Vanessa Minnillo Katie Holmes Victoria Beckham Missy Peregrym Sarah Gellman
Monday, February 28, 2011
Blog Post: Ford Sync bringing NUI cars to Europe
Just a quick post to acknowledge the announcement at CeBIT today that Ford SYNC is coming to Europe. Over 3 million customers are using SYNC in cars in North America and now Europe is about to get the NUI goodness too. What do I mean by that? The ability to control your entertainment and connectivity systems with your voice.
I recently saw a video showing an in car system controlled by gesture and almost fell of my chair laughing. It’s all about the right input mechanism for the situation (hint: mice and keyboards are not going away). In a car, your voice is arguably the best way to control your systems while maintaining control.
I got a full on demo of this recently and it was pretty cool stuff. If you get chance, wander down to your local Ford dealer and ask them for a demo.
Georgianna Robertson Reese Witherspoon Jordana Brewster Laetitia Casta Claudette Ortiz
Facebook?s Growing Role in Social Journalism
A Facebook-only news organization? It was only a matter of time. The Rockville Central, a community news site in the Washington, D.C., area, wi…
Rebecca Mader Eva Green Lauren Conrad Arielle Kebbel Jessica Paré
Choosing a Private Cloud Provider and Doing it All Wrong
John Treadway writes on CloudBzz that IT leaders he speaks with are taking the latter approach. They're evaluating the vendors and not doing their own analysis.
Sponsor
Instead, IT leaders should be going through a long list of questions before starting to evaluate vendors. His initial list gives a taste about how IT leaders should approach the task:
- What are the strategic objectives for my cloud program?
- How will my cloud be used?
- Who are my users and what are their expectations and requirements?
- How should/will a cloud model change my data center workflows, policies, processes and skills requirements?
- How will cloud users be given visibility into their usage, costs and possible chargebacks?
- How will cloud users be given visibility into operational issues such as server/zone/regional availability and performance?
- What is my approach to the service catalog? Is it prix fixe, a la carte, or more like value meals? Can users make their own catalogs?
- How will I handle policy around identity, access control, user permissions, etc?
- What are the operational tools that I will use for event management & correlation, performance management, service desk, configuration and change management, monitoring, logging, auditability, and more?
- What will my vCenter administrators do when they are no longer creating VMs for every request?
- What will the approvers in my process flows today do when the handling of 95% of all future requests are policy driven and automated?
- What levels of dynamism are required regarding elasticity, workload placement, data placement and QoS management across all stack layers?
- Beyond a VM, what other services will I expose to my users?
- How will I address each of the key components such as compute, networking, structured & object storage, virtualization, security, automation, self-service, lifecycle management, databases and more?
- What are the workloads I expect to see in my cloud, and what are the requirements for these workloads to run?
Treadway says IT leaders are letting the tail wag the dog. We can see how that can be the case. It seems logical to do the research first. But this may not be about the right choice as much as it is about the economical one for the business. That's a problem. Vendors will offer all sorts of incentives to get your business. That can lead to trade offs that can really hurt down the road.
Discuss
Piper Perabo Anna Kournikova Esther Cañadas Kate Beckinsale Shiri Appleby
Old Media Is Being Unbundled, Just Like Telecom Was
The unbundling of telecom resulted in free-ing of last mile, which in tandem with rise of Internet resulted in destruction of the voice-minute economy. The Media landscape is going through similar unbundling, thanks to the Internet, which takes away controls over distribution networks. 
Sarah Michelle Gellar Olivia Munn Melissa Sagemiller Roselyn Sanchez Soft Cell
Device Addresses Healthcare Language Barrier
Zothecula writes "With over 170 languages spoken in the US alone, medical personnel attending an emergency or working in a busy hospital are no doubt often faced with communication problems when trying to dispense treatment. The Phrazer offers a possible solution to this problem. It is billed as the world's first multilingual communication system, where patients provide medical background information, symptoms or complaints with the help of a virtual onscreen doctor speaking in their own native tongue. This information is then summarized into a medical record compatible with all major EMR systems." All that for only 12 to 18 thousand dollars.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Brooke Burns Lena Headey Ali Larter Angelina Jolie Erica Leerhsen
"Skype in the Classroom" Launches to Connect Teachers & Students Worldwide
Skype has also been embraced by many educators who are using it in the classroom in some innovative ways.
