Ajax Girl

Okay, now he won. CNN is projecting 306 338 electoral votes for Obama. McCain just gave his concession speech. We’ll all be eating Obama O’s for breakfast tomorrow.

Obama O’s

Video chat rooms at Ustream

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This was my favourite presentation of the year. Ben and I have given a lot of talks together, and to spice things up we created the presentation randomizer, a simple Ajax app that would sound a buzzer at random times. Why did we do this? When the buzzer went, we would have to instantly change presenter. “Who’s line is it anyway?” for geeks.

The presentation was recorded by Adobe, and Ted Patrick just pushed it live:

The Ajax revolution is complete: Sophisticated JavaScript user interfaces are nearly ubiquitous. Yet, the innovations in the Ajax community continue. Dion and Ben set the stage for the Ajax Experience by discussing the latest developments, including multithreaded JavaScript technology-powered UIs, robust offline storage, choosing the right Ajax/JavaScript technology framework, Ajax outside of the browser, and more.

Thanks again to the entire community that came out to The Ajax Experience. Without you, we wouldn’t have this opportunity.

Source: Ajaxian » Front Page
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/442713074/the-ajax-universe-ben-and-dion-showcase-the-presentation-randomizer

CNN is cool. In addition to the huge touchscreen “Magic Wall” (which was originally military technology), CNN’s Wolf Blitzer gets to play with Holograms today during their coverage of the presidential elections.

CNN’s Jessica Yellin is the guinea pig, appearing virtually with Blitzer.

I have no idea why Yellin doesn’t just go to the studio instead of being wherever she is, or why they don’t just point a camera at her and bring her into the story in the normal way, and I don’t care. They have a hologram, and if I wasn’t getting on a plane in twenty minutes I’d be watching CNN the rest of the evening.

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Source: TechCrunch
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If you are going to use someone else’s artwork for your avatar, stay clear of Takashi Murakami’s stuff or you may be receiving a shakedown letter asking you for $500.

A member of a poker site called twoplustwo named Mephisto uses one of Murakami’s images (And Then, And Then And Then And Then And Then Blue version) as his 80×70 pixel avatar on the site’s forum. That earned him a very nice email, asking him to pay ¥50,000 or kindly stop using the image as his avatar. The email ends with the vaguely threatening message: “Thank you, and I hope you will take this into consideration as I know myself this can get very unnecessary!”

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/43fHB49KeNo/

Google and other tech companies won a big battle in Washington today. In an Election Day meeting, the FCC approved the unlicensed use of “white spaces” spectrum newly freed up as a result of TV broadcasters going from analog to digital broadcasts. Google has long been leading the lobbying effort to turn this spectrum into a sort of WiFi 2.0. Telecom companies and sports leagues opposed opening up the spectrum, claiming that it would interfere with wireless headsets and other devices that use nearby licensed airwaves.

Google argued that the interference argument was bunk, and the FCC agreed. Although the FCC is requiring more testing before “white spaces” devices will be approved.

This is a big win not just for Google, but for the entire tech industry. Just as WiFi changed the way we connect to the Internet in our homes and offices, the “white spaces” spectrum could be used for longer-range wireless broadband connections. The wireless carriers are right to feel threatened.

As far as Google is concerned, it wants as many wireless networks as possible to connect to the Internet. The “white spaces” is part of a bigger thrust. For instance, consider a recent Google patent to tie disparate wireless networks together through a marketplace that would let people switch networks on the fly as they moved around based on price and quality of coverage. As we noted in a post about that patent:

The patent is part of Google’s broader agenda to get as many people online as possible with as many devices as possible. Hence the gPhone, its pressure on the FCC, and Larry Page’s bristling in support of open white spaces. The opening of white spaces in particular could lead to more connection points for mobile devices, ones that form an attractive alternative to those provided by wireless carriers. And Android-powered phones could be among the first to take advantage of a flexible connections system.

