tokao.com » technology http://tokao.com dani's blog Sun, 06 May 2012 07:23:38 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 cloud storage: Google Drive and insynchq, Skydrive, Dropbox, SugarSync and my Synology… and Evernote http://tokao.com/2012/05/05/cloud-storage-google-drive-and-insynchq-skydrive-dropbox-sugarsync-and-my-synology/ http://tokao.com/2012/05/05/cloud-storage-google-drive-and-insynchq-skydrive-dropbox-sugarsync-and-my-synology/#comments Sat, 05 May 2012 14:11:24 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/?p=5561 Recently everyone is providing cloud storage in the same way Dropbox have been doing it for a while.

Last week Google started rolling out the long awaited Google Drive, with Mac and PC installers to accomplish sort of what Dropbox does, with the difference that they increased the free storage to 10Gb while Dropbox gives 2Gb.

I installed Google Drive. It is basically Google Docs renamed. Honestly I am a bit disappointed. In my Mac GDrive creates a folder with only links to Google Docs and yes, with the files that are not Google docs specifics. Insynchq does it much better… with Insynchq you use Google Drive but instead of having links it converts them to word, excel and powerpoint documents that are downloaded into your computers. Neat.

Also with Insynchq you can have multiple Google drive mapped at the same time. I use two, my norai and torres domains, now both upgraded to 5Gb each. I ended up removing the Google Drive Mac client as I prefer the Insynhq one.

What is cool about GDrive?

Well I am a heavy user of Google Docs, so is nice to have extra storage, plus to buy extra storage is pretty affordable. What Google does well is to be able to open most of the file within the browser, from PDF to DOC to even Photoshop. Also they have included OCR making it by far the best search. If you upload a photo or a pdf, and you search for something in it, you will find it. Like with Evernote.

The collaboration rocks with Google and I believe is one of the best for online editing.

Then we have Microsoft Skydrive. It has been there for a while, but is not that known, and not that loved. You might change your mind after reading this.

They also released an installer for Mac, PC and even apps for iPhone and iPad (while Google has none). So, again, like Dropbox, you will have a local folder synchronized with your cloud service.

So what is good and different about SkyDrive?

For starters, if you had it before you can claim 25Gb for free (which I did) and if you are new then you get 7Gb (which is still the best out there).

Second, it works perfectly fine on my Mac, PC, iPad and iPhone. Also if you use the web, and you have an Office document such a word, excel, powerpoint or Onenote you have access to Office 365 or online editor for word documents fully compatible, of course, with your traditional Word, and others.

For sharing is also pretty easy now. You can get a link that can be emailed or shared in social networks easily.

For collaboration Google is still stronger thought. I guess SkyDrive still works with the concept of checking in and out documents.

What about Dropbox and SugarSync?

For me they are pretty much dead. SugarSync gives you 5Gb for free and is the most feature rich one, but too complex for many.

Dropbox is still the simplest and that is why they might still survive, but for me is over, together with SugarSync. Storage space has no competitive prices.

The best?

Well I have a NAS, as Synology DS 1511+ with 15Tb. In the latest update they rolled out (DSM 4) they included Cloud Station which is again based on the same principle. A local folder with local files synchronized with the NAS via an installer.

So far they did not release a Mac version yet but I have it on my Windows machines.

So which is the best… well with my Synology I have raid 5, I own the data, and I have 15Tb available… plus fibre optics at home with 100Mb up and down…. so for personal use my NAS, for collaboration, Google Drive, for the best storage option now SkyDrive.

But… what I use the most is Evernote… anything I print I don’t send to the printer anymore, I just print it to Evernote. All my docs are tagged, OCR, emailed and stored there…

Now someone should create a service that uses all the cloud storage and puts them into one single volume… so 5Gb from your GDrive plus 25Gb from SkyDrive plus your 5Gb from SugarSync, the 2Gb from Dropbox…

 

]]> http://tokao.com/2012/05/05/cloud-storage-google-drive-and-insynchq-skydrive-dropbox-sugarsync-and-my-synology/feed/ 0 iPhone augmented reality translator http://tokao.com/2011/08/21/5104/ http://tokao.com/2011/08/21/5104/#comments Sun, 21 Aug 2011 17:05:01 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/?p=5104
Word Lens — http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/word-lens/id383463868 download now on the App Store, and purchase language packs when you need them!

Languages currently available using in-app purchase:
- Spanish to English
- English to Spanish

Try the demo modes first to get a sense of the technology in action — reverse or erase Spanish and English words!

Check us out at: http://questvisual.com/
Now available for iPhone 4, iPhone 3gs, and iPod Touch 4.

Word Lens can instantly translates printed words from one language to another using the video camera on your iPhone. No network delay, no roaming fees, and no reception problems.

Word Lens is a dictionary — evolved. It looks up words for you, and shows them in context. You can use Word Lens on your vacations to translate restaurant menus, street signs, and other things that have clearly printed words.

Word Lens has its limits. Sometimes the translation will have mistakes, and may be hard to understand, but it usually gets the point across. If a translation fails, there is a way to manually look up words by typing them in. Word Lens does not read very stylized fonts, handwriting, or cursive. Try it, and tell us what you think!

