Semana 16

Apple Hints Drive Speculation of New Notebooks, Mac Tablets
By Brian X. Chen July 22, 2008 2:41:59 PM
Apple touted healthy sales of Macs and iPods in a conference call yesterday, but it was a mysterious reference to future products that has created the most buzz today.
In its quarterly earnings call Monday, Apple's chief financial officer Peter Oppenheim alluded to a "future product transition" while explaining why Apple's gross margins will drop from 34.8 percent to 31.5 percent between July and September. That kind of teasing reference -- without any specifics, naturally -- has got analysts, tech bloggers and Mac fans busily speculating over just what those products will be.
Leading the list: A revamped line of MacBooks, or perhaps the long-awaited touch-screen Mac tablet.

Me parecio un buen articulo, porqe me gusta saber como van avanzando las Macs, los nuevos modelos, etc.

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Engineers to Establish 3-D Home Video Standards
By Betsy Schiffman July 22, 2008 4:04:11 PM



How long will it be before 3-D videos come to the living room? Unclear, but by some estimates, it could be another five years before the projectors are affordable enough to become mainstream. In the meantime, the Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers is establishing a taskforce of engineers to help develop standards for 3-D home video, so that a 3-D DVD will theoretically work with all players.
"Digital technologies have not only paved the way for high quality 3-D in the theaters, they have also opened the door to 3-D in the home," said Wendy Aylsworth, vice president of engineering at SMPTE, in a prepared statement. "In order to take advantage of this new opportunity, we need to guarantee consumers that they will be able to view the 3-D content they purchase and provide them with 3-D home solutions for all pocketbooks."

Me parecio un buen articulo porque me interesa saber como va el avance de la tecnologia 3D, ya que me parece algo bastante innovador.

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EMusic Extends Into Social, Media Networks
By Eliot Van Buskirk July 22, 2008 4:12:32 PM
The eMusic MP3 subscription service has a new strategy that involves pushing its content out to social networking sites while integrating links to relevant online media from its own site.
Subscribers can now embed eMusic album art and song samples on Del.ici.ous, Digg, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Twitter and 13 similar sites, with others apparently set to be added soon.
In addition, eMusic album pages now include links to YouTube videos of bands playing live, photos of artists on Flickr and links to bands' Wikipedia pages. Users will be able to interact with Flickr and YouTube without leaving the eMusic site, with the ability to forward media to friends, write reviews, bookmark or embed photos and videos.
"Stores like iTunes, Amazon and even the new Rhapsody are missing the boat," said eMusic CEO David Pakman in a statement issued on Tuesday. "Blogs and recommendations from friends are now more relevant in music discovery than what music critics have to say, but what's missing is a place that brings that all together. EMusic is that place. This is the first of six months of dramatic product improvements which we believe will set the bar for the way 'long tail' retailers -- and indeed all entertainment retailers -- must function online."
In addition to the above improvements, eMusic upped the resolution on its album art and surfaced its own editorial to make it easier to explore.
However, there doesn't appear to be a way to embed albums on an unsupported blog (I just tried), since eMusic doesn't appear to expose the raw HTML code. Instead, you must enter your user information for the social media sites into your eMusic account in order to to post albums directly. Still, overall, it's hard to see how eMusic's new stratagy of integrating both inwards and outwards with the rest of the web can fail to have a beneficial effect on the service.
EMusic subscriptions provide access to un-DRMed MP3 files from a catalog of over 3.5 million tracks from over 27 million independent labels. Plans range from $6 for 10 songs per month up to $75 for 300 tracks per month, with discounts available if you pay for a whole year in advance.



Me parecio un articulo interesante, porqe habla de la musica y las redes sociales, 2 temas qe me gustan e interesan mucho.


