Reseize

Search All Your Online Data In One Easy Place - Greplin

2012-01-27T11:52:00.002+01:00

Performing a search on the Internet can be a haphazard affair. You know what you are looking for, but the search results brought up by your favorite search engine are filled with links that don’t lead to the information you are after. Refining your search helps, but then it can still be a hit and miss affair and the results are never matched to you.
There’s another emerging problem for the individual user who relies more and more on web based services. With growing amounts of information stored in services like Gmail, Google Docs, Dropbox, and Facebook, to name but a few, how on earth do you keep track of it all, or find something specific within this mass of data?
Doing a Google search isn’t going to help much as it’s not specific enough and doesn’t have access to your secure accounts. You could go through each service and manually look for what you want, but that’s time consuming and there’s no guarantee of success. What we need is a search service just for your stuff. That’s where Greplin comes in.
Greplin is a personal search engine that allows you to search all your online data in one easy place. Greplin indexes the information you create on different websites and provides lightning fast search of all your information. Greplin is an amazing service in terms of speed and reliability and is very useful when searching for your private information.
If you have ever needed to do any of the following quickly, then you will love Greplin and should sign up for a free account:

Find someone on LinkedIn you know is already a contact, but you only remember their first name
Have stored a file in Dropbox, but forgotten where you put it
Want to find a specific message you were sent over Twitter last year/month/week
The date meeting X is taking place as listed in your Google Calendar

You can find similar information within each service. When you type a related keyword into the Greplin search box the link will appear almost immediately saving you a lot of time and effort.

Greplin has a “freemium” model: The basic service is gratis, but if users want to search premium apps such as Evernote or Salesforce (CRM) they must pay $5 per month or $50 per year.
For the free account this includes the following services:

Gmail
Google Docs
Google Calendar
Facebook
Twitter
Dropbox
LinkedIn

The services available on a premium plan($49.99 a year) are desirable mainly power users for business and the web worker crowds. The premium services list includes:

Evernote
Google Reader
Delicius
Salesforce
Highrise
and more (to come)

Greplin's Chrome Extension now makes Gmail search infinitely better. Gmail is arguably the best web-based email client out there, but it’s far from perfect. Gmail search is just painful with wait times up to 30-40 seconds and the fact that you cant use wildcards etc.
Install the Greplin Chrome extension and sign up for a Greplin account, then connect that account to your Gmail (and any other supported services you might use, like Facebook and Evernote). Next, log into your Gmail as usual and you’ll notice a subtle change: the search box will have a small, grayed-out magnifying glass. Click it, and you’ll activate Greplin search. Greplin search has bested the default results in almost every way. They’re faster (they take less than a second to pop up, as opposed to the 20+ seconds you can run into on Gmail). And once you’ve started searching, you’ll notice that tweaks to your query show up in real-time as you type each character, the same way they do on Google Instant. And it shows results for partial-word matches (“Tech” would match for both “Technology” and “TechCrunch”) — which Gmail doesn’t do. The one thing I noticed that Greplin doesn't do yet is spelling correction, but partial matching is often more helpful, anyway. This is Gmail search the way it should be.
Conclusion: I'm a fan of Greplin and would recommend everyone to try the service. If you are concerned about your privacy read the Greplin privacy policy and you will see that they are not evil ;-) but it is of course a major topic to be up to date on. For now go and try it.

How Does Googles New Privacy Policy Affect You?

2012-01-27T10:01:00.000+01:00

Google updated its privacy policy on Tuesday. It replaced more than 60 separate policies with a single one that treats Google users and their data as the same across all Google services. Reactions were shrill. "The End of 'Don't Be Evil'" was trotted out for the umpteenth time. The Washington Post quoted privacy experts saying, "There is no way anyone expected this." My, that sounds terrible!

But it's not true. Everyone watching should have seen this change coming. Google executives have maintained for so long that their new direction is one unified Google product. The new policy doesn't track any new data. It doesn't change the user's settings. Users can still export all their data and leave Google forever. All this does is change perception.

It's Nothing New

Before, every Google service was a different website. After March 1, they'll all be treated as one. The old arrangement meant that each service had its own privacy policy. That doesn't mean it was more private. Google still tracked users. It still shared data from some of its services with others.

On March 1, the rules become much simpler: Google is all one thing. If you use it, it tracks your usage, it stores your data, and it uses your activity to personalize its services for you. Every single way in which it will do so is clearly laid out.

Today, members of Congress sent a letter to Google CEO Larry Page about the policy. They said it raises questions about whether consumers can opt-out of the new data sharing system either globally or on a product-by-product basis." That is crazy talk. You opt out "globally" by not using Google. That's how privacy policies work. It's true that you can't opt out of the privacy policies for individual services anymore. You know what you can do? Stop sharing things you don't want tracked.

Reflexively Reacting

To make sure I wasn't crazy for thinking this way, I spoke to Colin Zick, a partner at Boston law firm Foley Hoag and contributor to its blog, Security, Privacy And The Law.

"What we have is not a reaction to a change in legal language. It's a change in perception." - Colin Zick

In his post about Google's new policy, he noted that "[t]hese changes are likely to draw FTC scrutiny, especially in light of the recent decision by Google to incorporate data from its social network, Google+, into search results, which has already resulted in a FTC antitrust investigation." I asked Zick if these concerns are warranted.

