FocuSoft Tech Blog |
- New NXE reduces size of Xbox 360 hard drive installs
- New NXE reduces size of Xbox 360 hard drive installs
- Head of Roman Catholic Church in England warns against the dangers of SMS, email, and social networking
- Head of Roman Catholic Church in England warns against the dangers of SMS, email, and social networking
- Look, new cities will soon have WiMAX
- Windows Mobile 6.5 Final Build Demos Zune-like UI, Marketplace, Synching [Windows Mobile]
- Three Israeli Femme-preneurs To Keep an Eye On
- Three Israeli Femme-preneurs To Keep an Eye On
- Toyota Humanoid Robot Gives Asimo a Run For Its Money [Robots]
- Toyota Humanoid Robot Gives Asimo a Run For Its Money [Robots]
| New NXE reduces size of Xbox 360 hard drive installs Posted: 02 Aug 2009 10:00 AM PDT Clever users with the beta of the new Xbox 360 NXE-thing have noticed something: the size of game installs on the hard drive have decreased. So, good news for those of you with smaller hard drives. (I'm still kicking about with the old school 20GB hard drive. I soldier on.) For example, someone on the Cheap Ass Gamer forums reported that Left 4 Dead went from 4GB to 3.7GB. That's a savings of 26 percent! Then there's NHL 09, which went from 5.7GB to 5.0GB. And Rock Band 2 goes from 6.3GB to 4.6GB. You really have to troll through message board after message board to get a list going. Why is this happening? There's no official reason, of course, but people think it's because the new rips do away with much of the dummy data on the disc. Now, how useful it actually is to install the games to your hard drive, I don't know. You're talking a matter of only a few seconds of load time, so… Go here to read the rest:
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| New NXE reduces size of Xbox 360 hard drive installs Posted: 02 Aug 2009 10:00 AM PDT
Clever users with the beta of the new Xbox 360 NXE-thing have noticed something: the size of game installs on the hard drive have decreased. So, good news for those of you with smaller hard drives. (I’m still kicking about with the old school 20GB hard drive. I soldier on.) For example, someone on the Cheap Ass Gamer forums reported that Left 4 Dead went from 4GB to 3.7GB. That’s a savings of 26 percent! Then there’s NHL 09, which went from 5.7GB to 5.0GB. And Rock Band 2 goes from 6.3GB to 4.6GB. You really have to troll through message board after message board to get a list going. Why is this happening? There’s no official reason, of course, but people think it’s because the new rips do away with much of the dummy data on the disc. Now, how useful it actually is to install the games to your hard drive, I don’t know. You’re talking a matter of only a few seconds of load time, so… See the rest here:
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| Posted: 02 Aug 2009 09:58 AM PDT
 In case you haven’t been apprised of the situation, your addiction to texting and email is ruining your relationship… with god. According to Vincent Nichols, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, modern friendships built around (or involving) heavy SMS volley, electronic mail correspondences, and social networking sites create “transient relationships” which put users at the risk of suicide. Yes, suicide. According to the British man of the cloth, using electronic communication to build friendships is causing humanity to lose “the ability to build interpersonal communication that’s necessary for living together.” Sure, it may sound like heavy FUD talk, but there is sense in some of his points. For instance, the Archbishop of Westminster believes that social networking sites encourage people to concentrate on their number of friends rather than build actual relationships, and they tend to view that number as a commodity. Anyone who’s seen the growth of Facebook and MySpace shouldn’t have trouble making that connection, but when it comes to SMS and email, your friendship has likely moved on, and lumping that kind of one-to-one communication in with the broad relationships of social networking sites seems like an unfair characterization. We put the question to our typically calm and even-keeled commenter community — are we doomed, or what? Filed under: Cellphones, Internet Head of Roman Catholic Church in England warns against the dangers of SMS, email, and social networking originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 Aug 2009 11:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Posted: 02 Aug 2009 09:58 AM PDT
 In case you haven’t been apprised of the situation, your addiction to texting and email is ruining your relationship… with god. According to Vincent Nichols, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, modern friendships built around (or involving) heavy SMS volley, electronic mail correspondences, and social networking sites create “transient relationships” which put users at the risk of suicide. Yes, suicide. According to the British man of the cloth, using electronic communication to build friendships is causing humanity to lose “the ability to build interpersonal communication that’s necessary for living together.” Sure, it may sound like heavy FUD talk, but there is sense in some of his points. For instance, the Archbishop of Westminster believes that social networking sites encourage people to concentrate on their number of friends rather than build actual relationships, and they tend to view that number as a commodity. Anyone who’s seen the growth of Facebook and MySpace shouldn’t have trouble making that connection, but when it comes to SMS and email, your friendship has likely moved on, and lumping that kind of one-to-one communication in with the broad relationships of social networking sites seems like an unfair characterization. We put the question to our typically calm and even-keeled commenter community — are we doomed, or what? Filed under: Cellphones, Internet Head of Roman Catholic Church in England warns against the dangers of SMS, email, and social networking originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 Aug 2009 11:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Look, new cities will soon have WiMAX Posted: 02 Aug 2009 09:02 AM PDT
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| Windows Mobile 6.5 Final Build Demos Zune-like UI, Marketplace, Synching [Windows Mobile] Posted: 02 Aug 2009 09:00 AM PDT
Here’s a quick peek at the purported final build of Windows Mobile 6.5 (we call it “Windows Phone,” he says) running on an HTC Touch Diamond 2.