]]> http://tokao.com/2011/08/21/5104/feed/ 0 Facial recognition… the future of Social Media? http://tokao.com/2011/07/29/facial-recognition-the-future-of-social-media/ http://tokao.com/2011/07/29/facial-recognition-the-future-of-social-media/#comments Fri, 29 Jul 2011 13:34:40 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/?p=5085

]]> http://tokao.com/2011/07/29/facial-recognition-the-future-of-social-media/feed/ 0 Sennheiser’s sophisticated CXC 700 earbuds tout three levels of noise cancellation http://tokao.com/2011/01/06/sennheisers-sophisticated-cxc-700-earbuds-tout-three-levels-of-noise-cancellation/ http://tokao.com/2011/01/06/sennheisers-sophisticated-cxc-700-earbuds-tout-three-levels-of-noise-cancellation/#comments Thu, 06 Jan 2011 07:50:11 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/2011/01/06/sennheisers-sophisticated-cxc-700-earbuds-tout-three-levels-of-noise-cancellation/

Sennheiser has a thing for trotting out< titillatingnew wares at the annual Consumer Electronics Show, and this year is proving to be no different in that regard. The audio specialist has just introduced one of the most fully-featured headsets we’ve seen in quite awhile, with the CXC 700 boasting not one, not two, but three levels of noise cancellation. The newfangled NoiseGard] /digital technology gives owners a trifecta of noise-cancelling profiles, with each one optimized for something different. In fact, we’ll let Senn do the explaining here:

“Mode 1 absorbs low-frequency noise in particular (100 to 400 Hertz), such as engine noise from trains, buses or small passenger planes. Mode 2 focuses on cancelling noise in the medium frequency range (400 to 3,000 Hertz), which is caused above all by air-conditioning systems in large passenger aircraft or office buildings. Mode 3 has a particularly wide frequency range (100 to 3,000 Hertz), and combines the noise-cancelling effect in the medium and low-frequency ranges. As a result, background noise with different noise components, such as that which occurs at airports, railway stations or underground stations, can be effectively suppressed, although with a slightly lower noise-cancelling performance than in the first two modes.”

In case that’s not enough to convince ya, these offer a frequency response of 20Hz to 21,000Hz, and they’ll function just fine (albeit sans noise cancellation) even if your AAA battery keels over. Controls are embedded in the cabling, and users are able to activate the TalkThrough function if they’d prefer to conduct a conversation with someone without actually removing their earphones. Furthermore, changing between the NoiseGard profiles and activation of the TalkThrough function are indicated by both an acoustic and a visual signal. The company will be shipping these with a 4.5-foot long cable, an in-flight adapter, 6.35mm jack plug adapter, a small carrying case and a diaphragm protector, with sales to start later this month for around $320.(from engadget)

]]> http://tokao.com/2011/01/06/sennheisers-sophisticated-cxc-700-earbuds-tout-three-levels-of-noise-cancellation/feed/ 0 Google body browser http://tokao.com/2010/12/16/google-body-browser/ http://tokao.com/2010/12/16/google-body-browser/#comments Thu, 16 Dec 2010 11:36:46 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/2010/12/16/google-body-browser/ Google has recently demoed an interesting WebGL application called Body Browser, which lets you explore the human body just like you can explore the world in Google Earth. Now you can try Google Body Browser before it’s added to Google Labs, assuming that you have a WebGL-enabled browser:


* WebGL is available, but not enabled by default in Chrome 8 (the latest stable version). Type about:flags in the address bar, click “Enable” next to “WebGL” and then click on “Restart now”. Please note that this is an experimental feature in Chrome 8.
* WebGL is enabled by default in Chrome 9 Dev Channel, Chrome Canary Build and Firefox 4 beta.


Damon Hernandez was surprised to notice that the application doesn’t require a plugin. “Unlike other web based medical applications I have seen, no Flash, Java, or other plugins are needed. This application will run on any WebGL supported browser. (…) Last year I got the opportunity to work on an open standards based web3D medical app for learning the bones of the body. After witnessing how that app really helped students learn the bones, I am sold on using web3D for medical education.”

Posted from St Louis, Saint-Louis, Senegal.

]]> http://tokao.com/2010/12/16/google-body-browser/feed/ 0 Holiday gift list for geeks http://tokao.com/2010/11/28/holiday-gift-list-for-geeks/ http://tokao.com/2010/11/28/holiday-gift-list-for-geeks/#comments Sun, 28 Nov 2010 10:06:03 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/?p=4695 Wondering what to buy for a geeky person?

Here is my list:

Apple

  • iPad (Great to consume content)
  • MacBook air 11″ (sexiest laptop to take with you everywhere)
  • iPhone 4 (the best phone ever, with the best camera)
  • Time Capsule or Airport Extreme (the first if you have a mac to forget about local backups, the second if you just want a great wifi network at home)

Android:

Other:

Internet services:

  • Evernote (my second brain)
  • Google storage (if you use picasa, google docs, etc… cheap storage)
  • Flickr pro or smugmug (for your photos online if you have a lot of photos and look for unlimited storage)
  • crashplan (best backup in the cloud solution)
  • sugarsync (best sync solution, better than dropbox)
  • toodledo (great todo management tool)
]]> http://tokao.com/2010/11/28/holiday-gift-list-for-geeks/feed/ 0 3D Video Capture with Kinect http://tokao.com/2010/11/16/3d-video-capture-with-kinect/ http://tokao.com/2010/11/16/3d-video-capture-with-kinect/#comments Tue, 16 Nov 2010 07:53:18 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/?p=4677 By combining the color and the depth image captured by the Microsoft Kinect, one can project the color image back out into space and create a “holographic” representation of the persons or objects that were captured
.

