Category: Internet
Microsoft shows off in-development video version of Photosynth
We’ve already been awed by Microsoft’s Photosynth technology but now, rather impressively, the company has managed to extend the functionality to video. It’s not available to the public yet, but in the video above you can see Microsoft demonstrating the functionality to Techcrunch.
It uses services like Qik, which stream live video from mobile devices, to switch together multiple video streams of the same thing into one big picture. The obvious example is something like a festival or concert, where hundreds of people might be eagerly filming the same thing.
Given how long it took for Microsoft to release Photosynth, though, it might be a wee while before you and I are allowed onto the service ourselves. In the meantime, we’ll have to stick with the still-life version, available here.
Daily Mail Online headline: How using Facebook could raise your risk of cancer
Do the Daily Mail and it’s online counterpart write these stories to create outrage or to write sensationalist nonsense? Perhaps it doesn’t matter, because it must work both ways. On the one hand, these kinds of stories sell papers/attract traffic and on the other hand it brings them publicity. Well, I’m sitting here writing about it, aren’t I?
So, today’s pile of old toot is about the possible link between social networking and cancer. Oh really. Now, I feel rather sorry for psychologist Dr Aric Sigman who mainly talks about how using Facebook and MySpace causes a decrease in face to face social interaction and how that might lead to socio-psychological issues.
To give the doctor an incredibly generous benefit of the doubt, it might…
Yahoo! clawing back market share from Google?
If the latest figures from traffic-trackers comScore are correct, it would appear that Yahoo! is slowly but surely clawing back some of Google’s utter dominance of the search sector, in the USA at least.
After many years of decline, Yahoo!’s search numbers have been increasing now for six months in a row, and in January they jumped up half a percentage point to 21%. Simultaneously, Google dropped half a percent to 63%.
It’s great news for Yahoo!, because it means that despite the acquisition dance around the company last year hasn’t had any negative effect on their core offering at all. Meanwhile, MSN Live Search is languishing at 8.5%, while Microsoft pours money into it, and Cuil is nowhere to be seen.
MWC 2009: Nokia unboxes the E55 and E75 – two new QWERTY mobiles for business people
The big selling point about the E55 and E75 is, according to Nokia, that both phones come pre-installed with the company’s new email front end and Nokia Messaging. Both applications allow business people to do business better and quicker.
That deal will be clinched, thanks to the efficient E75!
Nokia tells us the E75 is an upgrade of the (spirit of the) famed Nokia 9300 Communicator, keeping its slide-out QWERTY keyboard and focus on email and messaging. The new email client supports HTML mails, better sorting options and expandable views, as if the lack of that has previously been a deal-breaker…
Google Earth puts Valentine's holiday island firmly on the map
It all smells rather of some large publicity stunt, in fact, it is a large publicity stunt, of which I’m now a part, but what the hell – Google Earth has made it very clear to the world that the island of Galesnjak off the coast of Croatia is shaped a lot like a heart – or at least a love heart anyway.
The owner of the island, Vlado Juresko, had always had an idea about the dimensions of his 130,000 square yard piece of uninhabited real estate but only got the full picture once inundated with booking requests…
eBay Nutcase of the Week: The alleged last bag of Woolworths Pic 'N' Mix can be yours
If you missed out on the thrilling, frenzied, staff-assaulting, dignity-sapping, blatant and aggressive looting of the once-proud Woolworths brand over Christmas and the New Year, there’s still time to get yourself a bit of Woolies history.
Enterprising store manager Ed Adams, of the Petts Wood branch in Orpington, London, decided to nick/liberate the last remaining scraps from his branch’s Pic ‘N’ Mix display counter – an 800g selection of “delicious nostalgia” he’s now put up for sale on eBay…
Speak Swedish? Speak English? Want to help The Pirate Bay live-blog its imminent copyright trial via Twitter?
Then step right up! The Pirate Bay, the mega piracy portal which always goes to great lengths to point out it doesn’t actually host the files it catalogues, is going to court very soon – charged with, well, you can probably guess. Letting the world watch Quantum of Solace without having to go to the cinema or HMV.
A live audio feed of the Bay’s trial will be made available online, but the problem is it’s all being conducted in Sweden. In Swedish. And with the best will in the world, Swedish could never be described as the language of the internet. We’d imagine it’s only the third most popular language even in Sweden…
Woman filing for divorce after husband caught "having it off with another man in a dungeon" in Second Life
The husband in question is John Best, 34, who, if you ever believe what the News of the World says, was using his laptop in bed – while his wife was asleep – to indulge in a bit of M2M action in Second Life.
He had a great excuse for doing it. He said “it wasn’t real life” which, to be fair, is 100% correct. Here’s the NotW’s superb visual representation of the story…
“I couldn’t sleep a wink the rest of the night wondering whether this meant he was betraying me or not – that he’d rather have gay sex on Second Life than…
D-Link opens up home Big Brother options with its DCS-910 and DCS-2121 wireless network cameras
D-Link has invented a niche it’s calling the “home security market” – and has released a couple of webcams to help you discover who it is that’s eating all the biscuits.
The DCS-2121 Megapixel Wireless Network Camera is the hottest of the pair, coming fully loaded up with wi-fi connectivity…
Friendly hackers break into Kaspersky's US web site
Unfortunately it’s a fairly common occurrence for web sites to be hacked into these days, but there’s an additional sense of embarrassment when that web site belongs to a security software vendor.
Kaspersky, makers of anti-virus software, has had its US web site compromised by a group of “friendly” hackers. Friendly in the sense that they found the vulnerability that allowed them to gain access to a large amount of personal customer data, but then told the company about it instead of using it their ill-gotten gains…
