Over the next several weeks, we will be showcasing many of the other ways the Web is untangling logistical nightmares for companies large and small. Here's a look at what to expect as we explore the rapidly evolving global choreography of goods and information.

Internet of Things

We are no strangers to the Internet of Things (IoT) here at ReadWriteWeb, and this growing field of tech plays a large role in the logistics world today. Many fun consumer IoT implementations have already begun to change the way customers interact with businesses, and a lot of that is due to the growth of smartphone penetration.

Hotels have already begun to let visitors unlock their room doors with smartphones, and RFID chips are looking to help schools keep tabs on the whereabouts of students, faculty and equipment. In the coming weeks, we'll look at how the Internet of Things is revolutionizing logistics and supply chains and is helping businesses get more done.

Mobile

Another key trend we have covered extensively is the growth of mobility, particularly how it helps businesses achieve higher efficiency out of the office. In no surprise that business large and small are investing in mobile enterprise solutions with the big boost it provides to accessibility, as well as the new data that can be captured and analyzed to tighten the loose pieces of the well-oiled business machine.

The benefits of mobility go far beyond communications. With the spread of smartphones, mobile solutions are not just a way to keep business operations in line, but also to reach customers in personal ways right from their pockets. Later on in this series, we will look at how mobile technologies are helping supply chain efficiency with the help of things like sensors and always-on Web-connectivity.

Sustainability

And finally, one of the other areas of the new logistics we will delve into is how these new methods can increase business sustainability. Technology is at the front lines of the fight to make businesses and the world a more eco-friendly place, and a recent collaboration between Columbia University and IBM is one example of that.

For businesses, jumping onboard with the "new logistics" can mean increasing not only environmental sustainability, but business and financial sustainability as well. With the Web and the other technologies mentioned above, business operations are becoming increasingly more efficient, and sustainability challenges are continually being met.

Look for these topics and more as we explore the changing logistics landscape for businesses worldwide in the coming weeks. Have ideas on how technology is helping to shape new logistics? Leave us a comment below and look out for our "new logistics" continues.

The report delves into everything from mobile use to media consumption and PCs to social networking. The takeaway, says Forrester, is that Gen Y "lives and breathes" a digital social life, Gen Xers are masters of the functional benefits of technology, but those older are much more reserved in nearly all areas.

"In almost every online or mobile behavior, Gen Yers lead the adoption curve," explains Forrester, summarizing the differences between the generations. The youngest members of this group don't remember life without a mobile phone or a time when texting or email was unavailable. Gen X, despite having a longer "tech memory" than its younger counterpart, still rivals Gen Y in many areas. This slightly older group tends to use the Internet and computers more functionally. For example, 26% of Gen Xers go online for information about food and cooking, 61% use it for news, 65% use PCs to manage photos and 53% email photos at least once per month.

Boomers fall behind on the technology adoption curve, but spend more money on everything tech-related from telecom fees to online shopping purchases. Seniors, however, lag ever further behind. 80% still subscribe to a local newspaper, for instance. But in other ways, they're catching up: 40% own an HDTV, one in five uses the Internet for reading news and one quarter for travel planning.

Devices: Gen X Leads

When it comes to devices - think HDTVs, digital cameras, PCs, gaming systems - Gen X leads the way, says Forrester. Their households are the most likely to have these devices in them.

When it comes to the household PC (meaning "personal computer" not necessarily "Windows machine"), Gen X and Boomers tend to use theirs for practical matters like word processing and household finances. They're also more focused on PC health, regularly scanning for malware and backing up files.

Mobile: Gen Y Leads

Meanwhile, on the mobile front, the 49 million Gen Yers lead the other generations, using their phones for everything from product research to social communication. Along with Gen Xers, Gen Yers are the most likely group to own a smartphone with an unlimited data plan. One fifth of Gen Y uses their phone for maps and directions now, while Gen X is generally more interested in checking news, sports and weather.

85% of Gen Y sends and receives text messages, while 68% of Gen X does the same. Only 15% of Seniors use SMS, however.

37% of Gen Y surfs the mobile Web. Mobile "Facebooking" is also more popular with Gen Y, with 27% participation, compared with 18% of Gen X. Seniors on Facebook, supposedly a growing trend on the desktop, is not so prevalent on mobile - only 1% use Facebook or other social networking sites from their phone.

Overall, 23% of Gen X and Y owns a smartphone and 17% of Americans do.

Online: Gen Y Surfs, Gen X and Boomers Shop

Internet use has surpassed TV viewing for Gen Y for a few years now, but this is the first time that Gen X can say the same. Younger Boomers (45-54) also now spend equal amounts of time online versus on the Web. TV viewing still beats Web surfing for older Boomers and Seniors though.

