Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff | TAG: The lighter side

MORE ENTRIES

TAG: The lighter side

December 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)

'FoolTube': Jackass to launch user video site

Smack in the middle of a strike over digital intellectual property rights, one Hollywood studio is taking a two-footed approach to kicking striking writers in the crotch, as Paramount Pictures will debut Jackass 2.5 online, the first online premiere of a studio feature film, according to a report in today's New York Times.

Reality TV and the Web -- two ongoing sore points for scriptwriters these days, here, rolled up into one.

The famed LCD (least common denominator) franchise -- built in the main on filming the largely unthinkable -- will take its hour-long masochistic filth fest to the Web beginning Dec. 19 via Blockbuster's Movielink.

"There's more vomiting, nudity and defection," an anonymous executive told the Times, proving once again that standards-bearing quality content is fast finding its first home on the Web.

[For the record,the release date for Jackass 2.5, an unscripted, non-WGA film, was set prior to the writer's strike, according to a company representative.]

But the opportunity to watch Johnny Knoxville and Co. explore the boundaries of the body's ability to withstand creatively induced pain is only the first stage of this potential Web phenom rocket.

Not deaf to the clamor for community, MTV will launch jackassworld.com [Not an IDG affiliate. --Ed.], a site devoted to your idiocratic 2.0 needs, including blogs, archived content, and -- you guessed it -- user-generated video.

That's right, you will no longer have to troll through "in-the-nuts" YouTube meta tags to fulfill your at-work cringing fix.

And whereas Netflix continues to pursue Web 2.0-minded approaches to increasing its online DVD rental lead, tapping crowdsourcing to improve its peer-based recommendation engine, Blockbuster is parrying here with an old-guard favorite: exclusive rights to air Jackass 2.5 online for a week, thanks to corporate-to-corporate dealings between it and Paramount.

And for those of you who don't get that Sun Microsystems Project Sun Spot Development Kit sensor and robotics kit off InfoWorld's "Must-have gadgets for the discerning geek" gift list, Jackass 2.5 will be available for download ownage on Dec. 26 via iTunes and Amazon.com, according to the Times.

We may have to wait impatiently for the continuations of Battlestar Galactica and The Office, but in the meantime, at least we know those Hollywood bigwigs have an eye on "[opening] up and [changing] the game about additional content studios can create," as Paramount Pictures Digital Entertainment President Thomas Lesinski told the Times.

And that, of course, is a potential cash cow for them, based on your interest in taking a server blade to the crotch.

What sort of IT-related jackassworld.com contributions do you anticipate seeing?

Posted by Jason Snyder on December 13, 2007 10:59 AM

September 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Beers vie for CPU-coolant title

Despite a seemingly multimillion-dollar ad campaign to convince the world that its mere presence can frost away the heat, Coors Light came in distant last in what amounts to the world's first International Beer CPU Coolant Competition hosted by the ever-curious folks at Tom's Hardware.

For those late to the beer-as-CPU-coolant craze, Shelton Romhanyi and company pitted Molson's Canadian Beer against three industry-leading CPU coolants and a diluted solution of antifreeze to determine the best means possible for cooling an overclocked CPU. Shocking to some, the flat, warm libation from the Great White North took home second place.

Not to be outpaced de facto by their Canadian co-workers, the folks at Tom's sites in Germany, Ireland, and the United States proferred their own quaffable contenders to attempt to knock Molson's off the block as the world's best beer CPU coolant.

Guiness, Franziskaner Hefe-weissbier, and Coors Light were put through the beer-bong-tubing CPU-cooling ringer to varying efficacy.

Viscosity may have played a role in Guiness's pasting of the pathetic showing of the American frost-brewed light. And the unfiltered yeast present in the Hefe-weissbier may very well have proved the key cooling ingredient in Franziskaner's tipping the CPU temperature scale further to the cool end of the spectrum than Guiness did.

And yet at the end of this installment, nothing cooled to the extent of the original, as Molson's remained the top beer for whisking CPU heat away.

Posted by Jason Snyder on September 6, 2007 12:18 PM

August 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Beer declared second-best CPU coolant

For gamers and other process-hungry PC users seeking to eke out an extra cycle or two from an overclocked CPU, the answer may reside in the cozy in your hand.

Shelton Romhanyi and crew over at Tom's Hardware have taken it upon themselves in a two-part video to put three industry-leading liquid coolants to the ultimate test: Can they outcool Molson's Canadian Beer in a CPU cooling comparison?