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Semana 15

Analyst: Investors 'Less Optimistic' About Apple's Q3 2008 Earnings
By Brian X. Chen July 21, 2008 2:22:42 PMCategories: Apple, iPhone, Steve Jobs

From an outsider's perspective, one would think Apple investors would find solace in the soaring success of iPhone 3G, but they're sitting on the edge of their seats over Apple's Q3 2008 earnings call to be held Monday afternoon. That's particularly because sales of the new handset aren't included in this quarterly report -- and also because of widespread concern over the CEO's seemingly diminishing health.
Investors will have to cross their fingers in hope of gaining from Apple's success selling computers, first-generation iPhones and AppleTVs between April 1 and June 30. Andy Hargreaves, consumer electronics analyst at Pacific Crest Securities, said investors are less optimistic about Apple's Q3 report than any other quarter in the past few years.
Hargreaves explained that Apple sold out of first-generation iPhones a month before the quarter ended. He said that in addition to discussion about Mac and iPhone sales, analysts will likely bring up the topic of Steve Jobs' health in light of the CEO's noticeably gaunt appearance at WWDC 2008. Shareholders are concerned that Jobs' health issues could spell out trouble for the company as a whole -- especially since Apple has no succession plan in place.
"There's a lot of concern," Hargreaves said in a phone interview. "Whether it's Steve Jobs' health, Mac, iPod, or iPhone, it's spread around."

Me parecio interesante porque es visible que no esta todo bien en apple, a pesar del nuevo iphone, y todo lo que eso incluye.

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Glassdoor: What Your Employees Think of You
July 21st, 2008 Category: Social Media

Glassdoor, a social website that lets employees rate and rank previous and current jobs, approval rating of your CEO (much like the presidential approval ratings) as well as share salaries, is slowly getting traction. I login every few weeks to see slow steady growth. If you’re in a management position or are in HR, I highly recommend you read the reviews and ratings that your employees are saying.
If you notice decision, and see a trend of similar complaints, there’s two things to realize: 1) Your internal feedback loop is probably not working, therefore employees are letting grievances air in public to customers, investors, and the board. 2) There are probably some issues that you may want to resolve and fix.
There are a few weaknesses with Glassdoor that we should take into account: 1) There’s still very little data, most companies just have a smattering of reviews, 2) All data is anonymous so it’s very difficult to track –or prove –that someone actually worked at the company. It would be interesting if they were able to anonymously approve accounts in LinkedIn thereby secretly verifying identities. 3) Unhappy employees and happy employees will reflect their attitude –and service– to customers, so be sure to acknowledge one of your most important assets.
Also, if a company is just getting smeared by it’s employees, a company should address these problems, as although you could block the site from work, people will access it at home.
For what it’s worth, I’m making it a rule not to publicly rate my current employer on these types of sites, although I’m likely to rate them after I move on. Instead, I’m more likely to be forth coming in internal discussions, in an effort to improve things, rather that say it in public.
As we move to new jobs, we’ll be looking at the reviews of future companies on Glassdoor (just as we review financials) before I accept a position, but will appropriately weight it depending on age of comments, number of total reviewers, and patterns for trends.
Although Glassdoor shows some data in public, if you’re curious to see what employees think of your company (or how much people make in other companies) you’ll have to register, and complete part of the submission process in order to see details.
Have you peered into the glassdoor? Were you surprised or did you get confirmation?

Me gusto mucho porque habla de una pagina en la cual podes dejar opiniones sobre directivos, u otras posiciones de tu empresa, y asi ellos se enteran de lo que piensan sus empleados.

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'Tongue Drive System' Controls Wheelchair, Computer
By Alexis Madrigal July 21, 2008 11:36:18 AM

Quadriplegics may gain a new degree of freedom via their tongues, if a new control system becomes widely available.
The new system uses that famously strong, agile and sensitive muscle, the tongue, to provide computer accessibility and wheelchair control to severely disabled people.
Designed by researchers for people with debilitating spinal cord injuries and diseases, the tongue-drive tech takes advantage of the nearly direct connection between the tongue and the brain via cranial nerves, which makes it particularly likely to remain functional, even after severe accidents.
The system has two parts: a small magnet, attached to the tip of the tongue via adhesive, piercing or implantation, and a headset with two three-dimensional magnetic sensors mounted on it. The headset picks up the location of the tongue via the magnet and transmits that information to a smartphone.
Maysam Ghovanloo, the lead Georgia Tech researcher, designed software that converts the position of the tongue into joystick or mouse movements, allowing the severely disabled to control a wheelchair or computer. The setup could provide an unprecedentedly simple and powerful means of locomotion for the disabled.
"This device could revolutionize the field of assistive technologies," Ghovanloo said in a release.