The survey found, too, that Gen X does the most online shopping, but Younger Boomers spend the most. In fact, Boomers were the only generation that spent, on average, more than $600 online in the past three months.

Forecast: eReaders are "Device of the Year," but Few Use

Forrester says that eReaders have drawn a lot of hype over the course of the year, but in reality, only a small percentage of the population currently uses them. However, the analysts forecast that another 6.6 million will buy an eReader by year-end. 8.3 million will buy a netbook or mini PC, though, in the same time frame.

Netbook and mini-PC purchases will outpace eReader sales until 2014, when both slow to 1% growth rates. Laptops will also decline to 2% growth in 2014.

This data seems in opposition to earlier reports from NPD that stated netbook sales have gone negative. This recently led to some controversy when the Wall St. Journal quoted Best Buy CEO Brian J. Dunn remarking on the netbook's decline, saying its sales have been cannibalized by the iPad. Dunn later explained, by way of a Best Buy press release, that "the reports of the demise of [notebook and netbook] sales are grossly exaggerated." It appears that Forrester agrees with this statement, given this new report's data.

Conclusion: Gens X & Y Outpacing Others

Forrester concludes that Gens X and Y are "setting the example of how future digitally native generations will live," with both generations "outpacing Boomers and Seniors on almost everything technology-related."

Statements like these tend to rile up the tech-savvy Boomers and Seniors who read this blog, often leading outraged comments about the wrongness of the data. In this case, though, Forrester analyzed 30,064 households containing 37,226 individuals to reach these conclusions, a sample size which seems sufficient enough for this analysis. Any generation will have its outliers, of course, from the digitally-adept Grandma to the Gen Yer who refuses to Facebook. Plus, anyone reading this article is at the top of the curve, no matter what the technology in question is, we would bet.

Image credit, top: flickr user Paulo Fehlauer; charts: Forrester

Although still a ways off from commercial viability (and availability), the lithium-sulfur batteries promise advances like 80% more capacity, 10 times the power density and, theoretically, the ability to last four times as long as modern batteries.

An Always-On Mobile Web

With these sorts of improvements, lithium-sulfur batteries could lead the way in the next phase of the mobile revolution. They could allow us to fully enjoy the web from anywhere in the world, without having to worry about dying batteries, access to power outlets or having to carry around battery replacements when planning long-lasting mobile computing sessions.

Far more than just a convenience, better battery technology would impact how our mobile devices are designed and how they behave. For example, Apple currently imposes numerous restrictions on members of their mobile device lineup for the sake of battery performance. On Apple iPhones, iPod Touches and the forthcoming iPad, applications aren't permitted to run in the background and Adobe Flash technology has been banned altogether, supposedly for its CPU usage which rapidly drains battery juice. Other mobile smartphone makers, while not necessarily as restrictive as Apple, still have to weigh the benefits of providing these same types of features with the performance hit their gadgets will take if they do so. And as anyone who regularly fires up their smartphone web browser knows, too much Internet surfing during the day means a phone that dies out before nightfall.

Another example of the technology's potential impact: e-Readers. Today, if you want to pack your Kindle or Nook device to take with you on vacation, you still have to go through the thought process: how long will I be gone? Will my battery last? Should I pack the cord? Now imagine that you could just throw your e-Reader into your bag without a second thought, just as if you were packing the paperback novel or newspaper these sorts of gadgets aim to replace. Would that encourage more people to make the switch from the analog formats to digital?

The Impacts of Better Batteries

What if, in the future, concerns like these were no longer a worry? What if phones, netbooks, e-Readers and other mobile devices could be used for days on end without the need for a charge? That would radically impact the way we think about and use our mobile devices.

There are a million other use cases that could benefit from this technology change, too, including sensor networks, computing from remote areas, faster news dissemination from areas impacted by disasters (either natural or man-made) where power outages have occurred, gadgets for hikers, campers and other explorers who spend weeks away from civilization and, therefore, away from electricity, mobile location-based services that run in the background on smartphones and other personal mobile gadgets and - OK, we'll admit it - the ability to Twitter all day long without a recharge.

For the nitty gritty technical details about this new battery technology, MIT's Technology Review explains everything from the cathodes to the conductivity as well as the challenges still ahead for this breakthrough technology. Most notably, the scientists still need to figure out how to maintain capacity. After five discharge/recharge cycles, the batteries lost one-third of their initial storage capacity and after 40 to 50 cycles, they ceased to function altogether. However, if the researchers can overcome that final hurdle and a few others, the new technology could one day become commercially viable. It's too soon to know if that will actually occur, but as gadget lovers ourselves, we're hopeful.