Each of the liquid contenders -- which included Thermaltake Standard UV Sensitive High Performance Coolant, SilverStone Thermal Fluid, and Koolance Computer Liquid Coolant, as well as a diluted solution of Zerex automotive antifreeze, and, of course, a flat, room-temperature bottle of Molson's -- was passed alongside an an X6800 CPU overclocked to 3.63GHz through a system of beer-bong-esque tubing. Temperatures were taken just before the coolant reached the CPU, under the premise that, the cooler the liquid when hitting the CPU, the more effective it is at cooling.

Naïve as this hypothesis may be regarding the principles of thermal physics, the tests show unequivocally that in a crude setting nothing beats a beer when it comes to cooling your computing jets. Well, except for SilverStone, which under-termperatured Molson's by a fraction of a degree Celsius.

Posted by Jason Snyder on August 10, 2007 05:14 PM

January 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Smile, Sydney: You're on Google Maps!

Attention people of Sydney, Australia: You're being advised to tidy up, comb your hair, and for goodness sake, put some pants on this coming Friday, Jan. 26. Why? Because Google is preparing to get some up-close aerial shots of your fair city for Google Maps -- close enough such that individual people may be distinguishable on the resulting digital maps.

That's my advice, anyway: Google is urging you to do whatever you like to get noticed and stand out on Friday -- which happens to be Australia Day. "The company is encouraging people to wear something distinctive, hold up a sign (face-up), draw in the sand, or even arrange themselves into a 'fun formation,'" reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

Whether that charge will result in Google procuring a different type of "moon" map -- thanks to some more exhibitionistic Aussies -- remains to be seen.

The shots will, of course, be taken from a low-flying plane; Google has secured clearance to swoop down as low as 600 meters (approximately 1,970 feet).

This is the first time Google will try anything on this scale, according to the SMA's report: Lars Rasmussen, head of engineering for Google Australia and one of the lead engineers for Google Maps, "said the images will add a 'few more zoom levels' to the local maps and be between three to four times more detailed than are currently available for Australian terrain on Google Maps."

"That would put them on par or better than the Google Map images of the Netherlands where, for instance, one of the aerial photographs shows a woman in a swimsuit sunbathing on the balcony of a low-rise block of units."

A map of the flyover route can be found here.

Posted by Ted Samson on January 23, 2007 03:43 PM

December 19, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Net evolves: Meet interactive elf

In the beginning, there was the Dancing Banana -- and it was good, at least as far as Internet amusements went.

Ever since that hyperactive banana hit the Net in 2000, we've witnessed a rise in both the sophistication and interactive nature of this sort of Net fluff that gets passed along via e-mail, IM, and blog postings. And it's not only creative developer types spawning them for their own amusement and notoriety. Companies are leveraging the Web medium to effectively spark viral marketing campaigns -- which not only give themselves some potentially inexpensive publicity, but also can showcase some rather inventive uses of ever-evolving Web technology.

Case in point: OfficeMax has launched an entertaining "Elf Yourself" campaign that generated plenty of chuckles and guffaws (as well as some eye-rolling and snorts of derision) at the InfoWorld office.

The idea is, you upload a photo of yourself (or someone else). After a couple of steps to properly size the pic, the Web app will generate an animation of an elf grooving to some swing-y Christmas music -- with its face being the picture you've uploaded. Want a sample? See Sir Bill the Elf get his groove on.

OK, that bit's not necessarily sophisticated, and it's been done before (e.g. the "Wedding Crashers" Web promotion from a couple of years ago).

The interesting bit is, once you've uploaded the image, you can add a voice message for the elf to utter as it dances and prances about. When I first visited the site, I assumed a mic was needed, but no; the Web site gives you a phone number and a code. Dial the number, follow the prompts to enter your code and record your message -- and within moments, the little elf is "speaking" it (though it's sped up to sound more elfish).

Now granted, this isn't the most useful application of Web 2.0 technology -- but it's still a pretty inventive creation. I was particularly impressed by how quickly the voice and animation were stitched together -- though the one I made with voice (not posted here) was done later in the evening, because I got a busy signal trying to record a message during the day.

Oh, and on a semi-related holiday Net-fluff note, there's also the Simon Sez Santa 2.0 site, which is sort of a rip-off of Burger King's infamous and disturbing Subservient Chicken -- but still fun.

Do you have any entertaining seasonal sites to share?

