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Twitter announces @anywhere, bringing Twitter integration to any site

Shane Kempton — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:30:00 EST

To kick off his keynote at SXSW, Evan Williams, Twitter's CEO, announced the @anywhere platform.

This platform will allow site owners to integrate Twitter information and features directly into their sites. For example, a blog with @anywhere integration would allow a user to hover over the blogger's name to pop up a Twitter box where the user could see if he/she was following the blogger, follow them if not, and even tweet the blogger directly from the site.

Additionally, the @anywhere platform can act as a login provider, similar to Facebook Connect.

This will be launched soon on a number of sites including; Bing, The New York Times, Amazon, Meebo, Youtube, Salesforce, Digg, Yahoo, etc.

Filed under: Social Software

Twitter announces @anywhere, bringing Twitter integration to any site originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Beyond algorithms and the future of search at SXSW

Shane Kempton — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST

"Beyond Algorithms: search and the semantic web" featured some heavy hitters in the search world talking about the future of search, including:

Will Hunsinger, CEO of Evri and because of the recent aquisition, Twine
Carla Thompson, Senior Analyst for the Guidewire Group
Barak Berkowitz, Managing Director of Wolfram Alpha
Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land
Nova Spivak, Founder of Twine and now LiveMatrix.com
Dag Kittlaus, Co-Founder and CEO of Siri
Barney Pell from Bing
Gil Elbaz, Founder of Factual.com

With a heated start to the discussion over the usefulness of the word "semantic", the most interesting statement was made by Dag Kittlaus, saying his time in the Valley has revealed a surprising lack of creativity around the search topic.

Here are some of the more interesting parts of the rest of the conversation...

Continue reading Beyond algorithms and the future of search at SXSW

Filed under: Search

Beyond algorithms and the future of search at SXSW originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Silverlight beta to be on Symbian next week?

Shane Kempton — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST

It appears that Microsoft's partnership with Nokia to port Silverlight to Symbian will soon bear fruit.

Microsoft posted the developer tools and the beta version of the code on March 11th but then quickly pulled them down again. Mary Jo Foley thinks it may launch at Mix next week.

Mobile may be the killer app to get Silverlight in more users hands. With Silverlight being heavily integrated with the up coming Windows Phone 7, soon with Symbian and even talk of a port to Android, Microsoft will significantly expand its reach with the platform.

The MIX conference next week will certainly be interesting as Microsoft pushes to reclaim the mobile space.

[via ZDNet]

Filed under: Microsoft

Silverlight beta to be on Symbian next week? originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 14 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows Phone 7 Series at SXSW

Shane Kempton — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 13:44:00 EST

With a large Windows Phone 7 Series sign calling me I set out to find an actual working example of a new Windows powered phone. With a little finagling was able to sweet talk my way into the Microsoft's blogger lounge at South by Southwest Interactive.

While there seems to be only one example running around here somewhere, which I'm working to track down, there was a demo of the OS on a touch screen TV.

Here are some of the features that stood out....

Continue reading Windows Phone 7 Series at SXSW

Filed under: Windows Mobile

Windows Phone 7 Series at SXSW originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 13 Mar 2010 13:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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French to vote on internet censorship bill next week

Shane Kempton — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:00:00 EST

Next Tuesday French lawmakers will vote on a bill dubbed 'Loppsi 2' that will give the authorities the power to force ISPs to block access to any web address.

The intention of the bill is to allow French authorities to block sites in order to prevent the distribution of child pornography, but ultimately gives the government unilateral control to filter the internet. Amendments to the bill requiring a judge to review the list of filtered sites every month and making the filters temporary to review their effectiveness were rejected.

Under the current language, the blocked list will be kept secret with no judicial oversight. Theoretically, the administration could decide to block Google, Facebook, or any internet address that they consider to be in violation.

The bill has been deemed 'Urgent' so as to bypass the usual four readings before a vote -- and will instead go to the French Senate for a final vote next week, if passed.

Is it me, or are more western democracies looking a lot more like China and Iran then they should? Seems to be a lot of blocking going around the nets these days.

You can read more about the legislation here and from Le Monde here.

[via Slashdot & Good Gear Guide]

Filed under: Internet

French to vote on internet censorship bill next week originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Siri wants to remind you to call your mom, be your personal assistant

Shane Kempton — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:02:00 EST

"Call Mom."

Seems like a simple thing to remember, but with 50 niggling little distractions running through my head including the sultry Australian voice of Yvonne Strahovski telling me, "Go get the Collectors," I tend to forget the simple things. Without recording them somewhere before my digital schizophrenia sets in, my mom doesn't get called and people are sad.

Siri, the virtual personal assistant, helps make moms everywhere less sad. Well, that and a few other things.

Here's one example how I've been using it over the past four days...

While eating a delicious a chicken fried steak I thought, "You know what would be great for desert? Beef jerky!". I grabbed my iPhone and told Siri, "Find beef jerky near here." A few seconds later it pulled up a Yelp listing for the Beef Jerky Emporium a few blocks away.

MMMMM meat-tastic!...

