Mozilla has published a wiki page detailing
its plans for the next version of Firefox, codenamed "Gran Paradiso". The target release
date is sometime in the third quarter this year and it hopes to release a major version
of Firefox every year. While Firefox is still aiming for a broad mainstream audience,
Mozilla recognizes that its strengths for normal users are its extensions and
customization. It notes on the wiki that "Microsoft will continue to establish
deeper ties from IE7/Vista to live.com & MSN" and even that other "web service
providers" may introduce their own browsers (Yahoo? Amazon?). So Firefox is aiming to be
the best general Web browser - e.g. it wants to be faster for AJAX apps.
Among the mandatory requirements listed for FF3 are improving the add-on experience, providing "an extensible bookmarks back-end platform", adding more support for web services "to act as content handlers" - all of which show that Firefox wants to be an independent information broker rather than a simple HTML renderer in its next version. Microformats will be a key part of this too - and this is currently listed as a "highly desirable" feature for FF3. Also good to see extensible identity management listed there. All of this encourages best-of-breed apps to flourish, which is an excellent direction for Mozilla to take with Firefox. It probably also plays into Google's hands, as they have a number of best of breed web apps - and are acquiring them at a great rate too (YouTube, JotSpot, Writely, etc).
GoodSearch is a Yahoo-powered search engine that
gives away half its advertising revenues to charities and schools designated by its
users. It works like a normal search engine - it's not only powered by Yahoo, but looks
almost identical too. The only difference is whenever you click on ads (located on the
right, and top and bottom of the screen) 50% of the revenue goes to charities.
To nominate charities, you do an initial search like so:
You can update your charity every time you return to the GoodSearch homepage. GoodSearch also offers toolbars for IE, Firefox and Mac.
Written by Emre Sokullu and edited by Richard MacManus
Over the past few weeks, we have examined possible GoogleOS scenarios and covered top WebOS offerings. GravityZoo is a very early stage WebOS, with a whole
different - and noteworthy - approach.
Firstly, let's revisit what a WebOS is. A WebOS is a web-based app (generally powered by either AJAX or Flash technologies) that emulates the application capabilities of an operating system. It's basically a virtual desktop that gives you communication tools (like email and instant messaging), productivity tools like word processing, and ability to play games and any other application that you'd find on a typical OS like Microsoft Windows.
But that's not all - a WebOS should be an expandable platform (just like Windows) that gives developers the right tools (IDE, APIs) to develop new applications and add new utilities. And that's the advantage of a Web-based "OS" - it gives you the new ability to use it remotely and not be restricted to one PC. This is a huge need in today's world, because increasingly we use more than one computer from various different locations. So each time we sit down to a computer, a different scene awaits us - different applications and different documents. WebOS can solve this inefficiency, by taking your productivity with you everywhere you go.
Enterprise RSS software company Attensa has announced a partnership with The Real Time Matrix Corp, which develops search and filtering technology. The partnership aims to help enterprise users create focused search channels - essentially topic feeds. Craig Barnes, Attensa CEO, calls this an "RSS Tuner", which is a nice term signifying that they are trying to separate "signal from noise".
Attensa's product range is based on RSS Reader and Feed Server technology. Meanwhile The Real Time Matrix has just released a product called the iJ.am search engine, which they describe as a "Content Router for the Web". It sounds to me a lot like PubSub, which up till its demise last year was the leading RSS keyword filter and delivery service. In the press release, Jeff Whitehead, The Real Time Matrix CEO, is quoted as saying:
"Users simply set up and refine their search criteria and we deliver accurate, relevant and timely results with extreme prejudice."
Indeed Whitehead uses (intentionally or not) a phrase close to PubSub's former 'future search' catchphrase. Whitehead says that Attensa and Real Time Matrix will make it possible to "search the past and filter the future".
CNET's huge cadre of editors
has published a Best of CES 2007
article. There aren't many Internet apps in the selection, but Microsoft comes out smelling of roses. They won the
Peoples Voice award with 'Ford Sync powered by Microsoft' (an in-car
communications and entertainment system). Ford Sync is for
connecting up devices such as MP3 Players and cell phones. It includes Bluetooth audio,
which can be used to stream Internet radio stations from Web-connected smart phones and
PDAs. Microsoft also won Best Computers and Hardware for Windows Vista, an
honor which Microsoft
trumpets in a press release.
