loseyourmother.com

Also, regarding Boingo: That company announced a new Apple product: A connector app for the
iPhone and
iPod Touch. For $7.95 a month, users of those devices can access the entire Boingo Wi-Fi network. For U.S.-based iPhone users on the AT&T network, this is not such a great product since AT&T-provided Wi-Fi is now free for them, but international users and travelers, and iPod Touch users (perhaps those who use TruPhone for VOIP calls) may find it a good deal.

Screen sharing is useful in business settings (I get a lot of demos over apps like Webex, for example), but it has personal applications as well: People could share photographs, and presumably videos as well, using the feature.

Available only for Mac OS X at first, the new version will add screen-sharing capabilities to the app’s voice, video, and chat communications features. Skype spokespeople told me that users will be able to run all four channels at once with acceptable performance.

Disruptive Telephony covered other new features in Skype 2.8, including a new way to update your Skype “mood” and to follow users in a Twitter-like fashion, bigger Avatar images, and a new way to manage and prioritize chat windows.

Skype co-founder Nicklas Zennstrom also started a Wi-Fi network called Fon, but Skype 2.8 doesn’t yet integrate with that system.

The Wi-Fi access feature makes Skype a more useful product for people who use the VoIP app from their Mac laptops, and the per-minute payment scheme makes sense for highly mobile users for whom buying access by the hour or month would leave a lot of unused credits behind.

Skype 2.8 for
Mac will ship on Tuesday, with new features including screen sharing and an integrated Wi-Fi hot spot connector.

Skype is also getting a feature that will allow users to access WiFi hotspots on the Boingo network for 19 cents a minute. The funds will be deducted from users’ Skype accounts. Boingo has about 85,000 hot spots worldwide, a Boingo rep told me. TMobile, the primary Wi-Fi provider at U.S. airports, is on the Boingo network.

That’s why the team has come up with its own alternative, which it is calling Adeona, the name for the Roman goddess of safe returns.

Additionally, if the laptop is a
Mac–at least one with a built-in camera–the software directs the camera to take a picture every 30 seconds or so. This means that the owner–if he or she has the credential key required to communicate with the laptop–can get pictures of whoever is using it. In some cases, they might recognize the person if, say, it was stolen by a neighbor, a co-worker, or someone else they know.

Plus, you get the benefit of being protected by a Roman goddess. And when is that not a good thing?

But in most cases, users who are wary of trusting their privacy to corporations may find that software like Adeona gives them an alternative they like.

The simplest is that it can broadcast the IP address where the computer is used, and the owner can use that information to contact law enforcement to help find the specific location.

To be sure, it’s a very unlikely scenario, but Kohno–the faculty leader of the Adeona project–pointed out several recent instances where companies in possession of people’s personal information were either forced to give it up in court, or where it was stolen by employees.

The team is also developing a version of its software for iPhones, though it isn’t ready for public use yet.

In essence, Adeona works very much like services like LoJack. But because the tracking doesn’t go through central servers, Kohno suggested that there is more privacy and less reliance on corporate middlemen.

To Kohno, the danger associated with commercial laptop-tracking services is that it’s never possible to know for sure that someone at a company that makes such software wouldn’t exploit the company’s possession of your personal information–and access to what’s on your laptop–for personal gain. Or, he said, that information could be subpoenaed in court cases.

SEATTLE–Imagine your laptop is stolen.

My sense is that this software isn’t for everyone and that it would require more knowledge of technology than the average laptop owner. But for those who have the requisite understanding, it might provide some comfort to know that they can turn to open-source software that doesn’t require going through anyone else’s servers.

The idea behind Adeona, according to Tadayoshi Kohno and Gabriel Maganis, who gave a talk about the project at the Gnomedex conference here Saturday, is to give people a method for safeguarding their laptops that relies neither on proprietary commercial software nor the centralized servers of the companies that provide such software.

There are existing services, such as LoJack, that are designed to help find purloined laptops by identifying the IP addresses where they are subsequently used and through other assorted methods.

