FocuSoft Tech Blog |
- Hot Or Not War: I’ll Put My Hottest Blond Against Your Brunette Any Day
- Facebook Now Lets You Fax Your Photos. I Have No Idea Why Anyone Would Want To Do This
- Twitter Tweaks Terms Of Service, “Your Tweets Belong To You”
- Cerego Raises $3.4 Million For Smart.fm, Launches Facebook Friend Quiz
- Google Aims To Halve The Cost Of Solar power
- Facebook Lite: How Will Twitter Respond? Twitter Lite!
- Why developers love Apple’s Snow Leopard
- Interview With The Pirate Party Of The United States
- Kickin’ It Old School: Facebook Lite Launches In The U.S. And India
- VodSpot Gives Publishers Easy Custom Video Portals; Now Powering TechCrunch Video
| Hot Or Not War: I’ll Put My Hottest Blond Against Your Brunette Any Day Posted: 10 Sep 2009 05:59 PM PDT
The game takes two mindless classics and smashes them together. It's the card game War and it's Hot or Not, all in one very simple app. Except, the game really isn't too much like War at all. Instead, you are dealt 5 cards face up, as is your opponent. You then pick whichever one you think has the highest Hot or Not rating (their average rating on a 10 point scale) and so does your opponent. You do this for 30 seconds and the person with the most victories, wins the round. The first side to win a set number of rounds (1, 3, 5, or 7) wins. But also unlike the card game War, when you pick people with the same Hot or Not rating, you don't actually go to war (throw down more cards). Instead, that's considered a tie and no side gets any points and you move on to the next set of cards. Also, if you lose, you don't pick up your opponents cards as the number of cards you have doesn't matter.
You can play either against a computer oppontent or against a friend on the same iPhone. You can't, unfortunately, play online against other players. Also a bit annoying is the sign-up and sign-in process, which is several steps. Luckily, you only have to do it once. Just as with the Hot or Not website, you can set what gender you are interested in, as well as what age range. It's more mindless iPhone fun, looking at attractive (or not so attractive) people. The game is free, available now in the App Store here. And remember: Always pick the girl in the bikini. She always wins. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Read more from the original source:
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| Facebook Now Lets You Fax Your Photos. I Have No Idea Why Anyone Would Want To Do This Posted: 10 Sep 2009 05:29 PM PDT
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I'm not sure why Facebook would do this. For one, faxes aren't known for offering great quality — if you want to print a photo, you probably aren't going to rely on your Fax machine. Second, if you have someone's fax number, there's a good chance you have their Email address too — why not just send it over Email? Update: As one of our commenters points out, this could make for a good way to send photos to relatives who may not be comfortable using computers. But $1.50 per photo seems expensive if you're going to do this with any regularity.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Read the original post:
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| Twitter Tweaks Terms Of Service, “Your Tweets Belong To You” Posted: 10 Sep 2009 05:17 PM PDT
The privacy clause about Tweets is big, considering this was a significant issue for Facebook. Twitter has deflected talk of advertising on on the platform in the past, but it seems pretty clear that they're looking into it now as a real source of income as they strive for revenues. Stone addressed the issue of Twitter's revenue recently, which is a complex issue. Here's what Biz wrote in the post:
Privacy when it comes to Tweets is an interesting issue, considering the whole Facebook angle. Granted, Twitter's information is contained in 140 characters, so the depth of the information is slightly less intrusive. The decision regarding revenue is a big one and has serious implications for Twitter's valuation. Twitter is growing fast and the options are aplenty. But according to what Stone wrote today, it seems that Twitter is going to take it's own sweet time to figure out the whole advertising strategy. The startup knows that it can make money with advertising if it needs to but obviously wants to figure out best one, considering the immense pressure. Twitter has tested text advertisements on the home page, ads in the stream, and text footer ads. Twitter also serves ads in the small box on profile pages for third-party Twitter apps, but doesn't seem to charge the apps for the promotion. Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Read more:
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| Cerego Raises $3.4 Million For Smart.fm, Launches Facebook Friend Quiz Posted: 10 Sep 2009 04:35 PM PDT
Cerego originally launched iKnow as an online service for Japanese people to learn English and then expanded the platform to allow users to learn content in any language. Cerego has developed learning algorithms based on research in the fields of cognitive science and neuroscience that power iKnow. The learning engine is unique because it lets users set personal learning goals and then plans a curriculum and strategy around these goals. Cerego has launched a new Facebook app called Smart.fm Brainspeed, which basically scans the information in the profiles of all of your friends and then creates a quiz around their personal information (i.e. Where was Michael born?). Users who answer the most questions correctly about a particular friend, will "own" that friend until they are unseated by another friend. The company says the app is more of a poof of concept to show that Cerego's technology can leverage structured information to help educate across different verticals and platforms, such as Facebook. The fact that mobile subscriber NTT DoCoMo has invested heavily in Cerega suggests that perhaps the company's technology will be primed for mobile apps phone in the near future. Here's a video about Smart.fm's technology: Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Read the original post:
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| Google Aims To Halve The Cost Of Solar power Posted: 10 Sep 2009 04:00 PM PDT
Recently they’ve decided that solar power isn’t efficient enough. Well spotted, Google! They must have Binged it. Of course, they’re no stranger to the green. They’ve got millions invested in renewable energy, two solar power firms in particular (eSolar and BrightSolar), but they’re also calling for backup from the government and other major investors. Continued here:
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| Facebook Lite: How Will Twitter Respond? Twitter Lite! Posted: 10 Sep 2009 03:58 PM PDT So, we now have Facebook Lite in the U.S., a slimmed down, sexier version of Facebook. It's been said for a while that Facebook may have a long term problem with Twitter because it was too bloated, while Twitter was so light and simple — talk of that should die down now. So how will Twitter respond? I have a feeling we're about to enter a war similar to the war razor blade companies engage in. You have 2 blades? We'll do 3! Then we'll do 4, etc. Except here, less is more. So behold, my idea for Twitter Lite!
