Recent Posts
Good to be back from holiday. Happy New Year each and everyone may this new year brings joy in your life. During this vacation we have missed quite a few techno advancement news. Just before Christmas, Mozilla designer Alex Faaborg published some introductory posts on his blog about where Mozilla is headed with microformats.
According to Alex microformats will make the Web Browser into an "Information Broker" and suggests that this could happen in Firefox 3. In his own wordsÂ
future Web browsers are likely going to associate semantically marked up data you encounter on the Web with specific applications, either on your system or online.
This means the contact information you see on a Web site will be associated with your favorite contacts application, events will be associated with your favorite calendar application, locations will be associated with your favorite mapping application, phone numbers will be associated with your favorite VOIP application, etc.
Instead of using the entire product suite of a Google or an MSN or a Yahoo, you can instead use the particular apps you like most from not only big players - but small startups too. So say I use the 30Boxes online calendar - Firefox 3 would automatically transfer any (microformatted) events data I come across while browsing, into my 30Boxes account. And it could likewise put all my contacts into Gmail, locations into Yahoo Maps, phone numbers into Skype, etc.
As of now, there is a Firefox addon called Operator,(which I covered earlier) a microformat detection extension developed by Michael Kaply at IBM. So the seeds have started to be sowed. If Mozilla proceeds with this goal for Firefox 3 to be a broker of information, then that will significantly raise the stakes in the browser war again. Microsoft will surely follow and the smaller browsers will innovate around microformats to keep ahead. And it makes perfect sense for the web browser to do brokering, because information is so fluid and 'small pieces loosely joined' these days. There's a best of breed app for every data type - so why not use the best app where possible?
I Was Probed By Aliens And Lived To Tell The Tale is a mildly amusing work, if your funny
bone was tickled by Red Dwarf, by way of Bevis and Butthead. Don't expect anything too clever, and you won't be disappointed. The writing is adequate, with the sole exception of Will Brown using the British swear word bloody as a punctuation mark. It's not offensive, just a little irritating due to over use.
Depth, insight, clever characterization, fascinating answers to the alien abduction mythos, are all completely absent from this book. What is does have is an abundance of silly, light-hearted, typically British humor, detailing the abduction and subsequent adventures of Will Brown. Unlike the legions of unfortunate Americans whose abduction experience leads to all manner of unpleasantness, Will Brown finds himself an odd looking alien friend. The alien in question is from Tau Ceti and is named "one who yearns for the sweetest sessric pond, even before the third milking of Teuhleuhlas's teat" which translates into English as John Smith. The true form of this critter is apparently so horrible that it chooses to mask itself with a kinder image; something described as looking like the inside of a tripe bin at an abattoir! However, before any friendship can develop, our unwitting hero must first undergo the obligatory anal probe, in order to comply with Tau Ceti law.
Nether regions duly inspected, Will Brown finds himself in the middle of a murderous conspiracy, and is hired by John Smith as his personal bodyguard. To this end he is equipped with a ray gun that would delight the Men In Black. Settings range from "mild headache" all the way up to "destroy planet mode." Naturally, Will Brown manages to save his new friend from the immediate danger, which allows this extraterrestrial Butch and Sundance to explore part of a strange new world, seek out new life, etc. Key parts of these exploits are visualized in a series of full page cartoon illustrations from Terry Cooper.
Mozilla labs just introduced Operator, a Microformat Detection Extension for Firefox 2. Operator, which developed by Michael Kaply at IBM, demonstrates the usefulness of semantic information on the Web, in real world scenarios.
Operator requires information on the Web to be encoded using microformats, and since this method for semantically encoding information is relatively new, not all sites are using microformats yet. However, Operator works great with any blog that uses rel-tag, and the sites Yahoo! Local, Flickr, and Upcoming.org, all of which contain millions of pieces of information expressed using microformats. As more sites begin to semantically encode data with microformats, Operator will automatically work with them as well. Previously microformat detection in Firefox was possible with the Tails Export extension by Robert de Bruin. Operator builds on Tails Export by having a user interface that is based around actions the user can take, instead of data types. Operator also includes support for the microformats geo and rel-tag, and is compatible with Firefox 2.
After using Operator for awhile, you will find yourself quickly transferring structured data to your favorite applications without typing a single letter, you will be hoping around the Web without navigating on hyperlinks, and you will be remixing services in ways that are really useful. The combination of microformated content on the Web and the Operator extension for Firefox results in a kind of data cross pollination that we think is very exciting.Things you will be able to do with Operator:
1. Send the contact informations of your favorite places/contacts from Yahoo! Local to your address book, without having to type anything
2. If you view an event at Upcoming.org like sites, you can easily add the event to your calendar to see if you are free, or map the location of the event to see where it will take place
3. Navigate from blog post tags to the same tags on Flickr.
4. Push coordinates of geo-tagged pictures to Google maps.
5. View and validate the microformats source
Hardcore gamers and parents finally have something in common: They feel an electric, palpable intensity invading their collective psyches, a burning sensation that's compelling them to compete with one another to score a certain item. That item? The highly coveted PlayStation 3, courtesy of Sony.
