Posts for 'Changing Lifestyle' Category

It’s undeniable: Google Wave has captured the imagination of techies, social media enthusiasts, and web users everywhere. Its combination of email, real-time chat, wiki tools, and social networking have generated an incredible amount of buzz.

While the focus of this buzz is centered around Google Wave’s features, there’s an aspect of the new platform that hasn’t received the attention it deserves: Google Wave extensions, which allow any developer to add their own gadgets or robots to the open-source tool. Extensions offer the potential for Google Wave to end up being used in so many different ways. But what exactly is an extension? Why would someone build one? And how exactly does one go about it?

Thanks to developers Sam Gammon and Nick Hume, we now have the answers to most of these questions. We looked inside the process of building a Google Wave extension, from start to finish and assembled the following guide, which explains the concept of a Google Wave extension, why they’re important, how one can be built, and what you can expect in the coming future.

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Hoping to challenge the popular iPhone and carve out a dominant position in the transition of the internet to mobile networks, Google launched its first mobile phone Tuesday in the US in conjunction with the German-owned carrier T-Mobile.

The new device, called the T-Mobile G1, functions on 3G networks and is specially designed to offer high-speed access to popular Google services such as search, Gmail, Google maps with directions and YouTube.It also features a touch screen and a slide-out keyboard, a feature that could give it an advantage over the iPhone.

A mobile version of Amazon’s MP3 store will be preloaded onto the G1, which will allow users to search, download, buy and play music directly from the popular music store.The G1 will support the Android Market, a mobile application in which third party developers can offer additional programmes for the device, which is manufactured by Taiwanese electronics maker HTC.

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Russia will be able to create its first Internet addresses using the Cyrillic alphabet next year, communications ministry official Vladimir Vassiliev told Interfax news agency on Sunday.

The move follows a decision by the organisation that regulates the Internet to deliver a radical shake-up to the domain-name system.

Russia, which currently uses two top-level domain names .ru and .su, will be able to create a third in Cyrillic by the second quarter of next year, Vassiliev said.

Some Russians have trouble using the Latin alphabet and being able to surf the web entirely in Russian would lead to an increase in the number of users, he said.

At the beginning of June, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, an internet enthusiast, said it was very important for Russia to have domain names in Cyrillic, mainly to reinforce the role of the Russian language in the world.

Russia had 35 million users at the end of last year, about 24 percent of the population. That could climb to 46 million users by the end of this year, the ministry said.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved the overhaul at its annual general meeting in Paris on Thursday. It also voted to allow domain names to be lodged in languages such as Arabic or Mandarin Chinese.

Fewer U.S. hotels are offering free breakfasts, more are charging for late cancellation, and more are offering free in-room wireless Internet access. Ironically, though, the more you pay for your room, the less likely you are to get free Wi-Fi.

Those are some of the findings from a recent survey of 10,000 hotels conducted by Smith Travel Research for the American Hotel & Lodging Association.

Wireless Internet access is being offered by 91 per cent of hotels, up 35 per cent from four years ago, according to the survey.

Only 15 per cent of hotels charge for Internet access, down from 18 per cent in 2006 and 22 per cent in 2004. But charges for Internet access were most common at more expensive properties, with three-fourths of luxury hotels and 91 per cent of "upper upscale" hotels charging guests to access the Internet from their rooms.

Thirty-five per cent of the hotels that responded to the survey also offer iPod docking stations in their rooms, and most of these hotels were also luxury and "upper upscale" properties.

Nearly three-fourths offer a computer in the lobby for guest use, though economy hotels are least likely to offer this service.

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Here's a new twist on Internet calling: T-Mobile plans to offer a supercheap version, essentially a loss leader to get and keep wireless customers. For $10 a month, T-Mobile customers will be able to make all the calls they want from traditional handsets at home across the Internet. The offer will be available in July.

If the quality is good enough to attract customers, the move is sure to put pressure on AT&T and Verizon Wireless, which already offer Internet phone service. Their service starts at around $30 a month, which is also what cable companies have been charging for their unlimited Internet calls. Even independent competitors like Vonage charge about $25 for comparable service.

T-Mobile at Home will include all the typical bells and whistles unlimited domestic long distance, voice mail, three-way calling, call waiting, and caller ID. Customers can move their existing phone number to the new line.

The wireless carrier has tested the service in Dallas and Seattle. T-Mobile says that 97 percent of customers dropped their land lines in favor of the cheaper calling.

Unlike other dirt-cheap calling services, including Skype and magicJack, T-Mobile's won't require a PC to make calls. Customers would buy a T-Mobile router to plug into their broadband connection. The router will cost $50 with, in a nod to T-Mobile's wireless pedigree, a two-year contract.

Google is expected to unveil a tool Tuesday that measures Internet use to help advertisers identify the best places to buy ads that will reach its target audience, according to a report Monday on the Wall Street Journal Web site.

