Ajax Girl

Approximately 60% of Arabic-speaking Internet users dislike using an Arabic keyboard, according to Yamli, a Massachusetts-based startup that launched last year. CEO Habib Haddad explains that many users have to use a Latin keyboard for their jobs or school, which makes the keyboards impractical (and many think they’re just hard to type with). When it comes time to type in Arabic, many Internet users have adopted a phonetic web language that spells out Arabic words with these Latin letters. The result, Haddad says, is messy - especially when it comes to making sounds that don’t exist in English.

Yamli has built a system that solves this problem. Users enter words phonetically into a special text box that displays a list of matching words that are written in Arabic. This allows them to keep using their Latin keyboard, without having the resulting text look like gibberish. Because there are around 22 dialects in the Arab world, Yamli has to deal with multiple different phonetic spellings, which Haddad says it does with around 95% accuracy.

The company launched an Arabic frontend to Google in November 2007, and released an API in March 2008. The system was recently integrated into popular Arabic portal Maktoob (which Haddad likens to an Arab Yahoo). In the future, Haddad says that the technology will be applied to other platforms, like mobile phones. And it only has two employees, both co-founders.

The company seems like a likely acquisition target for Google or any other company looking to expand Arab-speaking nations, where Haddad says development has been relatively slow.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/E-KegF_s4TU/

Yes, the meme is just getting started it seems. 1938Media does his own take of the Team Cyprus video, set to the tune of AC/DC’s HighWay To Hell:

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/4BEhJSfoIWU/

One month ago, the Fronteers conference in Amsterdam featured several “deep dive” talks on various web development topics. Stuart Langridge for example explained in detail what closures are and I talked about Maintainable JavaScript. The slides of my talk have been available for quite a while now and now Bachelor ICT have released the videos of the talk and an interview.

Here’s the first half of the talk on Vimeo:

Chris Heilmann: Maintainable JavaScript, part 1 from Bachelor-ict.nl on Vimeo.

And here’s the second:

Christian Heilmann: Maintainable JavaScript, part 2 from Bachelor-ict.nl on Vimeo.

Source: Ajaxian » Front Page
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/417292700/maintainable-javascript-videos-are-now-available

A group of twenty or so tech elite were partying 1999-style in Cyprusthis last week, and posted a lip sync video of the Journey song “Don’t Stop Believing” a couple of days ago. Among the group were Brittany Bohnet of Google, Mike Hudack of Blip.tv, Dave Morin and Aaron Sittig of Facebook, Sam Lessin of Drop.io and Jessica Vascellaro, the Wall Street Journal’s Silicon Valley beat reporter.

Team Cyprus: Alcohol + Bad Judgement + Poor Timing

The video was released just as Silicon Valley really began falling apart and the UnParty began in earnest - eBay’s 10% layoffs, Google’s stock nosedive, Yahoo’s self destruction, VC’s bunkering down, etc. And more than a few people thought the ostentatious partying was a little, ahem, tasteless in light of the meltdown back home.

Now that video has been taken private, which is what it should have been marked as in the first place. But it’s too late - the video has spread to YouTube and other sites, and won’t be disappearing again. As I said yesterday, fair or not the video video will always be associated with the end of Web 2.0.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/5fcCbrMCM_Y/

What has ex-Yahooer and Delicious founder Joshua Schachter been working on since leaving Yahoo last June? At least one project is a GreaseMonkey script that shows readers the political leanings of blogs and news sites on Memeorandum, a news aggregator.

Political sites are usually very biased, but the casual reader often doesn’t know which way a particular site tends to rant. With the new script, also available as a Firefox plugin, sites are shaded towards blue (whiny cowards) or red (warmongers) depending on their linking behavior.

Andy Baio, who’s been working with Schachter on the project, describes it:

The colors don’t necessarily represent each blogger’s personal views or biases. It’s a reflection of their linking activity. The algorithm looks at the stories that blogger’s linked to before, relative to all other bloggers, and groups them accordingly. People that link to things that only conservatives find interesting will be classified as bright red, even if they are personally moderate or liberal, and vice-versa. The algorithm can’t read minds, so don’t be offended if you feel misrepresented. It’s only looking at the data.

Microsoft has been testing a similar product, based on different technology, called Blews.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/piI20MCI06c/

It’s the small touches that won me over. Well designed, a bit of attitude, and useful.

—App store reviewer Jragon on Sketches. Should good software have ‘a bit of attitude’?

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1303-its-the-small-touches-that-won-me-over

It’s time to start slamming the reality of the Silicon Valley situation home to everyone. Seesmic founder Loic Le Meur lets seven employees go, he says, which is more than a third of the company. This comes on top of three employees let go a couple of weeks ago.

“We cut everything that wasn’t outsourceable, core or absolutely necessary for the company.”

Le Meur says the company isn’t in dire financial trouble yet, noting he raised a $6 million round just a few months ago. But he’s planning for a bleak fundraising future.

I am an investor in the company.

