for partners equals more traffic, profit, and credibility for the paper. The trial came about when we modified our site to allow Google news users to access one free article from our paid archive before they hit our subscription wall. The system worked brilliantly, and we realised very quickly that it could be modified to allow single-page access to visitors from any site we chose. We emailed a few of our blog buddies inviting them to try…
Eliot Van Buskirk of MP3.com provided a history of the iPod scroll wheel on News.com. The scroll wheel is created by Synaptics. Synaptics also makes the scroll technology in the Creative Zen Touch….
Feedster would like to contract hire a Movable Type plugin developer to "inject new content into the feed creation process." Check out the full posting on the Six Apart Professional Network. What would Feedster like to inject into a feed? My guess is advertising….
There are a lot of cool technology events in San Francisco this Saturday. I plan to attend the Bay Area Mobility Forum and the geek dinner. At 2 p.m. the Bay Area Mobility Forum features a presentation by Ray Rischpater on BREW development. At 4 p.m. the San Francisco WordPress Meetup may be happening at Cafe Royale. So far the event has no confirmed attendees. Michael Creasy and Robert Scoble are hosting a geek dinner at Barney's Gourmet Hamburgers in Noe Valley. These geek dinners are always a fun and informal way to get to know other technology folk in…
Jeremy asks about web services I would like to Yahoo! offer. How about being the my online storage and synchronization center? I could add an entry to my OS X address book and the entry is reflected in my Yahoo! Address Book. I could easily add photos to Yahoo! Photos from my desktop. Notepad becomes a general note center and I can even download the contents to an iPod. Briefcase can store some documents. Yahoo! makes money by selling extra storage….
Tonight I attended The State of Online Journalism event hosted by the Online News Association and held at CNET headquarters. I recorded each presentation and took a few pictures. The audience was a mixed crowd of technical knowledge. Jeff Veen made a comment about DRM and a few audience members were not sure what that term meant. I uploaded my pictures of the speakers to Flickr. The first presenter was Jeff Veen of Adaptive Path. Jeff talked about weblogs and personal publishing as a distributed and real-time news source. He used an example of his personal investigation into the source…
The first public beta of NetNewsWire 2.0 is now available from Ranchero Software. Searching, enclosures, persistence, smart lists, and Rendezvous subscription sharing are the new features I use the most….
MySpace.com now has R.E.M.'s "Around the Sun" album audio and lyrics available on its site. The album will be officially released on October 5. The album was made available through a partnership with R.E.M.'s label, Warner Bros. Music….
Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement company, estimates fantasy sports leagues cost U.S. employers $36.7 million every day. The estimate assumes 14 million people play fantasy sports and each of those players spends 10 minutes every workday managing his or her team. Multiply 14 million by $2.62, the average amount an American worker gets paid in 10 minutes, and you reach the estimated number. What's the total cost of blogging? I am sure a study will come out and sites such as TypePad, LiveJournal, and Blogger will be on corporate block lists just as Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Groups is…
RSS feeds from Moreover Technologies will be featured in FeedDemon's default configuration. Although the press release and Nick's entry do not mention any payments, I have to assume this was a paid inclusion. Currently FeedDemon provides preconfigured channel groups to help users get started with an application full of feeds. The first time a user launches FeedDemon he or she is presented with a list of preconfigured Channel Groups to include if they would like. The user can deselect each group if they would like to have no default feeds. The free Moreover feeds include advertising. I spoke with Nick…
What do women want in a man? NPR's Lori Gottlieb tackles the question of do women really want a sensitive man or do they just say that and date the beer guzzling NASCAR guy? I like Lori's take on the subject. Women want someone to be sensitive to her problems but not sensitive about his own problems. He is in control and she can rely on him emotionally. There should be a follow up piece focused on the men….
Compassion International uses RSS to share stories on how the organization is making a difference in the lives of children in 23 developing countries. The organization posts their content to a private TypePad weblog and uses NewsGator to keep its staff informed around the world….
Bill Machrone of PC Magazine decided to investigate how much power his gadgets were consuming when turned off or not in use. He found 80 watts were in use even though all of his devices were not in use. At 876 kilowatt-hours per year, the powered down gadgets account for over 9 percent of Bill's yearly electric bill. (via Engadget) Cable box15 watts Small three-piece speaker system6 watts Larger three-piece speaker system12 watts Router6 watts Cable modem7.5 watts Laptop charger2.5 watts iPod charger0.6 watts HP OfficeJet multifucntion printer7 watts 19-inch Dell Trinitron display6 watts HP Pavillion desktop6 watts…
NY Post: "Based on the half-dozen hires in recent weeks, Google appears to be planning to launch its own Web browser and other software products to challenge Microsoft."…
John McChesney of NPR recently visited SBC Park in San Francisco and reported on the use of wireless networks as an emerging trend in public space. The San Francisco Giants have covered the ballpark in WiFi using 123 wireless hotpots. Fans can access special on-site features such as individual pitch placement and player statistics. Office workers can attend day games and still answer e-mails as if they were sitting at the office. He also conducted a test of wireless security and approached a laptop user after he had placed a purchase online….
New Scientist covers NASA's planned Mars-Earth communication by infrared laser. The Mars Telecommunications Orbiter will transmit an infrared laser with a wavelength of 1.06 microns from a 0.3-meter telescope. The tough part is picking up that signal on Earth. Even with a spread of a few hundred kilometers and clear skies the aim would have to be very accurate or the data could be lost. The laser will undergo a design review early next year….
Johnny Ramone died yesterday afternoon after a five-year battle with prostate cancer. Charles Young of Rolling Stone published an article based on recent interviews with Johnny. Eddie Vedder and Rob Zombie were at his bedside. From Pet Sematary on the Brain Drain album: Follow victor to the sacred place This ain't a dream, I can't escape Molars and fangs, the clicking of bones, Spirits moaning among the tombstones, And the night, when the moon is bright, Someone cries, something ain't right.I don't want to be buried in a pet sematary I don't want to live my life again, I…
Mediathink produced a white paper on RSS publishing. The study takes a look at the current aggregator space for the Windows operating system. The study found RSS to be a strong threat to e-mail and established search companies slow to respond the corporate intelligence and product research uses of RSS. Rich media RSS is discussed as an inevitable next step and integrated into TiVo-like devices (with BitTorrent possibilities). We see RSS as the single best method available to receive information from selected sources. RSS possesses the unique ability to eliminate the usual chores of search, navigation, and interruptive marketing avoidance…
Amazon introduces new features to its A9.com search engine tonight. The New York Times reports A9.com will offer users the ability to edit and store bookmarks, keep track of visited links, and take notes on Web pages….
Google now offers shuttle service from San Francisco to Mountain View every day. The shuttle averages 155 employees a day and has wireless Internet access onboard. Sweet! Makes all the city folk want work at Google even more than before….
