TITECH weblog

Today, Google announced a revolutionary new product that might just revolutionize the communications industry.

The ideology of Google Wave is to tie in all forms of communication and collaboration– IM, Email, Video, Pictures, Documents, etc. Into a single integrated environment–accessible completely from a browser using HTML 5. Google Wave will also be extendable and open source… the source will be hosted and maintained on Google Code (a sort of equivalent to SourceForge.net).

Unfortunately, Google Wave is not yet available to the general public… but Wave is slated to be available for download sometime "later this year".

[Google Wave] overview

News Flash Google, News Flash

That’s right—one of the most popular social blogging tools for bloggers is pulling the plugs on it’s servers because it "has been unable to continue [...] service and [must] shut down the site."

But for existing SezWho users, all is not lost, as SezWho has apparently made a deal with with JS-Kit (which claims to be the world’s largest distributed social network) that makes transitioning from the SezWho service almost painless— the usernames, passwords, settings, and almost everything else remains intact… other than the fact that the service has changed hands (from SezWho to JS-Kit).

So what does this change mean to you? What other services such as this one have you used? Let us know in the comments!

News Flash News Flash

Today when searching YouTube for some videos on DNA Transcription, I noticed that the famous red YouTube logo was  changed to a new green logo. Is YouTube (being owned by Google) now changing their logos in the spirit of holidays/major events like Google has been doing for quite some time now?

Let us know what you think in the comments!

News Flash Google, News Flash, Web

Today, Google tentatively launches a new service called Google Voice, a powerful service that allows you to unify all of your phones and phone numbers into one phone number, one voicemail box, and with many other handy features (such as the ability to block certain phone numbers, conference calling, voicemail transcription, and more). Unfortunately, however, Google Voice is currently only in closed beta—that is, it is only available for existing Google Grand Central users, but don’t fret to soon—Google says it will have GVoice ready “in a matter of weeks”.

While you’re waiting, here’s a brief list of features I like must about Google Voice:

1. Blocking Calls                                                (yay, no more phone soliciting?)
2. Phone Forwarding                                        (the ability to make decide which phone rings and which phones don’t)
3. Call Switch                                                    (means I can switch phones in the middle of a conversation!)
4. Forward, download, transcribe voicemails  (it says it all…)
5. Free calls to U.S. numbers                           (…and with international calls at about 2 cents? WOW!)

VIEW FULL LIST

So what do you think? Do you think Google is getting to know too much? Share your thoughts in the comments!

News Flash Google, News Flash

PDF Converter does exactly what it says it does—converts PDF files into RTF (Rich Text) documents, HTML, Plain Text, Image(s), and even SWF (Adobe Flash) files! Although I was skeptical at first when I read what PDF Converter could do, after I installed it and converted a few graphic intensive PDF documents into HTML, RTF, and SWF, I was shocked by how accurately the software had carried out the conversion. Now I cannot live without it. Just imagine—I can convert all those research paper sources quickly into a format that I can use easier than Adobe’s proprietary PDF format—perfect for bookmarking my progress in a PDF file (something that Adobe Reader does not allow),  or making excerpting from a PDF easier, and preserving the format almost perfectly each time.

All in all, PDF Converter is a great, lightweight program that does exactly what it says with amazing output quality—I definitely recommend it!

Since MediaVigor is running a brief promotion, PDF Converter is free today only (3/2/2009). That means you have to head over to the Giveaway of the Day site and grab your copy while it is still free.

[PDF Converter] Free today only.

So what do you think? Do you like this software/use it? What other software do you recommend? Let us know in the comments!

Download of the Day, News Flash Converter, Download of the Day, News Flash

Google Earth, a cool application that you can use to take a virtual tour of the Earth, has just updated to version 5—that is, beta 5. This new version of Google Earth adds a cool underwater exploration mode that makes exploring the ocean possible. Google Earth 5 also adds a “Historical Imagery” feature that allows you to backwards and forwards in time and see how the landscape looked like at that time.

Another fun feature that Google Earth 5 has added is the “Explore Mars” feature. Although this is really more for fun than of any value, being able to explore Mars, Earth, and the skies is cool.

 Google Earth 5 beta                             [via]

Download of the Day, News Flash Download of the Day, News Flash

Yes, this post came late, but for those of us who don’t know already, Google has officially discontinued their Google Notebook product. Admittedly, I have never been much of a fan of Google Notebook, but all the same, I wish Google didn’t discontinue R&D on the product, because it has really great potential.

NOTE THAT IF YOU USE GOOGLE NOTEBOOK, YOUR DATA WILL NOT BE LOST! THERE JUST WON’T BE ANY UPDATES TO THE APP.

So what do you think? What are your feelings about Google’s announcement? Tell us in the comments!

[via]

News Flash Google, News Flash

Today, when searching something on Google, I noticed a change in the Google Favicon: Instead of the favicon that I had grown so used to, I now see a colorful emoticon. At first, I thought this was a mistake as I was surfing quite a few sites (my normal 30~50 tabs were open). But on closer inspection, Google had indeed changed their favicon. With this latest change included, Google has gone through three emoticon changes that I am aware of so far, and, quite frankly, I would rather have Google stick with the good old original favicon. The new one definitely caught my eye, but should Google really change their emoticon to this somewhat gaudy one?

What do you think about Google’s new favicon? Which one of the three is your favorite? Let us know in the comments!

News Flash News Flash, Odd Tidbits

Check this out! An extremely dedicated Rubik’s cube solver managed to assemble a person’s face completely out of scrambled and unscrambled Rubik’s cubes. Isn’t it amazing?

But on closer inspection, note the little squares that seem like they have been taken off the Rubik’s cubes (or are just squares of colored paper):

I’m not saying that this was forged, but I’m curious to know what they are, exactly… were those squares pasted onto the Rubik cubes, and if not, what are they doing there?

What do you think? Do you think this is for real or is it fake? Tell us what you think in the comments!

[saw the picture via MAKE]

Did You Know?, News Flash News Flash, Odd Tidbits

OVERVIEW:

Non profit organization Blogiversity.org is sponsoring a blogging contest for all bloggers that create a free account and create at least 15 blogs using their free blogging service in order to be eligible for the competition. The blog starts January 1st, 2009 and ends February 28th, 2009. Here are the specs:

1. A contestant must have 15 or more blogs (from Blogiversity)
   
2. Only blog posts over 250 words are counted as a post.
3. Bloggers can promote their site via external means (advertising, MySpace, etc.)
   
4. Your total likability of winning the top 5 blog contest is based upon the number of points your blog receives (see next list for details), and the judges panel will personally review your site (if it is in the top 5) and see if it is any good.
5. Creating multiple user accounts to rate your own blog, plagiarism, and spam will disqualify you from the competition (obviously!).

Keep in mind that  the chances of a blogger to win are slim— only five are chosen out of the possibly tens of thousands of participants, but if you are a good writer (and get that whooping 15 blogs started), you might get a chance to win and pick from either a Toshiba laptop, Apple 16GB iPod Touch…

Read more…

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