But the software does use several different methods for laptop tracking, some of which might offer quick recovery.

(Credit:
Adeona, a project being run out of the Computer Science department at the University of Washington, aims to give people a way to track stolen laptops while also providing the kind of privacy that commercial services may not offer.)

Set aside for a second the likelihood that if it was you wouldn’t be able to read this story and think instead about how you might go about tracking it down.

Of course, the utility of Adeona, and any other laptop tracking software, for that matter, relies on the thief not being sufficiently tech-savvy that they can discover it and uninstall it. Further, as a FAQ on the Adeona site points out, the software can be abused by the owner to track, say, what a girlfriend or boyfriend is doing with the computer.

Adeona, they said, is the world’s first free, open-source laptop-tracking system, and one that can be installed by users themselves, and which doesn’t require a corporate intermediary.

To be sure, the information you can get from Adeona if your computer does end up stolen will not necessarily lead you directly to it. It would most likely still take a bit of sleuthing, Kohno suggested.

With Adeona, however, a user needs only install a piece of free, downloadable, software on their computer, and then make sure to make a copy of a credential key that the software provides and that they must keep on, say, a thumb drive, and which is required to track the laptop if it’s stolen.

But according to a team of computer scientists at the University of Washington, the price you pay for utilizing such services is a loss of privacy–as well as a reliance on a corporate third party to take care of you.

It also can sniff the SSID of the wireless network the thief is on, something that could be useful in tracking down the location of the computer.

Financial details were not disclosed.

The Landlord on FunnyOrDie.com

Funny or Die, co-founded by Ferrell and backed by venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, made a splash last year after the comedian released a clip called “The Landlord.” The video became an Internet super hit and was viewed more than 55 million times.

Comedy clips have proven a good fit for the Internet. Sites like CollegeHumor and Funny or Die have attracted plenty of attention from fans and investors.

The group, which helped launch the careers of Will Ferrell, Phil Hartman, and Lisa Kudrow, announced Wednesday that it has agreed to produce 50 Webisodes over a year. The clips, which will be distributed by Sony Pictures Television, will appear on the Internet as well as mobile phones.

To the list of comedians trying to cash in on the Web, add The Groundlings, the revered Los Angeles improvisational comedy troupe.

A video from Microsoft Research and the University of Washington has been causing a stir online. The seven-minute clip, which was presented at Siggraph 2008 this week in Los Angeles, gives a small peek at some photo-viewing technology that’s effectively the next generation of Photosynth, one of Microsoft Live Labs’ most eye-popping technology demos.

Photosynth’s technology puts hundreds of photos on a 3D map that users can browse and navigate in a similar fashion to real life. This new technology lets the viewer see several sides of a captured object using the varying angles from multiple photos. It also figures out where most of the shots have been taken to automatically create “orbits” that let users sweep around to view alternate angles–simulating distance and perspective.

[via IStartedSomething]

One of the most amazing aspects is how selective the system is to build a better user experience. For instance, if shots come from different angles or heights, the photos will be centered or properly moved around the 3D space to make it smooth. It will also pick out only photos from a specific time of day, and make automatic color corrections to even everything out. The demo of this around the 4:17 mark is really, really cool.

While Photosynth continues to be a technology demo, here’s hoping we get fun stuff like this to play with as part of popular photo-sharing sites. Users are already geotagging their shots on sites like Flickr, but the browsing experience once they’re on a 2D map is a little blah. Going forward it should be all about making that viewing experience both engaging and as realistic as possible.

Related: Microsoft touches up video editing

Earlier this week, Icahn’s proxy fight got a boost when Microsoft announced it would be willing to renew its buyout bid for all of Yahoo, or just its search assets, with a “new” Yahoo board.

As Miller calls on Icahn to issue a statement that he would not be willing to sell Yahoo to Microsoft for anything less than $33 a share, the portfolio manager may want to recall similar advice Icahn had given to Yahoo in early June.

(Credit:
CNET News)

Icahn and Microsoft, however both stated they were unwilling to discuss the details or price of any transactions that Microsoft may propose to a new board.