]]> http://tokao.com/2010/11/16/3d-video-capture-with-kinect/feed/ 0 40 People Who Changed the Internet http://tokao.com/2010/11/08/40-people-who-changed-the-internet/ http://tokao.com/2010/11/08/40-people-who-changed-the-internet/#comments Mon, 08 Nov 2010 15:32:59 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/2010/11/08/40-people-who-changed-the-internet/ The world has become tightly connected since the internet. The web itself has replaced the practice of reading newspaper. Most of us now communicate through e-mails instead of paper and pen. We now watch networks or movies online, it has even become a wide business venture, so much so we can now make purchase and pay our bills through the internet. The web has also transformed friendships through various social media. It also provides us the possibility to reconnect with people from our childhood and it can be a life changing event.

Having a great idea is one thing. Turning that idea into a booming company through innovation and execution is what that matters most. Here, these are the people who have the biggest impact on the direction of the web: past, present, and future. They changed the internet and revolutionized the way we lead our lives today. Just imagine the world without internet. You cant because it has become our daily life.

Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn

Father of the Internet.

The Father of Internet Vint Cerf, together with Bob Kahn created the TCP/IP suite of communication protocols. a language used by computers to talk to each other in a network. Vint Cerf once said that the internet is just a mirror of the population and spam is a side effect of a free service.

Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn Internet 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Tim Berners-Lee

Inventor of WWW.

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. He wrote the first web client and server and designed a way to create links, or hypertext, amid different pieces of online information. He now maintains standards for the web and continues to refine its design as a director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Tim Berners Lee World Wide Web 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Ray Tomlinson

Father of Email.

Programmer Ray Tomlinson, the Father of Email made it possible to exchange messages between machines in diverse locations; between universities, across continents, and oceans. He came up with the @ symbol format for e-mail addresses. Today, more than a billion people around the world type @ sign every day.

Ray Tomlinson Email 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Michael Hart

The birth of eBooks.

Michael Hart started the birth of eBooks and breaks down the bars of ignorance and illiteracy. He created the Project Gutenberg and was considered worlds first electronic library that changed the way we read. The collection includes public domain works and copyrighted works with express permission.

Michael Hart Project Gutenberg 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Gary Thuerk

The first Email spam.

Spamming is an old marketing technique. Gary Thuerk, sent his first mass e-mailing to customers over the Arpanet for Digitals new T-series of VAX systems. What he didnt realize at the time was that he had sent the worlds first spam.

Gary Thuerk Spam 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Scott Fahlman

The first emoticon.

Scott Fahlman is credited with originating the first ASCII-based smiley emoticon, which he thought would help to distinguish between posts that should be taken humorously and those of a more serious nature. Now, everybody uses them in messenger programs, chat rooms, and e-mail.

Scott Fahlman Emoticons 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Marc Andreessen

Netscape Navigator. (wikipedia)

Marc Andreessen revolutionized Internet navigation. He came up with first widely used Web browser called Mosaic which was later commercialised as the Netscape Navigator. Marc Andreessen is also co-founder and chairman of Ning and an investor in several startups including Digg, Plazes, and Twitter.

Marc Andreessen Netscape Navigator 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Jarkko Oikarinen

Internet Relay Chat, IRC. (wikipedia)

Jarkko Oikarinen developed the first real-time online chat tool in Finland known as Internet Relay Chat. IRCs fame took off in 1991. When Iraq invaded Kuwait and radio and TV signals were shut down, thanks to IRC though up-to-date information was able to be distribute.

Jarkko Oikarinen Internet Relay Chat 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Robert Tappan Morris

First Worm Virus.

The concept of a worm virus is unique compare to the conventional hacking. Instead of getting into a network themselves, they send a small program they have coded to do the job. From this concept, Robert Tappan Morris created the Morris Worm. Its one of the very first worm viruses to be sent out over the internet that inadvertently caused many thousands of dollars worth of damage and loss of productivity when it was released in the late 80s.

Robert Tappan Morris Worm Virus 40 People Who Changed the Internet

David Bohnett

Geocities. (wikipedia)

David Bohnett founded GeoCities in 1994, together with John Rezner. It grew to become the largest community on the Internet. He pioneered and championed the concept of providing free home pages to everyone on the web. The company shut down the service on October 27, 2009.

David Bohnett Geocities 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Ward Cunningham

The first Wiki.

American programmer Ward Cunningham developed the first wiki as a way to let people collaborate, create and edit online pages together. Cunningham named the wiki after the Hawaiian word for quick.