Posted by Ted Samson on December 19, 2006 08:35 AM

December 13, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Blogger gets request to de-Google

Suppose you're an online vendor who's displeased with the ranking of your business Web site on Google. Well, you could try tweaking your ad words. Perhaps you could consider better marketing. Heck, maybe you could contact Google for answers or guidance. You might get lucky.

Or you might conclude that the best approach is to ask that people with higher-ranked sites de-Google themselves immediately.

Astonishingly, an unnamed e-merchant out there in cyberspace has taken the latter approach, sending threatening letters to blogger Dean Hunt. (Hunt's blog, by the way, is called "Deano's World - Internet Marketing, Madrid, Life, SEO & More." It appears to cover all types of topics.)

Anyway, the first odd e-mail he received, sent Dec. 8, reads as follows:

"My name is [edited] and I run [edited].com"

"I have been running the site for over two years and we have been ranked very highly for the search term [edited]."

"On Thursday morning I checked our google positions and your site is now above us for this term. I haev checked your blog and it has nothing to do with [edited], so I think it would be best all round if you remove your blog from google for this search term."

I know what you're probably thinking: What's the search term? Well, Dean hasn't shared that bit of info in his posts, nor the name of his adversary's business. Maybe he doesn't want to give Mr. Whacky extra publicity -- or maybe he's just trying to further protect his Web ranking by shielding his super-secret search term.

Dean did reply to the letter, though, essentially telling the sender that: a) he never attempted to rank for the mystery term; b) the fact that he does may be more of a commentary about the quality of the complainer's site; c) there's nothing he can do to remove himself for Search Term X; and d) the angry Web vendor should probably spend more time tweaking his site than e-mailing ridiculous requests.

Lo, Dean received a reply from the mystery merchant -- one with a more threatening tone:

"You have to understand Dean that an online business should be higher in Google than a blog."

"Don't forget that Google is a business as well, they obviously make more money from other businesses than they do from blogs, so it is in their interest that I am higher than you for certain searches."

"I have also contacted my lawyer about this issue, so you should expect a letter in the post very soon."

While we wait to hear from Mr. Nutjob's attorney, how about we speculate on just what search term he wants to claim as his own? My co-worker Stephanie suggested it's SEO, which is in the title of Hunt's blog. SEO stands for search engine optimization, and apparently, Hunt knows a thing or two about that subject -- at least relative to others out there.

Also, have you ever received (or sent?) similarly odd requests to anyone?

Posted by Ted Samson on December 13, 2006 01:12 PM

November 14, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Second Life's gloss comes off

CNET News.com, Reuters and now Dell have jumped aboard the buzz machine into the virtual world of Second Life, with the news groups setting up virtual newsrooms. Reuters was so enamored it even assigned a reporter to cover the buzzy world full-time.

But the darling of late may already be losing its gloss with some journalists, who are tired of living a professional second life with companies holding press conferences and other events, such as IBM's Virtual Bloc Party, in it, TechDirt reports.

Is it really a surprise? And to think, I asked my boss if InfoWorld should set up something. So glad he told me we needed a First Life first.

Posted by Mike Barton on November 14, 2006 03:31 PM

October 10, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Yahoo to digitally encapsulate 2006

If there's any intelligent life out there with the right technology, they can expect to receive a laser-guided load of multimedia messages from our little blue-green planet, thanks to Yahoo.

The search company announced today the launch of an Internet time capsule, intended to document life in 2006. People from around the globe are invited to submit digital photos, text, movies, and audio files on topics such as love, sorrow, beauty, the past, and the present.

At the end of the project (about 29 days from now), the time capsule will be saved onto a digital archive and sealed at the Yahoo HQ to be opened in 2020. Another copy will go to the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings archive in Washington D.C.

Finally, in a move that has PR stunt written all over it, Yahoo on Oct. 25 through 27 will project the capsule contents onto one of the world's oldest time capsules, the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacán, Mexico, and beam it into space from the pyramid. This event will be viewable live via Webcast.

"Wherever people use Yahoo -- from Mexico, Germany or China to the U.S. -- we want them to represent their culture and show us what's impor-tant to them by participating in this historic Internet time capsule event," said Jerry Yang, co-founder and "chief Yahoo." "It will be fascinating to see what people submit as their part of this 2006 snapshot, which will be shared with generations to come."

