Friday, June 5, 2009
TopCoder(R), Inc., the leader in online programming competition, skills assessment and competitive software development, today announced the Champions for all 9 tracks of the 2009 TopCoder Open along with a new accessibility challenge. Chinese member Bin Jin, known by his TopCoder handle crazyb0y, took top honors in the Algorithm competition. Members from China, Russian Federation, Argentina, Australia, Ukraine and Canada won their respective competitions in Mod Dash, Architecture, Development, Marathon Competition, Assembly, TopCoder Studio, Design and Specification. Sponsors of the 2009 TopCoder Open included IEEE-USA, SNIA-XAM, Facebook and patron NSA. Additional support was provided by AOL for the Sensations Developer Challenge. The competition attracted nearly 6,000 registrants earlier in the year, and after a series of online qualification rounds, 76 of the top finalists were flown in from 17 different countries to compete live on stage in Las Vegas.In addition to the nine tracks of competition, a special event, the AOL/TopCoder Sensations Developer Challenge, was won by a group of TopCoder members whose contributions to the winning application "Accessible Walking Directions" earned them a share a $25,000 bonus prize. Honorable mention went to the runner up submission "My Parents' Email Client".
The Sensations Developer Challenge was focused on advancing internet accessibility and utilizing all software development and Studio tracks of TCO'09 competition to build solutions for improved usability of mainstream internet-based products by people with disabilities.
About TopCoder, Inc.
TopCoder is the world's largest competitive software development community with over 180,000 developers representing more than 200 countries. TopCoder hosts the largest and most comprehensive developer ratings and performance metrics available. The TopCoder community builds software for a wide-ranging client base through a competitive, rigorous, standards based methodology. This methodology results in a highly consistent set of software components allowing a software-as-parts approach to application development. TopCoder makes this large library of software components built through competition available to all of our clients. Utilizing a world-wide member base and this library, TopCoder seeks to lower the cost of software development while increasing both the speed at which applications can be developed and the quality of the ultimate application.
Labels: competition, topcoder
Monday, May 4, 2009
The Envirobank accepts both cans and bottles, scanning the bar code to identify the product and also checking the material to make sure it's recyclable. Accepted containers are crushed and kept, while the kind-hearted recycler gets a coupon or credit of some sort for their efforts. Envirobank says their machines cut CO2 emissions, reduces waste disposal and collection costs, even provides advertising and fund raising opportunities.*~*~*
BlackBerries nearly dominated iPhones in US smartphone sales for the start of 2009, the NPD Group said today in a new study. The market researchers note that the top-selling phone line from the quarter ended in March was the BlackBerry Curve 8300 series, which edged out the iPhone 3G at second place. Of the top 5 phones, 3 were BlackBerries and included the touchscreen Storm in third place and the non-flip Pearl in fourth. The lone Android phone in the US, T-Mobile's G1, occupied the fifth spot.
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ITDatabase is launching Monday and tackling a very specific opportunity--get all tech news indexed in one place, and make it much easier for tech industry pros to analyze/aggregate trends about what's being said across all tech news. The company is starting with tech PR pros as the initial target customers, but believes the product offers a lot of research value to product managers and sales roles as well.
"There are thousands of tech authors covering tens of thousands of vendors and themes," said Travis Van, founder of ITDatabase. "Multiply them all together and you get a huge unstructured data mess, which largely accounts for why tech PR folks are often hitting the wrong journalists with the wrong content."
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Everyone was impressed with the new administration adding a blog to the White House website, but they've outdone themselves yet again with an official Twitter account and now a stellar-looking MySpace page - both launching within the last few days.
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Spore created by industry legend Will Wright announced Monday that 100 million creatures have been created, far outrunning the number of species on Earth.
The game publisher, Electronic Arts, started counting last June. That's when it first released its Spore Creature Creator, several months ahead of the full Spore game itself.
There's more Spore on the way. Electronic Arts' Maxis studio is releasing the Spore Galactic Adventures expansion pack for PC and Mac players, Spore Hero for the Wii, and Spore Hero Arena for the Nintendo DS.