"From a legal perspective, I'm not seeing anything that's much different in what's being proposed to take effect on March 1 and what's in place right now," Zick says. "In particular, the language about sharing across services has been in [Google's policies] for a long time."

Zick points out that all the past versions of Google's privacy policies are on the website, and the last two versions offer line-by-line comparisons to the previous version. Zick expects that Google will do the same with the new policy once it's officially issued.

"What we have is not a reaction to a change in legal language," Zick says, "but it's a change in perception. ... People are just reflexively reacting to the idea that Google is big."

Google Is Not Off The Hook Here

There are perfectly good things not to like about Google's new direction. For example, its community management strategy for Google+ is broken. Its names policy is only designed around appearances. As long as your name looks "real" to robots and engineers, you can go nuts. But you still can't use a handle, nor can you use a pseudonym unless it's "established," and you can prove it with some form of identification.

"Pseudonymity makes it possible for the most marginalized people in our community to communicate with us." - Cory Doctorow

This is a misguided policy. It doesn't protect politically active, marginalized or victimized users who still want to use Google+ but can't have it connected to their identities. You can step back even further and argue that it doesn't reflect the way human identity works at all.

"Identity is prismatic," as Chris Poole so eloquently told us at Web 2.0 last year. Google (and Facebook) want to lock users into a single identity on the Web as far as their services are concerned. There's no question that Google's new direction is to be a bigger part of its users' lives.

You Don't Have To Like It

The idea of what Google is has grown. This month, Google unveiled Search plus Your World, its integration of Google+ social results into Web search. Google+ had already been integrated intoYouTube, Gmail and so many other Google services. But search was the Google we used to know. The change upset people, myself included.

Google has been accused of breaking a promise about how it should work. Its founders used to pride themselves on the fact that Google search didn't favor its own services. Google has beenscrutinized for years for backpedalling on that stance, but Search+ has been treated as a last straw. For people who don't use Google+, Search plus Your World doesn't work.

This was written by David Jacobs and has been seized at ReadWriteWeb

Control, Search & Transfer Your Content from many Apps like Evernote, Dropbox and Google Docs (and more) with Cloudring

2012-01-18T11:07:00.000+01:00

The new application Cloudring (which is still in beta) allows you to search, transfer, send and receive - and control files stored in cloud systems like Dropbox, GoogleDocs, Evernote, Box and more traditional content management systems like SharePoint, Documentum, Alfresco and Nuxeo. Cloudring is similar to Otixo (also mentioned in this blog) but has a slightly different approach and some additional features.
The biggest advantage is that Cloudring makes it easy to search your documents across your Cloud Systems, to transfer documents from one to the other system which includes batch transfer enabling you to transfer the content of a whole system from one to the other (example: transfer all items in your Dropbox to Box net). For Evernote it is also possible to sync parts or your whole Evernote account with Dropbox or Google Docs etc.

The dual pane file system like browser (inspired by the Norton commander style)gives you control over your content. You can create new folders, download files or create links that you can send or post to external users. This is also the interface that allows you to transfer files, folders or everything from the app to another app.
Synchronization is activated from this interface as well(only for Evernote users).
You can find documents in all your connected applications via a personalized federated full text search engine. This allows you to search not only on the name but also on the content of your documents. So whether your documents are in Evernote, Dropbox, GoogleDocs, Box.net, SharePoint, Documentum, Alfresco or Nuxeo, you can search them from a single interface.
I you find this service interesting head over to Cloudring and register for the Beta.

Log into Google and Gmail on a PC via Your Smartphone

2012-01-16T17:15:00.000+01:00

Google recently introduced a fun (and more secure) way to log into your Google account from a public terminal without entering your password into the PC, and instead using your smartphone and a QR code. The new Google QR log-in now being discussed on Google+ and Hacker News uses your smartphone as a kind of proxy for the desktop PC's browser. You will be able to enter your Google account password into your smartphone and then the PC will "automagically" log you in to your Google account on the PC.
This is a neat trick to use when traveling and relying on public computers, and can protect you from a PC with keylogging software that records every keystroke entered into a compromised machine. In my tests, I was able to log in using an iPhone as well as an Android device (on Android without entering a password), it's said to also work with Windows Phone 7.
It's not clear when Google created the new QR code log-in system. The earliest mention I could find was on Reddit in late December, but as far as I can tell Google has never publicly announced this log-in option.

Here's how to use Google's new authentication process
To get started, you need a QR code reader for your smartphone. In my tests, any QR code reader will work. Once your smartphone is up and running with the QR reader app, go to https://accounts.google.com/sesame, a secure Google page displays a QR code.
Next, open the code reader app on your smartphone and take a snapshot, or wait for the app to recognize the code on the screen. Your app will then tell you the QR code is a URL and/or open the URL. (Allow the app to open the URL and) you will arrive at a Google account log-in screen (see the picture on the left) where you just can press "Start with Gmail" if you have an Android phone with an active Google account, else you are prompted to enter your account password on the device before you get this screen. (The first time you use this system, you may also have to enter your username.)

A few seconds later, the browser window on the PC should automatically redirect to your Gmail inbox. You can use this process whether your smartphone was using a cellular data connection or the same Wi-Fi network as the PC.

A Word of Caution
While this new log-in method is fun to try and could come in very handy at times, this is not a foolproof method for keeping your log-in credentials safe. If someone steals your phone they may be able to use your device to log in to Google using the QR method.