The ReadWriteWeb crew have collectively planned to take over the world next year by honing our nerd super-powers. From programming in Python to building AI houses, we've resolved to be smarter, more curious, more technical and way geekier than we were last year. Read our resolutions, and definitely let us know what you plan to do to be the best geek you can be in 2010.

"One of my goals for 2010," he said, "is to experiment with Internet of Things in my own house and life, using tools like Pachube and sensors. We'll see how that goes..."

We wish you lots of luck, boss! If all goes well, you'll be a prime candidate for the first episode of Geek Cribs, and we'll all be very, very jealous.

Our own ReadWriteStart warrior, Dana Oshiro, is going to be a busy bee this year.

"I'm finding that the coolest ideas come out of academic institutions and enthusiast groups before they're ever thought of as business-related products. In 2010 I plan on attending more hackathons, dev camps and emerging tech conferences like SIGGRAPH."

In addition to all that conference-hopping, Dana's going to be doing some web work of her own. "Honestly, I need to revamp my personal website Villagers With Pitchforks. I haven't changed the design in years."

Alex Williams, our resident enterprise expert, is also known in certain circles as an experienced podcasting pro. His resolution is something the ReadWriteWeb team would all love to see happen.

He told us that he wants to use 2010 to "make an informative and entertaining podcast for ReadWriteWeb Enterprise that is lively, smart and fun."

What do our friendly readers think? Would you like to listen to awesome news about what companies and people are moving and shaking in the world of enterprise technology? What folks do you most want Alex to talk to, and what topics would you find most interesting? And where would you be most likely to listen to a RWW podcast? At your laptop, in your car, while walking your dogs? Let us know in the comments!

Our newest startup blogger, Chris Cameron, said he wants to use 2010 to press the flesh and put faces with names, so to speak.

"Since I'm the new kid on the block and fresh out of J-school with my M.M.C., my new year's resolution is to get acquainted with as many people as possible in the web/tech/startup industry and develop a healthy amount of sources."

As seasoned journos, it's our sworn duty to protect cub reporters from no-account rabble rousers, so we asked Chris who he specifically wanted to meet this year. He replied, "I'd love to develop some contacts from the bastions of the Web (Twitter, Facebook, Google, Digg, etc.)."

You're in good company, kid. We'd like to meet those guys, too. Just kidding! As a RWW blogger, you're sure to have Kevin Rose and Biz Stone on speed dial in no time. We wish you luck.

Another ReadWriteNoob is Abraham Hyatt, our intrepid Production Editor. He's got a full slate of resolutions this year.

He told us he wants to have more one-on-one time with "the bloggers I read every day, the people whose tweets I look forward to, the friends who surprise me with what they post."

He also said he's going to start paying attention to things outside the tech sphere and his geographical scene. "I want to change the fact that I have no idea what's changing in journalism in China."

And finally, Abraham let us in on how he's keeping his finger on the pulse of technology. "I want to learn from my 5-year-old niece as she begins using the Web. I just hooked her up with her first kids browser and the way she interacts with the Web will be a hint of what's to come for all of us online in the next decade."

Add in learning how to code and blogging more, two of his other resolutions, and Abraham's got a full dance card for the rest of the year!

As for me, I plan to learn Python this year. I've realized in 2009 that it's harder to be a tech writer when you don't have a hacker-esque depth of understanding about APIs and web apps. After talking to Leah Culver, Mark Jeffrey and a bunch of other really smart programmers, I think Python is a great place to start learning about programming languages. So this year, I'm tackling a 900-page O'Reilly book, and I'm not giving up until I have a working web app of my own! Next up, Haskell.

Via Twitter, we heard from a few of our friends, including entrepreneur Renato Valdés Olmos, who pointed us to this pretty web app for those without resolutions who yearn to start small. And everyone's favorite O.G (that's "original geek" in these parts), Chris Pirillo, just couldn't resist the opportunity to get sassy. "My geekiest new year's resolution," he said, "is 2560x1600."

So, what great and glorious plans have you got for 2010? Will you be hacking your way to entrepreneurial greatness by starting your own web company? Will you be building hardware? Are you resolving to start a new career path, go to a new conference or meet a lifelong tech hero?

Let us know your resolutions in the comments!

What's the world coming to? Call me old fashioned, but where I come from, a geek is a geek and a mainstream actor with an iPhone is still just a mainstream actor with an iPhone. The Oprahtization of technology is at least a bit demeaning, from my point of view. Sure, this trend brings exposure to our heroic exploits, but it's often done through stereotypes about geeks and an air of naïveté about how technology really works. What do you think? Am I being a curmudgeon? Is all this mainstream-tech integration really a good thing?