The FCC just gave Google the go-ahead to start its end-run around the carriers. But it also just approved Verizon’s acquisition of AllTell, so it is spreading its love around.

Update: In a blog post today, Google co-founder Larry Page writes:

I’ve always thought that there are a lot of really incredible things that engineers and entrepreneurs can do with this spectrum. We will soon have “Wi-Fi on steroids,” since these spectrum signals have much longer range than today’s Wi-Fi technology and broadband access can be spread using fewer base stations resulting in better coverage at lower cost. And it is wonderful that the FCC has adopted the same successful unlicensed model used for Wi-Fi, which has resulted in a projected 1 billion Wi-Fi chips being produced this year. Now that the FCC has set the rules, I’m sure that we’ll see similar growth in products to take advantage of this spectrum.

As an engineer, I was also really gratified to see that the FCC decided to put science over politics. For years the broadcasting lobby and others have tried to spread fear and confusion about this technology, rather than allow the FCC’s engineers to simply do their work.

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It’s been nearly five months since Verizon announced their plans to buy out Alltel, but they’ve finally leaped the last hurdle. Just minutes ago, the FCC signed off on the $28.1 billion dollar deal (Verizon is paying $5.9 billion, and assuming $22.2 billion of Alltel’s debt.), clearing the way for its finalization.

The FCC’s stamp of approval doesn’t come without strings attached, however. Amongst other conditions, Verizon will be required to maintain any roaming agreements Alltel has with other carriers for at least four years. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin originally requested that roaming agreements would be honored for two years, and Verizon responded with the offer to honor them for four. This still wasn’t quite enough for some; though the vote passed 5-0, 2 of those who voted yes dissented, feeling that the roaming agreements should be required for at least seven years.

Before the merger, Verizon had roughly 70.8 million subscribers. With Alltel bringing around 13 million new subscribers to their door, this brings Verizon’s total up to approximately 83.8 million, dethroning AT&T (with 74.8 million) from the number one spot.

What does this mean to Verizon/Alltel customers? Well, “the network” just got a whole lot bigger - Alltel customers will soon have an additional 71 million people or so they can call without gobbling up their minutes. Beyond that, both groups gain access to the other’s device lineup, with Alltel customers now able to take advantage of Verizon’s bring-your-own-handset “Open Development” program.

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Source: TechCrunch
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Teen blogger/entrepreneur Jessica Mah has a new startup that cost her $500 to launch. It is an internship job board called InternshipIN aimed at college students who want a dedicated instead of having to trawl through the major job boards. Mah, who operated her own Web hosting startup in high school, is now 18 and a junior at Berkeley. She started InternshipIN with two other students. It cost them less than $200 to get a prototype up, and another $300 to get the Web design sliced so that it would load faster. Says Mah:

The project is bootstrapped with a few hundred dollars to cover hosting. Part of my reasoning for starting internshipIN was to show my friends (and the world) that it doesn’t take more than a $200 to throw a website together. The manpower required to put together the site was absolutely minimal.

You can tell. The site is still pretty raw. It scrapes internship listings from Simply Hired and allows employers to post their own. By default, the internship search page figures out your location by your IP address and lists internships in your area. You can refine the search by location or keywords. But there is no way to browse through different categories or see recent listings. The navigation and search needs work.

There are alternatives, such as After College. But a site that just does internship listings could work. What would be better would be a site that combines listings with ratings. Maybe Mah should try to pair up with InternshipRatings.

