Ajax Girl

Microsoft will relaunch Windows Live Search under a new brand sometime early next year, says a source within the company. What we don’t know is what that new brand will be, although a few names have been thrown around. According to our source, a “final” decision has been made, but very few people inside of Microsoft are aware of it, and it could change.

Now LiveSide is saying there’s evidence the new search brand will be Kumo, which means “cloud” or “spider” in Japanese.

Why would Microsoft go through yet another rebranding effort? Live.com has a lot of different services under its umbrella (some server software, some client software) in addition to search. It’s also a burgeoning social network.

Over time, we’ve heard, Live.com will become a pure social network and personal productivity portal. You’ll go there to access email, calendar, photos, activity streams, etc. But search belongs somewhere else, and it definitely needs a fresh start.

Microsoft won’t comment on the name change, or even if there is a name change. But our sources caution us that nothing has been finalized, and the fate of Yahoo could swing this one way or another as well. So Kumo may very well be the name Microsoft is planning to use, but that decision may change.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/H0_eQKf78N8/

Having kids is clearly impacting my assessment of applications… And there is no greater proof for this than a new product by IncrediMail called PhotoJoy, an application I would never have given a second thought were I not a father of two.

PhotoJoy is a free downloadable application that uses your photos to produce neat desktop widgets, 3D photo screensavers and wallpaper collages. You can either use photos located on your computer, or ones uploaded to your Flickr account. PhotoJoy can also use your Flickr stream to keep your photos fresh. Notably missing is the ability to import photos from your Facebook account, which is where I for example keep all my online photos on.

The application should run on most Windows XP setups. Sorry, no Mac support at the moment. I’ve been running it on my machine for a week and have noticed no negative performance impacts.

To see PhotoJoy in action check out the video embedded on the bottom of this post for a demo the company whipped up using some photos of my kids.

In many respects the product is similar to long gone Filmloop (remember them?) which both had a hard time dealing with increasing competition courtesy of Slide and RockYou and a blatant lack of support from one of its VC’s. Filmloop was also a one-trick-pony, whereas PhotoJoy is just one of several IncrediMail products—HiYo is another one.

Seeing no immediate business model and with the company’s history in mind, I requested a clarification on PhotoJoy’s ad-ware practices and its business model strategy. IncrediMail’s CEO, Ofer Adler, addressed my concerns:

“We are never going to push any other installation with this product.

We are going to use an advertising through search business model similar in concept to the one of picasa / yahoo messenger / now even AVG antivirus and that to have a free version that will suggest the user during the installation to accept our Google / other partner search properties such as homepage / toolbar / default search provider, assuming a certain % of the installations will accept them. (of course any one who doesn’t want will be able not to accept them). In addition there will be probably a premium version with some more features / content.”

So go ahead and call me a sap, but PhotoJoy puts a smile on my face and sometimes that’s not only good enough, it’s plenty!

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/GuIdUSzL2P0/

If you’re bored and want something new to play today, but it’s not dark out yet so you can’t load up Left 4 Dead, consider checking out some excellent independently developed games (free and otherwise). Although World of Goo made headlines due to its high piracy rate, it’s only one of hundreds of great indie games that get released every year. TIGSource’s database of games is fantastic, providing screenshots, download links, and powerful sorting tools: here are free Windows games from 2008, for instance.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/S_hF3rH2jX0/

A group of Facebook engineers - Jack Lindamood, Kevin Der and Dan Weatherford - have created a small project called Palantir at a Facebook Hackathon event. The project is named after The palantír of Orthanc, a crystal ball-like object from The Lord Of The Rings (yep, they’re nerds).

Anyway, it’s a video of the earth showing Facebook activity visually and geographically. One view shows activity as dots of light that flow upward. Another view shows connections between people around the globe as it occurs. The images above show a little of it, but you really have to see the video to appreciate it. You can see it here.

Facebook says they are strongly considering productizing this, but for now it isn’t on the roadmap. If they do go forward with it, presumably you’ll be able to watch friend connections happening all over the world.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/VSgmSXL19sI/