Aside from the subtle name/branding change, there’s some meat here in the form of the UI (Zune-ish), Marketplace for Windows
![Windows Mobile 6.5 Final Build Demos Zune like UI, Marketplace, Synching [Windows Mobile]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vmgjLIg7kmat7rCo7WbwO01098nDvfndtgM9dsCenpy5U3cyJESfABeqOr4JQtd3amGLYZu2Po3nd5oLOLXWrMZ11YiXRVW8QPnXtl4hzEUxPwJSLl5gGBh5lcc50=s0-d "Windows Mobile 6.5 Final Build Demos Zune like UI, Marketplace, Synching [Windows Mobile]") ![Windows Mobile 6.5 Final Build Demos Zune like UI, Marketplace, Synching [Windows Mobile]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sODdhYBvbnT_ObsraW1j8wK1zUq4fnEA4osSql7EpQRxRbOTMAWxWlF4Z4zbGVDk4ObR5JSNWCPZFF0aNJ9EOywRDNevwCrIkvoWfgzx5q9RWFUPGTpMRYSWVzCv4=s0-d "Windows Mobile 6.5 Final Build Demos Zune like UI, Marketplace, Synching [Windows Mobile]") ![Windows Mobile 6.5 Final Build Demos Zune like UI, Marketplace, Synching [Windows Mobile]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_v1kPvV7NSaSVRBmK8aeKSpwfNLrlPHhZrBamiBSpIklXLpkyQhGBlCSJ1WgvdP7t1FZmNqRNE3aQmyKX9E0wr3iZ3o2YsYLH11gA24qJV1rmE9pPdgKqlQ3xOMHQdXca9iCuAfnu_xHKaK65mPhPCenbYgXw=s0-d "Windows Mobile 6.5 Final Build Demos Zune like UI, Marketplace, Synching [Windows Mobile]") ![Windows Mobile 6.5 Final Build Demos Zune like UI, Marketplace, Synching [Windows Mobile]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vpdVUH9wG_gCYIeaxit5fG1IfZ2lwFDqi3VpWeBaqlKkzp6_wXjATaR7dPu3BAqBl0y-eSEe1Ycxk0NDFOr5brV_zbwOhq5uLvr6CdChCtNH-hzjoJMOdw9FRUn7UkmKnFkzsAMKG-aSIlqsVh9dlpbfek7u4=s0-d "Windows Mobile 6.5 Final Build Demos Zune like UI, Marketplace, Synching [Windows Mobile]") The rest is here:
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| Three Israeli Femme-preneurs To Keep an Eye On Posted: 02 Aug 2009 08:46 AM PDT
“I agree on the one condition it’s not going to be a girl power post, ok”? That’s what Gali Ross requested when I asked to profile her for TechCrunch. So this isn’t going to be a ‘girl power’ post, but the fact of the matter is that female entrepreneurs are a rare breed. Let’s all try a mental game together… How many female startup CEO’s can you name off the top of your head? I am embarrassed to say that I have trouble coming up with more than a handful, but I don’t think I am alone. Here’s what I find strange about all this: I speak to VC’s and private investors regularly, and have never EVER heard anyone comment negatively on deal-flow based on the entrepreneur’s gender. Startups—at least this has been my experience—are weighted on the merits of the product, market and the team, but never on gender. Frankly, I can’t explain why female entrepreneurs are a rare commodity in our industry. (Feel free to enlighten me about the gender bias underpinning the tech industry in comments). The situation in Israel is not much different. But it should only be the quality that counts… To that end, here are three Israeli female entrepreneurs worth keeping tabs on:
A mother of two girls (hence her familiarity with the need for such a product), Amit has been in our little industry for 10 years now, starting as a photo editor at Israel’s largest news site Ynet. She then moved on to manage the biggest medical site in Israel doctors.co.il, doing everything from spec’ing to selling media to business development. It was there that she started thinking about the idea for Vikido, mostly due to gaps of communication experienced by sick kids (information, connection with friends and parents). By then it was clear to her that she wanted to be involved in consumer products with strong community reach and the ability to make an impact on people and what they do on the web. That’s when the Wix gig came about. Team Vikido is planning to launch its product in September. In the mean time they are hustling to get funding, writing code, and chronicling the trials and tribulations of startup life in a weekly article series on Ynet called ‘The Transparent Startup’. Beta Access: Register here. Twitter: Amit Knaani (@amitos), Team Vikido (@vikidoteam)
