Category: Websites
1&1 converts former Nuclear plant into green datacentre
See that rather run-down looking building? Website hosting company 1&1, which manages over 10 million domain names, has just announced plans to convert it – a never-used Nuclear waste facility – into a massive server farm powered by renewable energy.
New Sky Player subscription service for non-Sky customers
Sky is looking to wires under the ground to provide TV programmes to customers – it is planning a new internet based subscription service for Sky Player, the iPlayer-esque clunky, bloated piece of crap you installed once and gave upon before successfully downloading any programmes to watch.
Hiogi launches – a crowdsourced mobile answers service
What do you get if you cross Yahoo! answers with a service with Texperts, AQA or 63336? Hiogi. It’s a free service, accessible via the web, mobile web, text, skype or email, which lets you ask questions and get replies. The German-based start-up has just come out of private beta.
What you basically do is ask a question, and then wait till the community answers it for you. When the answer comes back you can rate it positively or negatively depending on whether it’s correct or useful or not. On the answering side, you download a ticket which gives you questions. Once you see one that you can answer, you can reserve it for 10 mins to answer it.
Four Google executives to stand trial in Italy
This is a rather worrying story. Google is awaiting confirmation from Italian courts that four of its employees will face trial there for failing to stop a video being uploaded that shows a disabled kid getting bullied. Sources claim that they stand accused of defamation and failure to exercise control over personal data.
The video in question shows, over the course of three minutes, four kids harassing a kid with Down’s Syndrome, and hitting him over the head with a pack of tissues. It was posted back in September 2006, and Google removed it within a day after it received a complaint, but that wasn’t good enough, claim prosecutors. It gained about 12,000 views…
Full-length movies to hit YouTube
Sick of watching videos of people’s cats in crappy quality on YouTube? Soon you’ll be able to watch full-length movies in crappy quality on YouTube! And by “soon”, I mean possibly as early as next month.
Google would dearly love to launch an ad-supported streaming movie service, but given the flagrant copyright violations which occur there every second of ever day, the movie studios haven’t been too keen. However, two unnamed executives have confirmed that although it’s not “imminent”, a project along those lines could go live in the next “30 to 90 days”…
Google withdraws advertising deal from Yahoo!, Yahoo! pleads with Microsoft to buy it
Search giant Google has withdrawn its potential advertising deal with Yahoo! due to fears of regulatory denial and the hassle of associated lawsuits. It’s a move that leaves Yahoo! floundering without a clear direction, and has led many bloggers to call for the head of CEO Jerry Yang.
Yahoo! has a lot of good stuff in the pipeline, and it’d be a great shame if it goes under. After rejecting a deal with Microsoft earlier this year, however, they’re now pleading with the software giant to buy them. CEO Yang says: “We’re willing to sell the company.”
It remains to be seen what’ll happen, but one thing’s for sure – there are rocky times ahead for the owner of the most popular portal on the internet.
Related posts: Microsoft, Yahoo!, Western Union and the African Development Bank team up to fight internet scammers | Yahoo! in 2009: More social, and more open
3 to release INQ handset with massive Facebook integration
Continuing in 3’s long tradition of trying to shake up the established phone industry, the network is planning to launch a new phone next week called INQ. It builds on the direction that the Skypephone started, and features very close integration with social-networking behemoth Facebook.
Although info about the phone has been floating around for a little while, we’ve got the official confirmation from 3 now, and they’re holding a press event next Thursday to announce the handset. It’s a not-particularly-pretty-looking slider phone, but where it really shines is in the software. Your Facebook contacts are your phonebook. Your SMS messages are Facebook messages. IM is handled over Facebook chat…
Amazon offers 'frustration-free' packaging on top products
We’ve all been there – that headphone cable that takes two pairs of scissors, a kitchen knife and a bulldog clip to get out of its packet, but still manages to nearly take off your finger. Well, if Amazon gets its way, that experience will be no more – it’s announced a ‘frustration-free packaging’ and launches today on 19 of Amazon’s best-selling products.
The goal is to make it easier for customers to get to the stuff they’ve paid for, and it also has the side-benefit of reducing use of plastic, which sticks about for bazillions of years once discarded. Amazon are initially focusing on two things – the aforementioned plastic bubble clamshells and those with plastic-coated wires tying them in place…
Corporation in "annoyed when corporate image is compromised" shocker
Hey readers, you’re a bunch of idiots, and I hate you. You smell, and merely looking at your face makes me want to vomit.
Well, not really. I’m sure your face isn’t that offensively hideous, but hopefully I’ve offended you enough to illustrate a TOP TIP for anyone who has a job: don’t slag off your customers on the internet. I’m speaking from personal experience here – I was nearly sacked from an old retail job for blogging about it – and it looks like some British Airways staff have had to learn the hard way too…
O'Malley's Mashup: Prepare for election night!
I can’t articulate just how much I’m looking forward to Tuesday night. For most people, it will probably be a fairly normal Tuesday evening, but if you’re a politics junkie like myself, its going to be like watching the World Cup final. The stakes are high, the build up extensive and somewhat tiresome, and it has all come down to this one evening to decide who will be the next President of the United States. But how can you maximise your enjoyment of this media circus? By embracing technology, of course.