Ward Cunningham Wiki 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Sabeer Bhatia

Hotmail. (wikipedia)

Sabeer Bhatia founded Hotmail in which the uppercase letters spelling out HTML-the language used to write the base of a webpage. He got in the news when he sold the free e-mailing service , Hotmail to Microsoft for $400 million. He was awarded the Entrepreneur of the Year by Draper Fisher Jurvertson in 1998 and was noted by TIME as one of the People to Watch in international business in 2002. His most exciting acquisition of 2009 was Jaxtyr which he believes is set to overtake Skype in terms of free global calling.

Sabeer Bhatia Hotmail 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Matt Drudge

The Drudge Report. (wikipedia)

Matt Drudge started the news aggregation website The Drudge Report. It gained popularity when he was the first outlet to break the news that later became the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Matt Drudge The Drudge Report 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Larry Page and Sergey Brin

Google. (wikipedia)

Larry Page and Sergey Brin changed the way we search and use the Internet. They worked as a seamless team at the top of the search giant. Their company grew rapidly every year since it began. Page and Brin started with their own funds, but the site quickly outgrew their own existing resources. They later obtain private investments through Stanford. Larry Page, Sergey Brin and their company Google, continue to favor engineering over business.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin Google 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Bill Gates

Microsoft. (wikipedia)

Bill Gates founded the software company called Micro-Soft. a combination of microcomputer software. Later on, Bill Gates developed a new GUI (Graphical User Interface) for a disk operating system. He called this new style Windows. He has all but accomplished his famous mission statement, to put a computer on every desk and in every home. at least in developed countries.

Bill Gates Microsoft 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Steve Jobs

Apple. (wikipedia)

Steve Jobs innovative idea of a personal computer led him into revolutionizing the computer hardware and software industry. The Apple founder changed the way we work, play and communicate. He made simple and uncluttered web design stylish. The story of Apple and Steve Jobs is aboutf determination, creative genius, pursuit of innovation with passion and purpose.

Steve Jobs Apple 40 People Who Changed the Internet

David Filo and Jerry Yang

Yahoo. (wikipedia)

David Filo and Jerry Yang started Yahoo! as a pastime and evolved into a universal brand that has changed the way people communicate with each other, find and access information and purchase things. The name Yahoo! is an acronym for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle, but Filo and Yang insist they selected the name because they liked the general definition of a yahoo: rude, unsophisticated, uncouth.

David Filo and Jerry Yang Yahoo 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Brad Fitzpatrick

LiveJournal. (wikipedia)

Brad Fitzpatrick created LiveJournal, one of the earliest blogging platforms. He is seen on the Internet under the nickname bradfitz. He is also the author of a variety of free software projects such as memcached, used on LiveJournal, Facebook and YouTube. LiveJournal continues today as an online community where people can share updates on their lives via diaries and blogs. Members connect by creating a friends list that links to their pals recent entries.

Brad Fitzpatrick LiveJournal 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Shawn Fanning

Napster. (wikipedia)

Shawn Fanning developed Napster, a peer-to-peer file-sharing program designed to let music fans find and trade music. Users put whatever files they were willing to share with others into special directories on their hard drives. The service had more than 25 million users at its peak in 2001, and was shut down after a series of high-profile lawsuits, not before helping to spark the digital music revolution now dominated by Apple. Napster has since been rebranded and acquired by Roxio.

Shawn Fanning Napster 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Peter Thiel

Paypal. (wikipedia)

Peter Thiel is one of many Web luminaries associated with PayPal. PayPal had enabled people to transfer money to each other instantly. PayPal began giving a small group of developers access to its code, allowing them to work with its super-sophisticated transaction framework. Peter Thiel cofounded PayPal at age 31 and sold it to eBay four years later for $1.5 billion.

Peter Thiel Paypal 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Pierre Morad Omidyar

Ebay. (wikipedia)

Pierre Omidyar set up an online marketplace that brought buyers and sellers together as never before, and pioneered the concept of quantifying the trustworthiness of an anonymous user. In building his auction empire, Omidyar counted on the power of the individual. Omidyars greatest strength is his insight into human nature. He understood that people would buy just about anything. one mans junk is, in fact, anothers treasure.

Pierre Morad Omidyar Ebay 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Jimmy Wales

Wikipedia. (wikipedia)

Jimmy Wales founded the worlds largest encyclopaedia which carries articles that can easily be edited by anyone who can access the website. It was launched in 2001 and is currently the most popular general reference work on the Internet.

Jimmy Wales Wikipedia 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake.

Flickr. (wikipedia)

Photosharing website has become a part of everyday online life for millions of people. Stewart Butterfield, who with his wife Caterina Fake created Flickr that was born out of an online multi-player game that seemed to sum up everything the Web 2.0 people were trying to do. Flickr came along with an idea that you no longer had an album. Instead, you had a photo stream. Yahoo later on acquired Flickr in 2005.

Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake Flickr 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Jonathan Abrams

Friendster. (wikipedia)

Jonathan Abrams built Friendster, together with Cris Emmanuel, offering many tools to help members find dates. He took the idea from Match.com. Its the first social network to hit the big time and go mainstream. Members create profiles listing favorite movies and books (and dating status) and link up to friends, who linked to their friends, and so on.