By Alex Iskold
Marketing guru and blogger Seth Godin is also known for his Web 2.0 Traffic Watch List on Alexaholic. This list tracks the changes in Alexa traffic for about 1000 Web 2.0 companies. For example, MySpace and YouTube are numbers 1 and 2 respectively (although check our previous post, which has YouTube in the top spot). While there has been a lot of skepticism about the precision of Alexa ranking, particularly because the ratings can be bought or gamed, for a large pool of popular web sites it can adequately be used as a relative measure of popularity.
Here is the latest Seth Godin Alexaholic top 10 list:
YouTube continues to grow and on current Alexa figures, the online video site is now ranked number 4 web site in the world - behind only Yahoo, MSN and Google itself! The chart below shows YouTube well ahead of MySpace now and (on today's data) now ahead of China's biggest search engine Baidu.
By Steve O'Hear, a Mac fan who runs a ZDNet blog called The Social Web. Steve was also the writer and director of the documentary In Search of the Valley: a personal journey into the psyche of Silicon Valley.
Today's Macworld keynote by Steve Jobs was possibly the most hyped since his return to the company 10 years ago. Along with the usual speculation and rumors about possible new products, Apple further fanned the flames of anticipation by publishing a teaser on their website proclaiming: "The first years were just the beginning. Welcome to 2007." Did Jobs deliver? The short answer is yes... and no.
With many features of the
Apple TV (previously code-named iTV) already pre-announced, I was somewhat under-whelmed
by the final product. The Apple TV is primarily a PC extender, designed to stream content
from iTunes (music, movies, television shows and podcasts) from a Mac or PC onto a
television. Additionally, the set-top box can display photos stored in iPhoto (Mac) or
Adobe Photoshop Elements / Photo Album (PC). The only new revelation is that Apple TV
will have a built-in 40GB hard drive, so that users have the option to store some content
on the device - which can be synced with a PC or Mac running iTunes.
Most disappointingly, Apple didn't open up the Apple TV like I had hoped; to enable it to connect to web services other than iTunes. Without the ability to pull down content from elsewhere on the net (such as YouTube or Flickr for example), the device feels too heavily tied to the iTunes download store. Additionally, the Apple TV faces competition from the already entrenched XBox 360 - with its newly announced IPTV capabilities - along with Sling Media's soon-to-be released SlingCatcher.
The big news was of course
the iPhone, which Read/WriteWeb
covered earlier today. Described as "three revolutionary products in one", the iPhone
combines the capabilities of an iPod, mobile phone, and internet mobile communicator.
With the iPhone, Jobs and co have seemly achieved the impossible by creating a single
product that simultaneously ticks multiple boxes on many an Apple fan's wish-list.
Widescreen iPod (check), smart-phone (check), WiFi tablet (check) - all powered by a
version of Apple's desktop operating system, OS X.
Let's drill down into some of the iPhone's defining features...
With two conferences to keep track of (CES and Macworld), it's easy to get lost in all the website coverage. One blog though is doing an outstanding job of covering both events - Engadget. I'm also enjoying the CNET CES coverage for down and dirty details on the products.
Today I've been scanning through the latest CES news, to try and find Web Tech highlights. Here's what I found, accompanied by some random Flickr photos...
-
Gary Shapiro's and Ed Zander's CES keynote; a keynote from Gary Shapiro, president of
the Consumer Electronics Association, and Ed Zander, CEO of Motorola. Shapiro says that
CES is about "New Convergence" this year: convergence of content, services, and products.
You can also read Shapiro's opening remarks via this PDF.
Highlight:
"Ten years ago when we first talked about convergence, we debated whether the TV or PC would dominate. Today that battle is over with nanotechnology, sensing devices, biometrics, optoelectronics and robotics part of the new convergence. They will combine with existing technologies and allow benefits, just as audio, photo, calendar, contacts, GPS, and even telephone and email connectivity are meshing into products. IPv6 will be a feature in every product allowing seamless Internet connectivity and making the world safer, more connected and more attuned to our preferences and desire for efficiency."
At the Steve Jobs keynote speech at Macworld this morning PST, he
announced "three revolutionary new products". An iPod, a phone, an internet mobile
communicator. But turns out it's all one device: the fabled iPhone!
We'll have extended analysis about this later today, but for now let's review the news. Here's the feature list:
In terms of phone dimensions, iPhone is a quad-band GSM + EDGE phone (no 3G, notes Engadget). It has WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0.