Google has never announced this feature, so it can be a test or work in progress which changes or is discontinued after a while. Google's new QR method is a fun way to get access to your Google account, but don't forget to log out of your account once you're done.

Search, plus Your World by Google

2012-01-10T17:07:00.000+01:00

Critics pick the best albums of 2011

2012-01-05T17:22:00.000+01:00

3 points for each 1st place ranking
2 points for each 2nd place ranking
1 point for being ranked 3rd - 10th, or for being included on an unranked list

	Album / Artist	# 1st Place	# 2nd Place	# Other	Points
1	Let England Shake by PJ Harvey	15	7	26	85
2	Bon Iver by Bon Iver	6	7	23	55
3	21 by Adele	10	4	14	52
4	Watch the Throne by Jay-Z and Kanye West	1	6	22	37
	whokill by tUnE-yArDs	2	4	23	37
6	House of Balloons by The Weeknd	4	2	20	36
7	Strange Mercy by St. Vincent	4	2	17	33
8	Take Care by Drake	3	2	15	28
9	Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes	1	3	18	27
10	Black Up by Shabazz Palaces	3	1	15	26
11	David Comes to Life by Fucked Up	2	2	14	24
12	James Blake by James Blake	1	2	16	23
13	Smoke Ring for My Halo by Kurt Vile	1	3	13	22
	Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming by M83	1	3	13	22
15	Skying by The Horrors	1	3	12	21
	undun by The Roots	1	3	12	21
	Kaputt by Destroyer	3	3	6	21
18	The Whole Love by Wilco	1	1	14	19
	Father, Son, Holy Ghost by Girls	2	1	11	19
20	Bad As Me by Tom Waits	0	2	14	18
	The English Riviera by Metronomy	1	3	9	18
	Burst Apart by The Antlers	3	0	9	18
	Wild Flag by Wild Flag	2	2	8	18
24	Metals by Feist	3	0	6	15
25	The King of Limbs by Radiohead	0	1	11	13
26	Days by Real Estate	0	0	12	12
	Glass Swords by Rustie	0	4	4	12
	The King Is Dead by The Decemberists	1	0	9	12
	Nostalgia, Ultra. by Frank Ocean	0	0	12	12
	So Beautiful or So What by Paul Simon	0	1	10	12

This was seized at Metacritics

LBE Privacy Guard is a Powerful Application which Controls Android Permission to Protect Your Privacy

2011-12-06T14:23:00.001+01:00

A few months ago, an app called LBE Privacy Guard landed in the Android Market, which allows for fine-tuned control off app permissions, data usage, and more. It looks like the developer of said app has been hard at work since then, as a new, completely redesigned version is now available. While the name may still be same, the updated version is an entirely different listing altogether. Thus, users of version 1.x will have to uninstall it and install the newest version from the new listing. Please note that this app requires a rootet phone.

The app still offers the same control of the original version, along with a some new features and an overhauled interface.
With a new batch of malicious apps getting pulled from the market just this week, it's more important than ever to reign in the power given to apps, especially when they don't need it. A good example is the simple notepad app that, for reasons unknown, requests permission to access your contact lists and phone number. That shouldn't be allowed to happen. LBE Privacy Guard is making sure that you are in control. It has the following features:

Protect your privacy by controlling the permission of each application to access your sensitive data.
Block malicious operation from Mal-wares and Trojans.
Block unwanted network traffic
Find out which application is trying to steal your privacy by checking the security log.
Firewall, System optimization, battery optimization and much more

The app's navigation is extremely well laid-out, very clean, and it cuts straight to the point so there's no confusion.

Afraid you may have installed a shady app and concerned about privacy? Fire up the Security Log to make sure everything is in order.

Its a great app which every phone user should have and use actively!

Absolutely Trendy: Supercomputer That Can Predict the Future Including the Next Financial Crisis

2011-12-05T16:25:00.001+01:00

A £900million scheme to produce a computer system which could predict the next financial crisis has been backed by leading scientists. The Living Earth Simulator Project (LES) aims to ‘simulate everything’ on the planet, using anything from tweets to government statistics to map out social trends and predict the next economic crisis. Using vasts reams of data fed into the internet, trends can be spotted by analysing information with ‘the world’s most powerful computers’.
Pre-empted: It is hoped the Living Earth Simulator will use vast amounts of data to predict impending financial crises. The man behind the idea has billed it as a ‘nervous system for the planet’, while academics have backed it as a replacement for current outdated economic models. Professor Dirk Helbing, one of the leaders of the project at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, told the Sunday Times: ‘The idea is to gather live information from a huge range of sources and then analyse it using the world’s most powerful computers. ‘Many problems we have today – including social and economic instabilities, wars, disease spreading – are related to human behaviour, but there is apparently a serious lack of understanding regarding how society and the economy work. Professor Helbing said the LES would be able to predict the spread of infectious disease such as Swine Flu, identify methods for tackling climate change and even spot an impending financial crisis.