Continue reading Siri wants to remind you to call your mom, be your personal assistant

Filed under: Productivity

Siri wants to remind you to call your mom, be your personal assistant originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Facebook working on a Gmail competitor

Shane Kempton — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:10:00 EST

If you hate the Facebook inbox as much as I do, this will come as welcome news; according to TechCrunch, Facebook will soon be launching a full webmail client.

Dubbed Project Titan it will be a full blown mail client similar to Gmail with full POP and IMAP support. According to Michael Arrington your address will be your current Vanity URL @facebook.com.

With 350 million active Facebook users automatically getting a new email address all other webmail services are about to get a monsterous new competitor.

Filed under: Internet, E-mail, Social Software

Facebook working on a Gmail competitor originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sikuli uses screen shots to run scripts, is amazing

Shane Kempton — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 09:49:00 EST

If you ever find yourself doing repetitive task on your computer, pay attention. Sikuli is an important step toward removing the barrier between the average computer user and programming.

Normally, to make a computer do a repetitive task, you'd need to understand a programming language like Java, Objective C or C#. To perform some remedial task like starting iTunes and kicking off a play list you'd need to write a whole mess of code and understand the API's for that application.

Sikuli gets around this by using picture based computing. Instead of needing intimate knowledge of a particular API or language you simply use Sikuli script to take an action on an area of the screen it finds by you giving it a picture.

Confused?

Continue reading Sikuli uses screen shots to run scripts, is amazing

Filed under: Developer, Utilities

Sikuli uses screen shots to run scripts, is amazing originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 09:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WooRank summarizes your website in a few seconds

Shane Kempton — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:43:00 EST

Competitive? Run a website? Curious to see how your favorite sites rank? I have just the thing.

WooRank is a new service that summarizes your entire website in one decidedly useful shot. Highlights include:

Traffic estimation numbers using Google data, Alexa & Compete rankings
An internal site SEO analysis with a Text/HTML ratio
Off-site SEO with link counts from Delicious, Digg, Twitter & Wikipedia as well as a back link count total -- Nice
It even does a Whois lookup and shows if the site is using compression

Good stuff. It summarizes all this using some behind the curtains wizardry to create a single score they call the woorank. Without knowing more about the algorithm it's hard to say if this number is meaningful but from their About page I would assume it's based heavily on search criteria Google finds relevant.

They appear to be adding features rapidly; in the last 24 hours a PDF feature appeared that will send the summary to an email address. The current services are free with unspecified premium features coming soon.

Filed under: Business, Internet, Search

WooRank summarizes your website in a few seconds originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Launches Personalized Suggestions in Maps

Shane Kempton — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:33:00 EST

Yesterday Google launched a personalized search suggestions technology for Google Maps. These suggestions are based on your previous Google web history.

Using previous web as well as location searches, Google Maps attempts to find results tailored to you. An example from the Google Earth and Maps blog: "...if you've looked at cafes on Google Maps with past searches, you might see them as suggestions when typing the word 'coffee'". So like web search it will look for related words. Pretty smart.

Useful stuff, but since today is International Data Privacy Day, it's probably worth pointing out that while this feature can certainly be useful, it's also a good reminder that Google is collecting an awful lot of data about you.

Filed under: Internet, Search

Google Launches Personalized Suggestions in Maps originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How to know if a toolbar (like Google's) is tracking you when it's disabled

Shane Kempton — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:04:00 EST

A recent tip suggested that even when disabled the Google Toolbar sends data to Google without the user knowing. After doing some digging I've found this is only the case if, while using IE8 the user fails to restart the browser after disabling the toolbar from the "Manage Add-ons" window.

This is certainly possible, but the browser does warn the user to restart immediately after saving the changes. In fact, going to the add-ons screen is the slow way to disable the toolbar -- the easiest way is to click Tools>Toolbars then uncheck the Google toolbar. This stops it from sending the information back to Google immediately.

So, while I don't believe Google is being nefarious, after the news of their recent hacking and some of the reasons it was possible, it's a good time to talk about how to monitor what sort of information is being sent through tools like the Google Toolbar.

Continue reading How to know if a toolbar (like Google's) is tracking you when it's disabled

Filed under: Security, Troubleshooting

How to know if a toolbar (like Google's) is tracking you when it's disabled originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Echofon Firefox add-on is a Twitter client that doesn't constantly interupt your browsing

Shane Kempton — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:34:00 EST

If you're like me and spend a good portion of your waking life nose deep in a browser window, integrating your other tools so you can avoiding the awful task popping to another application is a blessing from the plugin gods. The Echofon twitter plugin for Firefox is one of those waffery dollops of integrated mana.

After setting up your account it drops an icon in the status bar of the browser on the bottom right hand side of the screen. Clicking on the icon pops up the main interface, which is simlar to most standard twitter clients with your friend's tweets, mentions, and direct messages accessible each in it's own tab.

So far so standard, but there are a few great features that set it apart especially those taking advantage of it's browser integration. When open, the interface sits over the right side of the browser window but doesn't interrupt surfing.

Continue reading Echofon Firefox add-on is a Twitter client that doesn't constantly interupt your browsing

Echofon Firefox add-on is a Twitter client that doesn't constantly interupt your browsing originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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