Teachers use Skype to open their students to a world beyond the classroom walls. They use it to bring experts, authors, and guest instructors into the classroom, those who would never otherwise be able to visit the school. Students can take virtual field trips, if you will, via Skype as they're connected to places through video chat. A Skype communication session can involve foreign language learning or a cultural exchange. It can connect classrooms across the city, state, country or around the world.
Sponsor
A Skype Directory for Educators
This usage by teachers has caught Skype's attention, says spokesperson Jacqueline Botterill, and the company has just launched the beta version of Skype in the Classroom, an effort to support their efforts.
The first step, Skype says, is building a directory of educators who use the VOIP service and want to connect their classrooms with others. Currently, many teachers turn to Facebook, Twitter, and their own personal and professional social networks in order to find other teachers to connect with, and it looks like Skype wants to make sure it's providing its own matching services and helping provide the resources and skill-building so that teachers feel comfortable with video conferencing.
Teachers can sign up for the Skype in the Classroom beta by connecting their existing Skype accounts. Then, they can build out their profile with their interests, specialties, grade level, and location. Teachers can look through the directory and find others who can help with questions, resources, tips, and classroom visits.
Skype says it plans to improve several aspects of the directory very soon, including building out its search functionality. (It's missing a time zone filter currently, for example - a crucial piece for hooking up with another classroom for a video chat.) Skype says it has other development plans too in order to support connecting classes with speakers and experts -- authors, astronauts, politicians, and the like --who are willing to Skype in to a class.
Botterill says Skype is eager to hear teachers' feedback in order to build out the initiative to best support their classroom needs. "We'll work on what teachers need to better use the technology in the classroom," says Botterill.
Discuss
Kirsten Dunst Vanessa Minnillo Katie Holmes Victoria Beckham Missy Peregrym
Sunday, February 27, 2011
The Haves and Have-Nots: The True Story of a Reader Suddenly De-Invited from TED
I was determined never to write another negative post about TED. Really. I feel like my views on the conference's smug-tendencies have been well-stated. And, as I said in this article in Fast Company, I think the TED Fellows program and the TEDx program have gone a long way towards fulfilling the stated mission of TED, doing actual outreach into places the conference long professed to care about. Beyond that, I'm just hearing of a lot of Valley people who aren't going anymore after the move to Long Beach, making the conference less of an annual to-do for the tech community. But then I got this email below, and all the reasons I wrote the original BusinessWeek column came flooding back. If TED would just own up to being about making the wealthy, famous and powerful feel comfortable--like other clubby, high level affairs like Sun Valley or the World Economic Forum-- I wouldn't have an issue with it. Business conferences have good reasons to be elitist; deals are getting done and high-level conversations need to be private sometimes. But when credentials are revoked at the last minute based purely on the whim of a more important member of the TED community, the inner workings are just too much like a country club for an organization whose stellar content is all about pluralism and uplift. It's the Sarah Silverman incident all over again. Oh you made one of the more important people feel uncomfortable? Then you're out of here. 
Rachael Leigh Cook Elisha Cuthbert Ciara Rachel Hunter Heidi Montag
SwipeGood Gives Its Start Fund Cash To Charity
Y Combinator-incubated SwipeGood, a startup that allows you to donate to charity each time you buy, is using its Start Fund money to benefit others. In case you didn't catch this bit of news, DST?s Yuri Milner and SV Angel have teamed up to launch the Start Fund, which gives all Y Combinator startups a $150,000 investment in the form of a convertible note with no cap and no discount. Launched in November, SwipeGood is giving the $150,000 to charity. Here's how SwipeGood works. Once you enroll your credit/debit card with SwipeGood, every purchase you make gets rounded up to the nearest dollar. So for a $50.50 purchase of groceries, $0.50 will be given to charity.�At the end of the month, SwipeGood will send your total donation amount to the charity or cause of your choice. To participate in SwipeGood, consumers have to enroll their credit card and the service will track your purchases, similar to the way Blippy works.
