It seems that one of the big trends at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this year is turning your TV into a full on Internet device.
Yesterday we brought you the news that Skype was launching services for TVs that would turn them into communications devices, and today brings us the news that DivX, a leader in video encoding, is launching DivX TV to bring even more content to your television set.
The new software will allow you to browse through various entertainment sources from TV shows and major films, to content from your favorite Internet video sites. Also, it isn’t limited to just TVs, the software will also be appearing in Blu-ray players, cell phones and other devices, allowing you to hop between devices and watch what you want, when you want.
The first companies to be announced as worikng with DivX include:
ADB (Advanced Digital Broadcast)
Bluestreak
Brightcove
Broadcom Corporation
Innovative DTV Solutions
Iomega
LG Electronics
Viewsonic Corporation
And content providers include:
Associated Press
blip.tv
Break
CNET
Roxio CinemaNow
Dailymotion
Diggnation
Pandora
Picasa
Revision 3
Rhapsody
TED
Tekzilla
The Street.com
Twitter
VBS.TV
The problem, as I see it, is the same with the Skype TV system: Your TV has to be near your Internet connection. It’s wonderful that all of this additional content is coming to TVs, but unless you want to run cables all over your house, are you really going to be able to take advantage of it? Luckily I do have Internet near my TV, but how many people really do?
The service still sounds quite exciting, and you can see a demo video below.
Video calls just got a bit more interesting with the announcement that you will now be able to place them over your television set.
Skype announced today that it has partnered with LG Electronics and Panasonic to embed Skype technology into Internet enabled televisions to be launched this year. This means that in conjunction with an HD webcam (sold separately), you will be able to make video calls right from the comfort of your living room.
Of course this means your TV will need to be within reach of an Ethernet cable so that you can plug it in to your home network, but considering the possible benefits of such technology, it’ll be worth it.
The television sets will be available in the spring of this year, and no pricing has been announced at this time. We are certainly not suggesting that you run out and buy a new TV just for this technology, but if you do happen to find yourself in the market for a new TV set, we would certainly think you would want to include this factor in your purchasing decision.
You can learn more about the news in the video below or by visiting the Skype On Your TV page.
Securing your name online can be as important as finding a physical location for a business, luckily TweExchange is aiming to help you out.
While there have been services out there for ages now that will help you with locating an unclaimed domain name, and there have also been a few to check for unusued Twitter names, no one has merged the two into one service before. TweExchange is a new direction for a site that used to auction off desirable Twitter usernames (much to Twitter’s chagrin), but now they are all about helping you choose your online identity while you are still in the brainstorming phase.
The site is amazingly handy when you’re trying to decide on a name for your new online site. Where you only used to have to worry about the domain name, now you also want a name that you can secure on the social networking site Twitter. The site starts working almost immediately as you type each letter, showing you possible variations for both domains and Twitter names as you go. Once you find one you like, you can register the domain via the built in link to the GoDaddy domain name service, and you can also click the link to go to Twitter and register the user name. (click the image below for a larger view of what the results look like)
The site is simple, straight forward and a breeze to use. If you want to start fresh with another search, just make sure to click the “Clear results” link below the “Search” button or else you get a jumbling of your previous search results along with the new ones. As someone who dreams up a lot of sites, but doesn’t always get around to launching them, this site is going to be extremely useful to me. If you want to launch a totally new online presence, this site should be invaluable to you, so make sure to bookmark it.
Why is it becoming so acceptable to totally throw proper etiquette out the window just because things are done on the Internet?
As someone who writes for numerous blogs, I get a ton of press releases each day. Some interest me, most don’t, but one of the quickest ways to lose my interests is to start off an email to me in one of the following ways:
“Sean …”
“Dear Sean …”
“Hey Sean …”
Let me give you a hint folks, until such time as we have a familiar working relationship, or you give me permission to do otherwise, I will address you as “Mr.” or “Ms.” followed by your last name. I will never call someone by their first name in an initial contact email with someone I hope to have a working relationship with. This is an old business rule, and one that is still followed in most parts of the business world … it’s just the Internet that seems to think it is to “hip” for it any more.
This was all brought back to my attention this week when a press agent contacted me about doing them a sort of favor, and even though we had never talked before, nor been formally introduced, they called me “Sean” in their very first email to me. After our business dealing was over, I e-mailed them and let them know what I thought of their practice of doing such.
I have had it.