Jonathan Abrams Friendster 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Niklas Zennstrom

Skype. (wikipedia)

Niklas Zennstrom co-founded the fastest growing communications trend in history called Skype. It offered consumers worldwide a free software for making superior-quality calls using their computer and expanded its offering for Linux, MAC & PC and mobile/ handheld devices.

Niklas Zennstrom Skype 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Bram Cohen

Bit Torrent. (wikipedia)

If Napster started the first generation of file sharing , Bram Cohen changed the face of file sharing by developing BitTorrent which has a massive following of users almost instantly. It uses the Golden Rule principle: the faster you upload, the faster you are allowed to download. BitTorrent breaks up files into many little portions, and as soon as a user has a piece, they instantly start uploading that part to other users. So almost everybody who is sharing a given file is simultaneously uploading and downloading pieces of the same file.

Bram Cohen Bit Torrent 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Reid Hoffman

LinkedIn. (wikipedia)

Reid Hoffman, a former executive vice president at PayPal, created LinkedIn as a professional social network allowing registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business. Members can search for jobs, trade resumes, find new hires and keep up with the competition.

Reid Hoffman LinkedIn 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Matt Mullenweg

WordPress. (wikipedia)

Matt Mullenweg founded the worlds most used open source blogging and the greatest boon to freedom of expression known as WordPress. Some of the most popular websites run on WordPress are Techcrunch, Huffingtonpost, Mashable and more.

Matt Mullenweg WordPress 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim

Youtube. (wikipedia)

Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim met as early employees at PayPal. They later started the internets most popular video-sharing site YouTube which is broadcasting more than 100 million short videos daily on myriad subjects. When creating YouTube, the three divided work based on skills: Chad Hurley designed the sites interface and logo. Steve Chen and Jawed Karim divide technical duties making the site work. They later split management tasks, based on strengths and interests: Chad Hurley became CEO; Steve Chen, Chief Technology Officer. A year and a half later, Google acquired YouTube for a deal worth $1.65 billion in stock.

Chad Hurley Steve Chen and Jawed Karim Youtube 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Craig Newmark

Craigslist. (wikipedia)

Craig Newmark started a site that dramatically altered the classified advertising universe called Craiglist. It was an object of fear for newspapers who felt threatened by the free-for-all classified advertising site. It began as an e-mail list for Newmarks friends in the Bay Area. Since then, it has grown into an online database for classified ads for those seeking everything from housing to romance.

Craig Newmark Craigslist 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Julian Assange

WikiLeaks. (wikipedia)

Julian Assange founded a website dedicated to publishing classified documents stolen from around the world. He designed an advanced software for the Wikileaks shielding the identities of the thieves who steal these documents by completely erasing their identities before spreading the stolen documents to servers all over the world. As a result, no one can trace whos given him what or when. The site depicts itself as the uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis and has developed to be regarded as the most extensive and safest stage for whistleblowers to leak to.

Julian Assange WikiLeaks 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Dick Costolo

FeedBurner. (wikipedia)

People generally check their preferred sites every now and then to see if theres anything new. FeedBurner founder Dick Costolo created a news aggregator that automatically downloads an update that is visible in the places that interest you. An RSS feed, short for Really Simple Syndication, delivers those latest bits of media from their creators website to your computer. FeedBurner was later acquired by Google in 2007. Currently, Dick Costolo is Twitters Chief Operating Officer making twitter the next generation RSS.

Dick Costolo FeedBurner 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook. (wikipedia)

Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook to help students in universities keep in touch with friends. The status update started its rebirth in Facebook, where user after user tell their extended network of trusted friends what theyre doing. They also show off photos, upload videos, chat, make friends, meet old ones, join causes, groups, have fun and throw virtual sheep at one another. The site, which is believed to have 500 million registered users worldwide, has only four remaining countries left to conquer: Russia, Japan, China and Korea, according to Zuckerberg. Facebook is now twice as huge as Rupert Murdochs MySpace.

Mark Zuckerberg Facebook 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Jack Dorsey

Twitter. (wikipedia)

Jack Dorsey created Twitter to allow friends and family know what he was doing. The worlds fastest-growing communications medium let users broadcast their thoughts in 140 characters or less and repost someone elses informative or amusing message to their own Twitter followers by Retweeting. No one thought people would want to follow strangers, or that celebrities would use Twitter to tell fans of their activities, or that businesses would use Twitter to announce discounts or launch new products.

Jack Dorsey Twitter 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Bonus: 3 More

Christopher Poole

4chan message board. (wikipedia)

Christopher Poole, known online as Moot, started a message board called 4chan where people are free to be wrong. Unlike most web forums, 4chan does not have a registration system, allowing users to post anonymously. Moot believes in the value of multiple identities, including anonymity, in contrast to the merge of online and real-world identities occurring on Facebook and many other social networking sites.

Christopher Poole 4chan 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Joshua Schachter

Delicious. (wikipedia)

Del.icio.us is a more sophisticated multiuser version of Muxway, wherein his first implementation of tags. Joshua Schachter began del.icio.us as a way for people to store and share their favorite Web-browsing bookmarks online. Instead of organizing them himself, or even creating a standard taxonomy of categories, Schachter used something called user tagging-people simply labeled the bookmarks by any name they wanted, and eventually the group as a whole effectively voted on them by either adopting those tags themselves or rejecting them. And now del.icio.us has been gobbled up by Yahoo, which hopes to extend the tagging principle to all sorts of its services.