As an employer, the listing process is pretty straightforward. Although, one major drawback is that the email you sign up with for an account is listed on every job posting. That is just asking for spam (the email should be hidden and mediated through the service instead). I created a listing for a TechCrunch internship. Okay, I basically copied Twitter founder Evan Williams’ recent job posting for an assistant, and made a few slight changes:

This is a unique opportunity for an ambitious, multi-talented individual who wants to see the inside of a fast-moving blog startup and work closely with the co-Editor. The ideal candidate is a future journalist or entrepreneur who is willing to work hard and do a wide variety of non-glamorous tasks for a few months in order to get their foot in the door, learn, and make connections. You will work directly with TechCrunch co-Editor Erick Schonfeld, with the simple goal of saving him time. Which means: The level of work you’ll do is only limited by your capabilities. Are you capable of: Writing blog posts under deadline? Researching a company? Coding? Great, as long as you’re also willing to do Google searches and make phone calls. Essentially, you should be overqualified to be an assistant, but not have a problem doing assistant-like tasks. In exchange, you’ll get unique visibility into a unique media company, a great learning experience, and the chance to move on to do many other things (at TechCrunch, or elsewhere—with a strong endorsement).

If there are any takers, email me at erick [at] techcrunch. It is unpaid, but who knows what it could lead to (any out-of-work journalists are welcome to apply as well). We also have an opening for a Crunchbase analyst, and that even comes with a salary.

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This morning you likely woke up to a flurry of nearly identical messages in your Facebook News Feed prompting you to get out and vote - the result of what may have been largest unified online statement ever as nearly 1 million Facebook members simultaneously changed their status messages. The effort was put together by Causes, the altruistic Facebook and MySpace application, which asked Facebook users to “donate” their status messages in the hopes of getting more of their friends to the polls.

The response to the application has been remarkable: the campaign went live on Thursday night, and had nearly 1 million users by the time last night’s message was sent out at midnight PST. The current tally stands at over 1.5 million users, who have posted over 4.5 million status messages in total (in addition to last night’s midnight rally, users have the choice of issuing more frequent status updates). You can still sign up if you’d like to send out reminders throughout the rest of the evening. Users have the choice of promoting their favorite candidate or proposition, or just sending out a generic message telling friends to get out and vote.

Causes President Joe Green says that while the Online Rally was built solely to prompt users to head to the polls, similar campaigns could also potentially applied to other altruistic missions (like stopping the genocide in Darfur). And while Causes may have purely benevolent motives in mind with putting on the Online Rally, they’re not coming away empty handed: everyone who signed up to donate their status message also installed the Causes Facebook app.

Finally, as if you needed another reminder, GO VOTE. Seriously.

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Source: TechCrunch
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“North Dakota is a rural state and its communities maintain
close ties and networks. North Dakota’s system of voting, and
lack of voter registration, is rooted in its rural character by
providing small precincts. Establishing relatively small
precincts is intended to ensure that election boards know the
voters who come to the polls to vote on Election Day and can
easily detect those who should not be voting in the precinct.
This network of small precincts reduces the need for voter
registration.”

—North Dakota, the only state without voter registration

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1373-north-dakota-is-a-rural-state-and-its-communities

Valve Software, the company behind popular games like Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, Team Fortress, and Portal, just made an interesting move by announcing the upcoming roll-out of Steam Cloud. In essence, it is a free extension that will allow any user of the wildly popular digital content platform to store game saves, mouse and keyboard configuration settings server-side, enabling gamers to access their data across multiple PCs.

So what will it actually do?

The Steam Cloud will “just work,” meaning any user changes to their game options will propagate to the Cloud by default. Upon logging into Steam from another PC, these settings will be brought down from the Cloud and automatically leveraged by the game. Any configuration changes on this second machine are then synced to the Cloud for future sessions.

Steam Cloud support, which had already been announced last May, will ship with Valve’s co-op zombie shooter Left 4 Dead demo later this week and the full game on November 18. It is expected to be compatible with all other Valve Steam releases (including the back catalog), and Valve has also been providing other game makers with the tools to make their own titles compatible.

Steam’s digital distribution service has often been dubbed the ‘iTunes for games’, as it provides a platform for buying games right off the virtual shelf. Google has been rumored to be interested in acquiring Valve before, but both companies have denied this formally.

Here’s the intro video for the upcoming Left4Dead game:

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