Technology, Computers, Science, The Internet, Games
Biofeedback system to guarantee gaming thrills
Video games could monitor your vital signs and emotional state to ensure an exhilarating experience the system is being tested on fairground rides
From NewScientist
technorati tags:Games, Diagnosis, Videogames, Emotions
WEB EXCLUSIVE The All-in-One Gadget of My Dreams
Hands-on with the brand-new BlackBerry Pearl
From PopSci
technorati tags:Blackberry, All-In-One, Gadgets
The Carbonite Solution to Online Backups
Boston based Carbonite is the a new data backup/storage service. It requires a simple installation, and users choose to back up their entire hard drive or just parts of it. Carbonite then begins the backup process, uploading 2 GB per day over broadband until finished. Files are encrypted, and there is no limit on total storage. If you delete a file, Carbonite keeps it stored for 30 days in case you change your mind. Carbonite monitors files that are changed and backs them up right away.
And if you have a problem and need to get the data downloaded to a reformatted hard drive or new computer, Carbonite will download at up to 15GB per day over broadband until your system is restored.
Carbonite says that one in eight computers have some sort of data failure. The number one reason is user error, although crashes, fires, floods, theft and viruses all play a part as well. The 30 day cache solves the user-error problem and the fact that data is stored on the Internet solves the fire/flood/theft issue (where USB or network drives may also be affected).
Carbonite has a free 15 day trial (with no credit card required). The service costs $5 per month, with discounts if you pre-pay for a year or two.
The downside? It only works on Windows PCs (as does Mozy). Mac users are out of luck for now.
It’s clear that Google is thinking along the same lines with Platypus, their online storage solution. There are fewer details on Microsoft Live Drive, but we can expect a compelling offering from them as well. The holy grail for these services is to be built into PCs and offered to users out of the box. It’s a natural revenue stream for Dell, HP, etc., and they could either build it themselves of partner with a company like Carbonite.
Carbonite has received $7 million in venture capital. Until May 2006 they were focused on photo storage, and launched the current service in May.
From Techcrunch
technorati tags:OnlineStorage, Carbonite
Warner to license music in YouTube videos
YouTube and Warner Music Group Corp. will announce a deal Monday that will put thousands of Warner music videos on the video sharing site and allow user created videos to legally use Warner owned music, according to a story tonight from the Associated Press. YouTube is reported to have created technology that will automatically detect when copyrighted music is used in videos, give Warner the right to accept or reject those videos and will calculate the royalty fees Warner is owed. Financial details haven’t been disclosed yet, but may include a cut of advertising revenue in exchange for licensing rights. It’s also unclear who will pay the royalty fees; that payment may come out of the advertising revenue or it may be demanded of the individual users who have put Warner music in their videos. That could get interesting. Warner’s last experiment on YouTube, the Paris Hilton channel - was widely seen as a failure.
This is big news, as the legal dilemma of copyrighted content has been the primary barrier to YouTube’s possible acquisition and has presumably cost the company in possible advertising revenues. If a similar deal can be made with other record labels, the landscape of user generated content could be changed radically. The Warner deal stands in major opposition with the position of Universal, whose CEO Doug Morris said last week that YouTube and MySpace owed the label millions. Morris indicated that a legal challenge might be forthcoming.
From Techcrunch
Citizendium: a more civilized Wikipedia?
Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger has announced that his new knowledge sharing wiki project called Citizendium will launch at the end of this month or earlier. The defining characteristic of the site is that topic experts will have final, enforceable authority to “resolve” controversy and kick out trolls. Citizendium will be a progressive fork of Wikipedia, allowing its own community to change Wikipedia articles but also offering Wikipedia’s version of those that haven’t been edited in Citizendium. Sanger says the topic experts will function like village elders or college professors - they’ll simply make the wiki a civilized place.
Citizendium is not connected to Larry Sanger’s earlier work at the Digital Universe Foundation, whose press release still refers people interested in providing expertise to a similar project to an URL that ends in XXX and brings up a 404. Nor is Citizendium tied to the Sanger directed Text Outline Project, yet another very similar endeavor that Sanger now says he will come back to “in a year or two.” It is reminiscent of the predecessor of Wikipedia, Nupedia - which Sanger was the editor in chief of just like he will be for Citizendium. Nupedia allegedly flopped under the weight of its PhD requirements, software inadequacies, the superiority of the wiki model in general and Wikipedia in particular.
In other words, barring further information about Citizendium - it’s hard to take it seriously. The project does have some stuffy backing for its snoozer of a text-only web site so perhaps it will prove viable.
From Techcrunch
technorati tags:Wiki, Citizendium, LarrySanger