Orit is also somewhat of a local serial entrepreneur. She’s founded a Yelp-ish review site called Ramkol.co.il and mit4mit.co.il, the second most popular wedding review site in Israel. Most recently Orit held the Entrepreneur in Residence role at Decima Ventures, where she was responsible for technical and market analysis. Decima is also where her newest venture, Vetrinas was born. Vetrinas is a virtual shopping window to hundreds of stores from across the fashion Meccas of the world, be it London, New York, Paris or Milan. Vetrinas is targeting three segments: Consumers with an interest in high-fashion. Retailers that want to expose potential on/offline shoppers to specific products or brand advertising. And finally, shop window designers that can display their work (art) in order to attain job offers. Orit coded all of Vetrina’s herself and intends to generate revenue by way of affiliation through the site and rev-share through widgets that will syndicate content to blogs and websites. Vetrinas is currently in Alpha. Twitter: Orit Hashay (@orithashay), Vetrinas (@vetrinas)
She then joined eWave where she kept busy with project management and, afterward, marketing, sales and business development. Two years later she joined Israeli dev house Clementina as COO. That’s where she worked with Israeli startups such as my6sense, Spikko, and Footbo. Temptation was in the air and Gali couldn’t resist so she recruited a partner and founded Razoss. Gali is still very protective of her product so details and access are limited. In vague terms it can be described as a browser-based content promotion platform, where the idea is to enhance the browser beyond content display, to content management and distribution. Initial funding was provided by Dr. Yossi Vardi a little over a year ago and a second investment is near closing. The product is in private alpha, with a wider release intended in a few months. Beta Access: Register here. Twitter: Gali Ross (@galiross), Razoss (@razoss) Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. View post:
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| Three Israeli Femme-preneurs To Keep an Eye On Posted: 02 Aug 2009 08:46 AM PDT
“I agree on the one condition it’s not going to be a girl power post, ok”? That’s what Gali Ross requested when I asked to profile her for TechCrunch. So this isn’t going to be a ‘girl power’ post, but the fact of the matter is that female entrepreneurs are a rare breed. Let’s all try a mental game together… How many female startup CEO’s can you name off the top of your head? I am embarrassed to say that I have trouble coming up with more than a handful, but I don’t think I am alone. Here’s what I find strange about all this: I speak to VC’s and private investors regularly, and have never EVER heard anyone comment negatively on deal-flow based on the entrepreneur’s gender. Startups—at least this has been my experience—are weighted on the merits of the product, market and the team, but never on gender. Frankly, I can’t explain why female entrepreneurs are a rare commodity in our industry. (Feel free to enlighten me about the gender bias underpinning the tech industry in comments). The situation in Israel is not much different. But it should only be the quality that counts… To that end, here are three Israeli female entrepreneurs worth keeping tabs on:
A mother of two girls (hence her familiarity with the need for such a product), Amit has been in our little industry for 10 years now, starting as a photo editor at Israel’s largest news site Ynet. She then moved on to manage the biggest medical site in Israel doctors.co.il, doing everything from spec’ing to selling media to business development. It was there that she started thinking about the idea for Vikido, mostly due to gaps of communication experienced by sick kids (information, connection with friends and parents). By then it was clear to her that she wanted to be involved in consumer products with strong community reach and the ability to make an impact on people and what they do on the web. That’s when the Wix gig came about. Team Vikido is planning to launch its product in September. In the mean time they are hustling to get funding, writing code, and chronicling the trials and tribulations of startup life in a weekly article series on Ynet called ‘The Transparent Startup’. Beta Access: Register here. Twitter: Amit Knaani (@amitos), Team Vikido (@vikidoteam)
