Just a few days from being launched and Yahoo Pipes is putting lots of minds to work:
- five cool ways to use Yahoo! Pipes
- del.icio.us flavored web search
Lots else. What comes next? Only time will tell.
Yahoo! has just launched a new service called Yahoo Pipes which offers users the ability to easily create data mashups from remixing popular feed types, including Yahoo! Search, Google Base, Flickr photos and any RSS feed on the web. Yahoo! describes it as an interactive feed aggregator and manipulator that allows you to create feeds that are more powerful, useful and relevant.
Pipes also provides a set of functional modules to let users manipulate and transform data in oder to get the desired output. This set includes a powerful content analyzer, several data formatters, sorting modules and even translating services using BabelFish translating engine.
All these modules are integrated in an easy-to-use visual drag and drop editor that simplifies the job of building a mashup without writing a single line of code. The resulting feed can be for private use or shared with the Internet community. As Tim O’Reilly has defined it:
Yahoo!’s new Pipes service is a milestone in the history of the internet. It’s a service that generalizes the idea of the mashup, providing a drag and drop editor that allows you to connect internet data sources, process them, and redirect the output.
According to Google, their mission is to organize the information. In this case Yahoo! has won a battle letting the users create more organized, filtered and useful information by theirselves. Could it be a step towards Web3.0 in which users not only contribute but can take advantage of the rest of information their own way and share it? What comes next? Only time will tell.
According to Wikipedia, a firewall is an information technology security device whose basic task is to control traffic between computer networks with different zones of trust.
By definition, network traffic is bidirectional which means that your personal firewall should protect your private home network from both, inbound traffic and outbound traffic. Whereas the former type of traffic has been generally thought to be a potential danger since the Internet was born, the latter one had not been considered a real danger until the proliferation of malware during the last few years. Right now outbound traffic have become a real danger.
Nevertheless while this seems obvious for everybody it looks like Microsoft disagrees. Windows XP’s built-in firewall, the current most-extended personal firewall, has no protection at all for outbound traffic giving users a false sense of security.
It was expected to be solved in brand-new Windows Vista as Microsoft states that new Vista’s firewall is now two-way. And it is true, but a closer look at the way it works reveals a particular way to understand security. By default, most firewalls, the good ones, allow no outbound connection unless explicitly authorized by the user, usually presenting a convenient wizard to program a particular rule the first time an application tries to connect to the Internet.
On the other hand, Windows Vista’s firewall by default allows all outbound connection until a rule is explicitly created to deny it by the user. Even worse, configuring these rules is no piece of cake at all. What does Microsoft say about this decision? Well, according to Matt Parreta, a spokesperson for Microsoft’s PR agency, they think that having to walk through the many wizard-driven pop-ups that would occur shortly after the first time Vista gets installed would be a poor out-of-the-box experience.
A false sense of security again, this time in the name of a “better user experience”. What comes next? Only time will tell.
Scientists at Purdue University have developed a portable generator that turns trash into electricity. About a small van size, the device can process several types of trash, including food waste, plastic and paper.
This device uses two different process depending on the type of waste: food material goes into a bioreactor that uses the yeast ferments to create ethanol and other materials go to a gasifier and are converted into propane gas and methane, which then fuel a diesel engine that creates electricity.
The machine, called a tactical biorefinery, has been designed for the U.S. military and unfortunately is going to be for military use only, but it could have widespread civilian applications in the, hopefully, not-so-far future. What comes next? Only time will tell.
Tons have been talked lately about whether YouTube’s video about how to get into Google TV is hoax or reality. Well, it is still not clear if it is hoax or reality. Some people claim that it is an amazing hoax while other people are conceited to have got a Google TV account.
Anyway, I believe that even if *this* Google TV is hoax, it will be a reality soon. Looks like, after social networks revolution, IPTV (TV over Internet) is the next big revolution and such player as Google won’t be out of this business.
