When this year began, we were feverishly speculating about an Apple tablet, looking forward to 3-D TV sets, and optimistically waiting for the end of the cable companies' cruel grip on our wallets.
We had to settle for one out of three. While manufacturers did release a handful of 3-D TVs, there's just not enough content (either on cable or Blu-ray) to justify purchasing one yet. The heavy, expensive glasses you need to buy don't make the proposition any more attractive, either.
And as for getting all our video from the sweet, ever-flowing bounty of the internet? Sure, we still do that — when we're at work. But at home, internet TV is still struggling to stand on its own. The gadget we'd pinned our hopes on, the Boxee Box, is unfinished and buggy. Google TV is hampered by the unwillingness of the TV networks to play ball. Apple TV remains locked into its own little iTunes-centric world.
So that leaves the Apple tablet. If you'd told us in December 2009 that we'd be using the word "iPad" every day without giggling, well, we would have giggled at you. But there it is: There's no getting around the fact that the iPad, silly name and all, has completely and successfully redefined what a "tablet computer" could be.
But the iPad was far from being the only big gadget news of the year. E-readers, cameras, and even exoskeletons made huge strides in 2010. Here, then, are the 10 gadgets that were most significant in 2010.
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Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The 10 Most Significant Gadgets of 2010 | Gadget Lab
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Android comes to landline phones - News - Linux for Devices
For much of the last decade, Linux-based landline-based IP phones made regular appearances on LinuxDevices, but with the rise of mobile phones, such announcements have become fewer and farther between. The few IP phones we've covered recently are typically multimedia tablet/kitchen-computer designs, such as the already defunct, Linux-based Verizon Hub, built by OpenPeak, OpenPeak's Linux-based OpenFrame IP phone, or the Android-based Glass reference platform from Cloud Telecomputers. Typically, in these designs, IP telephony is just one feature among many other multimedia and Web browsing capabilities.
Motorola HS1001
According to DSP Group, Hong Kong-based Binatone chose the DSP Group’s XpandR chipset for the HS1001 "multimedia cordless home phone," which will be sold by Motorola. The company claims that its XpandR chipset is the world's only system-on-a-chip (SoC) to support both WiFi and DECT 6.0, both of which are available on the HS1001.
The HS1001 also provides Android-based email, web browsing, and a touchscreen interface with a virtual keyboard, says DSP Group. The phone will be available in the third quarter in the U.S., the company adds.
No more information was apparent from Motorola. Binatone, or DSP Group, but Engadget and others have posted stories from the floors of the CeBIT show in Hannover, Germany this week reporting on Motorola's demo of the phone. According to Engadget, the HS1001 will be Motorola branded and sell for around $150.
It's said the phone will feature a 2.8-inch touchscreen, and is available with a speaker-equipped charging station that offers music playback. Based on Android 1.6, the phone will not have access to the Android Marketplace for app downloads, and Skype is not available, says the story.
DSP Group Android Home Phone
While furnishing an XpandR I chipset to Binatone and Motorola for the HS1001, DSP Group uses its next generation XpandR II chipset for its own customizable Android Home Phone reference design. The XpandR II combines a 240MHz ARM9 core, a 16-bit TeakLite DSP, and a novel baseband processor that combines WiFi and DECT 6.0 support with CAT-IQ extensions. (Cat-IQ is a broadband-oriented follow-on standard developed by the DECT Forum to enable cordless DECT phones to be used for VoIP and other Internet-based services, including streaming audio and video.)
DSP Group Android Home Phone reference design
(Click to enlarge)
DSP Group supplies the SDK with the Home Phone design, along with Android extensions and sample applications. The latter include apps for turning the reference design into a universal remote, a home automation monitor, and a general-purpose DLNA-ready storage management device. The design is also said to ship with a VoIP software suite.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Facebook Connect - PHP Classes
Detailed description
It displays a Facebook Connect button to let the users click and be lead to a Facebook page on which they may authorize your application to obtain access to the Facebook user accounts.
The user browser is redirected to a configurable page on which applications may access the authorized user account details.
| Download all files: facebook-connect-2010-12-04.zip (9286 bytes) facebook-connect-2010-12-04.tar.gz (8769 bytes) |
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Analysis: Software M&A heats up as firms battle budget squeeze | Reuters
By Paul Sandle and Tricia Wright
LONDON | Fri Dec 17, 2010 1:17pm EST
LONDON
Having learned the lessons of the dot-com bubble collapse in 2000, technology companies were quick to cut headcount -- their biggest cost -- at the start of the downturn.
And with revenues returning to growth, they have pockets full of cash at their disposal.
Major companies, such as IBM (IBM.N) and Oracle (ORCL.O), are buying specialist software makers so they can offer more to corporate customers who need to cut IT budgets, thereby holding on to high margin, long-term maintenance contracts.
"Companies ...need to offer a portfolio of products," Panmure Gordon analyst George O'Connor said. "They will ask 'what additional services can I sell to my customers, thereby increasing my wallet share'."
Ernst & Young estimated the top 10 global technology companies had about $290 billion cash on their balance sheets at the end of June -- a number that partner Karl Havers said was "amazing, and a sign of things to come."
Oracle alone has spent more than $42 billion on acquisitions over the past six years, and it had $10.4 billion in cash at the end of November.
"Many of these new things will be most profitably done on a very large scale, and the smaller companies who are generating these great new ideas may not have the capital to do that," said Havers.
"The tech sector has been good through this downturn in conserving cash and managing costs," Conor Cahill, Deloitte's technology corporate finance partner said.
