Archive for January 18th, 2008An anonymous reader writes “Canadian law prof Michael Geist has been leading the charge against a Canadian DMCA including the creation of a Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group that now has more than 38,000 members. Having delayed the legislation, he now outlines what Canadians should be fighting for — more flexible fair dealing, a balanced implementation of the WIPO Internet treaties, an ISP safe harbor, and a modernized backup copy provision.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. Filed under: Fun, World wide web, Web services, Time-Wasters, web 2.0  There has always been one major problem with the internet: it’s run by humans instead of LOLcats. Sadly, the government isn’t into LOLcats, so we’ll never see the dream realized. There’s, however, a simulation effort. I’d like to introduce the LOLinator. The LOLinator is a website designed by an underground effort of LOLcats to show the world what an LOLcat world wide web would look like. It takes any website and sends it back to the LOLcat home base, where LOLcats work quickly and efficiently to create a simulation of an LOLcat version. A couple websites we advocate running through the system are Apple.com, Apple.com/store, and Microsoft.com. The image above shows what an LOLcat run Download Squad would look like. Personally, we think it’s an improvement, but the discrimination against cats in the workplace would never land us any cat employees. What a sad world we live in. Oh yeah, if you’ve any recommendations for sites to run through the LOLinator, please leave them in the comments. Filed under: Fun, World wide web, Web services, Time-Wasters, web 2.0 There has always been one major problem with the internet: it’s run by humans instead of LOLcats. Sadly, the government isn’t into LOLcats, so we’ll never see the dream realized. There’s, however, a simulation effort. I’d like to introduce the LOLinator. The LOLinator is a website designed by an underground effort of LOLcats to show the world what an LOLcat internet would look like. It takes any website and sends it back to the LOLcat home base, where LOLcats work quickly and efficiently to create a simulation of an LOLcat version. A couple websites we recommend running through the system are Apple.com, Apple.com/store, and Microsoft.com. The image above shows what an LOLcat run Download Squad would look like. Personally, we think it’s an improvement, but the discrimination against cats in the workplace would never land us any cat employees. What a sad world we live in. Oh yeah, if you have any suggestions for sites to run through the LOLinator, please leave them in the comments. Filed under: World wide web, Web services
All that is changing. DivShare, which has been having trouble making money, and which was put up for sale a while back, has announced plans to institute storage and bandwidth caps. DivShare users with free accounts now get 5GB of storage and 50GB of bandwidth. If you want more you’ll have to pay to upgrade your account. Sure, 5GB is more space than you get from a lot of competing services. But when you’re a company that’s built its name on unlimited uploads and downloads, any limits are a bit hard for users to swallow. According to the DivShare Blog, fewer than 10% of the service’s users are currently exceeding the limits, so most users will not need to upgrade. And users who have already exceeded the limits will not have files deleted, but they’ll have to delete some files before they have the ability to upload any more (or you know, create a new account). In theory, the move will make the service more reliable for the vast majority of users who don’t come close to approaching the new limits. But something tells us that won’t mean much to users who have been told to delete files. [via CyberNet]
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01
2008
 
Microsoft studies subconscious, trying to be ahead Google, ApplePosted by: in Companies Competitive StrategyFiled under: Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple Inc (AAPL)
Microsoft competitor Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) made the computer mouse popular almost three decades ago to really jump-start user interaction with PCs, and added ‘multi-touch’ to 2007’s iPhone to again invent another way of personal interaction. What else is coming down the road? Whatever it is, Microsoft wants to be there first this time. The world’s largest software maker seems to be honing in on reading a customer’s mind to enable PC interaction. Science fiction? So far, yes — but possibly not for long. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), whose internet search engine finds results to customer queries in what seems like perfect fashion, isn’t staying back from this field either. Even though Google is keeping mum on its ambitions to connect the human mind with a computer system or interface, it continues honing its artificial intelligence systems that power those instant search results millions of times an hour around the world. Google, though, is famous for keeping things under wraps until a release date is imminent. I guess we’ll have to wait and see which is first, if any. [The author holds a long position in MSFT] Filed under: World wide web, Web services