Joshua Schachter Delicious 40 People Who Changed the Internet

Jeff Bezos

Amazon. (wikipedia)

Jeff Bezos founded the worlds biggest online store known as Amazon, which was originally named Cadabra Inc. He made online shopping faster and more personal than a trip to the local store. The company now introduced Kindle allowing readers to download books and other written materials and read them on this handheld device.

Jeff Bezos Amazon 40 People Who Changed the Internet

(bellefoong)

Author: Aurora Gatbonton

Au aka AwGatsby

You can follow her on Twitter.

(from http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/40-people-who-changed-the-internet/)

]]> http://tokao.com/2010/11/08/40-people-who-changed-the-internet/feed/ 0 sixthsense project: integrating information with the real world http://tokao.com/2009/08/28/sixthsense-project-integrating-information-with-the-real-world/ http://tokao.com/2009/08/28/sixthsense-project-integrating-information-with-the-real-world/#comments Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:19:30 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/?p=2191 sixthsense‘SixthSense‘ is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.

The SixthSense prototype is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The hardware components are coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device. Both the projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user’s pocket. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around us to be used as interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks user’s hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques. The software program processes the video stream data captured by the camera and tracks the locations of the colored markers (visual tracking fiducials) at the tip of the user’s fingers using simple computer-vision techniques. The movements and arrangements of these fiducials are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for the projected application interfaces. The maximum number of tracked fingers is only constrained by the number of unique fiducials, thus SixthSense also supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction.



]]> http://tokao.com/2009/08/28/sixthsense-project-integrating-information-with-the-real-world/feed/ 0 CRISTAL http://tokao.com/2009/08/20/cristal/ http://tokao.com/2009/08/20/cristal/#comments Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:04:04 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/?p=2079

]]> http://tokao.com/2009/08/20/cristal/feed/ 0 Google’s Africa Strategy: Search And Trade Via SMS http://tokao.com/2009/06/29/google%e2%80%99s-africa-strategy-search-and-trade-via-sms/ http://tokao.com/2009/06/29/google%e2%80%99s-africa-strategy-search-and-trade-via-sms/#comments Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:57:44 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/?p=1779 Africa_AgScreenShot

Not only does Google want to organize all the world’s information, it also wants to make all that information available to everyone in the world. For the majority of the world’s population, that means making it available on a cell phone, and not a fancy iPhone or Android with a Web browser either. I’m talking about $10 cell phones with not much more than voice and SMS capabilities. If Google can reach people, especially in developing nations, with SMS, it can reach everyone with a cell phone.

In Africa, it is launching a suite of SMS services today, including SMS search, Q&A-style tips, and an SMS-based marketplace. The first country to get these services is Uganda.

The search service works like Google SMS in North America. You text a search term, and it responds via SMS with the result. Searches can be narrowed by using specific keywords such as “local time,” “weather,” “news,” “maps,” “translation,” or “currency conversion.” For more complicated searches, the related SMS tips service offers answers in an automated Q&A format.

But the most interesting application is Google Trader, which allows people to post items for sale and jobs via SMS. Other people can search for them by texting the service with the word “BUY” preceding the search term. Google Trader connects the buyer and seller together (each listing contains the seller’s cell phone number).

(from techcrunch)
]]> http://tokao.com/2009/06/29/google%e2%80%99s-africa-strategy-search-and-trade-via-sms/feed/ 0 Microsoft House of the Future http://tokao.com/2009/05/14/microsoft-house-of-the-future/ http://tokao.com/2009/05/14/microsoft-house-of-the-future/#comments Thu, 14 May 2009 08:52:44 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/?p=1380

]]> http://tokao.com/2009/05/14/microsoft-house-of-the-future/feed/ 0 New Amazon Kindle DX http://tokao.com/2009/05/06/new-amazon-kindle-dx/ http://tokao.com/2009/05/06/new-amazon-kindle-dx/#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 15:14:28 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/?p=1315 kindle dxAmzon just announced the new Kindly DX with a 9.7″ screen.

You can already pre-order one at $489 and will be delivered in summer, when they release it.

This screen looks like a nice improvement over the 6″ that they launched recently. It will be capable of displaying not just books, but magazines and newspapers.

]]> http://tokao.com/2009/05/06/new-amazon-kindle-dx/feed/ 0 Wolfram Alpha http://tokao.com/2009/05/04/wolfram-alpha/ http://tokao.com/2009/05/04/wolfram-alpha/#comments Mon, 04 May 2009 15:33:07 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/?p=1292 Will Wolfram Alpha kill google?