Tough times. Tough decisions.also read my blog post http://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2008/10/tough-times-tou.html

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/GWug3ApVO3E/

Since the launch of the iPhone App Store, we’ve seen a wave of geo-aware social networks that make use of the phone’s GPS (or in the case of the original iPhone, pseudo-GPS). Each of these apps aims to help facilitate social interaction by locating nearby friends, points of interest, or people you might be interested in meeting (but might not know yet). There’s little doubt that some incarnation of one of these apps will help shape the future of social networking, but there’s still a huge geo-aware market that has yet to be tapped: Games.

Parallel Kingdom, launching at the end of the month, is set to become one of the first massively multiplayer online games (MMO) to hit the iPhone platform and Android platforms (both platforms will share the same in-game network). MMO’s have been tremendously popular on personal computers with mega-hits like World of Warcraft, and have proven to be lucrative with subscription models that feed off their addicting gameplay. Parallel Kingdom is hoping to take this success to a mobile platform.

At first glance, Parallel Kingdom doesn’t seem very impressive - at least from a visual stance. The game’s interface consists of basic sprites that are overlaid on top of a Google Map. Each icon depicts a player character, an enemy, or an item. But while the game could use some drastic graphical modifications (especially given the 3D games already available on the iPhone), the technology and concept behind it is where the real excitement lies.

The game uses your phone’s GPS to detect your movement across the map, and each change in physical location corresponds to a change in the game’s location. For example, our local Starbucks might be shown to be infested with monsters, but a drive down the street may reveal an area loaded with riches and friendly characters. And while the game uses physical location to determine your in-game location on a macro-level, you’re still allowed to move within a designated area without having to leave your seat (you could explore a few blocks around your workplace without having to leave the office).

For now your actions are pretty limited: you can pick items (like weapons or gold) off the ground, talk to people, and attack things. The game currently lacks a skill or level system, so all combat is dictated by how much you’ve upgraded a weapon. This may be fun for a while, but the game won’t be nearly as addictive as World of Warcraft until it implements more advanced leveling systems, giving users an incentive to play more often (the game’s Director Justin Beck says that these features are on the way). The game is going to be free at launch, with plans to release a subscription based version in the future once the game’s feature set is more fleshed out.

I think Parallel Kingdom and similar games have a chance to be huge - perhaps even more popular than the social networks described above. While geo-enabled social networks may be fun for networking and dating, many people will probably only use them casually. Online games have the potential to be much more addictive, and lucrative (most games can charge around $15 a month). That said, I think if Parallel Kingdom is going to be the game to really break this market open, it will need to adopt an entirely new graphics engine that can leverage the iPhone and Android’s power to display the 3D graphics these gamers are accustomed to.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/wT_s174RYr4/

It’s Elevator Pitch Friday, which means another startup has created a video that’s worth showing you. This week’s presentation comes from Palo Alto Software, a software company startup that wants to make it easier for organizations to manage and collaborate using e-mail, to save time and be more productive.

Palo Alto Software wants to make organizations more efficient, by taking community wide e-mail boxes, such as info@, sales@, or admin@, and applying logic and analytics against them. For organizations that deal with large quantities of e-mail, managing that e-mail can become a task onto itself. Palo Alto Software’s E-mail Center Pro automates this task, freeing employees up to focus on the content of the e-mail instead of just managing it. E-mail Center Pro is sold through a Software as a Service model, with pricing based upon e-mail volume.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/6TZeIjVB3go/

Apple has released a statement that may affect those of you with newer MacBook Pro’s with Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics cards. Said graphics cards have been known to be faulty and may cause video to be scrambled or distorted. Mine is doing just fine - BTW.

In July 2008, NVIDIA publicly acknowledged a higher than normal failure rate for some of their graphics processors due to a packaging defect. At that same time, NVIDIA assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected. However, after an Apple-led investigation, Apple has determined that some MacBook Pro computers with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor may be affected. If the NVIDIA graphics processor in your MacBook Pro has failed, or fails within two years of the original date of purchase, a repair will be done free of charge, even if your MacBook Pro is out of warranty.

Specific products affected:

MacBook Pro 15-inch and 17-inch models with NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processors
MacBook Pro (17-Inch, 2.4GHz)
MacBook Pro (15-Inch, 2.4/2.2GHz)
MacBook Pro (Early 2008)
These computers were manufactured between approximately May 2007 and September 2008

Who wants an Nvidia chipset in their MacBook now? Heh.

Nvidia would like to have have their say in the matter, so they don’t look like jerks, which is sort of alluded to in Apple’s statement.

NVIDIA has worked diligently with Apple, as we have done with all of our customers and partners, to analyze notebooks and determine if there are potential problems.

Our analysis showed that a failure in an Apple MacBook Pro notebook is remote.

However, the OEM is ultimately best able to assess the reliability of their systems.

Apple, like other OEMs, decides on their own how to handle their warranty and repair programs.

Regardless, we stand by our products, thus the reason why we set aside such a large reserve, and we have and will continue to work closely with Apple and their customers..

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/oXvVYNiaPCo/