The time capsule, accessible at timecapsule.yahoo.com, was designed by artist Jonathan Harris, and it shows. Aesthetically speaking, I think Harris has done an impressive job of designing an application that's not only aesthetically pleasing but also intuitive for making contributions and sifting through them.

There is, for example, a neat Facts page, where you can view all sorts of data about what kind of contributions have been made to the capsule.

(I did observe that some contributors didn't quite grasp the proper technique of tagging contributions, though.)

Also nice: Yahoo will be donating $100,000, divided among eight charities. When you add to the time capsule, you may select which charity of the eight you support.

My only hope is that no one contributes a clip from the show "ALF." I think that could serve to antagonize otherwise peaceful aliens out there who don't take kindly to being portrayed so demeaningly.

Posted by Ted Samson on October 10, 2006 05:22 PM

August 24, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Sun baits HP with wooden cutout

Note from the writer, Sept. 7: In this article, I incorrectly reported the material from which the cutout is made. It's wood. I regret any confusion I may have caused.

Sun has its fair share of cutups. Now they've been joined by a cutout.

In a stunt that appears to be part PR, part prank, and part pestering, Sun has secured a wooden cutout of HP founders William Hewlett and David Packard for $6,000, boasts Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz in his blog. Since acquiring the life-size portrait, Sun has set up various photo-ops with it, bedecking the duo in pro-Sun and Solaris paraphernalia.

Therein lies the prank and the pestering of the stunt. The PR emerges in Schwartz's touting of Solaris in his post. "With nearly 25% of Solaris downloads requested on to HP's servers, we know their customers really want the partnership, and we're happy to oblige," he writes.

"To warn you in advance, Bill and Dave have both indicated a strong interest in learning more about Sun and the Solaris platform, so stay tuned," he continues.

The wooden dual portrait, by the way, was part of a cross-country art project called "Pioneers Hitchhiking in the Valley of Heart's Delight."

HP was given right of first refusal to purchase the portrait of its esteemed founders, but the company declined. In his own blog, HP Vice President of Global Marketing Strategy and Excellence Eric Kintz returns Schwartz's volley, seemingly unimpressed by, or perhaps even sour on, Sun's "nice stunt." "I never met Bill or Dave, but I bet neither of them would have approved paying thousands for representations of themselves," he writes.

Kintz also made a point of addressing Schwartz's claims about the popularity of Solaris on HP servers by pointing to an HP-written summation of a 2006 IDC report. As far as I can tell, nothing there contradicts Schwartz's assertions of Solaris being downloaded to 25 percent of all HP servers. The report does say that "HP is #1 in high-end Unix server revenue with a 48.3% market share worldwide. IBM is #2 with 20.7% and Sun is #3 with 14.0%."

As for the fate of Hewlett and Packard: Sun says it will donate the piece to the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose.

Posted by Ted Samson on August 24, 2006 03:30 PM

August 03, 2006 | Comments: (0)

"Snakes on a Plane" campaign takes Web 2.0 marketing to new heights

If you've set foot on the Internet lately, you've heard of the forthcoming popcorn flick "Snakes on a Plane," starring Samuel L. Jackson. Well, if any movie deserves an award for best use of the Internet for marketing, this is it.

Internet users grabbed hold of the movie's delightfully laughable title and premise (it's about snakes ... on a plane!), posting tributes -- including writings, graphics, and videos -- of all kinds in forums, blogs, and viral video sites like YouTube.

This new brand of Internet marketing, which is inexpensive and highly effective, has been integral in creating an astonishing buzz (hiss?) about "Snakes on a Plane." In fact, the movie producers wisely noticed the attention the film was receiving on the Net and even re-filmed parts of it, incorporating lines that fans had made up in fake previews they'd created.

Advertising and marketing agencies should take note: There's a case study here in leveraging Web 2.0 technology to brainwash, er, get your message out to the masses. (Heck, I'm even letting myself become a tool in it.)

The latest use of said technology to promote the film is really pretty remarkable, both in terms of its general creativity as well as its technological execution. You go to the Web site snakesonaplane.varitalk.com, where you're prompted to type in your name and the name of someone who you'd like to receive a personalized recorded message from Samuel L. Jackson about the flick. Then you select some info about that person through some dropdown menus, stuff like the person's job and means of transit.

The site will then generate the personalized message in Jackson's voice, nearly seamlessly slipping in references to the details you provided about the recipient. (There are a lot of names in the database, though I found that my name -- Ted -- was missing, as was the name Simon, which means I couldn't send the message to my sister's Siamese cat.)

