Netflix lovers out there, rejoice! You can now manage your Netflix queue right from your desktop using a new Adobe AIR application called Queued. Created as a demonstration of how AIR and the Dojo Toolkit can be used together to create rich hybrid applications, Queued is open-source, BSD-licensed software. Although the point for Queued's existence may have be to demo different types of technology, the end result is definitely something we all can enjoy.
When it comes to venerable publications, few hold as much esteem as The New York Times - and few have as much access to interesting user data. That's why we're excited to hear that the Times' API team has announced the release of its latest API, TimesPeople, which provides developers with access to data on registered NYTimes.com TimesPeople readers' sharing and reading habits.
If you read any tech publication this week, you couldn't have helped but encounter the brouhaha over Facebook's revised Terms of Use. Now, Facebook has decided to return to its previous Terms - dated September 23, 2008 - until it can better determine how to proceed. To help ensure they don't make the same mistakes again, they've also started the "Facebook Bill of Rights," a Facebook group formed specifically to allow people "to give input and suggestions on Facebook's Terms of Use."
It may be dismal economic times, but some companies are continuing to make new hires in tech and new media. That's what we track on our Jobwire site and below you'll find aggregate hiring numbers for the first 6 weeks of the new year.
We last covered aggregate stats in the middle of December and the new numbers are similar to what we saw then. IT and software companies are hiring more than anyone else, but marketing firms are now hiring more than publishing and social media companies, a switch since our last report.
This week, the mobile computing world revolves around the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Among some of the highlights today were the announcement of the second Android phone, as well as Yahoo's new mobile initiative, and the announcement of a partnership between Nokia and Skype that will bring Skype's VOIP client to Nokia's high-end N97 phone.
Ustream, the live video streaming service that hit the mainstream recently thanks to a litter of Shiba Inu puppies, just announced Watershed, a new white-label streaming video service. Watershed features pay-as-you-go pricing, high-definition video, and extensive options to customize the viewers' experience.
According to a new report (PDF) from uptime monitoring service Pingdom, Facebook and MySpace, the two largest players in the social networking market, had very little downtime in 2008. Twitter, whose iconic Fail Whale adorned the service far too often at the beginning of the year, got its act together and was only down for 12 minutes in December. LinkedIn, on the other hand, saw an increased rate of outages in the course of the year.
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, MySpace just made some major announcements. They've announced plans to develop mobile applications for the Nokia S60 as well as the much-anticipated Palm Pre. However, for most of us, the bigger news is the relaunch of the MySpace Mobile web site which will occur this week. Yet even with the updated branding and new user interface elements introduced by the revamped site, we wonder: will it be enough to win users back from Facebook?
Nonprofit person-to-person microlender Kiva has committed to a huge undertaking: to facilitate lending for entrepreneurs in developing nations for the sake of alleviating poverty. And part of making that dream into a reality means helping people get access to the loan information they need as quickly and efficiently as possible. That's why Kiva recently provided access to its API. Now, BetterLabs has built Kiva Alerts on top of that API, allowing users to get email alerts whenever specific loan information appears in Kiva.
Following the recent peanut-butter-borne Salmonella outbreak, the United States Department of Health and Human Services - specifically the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - engaged in a heavy social media push to inform citizens about the health risks and product recalls. The result? The formation of the CDC Social Media Center, a new appreciation for the speed at which news travels via social media, and likely hundreds - if not thousands - saved from illness and death.