The vast majority of gaming enthusiasts combing the retail shelves will come up empty-handed because there's just too much demand. Unfortunately, Sony is having a hard time producing the machine, but that's to be expected, because, it seems, new, powerful consoles always have difficulties. Nevertheless, according to the Associated Press, Sony intends to meet its goal of moving 2 million units by the end of this year and 6 million units by March
[ Click here to read more ]
Last.fm cut another exclusive deal. "With 15 million unique users a month, 150,000 band biographies, and an amazing 65 million songs listed in its database, Last.FM has attracted the attention of big money. Last spring, Geneva-based Index Ventures made an investment in the company that it will describe only as 'less than $5 million.'"
EMI and music recommendation engine Last.fm have announced an "extensive online music mapping mechanism" called Tuneglue-Audiomap. The site makes recommendations artists, websites and retailers based on the comparison of the user's listening preferences and profiles of other users. Additonal content such as artist bios and site links will be given for EMI artists. (EMI artists really stand out. Other artists are represented by black circles while EMI circles are glowing with rainbow colors
[ Click here to read more ]
According to press release, Dell is poised to release a new 22-inch wide-aspect LCD flat-panel. The new E228WFP has already shown up in Japan. The screen has a 1680x1050 resolution, which is typical for a screen around this size, although many recent ones are showing up to be capable of displaying images at 1920x1200. As with recent displays, Dell is definitely showing off the speed of the new E228WFP, claiming a 5ms grey-to-grey response time. On the other hand BenQ announced a new line of gaming-oriented LCD panels with a grey-to-grey refresh time of 2ms, which BenQ said is the fastest in the industry.
LCD manufacturers have had issues maintaining color consistency and contrast while pushing LCD speeds -- assuming they tell the truth at all. Dell's 5ms grey-to-grey is in line with the manufacturer specifications of Samsung and LG.Philips LCD panels right now, and the company has a better track record of reporting VESA-standard specifications then others in the industry
[ Click here to read more ]
Well for Xmas or New Year we certainly do like some laser lightening shows, but buying a laser isn't so feasible in the middest of so much expanses of holiday. A French geek came up with a "built it yourself" idea, which will cost you just US$10 to build your own air laser.
I like the idea of very simple laser: no special gas, no chemical products, no vacuum and no glass work! This Nitrogen laser uses normal air at atmospheric pressure. All you need is some metal parts and an about 10 kV 1 mA adjustable High tension DC source
[ Click here to read more ]
For a long time, the blind can only read scarce Braille books of a narrow scope, missing out on much of the reading pleasure enjoyed by people with normal sight. Is there any way to make the blind be able to read printworks that ordinary people can read only? Blind reader-Bridge allows the blind to read printed works. When it is scanning the text in books or other presswork, it translates the text into braille, which is then displayed on its special screen for the blind to touch.
At the same time, Bridge saves the text into the internal hard disk to be read later. In addition, the product can download data from the Internet. So that it can fit books of different sizes, it has been designed with a foldaway shape. The user can delete files on demand. In order to allow users more convenient reading, the Braille screen can display a column of words only. The device is easy to operate, with easily identified functional divisions. It is small and easy to carry, allowing it to be used anywhere
[ Click here to read more ]
Oakley extends its line of-Wearable Electronics-with a pair of MP3 sunglasses designed for sports: the Oakley Thump Pro. At first sight, it resembles its older cousin, the O ROKR, but a closer look reveals a thinner and lighter design. Because athletes will train in any weather, the Thump Pro is sweat and rain resistant. The rubber surface on each side and on the nose is designed to produce more grip with moisture. Thanks to its light weight and tight grip, it is really stable.
Audio
[ Click here to read more ]
Mozilla has officially released the first public alpha build of Firefox 3.0. Codenamed Gran Paradiso, Firefox 3 includes the new
Gecko 1.9 rendering engine which leverages the open-source Cairo rendering framework and features heavily refactored reflow algorithms that improve Firefox layout functionality and resolve some long-standing CSS bugs.
The reflow improvements in Gecko 1.9 (included in the latest Gran Paradiso nightly build, but not the alpha release) finally enable Firefox to pass the Acid 2 test, a CSS test case developed by the Web Standards Project to illuminate flaws in HTML/CSS rendering engines. To pass the Acid 2 test, browsers must comply with W3C standards and provide support for a wide variety of features that are considered relevant by Web designers. The Acid 2 test has been passed by several other browsers, including Safari, Konqueror, and Opera, but not Internet Explorer. Passing Acid 2 is considered to be a significant milestone in Firefox development
[ Click here to read more ]
|
|
|
Comments (2)
Add Comments
Read More
Comment by Kams
on Firefox 3.0 public Alpha
Geek Metro
Bloggers Tips
Maybe within few months Firefox 3.0 will be available for public release. The significant changes will be internal structure and script universality. Since a lot of script now run on IE or Opera but don't run on Firefox and vice versa. This will eliminate in Firefox 3.0.