Not to frame my entire argument in a high school analogy, but we have mostly been useful for one thing: Doing other people's homework. When they - the non-technical of this world - want an application, device, website or feature, we built it and teach them how to use it. This has been the geek's role for eons: Doing the jocks' dirty work and then skipping prom. Can you imagine Einstein hobnobbing with Marlene Deitrich? Or a young Steve Jobs on an early '80s red carpet with a young Harrison Ford? Yet we are seeing more and more crossover between mainstream media and our little world of technology to the point that you can't tell the tech from the tinsel.

Perhaps it's just disconcerting to see those two worlds meshing for the first time. Perhaps all my angst is simply discomfort. Yet when I see and hear innovators and geeks referred to as ugly, graceless basement-dwellers, even in jest, by mainstream talking heads, it still gets to me.

But what gets to me more is the new set of faux geeks - folks who know just enough about tech to send a misspelled Twitter update from their mobiles but who thrive on the attention and revenue they gain from this scene. They wouldn't know an API from a IP; the red carpet is more likely their natural habitat; yet they incessantly appear in blog posts, pictures and videos until the real geeks don't even remember how they got there. It happens on a small scale (every tech scene has its skill-free new media douchebag), and it's starting to happen on a larger scale, as well (why is Olivia Munn a geek, again?).

Call me bitter, call me jealous, call me cynical - but let me know what you think, too. Some of our friends on Twitter told us they didn't like mainstream media's encroachment onto geek territory, but others who responded to our query see this exposure as a good thing, and we want to hear this point of view, as well. After all, I was excited the first time I heard Twitter mentioned in a news report, too.

Give us your opinions in the comments, and don't hold back! We love a good, long-winded discourse at ReadWriteWeb.

Note: Lest you throw stones at the writer for not being geeky enough herself, she was building LANs and playing the first version of King's Quest when you were still in diapers.

Halevy, who heads the "Deep Web" search initiative at Google, described the "Shallow Web" as containing about 5 million web pages while the "Deep Web" is estimated to be 500 times the size. This hidden web is currently being indexed in part by Google's automated systems that submit queries to various databases, retrieving the content found for indexing. In addition to that aspect of the Deep Web - dubbed "vertical searching" - Halevy also referenced two other types of Deep Web Search: semantic search and product search.

Google wants to also be able to retrieve the data found in structured tables on the web, said Halevy, citing a table on a page listing the U.S. presidents as an example. There are 14 billion such tables on the web, and, after filtering, about 154 million of them are interesting enough to be worth indexing.

Can Google Dig into the Deep Web?

The question that remains is whether or not Google's current search engine technology is going to be adept at doing all the different types of Deep Web indexing or if they will need to come up with something new. As of now, Google uses the Big Table database and MapReduce framework for everything search related, notes Alex Esterkin, Chief Architect at Infobright, Inc., a company delivering open source data warehousing solutions. During the talk, Halevy listed a number of analytical database application challenges that Google is currently dealing with: schema auto-complete, synonym discovery, creating entity lists, association between instances and aspects, and data level synonyms discovery. These challenges are addressed by Infobright's technology, said Esterkin, but "Google will have to solve these problems the hard way."

Also mentioned during the speech was how Google plans to organize "aspects" of search queries. The company wants to be able to separate exploratory queries (e.g., "Vietnam travel") from ones where a user is in search of a particular fact ("Vietnam population"). The former query should deliver information about visa requirements, weather and tour packages, etc. In a way, this is like what the search service offered by Kosmix is doing. But Google wants to go further, said Halevy. "Kosmix will give you an 'aspect,' but it's attached to an information source. In our case, all the aspects might be just Web search results, but we'd organize them differently."

Yahoo Working on Similar Structured Data Retrieval

The challenges facing Google today are also being addressed by their nearest competitor in search, Yahoo. In December, Yahoo announced that they were taking their SearchMonkey technology in-house to automate the extraction of structured information from large classes of web sites. The results of that in-house extraction technique will allow Yahoo to augment their Yahoo Search results with key information returned alongside the URLs.

In this aspect of web search, it's clear that no single company has yet to dominate. However, even if a non-Google company surges ahead, it may not be enough to get people to switch engines. Today, "Google" has become synonymous with web search, just like "Kleenex" is a tissue, "Band-Aid" is an adhesive bandage, and "Xerox" is a way to make photocopies. Once that psychological mark has been made into our collective psyches and the habit formed, people tend to stick with what they know, regardless of who does it better. That's something that's a bit troublesome - if better search technology for indexing the Deep Web comes into existence outside of Google, the world may not end up using it until such point Google either duplicates or acquires the invention.

