Thursday, September 24, 2009
Software developer SpeedTrack has filed suit against nearly two dozen major online retailers, including Amazon.com, Best Buy, Overstock.com, Nike, Costco and Dell, accusing the major online retailers of infringing some patent that supposedly covers a search mechanism customers can use to locate products on their websites.The complaint, filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accuses the defendants of infringing U.S. Patent Number 5,544,360, titled "Method for accessing computer files and data, using linked categories assigned to each data file record on entry of the data file record".
Dubbed GIA (Guided Information Access), originally developed and patented by SpeedTrack co-founder and CTO Jerzy Lewak, the system is designed to guide users to contextually relevant information when searching specific keywords, ensuring a result rather than a page that says "no result can be found" or whatever. According to its website, law enforcement agencies like police departments use SpeedTrack's GIA software to sort through massive criminal records data, which supposedly helps them solve crimes faster.
SOURCE - TechCrunch
Labels: patent, retail, speedtrack
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
This has got to be the coolest little gadget I have stumbled upon in quite some time.This fun desktop robot will clean up all your messes! Simply press top button and zoom over crumbs, pencil shavings or other debris and he'll sweep 'em up. Requires 2 AA batteries, not included. In three colors. Red, gray or black!
You can purchase one at FredFlare.com.
And for more geeky awesomeness I saw these cool Emotibud Earbuds at ShanaLogic."Are you sick of your plain ear buds? Well, our friends at Emotibles have solved your fashion problem!" They are flexible charms fit classic iPod earbuds as well as second-generation earbuds with included inserts. Who needs a mood ring when you have Emotibuds!?
Labels: Gadgets
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.
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