Plan: The man behind the supercomputer, Professor Dirk Helbing, billed the machine as 'the nervous system for the entire planet'. Around 30 leading computer science centres worldwide have already pledged their support for the supercomputer, including three in Britain. Oxford University, University College London (UCL) and Edinburgh University have also formed the FuturICT consortium to help push ahead with plans for the project. The European Commission has also put the Living Earth Simulator at the top of its shortlist for £900m in funding.
However, the plans to recreate the entire world in a complex computer system have drawn criticism from some science experts who see the project as too ambitious and unrealistic. Iain Begg, professor of European Studies at the London School of Economics, told the Sunday Times: ‘The complexity of the world is simply too great. We cannot even model the weather for more than a few days. ‘The social domain, people’s behaviour, is even harder to analyse, because social trends are not just complex, they also change with time. ‘We have to be sceptical as to whether even the most powerful computers could cope with it.’
The current economic crisis and eurozone meltdown was not foreseen by the financial models which most policy-makers use. But the Living Earth Simulator Project would pre-empt such a disaster, which is why it has been given support by the European Commission. Supporters of the supercomputer idea say the need to forecast another worldwide economic crisis is greater than ever.
Inspiration?: The only similar machine which has ever been dreamt up was Deep Thought, the computer from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Steven Bishop, professor of non-linear dynamics at UCL’s mathematics department, who is a key figure in the Living Earth Simulator project, said: ‘The modern banking system may have more disasters waiting to happen but they are buried in complexity, just as happened with the crisis of sub-prime mortgages. ‘We would hope to find the precursors of instability and disasters and maybe do that in time for politicians to stop them happening.’.
Yep - I think skepticism is wise in this case thinking of that (The Hitchhiker’s computer) Deep Thought spent 7.5million years pondering one simple question ;-).

Chewing Gum Boosts Mental Performance

2011-11-30T09:20:00.001+01:00

Why do people chew gum? If an anthropologist from Mars ever visited a typical supermarket, they’d be confounded by those shelves near the checkout aisle that display dozens of flavored gum options. Chewing without eating seems like such a ridiculous habit, the oral equivalent of running on a treadmill. And yet, people have been chewing gum for thousands of years, ever since the ancient Greeks began popping wads of mastic tree resin in their mouth to sweeten the breath. Socrates probably chewed gum.
It turns out there’s an excellent rationale for this long-standing cultural habit: Gum is an effective booster of mental performance, conferring all sorts of benefits without any side effects. The latest investigation of gum chewing comes from a team of psychologists at St. Lawrence University. The experiment went like this: 159 students were given a battery of demanding cognitive tasks, such as repeating random numbers backward and solving difficult logic puzzles. Half of the subjects chewed gum (sugar-free and sugar-added) while the other half were given nothing. Here’s where things get peculiar: Those randomly assigned to the gum-chewing condition significantly outperformed those in the control condition on five out of six tests. (The one exception was verbal fluency, in which subjects were asked to name as many words as possible from a given category, such as “animals.”) The sugar content of the gum had no effect on test performance.

While previous studies achieved similar results — chewing gum is often a better test aid than caffeine — this latest research investigated the time course of the gum advantage. It turns out to be rather short lived, as gum chewers only showed an increase in performance during the first 20 minutes of testing. After that, they performed identically to non-chewers.
What’s responsible for this mental boost? Nobody really knows. It doesn’t appear to depend on glucose, since sugar-free gum generated the same benefits. Instead, the researchers propose that gum enhances performance due to “mastication-induced arousal.” The act of chewing, in other words, wakes us up, ensuring that we are fully focused on the task at hand. Unfortunately, this boost is fleeting. The takeaway of this research is straightforward: When taking a test, save the gum for the hardest part, or for those questions when you feel your focus flagging. The gum will help you concentrate, but the help won’t last long.
This latest paper only adds to the impressive body of psychological literature on gum. Last month, scientists at Coventry University found that people chewing mint gum showed a dramatic decrease in feelings of sleepiness. The subjects also looked less exhausted when assessed with the Pupillographic Sleepiness Test (PST), which uses the oscillations of the pupils as a metric of tiredness. When we chew gum, we gain alertness and attention, but without the jitters.
And then there’s this paper, from a researcher at Cardiff University. 133 volunteers were given cognitive tests with and without chewing gum. (They were also randomly assigned gum flavors, treated to a selection of fruits and mints.) Approximately half of the volunteers were tested while listening to a screeching noise — this was the stress condition — while the other volunteers took the test in a quiet room. After each testing session, the volunteers rated their mood and underwent a number of physiological measurements, including heart rate and salivary cortisol levels. (Cortisol is a stress hormone, but it’s also a good indicator of alertness.) As expected, gum chewers were more attentive than non-chewers, with elevated heart rates and cortisol levels. They also had much faster reaction times, especially on more difficult reaction tests. They even appeared to be in a better mood.
Given the uncanny power of gum, it seems a little silly that we don’t allow it in the classroom. (If a pill achieved these same results, we’d all be popping it.) Of course, gum is disgusting and unsightly once it becomes litter, but it also appears to be a wonderful stimulant, allowing us to benefit from the attentional boost of eating without having to swallow or ingest calories. (Plus, fresh breath!) A recent review of the gum-chewing literature summarizes the science: “Gum appears to be a functional food with function but no food.”