I have worked in many industries over the years, and I continue to work with Japanese companies extensively. If I was to ever demonstrate such a lackadaisical attitude in my dealings with them, I wouldn’t so much as get a rejection letter informing me of how disrespectful I was.
And in other industries I am associated with, people still expect to be addressed by their last name until such time as they say otherwise. This is just how business is done, but yet, if you work on the Internet, somehow you are beyond all this.
Well, newsflash folks, I’m not. And from here on out, I’m calling people on it. I’m tired of it, it’s rude and it is disrespectful of the traditions of business. I show you the respect of addressing you properly, I would ask you do the same for me. I will probably give you permission to call me “Sean” soon enough, just don’t assume you may from step one. Is that so much to ask?
Have you ever wished you could rent eleven books at a time through the mail? Well, now you can … and we’re still trying to figure out why you would.
The concept of BookSwim is exactly like that of Netflix in that you pick a plan for the number of books you would like to check out at any given time. You can choose 1 book, 3 books, 5 books, 7 books and 11 books, and all of them offer free shipping both directions except for the one book at a time plan. If you find you really enjoyed a book, and would like to keep it, you do have the option of purchasing the book without having to send it back.
While we understand the lure of Netflix, and have a subscription here at the office that we love, your average movie is two hours in length, you can quickly turn over your rentals to get the most out of your subscription. Unless you are a speed reader, getting the maximum return on investment out of your subscription would be difficult at best. There are advantages in instances where you are in situations like being a student and you need a certain book (BookSwim also offers textbook rentals via a partnership with Chegg.com), you live in a small town with no library, you are shut in for some reason and so on. Even at this though, the monthly memberships range from $9.95 a month to $59.95 a month, so it still seems hard to believe that very many people will ever be able to use this service enough to get their monies worth out of it.
With the explosion of e-readers that allow for instantaneous book delivery, and even some allowing for you to loan books to friends, as well as huge collections of free books you can read, this service is just a bit lost on us. We see a lot of value in the textbook rental service for college students, but as we said, that is done with a partnership with Chegg.com, so you can just go through them directly.
If you love BookSwim, and find it useful, more power to you, but we have to say we don’t picture this site having an extremely long life.
Since we started this site in March 2008, 2009 was out first full year of operation, and we thought it woul dbe fun to take a look back at which posts were the most read of the year.
This was the story of an employee who complained about their job on Facebook … and forgot that she was friended with her boss on the social network. According to the story, she was fired for her comments, and I can’t say as I blame her boss. Take a valuable lesson from this one folks.
Social media is a wonderful thing, but if you devote too much time to it, you could possibly cost you your real life relationships. Always take into account that you need to spend some time with those you love and care for in real life also, and not spend all of your time online.
After the amazing landing in the Hudson River last Jan., there was a Flash game released, and apparently everyone wanted to see if they could do as good a job as Capt. Sully.
This was a fascinating story about how a man received an email not attended for him and it led to legal problems for him even though he had in no way been involved in the email being sent incorrectly. A very sobering story that makes you wonder about the safety of information you store online.
Twitter was every where this year, and leave it to a cartoon to be potentially the best explanation of what the service is and what it does to people that live outside of the tech blogosphere. And for those that already use the service, it was just darn amusing.
Here is to a great 2010, and more posts that we hope you will all enjoy!
Apparently a goodly number of people aren’t quite sure how you use a Web browser to navigate to a Web site without first going through a search engine.
Hitwise has released its annual list of the top 10 searched on terms for the year, and somehow people still seem to think they need to go through a search engine to even get to Web sites they already know the address for.
As you can see in the graph below from Hitwise comparing 2008 to 2009, many things haven’t changed much in the past year beyond the top social network changing from MySpace in 2008 to Facebook in 2009. Seeing as Facebook was #10 in 2008, that’s fairly impressive.
What I find interesting is when people search for a domain name with its extension, i.e. MySpace.com. All one needs to do is go to the address bar of their browser and enter the Web address to get there, but for some reason a considerable number of users out there insist on going to a search engine first. Why, I doubt anyone knows, but we’re here to tell you that you can save a step if you want.
Apparently some people still have not learned how to create a good password.
Popular micro-blogging service Twitter has now come out with a list of 370 passwords you are now allowed to use when creating your account. Apparently more people need to learn how to pick a password. TechCrunch discovered how to see all of the banned, but ValleyWag listed all 370, and … well … they’re an interesting mix of stupidity and oddballs.