And here's the most interesting bit: When it comes time to send the message, you can opt to use e-mail, or you can key in the recipient's phone number. Within moments, his or her phone will ring, and lo, he or she will hear the message you've created. That is, if the person doesn't hang up first.

The underlying technology for the site, as far as I can tell, is called Modulate 2.0, which comes from a company called VariTalk, based in Chicago. Modulate is a the company's CDMS (Concatenated Digital Media Server), which the company's Web site says "delivers personalized audio output that is indistinguishable from a real human voice."

The company's Web site asserts that Modulate can generate and encode more than 500 fully personalized 60-second audio applications per second on a single host.

I'll get more specific on the technology, once the CTO of VariTalk, Frederick Lowe, has a chance to catch his breath. He tells me the campaign has been the company's most successful ever. More details to follow -- but not today.

In the meantime, why not send some of your friends and relatives a personalized message from Mr. Jackson? They'll be delighted. Or confused. Or possibly annoyed (like my girlfriend was. Sorry, darling!).

Posted by Ted Samson on August 3, 2006 09:46 AM

July 31, 2006 | Comments: (0)

MyHeritage.com puts a new face on face recognition

The celebrity I most resemble is Dominic Monaghan -- at least according to the Web site MyHeritage.com. The site calculates that resemblance at 68%, mind you. OK. I can see it. Maybe I have Hobbit blood. (I guess I should add that I also bear a reported 62% resemblance to Jerry Bruckheimer.)

Launched in its beta form two weeks ago, MyHeritage.com is built atop the company's face-recognition software, with a nifty Flash UI. One of the site's clever tricks is, it lets you upload a mugshot of yourself (or anyone, for that matter; the pic should be large, and the subject should be forward-facing. The site recommends the subject should not be smiling, but my girlfriend reports getting preferable results with a smiling shot).

Once the picture is uploaded, the application analyzes it, then searches through an extensive database of some 3,200 famous people of past and present. Within moments, it delivers the names and photos of those you (or whoever's photo you uploaded) most resemble. (Proceed with caution; it can be a little addicting.)

Mind you, the purpose of the site isn't to shatter your ego by pointing out your 97% resemblance to Steve Buscemi (whose work I very much enjoy, by the way) or Carrot Top (no comment); as the company's name suggests, MyHeritage.com is intended for family history research. Here's how Gilad Japhet, the CEO of the Tel Aviv, Israel-based company, explains it: "Teach the system what your relatives look like by providing a few examples, and we may just find additional photos of your ancestors that other users have contributed, including photos you've never seen before. We may even find photos of your ancestors, based on facial similarity to your family members."

Another possibility: "We'll just find someone on the other side of the globe who looks just like you." Very useful; you may finally be able to prove that it was, indeed, your evil twin who was getting you in trouble all along.

Of course, being the enterprise-technology-minded InfoWorlder that I am, I wondered how face-recognition techonology is coming along for more enterprise-oriented applications, like security. Are we nearing the point that a company can run cameras throughout HQ, making sure the wrong people aren't going where they're not supposed to? Can airport security keep an automatic watchful eye at the ticket counter to discover whether one of America's most wanted is booking a flight to Guatemala?

Not quite, says Japhet. Though face-recognition technology has been in the works for some seven years, "it has several known problems in the security and law enforcement markets: It works well in lab conditions but not so well outdoors in uncontrolled environments with inconsistent lighting. It works well on frontal faces, but it is not very successful with angled, posed faces, and with facial expressions. It is prone to false positives. It is also not difficult to reduce its effectiveness by changing facial hair and glasses. This is why there still isn't massive and widespread use of this technology for security and law enforcement and face recognition cameras are still seldom seen in many crowded locations."

OK, fair enough. The consumer-oriented uses, such as simplified photo-sorting, are still useful. I just have to face the reality that, for now, when I go to the airport, I'm still going to be stuck carrying around that driver's license with the god-awful photo. (My resemblance to Dominic Monaghan just isn't strong enough to paste his pic over mine.)

But perhaps through MyHeritage.com, I can find someone out there who's in the same boat.

Posted by Ted Samson on July 31, 2006 01:44 PM

Blog Profile for krails

Add to Technorati Favorites

Technology White Papers

InfoWorld Technology Marketplace

» Technology White Papers Library

Technology White Papers by Topic

Technology White Papers E-mail Alert