This was reseized at Wired and the photo is from World of Jan

The 25 Most Popular Passwords of 2011

2011-11-22T14:50:00.001+01:00

As a collective, we humans seem to be quite unimaginative and well, very lazy. Just take a look at how many people's passwords are so dumb and easy to guess. Here are the 25 worst (AKA most popular) passwords of 2011.

password
123456
12345678
qwerty
abc123
monkey
1234567
letmein
trustno1
dragon
baseball
111111
iloveyou
master
sunshine
ashley
bailey
passw0rd
shadow
123123
654321
superman
qazwsx
michael
football

Integrate Your Facebook and Twitter Stream into Google+ with G++ (GPlusPlus)

2011-11-22T10:30:00.002+01:00

There are a lot of extensions which allow you to view facebook news feed in Google+ or view Twitter feeds in Google+. There are also many extensions which help you to update your Facebook status from Google+ or tweet from Google+. But what to do if you have an account in all the three services? You might need to install 2 extensions to integrate both Facebook and Twitter in Google+? SGPlus and G++ are extensions which do the job. Where SGPlus wants money for the service G++ is for free and works simpler.

G++ is a browser extension for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, this extension expands your Google+ stream to include your Facebook and Twitter streams. Such an integration of streams saves the time you would otherwise spend on individually logging into each account.

With the extension installed open up your Google+ stream. You will find checkboxes for Facebook and Twitter under the “Find People” area. These checkboxes might take a moment to load up the first time, so please be patient.

Select either or both of the networks to have their streams show up with your Google+ stream. You will find the entries sorted neatly according to their posting time. The icon of each entry’s respective network is shown ahead of it. Appropriate options for each entry such as retweeting, liking, and commenting are also displayed under each stream entry.

The extension also lets you post updates to Facebook and Twitter directly from Google Plus. Simply type in your update in the Google+’s sharing textbox and select the Facebook and/or Twitter checkbox.

If you want to disable the extension temporary you can turn off G++ using the option that appears in the webpage’s top-right.

Being extremely easy to use, G++ has provided a very helpful way for people to manage their Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ account. I hope that the developer keeps up the good work.

You can download the extension at the Chrome Webstore or directly at the developers website.

Otixo: Access all your online files from a single app

2011-10-04T15:56:00.000+02:00

Otixo lets you access all your online files in one simple app. Use Otixo to access files across all your favorite online services like Google Docs, Dropbox, MobileMe, FTP (and many more) from a single interface and then share them with your colleagues and friends no matter where your files are stored in the cloud. Moreover, you can copy files in one cloud-service into another cloud-service without having to download them to your computer.
Start by adding cloud services that you use to Otixo, services can be added after you sign up for an Otixo account or by clicking ‘New Service’. All services are listed in a panel on the left. To view files in another cloud, simply click it and and files will be synced. To move files between clouds, select a file, copy or cut it and paste it to another cloud. Otixo is currently in public beta, and anybody can sign up for an account. Whether you are on the road or at your desktop, Otixo consolidates your online tools to make your “stuff” easier to find and use.

JPEGmini – The Future of Image Compression?

2011-08-30T15:34:00.000+02:00

An Israeli company recently unveiled what might be the next generation of image compression technology. Based on the JPEG format, the new JPEGmini is compatible with existing JPEG but capable of reducing the file size of an image by up to 5X without any visible loss of image quality. As reported by Megapixel magazine, the new JPEGmini is compatible with existing JPEG specifications but allows you to preserve your pictures’ original image quality while achieving a considerably higher compression ratio, resulting in approximately 80% smaller file sizes. (Of course you could achieve a similar compression ratio with existing technologies too, but IQ would suffer.) You can try the JPEGmini technology yourself, using your own photos, at this website: http://www.jpegmini.comThe table below summarizes the file size reduction ratios achieved by JPEGmini for various photo resolutions.

For more details and an interview visit Megapixel.co.il.
A dog magnified to 100% – find the differences – the original on the right, JPEGmini on the left (Credit: Iddo Genuth):

The Future of The Internet (according to the UK Future Internet Strategy Group)

2011-08-29T10:16:00.000+02:00

A recent report about the "future Internet" by the UK's national innovation agency, Technology Strategy Board, has some illuminating information about the emerging Internet of Things. It suggests that converged services and a brokerage model, amongst other things, will define the future Web. The report is available as a free PDF download, but as it's 59 pages long we'll summarize some key points in this post.
The report defines the future Internet as "an evolving convergent Internet of things and services that is available anywhere, anytime as part of an all-pervasive omnipresent socio-economic fabric, made up of converged services, shared data and an advanced wireless and fixed infrastructure linking people and machines to provide advanced services to business and citizens."

The report goes on to state that "the Internet was initially about communications and then a means of delivering services. The next stage in this progression is a convergence of services, together with massively shared data." One example it gives is health services that are "designed around the individual, specified by the patient and clinical practitioner and delivered as part of a brokered set of services."

Convergence is a key term used throughout the report, the crux being that data will increasingly come from many sources and that services will need to mix and filter that data.
A big opportunity for entrepreneurs in this future Internet will be to become a service broker:

"A new class of service provider will emerge that will create and market service elements that can be applied across multiple sectors. These elements will be aggregated together in any number of ways by a 'broker', to provide the end user with contextually aware applications and decision support services."

The whole report is worth diving into, but the following selection of graphs gives a good summary of the key points.

This was seized for you at ReadWriteWeb

Android’s Success is Microsoft's Future?

2011-08-16T17:50:00.004+02:00

Android is the leading smartphone platform in the world with over 500,000 device activations every day. It is one of Googles most successful businesses helping Google capture mobile search market share and revenues that will top $1.3 billion in 2012.