"With revenues recovering, the companies need to find a use for this money, and they are looking to place bets on emerging technologies."
EUROPE IN THE SPOTLIGHT
European deals are recovering but have a long way to go to catch up with pre-recession levels. That said, though it may be early days in the M&A recovery, premiums are rising fast as the field becomes more crowded.
The total value of deals in European technology by mid-December 2010 was $19.9 billion, up 7.5 percent on 2009, but still only 36 percent of the $54.7 billion of deals in 2007 before a global downturn, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Global acquirers stumped up nearly three times revenue and just under 20 times adjusted core earnings in the second half, both at the highest level for two years, according to Deloitte's UK Technology M&A survey.
The biggest premiums so far have been in U.S. deals, such as IBM buying Unica to offer more marketing software to corporate clients, and Hewlett-Packard beating Dell to buy data storage company 3PAR.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Facebook | Introducing the New Profile
Today I'm excited to introduce you to some improvements we've made to the Facebook profile, so now it's even easier for you to tell your story and learn about your friends.
A New Introduction
The profile begins with a quick overview of basic information such as where you're from, where you went to school, and where you work—the kinds of conversation starters you share with people you've just met or exchange with old friends as you get reacquainted.
And since there's often no better way to learn about a person than through photos, the profile now includes a row of recently tagged photos of you. In my case, my profile features pics from my engagement and wedding, two of my life's most recent and happiest moments.
Featured Friends
You can now highlight the friends who are important to you, such as your family, best friends or teammates. Create new groups of friends, or feature existing friends lists. I opted to feature my Ultimate Frisbee teammates, giving the rest of my friends a way to learn more about that part of my life.
New Experiences
The profile also gives you new ways to share your interests and activities. You can list the projects you worked on at your job, classes you took in school, your favorite musicians and sports teams, and more. You can also share your life philosophy by connecting to the religions, political affiliations, and people you follow and admire. All your interests and experiences are now represented with images, making your entire profile a more compelling visual experience.
Personally, I opted to add this profile project to my work history at Facebook, and I tagged the people who worked on it with me. I also added "Ultimate Frisbee" as one of the sports I play and included a description of my team's victories at the USA Ultimate National Championships and World Championships.
Improved Photos and Friends Pages
Thanks to the cool new "infinite scroll" feature, it's now much faster and more fun to browse all your photos. The Friends page now allows you to quickly find the people you're looking for: just search by name, hometown, school or a number of other dimensions. I met a ton of new Ultimate players at Nationals, and the new profile has made it so much easier to locate and learn about them.
We're really excited about the new profile. We're rolling it out gradually and plan to get it to everyone by early next year. You can upgrade immediately or learn more about the new features on this page: www.facebook.com/about/profile.
Josh Wiseman, a Facebook engineer, is reassuring his wife Kelly that the wedding was more exciting than any Ultimate Frisbee tournament.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Facebook Co-Founder Launches Non-Profit Platform Called Jumo
Today, Facebook co-founder and My.BarackObama.com alum Chris Hughes announced the soft launch of Jumo, his new philanthropic start-up that works to match do-gooders with appropriate causes. Currently, the Jumo site is merely an elegantly designed homepage that announces Hughes’s mission to “bring together everyday individuals and organizations to speed the pace of global change. We connect people to the issues, organizations, and individuals relevant to them to foster lasting relationships and meaningful action.” Hughes told us, however, that the site will later be organized much like a social network — with profiles for individual users that contain a collection of information that they have shared and used, pages for organizations created both by the orgs in question and others, and issue pages that serve as a kind of discussion of the topics at hand. Hughes says that the idea is to make sure that Jumo can get the most relevant information possible to its users, so that they can foster on-going relationships with social organizations to do the most good. As a result, the current homepage features a rather intriguing survey box that asks the site visitor an array of questions from, “If you had a daughter tomorrow, which would you name her?” to “Would you say the world is getting better or worse?” Upon answering these queries, you can also submit your e-mail address to get more information as it comes. The site itself came about after a period of reflection on Hughes’s part. The Obama campaign came and went, and he started thinking about how he could apply social media principles gleaned from Facebook
and My.BarackObama.com to have the maximum impact on the world. While he was impressed by efforts following catastrophes like the earthquake in Haiti, Hughes thought we could be doing more. “I think watching what happened after Haiti was hard for everyone,” he says. “The fact that so much money was raised is just a testament to the fact that people really do care and help.” Still, he applies the “don’t just give during the holidays — give all year round” principle to the situation. “I was frustrated to see that moment of engagement not functioning as part of a much larger process of supporting those organizations to help ensure that tragedies like Haiti not happen again,” he said. Currently, Hughes is hiring a team to run the site from its Soho office. According to the job posting, he’s “looking to hire hard-working individuals who value intellectual challenge, appreciate the importance of online networking technology, and, most importantly, want to change the world.” WordPress › WordPress 3.0.2
WordPress 3.0.2 is available and is a mandatory security update for all previous WordPress versions. Haiku has become traditional:
Fixed on day zero
One-click update makes you safe
This used to be hardThis maintenance release fixes a moderate security issue that could allow a malicious Author-level user to gain further access to the site, addresses a handful of bugs, and provides some additional security enhancements. Big thanks to Vladimir Kolesnikov for detailed and responsible disclosure of the security issue!
Download 3.0.2 or update automatically from the Dashboard > Updates menu in your site’s admin area. You should update immediately even if you do not have untrusted users.