Gina Philips Jamie Gunns Ananda Lewis Kate Bosworth Tamala Jones
Atomic Antennae Transmit Quantum Information
intellitech writes "The Austrian research group led by physicist Rainer Blatt suggests a fundamentally novel architecture for quantum computation. They have experimentally demonstrated quantum antennae, which enable the exchange of quantum information between two separate memory cells located on a computer chip. This offers new opportunities to build practical quantum computers."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Jennifer Gimenez Katie Cassidy Estella Warren Cinthia Moura Monica Potter
Calling All Geeks for the Mashable Geek Games
At Mashable, we love geeks, all types of geeks, and we know that geeks have many different skills ? nunchuku skills, bow-hunting skills and c…
Tina Fey Gina Philips Jamie Gunns Ananda Lewis Kate Bosworth
First look: PowerInbox?s new email platform makes it more powerful
PowerInbox founder Matt Thazhmon visited me this morning and showed me PowerInbox, a new email platform that enables new apps that do lots of cool things with email. They turned on this platform this morning. Watch the video to get a sense of what it does. But it can do a bunch of things with [...]
Summer Glau Mía Maestro Virginie Ledoyen Lindsay Lohan Heidi Klum
Intel?s Thunderbolt to Strike at Media Transfer
Intel?s Thunderbolt connection technology announced today will help consumers with one of their biggest digital problems, transferring huge media files in minutes as opposed to hours, and will also give Intel chips a home inside a variety of connected devices.
Lorri Bagley Leslie Bega Maria Sharapova Lindsay Price Zoe Saldana
This Week In ETFs: February 26th Edition
This past week was an extremely volatile one in the financial world as continued turmoil in the Middle East rocked equities and sent oil prices surging towards $100/bbl. in mid-week trading. Markets did, however, manage to recoup some of their losses in Friday’s session although major indexes were still off significantly from their highs earlier in the week. Of particular concern to global investors was the rapidly deteriorating situation in Libya where the country’s dictator, Col. Quadaffi, clings to power despite massive protests in a number of Libyan cities and anti-government control of much of the country. While Libya isn’t a very populous country, more people live in New York City than in the entire North African country, it is a major exporter of light sweet crude accounting for roughly 2% of world output. Concerns over this supply, as well as the protests spreading to other autocratic regimes such as Saudi Arabia, caused oil prices to gain more than $10 on the week and look to put a shadow over markets heading into next week. Events in the ETF world were much more positive as a number of issuers debuted new funds and several other companies made extensive filings for new products, demonstrating that the ETF world has not topped out and still has plenty of room for growth in the short-term. With this backdrop, we profile three interesting ETF articles from around the web this week:
Big Losers From The ETF Revolution at The Motley Fool:
While ETFs have helped to democratize investing and open up a variety of asset classes to new investors, many forget about some of the key losers in the Exchange-Traded revolution. Undoubtedly one of the main losers in this shift to ETFs has been Wall Street firms which have seen commodity trading revenues plummet thanks to traders shifting to these often cheaper products as a way to obtain exposure to this asset class. Another sector that has been hurt, that you may not have originally considered, is the mining industry. At first, this may seem bizarre given the large number of mining focused ETFs on the market but upon further review it makes sense. Before, if investors wanted exposure to gold they had to buy a gold mining company, now there are a multitude of ways to invest in the actual metal without the equity risks, forcing miners to compete with a whole host of new products for investor capital.
ETF Mideast Protection Kit at Index Universe:
In this article, Matt McCall discusses the Mideast crisis in detail and several ways that investors can position their portfolios in order to mitigate any further downturn stemming from the turmoil. First, McCall highlights several oil funds that investors may want to consider in order to profit from a shutdown in crude supplies, including the United States Gasoline ETF and the United States Heating Oil ETF, which are also trading at multi-year highs. Matt then goes on to discuss a number of safe haven investments that investors can park cash in while the storm blows over including gold, bonds, and silver. Lastly, Matt gives his thoughts on how inverse and volatility ETPs can become a valuable part of any investor’s portfolio during this time frame as well.
USO vs. BNO: Explaining The Big Gaps In Oil ETF Performance at ETF Database:
Although oil prices have been up across the board over the last few weeks, there have been huge differences in gains among the various types of crude oil. In this article, Michael Johnston highlights the key differences between the two main benchmarks of this important fuel, WTI crude and Brent. Although WTI is often of a higher quality than its European cousin, prices of Brent have spiked more than WTI as of late thanks to ongoing protests in the Middle East which disproportionately impact prices of the European benchmark fuel. Michael also outlines a way that investors could profit if the turmoil subsides and if investors should consider looking to Brent as the global benchmark instead of its American counterpart as the best barometer of demand in the world.
Disclosure: No positions at time of writing.
Click here to read the original article on ETFdb.com.
Join the conversation about this story »
Alecia Elliott Kat Von D Ana Paula Lemes Vanessa Simmons Chyler Leigh
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)