Microsoft owns several patents relating to Android technology and so Android’s success is quickly becoming a boon for Microsoft, which has established licensing agreements with several Android manufacturers to settle patent infringement claims. After landing several key licensing agreements and with a big Samsung agreement reportedly in the works, Android is well on its way to becoming one of Microsoft’s fastest growing money makers.Google’s Android OS competes mainly with the Apple iOS, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 and Research in Motion’s Blackberry OS in the smartphone operating system market.

Since Microsoft has the rights to several patents related to technology used in Android, it has been able to turn Android into a huge revenue generating business by entering into patent licensing agreements with other companies which produce Android devices. Microsoft recently entered a patent licensing agreements with several manufacturers including HTC, General Dynamics, Wistron and Onkyo under which they will pay it $5-$10 for every Android device that they ship. With 500,000 devices a day, this implies around $1 billion in value if it received a $5 fee for each Android device. Current negotiations with Samsung, the top Android device manufacturer, could land Microsoft an additional $10-$15 for every Android device activated by Samsung.All these patent agreements could generate revenues well in excess of $1 billion for Microsoft by the end of 2012.

Currently, Microsoft Office and the Windows operating system are the most valuable segments for Microsoft; however, Android could turn out to be its next billion dollar business and one of its largest revenue generators – surpassing the value of its own Windows 7 platform and perhaps Bing in the not too distant future.

This was seized for you at Trefis

Facebook and Twitter Integration to Google+ with StartG+

2011-07-21T12:11:00.000+02:00

The latest buzz in the social networking world is Google+. The social networking site by Google has been launched just over a month and ever since its launch it has seen a huge success and the number of users for the site has been increasing by leaps and bounds. Computer Programmer Zane Claes has come up with a Chrome extension called StartG+ which helps users to add several features to Google+. The extension helps to easily import photographs from Facebook(FB) and post from Twitter and FB.

Features Of The Extension

When you install the extension and visit Google+, you will find a Gmail notification icon along with Twitter and FB buttons on the top right hand corner along with a drop down menu which has options via which you can disable Twitter and FB features. With the help of this extension you can also import photos from Facebook. The photos are displayed in a slideshow format.

There are also some upcoming features of the extension. Tagging, URL shortening, improvements in nicknames, custom steams etc are some of the upcoming features of the extension. One can download the extension for free from Chrome Web Store. To download the extension, click here.

Google Maps Shows Now Live Traffic Information for 13 European Countries - The Data for this Service May Be Provided by You

2011-07-14T12:01:00.001+02:00

Today Google Maps added live traffic coverage for 13 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain and Switzerland. The new traffic information will automatically be available in Google Maps for Android, iOS, and mobile browsers.

Left: Traffic layer in Munich
Right: Getting routed around traffic in Google Maps Navigation
With the addition of live traffic data, users in these countries will now also be able to be routed around traffic in Google Maps Navigation (Beta) to save precious minutes when possible.
Where does Google get the data?
Apart from the local highway authorities etc. but also from GPS-enabled phones that use Google Maps with the My Location feature. Everyone can of course opt out but who would do it when you can give and exchange valuable data with you neighbors, friends and Google.

Googles statement:
Google Maps products that include location services will make use of this information for traffic. This includes the downloadable Google Maps for Mobile product for mobile phones as well as the Google Maps application for Android phones. One exception is the maps functionality that Google provides for the iPhone - the iPhone does not provide any location data that is used for traffic crowdsourcing at this time.

Cancer patient receives first transplant made out of own stem cells

2011-07-11T16:38:00.001+02:00

Surgeons have performed the first transplant operation using an organ wholly grown in a laboratory to give a man a new windpipe. The 36-year-old is recovering after surgeons implanted the world's first wholly lab-grown organ into his body.

Windpipes have been grown from stem cells before, but only using the collagen "skeletons" of donated tracheas. The synthetic trachea was created by growing the patient's own stem cells on an artificial "scaffold", which British scientists helped design.

The landmark operation at Karolinska University hospital in Sweden could mean patients may not have to wait for a suitable donor organ. This could be particularly significant for children, for whom donor tracheas are much more difficult to find.

The patient, an African student living in Iceland, had been suffering from life-threatening tracheal cancer.

The Y-shaped structure was made from a plastic-like "nanocomposite" polymer material consisting of microscopic building blocks. Two days after stem cells were placed into the scaffold they had grown into tracheal cells ready for transplantation.

Prof Seifalian said: "What makes this procedure different is it's the first time that a wholly tissue-engineered synthetic windpipe has been made and successfully transplanted, making it an important milestone for regenerative medicine. We expect there to be many more exciting applications for the novel polymers we have developed.

Since the organ was built from cells originating from the patient, there was no risk of it being rejected by his immune system.

The patient is said to be doing well and is due to be discharged from hospital today.

This was seized at The Guardian

The Data Liberation Front, A Google Subsidiary, Announces Google Takeout

2011-06-29T16:56:00.001+02:00

The Google Subsidiary "The Data Liberation Front" announces Google Takeout.
It lets you take your data out of multiple Google products in one fell swoop. Moreover, you’ll find that all your data is in portable and open formats‚ so it’s easy to import to other services quickly. The 5 first products launched are Google Buzz, -Contacts, -Profile, -Stream and Picasa with more to follow...