Still, it's far too soon to write Google off yet. They clearly have a lead when it comes to search and that came from hard work, incredibly smart people, and innovative technical achievements. No doubt they can figure out this Deep Web thing, too. (We hope).

Thanks to technology, we never have to forget any experience of our lives. We can snap photos, annotate them, and share them with others instantly. We can archive them to the timeless web for posterity. And maybe one day, our great-great-grandkids can pursue our social network profiles in the cached pages of Internet Archive and learn everything we ever wanted the world to know about us.

And yes, that's great. It's amazing, really. But what about us and the lifetime we spent recording these things? Did we waste our lives documenting them and forget to live?

A great example of people missing the moment

With technology having progressed to the point where it's nearly effortless to use, we've begun to integrate it into our lives in ways that have never been done before. No longer is the computer this appliance that connects you to a web of slow-loading pages. No, today's web - our global brain - is pocket-sized and accessible from anywhere.*

Photos (and now videos) can immediately be published from device to web thanks to ingenious creations like Eye-Fi's wireless SD card, a technology that makes our real life just another feed of content for the ubiquitous pages of the ever-expanding web. A web whose very creation may represent humanity's attempt to understand the concept of our universe. For how will tomorrow's web be described? It's a entity that has no beginning** and no end; it's an ever-expanding repository for all (digital) life.

Forgetting to Live

As we progress through our short span here on this planet, living our lives and documenting them along the way, we may be forgetting...for moments at least...how to actually live. And living, like it or not, means that sometimes we need to disconnect, put the camera down, and enjoy a moment for once.

Jane Maynard of Silicon Valley Moms reminds us that this is now a common issue for everyone, not just technophiles. As she writes about watching her children perform at a concert, she describes the problem: "Cameras. I actually struggle a bit with this issue myself. In an attempt to document the wonderful things happening, sometimes life itself gets missed. You know, like watching your child's piano recital through a video camera viewfinder rather than with your own eyes. It's a tricky balance I'm sure we all think about and deal with, especially in this digital age. I make myself put my camera away sometimes, no matter how badly I want to record something, so I can live in the moment as it happens. I never regret those times...[but] these observations gave me pause. How often am I so focused on the perfect shot with my kids that I miss the moment?"

When Should You Disconnect?

The fine line between what's worth documenting and what's not is a hard one to define. We immediately assume that the most important, the biggest, the most incredible moments are those that should be recorded. But it's these very moments that are best to experience live, with our full focus.

As religious-focused blogger Martin Kelley notes, "there are times where our presence is much more important than any documentation." (He had just surprised himself by reviewing the grainy, blurry photos he felt it necessary to take while watching a bride walk down the aisle. In retrospect, this was exactly the kind of moment that could have gone unrecorded.)

"Stop trying to live your own life vicariously. You're already there. You don't need to prove anything," says Kat Orphanides, while watching people recording a band's show instead of enjoying the music. In reality, it's easier said than done. But if you've ever felt a twinge of tech-induced guilt when you unplug from the web (how can I not Twitter what I just saw? Ooh, I need to take a picture of this!), then you're bordering on having merged completely with the machine. Maybe it's time to remind yourself that it's OK to just live - well, at least sometimes. You may not have proof of everything you experienced in your amazing life, but that life might be a more fulfilling one in the end.

* Obviously, these statements refer to the parts of the world where modern technology like smartphones and broadband are common. The entire world does not have access to these things. I know.

** The very first web page is here, but it's only designated as a "web" page because it is hyperlinked to other pages using HTML markup. So was it really the first? Or did it spring into existence at the same time as the others? Is it really the beginning of the web?

Achuthan and Rabeedin did not have an easy route to success. Initially ridiculed by parents and schoolmates, the two struck out on their own to prove that they could achieve their goals. Unfortunately, the first banking venture from the duo, Mobeo Technologies, was not a success. With that project, the two had developed low-cost banking terminals dubbed "Personal Banking Machines" which used fingerprint readers and mobile PINs. The operation was shut down after a year due to unfavorable market conditions, regulations, and issues with hardware distribution.

Unfettered by the initial failure, the entrepreneurs chalked up Mobeo as a learning experience and moved on. Their new venture, CashNxt Technologies (web site is not fully functional), was launched in partnership with companies that already had similar low-cost banking devices for the poor.

Traditional banks don't set up ATMs in remote villages due to huge operational costs and poor connectivity. Cashnxt works around those obstacles by allowing service providers to use their network on a pay-per-use basis without any capital investment or additional infrastructure. Through a partnership with four banks out of Kannur, Cashnxt was able to deploy ten kiosks in parts of India.