All that’s changing. DivShare, which has been having trouble making money, and which was put up for sale a while back, has announced plans to institute storage and bandwidth caps. DivShare users with free accounts now get 5GB of storage and 50GB of bandwidth. If you want more you’ll have to pay to upgrade your account. Sure, 5GB is more space than you get from a lot of competing services. But when you’re a company that’s built its name on unlimited uploads and downloads, any limits are a bit hard for users to swallow. According to the DivShare Blog, fewer than 10% of the service’s users are currently exceeding the limits, so most users won’t need to upgrade. And users who have already exceeded the limits won’t have files deleted, but they will have to delete some files before they have the ability to upload any more (or you know, create a new account). In theory, the move will make the service more reliable for the vast majority of users who don’t come close to approaching the new limits. But something tells us that won’t mean much to users who have been told to delete files. [via CyberNet] Filed under: World wide web, Productivity, Web services, Beta, Search
There are all kinds ways to track your stuff on the internet (Del.ici.ous, Remember the Milk), but they leave your data segregated across several Web sites. There are also a few options for corralling and indexing all your stuff right on the computer (Google Desktop, Mac OS X Spotlight), but they don’t help much when you’re away from your desk. The folks at iubo feel your pain and have designed a Web site where you can store on the internet all the dribs, drabs, and what-nots you accumulate and then access them later, no matter where you’re. Once you create an account, you can add and track information on pretty much anything you can think of: pictures, bookmarked Web sites, contact information, notes, documents, and so on. You can even add tags and color-code data for easier searching later. Gallery: iubo
Continue reading Score an invite to the private beta of iubo
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01
2008
Sprint shares plunge 15% — to cut 4,000 jobs, close 125 storesPosted by: in Companies Competitive StrategyFiled under: Earnings reports, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Sprint Nextel Corp (S)
Sprint (NYSE: S), the No. 3 wireless carrier, stated the action would lower labor costs by about $700-$800 million annually. Sprint said the jobs cuts would occur nationally, and would include managers. The action comes after the company announced that it lost an additional 683,000 customers last quarter, which brought 2007 customer losses to 1.2 million. No 3. carrier Sprint has been stung by customer departures, as customers have been lured to competitors AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ), which feature more-popular phones/PDAs and better service. Moreover, even though Sprint’s call quality and network has improved in the past six months, Sprint has found it difficult to reverse the company’s earlier reputation as one of the worst call networks in the mobile sector. In addition to Sprint’s aforementioned attrition problem, analysts believe that reputation is holding down subscriber recruitment. Analyst C. Leonard Bauer told BloggingStocks Friday that Sprint’s cuts are prudent, and consistent with the company’s restructuring effort. “In 2007 Sprint nearly had as many customer departures as Chicago’s O’Hare Airport,” Bauer said, with a chuckle. “Cost slicing make sense, given their revenue outlook. Sprint also needs to continue to improve customer service, keep fees down, and enhance their system to enable more broadband-esque activities such as video, because that’s where the future is, big-time.” Bauer added that he does not own Sprint’s shares. Bauer stated that he anticipates 2008 Sprint’s revenue to be essentially the same as the company’s 2007 total: about $39.9 billion. “Given the level of restructuring, service improvements, and brand remake that Sprint has to undertake, hitting last year’s revenue target would be an impressive achievement and a positive development,” he said. Angostura writes “Microsoft’s team blog for Microsoft Excel and Excel Services has responded with a denial to the earlier report that Visual Basic for Applications will disappear from Windows Office in 2009. The Slashdot discussion on the report on Tuesday got pretty animated.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. AMuse writes “The Ledger brings us a New York Times report that a newly proposed bill would create a web-searchable database of persons convicted of domestic violence. Fiona Ma, the bill’s author, claims: ‘If you’re on the web, Googling and looking for information on someone you met in a bar or on MySpace, this would provide a tool for people to go and look to see if someone who is suspicious and a little creepy has a history of violence.’ Is this evidence that the opponents of Megan’s Law are correct, and sooner or later all of one’s run-ins with the law will be searchable by the public?” Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
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Sprint’s shares plunged more than 15% Friday morning after the company stated it will cut about 4,000 jobs and close 125 stores to cut costs to improve its financial performance, the company announced Friday i