In this day and age you have got to pick tougher passwords. Remember to mix numbers, letters and symbols. For instance, say I wanted to use “StarterTech” as a password (which I would never do), I could write it out as “$t^rt3rt3ch”. It still spells out the word, but I have mixed all the symbols and numbers in so it wouldn’t be easy to hack in a brute force password hacking attempt. Don’t just use “password123″ for crying out loud.
Have you followed Drew Carey on Twitter yet like we suggested to you back in October? If not, why haven’t you?
Back in October of this year we wrote up how Drew Carey was working to drum up charity donations for the Livestrong Foundation to further cancer research. At that time he was aiming to raise $100,000 by getting 100,000 followers. Well, he reached that goal, so he upped it to $1,000,000 for 1,000,000 followers and … well … here is some of what I wrote on my personal blog:
This was all inspired by Drew Olanoff, a well-known individual in the social media scene, auction off his Twitter username, @drew, to raise money for cancer research. Mr. Olanoff recently had a fight with cancer himself, which it thankfully appears he has won, and he felt auctioning off a desirable four-letter Twitter username was a way to go. His minimum bid was $10,000, but Drew Carey was the first to bid, and he went right for $25,000. See, Mr. Carey got stuck with the username@DrewFromTV, so of course he wants @drew. Well, the problem was that it appeared he scared off other potential bidders, so he said if he had 100,000 followers by Nov. 9th, the end of the auction, he would pay $100,000 for the name. When he easily beat that goal, he extended it to Dec. 31st and $1,000,000 for one million followers.
As I write this, Mr. Carey is at 307,212 followers with a week to go.
… what is wrong with you people?
That was a few days ago, and with less than 48 hours to go, he is up to just over 320,000.
Please folks, please go and follow Mr. Carey. He doesn’t care if you unfollow him on Jan. 1st, all he is doing is trying to raise awareness of cancer research and to peg his donation to something. As I also said on my personal blog:
I normally don’t believe in guilting people in to doing things, but come on folks: You click a button, and someone else gives a $1 to charity. All you have to do is click a button. That’s it. Nothing else is required of you. If you’re a Twitter user, please do it.
It is so simple, and as I said, you just click a button, and someone else donates the dollar. Just follow the man!
And if you think this deviates from the normal tone of StarterTech, it does somewhat, but it is also about the power of social media to affect change in the world and … oh, forget it, just go follow the man … please. Again, it is @DrewFromTV, just click the “Follow” button and you’re done!
There is no doubt that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s failed terror attack has changed thing for travelers yet again, but it took a leaked document to let passengers know exactly what the new rules are.
Yesterday we told you that the Transportation Security Authority’s (TSA) new rules in the wake of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s failed bombing on Christmas Day. Confusion has been the order of the day since these new rules came to be enacted, but now, thanks to a leaked document to Gizmodo, we have a bit of a clearer picture as to what is going on exactly.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Transportation Security Administration
Aviation Security Directive
Subject: Security Directive
Number: SD 1544-09-06 Date: December 25, 2009 EXPIRATION: 0200Z on December 30, 2009
This Security Directive (SD) must be implemented immediately. The measures contained in this SD are in addition to all other SDs currently in effect for your operations.
INFORMATION: On December 25, 2009, a terrorist attack was attempted against a flight traveling to the United States. TSA has identified security measures to be implemented by airports, aircraft operators, and foreign air carriers to mitigate potential threats to flights.
APPLICABILITY: THIS SD APPLIES TO AIRCRAFT OPERATORS THAT CARRY OUT A SECURITY PROGRAM REGULATED UNDER 49 CODE OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS (CFR)1544.101(a).
ACTIONS REQUIRED: If you conduct scheduled and/or public charter flight operations under a Full Program under 49 CFR 1544.101(a) departing from any foreign location to the United States (including its territories and possessions), you must immediately implement all measures in this SD for each such flight.
1. BOARDING GATE
1. The aircraft operator or authorized air carrier representative must ensure all passengers are screened at the boarding gate during the boarding process using the following procedures. These procedures are in addition to the screening of all passengers at the screening checkpoint.
1. Perform thorough pat-down of all passengers at boarding gate prior to boarding,concentrating on upper legs and torso.
2. Physically inspect 100 percent of all passenger accessible property at the boarding gate prior to boarding, with focus on syringes being transported along with powders and/or liquids.