Mobile Phone Transactions

As a customer, if you and a vendor are a member of the Cashnxt network, you can conduct transactions using your mobile phones. The merchant dials CashNxt's IVR number, enters their PIN and transaction amount, and then hears a high pitch sound on their mobile phone. The customer does the same - calls the IVR number, enters their PIN and hears a high pitch sound. The two phones are then brought together, held close enough for CashNxt to encrypt and decrypt the sounds. The transaction is then confirmed via SMS. (You can see how this works in this YouTube video.)

Using Cashnxt ATMs

Customers who want to make a transaction using an ATM encounter similar audio mechanisms as they do when mobile banking. The ATMs are fitted with audio systems that produce the high pitched sounds needed when transactions are made. Customers dial the IVR number, confirm their PIN and then hold their mobile phone up to the ATM. The transaction can then be completed and the customer can withdraw money. This system eliminates the need for debit and credit cards entirely.

Challenges Ahead

Using high pitch sounds to authenticate transactions could lead to high-tech hacks. As the system is relatively new, having just launched in December, it's still unknown how foolproof it may be.

Cashnxt Technologies is a 25-person self-funded venture founded byAnish Achuthan and Rameena Rabeedin. You can reach them via email at achuthan.anish AT cashnxt.net. More info about the company can be found at goergo.in.

The Fox tweet was deleted an hour after it was posted, so the password may not have been changed. The Facebook account on Twitter just posted a link to porn, so it appears that the situation remains unresolved. Update: Twitter says it's been resolved but that users should change their passwords! The Twitter blog has just posted an explanation of the breach. Screen shots of the hacked accounts below below.

Some suspected that the hacks today were associated with the weekend's phishing attacks, but the Fox News account isn't following anyone - so no one could have direct messaged it. That's how accounts were taken over via phishing. Something else is afoot.

If the hacker is associated with the affiliate link sent out over Obama's account, it may not be hard to discover who did this. Time will tell.

Twitter co-founders Evan Williams, Biz Stone and lead engineer Alex Payne have posted no messages since the attacks emerged. This can't be good for Twitter. What major brand will be excited to sign up for the service now? Who would pay, even, to be put at such risk?

A group of Stanford University researchers specializing in artificial intelligence, Saxena and Siddharth Batra, and Assistant Professor Andrew Ng, created this new technology they're calling ZunaVision. The embedding technology is driven by an algorithm that first analyzes the video while paying close attention to the section of the scene where the image or video will be embedded. It then subtly alters the color, texture, and lighting of the embedded object to better fit it in with the surroundings. As other objects pass in front of the embed, it disappears from view and as the camera pans and zooms, the algorithm shape-shifts the object accordingly. The appropriate shadows are also added for a more realistic feel. The end result is an embed that looks as if it was there all along, instead of being some obvious insert or overlay that is clearly not a part of the scene.

This type of technology is nothing new to the big Hollywood studios - they've been using similar methods for years in order to do special effects. Until now, however, there hasn't been a way for people to perform these kinds of advanced video edits without investing serious money into professional video editing software. But with ZunaVision , anyone and everyone can accomplish this same task in minutes, with only a click of the mouse.

Revolutionizing Video Ads?

Videographers are already thinking of creative and imaginative ways to use this technology to liven up their videos and amateur films, but the real financial potential of ZunaVision lies in advertising. With ZunaVision, anyone with a video camera could potentially earn money by agreeing to place corporate logos or ads within their videos before uploading them to the internet. That could be a hugely successful venture if the technology was adopted by Google, for example, to become the "AdSense for Video" and integrated with their video-sharing site YouTube.

At the moment, YouTube is experimenting with different methods of monetization, including overlay ads on embeds, post-roll ads, and allowing publishers to bid for sponsored placement of their videos on the site. These methodologies are still too new to provide any conclusive data as to their success just yet. ZunaVision seems to be just as promising, if not more so, than any of these current experiments.

The ZunaVision site features several example of these in-video embeds, which you can see here - there are well over a hundred examples of both user-gen videos and clips from TV and film that demonstrate the technology's potential.

You can sign up and try ZunaVision for yourself by clicking here.

Do crashing computers and busted Blackberries completely freak you out? Does a cryptic error message on your screen leave you feeling defeated or discouraged? According to a new study from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, your age might have something to do with your attitudes and emotions surrounding technology.