Me parecio un articulo interesante ya que habla de una nueva forma de comunicarse con una computadora, muy util para personas con discapacidades mostrices por ejemplo.

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Semana 14

Buscador de Caras
24/06/2008
Bueno creo que era lo que faltaba, un buscador de caras (rostros) que funciona con la tecnología de Google y Facebook.Ponemos el nombre y apellido de la persona, cruzamos los dedos, y si encuentra algún resultado te lo mostrará de una manera extraña, un carrusel.

Es increible como las diferentes paginas se combinan para generar algo como esto, un identificador de caran a traves de un nombre.

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El reconocimiento de voz en YouTube te permite realizar búsquedas de contenido hablado

Esto es enorme. Google ha añadido la capacidad de reconocimiento de voz en algunos vídeos de YouTube que te permite buscar texto hablado en estos vídeos.Para tratar tu mismo el reconocimiento de voz de YouTube, Añade este gadget a tu página principal de Google. La búsqueda se limita actualmente a algunos videos políticos pero este es un buen indicio de lo que está por venir en la búsqueda de Google.Si tu consulta de búsqueda coincide con algunos vídeos de YouTube, las posiciones se indican con marcadores de color amarillo, pasa el ratón para leer el texto transcrito como en la captura de pantalla.Google utiliza su propia tecnología de reconocimiento de voz para escuchar el audio del vídeo y, a continuación transcribir el discurso en texto.Y esto ocurre realmente rápido. Google puede buscar y transcribir el texto de los nuevos videos con horas después de que se han subido a YouTube.Imaginemos la utilidad de búsqueda de Google cuando se amplíe este reconocimiento de voz a otros contenidos de vídeo tales como programas de televisión, videos de noticias, podcasts de vídeo, etc.

Me parece genial como se mejora el uso de diferentes paginas de internet, de un uso tan masivo, como lo es YouTube.

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Cómo sacarle provecho a Yahoo Pipes?

Aunque el servicio de Yahoo Pipes es Beta y se encuentra en fase de prueba ha ganado popularidad entre los que utilizamos los servicios rss en la web; la facilidad de manipulación que permite en los feeds lo convierten una plataforma más poderosa que un navegador o un lector de noticias.

Yahoo Pipes es un servicio muy útil que permite fundir varias suscripciones RSS o Atom, filtrarlas, modificar sus contenidos y hasta reutilizar el pipe resultante.

Está implementado en una interfaz Ajax, que nos permite crear nuestros pipes con solo arrastrar y soltar; por lo que no es necesario tener conocimientos avanzados de programación ni ser un experto en la esfera informática para utilizarlo, ya que todo se hace sobre una interfaz visual, sin necesidad de escribir ni una sola línea de código.

Me parecio interesante, porqe yahoo pipes es una pagina que nosotros utilizamos, y saber como sacarle mejor provecho es muy bueno.

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Semana 13

Dell Mini-Notebook Will Cost Just $300
By Charlie Sorrel July 16, 2008 7:29:51

Dell's E mini-notebook computer, first outed when Gizmodo's Brian Lam collared Michael Dell

sneaking one about the D6: All Things Digital conference, has got a price. The E not only lops a few letters of the name of Asus' rival Eee PC, it also drops a few dollars, coming in at $300.
Price has been the problem with these mini-notebooks, and Dell is very welcome to bring its budget mass-marketing chops to the party. While not official, the news comes from the usually reliable DigiTimes, which tells us that the E will be available in the last quarter of the year. And none of this hunting in the stores to find one like we have to do with the Wind's and Eees of the world. Dell plans to knock out two to three million units by the end of the year.

Me parecio un articulo interesante ya que es muy notorio como las tecnologias van avanzando y abaratando los costos de los productos.