Leon Kompowski aka Michael Jackson aka Kipp Lennon singing "Happy Birthday Lisa" in the Legendary Simpsons Episode

2011-06-28T16:16:00.004+02:00

just because of that it is news today that Sony blocked Michael Jackson from doing any of the singing for Jackson’s character, the large bald-headed mental patient Leon Kompowsky, who actually thought he was Jackson and serenaded Little Lisa with “Happy Birthday, Lisa”. Jackson, who was credited as John Jay Smith, instead handpicked impersonator Kipp Lennon, who also sang for the King of Pop during the miniseries "The Jacksons: An American Dream".

Icelands New Constitution (Participate and bring in your ideas via Facebook)

2011-06-14T17:32:00.004+02:00

How do you write a new constitution in the 21st century? You go where the people are — online.
That was the decision of tiny but tech-savvy Iceland, which is overhauling its constitution in the wake of an economic catastrophe, and has turned to the Internet to get input from citizens.
The 25-member council drafting the new constitution is reaching out to Icelanders online, especially through social media sites Facebook and Twitter, video-sharing site YouTube and photo site Flickr.
Iceland's population of 320,000 is among the world's most computer-literate. Two-thirds of Icelanders are on Facebook, so the constitutional council's weekly meetings are broadcast live on the social networking site as well as on the council's website.
"It is possible to register through other means, but most of the discussion takes place via Facebook," said Berghildur Bernhardsdottir, spokeswoman for the constitutional review project.
When the North Atlantic island nation gained independence from Denmark in 1944, it simply took the Danish constitution and made a few minor adjustments, such as substituting the word "president" for "king."
A thorough review of the constitution has been on the agenda ever since, but action came only after the crisis in 2008, when Iceland's main commercial banks collapsed within a week, the krona currency plummeted and protests toppled the government.
"To me, it has long been clear that a comprehensive review of the constitution would only be carried out with the direct participation of the Icelandic people," said Iceland's Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, one of the champions of the constitutional review since taking office in 2009.
She says it is a "distinct possibility" that the draft constitution will be put to the people in a referendum before Iceland's parliament debates final approval.
The 25 members of the constitutional council were elected by popular vote from a field of 522 candidates aged 18 and over. The council is basing its work on a 700-page report prepared by a committee that took into account the findings of 950 randomly selected Icelanders — the National Forum — who met for a day to discuss the division of powers, conservation and protection, foreign relations and more.
But, the Internet component is still the most direct route for most Icelanders to weigh in. Members of the public must provide their names and addresses, and can then submit online recommendations, which are approved by local staff to avoid Internet heckling. The ideas are then passed on to the council, and are open for discussion online.
"The sort of argumentative and negative discussion that has been common on Icelandic blogs and news sites, especially since the economic collapse, has been almost entirely absent," Bernhardsdottir said.
Recommendations have spanned a wide range of topics, from improving the treatment of livestock to making it easier for authorities to seize stolen property, said Thorvaldur Gylfason, a professor of economics at the University of Iceland and a member of the council.
Suggestions approved by the council — including livestock protection — are added to the draft constitution, which is accessible online and open for comment.
It remains to be seen whether Icelanders can unite behind the most emotionally charged sections of the proposed constitution, such as nature conservation and ownership of Iceland's natural resources. Major power projects, the threat of a global water shortage and fierce controversy over the rights to natural resources such as fishing grounds and geothermal energy have made Icelanders keenly aware of the value of their environment.
"The proposed constitution defines access to clean and unspoiled nature as a human rights issue," Gylfason said. "This strengthens the position of those who wish to seek justice as a result of environmental damage."
Another new clause tackles the contentious issue of who owns natural resources. When Iceland's fisheries management system was introduced in the 1980s, certain companies were awarded fishing quotas for a nominal fee, giving them exclusive and lucrative rights to fishing grounds.
"This clause has been eagerly awaited by the nation and stipulates that Iceland's resources, including its fishing grounds, are the property of the nation," which therefore has the right to the resources, Gylfason said.
The draft constitution is due to be completed by the end of June, though the council may ask for an extension of one month. After that, it will be sent to Iceland's parliament for debate and approval.

This was re-seized for you at Yahoo

Real-time Satellites in Google Earth

2011-06-09T10:25:00.000+02:00

Google's search for future profit targets the Sun (not just the cloud)

2011-06-06T17:15:00.006+02:00

A strategic weakness of Google(GOOG) has been complete reliance on advertising. The company has worked for years to break out of the mold. In 2010, it sank 12.8 percent of its revenue into R&D. So far, no great luck. But one new area that might prove promising is solar power.

Last year Google announced a new mirror system for concentrating solar radiation. Now Google’s patent application for the technologyhas surfaced and the company is hiring three technical

positions for a new R&D group “to develop electricity from renewable energy sources at a cost less than coal” at “utility scale.” The question is whether the new venture will receive the support it needs as CEOLarry Page tries to more effectively focus the company’s

efforts.

One problem with solar energy has been the inefficiency of conversion cells that turn light into electricity. The devices have been expensive enough that the resulting cost of electricity is too high compared to standbys like coal. That leaves one of two possible fixes: make the cells a lot cheaper, or increase efficiency.

Google is clearly going down the efficiency road with a strategy to increase the amount of light hitting a device and boost the resulting amount of energy. The patent application is for a heliostat system that keeps mirrors trained on a device that receives the light. The twist is that Google’s system uses a camera to measure the brightness of the light and appropriately adjust the collector mirrors.