Researcher John B. Horrigan points out: electricity was once new too. But now we flip on light switches without a second thought. And when the telephone was taking off in the early 1900's, people were given specific instructions on how to make a phone call - something we now do every day. Over the passage of time, each new generation of users becomes more savvy and more adept at using the new technology until it no longer exists as some odd new-fangled invention, but simply part of the world as we know it.

The same holds true for our computers, our internet connections, our gadgets and our cell phones. When these things fail, it's the younger users that are generally much more optimistic about the situation. Although young adults age 18-29 years old are no more likely to be able fix devices on their own, they were significantly more likely to be confident that they were on the right path to fixing it, and they were significantly less likely than older adults to feel discouraged or confused about fixing devices, says the study.

In fact, 85% of 18-29 year olds reported being confident about solving their device problem, while only about a third of them said they were discouraged or confused. Meanwhile, over half (52%) of adults age 30 and older reported being discouraged, 44% said they were confused, and about two out of three (67%) said they were confident. Adults age 30-49 were somewhat less likely than older adults to be confused, as just 39% said they were.

There was some variation among gender lines, too, with men being more likely than women to be confident about problem solving (76% vs. 68%), but they were just as confused, discouraged or impatient during the course of trying to solve the problem.

What this means is that, given time, our idea of a "mainstream user" will have to change. No longer will they be the slightly fearful, easily frustrated, computer novices. Instead, they will be much more at ease with technology. They may never be as tech-obsessed as we are, but they will have no problem adopting a new technology if it delivers value.

The iLink technology was developed as a part of the SRI-led CALO (Cognitive Agent that Learns and Organizes) program and was funded and managed under DARPA's PAL (Personalized Assistant that Learns) program. That project was designed to create cognitive software systems that can reason, learn from experience, be told what to do, explain what they are doing, reflect on their experience, and respond robustly to surprise: in other words, A.I.

iLink specifically was the part of the overall CALO project that focused on social search and message routing within social networks. It was also used to develop a system for FAQ generation within a network - they call this technology "FAQtory". With this technology implemented on a social network, FAQs are continuously generated and revised by the community using a Wikipedia-like model, as opposed to being static creations made by the site's authors. But it's not basic as a simple user-generated FAQ system - instead, iLink's FAQtory technology allows for incremental bits of information - even those that don't qualify as answers to the question. As the members contribute these bits of information, the learning system in iLink monitors how users are attempt to resolve queries and is then capable of drafting off of the social network's learning. Essentially, the technology actually enables the social network to discover and amplify its own capabilities

Other aspects of the overall iLink system involve not just incremental learning capabilities, but also the use of prior knowledge to solve problems, message-matching technologies for finding related information, algorithms for gathering data from multiple sources and compiling it together, and the ability to differentiate private information from that which is safe to share.

The Research Behind iLink's Creation

For those that helped create the iLink technology, such as the researchers at SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center, they see social networking as a much more valuable tool than, arguably, even some members of our own tech community do today. In a research paper on iLink (filled with details math nerds will eat up), they state:

"The social web provides much more than an opportunity for people to interact and exchange general information. It is a new medium for powerful models of organizing purposeful social activities. This is compellingly illustrated in the growth of open source efforts (e.g., LAMP,2 Wikipedia), which some authors [8, 14, 20, 27, 29] argue represent an alternate mode of social and economic production."

The authors of the paper state that much of the research in social networks has not formally modeled how these networks accomplish tasks. Most of the current work focuses on other areas like structural representation, analysis, and interpretation of social network data. Their work instead introduces a general approach to modeling how real-time, dynamic social networks communicate and cooperate to solve problems because an understanding of this could enhance the development of potential future applications...applications like expertise identification, FAQ generation, and smart RSS filtering.

iLink Model

iLink in the Military

Today, iLink is being used in the military communities to help recognize "who knows what" within a community, connect members to each other, and point members to valuable content, discussions, and others who share their same interests. Those connections between members and resources are made with iLink's machine-based learning to model the users and the content in order to facilitate the information sharing.

Currently, three military sites are using the technology: Platoon Leader, Company Command, and the Family Readiness Group. In Platoon Leader, current and former U.S. Army Lieutenants worldwide discuss and exchange information with each other. Company Command does the same for Army Captains while also allowing them to pose questions in order to solve problems together (crowdsourcing the military!). The Family Readiness Group helps coordinators nationwide share information and best practices with each other in order to point military families to resources they can use.

Platoon Leader

Where The Military Goes...Civilian Businesses May Follow

It was only a year ago that the military shut down access to several social networking web sites, including MySpace and YouTube, to users of the military networks. However, that shutdown was not so much a criticism of the social networking technology itself - only the public nature of those "civilian" networks. Concerned that users would share secure information like schedules or locations (for example: "Hi Mom! We're sailing into Dubai tomorrow!"), the military opted for a "better safe than sorry" policy. They also cited bandwidth concerns - sharing videos and photos can use a lot of bandwidth and not all areas of the world have much to spare.

