Netflix near launch of movie downloads

Yahoo! News:
"Netflix and TiVo announced last fall that they were jointly developing a service to deliver movies over the Internet. That service, to make its debut sometime this year, would allow those who own TiVo digital video recorders to download and potentially store films they've ordered online."

UPA - Uber-Personal Assistant

The CEO's Tech Toolbox:
"Wouldn't it be great if you had a personal secretary that could anticipate your information needs? Tech powerhouse IBM (IBM ) is developing a piece of software called the Uber-Personal Assistant (UPA). Souped up with artificial intelligence, the Assistant will analyze your schedule, e-mails, and the text you're typing to figure out exactly what you're working on. Then, it will alert you fore example, to new e-mails pertinent to that project.
You can find UPA-like features on inventor Ray Kurzweil's artificial intelligence site - look for Ramona."

Classic Durex Ads & many more

|coloribus| admirror |

"Do not press the red button!"

Fourteen ways to die in Shanghai

Shanghaiist Blog:
"Here's a useful tourist map of Shanghai - it labels 14 choice spots to go kill yourself.


# Huichunji pharmacy sells sleeping pills.
# Suzhou Creek is uncovered.
# The #57 bus goes directly to the zoo. You can jump into a tiger’s mouth and die.
# Cars under the Yan’an Road viaduct drive very fast. Accidents happen often.
# Fuxing Park — hanging yourself is simple among the tall, close trees.
# Wang’s Tofu Stand — crush yourself with a piece of tofu"

Lost&Found: Google Logo Maker

Logogle

Grokster no, Guns yes

Daily Kos: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.:
"Grokster no: 'We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties,' Justice Souter wrote.
Guns yes: "The president believes that the manufacturer of a legal product should not be held liable for the criminal misuse of that product by others," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan."

Tired of all the bad news in the world?

HappyNews.com - All The News That's Fun To Print:
"'Real News, Compelling Stories, Always Positive' is what you'll find on HappyNews.com. We believe virtue, goodwill and heroism are hot news. That's why we bring you up-to-the-minute news, geared to lift spirits and inspire lives. Add in a diverse team of Citizen Journalists reporting positive stories from around the world, and you've got one happy place for news."

Sony -16%

BusinessWeek | Special Report: Brand Equity:
"Sony spent $1.6 billion on advertising last year, according to Advertising Age magazine, but it wasn't enough to stem Sony's slide in global brand value. Its drop of 16% is all the more troubling as rival Samsung passed the Japanese giant in brand value while spending far less on ads."

'Bullet-time' effect seen in real-time games

New Scientist Technology
"Researchers at the University of Finland have figured out how employ "local perception filters" to provide individual experiences of "bullet-time" -- a Matrix-like effect of action slowing down -- while the action for other players does not slow down."

iTV: Viewers are not interacting

informitv - Interactive TV - News:
"A research report reveals that over half the potential users of interactive advertising in the UK are not engaging with interactive TV because there are either too few incentives or they are still daunted by the prospect."

Interactive Comics

TNT | Wanted
"TNT promotes its new "Wanted" series through online comics that are neither static scans nor single-frame flash animations - the first truly interactive comic book."

TV Dinner Inventor Gerry Thomas Dies

SFGate.com:
"The first Swanson TV Dinner - turkey with cornbread dressing and gravy, sweet potatoes and buttered peas - sold for about $1 and could be cooked in 25 minutes at 425 degrees. Ten million sold in the first year of national distribution."

How Effective Is This Ad, in Real Numbers?

New York Times:
"It's the old story of the C.E.O. who asks the chief marketing officer, 'What happens if I take 10 percent out of the marketing budget?' and the C.M.O. replies, 'I don't know,' ' Mr. See said, 'so the C.E.O. says: 'O.K., I'll take 20 percent.'"

Towards professional participatory storytelling in journalism and advertising

First Monday:
"We are using more media than ever before in history, yet this intensive engagement with media does not translate into more attention paid to the stories told by the two archetypical media professions: journalism and advertising."

Free RSS Screensaver

NuParadigm:
"The RSS Screensaver is a screensaver that lets you subscribe to one or more RSS feeds, and select a directory for background images. The Screensaver loops through the list of RSS items and shows the contents of the feed in the right hand side."

MSN's own "Google Labs"

MSN Sandbox:
"This is the place to play with new MSN technologies, look at prototypes, and peek behind the scenes at some of our new ideas."

Lost&Found: Tattooed Fruit

New York Times:

"A pear is just a pear, except when it is also a laser-coded information delivery system with advanced security clearance."

Mind May Affect Machines

Wired News:
"At Princeton University, using random event generators -- computers that spew random output -- they have participants focus their intent on controlling the machines' output. Out of several million trials, they've detected small but 'statistically significant' signs that minds may be able to interact with machines.
Pairs of the opposite sex who are romantically involved produce the best results -- often seven times greater than when the same individuals are tested alone."

Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP

Microsoft | Downloads:
"They're back! PowerToys are additional programs for WinXP, such as "HTML Slide Show Wizard", "Alt-Tab Replacement" or "Tweak UI".

Free .wav Ringtones/Soundz

Ali G: Aiiiih!

"Buy Me!"

The New York Times:
"TiVo introduced a feature that lets television viewers send personal information directly to advertisers when they see certain commercials."

Murdoch on Shopping Spree

New York Times:
"The News Corporation, making one of its largest bets on the Internet, announced today that it is paying $580 million in cash to acquire Intermix Media Inc., a Los Angeles-based company whose chief asset is MySpace.com"

Augmented Reality

ART+COM - timescope:
"The basic idea of the 'timescope' is a virtual journey in time via telescope. The device contains additional controls that enable viewers to view a place in the past or future time through its eyepiece."

