« Older Entries | Newer Entries »

Wolfram Alpha – Cooler Than Google?

[ Comments Off ]Posted on May 15, 2009 by admin in Technology

Friday, May 15th, 2009

The new search engine and technology Wolfram Alpha launches today. Watch out Google.

We made reference to Wolfram Alpha as a “Google Killer” last week, which is something the developers apparently don’t like. It sets people up for the kind of disappointment everyone experienced when the last “Google Killer” Cuil was launched. Well, they’re webcasting the launch of Wolfram Alpha live tonight. If you haven’t heard about it, it’s a new search tool that computes answers rather than simply culling links from a database like Google. Stephen Wolfram’s explanation sums it up nicely, if that’s still not making sense to you: “Fifty years ago, when computers were young, people assumed that they’d quickly be able to handle all these kinds of things … and that one would be able to ask a computer any factual question and have it compute the answer, but it didn’t work out that way … I’d always thought, though, that eventually it should be possible. And a few years ago, I realised that I was finally in a position to try and do it.” Having grown up on Star Trek, this has always been one of my biggest frustrations with technology. I honestly can’t wait to try it.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Okay To Be A Twitter Quitter

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on May 3, 2009 by admin in Technology

Sunday, May 3rd, 2009

The future of the social web? Real time search, recommendation tools, and better aggregation.

My head’s going to explode if one more person tells me why Twitter is the next big thing, or uses the term Google Killer or Facebook Killer. It’s just my opinion, of course, but anybody who claims to know where the web and social networks are headed on a granular level is just regurgitating what they read on tech blogs, or is someone you’d like to make friends with, because they will soon be very, very rich. All the same, this is a pretty interesting time for the web. The obvious trends right now are real time search, social networking, and recommendation tools. When someone makes the simplistic statement that Twitter’s the “next big thing” after Facebook, they’re missing three profoundly important points: 1.) The services are completely different in nature; one is a closed, user-defined network, the other is an outward-flowing stream of information available to anyone. 2.) An estimated 60% of users stop using twitter after one month, and 3). The “next big thing” is already happening. Most would agree that the next big thing is some version of the open web, and if you think about it, that’s what a lot of us are striving for: some kind of reintegration of all the services we’re using. That’s why one of the coolest short-term “Twitter Killers” is making such a splash right now; Seesmic Desktop just added Facebook feeds to the existing tools they had for Twitter. Between Seesmic Desktop and services like NutshellMail, you should at least be able to get your lifestreams under control. I’m personally considering a more effective alternative: unplugging

Read the rest of this entry »

Bored This Sunday? Why Not Go To Church?

[ Comments Off ]Posted on April 26, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

Even you faithless hordes should have SOMETHING to get you out of bed on Sunday.

After finally watching Religulousthe other night with a friend, I had yet another idol de-mystified. I always had a little respect for Bill Maher, but in my opinion, he not only missed the mark in a number of ways with the film, he also revealed himself to be a condescending redneck-basher who needs to talk to his therapist more about his religious upbringing. But I’m neither a film critic nor a psychologist. I’m just here to help you kill some time. We used to go to church on Sunday for that reason, but now we have cable TV, Facebook, and Wii. So my objective to today is to get you to go to church. Which can be difficult, with all you non-adherents running about. I say “non-adherents” because you silly atheists reading this comprise less than one half of one percent of the world’s population, but the term “non-adherents” bumps the number of faithless hordes up to around 13% and helps make you relevant. So anyway, lets start with a church that comes close to the mind-numbing self-contradictions of the more established religions, The Church of the SubGenius. All I’m going to say is “Bob”. Remember: Praise His Sweet Name — OR BURN IN SLACKLESSNESS TRYING NOT TO! You’ll notice, by the way, that there’s a Google search box at the top of that site. Why? Because Google Is God. C’mon. You had sort of suspected it, hadn’t you? All this time we were worried that the Internet would someday become self-aware, and it turns out it was God all along. And lastly, we assume (since you apparently spend enough time on the Internet to be reading this tripe) that you’re familiar with both the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Church of Jedi, so we’ll spare you more commentary. Do you know of any amusing alternatives to mainstream religion? I mean, besides the ones routinely lampooned on South Park?

What’s Your Facebook Footprint?

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on April 19, 2009 by admin in Clean & Green, Technology

Sunday, April 19th, 2009

Does the green movement’s use of the web cancel itself out?

Last year we wrote about how Ford was having a Fiesta, and that you weren’t invitado. Well, they’re finally going to market the car next year in the states, and they apparently picked 100 bloggers from over 4,000 applicants to pump their product through social networking. Which all got me wondering. What is the carbon footprint of our time spent on the web? Well, apparently two Google searches produce the same amount of CO2 as bringing water to a boil on your stovetop. Some other examples: the total of electricity consumed by major search engines in 2006 was nearly 5 gigawatts, which is enough to power Las Vegas on the hottest day of the year. What about the trillions of spam messages sent annually? They consume enough electricity  to power 2.4 million homes, and release as much carbon dioxide as 3.1 million cars consuming 2 billion gallons of gasoline. Which begs the obvious question: if that’s the impact of spam, what about porn? Based on all of this, will the benefits of buying a Fiesta be undone by all the blogging and Facebooking about them? You decide. Current estimates would put Facebook’s overall carbon footprint at half of New York City’s (thanks mostly to all those photos you share!). That somehow doesn’t sound as bad as the fact that Avatars in Second Life consume as much electricity as actual Brazilians, but it’s still a hefty figure. Fortunately there are lots of Facebook apps to help you manage your carbon footprint. If you actually take this topic seriously and want to figure out your carbon footprint, there a plenty of resources like the LowImpactLiving.com Impact Calculator, and this WSJ article takes a good look at a few products and how their footprints are measured.

CNN Gets Punk’d By Ashton Kutcher On Twitter

[ Comments Off ]Posted on April 18, 2009 by admin in Popular Media

Saturday, April 18th, 2009

Will an Oprah endorsement kill Twitter before people know what it is?

I apologize in advance to any Twitter addicts reading this, the piece will almost certainly be longer than 140 characters. The fact that Ashton Kutcher punk’d CNN the other day, combined with Oprah’s first all-caps tweet (see below), spoke volumes about Twitter’s future. First of all, Kutcher really did punk the game, with donated billboard space. That’s not viral marketing, it’s germ warfare. And many would agree that an endorsement from Oprah is more like a command to a zombie army than it is an indication of the validity of something. I predict that unless Twitter either implements some amazing and broadly accessible real-time search (as has been suggested), or builds a more Facebook-like central site that incorporates additional social networking features, the service is destined to max out somewhere around the number of active crackberry users. If Twitter is all about sharing what you’re doing at any given moment, you have to remember you could get the same information about many Americans by just looking at that evening’s TV listings. And those same Americans are probably not texting very much yet. I mean, although a Google exec may be showing a lot of ignorance by calling Twitter just another e-mail service, these Americans we’re talking about are the same people that in a CNN poll responded to the question “Do you use Twitter?” with  6% saying “Yes,” 64% saying “No,” and 30% saying “What’s Twitter?” Read the rest of this entry »

« Older Entries | Newer Entries »