Japanese Rap Duo

I've never been into gangsta rap, I think I was born a little too early to "appreciate" this style of music, but here is a trending YouTube video from Japan that made me sit back and realize just how small this world is becoming. I laughed a bit at the bubble wrap, the bling, the Marge Simpson hair, and Playboy bunny logos. What really bowled me over was the fact that no good gangsta rap video has ever been made with out at least the flash of a piece, er... gun, or whatever the kids are calling them these days, and this video takes the prize in that department. As a geek I did appreciate the iPhone and pimped out Segways :)

Google Hotpot Unleashed World Wide

Google is bringing Hotpot, it's new recommendation service, to the world after a limited release back in November. Hotpot basically allows you to rate restaurants, cafes, hotels and the like so that when you or your friends are searching for such venues Google can provide "trusted" results. The Google special sauce is based on your likes, your friends likes or properties that are similar to those that you or your trusty friends like. Access to the service is made available via the web (google.com/hotpot), google maps (maps.google.com), or your android phone.

Keep an eye out for those Unicorns!

Egypt's Last ISP Goes Silent

Wired's Threat Level blog is reporting the last-standing Egyptian ISP has been shut down prior to today's million man march. "the Noor Group, believed to be the last Egyptian ISP in operation, had provided access to the aviation, banking and financial sectors — including the Egyptian stock market."

“They are completely unavailable at present,” security research firm Renesys wrote of the ISP.

The question now becomes is the efforts of the Mubarak regime to silence communication due to it's desire to stop an organized opposition or is it aimed at stopping news from getting out of the country? Let's hope that this does not breakout into wide spread bloodshed. I hope that neither side sees violence as the solution to this situation.

The question, in this geek's mind, is whether or not we have a basic human right to these services that we've come to enjoy and rely on? Is what Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak doing by cutting off access to these services any different from what the White House might do in a similar situation given the fact that there has been talk of an Internet "Kill Switch" legislation for several years now, and which is apparently being reintroduced soon.

Google And Twitter Team Up For Egypt

According to The Official Google Blog Google, Twitter, and SayNow (a Google acquired company) have worked together to get a new voice to Twitter service up and running for the folks in Egypt. With the Mubarak regime taking down internet access and cellular service in an attempt to quell protester organization through social sites, the companies felt compelled to do something to help the people of Egypt.

We worked with a small team of engineers from Twitter, Google and SayNow, a company we acquired last week, to make this idea a reality. It’s already live and anyone can tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet.

We hope that this will go some way to helping people in Egypt stay connected at this very difficult time. Our thoughts are with everyone there.

Kudos to these tech giants for putting their collective heads together for such an important global cause, in such a timely fashion!

Kudos to these tech giants for putting their heads together and doing something quickly to aid in tis cause!

Is Flickr On The Bubble At Yahoo?

I have a Flickr Pro account for which I pay $25 annually and it gives me great piece of mind. Not that I believe that I am the next Annie Leibobvitz (gender aside) it's simply that I have had a photo disaster. I now find that having more than a backup on a usb drive allows me to sleep at night knowing that I am fully protected on and off site. Most of my photos are set to private and that's the way I want it. For many very good photographers Flickr is the only choice on line, but for most internet users Facebook is rapidly becoming the spot where you upload and share your photos.

This increase in photo sharing via Facebook, combined with Yahoo's recent layoffs and shedding of other web services and properties has caused for much discussion regarding the fate of Flickr. The nytimes.com has quoted Jordan Rohan, an analyst with Stifel, Nicolaus & Company as saying “The Internet is starting to rotate around the axis of Facebook — not everything, but everything social,” Mr. Rohan said. “Yahoo and Flickr don’t really have the gravitational pull that would make Flickr the axis that they once imagined.” 

Doesn't sound promising for Flickr yet I believe that they will remain relevant and apparently so does Yahoo: “Is Yahoo committed to Flickr?” Blake Irving, Yahoo’s product chief, wrote in a message on Twitter. “Hell yes we are!”

LinkedIn The Social Network For Business Networking Files For IPO

In the good ole days a businessman's social network meant a lot of "pressing the flesh" and if you worked your network just right there might be a payoff. In today's world business folks are making connections by reaching out to their online network, mostly via LinkedIn an 8 year old Mountain View, California based social network for grown ups (and by grown ups I mean anyone who has, wants, needs a job, sales, or an introduction from an acquaintance or colleague... past or present).

Yesterday LinkedIn filed papers with the Securities Exchange Commission regarding it's intent to make an initial public offering (IPO). According to it's filing LinkedIn managed sales of $161.4 million in the first nine months of 2010 equaling profits of $10 million. I guess you could say that a down economy is probably not a bad thing for growing a user base for a service like LinkedIn, and a turn around will do it a great deal of good as 41% of it's revenues come from it's "hiring solutions".

What will make this one an interesting IPO to watch is that it's coming in advance of some other expected offerings and will undoubtedly test the waters and set investor expectations.

The Fun Theory

Here's a little extra this morning. You have to check this out!

2 Minutes Of Nothing

From Alex Tew, the guy who sold 1 million pixels for a buck a piece on the Million Dollar Homepage, comes a new project that simply asks you to do nothing for two minutes. "Just relax and listen to the waves," and "Don't touch your mouse or keyboard." reads the text on the site http://www.donothingfor2minutes.com/, in the background is an ocean vista with the sun peering through the clouds and the sound of waves. Also on screen is a countdown timer set to 2:00, if you are impatient and move the mouse or click on screen the timer turns to a nice red "FAIL" and the exercise starts again. Unfortunately my attention span this morning would not allow me to wait out the two minute exercise so I can't tell you what happens when the clock strikes zero but I can tell you that there is a lot of chatter on techcrunch's comments and that Alex Tew himself is weighing in "I did this project just for fun. Some folks should try and stop looking into things too much :)"

I guess if you've made a million dollars in four months and have plenty of time on your hands a website that plays the sound of waves and counts down from 2:00 makes a lot of sense... why didn't I think of that? Perhaps the fact that I haven't made a million dollars is my stumbling block?

Volvo Testing Automobile Train Concept - SARTRE Project

Volvo and a handful of other companies are testing a system known as SARTRE (Safe Road Trains For The Environment) which would allow commuters to line up behind a lead vehicle and create an autonomous train, well autonomous for everyone but the lead vehicle. The benefits are said to be environmental, in safety, and in productivity / time savings as the riders in the trailing cars can leave the driving in the hands of the lead vehicle's operator and focus on other tasks.

I'm in awe of the technological achievements displayed in the following video, and at the same time have a bunch of questions and concerns, many of which the researchers are already considering as demonstrated.

Will It Send?

A very small, 30cm-long, satellite is going to be sent into orbit by a team at Surrey Satellite Technology Limited of Guildford U.K. The satellite is going to be powered by a smartphone using the Google Android operating system, though the precise make and model have not been disclosed.

SSTL project manager Shaun Kenyon says "They come now with processors that can go up to 1GHz, and they have loads of flash memory. First of all, we want to see if the phone works up there, and if it does, we want to see if the phone can control a satellite." The company's goal is to find an inexpensive, off-the-shelf solution that can aid in lowering it's cost of design and development.

"We're not taking it apart; we're not gutting it; we're not taking out the printed circuit boards and re-soldering them into our satellite - we're flying it as is," Mr Kenyon explained.

"And, in fact, we're going to have another camera on the satellite so we can take a picture of the phone because we want to operate the screen and have some good images of that as well."

You see Apple? This is why an open platform is far superior to your closed model... just sayin.