The measurement tools, which will be offered to advertisers and their agencies for free, will compete with services offered by established leaders Nielsen and ComScore. While those services base their estimations on selective surveys or customer panels, Google's results would be based on data collected from Web servers, providing a deeper and broader picture of Internet behavior, the newspaper reported. By giving away the new tool, Google could attract more advertising business.

The news follows Google's announcement last week that Google Trends had unveiled a new service that lets users type in specific domains and compare basic traffic information about any .com site using nothing more than organic user searches. Included are daily traffic numbers in users (sent from Google search), where in the world the users are coming from, and related sites that were either searched for or visited in that same session.

After news of the planned service hit the Web, ComScore shares fell $1.69, or 6.1 percent, to $26 after-hours trading. Nielsen is a privately owned company.

Internet software and services stocks mostly declined Thursday, led by shares of Yahoo Inc. after the Internet icon said its merger talks with Microsoft Corp. ended without a deal.

The development is expected to lead to an ad partnership between Yahoo (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) and rival Google Inc. (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) - a deal that was expected to be announced after the stock market closed.

How key Internet software and services stocks performed Thursday:

Yahoo Inc. fell $2.63, or 10.1 percent, to $23.52.

Google Inc. rose $7.75 to $552.95.

EBay Inc. (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ) rose 36 cents to $28.08.

Akamai Technologies Inc. (nasdaq: AKAM - news - people ) fell 16 cents to $35.29.

VeriSign Inc. (nasdaq: VRSN - news - people ) fell 28 cents to $38.89.

In a first for the United States, three internet service providers (ISPs) have agreed to block access to web sites that show child pornography, however not everyone is welcoming the move, with some groups claiming it raises censorship issues.

It may seem like an altruistic move, but ISPs Time Warner, Verizon and Sprint, were forced into the landmark agreement by New York Attorney-General Andrew Cuomo.

It took an eight-month undercover investigation in which his officers posed as subscribers to the ISPs.

When the officers' complaints to the ISPs that they were allowing child pornography online were ignored, the Attorney-General threatened to charge the companies with fraud.

Now they have come on board and offered the non-government organisation, the Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, more than $US1 million to set up the scheme.

Parry Aftab is an internet privacy and security lawyer and the founder of internet safety advocacy group, wiredsafety.org and he says the agreement means child pornography could potentially be wiped from the networks.

"What they've done is they've agreed to stop allowing anyone to access the channels that are frequently used for child pornography, and to use technology and people to help ferret it out wherever it is on their network," he said.

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Elysium Internet, Inc. (OTCBB: USBF) (Pending name change), an emerging direct navigation Internet media Company, today announced that it has closed the acquisition of Pediatricians.com, Psychiatrists.com and Podiatrists.com in a deal valued at $1 Million US.

Elysium Internet Chairman and CEO Scott Gallagher commented, "With today's domain acquisitions we have added three of the best currently available dot com domains in the directory space to our growing portfolio. We successfully launched Therapists.net a short time ago. The site nearly surpassed our internal revenue projections for the month in its first full day of operations. We'll be launching Auditors.com in the next week or so and then look to launch Pediatricians.com, Psychiatrists.com and Podiatrists.com all by the 4th of July." Gallagher continued, "Having our first 5 directories running and generating cash will enable us to continue to seek out accretive category killer domains like those acquired today, build our Internet real estate portfolio, grow our cash flow and provide significant value for our stockholders."

About Elysium Internet, Inc.

Elysium Internet, Inc. (OTCBB: USBF) (Pending name change) is an emerging direct navigation online media Company. Publicly traded FTS Group (OTCBB: FLIP) owns 60% of the Company. Its domain assets include: TheDirectory.com, Therapists.net, Auditors.com, Pediatricians.com, Psychiatrists.com, Podiatrists.com, SECLawyer.com and many more. The Company is focused on developing the Internet's leading local directory Company. Elysium is also in the process of developing several proprietary direct navigation ad platforms. For additional information about Elysium Internet, Inc. (Currently US Biodefense, Inc. pending a name change) please review the Company's quarterly, annual and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission,

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Japan's top advertising firm Dentsu Inc. said Monday that it was entering Internet advertising in India, predicting potential for major growth.

Dentsu said it was starting a joint venture, tentatively to be called Clickstreamers India Pvt. Ltd., in a joint venture with Mumbai-based Connecturf India Pvt. Ltd.

The venture, which will open offices in New Delhi and Bangalore, aims at tapping into the "fast-growing Indian Internet advertising market," a Dentsu statement said.

Some 46 million Indians were using the Internet as of September last year, a jump of nearly 43 percent from one year earlier, Dentsu said.

Revenue from Internet advertising in India is expected to rise by more than three and a half times from current levels to be worth more than 200 million dollars in 2012, it said.

Dentsu has set a strategy of expanding digital and overseas operations to make up for a lacklustre market for traditional advertising in Japan.