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Predictions: What Technology will Replace
July 08th, 2008

My CEO, George Colony lists out a few products and services that have ‘disappeared’ due to technology in his latest blog post. He lists out encyclopedias, classifies, records, actors and even trans-continental flights. He asks what could disappear next. I’ll throw out some hypothetical situations that could cause some of the following dissipate:
Support for products could be transplanted by peer to peer support tools like GetSatisfaction where passionate customers self-support each other bypassing corporations
“Outside” Sales teams could be replaced by Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) s where customers define what they want, companies respond.
Printed photos/photo centers, at least in the eyes of Generation Y are already falling by the wayside
Physical printed maps are already being replaced by digital GPS systems in many cars
Restaurant review companies like Fodors and Zagat, instead replaced by peer review sites like Yelp.
Digital book readers, like the Kindle, although still in early generations could replace distribution of printed books
Keyboard and mice, what a slow and archaic way of input, which needs to evolve from voice/eye recognition
Movie Theaters can go away as home entertainment systems get bigger screens in HD, with great audio at lower costs. Coupled with streaming data, HD movies can be piped directly into the home
Gasoline powered cars

Me parecio un articulo divertido, ya que habla de las cosas que vana cambiar gracias a las nuevas tecnologias.

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E3 2008: Nintendo Announcements

Me parecio un video interesante ya que la wii es un gran avance tecnologicamente, y me gusta saber sobre este tema.

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Semana 12

Compile Software From Source Code

Most of the time, especially in the Windows and Mac OS X world, we end users don't have to compile our own software. The programmers of the software wrote the code, and then compiled it into a "binary executable" that's designed to run on our particular type of computer and operating system.
Increasingly, though, with the popularity of open-source software, where the source code is available for one and all to read and enjoy, the final step of compiling the code into a runnable program is left up to the user. It needs to be compiled specifically for the type of system it'll run on, and maintaining separate binaries for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OS X Tiger, Panther, Linux x86, and all the rest is a bother. Also, publishing just the code leaves users free to modify it, often with publicly available patches, before compiling, to customize it to their needs.

Me parecio un buen articulo, ya que habla de poder modificar un programa desde el usuario final, es decir, nosotros, para mejorarlo, o darle otros usos.

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Video: IPhone 3G Pwned and Jailbroken



By Charlie Sorrel July 16, 2008 5:22:08 AM
The iPhone Dev Team has tested its Pwnage tool on the actual iPhone 3G hardware and it works. There are still some kinks, but a public release is promised in the next few days.







Check the video:


2.0 Demo from iphonedev on Vimeo.
What you are seeing is the iPhone 2.0 firmware, with all it's associated goodies and bugs, running on a Jailbroken iPhone. This means you have access to all the official third party applications as well as all the unofficial ones you have come to love (Mobile Scrobbler!)According to the Dev Team's blog, getting the hacked firmware running on the 3G hardware was not as easy as just porting the cracked version of the 2.0 beta firmware, which has been available for some months. Far from it:
Many of our best hackers have been working in long shifts all weekend on this, and continue to do so as I write this post, we like to think of these guys as our very own master cobblers.



Me parecio un articulo interesante, ya que me interesa el tema de la nueva generacion del iphone.


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Xbox Rock Band Instruments Work With New Guitar Hero
By Chris Kohler July 15, 2008 10:25:58 PMCategories

LOS ANGELES -- Own Rock Band instruments on Xbox 360? They'll work with Guitar Hero World Tour.
At Activision's E3 press conference Tuesday, Guitar Hero director Brian Bright told the crowd that if they already owned guitar controllers and drum controllers from "previous games" on the Xbox 360, they'd work with Guitar Hero World Tour.
What Activision didn't say is how that will actually work, considering that Rock Band drums have four pad inputs and Guitar Hero World Tour has five.
UPDATE: Here's how it'll work. Speaking with Bright after the conference, I found out that the game's five-button drum track, shown above center, will be compressed down to four inputs if a Rock Band drum controller is inserted.
There's also a MIDI jack on the back of the drum kit, Bright said, which will allow gamers to play Guitar Hero with any electronic drum kit by simply plugging it into the controller. You can also hook up a second drum pedal if you want to play two bass drums.

Me gusto porque demuestra como cada vez mas, lo virtual y lo real se conectan, en este caso, en una banda musical.

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