Archive for June, 2006
Friday, June 23rd, 2006
Primera has started shipping the world's first Blu-ray disc duplication system, the Bravo XR-Blu Disc Publisher, able to burn up to 50 discs in one session.
The core of the unit is actually Pioneer's recently announced BDR-101A Blu-ray burner, but it's backed up by some sweet built-in robotics to keep the discs moving (we hope -- we've heard this things are a little buggy) and full-color direct-to-disc inkjet printing to ensure a professional-looking job. This being the first unit of its kind, however, it should come as no surprise that it only uses single-layer discs, able to store a measly ...
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Thursday, June 22nd, 2006
The battle of the Ajax web chat services took a new turn today when old-school E-messenger.net relaunched as Ebuddy.com. The Netherlands based company has also secured a round of funding from an as yet undisclosed, but top tier, VC firm.
E-messenger (now eBuddy) has been around since 2003, offers chat in a pop-up box and added Ajax functionality in February. It’s been challenged by upstart Meebo since early this year. Meebo requires chat to go on in a browser window. Both services support MSN, AIM and Yahoo, but Meebo also supports Jabber/GTalk.
These appear to be the two major players in the ...
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Wednesday, June 21st, 2006
MySpace.com is planning new restrictions on how adults may contact its younger users in response to growing concerns about the safety of teenagers who frequent the popular online social networking site.
The site already prohibits kids 13 and under from setting up accounts and displays only partial profiles for those registered as 14 or 15 years old unless the person viewing the profile is already on the teen's list of friends.
Under the changes, expected to be announced Wednesday and taking effect next week, MySpace users who are 18 or over could no longer request to be on a 14- or 15-year-old's ...
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Wednesday, June 21st, 2006
Helen Coonan, the minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, announced the initiative Wednesday. A representative of Coonan told ZDNet Australia that the first free filters should be available for download from a government portal within six months.
"It puts a safer Internet experience within the grasp of every Australian family, and it is a solution to the problem posed by Internet pornography that is simple, safe, effective and free," Coonan said in a statement.
"Every parent will be able to receive a free filter for their home computer, (and) there will be child-safe terminals in libraries across Australia." ...
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Wednesday, June 21st, 2006
Microsoft last week quietly showed off software for embedding its Web-based Windows Live ID authentication services within Windows applications. Windows Live ID is the successor to Microsoft Passport, a hosted service for verifying a person's name and password for logging onto Web servers.
Later this year, Microsoft will release a beta version of a software developer's kit (SDK) for making the Windows Live ID service function within a Windows application, said Lynn Ayres, program manager on the Windows Live ID team.
Right now, Windows Live ID authentication services are designed to work with Microsoft's Web-based applications such as Windows Live ...
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Wednesday, June 21st, 2006
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- A 14-year-old girl who says she was sexually assaulted by another user of MySpace.com sued the social networking Web site Monday, claiming it does not take sufficient steps to protect underage members.
The girl says a 19-year-old man lied in his profile about being a senior on a football team to gain her trust and phone number.
Pete Solis was arrested in May on a charge of sexual assault of a child. He could not immediately be reached Monday evening.
The suit alleges that MySpace has "absolutely no meaningful protections or security measures to protect underage users."
"(MySpace) has got ...
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Wednesday, June 21st, 2006
Hackers on Sunday broke into a part of Microsoft's French Web site, replacing the front page with online graffiti.
The intruders were able to access the server that was running http://experts.microsoft.fr/, Microsoft confirmed Monday. The attack was claimed by Turkish hackers using the handle "TiTHacK," said Zone-H, a security Web site that keeps an archive with screenshots of defaced Web sites.
The attackers were likely able to penetrate the server running the Web site due to faulty configuration, Microsoft said in a statement Monday. "Microsoft took the appropriate action to resolve the issue and stop any additional criminal activity," it ...
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Wednesday, June 21st, 2006
Microsoft tonight announced a new partnership with Creative Commons, the organization dedicated to providing content producers a legal alternative to “all rights reserved” copyright law, to offer a new tool for easy insertion of Creative Commons licenses into works created with Microsoft Office.
Details: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/jun06/06-20MSCreativeCommonsPR.mspx
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Wednesday, June 21st, 2006
The web and mobile (and Nintendo Wii) browser Opera released its 9.0 version today and a number of cool new features are offered, including a built in bittorrent downloader, tab previews and widgets.
The Oslo, Norway based browser originated in 1994 and has a loyal, if small, user base - especially among international mobile users.
The bittorent system may be painfully slow to experienced torrent users, but the simplicity of one click downloads of bittorent files could really appeal to novice users. (FireFox users interested in a similar function might want to check out our review of AllPeers.)
The tab preview is ...
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Wednesday, June 21st, 2006
Yahoo! has released a software development kit (sdk) to allow third parties to create content plugins that users can add to their Yahoo IM.
Plugins can be built using javascript, flash, or both.
There are two categories of plugins. Conversation Plugins interact with the chat environment itself. For example, with the event finder plugin, two people chatting can bring up a Yahoo map and find pegged restaurantes, venues, etc. to discuss them. Another plugin that I saw demo’d was the “avatars space” where users can interact in a virtual environment using avatars, pull in flickr photos and othe props, etc. ...
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