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

]]> http://tokao.com/2009/05/04/wolfram-alpha/feed/ 0 Spot satellite messenger http://tokao.com/2009/05/01/spot-satellite-messenger/ http://tokao.com/2009/05/01/spot-satellite-messenger/#comments Fri, 01 May 2009 15:01:04 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/2009/05/01/spot-satellite-messenger/ spotThis is a very cool gadget. Basically a gps, with the particularity that has a couple of buttons, one to check in, so it sends communicates your position, and the second one for help. Same thing but you are asking for help.
The beauty is that works everywhere, not dependent of GSM or mobile networks. It can send emails with your coordinates when you click on the button.

http://findmespot.com/en/

]]> http://tokao.com/2009/05/01/spot-satellite-messenger/feed/ 0 iPhone app for tracking swine flu http://tokao.com/2009/05/01/iphone-app-for-tracking-swine-flu/ http://tokao.com/2009/05/01/iphone-app-for-tracking-swine-flu/#comments Fri, 01 May 2009 10:19:38 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/?p=1254  

iphone app swine fluThere is an iPhone app, IntuApps, which has Swine Flu Tracker, waiting for approval from Apple before it’s released into the App Store. In it, you can see the current Threat Level for the disease, a map showing confirmed and suspected cases, a symptoms area to inform people, and an alert page for breaking news on Swine Flu.

Everyone is joking about Swine Flu because of the whole pig angle, but it is at least somewhat of a serious threat. And while this iPhone app may be the latest thing to capitalize on it, it’s also pretty useful as a way to know what areas to avoid on the go. It’s good to know that IntuApps will be giving the app away for free when it is available in the App Store.

]]> http://tokao.com/2009/05/01/iphone-app-for-tracking-swine-flu/feed/ 1 Predicting the next 5,000 days of the web http://tokao.com/2009/04/30/predicting-the-next-5000-days-of-the-web/ http://tokao.com/2009/04/30/predicting-the-next-5000-days-of-the-web/#comments Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:29:26 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/?p=1219

]]> http://tokao.com/2009/04/30/predicting-the-next-5000-days-of-the-web/feed/ 0 Facebook on your desktop http://tokao.com/2009/04/30/facebook-on-your-desktop/ http://tokao.com/2009/04/30/facebook-on-your-desktop/#comments Thu, 30 Apr 2009 06:11:11 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/?p=1216 facebookFacebook has released a desktop application built with Adobe AIR. That means that it is platform independent (Mac, PC, Linux).

You will have to have Adobe AIR in your computer and then install the Facebook application.

Facebook also announced their Open Stream API technology. With the API now the limit is the sky and you will start seeing interaction of Facebook with unimaginable applications. For instance, I use brightkite, a sort of improved twitter with location and photos integrated. Well, now when I update my location, or I add a note or a photo in with my brighkite application in my iphone, it is published in my Facebook wall.

Facebook Desktop for AIR isn’t the only application to take advantage of the new APIs, but it is the first. It also has the benefit of being labeled an “official” application since it’s put out by the company itself. Still, many people will prefer more full-featured clients like Seesmic Desktop, for example, which also includes support for Twitter. The Seesmic folks say they’re working on a new app that will offer full Facebook Open Stream API support and it should arrive shortly.

]]> http://tokao.com/2009/04/30/facebook-on-your-desktop/feed/ 0 3G portable router http://tokao.com/2009/04/29/3g-portable-router/ http://tokao.com/2009/04/29/3g-portable-router/#comments Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:13:13 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/?p=1212 3g-routerThis is the first 3G portable router.

LevelOne 3G MobilSpot Portable Wireless HotSpot (WBR-3800) by CP Technologies.
Putt your 3G sim card into the router’s CardBus or USB interfaces and you’ve got an instant portable network for sharing to any 802.11b/g WiFi or Ethernet device. A 10/100Mbps WAN jack lets it double as your home router with auto-switching 3G backup for those of you with particularly troublesome DSL/Cable providers. The device measures 129 x 124 x 32mm (which isn’t that small) but costs a reasonable $149.

]]> http://tokao.com/2009/04/29/3g-portable-router/feed/ 0 A Mobile App That Saves Lives, Literally http://tokao.com/2009/04/29/a-mobile-app-that-saves-lives-literally/ http://tokao.com/2009/04/29/a-mobile-app-that-saves-lives-literally/#comments Wed, 29 Apr 2009 06:25:05 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/?p=1202 Written by Jolie O’Dell (www.readwriteweb.com)

DataDyne‘s EpiSurveyor program, funded by the United Nations Foundation and the Vodafone Foundation, has been implementing mobile technology to track and contain disease in developing nations since 2007.

In a recent and potentially devastating polio outbreak in Kenya, EpiSurveyor’s new mobile platform was used to track virus carriers and immunize affected children. The campaign targeted around 2 million Kenyan children. Mobile tech will be used exclusively for new nationwide initiatives in children’s healthcare, and the World Health Organization has made EpiSurveyor the standard for data collection in sub-Saharan Africa. Screenshots and video included below.

“mHealth” is a recent term for medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices, such as mobile phones, PDAs, and other wireless devices, especially in areas where Internet access via computers is lacking. Related programs allow health officials to quickly gather and assess data regardless of location or access to more traditional resources, permitting immediate mobile response to health crises. Users can create forms, view records, and share data with others.

episurveyor1.png

episurveyor2.png

The EpiSurveyor program began using donated Palm Pilots to gather health data in Kenya and Zambia less than two years ago. Currently, DataDyne is migrating the program to Java-based platforms for mobile phones. Beta testing began in April 2009 with Nokia S40 series devices and will expand to support other devices in May.

