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NBA team launches social network with KickApps

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KickApps announced that the New Orleans Hornets have launched a social network for fans of the team powered by KickApps. The website is a destination for the supporters to gather online with other fans to share their passion for the Hornets and NBA basketball, create, share and discover fan submitted photos, videos and blogs, and interact exclusively with official club content.

Using social media, the Hornets capitalize on an opportunity to increase their connection with fans by extending the Hornets experience beyond the basketball court. The new website features its own social network with video and photo sharing functionality, forums, and the ability for members to take video and photos from the site to other social networks, blogs and websites using Hornets branded video and photo widgets.

To tip-off participation and activity on the site, the Hornets are holding a competition for fans to name the social network. Fans simply join the network and leave a comment with their proposed name and why they chose it. Additionally, the team has uploaded behind the scenes videos of the Honeybee cheerleaders and press conferences, with additional unique programming planned.

The New Orleans Hornets joins the Phoenix Suns’ Emmy Award winning PlanetOrange.net, New York Knicks, Phoenix Mercury, San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, New York Rangers and Arena Football League, as teams that have embraced the KickApps Platform.

Originally posted on November 19, 2008 @ 7:14 am

Give a laptop, get a laptop

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The recent U.S. election has shown that ordinary citizens coming together can change the status quo. Now is the time to harness that goodwill and help the children of the developing world who have been left behind. Some of the world’s poorest countries spend less than $20 a year on children’s education and one in three children won’t complete fifth grade. Participation in One Laptop per Child’s Give 1 Get 1 program will help bring a modern education to these children and empower them to build a better future for themselves and their families and their communities and societies.

One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a nonprofit whose mission is to provide laptop computers that are sufficiently affordable and connected to the Internet to every child in the world. OLPC first launched Give 1 Get 1 in 2007, raising more than $35 million to fund the delivery of tens of thousands of laptops to children in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Haiti, Mongolia and Rwanda. To date, OLPC has distributed more than 500,000 XO laptops in 31 countries and is on its way to delivering one million laptops by the end of 2008.

Starting today, individuals can support the OLPC Foundation through two options:

Give 1 Get 1 – By paying $399 for two XO children’s laptops – one to give, one to get. The laptop you give will go to a child in developing country. The laptop you receive can be used by you or a deserving child or friend.

Give a Laptop – For those people who want to give only, you can donate as many laptops as you want to give at $199 each.

Those in the US can go to http://www.amazon.com/xo and those who live outside of the US can visit http://www.amazon.co.uk/xo.

Originally posted on November 17, 2008 @ 11:38 am

Worldwide PC microprocessor unit shipments on record high in 3Q; Outlook is murky however

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Worldwide PC microprocessor shipments in the third calendar quarter of 2008 (3Q08) reached record levels again, according to new data from IDC. However, the outlook for the processor market in 4Q08 and 2009 is very murky.

Worldwide PC processor unit shipments grew 14.0% quarter over quarter (QoQ) and 15.8% year over year (YoY); market revenue grew 7.6% QoQ and 4.1% YoY to $8.3 billion. Intel’s new Atom processor for ultra low-cost mobile PCs (which Intel calls “Netbooks”) made a notable difference in the overall market performance; without Atom, unit shipments grew 8.3% QoQ and 8.7% YoY.

In terms of processor vendor shares, on an overall unit basis, Intel earned 80.8% market share, a gain of 1.1%, AMD finished with 18.5%, a loss of 1.2%, and VIA Technologies earned 0.6%.

By form factor, in the mobile PC processor segment, Intel earned 87.4% share, a gain of 0.8%, AMD finished with 11.5%, a loss of 1.1%, and VIA earned 1.2%, a gain of 0.3%.

In the PC server/workstation processor segment, Intel finished with 85.6% market share, a loss of 0.6% and AMD earned 14.4%, a gain of 0.6%. In the desktop PC processor segment, Intel and AMD earned 73.5% and 26.4% share respectively; share changes were negligible.

Due to the market’s strong performance through the first three quarters of 2008 and anticipated high volume of Atom processors, IDC has raised its PC processor market unit forecast for this year to 18.0%. However, the worldwide demand environment looks weak, and both Intel and AMD indicated an uncertain outlook for the market. As a result, IDC is conservative about 2009 and will be lowering its upcoming unit forecast for the year.

Originally posted on November 3, 2008 @ 6:06 pm

Yougetitback.com adds geo location protection service

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Yougetitback.com, the online service that helps people protect, recover and replace highly valued mobile devices, has enriched its Mobile SuperHero application with a geo location capability to aid in tracking and recovering misplaced, lost or stolen valuables.

Yougetitback.com protects and helps recover mobile devices—such as smart phones, laptops, PDAs, iPods, cameras and more—while preserving the sensitive information they contain. Its premium service will even replace the device, if it is not recovered. The company launched its flagship “Mobile SuperHero” software as a service in North America in July for smartphones, including Blackberry and iPhone.

Now, Yougetitback.com has enhanced “Mobile SuperHero” with the ability to determine the actual physical location of a lost or stolen mobile device equipped with GPS or running the BlackBerry operating system 4.2 and above, or the Symbian operating system S60 2nd and 3rd editions. Many devices without GPS can be tracked via their proximity to individual wireless-network cell sites.

The geo location feature allows people to learn whether their devices are stationary or moving, and to track the routes of lost or stolen devices if they are being moved. But because users’ privacy is paramount with Yougetitback.com, only account holders can track their devices’ locations.

Originally posted on September 30, 2008 @ 11:09 am

Google invests $10 million in geothermal energy technology

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At least Google cares as its philanthropic arm Google.org, announced $10.25 million in investments in a breakthrough energy technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS).

EGS expands the potential of geothermal energy by orders of magnitude. The traditional geothermal approach relies on finding naturally occurring pockets of steam and hot water. The EGS process, by comparison, replicates these conditions by fracturing hot rock, circulating water through the system, and using the resulting steam to produce electricity in a conventional turbine.

Google’s Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal initiative focuses on solar thermal power, advanced wind, EGS and other potential breakthrough technologies. Google has set a goal to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity, enough to power a city the size of San Francisco, in years, not decades.

“EGS could be the ‘killer app’ of the energy world. It has the potential to deliver vast quantities of power 24/7 and be captured nearly anywhere on the planet. And it would be a perfect complement to intermittent sources like solar and wind,” said Dan Reicher, Director of Climate and Energy Initiatives for Google.org.

Originally posted on August 19, 2008 @ 10:18 am