Orit is also somewhat of a local serial entrepreneur. She’s founded a Yelp-ish review site called Ramkol.co.il and mit4mit.co.il, the second most popular wedding review site in Israel. Most recently Orit held the Entrepreneur in Residence role at Decima Ventures, where she was responsible for technical and market analysis. Decima is also where her newest venture, Vetrinas was born. Vetrinas is a virtual shopping window to hundreds of stores from across the fashion Meccas of the world, be it London, New York, Paris or Milan. Vetrinas is targeting three segments: Consumers with an interest in high-fashion. Retailers that want to expose potential on/offline shoppers to specific products or brand advertising. And finally, shop window designers that can display their work (art) in order to attain job offers. Orit coded all of Vetrina’s herself and intends to generate revenue by way of affiliation through the site and rev-share through widgets that will syndicate content to blogs and websites. Vetrinas is currently in Alpha. Twitter: Orit Hashay (@orithashay), Vetrinas (@vetrinas)
She then joined eWave where she kept busy with project management and, afterward, marketing, sales and business development. Two years later she joined Israeli dev house Clementina as COO. That’s where she worked with Israeli startups such as my6sense, Spikko, and Footbo. Temptation was in the air and Gali couldn’t resist so she recruited a partner and founded Razoss. Gali is still very protective of her product so details and access are limited. In vague terms it can be described as a browser-based content promotion platform, where the idea is to enhance the browser beyond content display, to content management and distribution. Initial funding was provided by Dr. Yossi Vardi a little over a year ago and a second investment is near closing. The product is in private alpha, with a wider release intended in a few months. Beta Access: Register here. Twitter: Gali Ross (@galiross), Razoss (@razoss) Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. See the rest here:
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| Toyota Humanoid Robot Gives Asimo a Run For Its Money [Robots] Posted: 02 Aug 2009 08:00 AM PDT
Shown here is Toyota’s running robot. At 7 km/h it’s not going to win any wind sprints in the Olympics, but nevertheless this thing is airborne for 100ms between strides as it skirts across the floor (i.e. genuine running). For comparison’s sake, Honda’s Asimo robot can only manage a meager 6 km/h. We assume Toyota was able to squeeze the extra kilometer per hour out of their robot with a strict training regimen and what can only be described as a mild dose of physical abuse—their robot can re-balance itself when pushed lightly, as you can see in the video. Just don’t get too pushy, young lady. Word on the street is these robot things are about ready to rise up and kill us all. [YouTube via Smart Machines]
![Toyota Humanoid Robot Gives Asimo a Run For Its Money [Robots]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uaF3-M8G6qGyQpbiWPHaTMx1WGCYj47e7SdYFaiElKPnR793knOt3VW0FFBL-gcWJ66rV1vsll7G3e5ON-rnFT1SDZ-SL3itUxC0Sygb-A5xMsgMocjVzbO_ETXZSpOgohrqDQGvM_2erX25Ukm4XaBTVVHWQ=s0-d "Toyota Humanoid Robot Gives Asimo a Run For Its Money [Robots]") ![Toyota Humanoid Robot Gives Asimo a Run For Its Money [Robots]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_u1IoVeovjPjSgtCouuVIaz7Aq2QVTuTsbCw4dsmvT-OimNmjxETUSvO-M1mlN_bNyd1SV4b61RZELDZfstfJYttMea5fBchzfMzPE76BfbUvGg642RWqdeKkO-Y2MLzQhpjFggUoE9z22vNzcPWFCbkLhzYjU=s0-d "Toyota Humanoid Robot Gives Asimo a Run For Its Money [Robots]") See original here:
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| Toyota Humanoid Robot Gives Asimo a Run For Its Money [Robots] Posted: 02 Aug 2009 08:00 AM PDT
