Musings about my first love - Technology !
Yahoo to Buzz
Thursday, February 21, 2008
A new Yahoo service called "Buzz" that's set to launch later this month. Widely understood as the competitor to Digg, the popular user rating site; it is a buzz tracker for news items picked not only by user voting (like Digg, Propeller, Reddit, et al), but also for items people are searching for both on Yahoo and on the company's publisher network.A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. The data is collected from Yahoo! search log files. The Yahoo! Buzz Index counts the total number of people searching for specific subjects.Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.
By combining with the search results, Yahoo surely would have a great upper hand on other rating services. But then all other players are already established; so going should be tough. According to Valleywag, the release date is set for February 26th, which falls on a Tuesday.Buzz, built under the direction of VP Tapan Bhat, will begin with a limited number of publishers -- about 100 -- and will rank stories based on popular search results and user voting. By summer, Buzz will open to the entire Yahoo Publisher Network. In other words, if you let Yahoo sell ads on your site, it will allow your stories to appear on Buzz. Word is Yahoo plans to launch the site on buzz.yahoo.com, which currently tracks popular search results.
Labels: New Launch, Product Launch, Technology
posted by Jas @ 11:21 AM,
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Nokia releases Maps 2.0 beta
Friday, February 15, 2008
Previously available only to a select group, Nokia is turning the beta version of its Maps 2.0 navigation app onto the masses. In addition to the car mode existing users will be familiar with, 2.0 adds "Walk," a new mode tailored to pedestrian use. Another new feature is the ability to purchase "multimedia guides" for destinations that hook you up with photo, video, and audio streams that detail places to go and things to see on your magical journey.Version 2.0 also adds real-time traffic information and hybrid satellite views, both features that help to bring Maps in line with Google Maps for Mobile. The beta is available immediately, while a final cut is expected to be available in the second quarter of the year.
Separately, Nokia has announced that it'll be bringing its Maps franchise to Series 40, swinging open the door to high-function navigation on the company's mass-market, non-smartphone handsets. It'll be ready in the first half of 2008, though no plans have yet been outed regarding availability on specific Series 40 devices.
Nokia Maps 2.0 Beta comes with compatible Nokia Map Loader, also available for download from its website. Nokia is offering the navigation service on the 6210 for free. While Nokia offers all its maps for free, the company charges users of other navigation-ready devices weekly, monthly or yearly subscriptions for the navigation service.
But a caution, Maps 2.0 is still in Beta and therefore not supported by Nokia care.
via ZDNet
Nokia Maps 2.0 Beta comes with compatible Nokia Map Loader, also available for download from its website. Nokia is offering the navigation service on the 6210 for free. While Nokia offers all its maps for free, the company charges users of other navigation-ready devices weekly, monthly or yearly subscriptions for the navigation service.
But a caution, Maps 2.0 is still in Beta and therefore not supported by Nokia care.
via ZDNet
Labels: gadget, New Launch, Technology
posted by Jas @ 1:29 AM,
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Now a mouldable mouse
Sunday, February 03, 2008
The market has been filled with mouses of all shapes and sizes, but some of you must be feeling that still something is missing. Well, thanks to the folks at Lite-On, you'll never have to suffer the debilitating discomfort of an unshapely mouse ever again. The Mouldable Mouse will make all your bad memories of ill-fitting input devices float away, using a lightweight modeling clay combined with a nylon and polyurethane fabric to make up its surface. Once you're palming your new best friend, you can shape its contours to whatever form you desire, though we're pretty sure making a perfect cube will present a challenge. The "stick-on" buttons and scroll-wheel can be added to any location you like, and communicate via RFID (wow!).
It has also won a Red Dot design award. But a big question is on its feasibility. It may get hardened on some initial design which may not be very right as it may require creative skills, or else on other hand it may be too soft and soggy kind. So whatever, the real test will come when it comes to actual users out of lab.
Labels: gadget, Product Launch, Technology
posted by Jas @ 4:21 AM,
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