Yahoo’s third largest investor offered up some advice Tuesday to dissident shareholder Carl Icahn on what it may take to swing investor votes his way in a proxy fight, according to a Reuters report.

Microsoft withdrew its sweetened unsolicited buyout bid in May, after Yahoo countered with a request for $37 a share, and failed to strike a partial deal for just Yahoo’s search business in June.

The difficulty with Icahn is he’d have more shareholder support if he would say he wouldn’t sell the company for less than $33.

Shares of Yahoo were down slightly in morning trading, nearly off 1 percent at $24.44 a share.

Now, as Microsoft said Monday in its statement of support for Icahn’s proxy contest:

Icahn, in a letter to Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock, had stated:

We have concluded that we cannot reach an agreement with them. We confirm, however, that after the shareholder election Microsoft would be interested in discussing with a new board a major transaction with Yahoo such as either a transaction to purchase the “Search” function with large financial guarantees or, in the alternative, purchasing the whole company.

But, of course, that was a different time, a different era, in the five-month saga between Yahoo can Microsoft. That was a time when Microsoft was still willing to negotiate with Yahoo.

I hope to continue to be speaking to Steve over the next few weeks; however, since I do not yet represent the Yahoo board, both Steve and I do not wish to get into details over price, or even which of these transactions makes the most sense.

What is the magic number for Carl Icahn?

Much has been said about how badly the Yahoo board has “botched up” negotiations with Microsoft over the past months. There is no need to keep pointing out the mistakes I believe Yahoo made by not immediately taking a $33 offer made by Microsoft.

In my opinion, Microsoft does not believe you will ever sell the entire company on a friendly basis. So why don’t you stop dancing around the subject and publicly offer to sell the company to Microsoft for $34.375 per share and promise to cooperate completely?

Legg Mason portfolio manager Bill Miller had this observation to offer to Reuters, when queried on whether he would support Icahn’s proxy fight to unseat Yahoo’s board of directors at the company’s August 1 shareholders meeting:

Said Icahn in his statement Monday, referring to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer:

The 2007 tournament was held in Seattle, while the 2008 final will be held in Cologne, Germany, this November. But that has been known for some time.

The exact dates of the 2009 event weren’t revealed.

The World Cyber Games brings the top video game players from dozens of countries together for several days of matches. The players play several leading games, with champions being crowned in each title.

And while the World Cyber Games made its announcement Tuesday, it also said it would be holding a “formal” announcement ceremony in Chengdu on April 23.

The 2009 World Cyber Games grand final will be held in Chengdu, China. The 2008 final is being held in Cologne, Germany.

(Credit:
World Cyber Games)

The news about the 2009 event is notable because it adds credibility to China as a home for serious video game playing and players. The news comes shortly after the Championship Gaming Series–a professional video game league–announced that it would be opening a training facility and the world’s first video game arena in Wuhan, China.

What’s not known is if there will be protests surrounding the World Cyber Games in Chengdu along the lines of what’s been seen in Paris and San Francisco this week in relation to the passage of the Olympic torch.

The World Cyber Games, probably the largest global video game tournament, announced Tuesday that it will hold the grand finale of its 2009 event in Chengdu, China.

The real magic is how OpenTrace can whip through all of the components of a product you’d buy and derive a score. For example, calculating the relative “greenness” of a six-pack of beer in aluminum cans vs. a six-pack of glass bottles. OpenTrace not only takes into account the first order environmental costs of aluminum versus glass, a domestic product versus an import, but the second order costs of processing foodstuffs like rice and wheat, manufacturing hydrocarbon-based materials and transportation costs.

OpenTrace goes one giant step past just settling once and for all what’s the right answer to “Paper or Plastic?” the next time the bagger asks you at your local store: it let’s you track your cumulative CO2 impact as the ultimate product of the things you buy and the miles you fly. For example, here’s Hirofumi Manganji’s OpenTrace after flying from Tokyo to San Francisco, buying a new laptop and having lunch:

Everyone wants to go green when they shop, but calculating the CO2 impact of everything that went into the manufacture, transportation and packaging of one box of cereal versus another in your head is not in the realm of possible.