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 Go here to read the rest:
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| Why developers love Apple’s Snow Leopard Posted: 10 Sep 2009 03:37 PM PDT Now that many Mac users have had a couple of weeks to install the new Apple Inc. operating system, Snow Leopard, and explore its new features, some aren’t so enthused with the update.
The additions are a far cry from the usual operating system updates that add new toys, like Spaces and Dashboards and new designs. The running joke is to call Snow Leopard a “service pack” — the incremental Windows updates that Microsoft distributes as a free download. To find just a handful of new gizmos, you’ll need to dig through settings menus and really know what to look for. (For example, did you know the new operating system is HDTV-ready?) Apple marketed the software that way from the start, quipping during its unveiling that it adds “zero new features.” The goal, it seems, is to get Snow Leopard deployed on as many machines as possible with its affordable $29 price tag. Why is Snow Leopard so important? To quote a sweaty, excited Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, “developers, developers, developers.” (We’re quoting him out of context, but he makes our point: developers!) “Snow Leopard’s developer tools in particular have improved tremendously,” wrote Steven Frank, whose company Panic builds software for website designers. “All Mac software, from Apple or otherwise, will improve as a direct result.” A lot of the additions, developers say, sit “under the hood” and provide the potential to build … … more powerful software. “Apple has laid a foundation in Snow Leopard that’s going to serve them for years,” Frank wrote in an e-mail. “You can’t frost until you have the cupcakes, right?” As The Times sat patiently in San Francisco’s Moscone Center in June while Apple executives trotted out the new developer-friendly aspects of the operating system to much fanfare, we scratched our heads. (That was at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference, and we were outnumbered by code crunchers.) After repeated discussions with developers, the importance of technologies like Grand Central Dispatch (or GCD, as software makers affectionately call it) start to make sense. GCD, for example, spreads out the computing work required to run an application evenly among its many muscles. For us, that means less waiting for complicated tasks. Snow Leopard’s major benefits probably won’t start showing themselves for weeks or months until developers can fine-tune their apps to take advantage of all of the bells and whistles. “It’s not the operation system that makes it worth upgrading, it’s the new and updated apps,” Sophia Teutschler, lead developer of Sophiestication, wrote in an e-mail. Almost two weeks after Snow Leopard’s release, software makers are still digesting the new stuff. “It’s hard to pinpoint a specific new technology that has me most excited because I have yet to explore them all,” Austin Sarner, developer of App Zapper, wrote in an e-mail. Frank welcomes the break from tacking on new levers and switches that has been distracting users every year or so. “I’m not completely sure why we all tend to look upon refinement and improvement as the ugly stepsister of wow new features,” Frank wrote, “but perhaps computing in general would be a lot less painful if we stopped doing so. At least once every few releases.” – Mark Milian Follow my commentary on technology and social media on Twitter @mmilian. [via LATimes.com]
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| Interview With The Pirate Party Of The United States Posted: 10 Sep 2009 03:10 PM PDT
If you had the idea in your head that the PPUS would somehow work to legalize your bad habits, well, tough break, kid: it’s a legitimate political party whose goal is not to make it so that you can download the latest Lady Gaga release with impunity, but rather to effect change in the more general realm of copyright and governmental transparency. In other words, you may want to lower that skull and crossbones flag you’ve been flying. This past week I spoke to not one, but two officers of the PPUS. Ryan Martin, the party’s Administrator, and Glenn Kerbein, the party’s Operations Officer. The conversations were illuminating. View original here:
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| Kickin’ It Old School: Facebook Lite Launches In The U.S. And India Posted: 10 Sep 2009 02:28 PM PDT
Originally intended to be used in countries where high speed Internet connections are sparse or non-existant, apparently Facebook has realized there's a real desire among all its users to have a smaller version of the service. [Update: More on that below] On top of a launch in the U.S., the service is also live in India right now, we're told. As we wrote last month:
One great thing about Facebook Lite is that on top of being much cleaner, updates appear in real-time along the bottom of the page, something which is much nicer to look at then that ugly toolbar that is on Facebook Proper. This alongside the Facebook's brilliant experimental desktop updater for Mac seems to show that the company is committed to user experience once again, rather than cluttering things up. Remember, keep it simple, stupid. This move into the U.S. market with Lite is also interesting because rival MySpace did a similar thing to remove bloat back in April. Thin is in, it seems. Of course, if you like applications on Facebook, you won't like this version, as they are nowhere to be found. But the reason myself and many others started using Facebook in the first place was because of the social connections and data. I want to access this data as quickly as possible, I don't care about playing games.