Anamorphic Pavement Illusions

Julian Beever's pavement drawings:
"Anamorphic illusions drawn in a special distortion in order to create an impression of 3 dimensions when seen from one particular viewpoint - by Julian Beever."

Technorati: A New Public Utility

Wired News:
"At its essence, Technorati may be a search engine, but its approach is vastly different.
Technorati sees the internet as a stream of conversations. This makes it much more immediate. It takes about seven minutes to for Technorati to index a post.
In China, bloggers are using Technorati tags to get around government censors. The Adopt-a-Chinese Blog program works by volunteers announcing their intention to host a blog on their server by employing a special Technorati tag. That way, bloggers in China can locate the blogs through a special page. Since the pages are served outside of China, the government can't censor them."

Windows Mobile 5.0

Engadget:
"It took them an extra three months (or so), but Microsoft finally unveiled the next version of Windows Mobile, their operating system for Smartphones and Pocket PCs."

Microsoft Sales Presentation

Windows Longhorn Screenshots

Flexbeta

Come Clean, Now!

Lost&Found: Mobile Video: The Advent of vPod?

Corporate Blogs: Measure Their Value!

ClickZ Experts:
"Return on investment (ROI) measures project or campaign returns relative to related costs over time. It provides a single number, allowing executives to prioritize their marketing spend.
To date, ROI hasn't been applied to blogs. This is partly due to blogging recent introduction to the marketing mix. Many blogging experts have suggested calculating a blog ROI is impossible. As a professor, I teach students how to tie marketing to the bottom line. Calculating ROI for a blog should be no harder than calculating it for other marketing components..."

Google passes $300

CNN Money | News | Technology:
"Google (Research) gained 2.3 percent to finish at $304.10, slightly below its high for the day of $304.30. The stock has now gained nearly 260 percent since it went public last August at $85 a share. "

Why so nervous about robots, Wal-Mart?

News.blog | CNET News.com
"Wal-Mart is NOT looking into replacing employees with robots, and doesn't want to talk about how it's not replacing employees with robots. The idea of replacing employees with robots is not even being considered "in any way, shape or form," according to a PR flak for the company, who seemed to not want to talk about Wal-Mart not replacing employees with robots."

Cable's Big Bet On Hyper-Targeting

BusinessWeek Online | Marketing
"Time Warner Cable will soon begin testing a system designed by software firm Invidi Technologies that uses the digital set-top cable box to track what each TV in any house has on. It's expected to go into a household test by year end, with other cable companies following in 2006. By analyzing where a viewer channel surfs, Invidi says the system can figure out the age, gender, and probable interests of the viewer. Most important, the system then matches TV ads to the consumer based on what might actually interest them."
Invidi Technologies' CEO David Downey explains how his company's system sends viewers targeted commercials based on their TV usage here."

The Social Fabric

Interaction Design Institute Ivre:
"The Social Fabric is a representation of your social world, displayed as a single visual array on your mobile phone. It does not replace your address book or calendar but keeps you subtly informed about which relationships are prospering, which you have neglected, and the overall state of your social fabric. "

Bush wants to shift global warming debate

CNN.com - Inside Politics:
"Bush repeated his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and said the United States would not sign it or any similar deals limiting gas emissions.
More information about the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change"

Ten years of 'Earth's Biggest Selection'

CNN.com - Technology
"With $6.92 billion in sales in 2004, Amazon ranked at the top of Internet Retailer's annual top 400 list.
EBay users sold $34.2 billion in merchandise through the online auction house in 2004."

Lost&Found: Samurai Robot

The Raw Feed

Google's Master Plan

Flickr - Photo Sharing!
"All the speculation as to Google's master plan can now cease since someone has finally captured proof. The Master Plan was documented on the first floor of Google building 43.
You'll notice that rogue scientists, weather control, spy satellites, and Internet 3 are all part of "the plan.""

Web Content by and for the Masses

New York Times:


"Yahoo introduced My Web 2.0, a new version of the company's search engine that will harness the collective power of small groups of Web surfers to improve the quality of search results.
The service, which the company's executives refer to as a 'social search engine,' is based on a new page-ranking technology that Yahoo has named MyRank. Rather than relying on which pages are linked to most frequently on the Web - the so-called Page Rank technology pioneered by Google - MyRank organizes pages based on how closely search users are related to one another in their social network and on their reputation for turning up helpful information."

Sensory Beam into the brain by Sony

United States Patent Application: 0040267118

"Sony Corp. has been granted a patent for beaming sensory information directly into the brain.

The technique could be used to create videogames or TV programmes and would aim ultrasonic pulses at specific areas of the brain to induce "sensory experiences" such as smells, sounds and images."

The Real Lesson of Grokster

Wired News:
"In the end, the business model in the entertainment industry is going to change, and these companies can either find a way to insert themselves into the new order, or risk finding themselves frozen out forever."

Book Blogging

The New York Times > Technology
"For years, book authors have used the Internet to publicize their work and to keep in touch with readers. Several, like Mr. Battelle, are now experimenting with maintaining blogs while still in the act of writing their books.

The question for these authors is this: By feeding and engaging their readers' curiosity, are they destroying the market for the books that they, after all, are paid to write?"

U.S. Seeks to Keep Role on Internet

National Telecommunications and Information Administration
The United States "intends to preserve the security and stability" of the technical underpinnings of the Internet and will "maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications" to the master file of Internet domain names.

Lost&Found: Covers from the Future

Ad Campaign by Magazine Publishers of America

ChangeThis :: Free Manifestos

ChangeThis was built in the summer of 2004 & the original idea behind ChangeThis came from Seth Godin.
The site offers an amazing variety of manifestos ranging from Business, Culture, Politics and Technology: e.g. "The Word of Mouth", "How to manage smart people", "What is Open Source Marketing?", etc.