There’s an interesting and rather basic tutorial video for field workers here which demonstrates some of the uses of EpiSurveyor’s data collection tools. Much more interesting is this video, an interview with an EpiSurveyor mobile developer in Kenya who had been working through the night to prepare a stack of phones for data collection in the field:

Interestingly, DataDyne’s Coded in Country (CIC) initiative puts at least 50% of the coding duties in the hands of local developers, helping to bolster both local tech communities and local economies.

Since most developing areas have far greater saturation of mobile devices than of actual computers with Internet connections, these devices are of the utmost importance for collecting, storing, retrieving, and transmitting critical and even life-saving information.

Last year, EpiSurveyor training took place in nine countries (Benin, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Rwanda, Senegal, and Uganda). This year, Botswana, Burundi, Chad, Eritrea, Gabon, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Togo will also have training programs. Overall, more than 800 health officers throughout Africa will have been trained on the EpiSurveyor program with potential to reach over hundreds of thousands of patients throughout the continent.

Datadyne founder, pediatrician and CDC epidemiologist Dr. Joel Selanikio, also recently won this year’s $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability for his contributions to public health and international development.

]]> http://tokao.com/2009/04/29/a-mobile-app-that-saves-lives-literally/feed/ 0 Blocked port when webcasting with Stickam or Ustream http://tokao.com/2009/04/28/blocked-port-when-webcasting-with-stickam-or-ustream/ http://tokao.com/2009/04/28/blocked-port-when-webcasting-with-stickam-or-ustream/#comments Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:00:46 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/?p=1192 This is an open question. I am trying to broadcast with Stickam and Ustream from a location that apparently has the port 1935 closed. This plus probably a private ip.
I tried and skype video goes through, but skype is clever and can go over http if necessary.

Stickam and ustream use a flash application where you select the camera and uploads the stream to their servers. 

Anyone has a workaround for streaming in such conditions?

Socks proxy? Torify? Please let me know how you would do it. 

I could use a middle server where I could install whatever necessary (linux).

]]> http://tokao.com/2009/04/28/blocked-port-when-webcasting-with-stickam-or-ustream/feed/ 0 Genius G-Shot HD520 HD cam with 720p for less than $150 http://tokao.com/2009/04/28/genius-hd520-camcorder/ http://tokao.com/2009/04/28/genius-hd520-camcorder/#comments Tue, 28 Apr 2009 10:25:35 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/?p=1177 g-shot-hd520-250Are you looking for a low end camera that records pretty good video resolution? Here you have the winner: Genius HD520. It shots 5MB stills and 720p video.

It is a high definition video camera, can output on high-resolution flat-panel TVs using the HDMI cable ; it supports high efficient MPEG4/H.264 image compression format and reduces the file size so you can easily upload clips and photos to share with friends. Other features of the G-Shot HD520 camcorder: shoot photos up to 11MP, listen to music, read E-books, voice record, and it can be a portable media player to view clips or even still images.

]]> http://tokao.com/2009/04/28/genius-hd520-camcorder/feed/ 0 Brightkite http://tokao.com/2009/04/27/brightkite/ http://tokao.com/2009/04/27/brightkite/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 08:47:20 +0000 dani http://tokao.com/?p=1116 brightkite_logo_2008

I would like to talk a bit about a very promising web application and also great iPhone application that has been out there for a while but has not been very successful in terms of people using it. 

It is true that we are surrounded by Social Apps. For iPhone, web, such a facebook, twitter, amongst many others, so I guess it is not easy to get a place under all this giants.

Brightkite is a service that for the US uses SMS (not in Switzerland…) that lets you “check in” at various locations out in the real world and then see who else is there, has been there, and who is nearby. You can check in via text, web,or iPhone, but text is easiest if you’re using a traditional cell phone.

So you might think that similar tools are out there. Twitter in the iphone using apps such as Twinkle or Twitterfon already take your location, but this are add-ons for twitter.

In brightkite you can select your level of privacy so for instance your trusted friends can know exactly where you are, your friends the city where you are and the rest nothing. You decide when to “check in” your location. You can post updates in a Twitter-like fashion and upload photos to your Brightkite-enabled stream, available at a URL in the format of brightkite.com/people/username. The newly launched “Wall” feature makes Brightkite ideal for conferences and live events as it allows anyone to display the live stream of notes, photos, and checkins at any one place in a large, full screen view that can be shown on any monitor, projector, or TV. You can even link it with your facebook account.

Give it a try.

]]> http://tokao.com/2009/04/27/brightkite/feed/ 0 Evan Williams: How Twitter’s spectacular growth is being driven by unexpected uses http://tokao.com/2009/04/24/evan-williams-how-twitters-spectacular-growth-is-being-driven-by-unexpected-uses/ http://tokao.com/2009/04/24/evan-williams-how-twitters-spectacular-growth-is-being-driven-by-unexpected-uses/#comments Fri, 24 Apr 2009 10:33:28 +0000 dani http://toi.tokao.com/2009/04/24/evan-williams-how-twitters-spectacular-growth-is-being-driven-by-unexpected-uses/

]]> http://tokao.com/2009/04/24/evan-williams-how-twitters-spectacular-growth-is-being-driven-by-unexpected-uses/feed/ 0