You'll also see that current and upcoming birthday for your contacts are at the top of the Feed. So why India as well? Well, as we noted previously, India is one of the countries that was originally being targeted by Facebook Lite, and it was the first test space it launched in several months ago. India also represents an area where Facebook is growing very fast. So fast, in fact, that Yahoo may have shut down a social network of its own, SpotM, in response to it. Google's Orkut remains the leader in the country, however. This is the third interesting development to come out of Facebook just today. This morning, it announced that it would open source a key part of the technology behind the recently acquired FriendFeed. And earlier this afternoon, it began using the "@ reply" syntax, mimicking the way people communicate on rival Twitter. We've reached out to Facebook for comment as to why they decided to push this live in the U.S. so quickly. We'll update when we hear back. Update: Here's what Facebook is saying on the matter:
Update 2: And here's Zuckerberg with the team that worked this banging the gong for the release.
Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Read more here:
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| VodSpot Gives Publishers Easy Custom Video Portals; Now Powering TechCrunch Video Posted: 10 Sep 2009 02:27 PM PDT
We'll be using the service to power our new TechCrunch Video site, which you can find at http://video.techcrunch.com or in the masthead above. The new site will feature a collection of recent video content from throughout the TechCrunch network, and we're also opening it up to user submitted videos — if you have an interesting interview, demo, or other tech related video that you'd like to share with the TechCrunch community, here's your chance. We last covered VodPod back in 2006, when the site launched as a YouTube competitor with some social bookmarking features. Since then the site has seen some major changes: CEO Mark Hall says that within a month or two after launching, VodPod decided to disable user-uploaded videos and to concentrate on its bookmarking functionality, which was quickly becoming the site's most popular feature. The startup launched a widget that allows bloggers to include their most recently bookmarked videos into their sites, which Hall says is currently being used by over 40,000 bloggers. In 2007, VodPod launched an API that allowed sites to manage their video content, drawing from videos that they'd either bookmarked on VodPod or uploaded themselves. The API has been used by Second Life, NewTeeVee and a number of other well known sites. But up until earlier this year, using the API required developer resources, which prevented many sites that would have otherwise benefited from having their own video portals from using it. Around nine months ago VodPod launched an experimental version of VodSpot as a hosted solution that allowed publishers to build video portals with a minimal amount of work required (Hall compares this to WordPress.com's hosted blogs versus WordPress.org). But at the time the customization options were limited, with only a handful of designs available. Today's launch includes support for VodPod's new template engine Laminate, which will allow publishers to fully customize the appearance of their sites.
Hall says that the company will monetize VodSpot by offering some premium features like custom domain mapping and control over advertising, which will cost $10 a month. He says that sites that draw lots of traffic will likely fall under a different pricing structure, given that VodSpot will be hosting the content. He also notes that VodPod is driving some impressive traffic now — it has quintupled since a year ago and now sees over 10 million monthly uniques — so the revenue coming in from advertising is significant. In conjunction with today's launch, VodSpot is also open-sourcing the Laminate template engine, and is launching a new version of its API that adds support for finding the most popular videos in a given subject (say, politics) across the thousands of video sites that VodSpot indexes. Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. See the rest here:
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Hot or Not
Wow, talk about a big day for Facebook. Hours after launching 
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone just 
Japanese company 
What a market leader and major dealer in capital does publicly with their money is revealing. One of the things I admire about Microsoft is that through their Labs and Research initiatives, they’ve done a lot of good work in fields only tangentially connected with Microsoft markets. Google has some initiatives of their own (
Let’s make one thing absolutely clear about the 
Well here it is. Just as 
You'll also notice that an "Events" tab has been added to the top toolbar. Again, this is much nicer than Facebook Proper, where events are buried in a sub-section. Also along the top, just above the Feed is a way to "View Top Stories" as opposed to those listed in order. I hate to keep repeating myself, but again, a great change.
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