Hopefully by now most of you already have your Google Wave account. If not, send me your Gmail account because I’ve got dozens of invites to give out. Anyway, this news is not about how to obtain a Google Wave invite but just a demonstration of how Google Wave can be used to expressed ideas in the form of video.
The guys at Whirlwind Interactive, who have been playing around with various Google Wave created videos unveiled their latest creation entitled “Waving Goodbye to 2009.” The title alone is enough to make you want to watch this video from start to finish. In case you didn’t know, these guys are also responsible for the Samuel Jackson Google Wave demo video.
It’s a great way of looking back at the year that was in Tech. And also a great way of exploiting one of the many uses of Google Wave. Of course this is not the only way that you can use Google Wave. There are other features of Google Wave that you might want to explore or have probably explored if you have a Google Wave account already. After all Google Wave is an online collaboration tool, so online videos is not what it is only good at.
It looks like BBC’s Project Canvass which will put various TV programs on internet-enabled set-top boxes is gaining grounds. Reports had it that this projects is about to get the approval of authorities.
Project Canvass which was introduced earlier this year has been receiving mixed reactions from the Internet business crowd. Google for instance supports the project but a bit worried that BBC and its content partners might dictate any terms of content sustainability or limit internet service accessibility.
Project Canvass is geared to become a leading platform for internet services on television with partners such as BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and 5, BT and Carphone Warehouse. BBC has already spent around £1 million to build the Project Canvass platform. Total budget for Project Canvass is £6 million to be spread on a five year term in developing the technology for building the support infrastructure of the Project Canvass platform.
A company who is vehemently opposing Project Canvass is satellite broadcaster Sky. Sky claims that BBC is just paying lip service to the idea of other broadcasters. Sky is also worried that BBC will utilize public money for financing its position in the video-on-demand space.
Despite all these criticisms and oppositions, BBC is pretty much confident that Project Canvass will become a reality pretty soon. And BBC set-top boxes containing the Project Canvass platform will become available early next year.
Google just got a huge userbase with the city of Los Angeles equipping its employees with Google Apps which they can use for email and collaboration in the cloud. Starting today, more than 34,000 city employees will have access to various Google tools and services provided by Google Apps’ suite of collaborative technologies.
The decision to adapt Google Apps was made by the city’s CTO Randi Levin and her team at the city’s Information Technology Agency. The group evaluated 14 proposals but found Google Apps to be the most practical and most suited for the employees needs.
True enough, Google Apps cloud computing service may actually improve the city’s email system secutiry and reliability – something all govenment agencies should pay close attention to.
Employees will also have access to collaboration technology including facility to share docs, sites and videos which employees can edit simulataneously in the cloud. The City is hoping that the use of Google Apps will help the employees run the City smoothly and efficiently.
But the bottomline of course is the fact that aside from implementing a robust information technology strategy, it actually lessens the cost the City will be spending on its IT infrastructure. And consistent uptime is almost assured being hosted in Google’s cloud.
From eight-foot demo units to the Microsoft Surface to the iPhone, multitouch technology has experienced rapid miniaturization over the last two years. Now we go completely in the opposite direction, with the world’s largest multitouch wall. This tactile monster by Sensory Minds covers an astonishing 425 square meters. That’s around 6,000 times the size of your computer’s monitor.
A screen resolution of 34 megapixels created by 15 HD projectors makes for awesome images, while 30 directional speakers provide 3D aural immersion. If you’d like to see, hear, and touch it all for yourself, this baby’s installed at Nürburgring, a race track around the village of Nürburg, Germany.
If want to create/consume rich new media at the blazingly fast pace of today’s Internet, you need tools that can keep up. Here’s one of those tools. Breaking world processor speed records, the AMD Phenom II has been successfully overclocked to an astonishing 7.08 gigahertz.
Sony isn’t known for making interoperable or user-friendly devices, but their industrial design is almost as pretty as Apple’s. From laptops to readers to bracelets, check out their latest design concepts for flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays.
We’re getting closer and closer to the futuristic spatial computing seen in the movie Minority Report. Last year, somebody did it with clunky mittens and a roomful of huge monitors. This year, PhD student Pranav Mistry has miniaturized it all into a pendant. Yes, that’s right: it’s wearable spatial computing — or, as Mistry likes to call it, a wearable gestural interface.
Mistry’s technology, which he calls SixthSense, is built on an incredibly simple hardware combination: a projector and a camera. He even plans to open-source the software behind it. The best part: Mistry says the whole system costs only $300.
Why does the tech industry produce some of the worst ads in the history of advertising? Do geeks spend so much time with their computers that they have no idea how to convey ideas to agency guys? Do agency guys misunderstand geeks so badly that their creations come out crap?
Whatever the reason, Brian X. Chen compiles a list of eight outrageously annoying tech videos. This is why normals will never understand geeks: our ads suck.
Digital media devices have influenced the course of human history since the 1940’s. New Scientist brings together a gallery featuring historically important computers from the past — from a 1943 Colossus that helped shorten World War II by a few months, to a 1999 Google server that helped unleash the Long Tail of human knowledge. More →
Zoho announced that the name of its parent company has changed from AdventNet, Inc., to ZOHO Corporation, effective immediately. The name change represents the evolution of the company and the emergence of Zoho as its widely known division.
“In 1996, we started the company with a primary focus on network management. Over the years, we grew significantly, serving different markets,” said Sridhar Vembu, founder and CEO of ZOHO Corp. “We are now best known for the Zoho suite of on-line business applications. Given the reach of Zoho, we are renaming the company to ZOHO Corporation, and Zoho.com will be one division. The other divisions — ManageEngine and WebNMS — will continue operating under their established names and also become divisions of ZOHO Corp.”
The new name complements the rich history of ZOHO Corp. Founded in 1996, the 13-year old company has grown to 1,000 employees and remains privately held and profitable, having never sought nor raised venture capital.