Labels: blackberry, cell phone, electronic arts, envirobank, iPhone, itdatabase, president barack obama, spore, whitehouse, will wright
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
You can't help it, everything and everyone is going online. If you plan on starting up a business or getting any sort of mass exposure for something you have to do it online. Even my Mom who is terrified of computers has recently been heard saying she was going to "Google" something. That's right, it's a known verb to all generations to Google. And we all know to go online you need to have a domain and a host and a site designer, etc. It's great to know it can be done but where can you find the best resources?In comes sites like Web Hosting Rating, where you can get user reviews about different elements of web hosting as well as a wealth of other webby information.
For someone like me who is already on the web I can still find useful information at Web Hosting Rating, because they have great articles about what you should look for in your hosts. For instance, many hosts have a built in web designer element and you just need to know where to look to find this application. Web Hosting Rating fortunately has an article that makes the hunt a bit easier. There is a current article on their site right now which discusses SoloLaunch. "SoloLaunch is a user-friendly software program that allows you to easily build and maintain a professional website regardless of experience."
My favorite section of their site is the Awards page. Independent customer rating of the best web hosting providers. It's updated all the time and it breaks ratings down based on user need. So you can look to see who is the top in e-commerce if that's your niche or for me it would be the best blog host which right now is Globat.com.
Whether your needs are many because you're just starting out online, or your needs are more specific you'll be able to use WebHostRating.com as a resource. Click and bookmark this one!
This is a sponsored post.
Labels: hosting, web, web hosting rating
Friday, April 24, 2009
As of this morning, you can download the brand new Peggle for WoW addon from PopCap's site.WoW Insider got a chance to play with the add-on from its early beta on, and it's extremely impressive -- not only will you find the usual addictive peg-hitting gameplay that we've come to know from Peggle, but PopCap and creator Michael Fromwiller (whom we interviewed about Bejeweled, and who we're told is actually being hired on full-time at PopCap as soon as he finishes school this spring) have really added a new level to the game by tying it right into World of Warcraft. The game rewards you with "Talent points" that can change the game play itself, and you can challenge other players within World of Warcraft to duels and score battles. There's even a "Peggle loot" setting, which, when used as Master Looter, will let your guildies and friends with the add-on actually take Peggle shots against each other to determine who gets loot drops.
If you've never played the game Peggle you should try it out. It's much more mindless than WoW, but sometimes your mind needs a break while still being entertained. My five-year-old loves Peggle and so do I. You'll love it.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
A couple months ago I signed up for one of those free stock type games (WeSeed) you can try out with fake money to see how you would do in the real stock market. I haven't done so bad considering the intense fluctuations stocks have been experiencing.My interest in stocks is mostly due to the fact that I have a 403B with my employer and I'm losing money as I'm sure most people are right now. So I've been wanting to learn more about what it's all about.
One of the places I've come across for information and advice is tradeMonster. The site was co-founded by Jon Najarian, Pete Najarian, and Dirk Mueller which means they collectively have an average of 20 years experience dealing with financial information.
When it comes to finding an online options broker you definitely want someone with experience and I'd say especially those with young, fresh and innovative minds because they too are dealing with the craziness of today's economy. And yes, I admit, going to their website and being greeted with a wave of music which totally pumped me up also helped.
But when you look beyond the fresh site and energizing music you see all the tools and assets they have to offer as a trading facility online. Their production tools are completely browser based so you can access information from anywhere. Once you pull up your account you have the tools to actively watch the market and pick up strategies tuned in to your personalized needs. It is a bit overwhelming at first, but at the same time it is an invigorating experience (coming from a 28-year-old novice).I should also let you know they have different options for different type people. Someone like myself would be better off dealing with paperTrade which is the area you sign up to test different trading strategies and learn risk management. It's free to open the account and it brings you all the necessary proprietary stock reports right to your browser window.
WeSeed is free, too but the advice and analysis you receive is from other people like yourself. Being able to work with tradeMonster and knowing people who actually do this for a living are the ones giving me advice definitely puts me at ease.
So as our markets stabilize and eventually improve if you want to hop on ship while investments have the potential to start low then you should definitely sign up with tradeMonster.