Shown here is Toyota’s running robot. At 7 km/h it’s not going to win any wind sprints in the Olympics, but nevertheless this thing is airborne for 100ms between strides as it skirts across the floor (i.e. genuine running). For comparison’s sake, Honda’s Asimo robot can only manage a meager 6 km/h. We assume Toyota was able to squeeze the extra kilometer per hour out of their robot with a strict training regimen and what can only be described as a mild dose of physical abuse—their robot can re-balance itself when pushed lightly, as you can see in the video. Just don’t get too pushy, young lady. Word on the street is these robot things are about ready to rise up and kill us all. [YouTube via Smart Machines]
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This is a document that purports to show new Sprint WiMAX-having cities. It’s terribly exciting.![Windows Mobile 6.5 Final Build Demos Zune like UI, Marketplace, Synching [Windows Mobile]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tKwFotDkKwfnwgp2k9cnoJkdh-ywLISLUCaljTGe0OVvYvPbQQz1fBjDPJrUqf74MHr5svnNUnRSlmEMWs_p5ngeECljfly9kltL2SF2jUhjQkZbJWvPKwlRr7AXPZtsCnmvpdbck0=s0-d "Windows Mobile 6.5 Final Build Demos Zune like UI, Marketplace, Synching [Windows Mobile]")
![Windows Mobile 6.5 Final Build Demos Zune like UI, Marketplace, Synching [Windows Mobile]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vGsDPhWuOWeYCC9zeFfk75dl74w2lOTo0VgunBpr5pz7iBwSXQQ5hXv4D0mjaWSVRIZo2qWryRh6bjthnnOIXfxAcAzgPwJSKAGyqaUUb49rojKb-KBSGKkZyENFomxNep4_WqF34=s0-d "Windows Mobile 6.5 Final Build Demos Zune like UI, Marketplace, Synching [Windows Mobile]")
![Windows Mobile 6.5 Final Build Demos Zune like UI, Marketplace, Synching [Windows Mobile]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_ub6GhJbag4nAiSQpO_40GFl8zgitGJZQjl9MwZ3JnICHYBh-PNlUq6-zsfxgDHc-UNw6OPQoglx8FjuN43gWW5Pw_CYTIL9omci2NAd08dQRXz1xVArkm8OOrvYNJdPTvNca-VcOU=s0-d "Windows Mobile 6.5 Final Build Demos Zune like UI, Marketplace, Synching [Windows Mobile]")
![Windows Mobile 6.5 Final Build Demos Zune like UI, Marketplace, Synching [Windows Mobile]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tbdkiJgL1xkQieesvAkyvEW7PMTA59WQ-Zw14OcrGN1VmuuvMMdD_s8BW8kM2uuwaRN_3DAsIjOQg4--puRJ5HltBW3ZyOwoqsHrjWjwNDZT6eJi7K6i_0OQb9TA=s0-d "Windows Mobile 6.5 Final Build Demos Zune like UI, Marketplace, Synching [Windows Mobile]"){kind=small}
Amit Knaani is best known in the Israeli startup industry as the former Senior Product Manager of Wix.com. She quit the hot startup to join forces with Yami Glick, another well-known figure in the local startup scene. Together the two founded 
Orit Hashay has also been active in in Israeli startups for over 10 years, having taken on software and business development posts with public companies such as Emblaze and Comverse, as well as consulting for various Israeli startups.
Gali Ross is one those people you (or at least I) hated in school because she made you (me) look so lazy and unfocused. She took physics, math and political science. Not having gone unnoticed, she went on to become an intelligence officer in the Israeli Defense Forces and then later an Information Systems Engineering graduate of the Technion (Israel’s MIT).
![Toyota Humanoid Robot Gives Asimo a Run For Its Money [Robots]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sh9IA9HxEsO_qTTnQvPW-blW6qkaNd699Pxb_tTP7lx6Tb1mzW3YtOc5c8FBy0w8kWwU2wPWMI2yt3wmoK3krV2ifSBhw12MH0R8FVRWgfJhmb4AiC1zVyo7Go6mUlSYQycUT-iv6dLA=s0-d "Toyota Humanoid Robot Gives Asimo a Run For Its Money [Robots]")
![Toyota Humanoid Robot Gives Asimo a Run For Its Money [Robots]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tS6cUXwVplWqHS2tqXAYQwJGmioJ5kpo2qcuzjAekTZqLZmpGpqHYyBR7_914P5IQ4Utg1VvIRdW-29DpcUTysyPqtlWNaPl-frmHRqZQkP0GBVnEcfcF2bC3toBMCnUrl_Q1-L7M=s0-d "Toyota Humanoid Robot Gives Asimo a Run For Its Money [Robots]")
![Toyota Humanoid Robot Gives Asimo a Run For Its Money [Robots]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tM5G1vbMxLIsqvh4iem7rdGIxefmWPb97eE8YxdMYwK09RzoPhyNvAoZjVW09uDnwwBp3_awfLShKVlFCdQH30AYeYscoktLjiFyhMYG0Act-6OEm6EqVuCFelPEQOSYPTUBFrVhkw=s0-d "Toyota Humanoid Robot Gives Asimo a Run For Its Money [Robots]")
![Toyota Humanoid Robot Gives Asimo a Run For Its Money [Robots]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uoW-y1MRjDxyJFFeLQV18WIs2uBgzOPUsDFCeCrJ66hRwPmD00205IjNDQ1BaX9Yij0UmaAxDDiZ2B5t0e8iYBVWJ0B9jRMm0ei3hnuDaii5QfC3SmAuD2EHsdg2Q=s0-d "Toyota Humanoid Robot Gives Asimo a Run For Its Money [Robots]"){kind=small}
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