Evidences? Friis and Zennstrom, the Skype and Kazaa guys, have recently launch Joost a new TV service based on peer-to-peer technologies. There is another new TV service called Babelgum, which combines social networking with TV viewing experience (web 2.0 with IPTV 1.0 ;-). Both, Joost and Babelgum are available only as a closed beta. There is also Apple with its Apple TV presented in last MacWorld Expo, a mixture between TiVo and an Internet computer. Even Bill Gates has been talking about this revolution lately while the brand new Windows Vista is more TV-oriented than ever (will Microsoft come next with Zune TV?).
Is there anybody out there who thinks that Google is not going to launch a “Google TV” service? What comes next? Only time will tell.
Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis are the creators of Skype and Kazaa, two of the most important (both but particularly the former one) Internet initiatives of the last years. Both products were a combination of new technologies and new defined protocols plus the needed new applications that together are part of new revolutionary services. Well, they did it again.
Joost, formerly Venice Project, is now a reality. It is also a new software application plus its relevant technology wrapping it that makes a new service but that’s from the technical boring side. Joost is, as said in its site:
A new way of watching TV that provides the best of both, the Internet and TV worlds.
They are still in beta phase looking for beta testers under application (and approval). You could also get into Joost by invitation. Look forward to watching it. What comes next? Only time will tell.
Two days ago I went through the idea that Apple’s phone wouldn’t be named ‘iPhone’ as it is a registered trademark of Cisco Systems. Yesterday I had to admit that I was wrong as Steve Jobs surprisingly announced Apple’s new iPhone.
Well, today we’ve known that both companies were negotiating to use the same mark. Finally, on monday evening there was no agreement but Apple’s arrogance let Jobs announce the iPhone without permission.
One of the possibilities I pointed out yesterday was that this story would end up in court and so it will be. Cisco sues Apple over use of iPhone trademark. What comes next? Only time will tell.
I must admit that I was wrong in my yesterday’s post as I stated that Apple wouldn’t name ‘iPhone’ its expected new all-in-one device. Surprisingly, Apple has done it as announced in MacWorld Expo!
Surprisingly because ‘iPhone’ is a registered trademark of Cisco Systems. All right, you could think that Cisco has just licensed their trademark to be used by Apple but in fact they recently launched their own iPhone through Linksys. Anybody understands? Will we see future legal litigations?
Linksys’ iPhone is commercially available while Apple’s iPhone is still waiting to be authorized by the Federal Communications Commission but I guess Cisco and Apple will reach, if not yet, an agreement. After all, it’s just a question of money. What comes next? Only time will tell.
After a decent start in mid-november when it was unveiled, Microsoft’s Zune has not been able to reach more than #4 in portable music players war with just 1.9 percent market share compared to 62 percent for Apple’s iPod. SanDisk and Creative are second and third respectively.
Anyway, this is not peanuts at all for a new player in a estimated $6 billion market, but the worst thing is that Microsoft still has not convinced dealers. Only 10 percent of them recommend Zune over iPod, which is recommended by 70 percent of dealers.
This are no good news for short-term sales but Microsoft still claim its long-term commitment to the digital music player market. In spite of these sort-of-bad starting results, this is not the first time Microsoft is late for a market that would have almost ended dominating. Remember X-Box versus Sony’s PlayStation and even Windows-PC versus Apple’s Macintosh. What comes next? Only time will tell.
Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, is planning to start a wiki-based search engine that will probably be launched in early 2007 with Amazon as partner.
The main idea behind this project is to build a human-based search engine over computer-based algorithms like the ones that Google and Yahoo! work with. According to Mr. Wales this kind of systems is no match for the editorial judgment of humans. So this new concept of search engine will rely on human intelligence to do what algorithms cannot.
The search engine has widely and wrongly been reported as being called “Wikiasari” which, as Wales has stated, that name refers to a former similar project, Wikia search engine, not affiliated with Amazon, A9, or Wikipedia.
Like its potential competitors, the revenue model for this new search engine will be advertising, though Mr. Wales himself thinks that catching up with Google, Yahoo!, MSN or even smaller players like Ask.com will be a difficult challenge. What comes next? Only time will tell.