For a girl who loves Super Mario, this is exciting. I mean Super Mario is one of the all-time classic games in my world. Granted I did grow up with Atari before Nintendo, but when Super Mario came out my brother and I were in awe and addicted. This Nintendo purse is the dream of every girl who grew up mashing buttons on a Nintendo system. This cute accessory has a screen and a fully-functioning Nintendo inside. It's also got two controllers connected to it that allow a game of Super Mario Bros. 3 to be played by two people anywhere and everywhere!
Thank you Jeri Ellsworth for designing this awesomeness!
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Western Digital has launched its My DVR Expander for the TiVo DVR, now with 1TB of hard drive storage capacity. Designed for storing HDTV shows beyond the stock storage, the upgraded DVR Expander uses a eSATA connection and can hold up to an additional 140 hours of HD television or a maximum of 600 hours standard definition, simply by attaching the device to any TiVo DVR, including those that normally restrict regular eSATA drives.
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MySpace boss and co-founder Chris DeWolfe is stepping down from his job, but will stay on as a "strategic adviser" on the board.
The social networking site's owner News Corp announced the move yesterday.
DeWolfe's contract will not be renewed by "mutual agreement" said News Corp, adding that the firm was talking to MySpace president Tom Anderson about taking on a "new role in the organisation".
Reports say the new CEO of News Corp (NWS) social network MySpace will be former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta. Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis, who's close with News Corp digital boss Jonathan Miller, probably knows whether this is true or not, but he says he can't confirm or deny it till Friday.
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LittleSnapper from Realmac Software has been available for OS X for quite some time (and was one of the apps available in this year's Macheist bundle), and a few days ago they released a trimmed-down version that runs on your iPhone. While it lacks the basic photo editing and annotation available on its desktop counterpart, LittleSnapper for iPhone is no slouch.
Labels: DVR, iphone app, myspace, nintendo, tivo, western digital
Monday, April 20, 2009
You've probably seen the commercials comparing the Subaru Stella to the BMW Mini. The commercials are lame if you ask me, I don't see any comparisons to begin with so of course they can dish out tons of incomparable features.Fuji Heavy Industries, parent company and maker of Subaru automobiles, has just announced its plans to begin testing prototypes of its Subaru plug-in Stella electric vehicle, which will be introduced in Japan this summer. Furthermore, the company has managed to boost power output from 40kW in the previous iteration to 47kW, and it also stripped away some unnecessary weight and fine-tuned the output management system. There's no mention of a price or expected launch date in North America.
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Adobe is working to bring its Flash web animation and video viewer to the living room via a new run-time system for HD TVs, set-top boxes, Blu-ray players and other connected living room devices.
This is all part of bringing Internet content into the TV viewing experience.
Adobe has signed up a host of partners to support the technology, called the Adobe Flash Platform for the Digital Home. The new platform is available now to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), and the first devices and processors that will support it should be available in the second half of the year, Adobe said.
Partners that have signed on to support the new version of Flash are Atlantic Records, Broadcom, Comcast, Disney Interactive Media Group, Intel, Netflix, STMicroelectronics, The New York Times Company, NXP Semiconductors and Sigma Designs.
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Oracle will acquire Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun's cash and debt. The deals comes after IBM withdrew its offer to buy Sun earlier this month.
"The acquisition of Sun transforms the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems," said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison in a statement. "Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system - applications to disk - where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves. Our customers benefit as their systems integration costs go down while system performance, reliability and security go up."
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Today sees the public launch of Tweetie for Mac, the desktop-based big brother of what many consider to be the iPhone's best Twitter client. People have been playing around with a beta version of the app for the last few days since the initial preview last Thursday.
In other Twitter news...
Late last night, former Engadget editor-in-chief Ryan Block tweeted out that he had done some research to attempt to quantify the "Oprah Effect" - that is, the number of users who signed up for Twitter after Oprah featured the service on her show on Friday. The number he came to was about 1.2 million new users.
Labels: adobe, auto, flash, iphone app, online tv, oracle, subaru, sun microsystems, tweetie, twitter
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