Unfortunately, before OpenTrace.org can go from an alpha that impressed more than a few people today to competitive advantage for more environmentally-friendly manufacturers, they need to find funding, boil the technology into a marketable web app and frankly overcome the language barrier.

Back in June I happened to meet these proverbial two guys in a [Tokyo] garage who demoed under non-disclosure OpenTrace to me and three other American bloggers. They had all the passion and drive a startup based anywhere needs to succeed. I’m glad today they got the exposure and validation they need to go from brilliant technology to, hopefully, a shelf near you.

According to Shimachi, the alpha version (from which the screen shots in this post were taken), will be up soon at the site, but since this is still very much an alpha product, visitors will be able to view, not enter new data.

“Everybody wants to be green, but there’s no easy way to trace the impact we have everyday,” said Hiroaki Shimachi, one of the founders of Rinen, the company behind OpenTrace. “We can trace the environmental impact of anything from an SD card to a 747 or even something as simple as home-made bread.”

(Credit:
Bob Walsh)

The infrastructure behind this environmental magic is part public wiki, so that product manufacturers can enter exact data and part innovative database which can be visually navigated. There’s a strong incentive for manufacturers to provide the data, they get a printable OpenTrace number and a 2d bar code which could be read by a cellphone (such 2d bar codes are commonplace in Japan where mobiles are used for everything from paying train fares to grabbing information.)

Enter Rinen, Inc., a Tokyo-based, garage-based, startup premiering at TechChrunch50 today with OpenTrace.org, a web app which calculates the environmental cost of a product and can boil that down to a single comprehensible number. Want to get a rough approximation of that box of cereal’s environmental load all the way back to the processing of the oats in it? Scan the bar code with your cell phone and OpenTrace.org crunches the numbers and come back with a single score.

Intel, of course, is a chipmaker and so there is plenty of silicon that goes along with the package. The third-generation vPro suite (formerly code-named McCreary) uses Core 2 quad-core or dual-core processors in combination with Q45 Express Chipset, the 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection, and Intel Active Management technology 5.0. Mobile chipsets, such as the GM, PM, and GS Express chipsets also support vPro.

For example, a feature called Remote Alert will “call” IT on its own if the PC is experiencing problems “outside preset parameters,” Intel said.

Does Intel vPro ring any bells? Not for most people. The newest version of vPro software and accompanying Intel hardware introduced Monday won’t command the attention paid to an Intel processor rollout.

And for small businesses which may need immediate help with PC problems, Intel introduced Remote PC Assist Technology that connects businesses with service providers. After the business user enters a key sequence, the service providers can use vPro to solve problems.

Intel also introduced two motherboards Monday supporting all of the new Intel vPro features. Aimed at channel customers, the DQ45CB is for standard-sized PCs and the DQ45EK is for small-form-factor systems.

Understandable because vPro is an under-the-hood, non-performance-driven technology that falls off many PC users’ radar screens. In essence, vPro allows PCs to be fixed and maintained remotely, potentially saving businesses money because they don’t incur the cost of IT staffing levels necessary if maintenance was done at each PC on site.

Intel says this is also good for the service provider, allowing broader access to customers. Initially, Intel Remote PC Assist will be available in North America.

One of vPro’s marquee features is the ability to access a computer even if it has been turned off. This can be done on either a wired or a secure wireless network. And laptops outside the company firewall can be accessed with the newest versions of software and hardware, according to Intel.

An analyst rekindled speculation Monday that the world’s largest graphics chip supplier would sell off its chipset business, while rumors persist that the company would play a larger role in an expected refresh of the Apple MacBook.

If that wasn’t enough, Pacific Crest said Nvidia may see share loss in the notebook market next year as a result of a future refresh of “Montevina” graphics silicon from Intel.

(Credit:
Nvidia)

Some are even pointing to a graphic on the Nvidia notebook home page of a slim notebook design as a possible MacBook design–though a more plausible explanation is that it’s simply generic artwork.