But the specifics of the device are almost beside the point. Google has had apractical interest in energy costs for years, given the amounts it uses in server farms. The company has invested in energy firms for some time and has also indulged in some energy-related development before, like its PowerMeter software. In addition, Google conducts R&D for its own infrastructure, likedeveloping its own storage technology.

Getting into solar power that the company could apply to its data centers seems like an extension of efforts. But this is a significant shift. The planned hires — a technical program manager for the heliostat project, as well as a renewable energy engineer and mechanical engineer — may be small potatoes for the company, but they underscore how Google may be taking the topic more seriously.

The question is whether such an initiative can last. Page is trying to bring more focus to the company and a number of recent efforts, like Wave and Buzz, went nowhere. However, an energy R&D group has one thing that many of Google’s would-have-beens never offered: a chance for hard savings. Even a small reduction in expense could pay for the group many times over, making it a tactical necessity, even if not a strategic one.

This was seized at BNet

The Weeknd - House Of Balloons

2011-04-15T15:21:00.008+02:00

This album is an amazing entry from the R&B front. Its sounds like if House of Balloons is just about filthy sex and drugs but it is an amazing imaginative journey of progressive new R&B styled music. The term "Broken Soul" music was invented to describe the Swedish act cirKus (Neneh Cherry, Cameron McVey, Lola Moon and Matt Karmil) but it would fit even better to this album. For me the surprise of the year (Ok - we are only in the beginning of 2011 but I'm sure that this one will last). Just go to the homepage and download the whole goodness HERE for free and enjoy!
This is one video from a fan at Vimeo. You can find other ones from "xoxxxoooxo" at YouTube.

In order to give you a good review, some excerpts from Pitchfork:

Less than two months ago, few of us had ever heard of the Weeknd. Then, as soon as the creepy R&B tracks from this free mixtape began to circulate, the hype engine revved up. There was the Drake cosign, the album art that looked like Spiritualized crossed with Tumblr art-porn, the missing vowel, the stylish samples, and the project's creators hiding in the shadows. You can't buy buzz like this, and the Weeknd's quick rise to Internet fame, both in indie circles and in parts of the mainstream, raised fascinating questions about the blurrier-than-ever lines between those two audiences and the underground's newfound embrace of R&B. (see also: Frank Ocean, Tri Angle Records, How to Dress Well.)

These are very interesting topics that have already spawned some good thinkpieces around the web, but set all that aside for a moment and you're still left with an album, same as always. And this album happens to be very good.

The work of Toronto singer Abel Tesfaye and producers Doc McKinney and Illangelo is a remarkably confident, often troubling debut that excels at both forward-thinking genre-smearing and good old-fashioned songcraft. Take for starters the track "What You Need": with Burial-style vocal samples, techno scrape, and a sticky pop chorus, it's far from your average R&B number.

Of course, the Weeknd are not without forebears-- producers from Rodney Jerkins to Static Major and recently The-Dream have been pushing the sonic boundaries of R&B for some time now. Where the Weeknd differ, though, is that their source material pulls from the leftfield (the title track re-purposes Siouxsie and the Banshee's "Happy House", two songs here ride mutated Beach House samples), and their approach is more about building vibe and atmosphere. They're great at rich, woozy compositions that send Tesfaye's aching falsetto through the mix. An example is "The Morning", which feels at first like a spacey synth instrumental before a stuttering digital drumbeat announces this massive, swaying chorus that enters your brain and refuses to leave.

The group's penchant for druggy atmospherics is mirrored in their lyrical content, which is overtly sexual, narcotics-focused, and occasionally downright frightening. Debauchery is obviously nothing new in R&B, but this takes it a step further-- the drugs are harder, the come-ons feel predatory and lecherous, and the general feeling is self-hating rather than celebratory. On opener "High for This", Tesfaye handholds a partner through some strange sex act, singing, "Trust me, girl, you wanna be high for this." "Glass Table Girls" is pretty clearly about doing coke. Because we don't know these guys, it's hard to say whether these are real-life tales or imaginative storytelling-- you want to think the latter, but ultimately the anonymity makes it seem more disturbing.

What makes this whole thing work in an album context is that all the thematic and sonic pieces fit together-- these weird, morning-after tales of lust, hurt, and over-indulgence ("Bring the drugs, baby, I can bring my pain," goes one refrain) are matched by this incredibly lush, downcast music. It's hard to think of a record since probably the xx's debut (definitely a touchstone here) that so fully embodies such a specific nocturnal quality. And even though the image of nightlife painted by the Weeknd isn't a place you'd ever want to live, it's one that's frankly very hard to stop listening to.

— Joe Colly, March 29, 2011

(WebDAV) Access to Google Docs from Everywhere

2011-03-29T14:27:00.003+02:00

DAV-pocket Lab is a WebDAV server which allows you access to Google Docs. DAV-pocket allows you also to access Google Docs if your provider (Country, Company) does not allow access to Google Docs because the Dav-pocket server acts as "the man in the middle".

WebDAV is a series of extensions to the HTTP protocol and defines how basic file functions, such as copy, move, delete, and create folder, are performed across HTTP.
If you are using a Windows PC, you can create a Web folder to access the WebDAV server in My Network Places on your PC. This allows you to access the WebDAV server where you can easily upload and download files using Windows Explorer. Its similarly easy for Mac and Linux users.

Its incredible simple. Simply head to the site https://dav-pocket.appspot.com/ and give yourself a username, password and use your Google Account. No further confirmations are necessary. Enjoy!