Yet, social networking itself can be a valuable tool for businesses, and the military has realized that. In an organization, even one the size of the U.S. armed forces, connecting people to information and resources has been a challenge that I.T. has struggled for some time to achieve, and never mastered quite as well as the social networks do. In the past, businesses used impersonal, intranet-based web sites to provide files and documentation, but they miss out on one of the most critical sources of information - the knowledge that is stored in users' own minds. That knowledge that comes from both experience as well as information surrounding the undocumented processes that exist in any organization.

Now that the military is implementing more social networking technologies into their online networks - in addition to the three communities today, it's being evaluated for inclusion in several others - we'll likely see big business soon following suit. For those enterprise organizations that have been slower to pick up on Web 2.0 trends, seeing how the military uses a particular technology will be a big influence that may change their course of thinking. Social networks may just be fun for us as personal activities, but in workplace, they can be valuable tools for getting the job done...or even helping craft military strategy.

iLink's technology has been made commercially available. More information can be found at SRI International's web site.

military photo by: Randy Son of Robert; building by bourget_82

While Techmeme has it all covered when it comes finance and technology trends, product reviews are a rare treat. Here's where Tech NewsJunk steps in. The purpose of the aggregation site is to allow you to find out about products before they hit the big leagues. According to Winer's official post about the site's launch,

"A couple of notes. I'm not just interested in new products, I'm also interested in how the products evolve. So if Flickr were to (for example) add a bunch of new features tomorrow, we would defintely link to that.

I also want to hear about products from the people who design and implement them. Their point of view is very important to not only understanding their work, but to understanding the market."

Various Fixes For Your Addiction

As a frequent user of tools like FriendFeed and Twitter, it's no surprise that Winer has implemented numerous ways to keep up with Tech NewsJunk. You can:

• subscribe via RSS
• follow along on FriendFeed
• follow along on Twitter
• read mobile updates (iPhone or Blackberry
• refresh the site's page manually

Winer also has future plans to include the latest micro-blogging service darling identi.ca and roll out email updates.

Best Product Coverage

Thus far, Tech NewsJunk has decent product coverage from a host of great sites. The featured content ranges from internet apps to mobile technology. Winer also notes that ReadWriteWeb is one of the best sites to find product coverage and even extends some advice to us (we're listening Dave). As of this post, ReadWriteWeb is listed three times in the counts section, with two of our articles coming in at #2 and #3 respectively. All in all, Tech NewsJunk is a must have in anyone's feed reader.

Bergman begins by notating that Goodwill already has the only non-profit online auction site at ShopGoodwill.com, a site that provides another avenue to sell the organization's donated items, which fund its charitable works. The site, with 35,000 daily visitors, is a popular online destination for bargain hunters who are looking for alternatives to eBay.

Additionally, Goodwill has just launched, MyGoodwill, located at www.goodwill.org/group/my/home. This site is a new collaboration portal offering e-learning and best practices for Goodwill's employees and members of affiliate organizations worldwide. Using concepts and methodologies similar to social networks, Goodwill allows its MyGoodwill members to collaborate with communities of their peers in order gain access to specific knowledge and resources. The portal was created with open source software, a decision that Goodwill made based on the functionality, capability, and maturity of the open source model, but primarily, the cost savings it provided.

MyGoodwill Login Page

The public web site for Goodwill Industries also recently partnered with SpatialPoint to provide geo-spatial mapping capabilities to help visitors locate the nearest store and donation center. Powered by Google Maps, the store locator is available from locator.goodwill.org.

Internally, Goodwill is focused on "going green." They are looking into consolidation and virtualization technologies for their data center, but they are also focused on their new business unit that is dealing primarily with donated computer equipment. Goodwill receives tens of thousands of donated PCs, only some of which are worthy of reselling. For the rest, Goodwill is taking the computers through a de-manufacturing process, working with partners to make sure that the computers are either e-cycled or that they are broken down into components that can then be resold and reused.

With these latest offerings, specifically the online portal, Goodwill shows itself to be yet another example of how web technologies are finding their way into the enterprise. Instead of sneaking in web apps via the backdoor, Goodwill has chosen to control the type of interactions they want their employees to focus on via a portal whose primary focus is knowledge-sharing.

Bergman definitely sees the value in innovation, commenting, "Last year, Goodwill helped a million people find vocational services and get back into the workforce and technology was a major driver for that."