Apple uses Nvidia graphics chips in its high-end MacBook Pros, but the MacBook and MacBook Air use Intel integrated graphics silicon. One of the latter two could be recipients of new Nvidia graphics chips.

Nvidia chipsets–sometimes referred to as MCPs–serve as supporting silicon for the company’s graphics processors. In the past, Nvidia has denied that it will exit the chipset business.

The analyst also speculated that Nvidia will pre-announce negative results for the third quarter (ended October). Nvidia has been dogged by negative press and analyst reports after it disclosed issues with its processors and chipsets back in July.

Nvidia graphic on its notebook home page

But not all is lost. On the upside, rumors persist that Nvidia will play a large role in an expected MacBook refresh this month. The latest rumor holds that Nvidia is showing off prototypes internally of upcoming MacBooks with new Nvidia silicon.

Nvidia shares fell Monday after a Pacific Crest analyst issued a negative report on the company’s prospects. In the report, the analyst said “our checks confirm” that Nvidia will exit the chipset business next year.

Nvidia would not comment on the rumors.

Nvidia has become a Silicon Valley hot spot for rumors. One is tied to an analyst downgrade Monday, the other to the rumored Apple MacBook refresh.

Although the feature is initially only aimed at in-house testers, a similar feature could one day find its way into broader testing, potentially even into Microsoft beta products. “I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see this become a way that we do beta management, going forward,” Mendlen said.

A Microsoft representative did say that “the two technologies are not related and that in Visual Studio Team System the ‘black box’ is only on testers machines and only turned on when the tester decides it should be turned on.”

Visual Studio Team System 2010 will offer tools for managing test cases and execution, and will boost support for filing actionable bugs.

Airplanes are equipped with recorders that capture both cockpit audio and flight data, so in the event that something goes wrong, investigators can try to determine the source of the problem.

“I can tell you it won’t ship in 2011,” he said.

Updated 9:56 a.m. PDT:
Added screen shot and a link to Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2010 page.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

Microsoft offered scant other details about Visual Studio 2010 and the .Net Framework 4.0. It’s a safe bet that better support for cloud-based services will be included, though. “That is certainly an area that Visual Studio and the .Net Framework will have to address,” Mendlen said. “As we enable service-based technologies, of course we will have to tool it.”

The Redmond giant is not the only company looking to transfer the TiVo notion to software development. A company called Replay Solutions launched a product in June for enterprise Java applications.

In an interview last week, Microsoft Developer Division Director Dave Mendlen said the feature is designed to avoid the all-too-frequent conflict that occurs when a software tester finds a bug that the developer says it can’t reproduce. Internally, the feature has been called “TiVo for debuggers.”

Microsoft wouldn’t get too much into other features of the product, but it outlined a few broad areas where it is seeking to improve the product, including “enabling cloud computing” and “powering breakthrough departmental applications.”

Microsoft itself used the notion of a “black box” feature back in 2005.

Mendlen said it is expected to ship in fiscal year 2010 (which runs through June 2010).

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates talked about adding a “black box” to Windows (without the video-recording ability, though). Microsoft later said it wasn’t broadly expanding the “Watson” error-reporting capabilities beyond the kinds of data it already had been collecting. It was never totally clear as to what Gates was referring to.

Microsoft is aiming to give software developers the same kind of access. In the next version of its developer tool suite, to be known as Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft plans to include the ability to record the full screens of what testers are seeing, as well as data about their machine. When a test application crashes, the technology will enable developers to see the bug as it occurred.

Speaking of 2005, that same year, a pair of Canadian developers created a Visual Studio 2010 concept, kicked around by a back in 2005. Since they were the first to mention Visual Studio 2010, I thought I would give them some link love.

The company is also talking about new modeling tools it says will make it easier for programmers new to a team to get a sense of how earlier versions of the software work. One of the other goals is to add more business intelligence tools–things like dashboards and cockpits–that enable the project managers to assess whether a development project is on track. “The guys that are paying the bills often get very little info,” Mendlen said.