3. Ensure the liquids, aerosols, and gels restrictions are strictly adhered to in accordance with SD 1544-06-02E.
2. During the boarding process, the air carrier may exempt passengers who are Heads of State or Heads of Government from the measures outlined in Section I.A. of this SD, including the following who are traveling with the Head of State or Head of Government:
1. Spouse and children, or
2. One other individual (chosen by the Head of State or Head of Government)
3. For the purposes of Section I.B., the following definitions apply:
1. Head of State: An individual serving as the chief public representative of a monarchic or republican nation-state, federation, commonwealth, or any other political state (for example, King, Queen, and President).
2. Head of Government: The chief officer of the executive branch of a government presiding over a cabinet (for example, Prime Minister, Premier, President, and Monarch).
2. IN FLIGHT
1. During flight, the aircraft operator must ensure that the following procedures are followed: 1. Passengers must remain in seats beginning 1 hour prior to arrival at destination. 2. Passenger access to carry-on baggage is prohibited beginning 1 hour prior to arrival at destination. 3. Disable aircraft-integrated passenger communications systems and services (phone, internet access services, live television programming, global positioning systems) prior to boarding and during all phases of flight. 4. While over U.S. airspace, flight crew may not make any announcement to passengers concerning flight path or position over cities or landmarks.
5. Passengers may not have any blankets, pillows, or personal belongings on the lap beginning 1 hour prior to arrival at destination.
AIRCRAFT OPERATOR ACKNOWLEDGMENT: The aircraft operator must immediately provide written confirmation to its assigned PSI indicating receipt of this SD.
AIRCRAFT OPERATOR dissemination required: The aircraft operator must immediately pass the information and directives set forth in this SD to all stations affected, and provide written confirmation to its PSI, indicating that all stations affected have acknowledged receipt of the information and directives set forth in this SD. The aircraft operator must disseminate this information to its senior management personnel, ground security coordinators, and supervisory security personnel at all affected locations. All aircraft operator personnel implementing this SD must be briefed by the aircraft operator on its content and the restrictions governing dissemination. No other dissemination may be made without prior approval of the Assistant Secretary for the Transportation Security Administration. Unauthorized dissemination of this document or information contained herein is prohibited by 49 CFR Part 1520 (see 69 Fed. Reg. 28066 (May 18, 2004).
APPROVAL OF ALTERNATIVE MEASURES: With respect to the provisions of this SD, as stated in 49 CFR 1544.305(d), the aircraft operator may submit in writing to its PSI proposed alternative measures and the basis for submitting the alternative measures for approval by the Assistant Administrator for Transportation Sector Network Management. The aircraft operator must immediately notify its PSI whenever any procedure in this SD cannot be carried out by a government authority charged with performing security procedures.
FOR TSA ACTION ONLY: The TSA must issue this SD immediately to the corporate security element of all affected U.S. aircraft operators.
FOR STATE DEPARTMENT: Retransmittal to appropriate foreign posts is authorized. Post must refer to STATE 162917, 201826Z Sep 01, Subject: FAA Security Directives and Information Circulars: Definitions and Handling, for specific guidance and dissemination.
Gale Rossides
Acting Administrator
For now it appears the rules are set to expire on Dec. 30th, but don’t be surprised if these get extended in at least some sort of modified version beyond that date.
As we said yesterday, travel as light as possible for now, folks.
It seems that one of the big trends at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this year is turning your TV into a full on Internet device.
Video calls just got a bit more interesting with the announcement that you will now be able to place them over your television set.
Securing your name online can be as important as finding a physical location for a business, luckily TweExchange is aiming to help you out.
Why is it becoming so acceptable to totally throw proper etiquette out the window just because things are done on the Internet?
Have you ever wished you could rent eleven books at a time through the mail? Well, now you can … and we’re still trying to figure out why you would.
Since we started this site in March 2008, 2009 was out first full year of operation, and we thought it woul dbe fun to take a look back at which posts were the most read of the year.
Apparently a goodly number of people aren’t quite sure how you use a Web browser to navigate to a Web site without first going through a search engine.
Apparently some people still have not learned how to create a good password.
Have you followed Drew Carey on Twitter yet like we suggested to you back in October? If not, why haven’t you?
There is no doubt that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s failed terror attack has changed thing for travelers yet again, but it took a leaked document to let passengers know exactly what the new rules are.
